3. Directing this action along lines which either offer LEAST RESISTANCE or assure GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT.
4. Bringing the activities to a focus at the place or time that will best carry the work to a SUCCESSFUL CONCLUSION.
The PRIMARY MOVING FORCE may be the selection of media in an advertising plan; it may be the pushing of a button in the White House which opens a dam in Arizona, a Century of Progress in Chicago, or the Annual Convention of Whammit Manufacturers at Atlantic City; or it may be the memo from the big boss which gives the research department carte blanche on a development project.
To apply this initiative to a place where it will get QUICK ACTION may be to suggest an idea in the headline of an advertisement that will set the reader to thinking of salmon fishing at Mooselookmeguntic, or of the time the ice cubes gave out just when they shouldn't. Or it may be to classify the output of a factory before shipping so that freight cars can be packed to best advantage or so that lowest freight rates may be secured. Or it may be a simple method of sorting mail so that subordinates get the jobs they can handle and only the important business is brought to the president's attention.
Directing this ACTIVITY along the lines that ASSURE GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT may be—in the advertisement—the presentation of facts or advantages which will persuade the reader that the fishing tackle you manufacture is desirable. Again, it may be the dovetailing of a thousand elements in a huge project like the Russian Five-Year Plan so that an adequate supply of ore will be available when the blast furnaces roar into operation; so that the steel will be on hand when production in the Cheliabinsk tractor works is stepped up to meet the requirements of the new agricultural regime. Or it may involve the simple sweeping of a floor in a manner which raises a minimum of dust.
And bringing the activities to a SUCCESSFUL CONCLUSION may mean working up the arguments of the advertisement to the psychological closing of a sale—to the point where the ardent member of the Isaak Walton League figures he can live no longer without your fishing tackle and sets out gaily in the general direction of Abercrombie and Fitch's. Or it may be coordinating the entire production of a factory so that the Diesel generator set ordered by the Santa Fé can be delivered at the exact date specified in the original order. Or it may be handling the day's correspondence on the credit man's desk so that letters which must "make the Century" are ready to go at 11:45—so that the rest of the day's work is ready to sign, stamp and mail before the 5 o'clock whistle blows.
FOUR ELEMENTS, then, in any job which is to be PLANNED. Every plan, if practicable, will follow them.
There is, by way of further illustration, the story of the factory manager of a food manufacturing plant who laid out a PLAN for an operation no more intricate than the scrubbing of the floors at night. Now it can be told.
And for two good reasons. First, because it was a practical plan which, even on such a lowly operation, saved quite a bit of money. Second, because in its construction the plan is, from the point of view of our four elements, what has sometimes been called a "natural."
One night, it seems, the manager and his wife went to the movies. The town didn't have daylight time, so it was quite dark. They passed the plant, a large six-story building.