Excerpt from Works Administration: Lectures Before the Students of the Leland Stanford Junior University, Palo Alto, California
You have an advantage here not enjoyed so far as I know by the students of any similar institution in this country - that of an instructor who has himself been a work"s manager, and is able to follow the problems here treated to their ultimate application. I may also mention this qualification as a succession, and perhaps to some extent an inspiration from one of the most successful teachers of constructive engineering that this or any other country can boast, Prof. John E. Sweet. "Sweet"s boys," as they are called, always found something to do when they "went out into the world," as he termed it, and there is this encouragement in the scheme of lectures on shop management that the reputation of Sweet"s boys grew out of his attempt, in a greater degree than ever before or since, to teach application and administrative matters. I say administration, because in most cases an education here, or in other institutions of the kind, is pursued with reference to directing and planning the work of other people, also as a stock iii trade, so to speak, to be balanced against money, capital, and in other ways, but always involving management of some kind.
This art of management is unfortunately a subject that by its nature is personal, and for that reason concealed. A great share of it is confidential in respect to a works or a business. It includes to some extent methods and processes, that is, methods and processes personal to a manager, or peculiar to himself, invented we may call it, or regarded in the light of invention. This is proved by the fact that the power of management is in business in a sense considered separately from skill, or even technical knowledge, and, as every one knows, constitutes a valuable consideration in the hands of any one who has made a success in this way.
A successful foreman is an example of this. The ideal foreman is a mythical person, who is presumed to be able to do almost anything, and to be responsible for everything. He represents the owners, or the head management, and also to some extent the men whose work he directs; thus occupying a position of exceeding difficulty, inconsistent and nearly impossible on logical grounds and in fact. Of this matter of foremen more will be said in a future place. It is presented here in illustration of the difference between technical knowledge and administration and the value of the two when combined.
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