Anyone in an executive position must be in possession of information concerning his post and the functions of the organization or unit he is heading. Lacking it, he becomes the effect of post and organization and begins to create unreal orders and situations which result in down statistics all around.

In principle, anyone in charge of anything should know the workings and functions of every unit, item or action of which he has charge. If he lacks such, he should be careful to take advices from his juniors before issuing any order to make certain it can be carried out, is necessary and conforms to workable practice.

Anyone while learning an executive post and yet acting as that executive should spend the bulk of his time in study and should issue NO orders and approve of NO orders until he has taken up the matter with those who will be affected by those orders before they are issued.

Eventually, as one learns his post after months or years, he or she can begin to issue orders independent of taking advices first from those the orders will affect.

In this way, an executive not yet well trained or experienced can keep things going while he is studying his position and those things under him.

An executive cannot call himself fully competent or informed until he has studied all literature, past orders and policies which affect his position or any activity under him, and can handle any machine or operation in any unit of which he has charge.

Until then he had better adhere closely to the rule that before he issues any order he had better consult with all those it will affect.

However, in doing this, he must not at the same time issue only popular orders or orders tending to break down the existing structure just to reduce labor or hours on the job or raise pay.

A great many persons fail as executives solely because they

a. Do not proceed as above on a new job or promotion or

b. Fail to hold together and control the activities in which they find themselves in charge or

c. Use their position solely to buy popularity or

d. Form a clique for their own self-protection against the mob.

It takes a very sensible person to succeed on a new job as an executive without previous experience or previous study; but if a person follows this advice as given herein, he or she can win and hold the statistics up and even raise them.

Any council or conference or board becomes bogged only for one of the following reasons:

A. It is inactive or

B. It seeks to solve the wrong problem or

C. It fails to notice and nullify arbitraries that have been introduced.

A. The inactive council or conference or board may be inactive for a number of reasons.

It can simply be inactive.

It can be inactive as a governing body while individually very busy issuing orders. This is quite fatal as such orders will conflict with orders issued by other members of the body also acting individually. The consequence is that the activity so governed will then seek orders elsewhere to resolve the confusion of conflicting orders from members of the governing body — this is how mutinies and revolutions occur and also why some activities will suddenly create dictators. To use one’s status as a member of a governing body as an individual authority, and yet not see that it is the body that governs, will surely bring about mutiny and revolt and new leaders.

The remedy is of course to permit no orders not agreed to in the actual conference of the governing body and to reprimand and cancel any orders issued independently.

If the body is simply inactive and won’t become active at all, despite everything, it should be disbanded as a governing body and its powers delivered to a single individual. A body inactive that won’t act as a body must not be permitted any power. For example, if an Ad Council is actually inactive, it should be disbanded and its powers individually delegated to its individual Exec Secs. However, if this is done, no powers may overlap. Some “governing bodies” exist only to satisfy the law and have no power at all.

B. Solving the wrong problem means also neglecting to locate the right problem. There is nothing wilder than orders to remedy situations which are not the real problems or the vital problems of an activity.

When a governing body is bogged, a well-schooled administrator should be able to see if the body is working on the right problem, and if not, to shift that body’s attention to the real problem they should be solving.

An example would be a government seeking to resolve heavy spending when they have no earning. The real problem is lack of money. Conversely, a government can seek only to earn more money when they may have a real problem of fantastically foolish expenditure. In either case, by working on the wrong problem that government can fully crash a country.

A governing body can ride prejudices rather than handle existing problems, which is another way to solve the wrong problem.

C. Arbitraries can be introduced which thereafter require constant and changing solutions which even then do not improve things.

When this happens, one must locate the arbitrary itself that is causing the need of solution and abolish it.

The only mistake one can make is calling any rule an arbitrary, thus destroying form. One has to isolate a real arbitrary that is causing needless solutions. When found, it should be removed.

However, one can be so sweeping in doing this that it simply gets unreal and wrecks the lot. For example, one’s laziness or unwillingness to confront can condemn something as an arbitrary which, when removed, causes one to collapse. It is not then an arbitrary but a form or necessity.

An arbitrary, by definition, is an interjected law or rule or decision which does not fit or is unnecessary.

Such things can cause a governing body to box about for years and eventually fail.

Here is an example of an arbitrary that caused endless solutions and which when not removed destroyed a nation. “Our currency must not circulate beyond our borders.” This was kept unwittingly in force. As money depends for its value on its scope of potential circulation, the money became worthless and the country caved in. Literally millions of governmental and individual solutions became necessary after that one arbitrary was introduced.

So an “arbitrary” can be said to be something which actually violates natural law and which becomes, when held in place, an enforced lie. This causes endless board or governing body trouble wherever it occurs.

Here is another example. “Unions have the right to strike.” This was assumed and is not part of any law code as it says, “A body of men has the right to injure business and property without at least civil recourse for damages by the business.” Protection racketeers assumed the same right. This arbitrary is a lie since nobody has that right. It laid France open to World War II, for instance, as France through the 1930s was one long strike. True, unions have improved pay and working conditions. But there is no right to damage businesses which support one. By introducing this arbitrary without seeking sensible means, the Western world was opened to inflation, unrest and conquest by lawless political elements.

So an arbitrary must be something contrary to the general scheme of things, and while a lie, is yet held in place by law or public ignorance.

Arbitraries are usually introduced by those who aren’t quite bright enough to achieve a result through wise measures. And otherwise wise men thereafter can spend decades and invent whole law codes trying to handle the problems so set up.

When an org is bogged after a period of success, it is almost always true that an earlier program or order has been dropped or forgotten.

I have always been able to trace bogs to skipped orders.

An example is the Qualifications Division program order. Outer org recovery was planned so as to improve Qual in each org, then to get staff training in, and then to improve the Tech Division. This order was at first executed, then was not followed up and the beginning recovery slumped again. The remedy was to reinstitute the original program.

Ordinarily one doesn’t need new programs but needs the follow-through on programs that have not been complied with.

When I see a slump occur, I first ask what program wasn’t executed or got dropped. I always find it; and when reinstituted, things surge. Then I find who dropped it and reorganize personnel with nondroppers.

In this admin failure the dropped program is seldom a little one. Recently at Saint Hill when statistics slumped, I found the program that was out was selling the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course. It was being taught but never mentioned. Yet it, not Power Processing, was the mainstay of Saint Hill.

Look for the program or orders that were dropped or forgotten before you start originating new ones. You may find the dropped one is so huge that nothing could remedy it. In many orgs the dropped program was the original one — to put an org there! Of course no other order will revive the place as the org wasn’t put there in the first place, and people think they are running an org whereas they didn’t finish up putting one there to be run. It’s often as simple as that.

DEV-TAn administrator (any executive) who does not know and enforce dev-t policies is letting the org down severely. It isn’t just his own basket or office, it’s the fact that Dev-Ters are annoying other staff too if they are into an executive’s hair.

A towering in-basket is always a sign of an executive not enforcing dev-t policy. The whole org will sag if executives don’t enforce these.

Once you have dev-t in hand, your basket traffic shrinks but you may still be overworking by reason of another factor — wearing, unknown, the hats of others.

I always look up every month or so to see whose hats I am wearing besides my own.

If I find I am wearing hats not mine, I begin to look around the people and areas that should be wearing those hats.

If I find the people whose hats I am wearing have seniors below me but above them, I then examine the work areas of the seniors.

I always find one of two things:

a. The seniors are not active at all or

b. The seniors are doing something else than their own hats.

On the staff whose hats I am wearing, I usually find they are doing something else — not just inactive.

I then examine the statistics involved. And any finances.

I can then clean up this area by reorganization.

As the seniors are being bypassed, I have to assign a Danger condition to them and apply the Danger Formula (ethics action vital).

I get the statistics up and things going in that area and then get the hats worn.

In this way only an executive can wear his own hats and do his own work.

So if you are training an executive or if you are seeking to get a governing body or council or committee to function, or trying to make an org recover, you can use these bits of know-how.

They are vital senior data which, properly employed, can make organizations run despite lack of training by executives and even very strange governing bodies.

Just apply the data contained herein and magic! — all will resolve.

[Note: Any Admin Know-How Series issue which didn’t previously have a series number has been given a series number by the editors of this volume.]