This “HCO Bulletin” 21 Sept. 58 explains how a Scientology organization differs from “the industrial ideal.”
The industrial idea of organization is a cogwheel-type organization with each member of it totally fixed on post, doing only exact duties, with all cogwheels intending to mesh. The industrial idea does not differentiate between a machine and a human or live organization.
The product laws (Products 1, 2, 3 and 4 as given in this Org Series
HCO PL 29 Oct. 70 I, Org Series 10, THE ANALYSIS OF ORGANIZATION BY PRODUCT, also carries a mention of this difference between a live and a machine organization.
As the industrial idea has already been mentioned in this Org Series, and as this Org Series mainly applies to live (not machine) organizations, and as people tend to fall into a machine organization pattern (and also to use a live organization to not know their own specialty best) this earlier issue on live organization is published in full:
An organization is a number of terminals and communication lines united with a common purpose.
The actions of an organization can all be classified under the heading of particle motion and change. To analyze a post or a department or an organization, make a list of each particle it handles (whether types of bodies, types of comm or any other item) and follow each item from the point it enters the post or department or organization to the point it exits. If a particle isn’t handled properly and passed along properly there is a confusion or a dead end. To organize an organization requires more than theory. One has to inspect and list the particles and get their routes and desired changes of character en route. Then he has to see that terminals and comm lines exist to receive, change and forward the particle. All types of particles belong to somebody, are handled some way, come from somewhere and go somewhere. There are no confusions when lines, terminals and actions exist for each type of particle.
Judgment and decision are needed in every staff post. If the handling of items are just “petty details” then so is your fellow man a “petty detail.”
There are no laborers in a Scientology organization. We are all managers of these particles.
Routes of handling are not orders to handle but directions to go. A route is not necessarily correct for all cases. It is only correct for most cases. Robots can’t handle livingness. Robot organizations and robot civilizations fail. They only seem to work — like the commie empire seems to work until you find out everyone is starving to death in it. A perfect organization is not a machine but a pattern of agreements. A route is only the agreed upon procedure. It is not only occasionally broken, it now and then should be. The terminals involved make the agreement or the route doesn’t work. A route along terminals that never agreed is no route but a labyrinth. People agree to postulates they can understand and appreciate. Hence, a route and handling begins with a particle, develops with a theory, comes to life with an agreement and continues to work because of judgment and decision.
The routing, the comm lines, the pattern of an organization do not do the work. The work is done by living beings using good sense and skill. The organizational pattern only makes their work easier and lessens confusion and overburden. Governments, armies, big research bureaus reduce themselves down to routes and titles. They don’t work. They don’t do work. They allow for no human equation. Therefore, slave societies (composed only of routes and unthinking terminals) are always beaten eventually by free peoples. There is a point where routes and exact procedures become unworkable, just as there is a point, facing a volume of work, that individuality and no teamwork becomes unworkable. An optimum organization is never severely either one. Total individualism and total mechanization alike are impossible. So if you or your department or your organization seem to be too heavily inclined to either one, yell don’t talk. A bad organization will fire you and you can do something more profitable. A good organization will listen. BUT — always have a better idea than the one in use. Grumbling, refusing to work don’t work. A better idea, talked over with the terminals on either side of you, put down in concise writing, submitted, will be put into action in a good organization. Of course, there’s always a chance that the new proposed handling throws something out of gear elsewhere. If it does, you have the right to know about it.
An “organization” doesn’t get the work done. As an orderly plan it helps its terminals get the work done. The staff as individuals do the work. An organization can help or hinder getting the work done. If it helps, it’s good. If it hinders, it should be examined thoroughly.
An organization can work wholly at “taking in its own laundry.” All the work that gets done is the work generated inside the shop by unreal routes and weird changes of particles. This is a government circa mid-twentieth century. Its highest skill is murder which in its profundity it makes legal.
A totally democratic organization has a bad name in Dianetics and Scientology despite all this talk of agreement. It has been found by actual experiment (LA 1950) that groups of people called on to select a leader from among them by nomination and vote routinely select only those who would kill them. They select the talkers of big deeds and ignore the doers. They seem to select unerringly the men of average skill. That is never good enough in a leader and the people suffer from his lack of understanding. If you ever have occasion to elect a leader for your group, don’t be “democratic” about it. Compare records as follows: Take the person who is a good auditor, not just says he is. Take the person who has a good, not necessarily the highest, profile and IQ. Take the person who can grant beingness to others. And look at the relative serenity and efficiency of any past command he may have had. And even then you’re taking a chance. So always elect temporarily and reserve the right of recall. If his first action is to fire people, recall him at once and find another leader. If the organization promptly prospers, keep him and confirm the election by a second one. If the abundance of the organization sags in a month or so, recall and find another. Popularity is some criteria — but it can be created for an election only, as in the US. Select in an election or by selection as an executive the person who can get the work done. And once he’s confirmed, obey him or keep him. He’s rare. But beware these parliamentary procedure boys and girls who know all the legal and time wasting processes but who somehow never accomplish anything except chaos. A skilled, successful leader is worth a million impressive hayseeds. Democracies hate brains and skill. Don’t get in that rut. In the US War between the States militia companies elected their officers with great lack of success in battle. They finally learned after tens of thousands of casualties that it was skill not popularity that counted. Why be a casualty — learn first. Democracy is only possible in a nation of Clears — and even they can make mistakes. When the majority rules, the minority suffers. The best are always a minority.
Anything in an organization is your job if it lessens the confusion if you do it.
Your being exactly on post and using your exact comm lines lessens confusion. But failure to wear another hat that isn’t yours now and then may cause more confusion than being exactly on post.
The question when you see you will have to handle something not yours is this: “Will it cause less confusion to handle it or to slam it back onto its proper lines?”
Example: A preclear wandering around looking for somebody to sell him a book. You see him. The book sales clerk isn’t there. The books are. Now what’s the answer? You’ll create a little confusion if you hand him a book, take his money and give it to the book sales later. You’ll create confusion for your own post and the organization if you go chasing around trying to find “book sales terminal.” You’ll create a feeling of unfriendliness if you don’t help the preclear get his book. Answer it by deciding which is less confusing. You’ll find out by experience that you can create confusion by handling another’s particles but you will also discover that you can create confusion by not handling another’s particles on occasion.
The only real error you can make in handling another’s particles is to fail to tell him by verbal or written comm exactly what you did. You stole his hat for a moment. Well, always give it back.
Remember, in a Scientology organization every Scientologist on staff potentially wears not just his own but every hat in the organization. He has to know more jobs than his own. Particularly jobs adjacent to his post. He often has to do more jobs than his own because those jobs have to be done and he sees it. A non-Scientology member of an organization is only limited in what he can do in the organization by lack of know-how. But the limitation is applicable only to instruction and auditing. But a Scientologist: he may find himself wearing any hat in the place including mine. And others may now and then wear his hat.
A staff member gets the job done of (1) his own post, (2) his department and (3) the whole organization.
People who are always off-line and off-post aren’t doing their own jobs. When we find somebody always off-post and in our hair, we know if we look at his post we’ll find a rat’s nest. So there are extremes here as well.
Your hat is your hat. It is to be worn. Know it, understand it, do it. Make it real. If it isn’t real, it is your fault since you are the one to take it up and get it clean with an executive. If he doesn’t straighten it up so you can do it, it’s still your fault if it’s not done.
You hold a job in a Scientology organization by doing your job. There are no further politics involved — at least if I find out about it there aren’t. So do your job and you’ve got a job. And that’s the way it is.
But on post or off, we only fail when we do not help. The “public” only objects to us when we fail to help or when we fail to answer their questions. So we have two stable data on which we operate whether we’re on post or not:
HELP PEOPLE!
ANSWER PEOPLE’S QUESTIONS EXACTLY!
When you don’t you let everybody down.
A part of everyone’s hats is keeping a good mock-up in people, offices, classrooms, quarters.
Keep your desk and your MEST neat and orderly. It helps.
And when you see things getting broken down or run down or dirty, fix them or clean them or if you can’t, yell like hell on the right comm line.
The despatch system is not there to plague you but to help you.
Except when you’ve got to have speed, never use an interoffice phone to another terminal. And never write a despatch and present it and you at some other point at the same time. That’s “off-line” just as a phone is “off-line.” A good use of the organization’s lines reduces confusion. The other guy is busy, too. Why interrupt him or her unnecessarily with routine that should go on the lines? You’ll usually get an answer in the same day or at least in 24 hours. The organization’s comm lines are pretty good. They make it possible for this small handful of us to get more things done in this society than any other organization on Earth in terms of actual accomplishment.
A comm line can be jammed in several ways. Principal of these is entheta. Ask yourself before it goes on the lines — it’s bad news but is it necessarily important? Another is overburden. Too much traffic jams a line. Too long a despatch doesn’t get read. Another is too little data. That can jam a line but thoroughly. It takes more despatches to find out what goes. Another way is to bypass the line itself — this jams the terminal. The final way, in broad classes, to jam a comm line is to put erroneous data on it.
The last is a pet hate of Scientology people. Generally its form is “everybody knows.” Example: “They say that George is doing a bad job,” or “Nobody liked the last newsletter.” The proper rejoinder is “Who is Everybody?” You’ll find it was one person who had a name. When you have critical data omit the “everybody” generality. Say who. Say where. Otherwise, you’ll form a bad datum for somebody. When our actions are said to be unpopular, the person or persons saying so have names.
A post in a Scientology organization isn’t a job. It’s a trust and a crusade. We’re free men and women — probably the last free men and women on Earth. Remember, we’ll have to come back to Earth someday no matter what “happens” to us. If we don’t do a good job now, we may never get another chance.
Yes, I’m sure that’s the way it is.
So we have an organization, we have a field we must support, we have a chance.
That’s more than we had last time night’s curtain began to fall on freedom. So we’re using that chance.
An organization such as ours is our best chance to get the most done. So we’re doing it!