True, the chart is drawn from one of the most primitive tasks of management—the simple delivery of a message. But suppose the boy doesn't deliver the message himself, but has an assistant. Won't it be necessary to go through exactly the same motions? Suppose, instead of one message, there are fifty. Fifty assistants will be necessary. Will the job of managing vary a jot—or even a tittle?
Now substitute fifty boxes for fifty messages. The boxes have to be shipped. The same processes of thought, the same principles of management, apply.
If, instead of fifty boxes to be shipped, fifty machines are to be manufactured—or if instead of fifty machines it's fifty thousand, and a thousand men and a million dollars of capital are to be employed, every one of the five principles shown on the chart will be used. And every essential point in the management of the business could be covered by those five fundamentals.
Now substitute ships or shoes or breakfast food for the machines we have been talking about, and it becomes clearer than ever that this BUSINESS OF MANAGING recognizes no industrial fences. Learn to manage a peanut stand and, in principle, you are well on the road to knowing how to handle the affairs of the U. S. Steel Corporation.
Five steps there are: (1) Analyze; (2) Plan; (3) Organize; (4) Handle; (5) Supervise. Tackle any job on this basis and follow through. The chances that success will crown your efforts far outweigh the possibilities of failure. At least, approaching a job from these five successive angles should limit the causes of failure to circumstances quite beyond your control.
FIVE PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT, then. Their skillful application to a business or to a job is the KNACK OF MANAGING.
To do a real bang-up job of managing, whether carrying a message or directing a million-dollar business, the first step is: Don't make a single move until you've found out exactly what needs to be done.
But our first Do turned out to be a Don't. So let's restate it. Find out exactly what has to be done before you make a single move.
You've heard that before? And it doesn't mean a thing?
Neither did it mean a thing to a bright young man who was taken on as production manager in a shoe factory. The shoes were good. Prices were right. Business was booming. The factory was full of orders.