TOIL AND LEADERSHIP

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 192, 3 November 1927, Page 7

TOIL AND LEADERSHIP

VALUE OF HUMAN TOUCH IN INDUSTRY FORGOTTEN LESSONS RECALLED Every military commander knows that in extreme urgency he can only drive his men after they have learnt that he can lead them, and every child, even if he never becomes a cavalry trooper,*realises the difference between leading horses to water and persuading them to drink. In the business world these lessons have been partially forgotten, says the “Financial Times.” From time to time politicians and industrialists alike rightly deplore the prevalence of “ca’ canny.” The absenteeism of the miner, the limitation of output by the bricklayer, the growing week-end habit of the business and professional man, have all in turn come under the lash of the critic on the platform or in the Press. Nor does the exhortation to others to work harder than before only find expression in public. It is given vent to also in the privacy of the mill, the field and the office. Elaborate rules are drawn up to ensure that a man does full work for his day's pay. An outbreak of lateness, of bad timekeeping, or of general slackness or inattention is quickly checked. Waste of materials or damage to tools meets with a just rebuke. The management of a business realises that it is upon its vigilance over matters such as these that the margin between profit and loss depends, and that neglect in this respect spells possible bankruptcy. Even on the motive of self-preservation it cannot permit any administrative looseness; hence the discipline that obtains within most workshops and business houses.

Lost Personal Touch Despite all such complaints and exhortations, the truth is hardly understood. Taken by himself,'.there is notning wrong with the average worker, whether in the factory or in the office. He can understand facts and economic reasoning just as well as many employers, and once the points at issue are put clearly and honestly before him be can appreciate the difficulties of the situation and realise what the employer is up against. What is lacking to-day is the close personal touch. Fifty years ago the small business was the rule. Every worker knew “the boss,” often by his Christian name, and although disputes were not infrequent they were conducted between men who were acquainted with and respected each other, and so left no bitterne-ss behind them. Any grievance that arose could be brought to the instant notice of the employer, who in his turn was at hand to listen, and who would often put things right without being bound either by a maze of precedents or ay the need of having to consult superiors or colleagues who might be 50 or 1 00 miles away. In short, while it is true that grave abuses did occur, business was human and most men were frankiy individualist, working for themselves, and able to see that they got a fair share of the proceeds of their labour. Above all, they always had the chance of setting up for themselves. To-day the whole position is altered. Individualism, while nominally supreme, has been swamped by the growth in size of business undertakings. In the result the majority of men are in no respect working for themselves; they are not even working for an employer they can see and know and respect. Is there a remedy? In the direction of Socialism certainly not. Socialism can never succeed because the State is too vast and nebulous a conception for any individual to believe that by working in a nationalised industry he is working for himself and his fellows rather than for the man higher up.” To him the foreman or manager will be the same bugbear whether he derive his authority from a Ministry or a board of directors, and it is probably true to say that to-day many of the same difficulties arise in the Post Office or the civil service as in a railway or a bank.

Need of To-day "What is needed is the infiltration of the personal touch into the big business, and the successful solution of this problem will go far to allay existing industrial unrest. Let a man feel that, though nominally working for a i large concern, he is in reality working for himself, and that the more he contributes by his labour to the common stock the more he will get out of the stock for himself and his family, then he will reject without hesitation all the political and economic nostrums in the world. To give the workers a share in the profits and a voice in the control of a modern business may to some seem revolutionary. To these, three preliminary answers may be given. The first is that, revolutionary though it may seem, profit-sharing has stood the test of actual practice. The second is that no one outside a mental hospital contemplates a rigid scheme applicable without elasticity to every industry and every business. The third is that the alternative of another seven years as troublous as the last is. if such fears are justified, in itself a fmal and conclusive argument.