characteristics listed by respondents as essential to a successful executive. Ability to work with people i s listed by more than twice as many executives as i s any other characteristic. Other highly prized qualities in the human re lations area are leadership ability, will ingness to listen to other people's ideas, and the ability to work with others. Spontaneously, separately, and without any prompting of any kind, the survey O p e r a t i o n s research r e v i e w e d a t Α Μ Α meeting respondents underscore the importance shows increasing p r o m i s e f o r t h e chemical industry of people. No questions were sked about people or human relations. T h e objective of the survey was to bility. He then measures the "disper C>HE:MICAL MANAGEMENT is becoming obtain a personal profile of the execu more and more interested in operations sion" or width of the probability dis tive, his immediate job, his career, his tribution of expected sales deterrnined research. This feeling was very evident educational preparation, his after-hours at American Management Association's by standard-deviation methods. Elec activities, his plans for the future, and recent New York conference on this tronic computers reckon the "Probabil how he feels about his job. About threewartime military development now be ity Budget" for optimum production fifths of the executives covered belong ing accroached by industry. (To gear whien fed with budget estimates and to top management; they are presi a company team for operations re with: dents, vice presidents, or other company search, see C&EN, June 25, 1956, page • Probable sales-forecast level and officers; company managers; or heads 3116.) of major divisions and departments. coefficient of variation. Considerable scepticism does still T h e "average" respondent works for • Cost of exceeding or falling short exist—largely to lack of understanding a company having 14,400 employees, is of supply of goods produced. about the subject. Nevertheless, O/R just over 45 years of age, and earns be formally serves such major companies tween $20,000 and $30,000 a year. A 5 to 10% cost reduction is fre in the chemical field as Monsanto, Earnings vary with age and with job quently possible in industrial applica Union Carbide, Olin Mathieson, Com tions of O/R, Philip M. Morse of MIT's level. More than half the survey re mercial Solvents, Chas. Pfizer, Eli Lilly, spondents started their careers in engi Computional Center pointed out. How U . S . Rubber, Goodrich, Esso (New Jer ever, even gains as low as 1 % are eco neering or other technical fields, sales, sey), Sohio, Atlantic Refining, and Sun or accounting, and tAVO-thirds of them nomically attractive. Military applica Oil—mostly for production and sales de tions, Morse explained, get more star now have moved on into broader fields. cisions. Industrial uses of O / R , ac tling results because the armed forces They have not, however, done much cording to a recent Case Institute sur are organized to collect extremely de moving from company to company. vey, break down like this: Three out of five are still working for tailed data and because they have had the company that gave them their first much wider experience with this statis executive job. Executives have worked tical method. Besides, war provides a rapidly changing environment—there is for their present companies more than • Production 29.5 16 years; within the company they have more room for improvement—and initial • Sales 16.6 averaged four different jobs. results from O / R are more striking. • Accounting 12.4 T h e more the executive is paid the Morse, also a trustee of The HAND • Executive 9.8 longer is his vacation—and the longer is Corp. which figured prominendy in • Transportation 7.8 pioneering efforts by the military along his working day. T h e top manage • Purchasing 7.8 this line, advised industry to consider ment men average more than three • Finance 7.3 weeks of vacation; the middle manage greater use of experimental techniques. • Human relations 4.1 ment men, less than two and a half. Wath more comprehensive data and • Advertising 3.6 through the use of "simulated situa Three out of four executives are col • Other 1.1 tions," electronic computers can, he lege graduates, and one out of four has feels, help develop O / R into one of done graduate work. However, the Robert W . Crawford of Monsanto's management's most potent tools. level of education varies sharply with plastics division feels that one of the age and position. Four out of five best new concepts provided b y O / R is among the men under 40 are college the "Probability Budget." This enables An Executive Profile graduates; only two out of five among the chemical businessman to calculate those over 60. Only half the presi risks more accurately. It covers all de Are people really the No. 1 dents went through college, as com cisive factors, including the problem of with 8 1 % of the middle man concern of the practicing ex pared additional costs resulting from over- or agers; more than a third of the men ecutive or is this just a bit of who got n o further than high school under-estimating future sales. propaganda dished up by earn more than $40,000'a year, while "The fundamental budget problem is that the future is uncertain," says Craw fewer than a tenth of the college grad the experts? ford. "Final demand cannot be fore uates have reached this bracket. cast with certainty nor can pipeline This is not an indictment of higher surges that take place between this final UDGING FROM the results of a new education, author Lydia Strong notes demand and raw materials be predicted survey, reported by The Management in her Management Review article, "but precisely." Review^ American executives are more a reflection of the fact that most of our Crawford divides a normal bell- people-centered than the most ardent current top earners started during a pe sjfiapgdncurve with a vertical line to human relations advocate would dare riod when a college degree was not so r e ^ g g n l S t h e level at which a sales to claim. Human relations abilities pre much of a prerequisite for business ac budget is t o b e set in terms of proba dominate overwhelmingly among the ceptance as it is today." •
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O / R Develops as Management Tool
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C&EN
OCT. 2 2. 1956
