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|
Study of Delegation |
A
Study of Delegation of Authority
in Local Administration
by William J. Ferree, SM
1. Good Father Kieffer once made the statement that the Society of Mary has the best organization in the Church, and that its legislation also is one of the most complete and enlightened among religious societies, but that its administration is one of the worst. Making allowance for a certain amount of exaggeration in what was obviously a pleasantry, it still remains true that we have neglected, to a very large extent, the remarkable resources for good administration which were left to us by Father Chaminade.
2. One of the best indications of this neglect is the recurrent “crisis of leadership” that plagues Provincial and General Superiors when new Directors or Provincial officers must be named. An effective administration would supply a reserve of men ready for authority, and the fact that we seem to lack such a reserve indicates clearly that our administration is not really as effective as it should be.
3. Again, Directors and other Superiors are continually complaining that they had no more preparation for their present responsibilities than the obedience which notified them of their appointment; and there are frequent requests for some kind of “formation” for executive work. Here, once more, we have an indication that our methods of administration are inadequate, for a good administration would constantly be preparing people to move up on the ladder of responsibility.
4. There is a general and growing
dissatisfaction with our present methods of administration, and the General Chapter of 1956
received numerous proposals of reform. These proposals were, for the most part, turned over to the
General Administration, although one of them concerning the office of Chef d’Instruction in the local
administration became Statute 9 of the Chapter. Another concerning the office of Chef de Zèle in the
Provincial Administration was recommended for action in a Circular to the various Provincials. All the
others will form an object of extended study and experimentation by the General Administration during
the years which will precede the next Chapter where definitive proposals are to be presented.
5. One of the principal points that need attention is the effective delegation of authority in both the Provincial and local administrations, and this problem is particularly acute on the local level. It is the lack of such effective delegation which is most to blame for our failure to train executive personnel, for the best school of administration is always the work of administration itself. 6. It is surprising that this misunderstanding of the delegation of authority should have arisen in the Society of Mary, because the organization of administration in the “Three Offices” is a constitutional provision aimed at preventing just such a development. Father Chaminade thought so much of this device that when he wrote to Pope Pius VII for spiritual favors for his two Societies, it was this aspect of his organizations which he pointed out as their esprit principal. (Letters 110, 111)
6. It is surprising that this misunderstanding of the delegation of authority should have arisen in the Society of Mary, because the organization of administration in the “Three Offices” is a constitutional provision aimed at preventing just such a development. Father Chaminade thought so much of this device that when he wrote to Pope Pius VII for spiritual favors for his two Societies, it was this aspect of his organizations which he pointed out as their esprit principal. (Letters 110, 111)
7. As a matter of fact, it is a very powerful administrative device, especially when coupled, as it is in the Society of Mary, with a strongly centralized authority. The strong centralization offers the Society the opportunity of facing successfully almost any kind of problem or crisis, while the delegation of authority to the specialized competence of the three Offices gives the Society tremendous resources for growth and development in normal circumstances.
8. It is the desire of the General
Administration, responding to numerous requests from all parts of the Society, to make
effective delegation according to the lines set down in the Constitutions a normal part
of the administration of our houses.
9. It is important to emphasize here
that we are talking of a delegation of authority which is strictly according to our Constitutions.
Father Chaminade made a complex and coherent synthesis of two principles—intense centralization of
authority on the one hand; and distribution of responsibility according to a competence on the
other—which many people prefer (perhaps out of a certain mistrust of complexity) to regard as
incompatible.
10. Far from being incompatible, these two
principles complete each other in a powerful and obvious synthesis. The link between them is
delegation which is not in any sense an abandonment of central authority, but a means, a most
efficacious one, of exercising it.
11. It is the superior who determines to
what extent he will use these means, and hence it remains completely under his jurisdiction.
Yet it is not completely subject to his whim: he is obliged by the Constitutions to use it according
to the complexity of his task, and when he fails to do so, he is simply a poor superior. We will spend
no more time in this circular “defending” a principle that is not in question: “The Director always
keeps the first and principal responsibility for the exercise of the three offices”; (Art. 491) and
everything which follows (in this circular, i.e.) has this principle quite clearly in mind.
12. In the first studies that have been made of
failures of delegation, it has become apparent that the difficulty lies not only in the unwillingness
of many Superiors to “share” their authority, but also in the unwillingness of many subordinates to
accept responsibility. Other cases have been found where there was a real and honest effort made on
both sides to work out an effective delegation, and despite the good will of both parties, it did not
work. This last is the most serious situation, for it indicates the absence of those essential ideas
and methods which make the delegation of authority possible. Only thus can we explain failure to achieve
success despite evident good will and effort on both sides.
13. The General Administration has asked the Office
of Instruction to assume responsibility for studying this problem and making recommendations to me about it.
One of the results of the study will be a series of circulars from the Second Office on principles and
techniques of administration. This first of these circulars will deal especially with the instruments
provided by our Constitutions to make delegation work effectively.
14. It must be understood from the beginning that real
delegation of authority is quite impossible without some means of assuring practical unity among all those
who share in the direction of an establishment. If these means of arriving at practical unity of action do
not exist or are not properly used, it is inevitable that those to whom authority is delegated will sooner
or later act in ways contrary to the mind of the Superior, and the latter will feel himself obliged to
“correct” the situation. Obviously, if he has not been using the means necessary to achieve unity of action,
he will also lack the means of bringing about changes while still respecting the responsibility of his
subordinates; and he has no recourse except direct personal intervention.
15. Once he thus reassumes directly a responsibility
which he himself had delegated, it is quite certain that delegation is at an end. The subordinate is
unwilling to accept further delegation if he thinks it has no real meaning, and even if he is given
authority anyhow, he will hesitate to assert it.
16. Thus it is quite clear that some kind of
continual contact between the ultimate Superior and the delegated one must be maintained to preserve
unity of direction, yet this contact cannot be of such directness that it seems to render the delegation
of authority an empty gesture or pretense.
17. The only way in which this can be done in an habitual
and persevering way is by the effective use of executive councils. Our Constitutions provide for at least
weekly or biweekly meetings of the Domestic Council (Art. 495) and for a weekly general meeting called the
Conference on Order (Art. 500). Finally, they call for a personal interview at least once a month (Art. 66)
with each member of the community, including, of course, those to whom authority has been delegated.
These instruments with others that will be indicated are more than adequate to make an effective delegation
of authority possible, but they must be used in a truly executive way if they are to serve their purpose.
It is quite possible to have weekly meetings of the House Council which work quite conscientiously, but which
are not executive at all. We will consider some of the qualities that would make a House Council a
truly executive instrument.
18. Before proceeding to this task, it will be well to
correlate this circular with Good Father Simler’s “Instruction on the Councils of Particular Houses.” That
instruction is much more general in intent than the present one. It applies equally well to houses so small
that the “Council” coincides with the “Conference on Order”—i.e., the whole community is in both! The present
circular, however, refers directly to houses large and complex enough to make real delegation of
authority a normal means of governing.
19. The greatest apparent difference is in the large place
given to “current affairs” in Father Simler’s Instruction and the small time allotted to “day-to-day administration”
in this. As a matter of fact, Father Simler does not make a distinction between “Policy making” and “Day-to-Day administration,”
and a very large part of what he calls “current affairs” is actually in the broader realm of policies and purposes.
20. Where real differences do exist they are intended to reflect
real advances in the techniques of administration since Father Simler’s time, and real changes in the complexity of our work.
No theories of administration can remain unchanged since the development of “scientific management.”
21. Now for some of the characteristics of a truly executive Council in the 20th Century.
22. The House Council must be responsible. A House Council which is truly
executive in character should contain no “honorary” members who are there only because of their age or their personal
acceptability to the Director. Every member should be there because he caries a definite part of the responsibility
of the house and he should contribute to the Council those things which are within his responsibility and competence.
If the Superior General appoints other members (Art. 494) on the recommendation of the Provincial, their
responsibilities should be clearly determined.
23. If the Council contains nonresponsible or “honorary” members,
it is very easy for it to degenerate into general and scattered “remarks” without real responsibility.
The single exception to this rule is that the official “Admonitor” of the community, who ordinarily should not be
identified with the administration, may profitably assist at Council meetings as a special “nonadministrative”
representative of the community; contributing the interests and attitudes of the community to the discussions,
but without deliberative voice.
24. The division of responsibility represented by a truly
executive composition should be complete; that is, every major aspect of the work of the institution should be
clearly assigned to one or the other of the responsible members. In general, as few things as possible should
be left to the direct responsibility of the President of the Council: everything in the ordinary conduct of
the establishment’s work should belong directly to some subordinate office before it can require his attention.
The great exception to this rule is the one outlined in the Statute 9 of the last General Chapter—the personal
welfare of the members who make up his community. This could refer not only to the religious aspect of their life,
but also to their “personal problems” of their life, and to their “working conditions”—things which ordinarily do
not clearly fall within only one of the three traditional offices. Thus, many questions of personal relations and
personal formation could conceivably fall in both the first and second offices, and most “working conditions”
hich have strong personal repercussions could fall in both the second and third offices. This rather ambiguous
situation of questions of personal necessities and well-being of the religious tends to bring about a certain
neglect of such questions. Hence it is in place that the Director after having clearly assigned the work of the three
Offices to his subordinates would retain personal control of these important but often forgotten matters. He must also
necessarily retain a direct interest in the ultimate mission of the institution, which will always be religious
and apostolic.
25. A truly responsible Council will not spend all its time
in matters of immediate day-to-day administration. In fact, such day-to-day matters should form a very small part
(not much more than 10 percent) of the time of the Council meeting. They should normally be taken care of in a
routine manner by the various responsible offices outside the Council and they can be brought to the attention
of the other responsible officers much better in written memoranda than in verbal “announcements” and
“observations” which take up the important time of the meetings.
26. The major part of the meetings should deal with the
principal purposes of the institution and the broad policies that realize these purposes; with a running
criticism and analysis of the institution’s effectiveness in one aspect after another of its operation; and
with the administrative formation of the responsible members. This formation is given especially by presenting
actual problems of the institution’s operation to the responsible member of the Council in whose department they fall.
The effort necessary to study and suggest solutions for these problems in the presence of the other responsible
officers of the institution is intensely formative, since suggestions of the Director and the other officers come
at a time when the responsible member is deeply and publicly concerned with the matters under his jurisdiction.
27. In the small part of the meeting which is devoted to immediate
day-to-day administrative affairs, only certain items should be permitted; that is, such items as really interest the
whole Council. All others, as mentioned above, are better handled within the responsible offices and communicated by
memoranda or by notices on the bulletin board. These items which do interest the whole Council are the following:
(1) The working out of new programs which have not yet been given
clear policies of operation. It will be noticed that this really amounts to a sort of empirical working out of policies
for such programs.
(2) Matters which the responsible officer himself wishes to present
for discussion since he does not see clearly enough according to established policies, he should simply make the decision
without bothering the other officers and communicate the result by written memorandum to anyone who needs to know it.
Copies of these memoranda sent in a routine manner to the Director’s office will keep him adequately informed of
subordinate decisions and permit him to judge their adequacy.
(3) Matters in which the Director or another responsible
member of the Council feels that a mistake is being made. Normally, no subordinate member will thus bring
up in open meeting his criticisms of another member’s conduct of his own office. Rather, he will follow the
spirit of the Constitutions which indicate that such matters should be brought to the Director, and that
the Director is the one who puts them on the agenda of the meeting and proposes them for discussion.
Once the matter has thus been opened by the Director, the member of the Council who feels that a mistake
is being made will evidently have his chance to state his views along with the views given by the others.
28. Once more, outside of these three kinds of matter,
the day-to-day details of administration of the institution belong in the responsible offices, and not in the Council.
29. It is impossible to have a truly executive Council without a
carefully prepared agenda set up by the Director and distributed to the Council members a considerable
time in advance of the meeting itself. Only thus will each Council member who is directly responsible
have a chance to prepare his stand on the items of the agenda, while the other members can prepare
themselves, both to respect the responsibility of the office to which the affair belongs, and
still to offer their serious counsel to the responsible member.
30. For a Council to be truly
executive, it must be held regularly and at frequent intervals. In a large establishment
a weekly Council meeting is constitutional and it should be placed as closely as possible
to the beginning of the natural division of the week’s work. It might well be held on
Sunday afternoon or evening or sometime during the day of Monday.
31. A well-prepared Council
which is truly executive should be able to accomplish its work within an hour,
and might even take less. If it drags out, this will be because the Director does
not hold discussion to the agenda, or because the members have not prepared their
contribution. Until the Council is forged into a real “team,” such dragging out may
be necessary, for to stop inexperienced members from “rambling” might give them the
impression that their contribution is not wanted or appreciated.
32. Normally, unanimity is arrived
at in the discussion without a formal vote. A vote should be taken only when the
Director himself thinks that the matter is of sufficient importance that he has to
have a record of the Council’s support (e.g., in obligatory matters of the Council
according to the Constitutions), or when one or more members of the Council demand
a vote after it becomes evident that the discussion is not producing the necessary
unanimity. In these latter cases, once the vote is taken the dissenting members
consider it an obligation to follow the will of the Council. If the Director himself
thinks that the decision is a poor one, he should give his reasons and call for
further consideration of the matter at the next meeting, or at a special meeting
if the matter is urgent.
33. Although a vote may be a fairly
unusual thing in the Council, it has great importance when it does occur, and the Council
should be so constituted that a clear-cut decision always results; that is, there should be
an even number of Councilors (usually divided evenly between priests and Brothers), with the
Director forming an odd number. Thus when the mind of the Council is evenly divided, the
Director’s vote is decisive and the administration can act with the necessary unity. If the
membership is even, the Director’s vote counts as two.
* * *
34. The Domestic Council, although
it is the principal executive meeting, is by no means the only one. The next important
instrument is the Conference on Order which forms a kind of legislative “assembly” to work
side by side with the “senate” whose functions are performed by the Domestic Council.
The Conference on Order is a weekly affair according to the Constitutions and it might well
be held toward the middle of the week marked off by the Domestic Councils, for example on
Thursday afternoon or evening. The conference, according to the Constitutions (Art. 502),
can have several different modalities of meeting: the whole assembly, or various parallel
specialized meetings. These specialized meetings can be differently divided according to
different needs as the conference tackles problems of studies, discipline, extracurricular
activities, civic formation of the students, spiritual formation, etc. The agenda is
ordinarily largely determined by the previous meeting of the Council.
35. The principal point to keep
in mind is the same one noted above for the Council; no matter how the community is
divided for purposes of the conference, the division should always be a responsible
one, and every member of the conference should be representing certain definite
interests for which he is responsible.
36. Evidently there will be much
more room for discussion and free exchange of ideas in the conference than in the Council,
but the Director must see to it that the discussion keeps close to the agenda and that it
moves forward fruitfully, without being monopolized by certain more extroverted members,
or becoming a “free for all” of casual suggestions and remarks outside one’s own responsibilities.
37. As much as possible, the Director should
arrange for problems to be set forth in a preliminary exposition by a member of the community
responsible for their solution, rather than monopolize the floor himself. The Director would
tend to reserve for himself those matters noted above which deal directly with the personal
welfare of the community and the overall mission of the Institution.
*** * * * *** *** This would give a Council of six members
plus the Director, which is of manageable size and which covers the entire ground of the institution’s
operation. Normally, the two chaplains and the head of the superior education would be priests
and the other three would be Brothers.
42. All the operations of the school,
such as parent-teachers associations, fund-raising efforts, scholarship administration,
laboratory and library equipment, testing program, etc., etc., should be assigned clearly
to the officer most closely connected with them.
* * * 43. To preserve lines of
specialization in the Conference on Order, perhaps once a month the Conference on
Order could unite the whole house in a single “Assembly” which deals with the most
general problems and developments of the institution’s life: broad questions of
pedagogy, general policies of discipline, relations of the whole institution with the
public, level of excellence at which the institution aims, etc. The other three
meetings of the month could best be assigned to specialized “committees” which
meet either at the same time or successively according to necessity. Examples of
such groupings are as follows: 1) In each level of
instruction (primary, middle, superior) the responsible head plus the professors
and prefects could discuss problems affecting their section as a whole. 2) Another possibility
would be to have all the professors meet together in one meeting, and all the
prefects in a separate meeting, one to discuss studies, the other questions of
discipline and student welfare. 3) Another possibility
would be that the business and financial administrators could meet with all the heads of
budgeted operations, such as the laboratory, library, fund-raising groups, audio-visual
custodian, maintenance man, etc. 4) Another possibility
is to divide all the professors into “departmental” meetings according to their
specialties—language teachers, historians, science teachers, philosophy and
religion, etc. 5) In addition
to these groupings of routine functions of the institution there could also be
volunteer groupings to discuss certain more specialized problems such as sodality,
recruitment, parent-teacher relations, sports, etc. 44. All of these meetings
would be careful to keep clear and usefully complete records of their proceedings
and decisions; and these should gradually be codified into a unified statement of
the school’s purposes, policies, and methods, after being accepted formally by the
Council. * * * 45. Once the responsibilities
in a community have been distributed, a chart of organization should be drawn up
showing the attributions in each office and the inter-relationships between offices.
This chart of organization should be subject to constant revision as the discussions
of the Council and the Conference bring weaknesses to light. * * * 46. A much more detailed
description of the attributions of each office should be drawn up in at least a
series of headings. These headings could be given decimal numbers so that they
can be indefinitely amplified and extended. As policies are worked out together and
decisions are made, these could be entered into the index of organization under the
proper heading so that the administration would have a cumulative record of all
decisions, policies, and procedures. 47. Examples
of these different administrative organs and aids will be appended to this study. * * * 48. It is important in any
distribution of authority and closely integrated administration that all the members
have a clear conception both of their attributions and of how their own authority and
responsibility is circumscribed by the attributions of others. It is only too easy,
when people have not been used to the distribution of responsibility, to encounter a
kind of “dictatorship from below” when division of responsibility is first attempted.
People who have not lived in the intimate interplay of influence of a good administration
have the idea that all authority means nothing if it is not absolute. Thus they resist
not only abusive interferences in their responsible field of action, but even the normal
interplay of counsel by which alone a real social direction can be accomplished. Normally,
these naïve and oversimplified theories of authority readily decrease with practical experience
of governing collectively, but in those cases where such intransigent ideas of authority persist,
there is no remedy except to substitute such people in government with others who have a more
open mind. If they are allowed to continue in posts of responsibility, they cause such endless
discussions over imagined “interference” that there really is no time left for real administration. 49. It must be recognized from the beginning
that it is impossible to outline once for all the attributions of the various offices that must
collaborate in administration. These attributions are constantly expanding as the administration
gets a better grip on its job, and they are constantly changing with changing processes and circumstances.
Hence some provision must be made for a continuing revision and codification of each office’s attributions. 50. Moreover, it should be understood that a
list of activities proper to a single office has for its object to allocate real responsibility to
that office—it never can attempt to delineate an exclusive field of action. There will always be
vital contacts and intermingling of action between related offices. What is important is that at
all times those who are thus cooperating know where the real responsibility rests. People who are
continually preoccupied with exclusivity of action at the expense of cooperation are not fit for
office and should be replaced. 51. With these preliminary remarks,
we might attempt to indicate how a description of the attributions of an office might look.
This description might well follow certain general lines which would be the same for all offices,
thus making possible an easy codification of activities and easy comparison between those of related
offices. A ten-point list which covers the ground might be something like the following: 0 – Name of the office or function:
this would 1 – The elaboration of policies and the 2 – Evaluation of the effectiveness of 3 – Records of the office and of its operation. 4 – Personnel formation and personnel 5 – Responsibilities shared with other offices; 6 – The ordinary and direct responsibilities of 7 – Occasional or provisional responsibilities 8 – Integration and coordination of 9 – Supervision of the internal administration 51. Evidently with this kind of division
it would suffice to begin with the Director’s office to work everything out, for all the other
offices would be enumerated under point 9 of the Director’s office, and themselves would be further
subdivided according to the same plan. 52. For purposes of convenience, however,
it is better to determine a certain number of highest executive positions (“policy making officers”)
which are given independent treatment. These major executive positions should completely cover the
whole life of the institution, but should be kept to a small number, usually seven or less, which
permits a real and effective executive council. One such division was suggested above on pages 11 and 12.
This division could now be numbered as follows: 0 – The Institution itself. 1 – The Director. 2 – Chaplain of the community 3 – Chaplain or spiritual director of the 4 – Academic director. (To the public: 5 – Director of student services and discipline. 6 – Financial or business officer. 7 – Chief of maintenance and operations. The first three of these officers could well be priests
and the second three Brothers. Moreover, there are two possibilities for further delegation of power
in very large institutions: 8 – The Academic office can be doubled when the institution comprises
more than one clearly defined section, as, for example,
9 – A special office for public relations and 53. Each of these offices would then be
developed according to the ten points previously outlined. This would immediately give from 80
to 100 titles which would indicate rather clearly the work that would have to be done to distribute
adequately the entire operation of the institution. Under each of the 10 titles referring to the
division of each office or function, subordinate points might be developed which would further
guide the analysis of the office and the assignment of responsibility. If all of these titles are
worked together into a single list which could be numbered decimally so as to permit indefinite
expansion, each institution could readily draw up over the course of the years a complete blueprint
of its operations so that all changes of personnel could readily fit into the operation already established. 54. This ability to substitute frequently without
disrupting the operation of the institution is very important and it is to be expected that there would be a
continual movement in the assignment of officers to the various posts, not only because of normal changes in the
community, but also because people who have shown executive ability will continually be moving up the ladder to
higher responsibilities and those who show themselves unfit for executive responsibility will give place to others
who will be given a chance to prove themselves. 55. Evidently, a distribution of power based on such a
rational scheme would offer distinct advantages to younger people who would generally move upward through it to
posts of local or even major Superiors, since all along the line they would be learning how to analyze and distribute
power in a rational and orderly fashion. * * * 56. It is important in a really cooperative
administration where authority is widely delegated that the theory of religious obedience
should be realistic and clear. There exists in some Provinces a kind of “mystique” of obedience
which has very curious results. The first principle of this rather poetic view of obedience is
that the Superiors are always right and that their decisions are always perfect. Strangely enough,
however, the people who maintain this always make an exception for whatever Superiors actually exist,
and they are very bitter in their disappointment at the fact that the actual Superiors do not measure
up to their theory. Where this attitude is widespread, there easily arises a spirit of passive criticism
which makes no effort whatever to correct the difficulties which are the subjects of the complaints.
It is fairly easy to see how this curious and completely passive criticism could arise if one believes
that absolutely everything must be done by Superiors and that the present Superiors do not possess this
normal omnipotence and infallibility. 57. Of course, the mistake is in the major premise—
that Superiors are always completely capable and intelligent. As a matter of fact, they are just as human as
anybody else and are subject to exactly the same human limitations. The so-called doctrine of blind obedience
does not maintain that the orders of Superiors are always objectively the best—what it does maintain is that
it is objectively better to follow them even when they seem to include, as they often do, rather obvious
shortcomings. The spirit of faith does not need a supernatural infallibility and competence in Superiors.
It is sufficient for it that God has chosen to confide authority to the exercise of human instruments.
The realistic view of faith is that if God has confided authority to men, then it is his evident will that
from time to time some rather stupid orders should be obeyed, since there are very few human beings who
escape stupidity for long periods of time, and they are not changed much by being placed in posts of authority. 58. What we must look for, then, in our Superiors is
not omnipotence and infallibility, but rather prudence; and this prudence though it is evidently guided by
divine prudence, is still essentially human and subject to human shortcomings. 59. The great truth about the value of obedience
even in difficult circumstances is this: a well-disciplined and competent army can frequently win
battles even though the general direction leaves something to be desired, but the greatest military
genius of all times, even at its most brilliant moment, could win no battles without a competent and
disciplined army. The great force of a social body is in its membership, not in its direction.
It is true that when a competent and disciplined membership is also blessed with great leadership,
extraordinary achievements can result, but these are rare and spectacular events in the long course
of history, and truly great leaders are far apart. 60. We could go a little more deeply into the
understanding of the mutual relations of authority and obedience, and we will see immediately why the
above considerations are true. 61. By its very nature, authority is for the
general good. Its field of action is a broad one and its competence lies in the ability to grasp and
to manage general factors. On the other hand, obedience works in a much more limited and specialized
field, and within this field can aspire to a technical competence which authority can never possess
without abandoning its own proper mission. Thus, authority and obedience are always in partnership and
there is real initiative and responsibility on both sides. It is to be expected that no general order can
ever apply perfectly to all the different circumstances which it tries to cover—in this sense all human
orders are more or less stupid. But this is no defect because the specialized competence of those who obey
is able, from its much more exact understanding of particular circumstances, to apply the general order
in a constructive way that makes it fruitful. People who profess to obey blindly and mechanically the
orders that come from above are really not obedient, for obedience is always responsible. In fact, one
of the cleverest ways of sabotaging authority is precisely to obey it in a blind and mechanical way without
making any responsible application of the general order to the particular circumstances which lie within
one’s own field of competence. Thus in a very real sense, no command ever applies directly to circumstances.
It reaches these circumstances in an intelligent manner only through the responsible collaboration
of those who obey. 62. Many people fear that if they distribute
responsibility and work regularly through their executive councils, they will lose direct control of
the works of which they are in charge. Actually, quite the opposite is true. They soon discover that they
are in control of the community in a much more profound and fruitful way than could ever have been possible
while they were trying to carry the whole burden singlehandedly. 63. The fact is that their direct control is transferred
from countless petty details of passing importance to the really great issues of administrative control: the
purposes and policies of the institution, the broad lines of its development, a real grasp on the efficacy of
its operation and the excellence of its product, determination of its place in the community which it serves,
and last but not least, a decisive influence on the formation of all the members of the community, especially
those who are more capable. All these things which are of supreme importance are very easily lost sight of or
left to chance or routine if the Director attempts to spread his attention immediately over the whole operation
of his institution; yet it is precisely these important things which make up the very meaning of “direction” in
its profoundest sense. 64. We might well consider for a moment the role of the
Director as a former of men. The very complaints which we hear on all sides about lack of preparation for the
exercise of authority are proof that our present methods of administration are not truly formative. 65. It should be immediately evident that an administration
such as has been described in these pages would have a very great formative role on all the members of the Council,
and through this formation of the principal officers of the community, a further formative role on all those who
work under these chief officers. Moreover, the Director will have abundant time for arranging a really serious
program of personal direction to complement the influence of the actual exercise of authority. This direction,
closely linked to the function which each member exercises in the community and aimed at increasing his understanding
and responsibility for his mission, will be much more effective than the more general and casual interviews which
are at present the rule when the Director can find time for them. 66. The Director’s greatest service to his collaborators
in the community is to bring them to a consciousness of their own latent powers. The French philosopher,
Lavelle, has well said that “The greatest good that we can do to others is not to communicate to them our
own riches, but to lead them to discover their own.” It is the business of the Director to awaken and to
direct the energies of his collaborators in the common task. 67. To awaken a true collaboration in others is a
much more difficult task than simply to give them orders; it always takes longer to lead one’s collaborators
to discover responsible solutions and work them out together than it does to impose an easy solution from on top.
But it is much more fruitful to carry our responsibilities with our collaborators than to carry these same
responsibilities for them, and the Director must always resist the temptation that he will get things done
quicker and better if he does them himself. 68. It is true enough that a “strong” and
authoritarian leader can produce external results that are sometimes surprising. What is not seen so
readily is that he leaves in his wake a number of subordinates who have given up all idea of exercising
a responsibility has been denied them. 69. Cardinal Suenens in his remarkable book
L’Eglise en état de mission has a paragraph which expresses all this very well. “Of course, control
is indispensable. Yet to control does not mean to restrain but rather to stimulate, to channel, to
encourage. To control does not mean to substitute oneself for others; on the contrary, it is the art
of not doing things oneself but of getting others to do them; of not eclipsing or extinguishing, but
rather vivifying and enlarging the action of others. In order to have success in a common work, it is
necessary that each one feel engaged, responsible, fully active, and giving a willing cooperation to the common task.” 70. Such an administration as has been outlined above
will accomplish these ends at the same time that it brings to the direction of the work itself the
accumulated wisdom and skill of the whole community rather than the resources of a single man.
A Director who can look back on such achievements will certainly feel that he has been more in
control of his work than one who has frantically tried to carry the whole burden of an
institution himself with his own limited resources. William J. Ferree, SM
First Office:
(a) Chaplain for the community;
(b) Chaplain or spiritual director
for the students
Second Office:
Here are the two possibilities:
There might be:
a) one man as head of all
academic affairs, and
b) another as head of all student
services, such as discipline,
organizations, sports, welfare,
programs, etc.
A second possibility is to include these two
aspects of student direction in a single office, and then to have
a) one officer for superior
education and
b) another for primary and middle
education. In larger
establishments both primary
and middle education might
have its own head, but the
two together would count for
only one vote in the Council to
preserve the balance.
The Third Office
should ordinary contain
a) a business or financial
officer
who handles all questions of
finance, bookkeeping, buying
and selling, etc. and
b) an operations office who takes
care of janitor service,
maintenance, transportation,
building utilization, etc.
contain such subdivisions as a description
of the office, its purpose, the principles of
its organization and administration, the
plan of its internal organization and the
codification of
policies which affect its
functioning. It might also include further
subdivisions concerning the
requirements
and abilities of the officer and his
immediate staff.
development of the office.
operation.
management.
responsibilities exercised
only in
committees or councils.
the office.
which may depend on purely
personal
qualities or on circumstances rather than
on the office itself.
subordinate units within the office.
of well-defined subordinate
offices. Each
of these subordinate offices would then be
divided according
to the same ten points.
students.
“Principal of the school”)
(1) elementary and
(2) secondary education, and
fund raising.
September 12, 1957