PAPERmaking! g FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF PAPER TECHNOLOGY Volume 2, Number 1, 2016
VISCOUNT SLIM: There was, not very long ago, an author of very amusing literary trifles, who said that he had occasion to consult the encyclopaedia on the subject of intelligence and he opened it and he found a long article which started something like this. It said: "Intelligence can be considered under three headings: human intelligence, animal intelligence and military intelligence." Well, although I served several years in industry at both ends-the bottom and the top-and while I have had certain intimate connection for a considerable time, with government in civic administration, most of my working life has been spent as a soldier and I am, basically, a soldier and my approach to situations and problems and persons is still and remains that of a soldier. So it is not surprising if some of you think, even if you are too polite to say so, that this self-confessed soldier is rather presumptuous, possibly impertinent, to think that he has got anything to say about industry which can be of value. But, a soldier might have something to say. After all, industry and military affairs really are close together; the larger industrial organisations become, the wider they spread their work, the more the problems that confront them, become similar to those that are met with by a general in a campaign. They are so similar that quite frequently I find myself very much at home in a board room. At times they become extremely remarkable, like when we were ready to take over Cordeau. Then, too, soldiers have been engaged in these great enterprises for several thousand years longer than the business people and we might have picked up something in the course of that time. And, therefore, it might be possible that these problems, the big problems of organisation, transportation, finance, communication, choices between technical methods, the choice of subordinates and, above all, the problems of human relations - they are all the same problems that face either large industry or military commanders. And we of the Army have not only been engaged in these problems for a very long time, but we have always been engaged in them on a much larger scale than business, and that head start we have always kept. For instance, there is no commercial or industrial organisation that has ever attempted an enterprise as large, as complicated or as important as the D-Day landing in Normandy, and yet that was conceived, planned, directed and carried through to a successful conclusion by regular officers of the services. So, it is possible that a soldier might, looking at industry, have something not completely without value and I hope that will be the case with me. Now, no man's experience, of course, covers everything and mine is very, very far from that. Before I say anything else, I would like to make it quite clear that I am not going to teach anybody his job, because we all have different jobs, nor am I, when I talk about industry, talking particularly about Canadian industry, because the whole purpose of my visit to Canada is to learn something about it and I am extremely ignorant of it now. Now, industry, whatever its nature, really depends for its success, very largely, on its management. I would prefer to use the word "leadership", rather than "management". Leadership is a much more elementary and basic human relationship than management. I am always inclined to think that leadership is an art dealing much more with the spirit of a man and management is much more a science. And, anyway, I think any man would rather be led than managed. Wouldn't you? Now, leadership - or management, if you like to call it that - is the combination of persuasion, compulsion and determination. All those three elements must be present in it.
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Article 12 – Leadership (Field-Marshall Slim)
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