[Note: HCO PL 31 October 1966, Admin Know-How Series 3, JOB ENDANGERMENT CHITS, was amended and reissued as HCO PL 5 March 1968, Issue II, Admin Know-How Series 19, JOB ENDANGERMENT CHITS, which is on page 68.]

There are three steps necessary on the part of a senior executive who discovers a situation which may be disastrous to the org.

The Executive’s actions are as follows:

• 1. Issue orders of a remedying or preventive nature instantly by directive, to remain in effect until all data is in. This is called an Urgent Directive.

To do 1 – issue a sweeping order to handle the situation. This is vital as there isn’t time to get all the facts. The order may be fair or unfair, correct or incorrect, but at least it does something to arrest a deteriorating situation.

This Urgent Directive may, however, be in fact wide of the mark but it is only going to remain in force until superseded by orders based on all the data obtained at leisure.

Dictatorships are somewhat successful as proven in the past and they run only on urgent directives. So the system is not all bad. However, for such a directive to remain law forever is obviously wrong as it may be wholly arbitrary and may eventually get in somebody’s hair. But not to issue it just because one has little data is to ask for disaster.

So in the face of disaster issue an Urgent Directive as best you can and hope you are right in your directed action.

Convene now a Board of Investigation composed of impartial members who will investigate thoroughly.

Order them to turn in their findings in the form of law that can be issued exactly as they wrote it.

Trouble with such Boards, they “recommend” in an often rambling way and as they aren’t really writing law they tend to overlook things.

Democracies have a terrible habit of only appointing committees to investigate without issuing any urgent directive first. This leaves a vacuum of direction and courts disaster. Such bodies may take a long time to bring in their findings. This is a great weakness – to let an abuse go on while one investigates.

When the convening authority has the Board’s findings to hand, he studies the proceedings and findings to make certain that the disaster is fully handled by the findings and that further disasters of like nature are inhibited by these findings from occurring.

If he is satisfied on this score (that the findings are adequate), he must now see that they do not violate the fast flow system of management to any great degree and that they are as adequate as the Urgent Directive in arresting the disaster. If so, the executive sends the findings through regular channels with all papers to make them into law. Until actually law, the Urgent Directive is still in force.

If he is not satisfied or doubtful that the findings are adequate he can convene another Board to do a better job. If he does convene another Board, the Urgent Directive remains in force.

The findings actually become law only when – :

• (a) The convening authority has passed them as they are or modified by himself or another Board;

Then the Urgent Directive is cancelled. It must be cancelled when the findings become law and may not remain as a possible arbitrary.

The above is good administration.

Some governing bodies use only urgent directives.

Some use only committees or boards or senates.

To use less than all three in the face of a disastrous situation is poor admin.

Example: Income goes down like a shot.

1. Issue an Urgent Directive calculated to get income up like a shot. 2. Convene a Board to find out why it went down and to discover what was dropped out and find how to get it back up. 3. Supplant the Urgent Directive with the findings.

Where policy is concerned, the channel is longer as more people must pass on it. But directives are also law. So one should not issue a directive in the face of disaster and just hope. One should do all three steps above.

By disaster is meant a circumstance or situation that is crippling and may adversely affect a whole or a part of an org. Low income is a heavy risk that may result in disaster. A heavy continual expenditure may result in a disaster. Any gross divisional statistic going down and staying down is courting disaster. And such should be handled with the three steps as above. Then the org form and duties, if bent out of shape by the Urgent Directive won’t stay out of shape forever.

As a comment, statistics when they change suddenly and go down mean that something has been dropped or some arbitrary order has been given. Stats going steeply up also mean a change has occurred and it can be very disastrous not to find what it was that was so good. So one can also use the three steps to handle a sudden soaring statistic to maintain it rather than stay in the dark. Example: Letters out soars to an all time high. Issue an Urgent Directive, “No person or line may be changed in the Dissem Division on peril of a Comm Ev.” Then convene a Board and find why and get some law on it. Then supplant the Urgent Directive with the new directive resulting.

This in no way alters the need of a directive to be passed by the LRH Comm or a policy letter to be passed by all specified terminals before it becomes policy.

Steps 1, 2 and 3 can also be used on personnel where the executive thinks a staff member is the reason. Suspension from post pending investigation would be the Urgent Directive in this case. However, the staff member so suspended may not be deprived of wages and must be given an apology if found not to be the reason. And no real action may be taken unless there is an Ethics action recommended by the Board and only if the person is found guilty in that Ethics action.

In this case there are four steps:

• 1. Urgent Directive

The steps are four because there are two matters involved: (a) the personnel and (b) the situation. Even if the personnel was at fault there must be something else wrong too if a personnel got into a post who didn’t belong there.