Training a staff; a manual for Young Men's Christian Association executives

Front matter

II II

I III II li

Bflf

PART I Processes

The fourteen elements in the local training program

CHAPTER

I. A Varied Experience 3

How can our younger secretaries be given that varied experience which will result in their largest growth and development?

II. Projects 16

How can our secretaries-in-training secure educational values — growth — from performing these assigned tasks that make up a varied experience?

III. Class-Room Work 50

What method or type of class-room work will produce the best results in preparing young secretaries for immediate and future executive leadership? What should be the content of the course of study?

IV. Class-Room Work (Continued) 74

V. Coaching: The UndersTudy Relation 95

What coaching by senior secretaries is necessary and helpful in the training process?

VI. Reading and Study 121

How can reading and study be made to contribute to professional growth?

VII. Staff Conferences 141

How may staff conferences be make an effective part of the process of training Association secretaries?

VIII. Departmental Studies 158

What sort of theses or reports is it profitable to have junior secretaries prepare? How should such work be directed?

IX. Inspection Trips 163

What inspection trips should be included in a secretary's training? How may they be given large educational value?

vii viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

X. Special Helps from Local Experts 179

How can the Association avail itself of local talent in supplying specialized instruction needed along certain lines?

XI. Relations to City Institutions 183

To what institutions should young secretaries be related as part of their training? What are the training values growing out of these relationships?

XII. University Relations 192

What arrangements can be made whereby our secretaries may take courses in nearby colleges and universities?

XIII. Association Summer Schools 206

What arrangements in regard to processes, equipment, curriculum, and teachers will make the summer schools contribute most in the training of secretaries?

XIV. Conventions and Conferences 230

What convention procedure will make the sessions count in the training of secretaries?

XV. A New Man's First Week 236

How can a new secretary's first week with an Association be so organized as to get him properly started and give him a good impression of the Association and its leadership?

PART II The theories underlying the processes 241

PART in The Content of the Secretaryship 267

APPENDICES

Appendix A. A National Training Policy for China 287

Appendix B. An Examination in Association Progress and Principles 294

Appendix C. Suggestive Project Study Outline 296

Appendix D. A Suggested Technical Library for a Y M C A

Secretary 298

Introduction

i. The Awakening in Regard to Personnel

An official of the Western Electric Company said a few years ago that for many years industry has centered its attention upon improving products, plant, and processes, but that recently it had come to realize that more vital than any of these is that newly recognized factor in industry, personnel. Man is now regarded as the element most worthy of careful attention as the central problem in production. The conviction that this is so was becoming established just before the Great War, and many of the large corporations of the country were engaging employment or personnel managers ; the War itself, however, gave the personnel movement a great impulse, so that now one meets evidence of the new emphasis in industry on every hand. The demand for personnel experts has so grown that some of the large universities are now conducting courses to train men for this special service of recruiting, selecting, placing, training, and holding employes ; and the supply of such experts is far from equal to the demand. Important conventions and conferences are being held every year for interchange of experience in these matters, and highly trained scientists are devoting their time to the discovery of the principles that must guide practice in matters of personnel.

Many of the heads of large business operations have expressed themselves on this subject. "Take away our factories," Andrew Carnegie is quoted as having said, "take away our trade, our avenues of transportation, our money, but leave me just one thing — my organization of men, and in four years I will reestablish myself."

Says Charles M. Schwab, "The biggest asset of the Bethlehem Steel Company is not its vast plants, its mines, its machinery, or any of its material possessions ; it is its organization of men."

ix x INTRODUCTION

Ir is a difficult thing to say which phase of the problem of personnel is most important — choosing, training, placing, or retaining; it is certain, however, that the training problem is of central importance. Julius Kruttschnitt, head of the Southern Pacific Railroad, once wrote, "The test of an effective organization is that it shall be self-perpetuating" ; this self-perpetuation is made possible by the training of the men in the line of promotion.

"Train your men in every department," says George M. Basford, an engineering expert. "This cannot be made too emphatic. You will fail in your mission in life if you do not. You will leave a priceless legacy in the form of an organization replete with human efficiency and, therefore, human happiness, if you do. The men in high authority today will leave the legacy of greatest value to the future if they properly attend to the training of the recruits coming into the ranks."

This deep conviction of industrial leaders is paralleled among the leaders in the Young Men's Christian Association. The "Stone Commission Report" of 191 5 said, "Many leaders continue to feel that the employed officer is still the most pressing problem of the present time." And S. Wirt Wiley, general secretary of the Minneapolis Association, begins his recent widely-read monograph on developing a staff with these striking paragraphs:

"The development of his staff is the great executive function of the secretary. Important as is his leadership with the Board of Directors and committee organization, it is his ability to develop and manage an employed staff that eventually determines his usefulness, for the very reason that even in the management of committees he must multiply himself through his associates.

''The relative importance of this ability increases as the range of a secretary's responsibility enlarges and as his Association grows in size and complexity. It is more fundamental in the general and executive secretaries than in department heads. It is more important in the large city than in the small town Association.

"The lack of this feature of executive ability in our depart-

INTRODUCTION xi

ment heads, executive and general secretaries is one of the most serious weaknesses in our organization."

II. The Background of This Book

The realization of the vital relation that the training of the local staff bears to the success and permanence of the Young Men's Christian Association has led to this effort to produce a manual on staff training. This book is the outgrowth of eight years of work on the subject of training secretaries. In 1912 I accepted definite responsibility for the secretarial training of young college graduates recruited on the Fellowship Plan by C. K. Ober of the International Committee. I had then had eleven years' experience as a local secretary, but realized the necessity of much more specific training on my part in order to discharge faithfully my responsibility for the careers of these men. My endeavor to make up for my lack of previous preparation for educational work led to my securing what might be called five contributions to my equipment, and these are the basis or background of this book.

First, eight years of local and traveling experience, study, and experimentation in the training of a staff, with that as my sole responsibility during the second half of the period mentioned.

Second, an extended study of how large corporations are training executives, including visits to the plants, interviews with the executives in charge, and study of the available materials and literature.

Third, an examination of some of the newer movements in the training of engineers in technical colleges, suggested by the analogy of the secretary as a social engineer and my own experience as an engineering student twenty odd years ago. This examination I found highly rewarding. It led to personal contact with some of the important developments in professional education.

Fourth, a faithful study of the literature of educational theory and teaching method, including visits to educational institutions and interviews with educators and teachers working xii INTRODUCTION

on such processes as cooperative education and project teaching.

Fifth, visits to practically all the Associations in America, Canada, Japan, and China where the training of the staff is seriously undertaken, and extended study of what has been done in our own movement here and in other lands along the line of secretarial training, including long conferences with scores of Association leaders and many of those most vitally concerned — the beginners themselves.

III. The Essence of the Secretaryship

Dr. Charles R. Mann of the Carnegie Foundation points out that education may proceed toward static information or toward dynamic ability. This latter phrase, dynamic ability, I take to be the essence of the secretaryship ; it is skill in doing things that need to be done. Fundamental theory and broad culture are essentials, but the secretary expresses himself primarily as a worker, and in his faculty for accomplishing things he stands or falls. His training, therefore, must be of a sort that will develop him on, the side of dynamic ability. Knowledge to him is a tool to help him do his work, and one acquires skill with a tool by using it. Hence in the training of secretaries as presented in this book the central thing is experience.

Diagrams of ideas are never fully satisfactory ; they always leave important considerations unrepresented ; yet the following diagram gives some idea of the central importance of the work experience and the relation of other elements of training to it.

INTRODUCTION

Xlll

Summer School n

Class Discussions

WORK EXPERIENCE

I i Staff Conferences

Coaching inferences

and (pnventions

Diagram showing the central importance of actual experience in the training scheme, the relation of all the other elements to it, and the unity of the whole training-center process when organized and conducted in harmony with this theory.

xiv INTRODUCTION

IV. The Relation of the Processes to the Work Experience

This diagram is based on the idea that the getting of one's daily work well done is the main consideration. Around this chief essential are grouped four training processes that have a most intimate, immediate, and practical relation to the successful performance of one's duties — staff conference as to the task covering the what and how of the work, class discussion as to difficulties and underlying theory, reading and study for light and help, and coaching on the work in hand. These four processes are the indispensable essentials to a real training program. As they all relate most closely to the day's work, they are continuous processes as long as there is work in hand and grow in importance as the pressure of work increases. They are of most value in the busiest seasons; they are the sharpening of the sickle that furthers the harvest. The chapters devoted to these topics aim to produce conviction that the fall, winter, and spring months, the busiest seasons, are the time of the most profitable employment of these training processes.

Not quite so closely connected with each man's present work, yet having a helpful relation to it, are four other training processes — inspection trips, relations to other institutions in the city, studies of other departments of the Association, and conferences with experts in various lines of work. They are important experiences, and should form part of the education of every secretary. They are, however, dispensable, and are therefore diagramed farther from the center.

The third group, the outer circle, composed of attendance upon conferences and conventions, summer schools and courses in nearby colleges and universities, are also possible phases of local training having much value; but they do not correlate quite so closely with the work of the immediate present.

These eleven processes relate not only to the central experience, the purposeful tasks of each day, but also, in varying degrees, to each other. The lines radiating from "reading"

INTRODUCTION xv

indicate this connection in one instance. To draw in the rest would confuse the diagram, but similar lines should connect "coaching" and "inspection trips," for instance, and "reading and study" are hardly remote considerations in "university courses." The object of this illustration is not so much to indicate how these processes bear one upon another as to show how they all are intended to help in the work experience of each man. Where the training is conducted in the manner described in the first fifteen chapters, this will be the case.

The work experience being thus vital, it is of great importance that it be organized so as to put the utmost educational value into it. Chapter I, on A Varied Experience, and Chapter II, on Project Teaching, introduce the reader to this problem and suggest a method. It is based on the now well accepted theory that the educational process must be one of activity on the part of the student, one that provides for his full self-expression, and that produces a man able to attack and solve the problems of his profession, capable of independent thought, full of initiative, and resourceful in life's situations. '

V. Using the Association as a Training Center

This full presentation of the local program of training is made because of four deeply rooted convictions :

First, that the local Association is a tremendous training asset when so used. Over 400 American Associations employ a staff of four or more secretaries, and in most of these the methods here described can and should be used.

Second, that one of the chief duties and functions of a general secretary is the training of men in the work of the Association.

Third, that every man on every staff needs continuous training all the days of his service, and that the training of every man on the staff should be organized and conducted according to a well-considered and adhered-to plan.

Fourth, that the use of this training process is one of the very best ways of getting the regular work done ; training is by no means a duty added to the work of the general secretary, xvi INTRODUCTION

but one of the accepted ways of getting all the activities of the Association well planned and executed.

VI. . Values Resulting from Using These Plans

In different cities where these plans have been presented and taught (not in lectures but by the discussion method) the men have been asked what benefits would accrue to the local Association if they conducted staff training processes. Here is their composite answer of beneficial results. They say such training would:

Encourage the younger men.

Help get and hold a staff.

Make the Association more efficient.

Put the men on their toes.

Dignify the secretaryship.

Serve the community more effectively.

Make friends for the Association.

Get better results from the work.

Supply men for vacancies.

Promote team play.

Stimulate trainers to master their subjects.

Lead secretaries to embody what they teach.

Raise the standing of the Association in the community.

Lead men to think constructively.

Stimulate the older secretaries.

Enable the plant to run to capacity.

Reach more people.

Give the staff more time for thought.

If these men in the field are right, then we have here a process that an Asociation can hardly afford to neglect, and one that many will seize with eagerness. The immediate result, of course, is the increased efficiency, satisfaction, and joy of the younger secretary, his greater contentment and wider outlook. The general secretary soon finds that, due to the increased efficiency of his junior staff, he has more time for the real leadership of the Association than had previously been the case. In a book by Henry F. Cope there occurs this striking sentence: "No man has the spirit of Jesus unless he has the educational spirit, the burning hope and desire that men should

INTRODUCTION xvii

come into the fullness of life." This is the ideal attitude of a general secretary toward his staff. What will a general secretary filled with the spirit of Jesus not do that the men on his staff may come into "fulness of life"?

VII. Reconstructing the Assistant Secretaryship

Where these plans are carried out, a new day will dawn for the assistant secretary. To many this position has been one of unrelieved drudgery, a killing grind with little inspiration or hopefulness in it. Here is a chance to reconstruct entirely the position of assistant, to knock the end out of the blind alley, to open up attractive avenues of expression and growth, and to indicate a real future. Jobs that have had little meaning can become positions to be eagerly accepted by young men looking for a way into a useful life work; the dull years that to some have actually served to stand between them and the real secretaryship become the very avenue leading to it and the preparation for effective service therein. Paraphrasing the slogan of the War, "Make the world safe for democracy," perhaps this book may help to make the Association safe for assistant secretaries. The loss of good men through an unhappy experience during the first year of service has been a large and sad deduction from our ranks. The saving of those of this group who are really fitted for our work is an undertaking of no small importance. May this book help to achieve it!

VIII. Wider Applications

While not much is made of the point in the body of the book, the principles and methods set forth here have wider application than the training of secretaries in the city Young Men's Christian Association, the real purpose for which the book is written.

i. Volunteer workers:

Many of the plans are equally applicable to the training of volunteer workers for all sorts of committee work. Portions of the matter on staff conferences, to mention one section, apxviii INTRODUCTION

ply to committee meetings; and coaching is a process used in all training of volunteer workers.

2. Bible-class leaders :

The whole process of group-discussion, the subject of the third and fourth chapters, applies in full to the leading of Bible discussion groups, in which, indeed, much of this matter was developed by Harrison S. Elliott.

3. Leaders of boys' clubs:

Boys' secretaries have seen that these plans will serve them in training leaders for all sorts of boys' clubs and groups.

4. Gymnasium leaders' corps:

One physical director quickly discovered that these methods would help him to train leaders for his gymnasium classes and clubs.

5. College and rural Associations:

Naturally, these plans are not limited in their application to the city Association. County, railroad, and other Associations will find them equally helpful, while my four years as a college general secretary lead me to believe they may help in student fields, especially in developing a strong cabinet.

6. Foreign Associations :

Secretaries in other countries will find help here in the training of the nationals of these countries in the work of the Association, both as secretaries and as committeemen.

7. Other religious and social organizations:

Pastors of churches, secretaries of Young Women's Christian Associations, head workers of social settlements, and other leaders who have to do with the training of assistants and volunteer workers will, I hope, find in these chapters useful processes.

8. Corporations :

Several leaders in the training of men for executive positions in industrial and business corporations have said that the ideas developed in this book apply with full force to their work. This is probably true ; a few of the plans discussed are adaptations of processes in operation in industry, learned during my study of executive training in corporations, while I served

INTRODUCTION xix

as a member of the Training Methods Committee of the National Association of Corporation Training, and while a student of personnel work with F. C. Henderschott of the New York Edison Company in a course given by him in New York University in the fall of 1918.

IX. Limitation

As the name implies, this book deals only with the training of the local staff as carried on by the executive or general secretary. No attempt is made to treat the whole subject of secretarial training or the theory and practice of those essential institutions, the Association Colleges. The hundreds of men in the assistant secretaryship who have had no special training for the work of the Association, and the large possibilities of this source of Association leadership, justify the preparation of a book limited to this problem and suggesting ways by which these men may secure at least some of the elements of sound professional training.

The Association Colleges occupy an important position in the training of men for the secretaryship — a position the significance of which will secure growing recognition. It is my hope that this contribution to the problem of local training will serve as a stimulus to all the training agencies and result in increasing interest in the Colleges.

X. Appreciation

How much I have drawn upon the wisdom and experience of others in the preparation of the chapters that follow ! The words of appreciation that often end an introduction were never written more sincerely than are these, as I acknowledge very deep personal indebtedness to the writers whose books I have studied and the men whose patience I have doubtless tried with persistent questioning, and who have been a great help to me in my effort to learn how to do my work of training secretaries for the Young Men's Christian Association. The list of those interviewed is too long to print in full, and it is difficult to choose only a few; yet in passing over many who know their xx INTRODUCTION

names should be here, I must mention J. W. Dietz of the Western Electric Company and C. R. Dooley of the Standard Oil Company, real educators in industry, who, at important times, gave me more help than they realized; William Orr of the International Committee for his guidance of my study of project teaching; Harrison S. Elliott, of the International Committee, master of the discussion method; my associate, Jay A. Urice, for help all along the line ; C. K. Ober, pioneer seer of this vocation, who first suggested that I undertake the work of training secretaries ; my "chief ," R. P. Kaighn, for many opportunities and helpful suggestions; Miss Sadie Lind of the Personnel Bureau office for efficient help on the manuscript; and her to whom this book is dedicated, wise counselor in every task.

Paul Super.

New York, October I, 1920.

PART I PROCESSES

The fourteen elements in the local training program

Chapter I

I. What Does a YMCA Secretary Do?

II. What Things Does a Secretary Get Others to Do ?

III. A Varied Experience

i. A corporation plan

2. An Association plan

3. The understudy plan

IV. A Graphic Record of Varied Experience V. Values to Be Secured

1. Technical skill

2. Personal growth

3. Ability to attack and solve problems

4. Initiative and resourcefulness

5. Certain character qualities

6. Outlook

VI. Avoiding Extremes

1. First possibility of error

2. Second possibility of error

VII. A Guide to Your Definite Planning

How can our younger secretaries be given that varied experience which will result in their largest growth and development?

I. What Does a YMCA Secretary Do ? What Problems Does He Have to Attack and Solve?

The answers to these two questions will give us helpful suggestions as to what a Y M C A secretary should study during the first years of his preparation for, and experience in, secretarial leadership, and the tasks that should be assigned him for training purposes. The answers will form the content, the subject matter, of his secretarial education.

These questions have been asked in various city Associations where the training of the staff was being discussed; such Associations as, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Columbus, and Nashville. Here is the composite answer to the first question, before the material was systematized.

What Things Does a Secretary Do?

Gets members.

Gives information.

Leads Bible classes.

Gets jobs for men.

Becomes personally acquainted

with men.

Promotes entertainments.

Locates men in living rooms.

Gives vocational advice.

Operates a building.

Teaches men to play games.

Works with committeemen.

Trains teachers.

Enrolls students.

Collects fees.

Arranges religious interviews.

Teaches thrift.

Leads hikes.

Gives sex instruction.

Teaches men attitude toward

job.

Introduces men to churches.

Develops character by personal

contact.

Lends men money.

Raises money.

Accounts for money.

Disburses money.

Trains other secretaries.

Leads men into the Christian

life.

Conducts game rooms.

Arranges medical and physical

exams.

Promotes hygienic living.

Operates a restaurant and soda

fountain.

Makes talks and speeches.

Prepares publicity and arranges

its distribution.

Assigns lockers.

Handles correspondence.

Writes manuals.

Supervises work of others.

Coordinates his work with

others.

Gives information as to points

of interest.

Pacifies folks.

Shows building.

Makes lobby attractive.

Promotes a "24 Hour a Day"

Club.

Runs a check room.

Operates a billiard room.

Sells books, money orders, etc.

Conducts committee meetings.

Makes a budget.

Outlines and plans policies.

Runs movies.

Purchases books, supplies, etc.

Conducts lectures.

Makes surveys.

Promotes extension activities,

Wins people to the purpose of the Association.

"Sells" Association features and activities.

Coaches committeemen.

Coaches assistants.

Studies reports. Writes reports.

Helps assimilate new members.

Outlines business for committee meetings.

Ushers at meetings.

Leads singing.

Works up committees.

.Makes prospect lists.

Follows up students.

Plans programs of activities.

Conducts meetings.

Discovers, secures, trains group leaders.

Conducts training classes.

Keeps abreast of times.

Receives callers.

Fraternizes with men.

Conducts personal interviews on others' problems.

Studies for personal growth.

Promotes recreation.

Makes daily reports.

Visits prisons.

Conducts foremen's meetings.

Promotes educational classes.

Supervises classes.

Employs instructors.

Determines educational policies.

Inspects building.

Hires help.

Locates and rectifies difficulties.

Solicits foreign work money.

Coaches assistants at desk.

Recruits extra workers.

Extends hospitality.

Takes membership applications.

Inspects equipment and activities.

Helps on State and National Association affairs.

Carries on community service.

Studies his field.

Studies the needs of men.

Runs an orchestra.

Writes newspaper articles.

Writes ads.

Interviews prospective students.

Calls on sick men.

Attends staff conferences.

Organizes Bible classes.

Balances the cash.

Rents rooms.

Makes entries in record books.

Pays bills.

Banks money.

Cultivates relationships with churches, schools, etc.

Keeps rooms in an orderly shape.

Devises physical education program.

Conducts shop meetings.

Organizes athletic leagues.

Promotes shop socials.

Conducts financial campaigns.

Organizes social clubs.

Is a boys' work expert.

Cultivates friends for the Association.

Maintains a foreign work exhibit.

Manages an office.

Answers general public inquiries.

Formulates courses of study.

Interviews men.

Promotes social programs.

Secures committee service.

Works through committeemen.

Sets up leagues and tournaments.

Posts dormitory payments and Keeps attendance records.

room assignments.

Operates the 'phones.

Dictates letters.

Answers criticisms.

Conducts camps.

Organizes campaigns.

Operates playgrounds.

Meets men.

Leads men to church membership.

Promotes physical work.

Checks cash.

Keeps membership records.

Secures speakers.

Secures and attends Boards of Directors and committee meetings.

Cooperates with pastors.

Organizes a laundry system.

Promotes reading-room activity.

Maintains relation with settlements and charities.

Maintains relations with Y. W.

C. A., K. of C, C. S. Inc., Red Cross, etc.

Learns people's names.

Add to this list such other tasks as are peculiar to your own Association. The total result is rather an overwhelming list. What a wide range of interests and tasks it covers, and what a variety of talent is required ! It would be profitable to spend quite a while in careful study of this analysis of your work. E>o this now, or return to it.

a. Which of these things do men do fairly well without previous training? That is, at which do they attain skill immediately ?

b. For which of these tasks is it necessary to train men ? Which do they do well only after special training?

c. Which do they learn to do after entering the Association secretaryship ?

d. For which are there a variety of processes, but just one best way?

e. In which do character qualities count most?

f. For which items is technical skill required?

g. For \vhich are standard .processes in use in your Association?

Copy this list, and write "a," "b," "c," etc., in front of those items which you select in answer to questions "a" to "g." Now that you have done this, what is the content of your training program, so far as this study reveals it? What do your men need to be taught ?

Perhaps you could handle this material more readily if you classified it under a system of headings. If no better system suggests itself, try one of these :

A functional classification of secretarial tasks.

Studying Training

Planning Dispatching

Organizing Reporting

Enlisting or selling Conducting or supervising

Assigning Accounting or recording

Promoting Maintaining equipment

A classification by departments.

Religious Membership

Educational Office

Social Business

Physical Boys

Economic Finance

Try this one:

Dealings with things Dealings with persons Dealings with ideas

A division into staff duties and line duties is also possible, each of these broad classes being again subdivided, either by functions (things you do, as plan, promote) or by departments.

II. What Things Does a Secretary Get Others to Do?

There are those who believe that a secretary who does all the work himself is not the most efficient leader. The real secretary, they would say, is the one who gets others to do things, and so multiplies himself many times.

With this in mind, check your list again, and indicate how many of those listed tasks and others in addition, the skillful secretary gets others to do.

1. To what extent do the two lists, the things a secretary does and the things he gets others to do, coincide?