Revitalized Program Management

T he program manager, whether in industry or in government, is the production person who actually delivers goods and services to the consumer-voter. Macmahon and Millett wrote a good deal about him in Federal Administrators (1939) and so did Corson and Paul, more recently, in Men Near The Top (1966).' The so-called bureau chief or line executive, as Wallace Sayre was fond of pointing out in his seminar appearances, is literally at the center of all the action in public administration: he alone produces goods and services that go directly to the consumer. Consequently, as Paul Appleby used to say, all that the higher echelons do is help facilitate the result, for they produce nothing directly.2 In recent years, however, we have tended to lose sight of these truths and in consequence are suffering a loss of vitality and momentum. At the same time, some of our national rivals, such as the Soviets,3 are moving rapidly toward a belief that the freedom and autonomy of the operating executive are the bases of success, and if we do not speedily return to our earlier view, government's reputation may suffer in public approbation even more than it has. Production management not only needs to be reemphasized, but, equally, it needs to be renewed and revitalized because in too many cases it has become slothful and excessively bureaucratic.4 By the program manager, I mean, of course, the "line" executive, whether he is a bureau chief, a city manager, a department head who daily directs his own program, ormost numerous of all-someone who runs a field office of a widely distributed geographical enterprise. Such persons are commonly referred to as the "practical" executive, the one who knows how to deliver quality goods regularly and on time. If there were enough of these, the cost of government could be greatly reduced. In the middle 1930's the orientation of American corporations was toward the following philosophy of management: the production manager needs all the factors at his command that determine production; he should control them and daily direct them; he should be in charge of personnel management and policy, make appointments, promotions, and the like, and confine the personnel staff agency to research and advice; the top management should concentrate on external relations, plan long-range strategy, and make all wide-scale decisions, but the initial planning should be done by action segments, and the line people who do the planning should also control the execution. In other words, everything centered around the operations man, the direct producer. This has changed some in those companies that have become conglomerates and transnationals: they still pay lip-service to production management, but increasingly and inevitably they substitute remote thinking and decision for on-the-spot thinking and decision. One of the results of this long-standing industry focus on production is that traditionally the staff function has been viewed with suspicion in business. The best staff man is a production man who is temporarily assigned to a position where he can think and consult, after which he will return to his normal line position. Accordingly, staff work is tied in with production organization, not placed at the apex of the pyramid as it has been in many state and federal governments the past thirty years. When the Brownlow Committee was considering the six administrative assistants for the President, for example, I was asked how many such assistants the top corporate executives had at the time. The answer was, "None, in terms of line of command. He has one or two personal assistants who handle his personal arrangements, but there is no staff activity until the departmental level is reached, where it is tied in with the line."