Intrigue disappears when the management quits looking for it, and assures everybody, by the general method of conducting the business, that there will be no chance to oust this or that man.  That each man will be retained in his place if he will but give reasonable application to the general interest of the organization and the particular work of his office.

The management does not “manage” if it perpetually changes its men.  It should bolster up the man who lacks self-confidence; it should puncture false ambitions, and it should use men as they are found in the organization.  It should not be inclined to “go back on” a man who has blundered or who has been found lacking in understanding.

It should not be over-ready to embrace a stranger just because his faults are not known.

The financial hazard of a business enterprise is greatly minimized by using men as they are found, and properly placing them at work or in offices for which they are qualified.

Unimportant Details.

We can neither regulate the complexity of our environment nor the number of problems which we must settle within a given time.  But we can improve the conditions very much by avoiding overconcentration on unimportant details.  The brain’s best time and energy should be reserved for our own immediate problems; it should not be hampered by details of others.

The various officers of an industrial organization should know the ins and outs of the thinking machine on which they depend for guidance.  With such knowledge each brain will give the greatest results, and without such knowledge the best brain may be untrustworthy.

One of the important characteristics of the mind is its tendency to lose sight of everything except the subject in mind.  One danger is dodged by jumping into another which we have not seen.  Both dangers were plainly in sight to any one who had not concentrated on one of them.

In the regular every-day business life, we seem to have ample time to consider each problem.  But in reality our great length of time is offset by a great number of elements to consider, and a more profound effect of long continued teaching or molding of our environment.

For years engineers have concentrated energies on the steam-engine of the reciprocating type.  The master-minds have made important improvements in the design, and many have given up their entire existence to the science of analyzing the effects of each variation in conditions of working the steam.

Our textbooks, our teaching, our observation all concentrated our attention on this type.

For some reason Gustav deLaval, followed by C.A.  Parsons and Nikola Tesla, broke away from this spell, and we have the steam turbine engine.  These individuals are endowed with master-minds, but the task of producing the turbines was probably no greater than the task of others in improving the reciprocating type.