The Spirit of an Organization

Two sayings sum up the «spirit of an organization». One is the inscription on Andrew Carnegie’s tombstone:

Here lies a man

Who knew how to enlist

In his service

Better men than himself.

The other is the slogan of the drive to find jobs for the physically handicapped: «It’s the abilities, not the disabilities, that count».

Management (здесь: руководство) tells a manager what he ought to do. The proper organization of his job enables him to do it, but it is the spirit of the organization that determines whether he will do it or not. It is the spirit that motivates, that calls upon a man’s reserves of dedication and effort, that decides whether he will give his best or do just enough to get by (отделаться).

It is the purpose of an organization to «make common men do uncommon things» – said Lord Beveridge. No organization can depend on genius; their supply is always scarce and unpredictable. But it is the test of an organization that it makes ordinary human beings perform better than they are capable of, that it brings out whatever strength there is in their members and uses it to make all other members perform better. It is the test of an organization that it neutralizes the weaknesses of its members.

Altogether the test of a good spirit is not that “people get along together (ладят друг с другом); it is performance but not conformance. «Good human relations» not grounded in the satisfaction of good performance and the harmony of proper working relations are actually poor human relations and result in poor spirit. They do not make people grow; they make them conform and contract. I shall never forget the University president who once said to me, «It is my job to make it possible for the first-rate teacher to teach. Whether he gets along with his colleagues or with me – and very few really good teachers do either – is irrelevant. We certainly have a collection of problem children here – but, boy, they do teach».

When his successor substituted this for a policy of «peace and harmony», both the performance and the spirit of the faculty rapidly went to pieces.

There are five requirements to ensure the right spirit throughout management organization.

1. There must be high performance requirements; no condoning of poor or mediocre performance; and rewards must be based on performance.

2. Each management job must be a rewarding job in itself rather than just a step in the promotion ladder.

3. There must be a rational and just promotion system.

4. Management needs a «charter» spelling out clearly who has the power to make life-and-death decisions affecting a manager; and there should be some way for a manager to appeal to a higher court.

5. In its appointments management must demonstrate that it realizes that integrity is the absolute requirement of a manager, the quality that he has to bring with him and cannot be expected to acquire later on.

A man should never be appointed to a managerial position if his vision focuses on people’s weaknesses than on strengths. He should be a realist. A man should never be appointed if he is more interested in the question: «Who is right?» than in the question: «What is right?» Management should never appoint a man who considers intelligence more important than integrity.