Priority Watch List

“ And now, leaving the subject of visitors, let us consider, in conclusion, the third point essential to wise dealing with the poor—the decisions of your committee after the facts are gathered for it by investigating agent and volunteer visitor. Now, to secure right decision, one must have a distinct object in view. What is to be the ultimate object of your decisions respecting relief? Let us at once distinctly clear the way by assuming that it must be the good of the people themselves. We have nothing to do with saving the money of the rich. ”

“ In any system of universal service there needs to be some plan of industrial adjustment, as to time, payments, and releases from work, so that the burden will not fall too heavily upon special industries at critical times of output. ”

“ And that report added, 'It will afford persons affected a reasonable time to prepare for the effective date of a rule or rules or to take any other action which the issuance of rules may prompt.' Ibid. ”

“ Besides the absorbing task of keeping the whole staff busy, there is always the exhausting and important matter of mapping out the work, laying plans for advance work, originating and initiating, and making decisions that involve more or less risk. ”

“ To those entitled to preferential treatment because they could best subserve some phase of war need was given priority of service in all their requirements, while the needs of others were deferred until the preferred industries or plants were satisfied. ”

“ Ours is the duty to fix our gaze with undeviating attention on the duties and responsibilities confronting us at this present hour, to concentrate our resources, both material and spiritual, on the tasks that lie immediately ahead, to insure that no time is wasted, that no opportunity is missed, that no obligation is evaded, that no task is half-heartedly performed, that no decision is procrastinated. ”

“ To fulfill our key annual tasks, we need to make everyone involved clear about their responsibilities, strengthen policy implementation, and ensure that every element of work is done to good, solid effect. ”

“ Long range requisitions, approved by distant authority, may result in false economy, in a lack of clearly defined responsibility. The essence of good administration consists in dealing with men and things, in giving them greater value than their paper symbols. ”

“ I have never found it necessary to strain them, because, inevitably, if you give attention to work and service, the resources will increase more rapidly than you can devise ways and means of disposing of them. ”

“ For when we establish priorities in development, many will question their lack of standing in such a plan of development as well as in the listing of expenditures. Sometimes we must suffer in silence, for they will question not only our acts I but also our motives as well. ”

“ The chief wants of to-day may not necessarily be the most pressing requisites of a century hence. Therefore, one of the greatest essentials—and at the same time one of the greatest difficulties—in a foundation like this, is to provide for and combine within it such a fixity of principle and such an adaptability of administration as shall enable it to keep pace with the progress of the ages, and suit itself to the several requirements of succeeding generations as they pass. ”

“ In accepting the leadership of this house, I am fully conscious of my responsibilities—responsibilities not only to you who have financial interests in the business, but to those who live by the employment we offer them and to the State which makes it possible for them to work and for ourselves to derive profit from that work. ”

“ It is wise, therefore, for all persons to devise a systematic plan which they will at least keep in view and aim to accomplish, and by which a proper proportion of time shall be secured for all the duties of life. ”

“ So it has seemed necessary to institute a system of periodical preparation reports, to examine them carefully, and to use all possible vigilance, lest any item be forgotten or any work done by two bureaus that ought to be done by only one.
Who should examine the reports? Naturally the same persons as decide what should be done. The same studies and deliberations that fit a person to decide what is needed, fit him to inspect the product that is offered to supply the need ”

“ These everlasting inquiries compel us to make reports, which take up an endless time, and seldom give a clear account of the matter; these orders on every possible subject (they often just miss knocking the nail on the head) take from the immediate governors of the country all self-reliance, all responsibility, and turn organization into machinery. ”

“ The words "Waste not, want not," carved in stone over Sir Walter Scott's kitchen fireplace at Abbotsford, expresses in a few words the secret of Order in the midst of abundance. Order is most useful in the management of everything,—of a household, of a business, of a manufactory, of an army. Its maxim is—A place for everything, and everything in its place. Order is wealth; for, whoever properly regulates the use of his income, almost doubles his resources. Disorderly persons are rarely rich; and orderly persons are rarely poor. ”

“ We will strictly enforce the responsibility systems, particularly those for implementing key tasks. We must see responsibilities are fulfilled without fail, that pressure is felt at every level of government, and that implementation is carried out to the letter.
We will strengthen oversight and accountability, and take tough steps to address incompetence, inertia, and negligence. We will improve mechanisms that give incentives and allow for and address mistakes so as to support those who are dedicated to their work and stand behind those who live up to their responsibilities. ”

“ And though I am able thus to formulate them, I want it understood that they are essentially living, that they are not mere dead rules, but principles the application of which is varying from day to day. I can say, for example, "It is our plan to keep some repairs as employment for men out of work;" but it needs the true instinct to apply this plan beneficially—the time to give the work, its kind, its amount, above all the mode of offering it, have to be felt out fresh on each fresh occasion, and the circumstances and characters vary so that each case is new. ”

“ Plans for either kind of scheme, sufficiently well worked out to be dependable and to be clearly explanatory of the results to which they would lead—such plans, in other words, as the Managers should have before them at the time of reaching a definite decision in a matter of such importance and involving commitment to such large expenditures—can be prepared only with much study and labor. ”

“ Every subordinate employee needs to be watched, every man in charge must watch himself, or he will find himself unwittingly, almost instinctively, coloring his results by some old prejudice of his early years of employment, or some loyalty to his own ideas of governmental or economic policy. The writer has noted this in every appraisal on which he has been engaged, and calls particular attention to it as the first difficulty which must be overcome in the organization of the force for a large appraisal. ”

“ Our third objective is priorities, to move ahead on the priorities that we have established within the resources that are available.
I wish, of course, that we could do all that should be done--and that we could do it now. But the Nation has many commitments and responsibilities which make heavy demands upon our total resources. No administration would more eagerly utilize for these programs all the resources they require than the administration that started them. ”

“ Public necessity should now be our criterion. Our needs are great but our resources are small. This calls for careful planning, intelligent selection, and consistent and economical implementation of projects. ”

“ Private sector views on needed changes should be solicited as appropriate;
(b) Strengthen the review of programs to balance individual program needs against mission priorities and available resources ”

“ This chapter was prefaced by an instance where protection from distractions through organization was joined with methodical attack on the elements of the day's work. This combination approaches the ideal; it is the system followed by nearly all the great executives of America. Time and attention are equably allotted to the various interests, the various departments of effort which must have the big man's consideration during the day. ”

“ The present brief review of the institutions of economic policy-making should therefore close by emphasising once again the pre-eminence gain by the Lord President's Committee in determining, over a wide range, the manner in which specific economic problems were tackled. For the benefit of such ingenious political scientists as may be prone to pore too closely over organisation charts, one word of caution needs to be added. ”

“ Social Reform requires the appointment of many officials. But the functions of such as have already been appointed are confined to inspection, to advice, and to the collection of money or information. ”

“ Its principal purpose is to accentuate the imperative necessity of establishing a national time-binding agency—a Dynamic Department for stimulating, guiding and guarding the civilizing energies, the wealth producing energies, the time-binding energies, in virtue of which human beings are human. ”

“ In order that interest or attention may be held, there must be provision for allied subjects on which the mind is to wander. This, under Scientific Management, is constantly furnished by the collection of jobs ahead on the bulletin board. The tasks piled up ahead upon this bulletin board provide a needed and ready change for the subject of attention or interest, which conserves the economic value of concentrated attention of the worker upon his work. ”

“ In the systems and processes of our government and in the mandate we have both received from our people is the power to turn this time of challenge into a time of response. I have sought to describe here today the dimensions of the problems we face and I have pre­sented to you the program of response that befits the hour and the need. We cannot confront these problems and take up this program divided in our counsels, con­sumed by our hates and anger, and half-hearted in our labors for recovery and stability. ”

“ The different classes of means are not combined and adapted to one another under the guidance of any leading idea; and while every department pushes forward its own requirements, regardless of those of the rest, the purpose of the work is perpetually sacrificed to the work itself. ”

“ If our plan appears to be so advantageous to the ministers whose measures, to a certain extent, we intend to justify, to support, to recommend and assist, that they have promised their support; when might that support be so advantageously given, either for their own interests or ours, as at the commencement, when we are most weak, and have the most arduous onset to make, and when we do and must stand most in need of help? If our first number be not written with the greatest ability, upon the most interesting topics, it will not excite public attention. ”

“ This is a time of supreme challenge for all of us. To push through to advantage the gains made in the Nation’s economic effort, we are called upon to adopt implementory measures that are unprecedented in magnitude. ”

“ The positive checks, having performed their office in stimulating the human faculties and originating social institutions, must be wholly superseded by the preventive check before society can attain its ultimate aim—the greatest happiness of the greatest number. ”

“ This suggests a need to place strong emphasis on institutional policy engagement, because, until rewards systems are restructured, there is little prospect for persuading people to change their behaviour. ”

“ It is likewise favourable to the gradual developement of the resources of the country, by removing those checks upon the activity of individuals, which the preponderance of any one man is generally found to create. ”

“ There is a growing tendency, however, for society to exercise a larger control and supervision over all types of individual activity, particularly with a view to conserving the welfare of its members. ”

“ If you see that you can make a very decided advance on all that has been done, and that the public will probably submit to the inconvenience and expense of a change to secure the result of your labors, go forward slowly and carefully in your work, no matter how much investigation, how much time and labor it may require. The more difficulty you may find in gaining the eminence, the less likely will you be to be followed by successful competitors. ”

“ Order would find a more suitable place among the conditions of Progress, since, if we would increase our sum of good, nothing is more indispensable than to take due care of what we already have. If we are endeavouring after more riches, our very first rule should be, not to squander uselessly our existing means. ”

“ Let us, however, in our plans, direct our attention not so much to what is good and moral as to what is necessary and useful.
Before us is a plan in which is laid down strategically the line from which we cannot deviate without running the risk of seeing the labour of many centuries brought to naught. ”

“ The first of the four leading principles in management calls for a clearly defined and circumscribed task. Evidently the foreman's duties are in no way clearly circumscribed. It is left each day entirely to his judgment what small part of the mass of duties before him it is most important for him to attend to, and he staggers along under this fraction of the work for which he is responsible, leaving the balance to be done in many cases as the gang bosses and workmen see fit. The second principle calls for such conditions that the daily task can always be accomplished. ”

“ The planning capacity of Government, beginning at the center and including its various departments and agencies, should improve, training of middle managers should continue to be upgraded, systems of rewards and punishment and of enlarging accountability instituted. ”