Industry Needs More Good Executives

THE GREAT MAN HUNT

AMERICAN industry is on the greatest man hunt in its history. It is hunting for executives to fill top jobs today and to fill those that become vacant in future years. Seldom has there been a greater opportunity for able men, not only to get good jobs, but to move ahead fast. The chief reason is that industry, which has just about doubled in size during the great boom, needs far more bosses than it has had time to train. But the corporations, having solved the mechanical problems of mass production, are finding it harder to learn the things they must know to mass-produce the executives they direly need.

Most big corporations have long believed that the best way to get executives is to take the most promising men from the workbench or college, and set up a systematic program to turn the brightest of them into bosses. These men are shifted from department to department to get the broadest possible view of the entire operation and to keep from getting in the rut that is frequently the penalty of over-specialization. Periodically, the men are graded by their superiors, e.g., Esso Standard Oil has an elaborate form on which a man's superiors grade him for everything from job performance to ambition, analytical ability, emotional stability, cooperation, decisiveness, coordination and responsibility. At General Motors, any man making more than $1,000 a month is "rated" by all the top officers of the company, for the purpose of deciding the size of his bonus, which is also a measure of his advancement. In theory at least, after years of such a process, a company will have a thoroughly blooded, thoroughly tested echelon of No. 2 men completely capable of taking over the top functions without disturbing the rhythm of the organization.

Do these elaborate programs really work? Few executives can be found who say, flatly, that they do. Most of them agree that good executives are born, not made, and that actual promotions are still more apt to be based on the intuitive hunches of a man's superiors and their "feel" of a man's abilities than on his showing on any chart. For one thing, few men like to be watched, even benevolently. And there is a sort of mechanical bloodlessness about some of the systems which would be more likely to infuriate than elevate a man of first-class talents. Many of the systems put a premium on conformity, and the best executives are frequently nonconformists. Furthermore, the companies with such huge training programs that they boast "when we retire a chairman we hire an office boy" are apt to be too inbred; they miss the new blood and new ideas that the occasional hiring of executives from outside would bring. And while a whole cult of "executive-grooming" counselors has sprung up', one of the leading counselors candidly concedes that many companies with formal programs are simply imitating each other and "grasping at straws...Lights are flashing and bells are ringing, but no men are being developed...On the other hand, a number of companies which don't have any formal programs are developing men."

Nevertheless, U.S. industry is discovering some distinct and valuable principles. One is the principle that decentralization is the key to producing executives. Such corporations as Du Pont and Procter & Gamble (TIME, Oct. 5) have found that separating a huge complex into distinct divisions--each with its own chief executive responsible for his own costs and his own profits--develops initiative, command and responsibility.

The trend is away from seeking specialists--except for specialized jobs--but to go after men with wide, overall interests, especially those who have demonstrated qualities of leadership and ability to get along with people. Industry is discovering that the man who can run one company can run another one making an entirely different product, because the qualities required for most top jobs are virtually identical--the ability to judge and pick men, to adjust easily to change, to make sound decisions quickly and firmly.

Many companies are trying to develop these qualities and to give their specialists a broad philosophy of management by sending them back to school. There are now more than 20 "short courses" in management problems given by leading American colleges and the American Management Association, and the attendance is constantly growing. When the executives return to their desks, they keep learning in periodic conferences, where their suggested solutions to company problems often pay off. For example, at such conferences United Parcel Service worked out a method to cut time wasted in extra deliveries by as much as 23%. Whether or not such programs produce enough good executives, they are valuable for another reason. They increase everybody's efficiency, if only because they force everyone to discover what the entire team is trying to do--and hunt for the best ways of doing it.

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