Organizer

“ Great theorists are only in the rarest cases great organizers, and the greatness of the theorist and the program-maker lies primarily in the recognition and in the establishment of abstractly correct laws, while the organizer has to be primarily a psychologist. The organizer possesses this specific virtue or potency, this special field in which his powers are developed to the level required by the task to which he is assigned. He is able to articulate perfectly the thoughts of the movement. ”

“ A new kind of organizer and a new kind of project must be supported: an organizer who reinforces existing organizers; a project the purpose of which is to serve existing projects. There is a need for city, county, and regional institutions which create an atmosphere sensitive to the needs of organizers, help them to break down their mutual isolation, enlarge the range of alternative strategies and programs; and encourage organizers collectively to come to grips with their problems; for example, a union of organizers. ”

“ Every Section elects from among its members an Organizer and such additional officers as it deems proper. The Organizer shall conduct the correspondence with the Executive, and he shall send an official report once every month to the National Executive Committee; he shall send five cents of the monthly dues of each member to the Executive; he conducts the local organization. ”

“ The discoverers and organizers often fare hard in the world, lean men, ill clad and suspected, often laughed at, while the administrator is thought the greater man, because he rides over their graves and pays the dividends, where the organizer only called for the assessments, and the discoverer told what men called a dream. What happens in a railroad happens also in a Church, or a State. ”

“ One, a school for community organizers, represents a collective attempt to respond to the critical shortage of effective organizers. —As organization develops, not only do the tasks of the administration become more difficult and more complicated, but, further, its duties become enlarged and specialized to such a degree that it is no longer possible to take them all in at a single glance. In a rapidly progressive movement, it is not only the growth in the number of duties, but also the higher quality of these, which imposes a more extensive differentiation of function. ”

“ We therefore call for organizers, capable and well-versed in the whole programme of the labor movement, to be sent into each state to preach the necessity of organization on the political as well as on the economic field. ”

“ Employers and managers also quickly recognize when organizers know whereof they talk. They, like the employés, realize that with such competent and efficient organizers or business agents they, too, are on firmer ground, even though they may not always acknowledge it. ”

“ But in spite of this difficulty, we must insist again that any really tangible and permanent success in conducting involves a combination of these attributes, and that the conductor of the future, even more than of the past, must possess not only those qualities of the artist needed by the solo performer, but must in addition be a good business manager, an organizer, a tactician, a diplomat, a taskmaster—in plain English, a good boss. It is primarily because of the lack of these last-mentioned qualities that most musicians fail as conductors. ”

“ And there is the chosen head, commonly the man of greatest mark to be obtained, who exercises a recognized power over speakers and audience—the temporary king. Even an informally summoned assemblage soon resolves itself into these divisions more or less distinctly; and when the assemblage becomes a permanent body, as of the men composing a commercial company, or a philanthropic society, or a club, definiteness is quickly given to the three divisions—president or chairman, board or committee, proprietors or members. ”

“ All that we need at first is the skeleton of an organization, the most important feature of which would be the committee on membership. Much depends upon getting the right kind of men interested in the matter. Let the objects and work of this organization unfold and develop naturally and by degrees. It may take the form of a mechanics’ institute, a library, a gymnasium, a system of coffee-taverns, a lecture course With elevating popular exhibitions; and so I might go on, enumerating all the admirable things which similar bodies have inaugurated in other villages, both here and in Europe. ”

“ Such are the organized forms of business, education, government, and religion. But all groups require organization of a sort. The gang has its recognized leader, the club its officers and by-laws. Even such antisocial persons as outlaws frequently move in bands and have their chiefs. [9] Organization goes far to determine success in war or politics, in work or play. Like achievement, organization is the result of a gradual growth in collective experience, and must be continually adapted to the changing requirements of successive periods by the wisdom of master minds. ”

“ For, to realize its proposed aim and accepted plan of action, organization alone can enlist and keep secure the sympathies of patrons and members, co-ordinate the various forces, and call into play, when necessary, new and fresh energies. The greater the number to be reached by the society or societies which embody this movement, the more efficient should be the organizing power.
Experience and reason prove that an organization destined to affect the masses and hold its grip on them, will not live and thrive only on an occasional appeal or a printed message. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I inquired.
“The organization is the Congress Party,” he answered. “But if it fails me, I have my own organization, myself. I am a man possessed by an idea. If such a man cannot get an organization, he becomes an organization.”
“Have you sufficient confidence in the present mood of the country? Will it follow you? This civil disobedience movement may involve heavy sacrifices for the people. ”

“ The organization of any affair or enterprise determines to a great extent the character of the result; and the organization rests directly on the subdivision into parts. The dividing of a business into separate responsibilities of different departments and sub-departments makes for easy access and for what we now know as efficiency; the dividing of a nation into states or provinces and counties and many lesser units makes political life possible; the setting off of a man's farm into fields, with lanes and roads connecting, makes a working enterprise. ”

“ Excellent workmen, instead of making all the improvements in their power, follow with indifference the old jog-trot. What a pity! for an intelligent man, occupied all his life with some special employment, must discover, in the long run, a thousand ways of doing his work better and quicker. I will form, therefore, a sort of consulting committee; I will summon to it my foremen and my most skillful workmen. ”

“ The Framework.—No matter how large the number of men brought together for any purpose, proper organization groups them into divisions and subdivisions in accordance with the nature of their work. This grouping is continued until in each case the smallest subdivision contains no more individuals than one man can control in that particular work through direct personal contact and supervision. ”

“ No organisation, no definite programme, no specific object!—what practical good could any one like myself do in such a party?"
The doctor smiled a quiet smile of triumph as he proceeded to overthrow my objections: "Why, the very strength of our party lies in the fact that it has not what you are pleased to call an organisation. Organisations are only a means for intriguers and rogues to climb to power on the shoulders of their fellow-men; and at best only serve to trammel initiative and enterprise. With us every individual enjoys complete liberty of action. ”

“ We do not appoint a leader for the circle, but a conductor for each department of work—one for geology, another for Greek history, etc. Having a number of professional men in our circle, such as doctors, ministers and teachers, we propose a division of labor, and thus we shall do more thorough work. We will have one regular meeting each month, and as many special meetings as we shall find profitable. ”

“ He had friends among professional men in the arts, and some acquaintances among newly formed bodies of social workers. He was not slow in perceiving that the way was likely to be tedious and hard. It called for organization—the organization of hope, of patience, of hot, untiring zeal, of finesse against political chicane, of persistence in the face of indifference and selfishness. ”

“ It is here that the individual, who need consult no one but himself, has a pull over any form of organization, where decisions are reached by the method of debate and agreement among a heterogeneous committee. ”

“ We see the working of the principle not only in simple crowds, but also in groups of very considerable degrees of organisation. We see it in the way in which many a man, who would shrink from the responsibility of directing a great and complicated commercial undertaking, will cheerfully join a board of directors each of whom is perhaps no better qualified than himself to conduct the business of the concern. ”

“ There would be no difficulty in organizing circles, but how shall we get people to understand the work and the methods that are adopted? A great many very intelligent persons have given so little attention to this movement as to be utterly in the dark. It will require a good deal of persistence in this work of organizing circles. I have had five years’ experience. I have been through the class of ’82, and have, unfortunately for the circle, I think, been retained as leader of the circle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Multitudinous objects are achieved by spontaneously-evolved combinations of citizens governed representatively. The tendency to this kind of organization is so ingrained that, for every proposed end, the proposed means is a society ruled by an elected committee headed by an elected chairman—philanthropic associations of multitudinous kinds, literary institutions, libraries, clubs, bodies for fostering the various sciences and arts, etc., etc. ”

“ We describe the managers of the social machine as Organisers, but under that general term are commonly included two distinct categories. In the first place, we have Administrators, who are not strictly organisers at all—begetters, that is to say, of new organs in an organism. ”

“ Another group of the same type is a so-called "movement," composed of a few individuals who associate themselves in a loose way to further a definite purpose, like the promotion of temperance, hold mass-meetings, and create public opinion, but do not at once proceed to a permanent organization. Eventually, when the movement has gathered sufficient headway or has shown that it is permanently valuable, a fixed organization may be accomplished. ”

“ The mechanism of the organization, while conferring a solidity of structure, induces serious changes in the organized mass, completely inverting the respective position of the leaders and the led. As a result of organization, every party or professional union becomes divided into a minority of directors and a majority of directed. As soon as individuals delegate their self-powers to the organization, the individuals become instruments or media through which the powers of the organization are exercised. ”

“ As described by a high government official, the general assembly of employees or, in the case of large enterprises, of employee representatives is a forum that will assure effective participation by workers and specialists in the organization and management of the economy and in decisionmaking concerning the fulfillment of enterprise plans. ”

“ In addition to our elective officers, we have a committee on work, consisting of five members, appointed by the president, whose duty it is to arrange the work of the circle, make a sub-division of the required readings, and assign topics in advance to the several members, whose duty it is to present the same at the next stated meeting of the circle in the form of an essay, lecture, or recitation as each may deem proper. By this method each member has his or her share of work to perform, and all become interested and active working members. ”

“ In every governing board—city councils, hospital and library trustees, the boards of colleges and churches, in business and industry, in directors’ meetings—no device should be neglected which will help to produce joint rather than individual thinking. But no one has yet given us a scientific analysis of the conditions necessary or how to fulfil them. We do not yet know, for instance, the best number to bring out the group idea, the number, that is, which will bring out as many differences as possible and yet form a whole or group. ”

“ The natural plan for our purpose, the plan with the smallest artificial element under present circumstances, is the selection by the congress of departments of civic action in which it is desirable and practicable to enlist the general cooperation of the citizens. The organization of each part of this action should be entrusted to persons particularly interested in that kind of work, and particularly fitted for it. ”