How Should We Train Our Administratiors?*
| Published date | 01 December 1949 |
| Date | 01 December 1949 |
| Author | A. P. Sinker |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1949.tb02702.x |
*How
Should
We
Train
Our
Administrators?
By A.
P.
SINKER
The word
“
administration
”
covers a
wide range of meanings. At one end of
the range
it
covers almost any kind of
office work
:
running something-sim-
ple or complex-according to the book
of
rules. At the other end of the range
it means helping to make policy-
sometimes
on
a nation-wide scale;
directing the execution of existing
policy
;
and keeping an eye
on
the whole
machine to see that it
runs
smoothly and
effectively.
It
is the upper end
of
the
range that
I
propose to talk about. The
kind of people needed for the job
of
administration in this sense are the kind
of people there are never enough
of.
This
is
especially true today owing to
the growth of large organisations in the
public services and
in
both nationalised
and private industry. Then there is
another reason for the shortage, which
we sometimes forget. Many of the
people who would have been at the top
of
the tree
by
now or near it were killed
in the first war, and this has had a double
effect
;
not only are their places vacant,
but those of us who belong to the suc-
ceeding half-generation or
so
have
missed throughout our adult lives the
benefit of their leadership and example.
We can’t
fill
their places. But, looking
ahead, how are we going to produce
enough people of the right kind to fill
rhese places
in
the years to come?
First, let
us
get the time-scale right.
This is not a problem we can solve just
by sending people to training courses.
The time-scale is that of forestry rather
than that
of
a sausage factory, however
well-planned. And
it
is as a problem
of
human forestry that
I
should like to
consider the training of administrators.
What kind of timber
do
we want-
what are the things that administrators
are wanted to do
?
I
have based my list
of things mainly
on
my own observations
in
the civil service, and must leave
you
to judge how far the list is relevant to
the kind
of
organisation with which you
are most familiar. Much, of course,
will depend
on
size, though even a small
organisation may from the nature of its
business and responsibilities require
administration of a very high order.
Top of the list
I
would put this
:
it
is
the administrator’s job to
look
at
his
problem from the point of view of the
consumer, both the special public with
whom his Department deals and the
man
in
the street.
You
may say that
so
far as Government Departments are
concerned this is the
job
of the Minister,
and that civil servants are only there to
provide him with expert advice. Per-
haps there was a time when this was true.
But the increased complexity and volume
of work means that the Minister
can
no
longer bring the consumer’s point of
view to bear
on
all
the problems where
it is needed: he requires extension
so
to speak down into the body and the
limbs of the organisation. For this the
Minister must rely
on
his permanent
administrators not merely to provide
automatic service but to act as a sensitive
nervous system. An important part
of
the expertise administrators have to
acquire-and preserve-is
an
under-
standing of what ordinary people want
and do not want from Government.
In
a
sense they have to become professionals
without losing amateur status.
This
is not
so
easy as it may sound. You can
recognise one of the symptoms of failure
where
you
find the
loss
of the ability
to
use plain words.
Next
on
the list
I
would put a phrase
which
I
borrowed from Sir Hector
Hetherington, when he wrote in
The
Times
a few years back about the
Administrative Staff College. He said
the administrator must be able “to
hold in mind a total and perhaps distant
situation.” This implies to me a two-
fold operation
:
looking
forward
in
time,
and
looking
sideways at the other chaps
engaged in other parts of the field.
Looking forward in time
is
a dangerous
operation in the hands of anyone who
thinks he is good at it. But the ad-
ministrator has to try to do it: and
perhaps the ability to look backwards
in
time-that is, some understanding
of
history-is one of the best ways
of
*
Broadcast
in
the
Third Programme
on
Sunday,
19th
June,
1949.
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