I can prove conclusively and utterly that any down statistic traces at once to two points:

1. Failure to hire or recruit

2. Failure to train people on their hats.

What is Organization?

Regarding training, the failure of any executive is traceable to three points:

Most people have so many associated ideas with the word “Organization” that they think of one as an identity or a being, not as a dynamic activity.

A. Not making up a checksheet for the posts of juniors under him

Let’s see what one really is.

B. Not making up a pack for the checksheet and a hat for each junior

Let us take a pile of red, white and blue beads. Let’s organize them.

C. Not fully training his juniors up on their hats as per A & B.

Now let us draw the org board.

To do all this an executive must himself be trained.

Let us dump them all on top of In Charge, all mixed up in a confusion.

HAT — means the duties of a post. It comes from the fact that jobs are often distinguished by a type of hat as fireman, policeman, conductor, etc. Hence the term HAT.

Obviously In Charge must route them to dig himself out. So we get

A “hat” is really a folder containing the write-ups of past incumbents on a post plus a checksheet of all data relating to the post plus a pack of materials that cover the post.One also has a “staff hat” which is to say a folder containing all his duties as a staff member, the org itself and its lines and purposes.

There is also a hat folder for general or technical directives issued to all the staff regardless of post.

Thus we find out much of what an In Charge does. He routes. He separates into types or classes of thing or action.

So there is a

This so far is a motionless org.

• Post Hat

We have to have products. Let’s say its products are drilled beads, strung beads, boxed beads.

We would get:

for every staff member.

Or we would get:

Before Personnel transfers and begins a musical chair parade, it is well to inspect and see if

a. The post has all these hats and knows them

Or we would get:

b. The post’s senior has actively provided them and checked them out or had them checked out on the junior.

If (a) and (b) are not true then I can assure you Personnel will be replacing and musical chairing forever.

It is not particularly important which pattern of org board we use so long as it handles the volume of beads.

It well may be that the executive is the trouble, not the incumbent.

If we only have 1 person in this “org” he would still have to have some idea of organization and a sort of org board.

A senior who does not see to full hats in the possession of juniors and does not see they are fully checked out is a liability.

If we have any volume to handle we have to add people. If we add them without an org board we will also add confusion. The organization without an org board will break down by overload and cross flows and currents. These in conflict become confusion.

ANY ORG’S TROUBLES CAN BE TRACED TO THESE TWO POINTS.

All a confusion is is unpatterned flow. The particles collide, bounce off each other and stay IN the area. Thus there is no product as to have a product something must flow OUT.

Therefore one must be very sure that seniors take responsibility for the hats, checksheets, packs and know-how of juniors.

We can now note two things. We have some stable items. These are posts or locations. And we have flow items. There are*Later variant: These are things undergoing change.

A successful executive is one who understands

So an org’s positions change flowing particles.

1. Organization

Particles flow in sequence.

2. His own hat, has a checksheet and pack for it and knows these

Things enter an org, get changed, flow out of an org.

3. That he is at extreme risk if he does not enforce hat, checksheet and pack checkouts on his juniors.

An org with one type of item only (red beads) is less complex than one with several types of items.

ANYONE WHO HAS JUNIORS UNDER HIM IS A TRAINING OFFICER FOR THOSE JUNIORS AS A VITAL ADDITIONAL DUTY.

So really, Personnel, if you want to know who your executives are, find one who

Any activity has a sequence of actions. It has to have stable points which do not flow in order to handle things which do flow.

i. Has been trained

It is not necessary to have a stable terminal do only one thing. But if so then it also has a correct sequence of actions.

ii. Who produces well himself

All this is true of an engine room or a lawyer’s office or any organization.

iii. Who enforces hats, checksheets and packs on his juniors and

In an engine room fuel flows in and is changed to motion which flows out. Somebody runs the machines. Somebody repairs the machines. It may all be done by one person but as soon as volume goes up one has to plan out the actions, classify them and put them on an org board which the people there know and abide by or the place will not operate well.

iv. Trains his juniors as per (iii).

This is done by dividing operation and repair into two actions, making two activities on the same org board.

There you have an excellent executive, if not an executive director.

It is a cruel, vital, total truth that you normally can trace the reason for inefficient areas in an org or company to

The Chief keeps the flows going and the terminals performing their actions.

1. Lack of hiring or recruiting

In a lawyer’s office we get different actions as a flow.

2. Lack of trained executives

3. Lack of executives who will assemble hats for and train their juniors.

Would be a flow pattern, possibly with a different person (with a different skill) on each point.

An organization is a third dynamic technology.

Or we could have a sort of motionless org board.

When the hats aren’t known or worn, it’s a mob.

A division which blows up or unmocks is usually

But if we did that we would have to put the motion in vertically so that flow would occur.

1. Undermanned

2. Unorganized

Org boards which only give terminals usually will not flow.

3. Untrained.

A typical Army org board of yesteryear was

Whenever a senior on the line of command fails to see to the hats and full training of his juniors, you have a total breakdown.

Personnel sees this in terms of hiring and firing and transfers.

When they got into a lot more men they had to have a flow board.

Look into any area that can’t keep its people and you find not enough people or untrained people. And you for sure will also find an executive who WILL NOT train his people, see that they have post hats and checkouts.

The solutions are pretty obvious.

So one organizes by

1. Surveying the types of particles.

2. Working out the changes desired for each to make a product.

3. Posting the terminals who will do the changing along the sequence of changes.

The board also must include a recognition of the types in A which routes the types to the terminals who change them and to a further routing out as products.

To be practical an org board must also provide for pulling in the materials disposing of the product and being paid for the cycle of action and its supervision.

A company has various actions.

It is essentially a collection of small org boards combined to operate together as a large org board.

The basic principles you have to know to organize anything are contained in this policy letter.

To plan out any action one has to be able to visualize its sequence of flows and the changes that occur at each point. One has to be able to see where a particle (paper, body, money) comes in and where it leaves.

One has to be able to spot any point it will halt and mend that part of the flow or handle it.

A proper org board is a perpetual combination of flows which do not collide with one another and which do enter and do experience the desired change and which do leave as a product.