If, from time to time, charts and diagrams have been suggested, it is only because the successful manager has somehow or other to go through precisely those same motions. His job—if he is to understand it and manage it successfully—must be analyzed somehow, sometime. We have merely suggested ways in which the ANALYSIS can be made more easily and intelligently by means of charts.
His operations must be planned—in his head or on paper—if he is to perform them with the least lost motion, lost time and lost money. The Knack of Managing has simply gathered from other men's methods a form of chart by which PLANNING can be done more accurately.
Again, his work must be organized—if it is to be done in the simplest and best way. An attempt, then, has been made to sift the organization methods of successful managers and firms to develop a chart which at least indicates how to go about ORGANIZING THE WORK.
"HELP" MUST BE HANDLED. So, from the experiences of shrewd managers, we have dug out the gist of their ideas and put it in the form of a chart that gives a basis on which to work.
Above all, a business or job must be CONSERVED AND CARED FOR. The charting method suggested is but the method used by every successful manager—though he does not take the time to reduce his plans to paper.
And last, in our search to acquire THE KNACK OF MANAGING, have we not learned that the fundamental principles of management are universally applicable?
More than anything else we have seen why the manager who has made a success in one business can step right into another and make the same brilliant record. His business, after all, is not ships or shoes or sewing machines. It's MANAGING. And that job, in its fundamental principles, is the same, whether it's running the U. S. Steel Corporation or operating a peanut stand.
That's our story—and we'll stick to it.