“It
is not man’s dreams that fail him,” declared L. Ron
Hubbard in 1969. “It is the lack of know-how required to
bring those dreams into actuality.” For that reason, and
that reason alone, “Whole nations, to say nothing of commercial
firms or societies or groups, have spent decades in floundering
turmoil.”
The consequences
stare back at us as headlines every day; corruption in the corporate
world; escalating bankruptcies; massive layoffs and big government
interference. It is not for nothing, then, that Mr. Hubbard further
explained, “Man’s happiness and the longevity of companies
and states apparently depend upon organizational know-how.”
If one genuinely
understood how individuals best function – their needs,
aspirations and the source of their failings – one would
naturally understand how groups of individuals best function.
Such was the stance from which L. Ron Hubbard addressed the problems
of how we cooperate with others – not with management gimmicks
or the latest guru’s theory or even “Mr. Know Best”
authoritarian mumbo jumbo but with a uniquely compassionate view
of groups as individuals united in a common purpose.
In all, Mr.
Hubbard spent more than three decades developing and codifying
the administrative procedures by which over 130 Scientology organizations
function. These procedures are derived from the fundamental laws
governing all organizations, businesses and practices.
At the heart
of Mr. Hubbard’s administrative discoveries is the Organizing
Board or “Org Board” as it is more generally known.
Developed in 1965, the Org Board is the diagrammatic pattern of
organization, delineating every function necessary for successful
group activity. In fact, the Org Board actually describes the
ideal organizational pattern for any activity.
That pattern
delineates activities – be it group or individual –
in terms of seven essential divisions. Those divisions, in turn,
lay out all duties, positions and actions necessary for a coordinated
effort. The divisions 1 through 7 of the Organizing Board are
laid out in a sequence known as the cycle of production. Again,
this sequence is in no way based upon an arbitrary. When Mr. Hubbard
speaks of a production cycle, he is not speaking in terms of an
assembly line, or the human machine that constitutes the organizational
pattern in the corporate world. Rather, he is speaking of those
specific activities that all production, whether individual or
group, naturally follows. Point of fact, if one wishes to accomplish
anything, he must perform these seven basic steps. In that respect,
the Organizing Board is not simply the ideal method of successful
organization; it is actually the only method of successful organization.
Having defined
the ideal organizational form, Mr. Hubbard next provides the specific
administrative policies upon which that form functions. These
administrative policies are contained in a set of reference texts
(twelve encyclopedia sized volumes) known as the Organization
Executive Course (OEC). These OEC Volumes provide the theory and
particulars of every working facet in an organization –
from hiring personnel to the ethical conduct of employees, from
promotion to quality control and more. In fact, there is a volume
corresponding to each division of the Org Board, laying out the
exact operations and functions of that division. In additional
volumes known as the Management Series, Mr. Hubbard likewise provides
all an executive need know on the subject of how to manage an
organization, such as how to organize, how to be an executive,
how to establish, how to handle personnel and even the art of
public relations. Thus, the OEC Volumes provide the policies by
which one runs an organization, while the Management Series provides
the policies by which organizations are managed.
Among the
principles found in these policies is the very key Conditions
of Existence, which Mr. Hubbard defined in terms of the degrees
of success or survival of something. The basic concept is vaguely
known to the astute administrator who speaks in terms of “corporate
health.” But whereas the idea of corporate health implies
only two states –good or bad –and offers no precise
means of improving that health, Mr. Hubbard provides a great deal
more. Specifically, Mr. Hubbard analyzed the various degrees of
survival – from a non-existence state to a dangerous situation,
to a condition of emergency to one of normal, affluence and power.
Moreover, he has spelled out the necessary formulas or actions
one must take for the improvement of any condition. That is, by
simply performing the outlined steps, one rises through each condition
to the next until one’s organization is indeed thriving.
To eliminate
any guesswork as to one’s operating condition, Mr. Hubbard
further worked out the methods of monitoring organizational health
by statistics. The statistic, as he defined it, is a number or
amount compared to an earlier number or amount of the same thing.
Thus, statistics refer to the quantity of work done or the value
of it, and are the only sound measure of any production or any
activity, be it organizational or individual. Administratively,
then, the statistic provides the barometer of organizational health,
which Mr. Hubbard’s Conditions of Existence provide the
means for improving that state of health. Correctly utilized,
these tools allow for the exact isolation of troublesome areas,
and how to improve those trouble spots.
Given what
Mr. Hubbard’s administrative breakthroughs represent in
terms of providing the natural rules by which groups truly function,
it was inevitable that his administrative discoveries would become
much in demand in general industry and elsewhere. Initially, to
meet that demand, Mr. Hubbard authored two books for the working
public: How to Live Though an Executive, providing advanced principles
for increased efficiency, and The Problems of Work, offering techniques
for such job-related maladies as stress and exhaustion. Like all
else that Mr. Hubbard provided in this field, these works represented
not a particular interest in business, but a desire to make the
fundamental truth of like known to others – and since work
occupies so much of our lives, his efforts in the field were appropriate.
Recession,
unemployment, sagging productivity, debts, strikes, poverty and
want – these all too familiar symptoms of economic decline
are actually indicators of a much deeper problem – a crippling
lack of administrative know-how. If today’s businesses and
governments could competently apply the basic principles of organization
and administration, they would enact workable solutions to what
has become economic chaos. Such is the role of L. Ron Hubbard's
administrative technology to provide the means whereby businesses
might prosper, governments rule wisely, people may be free of
economic duress, and, in short, failed dreams may be revived.
Articles by L. Ron Hubbard
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