The Functions of the Executive

Thirtieth Anniversary Edition

Chester I. Barnard

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 1971
• ISBN:
  9780674252240
• Topic: Economía
• Subtopic: Teoría económica

Most of Chester Barnard's career was spent in executive practice. A Mount Hermon and Harvard education, cut off short of the bachelor's degree, was followed by nearly forty years in the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. His career began in the Statistical Department, took him to technical expertness in the economics of rates and administrative experience in the management of commercial operations, and culminated in the presidency of the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company. He was not directly involved in the Western Electric experiments conducted chiefly at the Hawthorne plant in Cicero, but his association with Elton Mayo and the latter's colleagues at the Harvard Business School had an important bearing on his most original ideas.Barnard's executive experience at AT&T was paralleled and followed by a career in public service unusual in his own time and hardly routine today. He was at various times president of the United Services Organization (the USO of World War II), head of the General Education Board and later president of the Rockefeller Foundation (after Raymond Fosdick and before Dean Rusk), chairman of the National Science Foundation, an assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, a consultant to the American representative in the United Nations Atomic Energy Committee, to name only some of his public interests. He was a director of a number of companies, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a lover of music and a founder of the Bach Society of New Jersey.

PART I

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING COOPERATIVE SYSTEMS

For the efficiency of an army consists partly in the order and partly in the general; but chiefly in the latter, because he does not depend upon the order, but the order depends upon him. All things, both fishes and birds and plants, are ordered together in some way, but not in the same way; and the system is not such that there is no relation between one thing and another. There is a definite connexion. Everything is ordered together to one end; but the arrangement is like that in a household, where the free persons have the least liberty to act at random, and have all or most of their actions preordained for them, whereas the slaves and animals have little common responsibility and act for the most part at random. — ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

With all the thought that has been turned upon the unrest of the present day in the literature of social reform one finds practically no reference to formal organization as the concrete social process by which social action is largely accomplished. This concrete process is ignored almost completely, even as a factor in any social condition or situation. For example, in the current literature on labor conditions, policies, organizations, etc., almost nothing is said, by any of the various groups discussing the subject, about the necessities of the organization of work, or about the executive functions and their organization as related to it. If one examines Sir Josiah Stamp’s recent book, The Science of Social Adjustment, a stimulating and penetrating inquiry into the causes of the disturbance of social equilibrium, one will find scarcely a line to indicate the existence of formal organizations, despite the author’s active connection with them; nor a single suggestion regarding the study of them as one of the important fields of scientific exploration looking toward the more apt adjustment of society to changing conditions.

To me, this failure of attention is like leaving a vital organ out of anatomy or its functions out of physiology. Careful inspection of the observable actions of human beings in our society — their movements, their speech, and the thought and emotions evident from their action and speech — shows that many and sometimes most of them are determined or directed by their connection with formal organizations. This is most obviously true of the actions of persons as employees and housewives, which occupy perhaps one quarter of their time, but most persons in their “non-working” hours are members or participants in other organizations. Including families, businesses of more than one person, various municipal corporations, autonomous or semi-autonomous governments and branches of government, associations, clubs, societies, fraternities, educational institutions, religious groups, etc., the number of formal organizations in the United States is many millions, and it is possible that the number is greater than that of the total population.¹ Probably few persons belong to less than five or ten such organizations, and many belong to fifty or more. Their individual conduct is dominated or qualified or conditioned by these relationships directly. Moreover, there are in a short period of a day or a week many millions of formal organizations of short duration, a few hours at most, which are not named and are seldom thought of as organizations.

For the present, formal organizations may be described rather than carefully defined. The more important of them are associations of coöperative efforts to which it is possible and customary to give definite names, that have officers or recognized leaders, that have reasons for existence that may be approximately stated — such as governments, government departments, churches, universities, labor units, industrial corporations, symphony orchestras, football teams.

Formal organization is that kind of coöperation among men that is conscious, deliberate, purposeful. Such coöperation is omnipresent and inescapable nowadays, so that it is usually contrasted only with “individualism,” as if there were no other process of coöperation. Moreover, much of what we regard as reliable, foreseeable, and stable is so obviously a result of formally organized effort that it is readily believed that organized effort is normally successful, that failure of organization is abnormal. This illusion from some points of view is even useful, with considerable caution, in many of our important affairs, at least under what we call “normal” conditions.

But in fact, successful coöperation in or by formal organizations is the abnormal, not the normal, condition. What are observed from day to day are the successful survivors among innumerable failures. The organizations commanding sustained attention, almost all of which are short-lived at best, are the exceptions, not the rule. It may be said correctly that modern civilization is one characterized by the large residue of organizations that are in existence at any given time; but this does not imply that the particular organizations of that time have been or will continue to be in existence long. Similarly, it is recognized that the existence of a population does not necessarily imply longevity, but merely the balancing of constantly recurring deaths by births.

Thus most coöperation fails in the attempt, or dies in infancy, or is short-lived. In our western civilization only one formal organization, the Roman Catholic Church, claims a substantial age. A few universities, a very few national governments or formally organized nations, are more than two hundred years old. Many municipalities are somewhat older, but few other corporate organizations have existed more than one hundred years. Failure to coöperate, failure of coöperation, failure of organization, disorganization, disintegration, destruction of organization — and reorganization — are characteristic facts of human history.

This is hardly disputable. Explanations of the fact usually make reference to the perversity of human nature, to egoism, to the combative instinct, to “false” economic systems, or to the struggle for food and the limits of its supply. More specific explanations refer to faults of structure — “defective constitutions” — or to bad functioning, lack of solidarity or spirit, poor leadership or management. Any of these weaknesses may be present, but at root the cause of the instability and limited duration of formal organizations lies in the forces outside. These forces both furnish the material which are used by organizations and limit their action. The survival of an organization depends upon the maintenance of an equilibrium of complex character in a continuously fluctuating environment of physical, biological, and social materials, elements, and forces, which calls for readjustment of processes internal to the organization. We shall be concerned with the nature of the external conditions to which adjustment must be made, but the center of our interest is the processes by which it is accomplished.

The functions of the executive with which the last part of this treatise is concerned are those of control, management, supervision, administration, in formal organizations. These functions are exercised not merely by high officials in such organizations but by all those who are in positions of control of whatever degree. In the large-scale and complex organizations, the assistants of executives, though not themselves executives, are occupied in the work of these functions. Also in many instances the responsibility for authoritative decisions is formally lodged in organized groups, such as legislative bodies, boards, committees, and then these groups may be said to have executive functions. On the other hand it not infrequently occurs that high officials in organizations, though known as executives and occupying important positions, exercise few or unimportant and incidental executive functions; and at least some work of all executives is not executive in the sense which concerns us. It will be noted, then, that the functions to which this study relates are only roughly suggested by the predominant occupation of most persons who are called executives, and that we are not to be restricted by conventional titles or by special definitions of the word “executive.”

Neither are we to be restricted to the executive functions in industrial or commercial organizations. On the contrary, all classes or types of formal organizations are within the scope of observation for our purposes. The nature and processes of such organizations determine what the executive functions are and how they are to be performed. Although we shall have most in mind major or important organizations, there are also many other formal organizations of little importance or duration which also require consideration.

Before these processes are discussed, however, some time must be given to analyzing and defining the terms involved. Accordingly, beginning with a section of preliminary considerations concerning coöperative systems, the first half of this book will be devoted to the development of a theory of formal organization in the attempt to frame a conceptual scheme which may be a useful tool in the study or discussion of the problems of concrete organizations. With this fundamental scheme clearly set forth, the second half of the book will take up in greater detail the elements of formal organization, the relation to them of the executive functions, and finally the place of the executive functions in the survival of coöperation.

¹ The calculation of the possibilities is merely a complex exercise in permutations and combinations, and would produce quantities of astronomical magnitude. A faint indication is given on page 108 when only very small groups are under consideration.

CHAPTER II

THE INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATION

I have found it impossible to go far in the study of organizations or of the behavior of people in relation to them without being confronted with a few questions which can be simply stated. For example: “What is an individual?” “What do we mean by a person?” “To what extent do people have a power of choice or free will?” The temptation is to avoid such difficult questions, leaving them to the philosophers and scientists who still debate them after centuries. It quickly appears, however, that even if we avoid answering such questions definitely, we cannot evade them. We answer them implicitly in whatever we say about human behavior; and, what is more important, all sorts of people, and especially leaders and executives, act on the basis of fundamental assumptions or attitudes regarding them, although these people are rarely conscious that they are doing so. For example, when we undertake to persuade others to do what we wish, we assume that they are able to decide whether they will or not. When we provide for education or training we assume that without them people cannot do certain things, that is, that their power of choice will be more limited. When we make rules, regulations, laws — which we deliberately do in great quantities — we assume generally that as respects their subject matter those affected by them are governed by forces outside themselves.

The significance of these observations may be made clearer by noting the extreme differences of conception regarding the “individual” — to take one word — in discussions of coöperation and of organizations and their functions. On the one hand, the discrete, particular, unique, singular individual person with a name, an address, a history, a reputation, has the attention. On the other hand, when the attention transfers to the organization as a whole, or to remote parts of it, or to the integration of efforts accomplished by coördination, or to persons regarded in groups, then the individual loses his preeminence in the situation and something else, non-personal in character, is treated as dominant. If in such situations we ask “What is an individual?” “What is his nature?” “What is the character of his participation in this situation?” we find wide disagreement and uncertainty. Much of the conflict of dogmas and of stated interests to be observed in the political field — the catchwords are “individualism,” “collectivism,” “centralization,” “laissez-faire,” “socialism,” “statism,” “fascism,” “liberty,” “freedom,” “regimentation,” “discipline” — and some of the disorder in the industrial field, I think, result from inability either intuitively or by other processes to reconcile conceptions of the social and the personal positions of individuals in concrete situations.

These considerations suggest that in a broad inquiry into the nature of organizations and their functions, or in an effort to state the elements of the executive processes in organizations, a first step should be to set forth the position or understanding or postulates especially concerning the man, the “individual,” and the “person,” and related matters. Without such a preliminary survey it is quite certain that there will be unnecessary obscurity and unsuspected misunderstanding. This does not mean that I shall attempt either a philosophic or a scientific inquiry. It does mean that I must present a construction — a description or definite scheme — to which consistent reference is implied throughout this book.

Accordingly, in this chapter, I shall briefly discuss the following subjects: I, The status of individuals and the properties of persons generally; II, the method of treating individuals and persons in this book; III, certain characteristics of personal behavior outside coöperative systems; and IV, the meaning of “effectiveness” and “efficiency” in personal behavior.

I. CONCERNING, I, THE STATUS OF INDIVIDUALS AND II, THE PROPERTIES OF PERSONS

I

(a) First of all, we say that an individual human being is a discrete, separate, physical thing. It is evident that every one believes, or usually acts as if he did, in this individual physical entity. For other and broader purposes, however, it seems clear that no thing, including a human body, has individual independent existence. It is impossible to describe it, use it, locate it, except in terms of the rest of the physical universe or some larger isolation of it. For example, if the temperature of the environment changes, that of the thing or of the body must change (except within limits of adjustment biologically determined). Its weight is a function of gravitational attraction; its structure depends upon gravity both directly and indirectly. Thus at the outset we note that the human being, physically regarded, may be treated either as an individual thing or as a mere phase or functional presentation of universal physical factors. Which is “correct” depends upon the purpose. When the architect calculates the live-load capacities of his floor structures he is thinking of men not as individual human beings but as functions of gravitational attraction; other aspects of them he disregards.

(b) The mere body, however, whether for limited and practical purposes regarded as a physical object or regarded as a phase or function of general physical factors, is not a human being. As a living thing it possesses a power of adjustment, an ability to maintain an internal balance, and a continuity, despite incessant changes within and wide variations without itself. Moreover, it possesses a capacity of experience, that is, an ability to change the character of its adjustment as a result of its history. This means that the human body, viewed by itself, is an organism, something whose components are both physical and biological. Although the physical factors are distinguished from the biological they are not separable in specific organisms. In other words, living things are known by behavior, and all living behavior is a synthesis of both physical and biological factors. If either class of factors are removed, the specific behavior ceases to be manifest, and the physical form also undergoes changes that would otherwise not occur. But if a single organism is so composed, this means that it not only presents universal physical factors but also a long race history, so that the organism is an individual when we forget all these facts, and if we remember th...