It is now fifty years since Woodrow Wilson wrote his brilliant essay on public administration.' It is a good essay to reread every so often; there is… - Marshall E. Dimock

Management experts can do much harm simply by being doctrinaire when, because of some customarily accepted formula, they tear apart established ways of doing things even though the existing structure is producing satisfactory results. They evidence a form of professional conceit-not confined to them by any means-which contributes invariably to the bad opinion which many successful executives hold of the management expert. It is a serious thing to operate on a going concern, because an institution is made up of people with established ways of doing things; people who, in consequence, develop certain institutional attachments which are an important part of institutional success. They are like the traditions of a family. Men take pride in them.

The opposition of some executives to formalized organizational analysis stems in part from a reaction against the too zealous advocacy of organization as the universal panacea of all management ills. These executives correctly understand that organization is not the whole of management any more than personnel or budgeting or public relation. Organization analysis, therefore, is not properly the periodic pursuit of the expert; rather, it is the continuous responsibility of the executive. His clue is found in mal-functionings; not in the blind following of preconceived stereotypes.

Administration is both social engineering and applied psychology. It is apparatus and mechanics, incentives and human nature. Let no one think it is merely the former. Nowhere is the need for psychology greater than in the organization, direction, and inspiration of men working in large groups. Outstanding administrative results are produced by spirit, morale, atmosphere; these, in turn, are the product of psychological mainsprings and invigorating incentives. As Benjamin Lippincott has recognized, both governmental and business administration resolve fundamentally into the role played by effective incentives.