There is an old term called „Completed Staff Work“ which we will now employ in order to reduce Dev T and increase speed of action.

The term „Completed Staff Work“ means-an assembled package of information on any given situation, plan or emergency forwarded to me sufficiently complete to require from me only an „Approved“ or „Disapproved“.

Here is what slows down approval and action and develops traffic: Somebody sends me a skimpy piece of information and demands a solution. As more information is required than is presented, I must then take over the person’s Hat and assemble the missing data using my own time and lines. I must then dream up a solution and then order an action to be taken. This causes a slow-down on any action, causes my lines, already loaded, to be used for information assembly and brings about a feeling of emergency. My pending basket overloads and confusion results. This would be called „Incomplete Staff Work“. It is incomplete because I have to complete it by:

1. Assembling the data necessary for a solution;

2. Dreaming up the solution based on written data only;

3. Issuing orders rather than approving orders.

If you are mad at your boss you can always ruin him with „Incomplete Staff Work“. You forward him a fragment of alarming data without collecting the whole picture. This makes him do a full job of information collection. You give him no recommended solution. This makes him have to achieve a solution by remote examination of data; such solutions are often wrong as they are made without full data. Then you make him issue arbitrary and forceful orders that may ARC break some area and hurt his reputation. That’s how to get even with a boss. And even if there’s no intention of harming him, sending „Incomplete Staff Work“ to your boss does harm him by making him send for information - getting despatches on already crowded lines, by making him guess at the situation, by making him cook up solutions which may be unreal, and by thrusting him into the role of an arbitrary tyrant.

Now that we’ve seen the negative side, let us examine the positive side.

„Completed Staff Work“ is an assembled despatch or packet which:

1. States the situation

2. Gives all the data necessary to its solution

3. Advises a solution; and

4. Contains a line for approval or disapproval by myself with my signature.

If documents or letters are to be signed as part of my action, they should be part of the package, all ready to sign, and each place they have to be signed is indicated with a pencil mark with a note in the recommendations saying signatures are needed.

Wrong example: A despatch from Canada saying „Central Organization here is spending large amounts“. Look what I now have to do. I have to find out what is meant by „large amounts“, who is doing it, if it is dangerous, figure out a way to curtail it and issue orders about it. None of this is my Hat. I am being forced to wear the Hat of the informing person.

Right example: I receive a packet (cable is no good and delays the situation’s being handled as many more cables will be needed). This packet is covered with a despatch which says:

„145CA. Central Organization here fast approaching insolvency. Data enclosed. I recommend: Director of Materiel be transferred to the post of Ext. Course Director that is now empty and that Jules Bentley be hired on the Dir. Mat. post at 25 units; that the Assn. Sec. be reprimanded for bad financial management and be ordered to budget his outgo; that a purchase order system be enforced; that a staff member ordering anything without permission have the item deducted from his pay; that the Dir. of PrR. be given lessons in letter writing.

Approved ___________ Disapproved ___________

Attached are copies of Ad Comm reports showing insolvency, a summary of amounts spent in last two months, a summary of income for last two months, a list of trivial items bought lately at high cost.

What I do then is check the approval line and sign. A cable is sent by my Communicator: „145CA2 OK best = Ron“. The whole packet is airmailed back. But you must ask in your despatch to have a cable reply if you consider it that urgent.

On receipt of the cable the HCO Sec Canada issues the local Sec EDs and takes the other needed actions.

Action could occur because the data, solutions and orders were all assembled as „Completed Staff Work“.

If you want to hold down your post or project don’t insist on my collecting the data you should collect, dream up the solution you, more familiar with the scene, should achieve, and don’t put me in a position of issuing unreal orders you can’t then carry out.

We are a big team and a good one. I know any error on this in the past has occurred because you didn’t know exactly what I wanted.

„Completed Staff Work“ is what I want. Then you have your Hat, you can do more to help, and our lines can stay freer and faster.

There have been good examples of this in the past. Let’s make the circumstances more general.

If you get the letters CSWP on an item it means „Complete the Staff Work, Please“.