Strangely enough, a major duty of an executive is ROUTING. This means pointing out the channels on which bodies, materials, products or despatches and letters flow. Or making channels on which such things can flow and putting terminals there to handle or change them.

An executive who does NOT route and who does not himself conduct a continual line police action is soon drowned. He will lose his grip on his post and his activity and “feel overwhelmed” and worked to death. Further, the whole unit under him and units around him will go to pieces.

The difference between order and chaos is simply straightforward planned flows and correct particles. It is the executive who controls this. So it is in his hands whether he or she has chaos (no line or particle control) or order (good line and particle control).

It is SO much simpler than it looks, and SO easy to overlook, that many persons on executive posts look everywhere for “the answer” to their troubles when it lies right under their nose — actually.

It begins with one’s own desk and office. It is simple. Does one have an in-basket? Does one have an out-basket? Does one use them? Is there any way for things to get into the In and out of the Out?

Does one spend a part of each day clearing ALL traffic at once?

Is the traffic divided up into areas and types?

You say, “That’s too simple. It’s even silly. Here I am a Big Executive and you’re asking about these little pieces of paper. . . .”

Those little pieces of paper are what keep one informed and extend one’s reach! And they can turn into a blizzard and blow one right off post!

There is power in those lines.

So they must be in a neat pattern or the power recoils.

What drives one (and one’s organization) off post is mishandled items. The volume is not at fault. One can handle TONS of this stuff. It is the mishandled bits that make the TONS look hopeless.

One often unwittingly generates mishandlings. And if he does NOT police his lines, he can snow the whole org under.

A sharp executive can spot “developed traffic” (needless) miles away. The slang term “dev-t” has been of vast use.

Pieces of paper that don’t belong to one are sent back to originator.

Things originated by a post that aren’t the business of that post.

These are the two basics of dev-t — “off-line” and “off-origin.”

Juniors that don’t do Completed Staff Work but load you up with problems they should have solved are responsible for the worst of one’s traffic.

So if all you knew was the above — baskets in and out and ways for traffic to get in and out, what should come to you and what certain posts should be sending — AND POLICED IT, you could reduce your traffic worries by three quarters.

AN UNHATTED ORG is a madhouse to work in as no one knows what he’s supposed to handle or what others should do. They don’t go idle. They introduce Sahara sandstorms of dev-t.

An unhatted org is also a lazy org and refers everything to someone else.

Bodies won’t channel, correct materials won’t arrive, money can’t get in or out, production is destructive and the place unpleasantly goes insolvent.

To move such a scene up toward the ideal, one can at least begin to police his own immediate desk and lines. Then one can police his own immediate staffs lines and clean that up.

He can HAT those around him. “This is what you’re supposed to handle. This is what you DO.”

He can even hat at a distance on his comm lines, “This despatch belongs to supply. Send it to supply, not to me.”

Get an Admin Cramming in and send anyone who is dev-ting to it to get checked

out.But mainly and foremost, get the place HATTED so it knows what it should handle.

And first, last, and always conduct a line police action.

One of the first duties of an executive is ROUTING.

Now do you see where the “overload” is coming from?

Note: See dev-t policies, Problems of Work and the Org Series to get the full scope and know-how of ROUTING. But the main thing is DO it. Do it before you drown.