Definition of the First Type. — In the first type, the power of managing lies, theoretically at least, in the hands of one man, a capable "all-around" manager. The line of authority and of responsibility is clear, fixed and single. Each man comes in direct contact with but one man above him. A man may or may not manage more than one man beneath him,
but, however this may be, he is managed by but one man above him.
Preferable Name for the First Type. — The names "Traditional," or "Initiative and Incentive," are the preferable titles for this form of management. It is true they lack in specificness, but the other names, while aiming to be descriptive, really emphasize one feature only, and in some cases with unfortunate results.
The Name "Military" Inadvisable. — The direct line of authority suggested the name "Military," [9] and at the time of the adoption of that name it was probably appropriate as well as complimentary.[10] Appropriate in the respect referred to only, for the old type of management varied so widely in its manifestations that the comparison to the procedure of the Army was most inaccurate. "Military" has always been a synonym for "systematized", "orderly," "definite," while the old type of management was more often quite the opposite of the meaning of all these terms. The term "Military Management" though often used in an uncomplimentary sense would, today, if understood, be more complimentary than ever it was in the past. The introduction of various features of Scientific Management into the Army and Navy, — and such features are being incorporated steadily and constantly, — is raising the standard of management there to a high degree.
This but renders the name "Military" Management for the old type more inaccurate and misleading.
It is plain that the stirring associations of the word "military" make its use for the old type, by advocates of the old type, a weapon against Scientific Management that only the careful thinker can turn aside.
The Names "Driver" and "Marquis of Queensberry" Unfortunate. — The name "Driver" suggests an opposition between the managers and the men, an opposition which the term "Marquis of Queensberry" emphasizes. This term "Marquis of Queensberry" has been given to that management which is thought of as a mental and physical contest, waged "according to the rules of the game." These two names are most valuable pictorially, or in furnishing oratorical material. They are constant reminders of the constant desire of the managers to get all the work that is possible out of the men, but they are scarcely descriptive in any satisfactory sense, and the visions they summon, while they are perhaps definite, are certainly, for the inexperienced in management, inaccurate. In other words, they usually lead to imagination rather than to perception.
The Name "Initiative and Incentive" Authoritative. — The term "Initiative and Incentive" is used by Dr. Taylor, and is fully described by him. [11] The words themselves suggest, truly, that he gives the old form of management its due. He does more than this. He points out in his definition of the terms the likenesses between the old and new forms.
The Name "Traditional" Brief and Descriptive. — The only excuses for the term "Traditional," since Dr. Taylor's term is available, are its brevity and its descriptiveness. The fact that it is indefinite is really no fault in it, as the subject it describes is equally indefinite. The "fringe" [12] of this word is especially good. It calls up ideas of information handed down from generation to generation orally, the only way of teaching under the old type of management. It recalls the idea of the inaccurate perpetuation of unthinking custom, and the "myth" element always present in tradition, — again undeniable accusations against the old type of management. The fundamental idea of the tradition, that it is oral, is the essence of the difference of the old type of management from science, or even system, which must be written.
It is not necessary to make more definite here the content of this oldest type of management, rather being satisfied with the extent, and accepting for working use the name "Traditional" with the generally accepted definition of that name.