Coordination

“ Lay directors and even lay chief officers are not necessarily a menace or even burdens, if they have a fair conception of human nature and the importance of each element in an organization, and the full necessity of coordination of all. ”

“ The universal desire to make something for the man on active service caused a multitude of uncorrelated work parties to spring up all over the country, and it was clear that before the second winter campaign some general scheme of coordination was essential if the best use was to be made of the energy and enthusiasm of a vast band of voluntary needle workers. ”

“ Just as there is an individual skill and ability acquired by the individual, so there must be a group skill built up. The group skill is acquired by the coordination of the energies of all the workers so that the work flows naturally and evenly from worker to worker with the minimum hindrance. ”

“ Special ability, skill and team work are only acquired by long specialized practice. These qualities constitute the most valuable assets on which to create a new concern.
Very elaborate systems have been designed for controlling the flow of the work through the plant and the division of the various activities between men and departments, but the real effective coordination must grow out of the actual working conditions of the workers. This natural evolution of the group's effectiveness as a single organization is one of greatest importance. ”

“ It is hoped that succeeding chapters will build up confidence in the scheme that will make it possible for men to see the way to progress in this line, to have faith in each other and to know that their ultimate success will come through a spirit of cooperation, concentration of attention and energies of each man to his own special work so as to attain highest ability and last but not least, the complete coordination of all in one safe, sane industrious organization. ”

“ No one except a man who has been in battle can realize how great are the noise and confusion, and how necessary and important are coöperation, team-work, discipline, and communication, in order for a company commander to control and direct the fire of the company—there must be absolute coöperation, team-work, and communication between all parts of the company—between the captain and the platoon leaders, the platoon leaders and the squad leaders, and the squad leaders and the members of their squads. ”

“ The importance of maintaining all these elements so vital to the success of an organization explains why his qualifications for leadership are so carefully considered in determining a subordinate's fitness for his position, and why his training in leadership may be necessary.
Subordination means that everyone shall continually recognize the fact that each individual in his own office has his own particular responsibilities and privileges, and that these must be observed by all both above and below him. ”

“ In place of the suspicious watchfulness and the more or less open warfare which characterizes the ordinary types of management, there is universally friendly cooperation between the management and the men. ”

“ Each and every man must know and do his part and endeavor all he can to keep in touch with and help the others. Now, the foundation of team-work and coöperation, is communication—communication between the company commander and the men on the firing line—the means by which, the medium through which he will make known his will to the men on the firing line. ”

“ Organizing in factories, neighborhoods, prisons, high schools, day-labor centers, and the army is generally aimed at doing three things: building consciousness; planting the seeds of organization, and beginning to build cadre. ”

“ Supervision of Workers.—It is plain that the leader's job is one of supervision and direction. It is his business to see that each member of the team does his part to the best advantage for the general result, and so to know the individual capacities of his men that he can assign the right man to each task. This, as in fact do all the other duties of leadership, requires him to be continually watching the individual performances of his men, commending, correcting, and co-ordinating their efforts. ”

“ And in a world where organizations are regularly being confused and fouled up—either as whole organizations, or through your attempts to get rid of individual members—a smooth-running, efficient organization stands out like a sore thumb. ”

“ Throughout the whole field of management the military type of organization should be abandoned, and what may be called the' "functional type" substituted in its place. "Functional management" consists in so dividing the work of management that each man from the assistant superintendent down shall have as few functions as possible to perform. If practicable the work of each man in the management should be confined to the performance of a single leading function. Under the ordinary or military type, the workmen are divided into groups. ”

“ Thus problem solving involves both the physical world and the interpersonal world. For instance, when solutions to physical problems are implemented, the job manager must decide which of several leadership-managerial styles is appropriate. Are the workers mature enough and knowledgeable enough to work together as a team without supervision, or are the workers so immature and unruly that an authoritarian task master leadership style will be required, or will the workers need a teacher-leader for some period of time before they become a team? ”

“ All the conscious co-operation of people is facilitated through the word: a call for work, in the form of requests or orders combining staff, and the distribution of roles between them in their work, an indication of the sequence and context of their activities, encouragement to work, concentrating their forces, a warning where a disagreement starts, stops work, rearrangement, change of direction of effort - all this is done verbally. ”

“ The cooperative structure also lends itself to a tighter knit organization, with members feeling they are part of the organization, responsible for its affairs, and willing to pitch in and help if there is some work that needs a few extra hands. ”

“ Of these three words, direction, control, and guidance, the last best conveys the idea of assisting through coöperation the natural capacities of the individuals guided; control conveys rather the notion of an energy brought to bear from without and meeting some resistance from the one controlled; direction is a more neutral term and suggests the fact that the active tendencies of those directed are led in a certain continuous course, instead of dispersing aimlessly. ”

“ Thus, by formal organization we mean a planned system of co-operation effort in which each participant has a recognized role to play and duties or tasks to perform” (p. 5) . “... the dignity of the individual can be respected only in an administrative situation in which all participants will gain, in one way or another, from the accomplishment of the organization goal. In such a situation, administration can be ‘co-operative’ in the broadest sense” (p. 23) . ”

“ The Branch of Operation is responsible for the adoption and enforcement of labor-saving devices in correspondence, in handling requisitions, and in the filing and care of papers generally, and for the supply of stationery, tools, and instruments, and the renting of quarters,—in a word, for the whole of the more or less routine transaction of business which is essential to keep so large an organization at the highest point of efficiency. ”

“ Command.—The first essential of a good organization is to ensure that each member of the organized body, in his own sphere of action, should contribute his share to the achievement of the common object. Further, it is entirely beyond the power of one man, or of a few, to control every action and provide for every want of a great number of individuals. ”

“ This organic adaptation diminishes friction, and permits the utilization of forces which else would be wasted. Organization, furthermore, brings together like capacities, and enables them to combine their strength, and thus forces which separately would be weak, being united, produce great results. In thus grouping together like forces, the first step is to detach them from those which are dissimilar, and consequently a perfect organization leads to the separation of faculties, the localization of functions, and the division of labor. ”

“ Subordination is an Essential to it in this very Discipline; the Gentleman brought up ever so tamely, finding a Courage with his Commission, and for the most part, increasing as he becomes a Captain, a Colonel, or a General. ”

“ The work of organisation is, therefore, in a very large measure accomplished. The army is now in existence; it has but to be mobilised; it is with no undisciplined mob that we have to deal. Or the comparison between this experiment and those which have preceded it is like that between two machines—one of which has to be created out of various ores which have first to be gathered together and then cast into various shapes, while for the other all the parts are ready to hand and have but to be fitted together. ”

“ The common identical aim steadily incited to an association and organisation of all work and to its common adaptation, therefore, from the begining every energy was directed to the organisation of a union in which every activity would be concentrated. ”

“ Their mission is to support the powers that be and use their eloquence in applying the decisions in their territorial or professional spheres. —Top decisions and organizational objectives are made in close cooperation with all important organization members. —Every branch of labor is directed by the most skilled worker, who himself takes part in it, and in the realm of enjoyment every branch is guided by the merriest member, who himself participates in the enjoyment. ”

“ Without effective co-ordination, industrial civilization is jeopardized by the dangers of ultraspecialization: monotony, narrowness, and the tendency to breed distrust and jealousy.
13. Effective and wise leadership. In civilization much, very much, depends on an enthusiastic and effective load-pulling spirit. Ten men are of little more value than one in lifting a great load unless they lift together—all at the same moment. And such teamwork—social co-operation—is dependent on leadership. ”

“ So that while, at each stage, better immediate results may be achieved by completing organization, they must be at the expense of better ultimate results. These are to be achieved by carrying organization at each stage no further than is needful for the orderly carrying on of social actions. ”

“ If proper functioning of staffs is generally understood, and if staffs are correctly organized to perform their functions, the basis for their sound organization will become a matter of general understanding. Such organization, so understood, becomes a powerful influence in behalf of unity of effort. ”

“ Disciplined, orderly cooperation toward one common and useful end and purpose was never and nowhere shown to better advantage than in the work of organizing, creating and conducting to a successful termination this truly great exposition. ”

“ As a revolutionary organization the Industrial Workers of the World aims to use any and all tactics that will get the results sought with the least expenditure of time and energy. The tactics used are determined solely by the power of the organization to make good in their use. ”

“ All these forms, in their mutual interweaving and mutual struggle, in their constant changes, form a world organisational process, infinitely fragmented in its parts, continuous and indissoluble in its whole. ”

“ What it has all amounted to, as I say, is that we have never known otherwise an agent so beautifully organised, organised from within, for a mission, and that such an organisation at free play has made us really want never to lift a finger to break the charm. We catch at every turn of our present long-drawn crisis indeed that portentous name: it's displayed to us on a measureless scale that our Enemy is organised, organised possibly to the effect of binding us with a spell if anything could keep us passive. ”

“ If, now, we find that the most powerful organization in the civilized world at that time did pursue a system of measures which had a direct tendency to bring about such a result, we shall very naturally ascribe it to that organization. ”

“ From this origin of superordination and subordination, which of course is at every moment operative within society, and continually founds new relations, there develop permanent organizations of superordination and subordination into which individuals are born, or in which they gain specific positions on the ground of quite other qualities than those which established in the first place the superordination and subordination in question. ”

“ In the general case, the better the leadership the fewer the orders given. Teamwork, co-operation, initiative and loyalty of subordinates, all these developments of intelligent leadership make orders largely unnecessary—and things are done in response to suggestions and in carrying out instructions as to what is to be done. ”

“ This is one of the chief ways in which the units in the working organs of society are held together and the organ itself vitalized. When, as in the case of a ship's crew, a factory group, a plantation gang, a railroad service, a corps de ballet, the staff of a shop or the force of a mine, there is no critical attitude of all toward the contribution or service of each and the stimulating principle is furnished by captain, employer or superintendent with power of fine or dismissal and bonus or promotion, the control is of a distinctly coarser quality and the association is of a lower order. ”