For several months I have been studying the Est O System in operation and have finally isolated the exact points of any failures so they can be turned to successes.

An Est O returning to an org can crash it.

The exact reasons for this are:

A. The Execs who heretofore did organizational work say, “Ah, here’s the Est O System at last,” and promptly drop their organizational and personnel actions.

Yet here is this lone E Est O, no divisional Est Os, no one trained to support him.

The right answer is when an E Est O goes into an org where there are no Est Os or only a TEO or QEO, he must gather up the Execs and tell them it will take him weeks to recruit and train Est Os and that THEY MUST CONTINUE ANY ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIONS THEY ARE DOING and that the HAS IS STILL ESTABLISHING THE ORG.

Otherwise they let go their lines.

B. The new E Est O takes key production personnel from the divisions to be Est Os and they crash.

The answer to this is to RECRUIT the new Est Os.

This is easier than it looks if you recruit idle area Auditors to be Est Os.

If you do this remember that they went idle as auditors because they had out-Ethics, were PTS, had misunderstoods and out TR 0. To get them you do a 3 May 72 P/L, a 5 April 72 P/L, Method 4 on their Courses and make them do real TRs, especially Zero. And they’ll be ready.

You get a list of Area Auditors and contact them and do the above on them and you’ll have Est Os who are half trained already.

Failing this or in addition to it just plain recruit.

C. The first post a new E Est O should take is Dept 1.

He does NOT “hat the HAS” or “just do programs”. He rolls up his sleeves and WORKS as Director of Dept 1.

He recruits, he posts up Dept 1. He hats the hell out of Dept 1.

He makes a Department 1 that really really flows in personnel, puts up org bds and hats.

WHEN he has a Department 1 FUNCTIONING he can begin to recruit Est Os as well as other org staff.

If he can’t get a Dept 1 whizzing he has no business being an Est O, does he?

He does NOT put in Dept 2 or act as Dept 3. He makes the HAS handle these.

With a strong working Dept 1, an Est O System can then go in.

D. Musical Chairs is the commonest reason any org collapses.

A “new broom sweeps clean” complex will wreck any org.

An E Est O on arrival, taking over Dept 1 FREEZES ALL PERSONNEL TRANSFERS. He does not permit even one transfer.

The only exception would be where a musical chair insanity has just occurred. If this was followed by a stat crash then one REVERTS THE ORG TO THE UPSTAT PERIOD and then FREEZES PERSONNEL TRANSFERS.

But before one reverts one must Evaluate the earlier period by stats to be sure it WAS the upstat period.

By freezing personnel one protects what he is building.

Almost all musical chairing is the work of a suppressive except when it is the work of an idiot.

E. Anyone trying to hold Dept 1 in a personnel starved org is holding a hot seat as any HAS or Personnel Director can tell you.

Body traffic to this Dept in any medium sized org defies belief.

It looks like Grand Central Station at the rush hour.

“I have to have” “Where is my Cse Super” Etc Etc Etc is the constant chant.

You can spend the whole day interviewing staff execs and get nothing done.

There is a right way to do all these things and a billion wrong ways.

Obviously the answer to all their problems is to get and train new people. Yet how can one in all the commotion?

90% of these requests are from people who are not hatting and using the people they already have.

The right way is on any new personnel demanded one gets Dept 3 to do an Inspection and Report Form for people in the area of the exec doing the demanding. You will find very often unhatted, untrained and wasted personnel and many outnesses.

You hold the line on personnel by saying: “Handle these unutilized or half working staff or these outnesses. You are here on my procurement board as entitled to the (give priority, 3rd, 8th) person we hire or recruit.”

And get industrious in recruiting, using all standard actions for that is the only way things can be solved.

Most orgs would run better on less people because the personnel are not hatted or trained. One org, two years before this writing, made four times as much money on half the personnel it now has.

Unhatted, the staff is slow and uncertain. Unproducing, the Div heads demand little.

But they sure can scream for more personnel!

No org ever believes it is overmanned.

F. Some Divisions (like the usual Treasury or Dissem) can be undermanned. Key income posts most often are empty.

When one mans up an org one sets priorities of who gets personnel.

This is done by PRODUCTION paralleling. One mans up against production.

New people come in through Div VI. They are signed up by Div II. Delivery is done by Div IV. Money is collected by Div III. That gives you a sequence of manning up.

You man income and delivery posts with new hirings.

The E Est O is trying to get in a Dept 1 so of course he gives this a priority as well.

Until the Income is really rolling in and the delivery rolling out, one does very little about other areas.

Having gained VOLUME, one now begins to Man up for Quality. This means a Cramming and a WC Section in Qual. It means more HCO.

One now hits for future quantity by getting auditors in training, more upper execs in training.

When the org is so built and running and viable it is time the whole Est O System got manned up.

G. Every 5th person hired on an average should be put in Dept 1 as a Dept 1 extra personnel who does Dept 1 duties and trains part time as an Est O.

This gives the E Est O additional personnel in Dept 1.

It also begins an Est O right.

His most essential duties as an Est O are Dept 1 type duties.

You eventually have a bulging Dept 1. You have a basic Dept 1 that functions well and will continue so. You have the Est O trainees who are working in Dept 1 as Dept 1 personnel. And you have of course some new people who are HCO Expeditors until they get in enough basics for real regular posting.

This makes a fat Dept 1 and proves one can Est O!

If an E Est O introduces the Est O System exactly as above and in no other way, he will be a success.

Like an auditor varying processes or altering HCO Bs, a new E Est O who varies the above will bring about disaster.

Where E Est Os have gone into orgs other ways or where the system has been varied, stats have crashed.

By going in this way, as above, it can be a wild success.

How fast can you put in an Est O System? It takes months of hard work. It depends really on how good the E Est O is at recruiting, org bding and hatting.

If he’s good at these things the time does not stretch out to forever.

For comparison, it took half a year each to build DC, Johannesburg and SH to their highest peaks. They were all built from a Dept 1 viewpoint of recruiting, org bding and hatting hard enough to get production.

So this is the oldest pattern we have — Dept 1 evolves the org.

When the org gets too big Dept 1 loses touch. You extend it into each Div and you have the Est O System. And you have Est Os.

[See also HCO PL 9 May 1974. Prod-Org, Esto and Older Systems Reconciled, on page 446, which modifies the above Policy Letter.)