The Sixth Month

By this time you and your General Chairman have traveled a long way together in understanding what goes into a successful celebration. You know the sort of "personality" you'd like your observance to possess, what you'd like it to accomplish, and at least in a general way how best to attain your objectives.

Some guiding policies have been set up, there is some knowl­edge throughout the organization of anniversary activities in preparation, and some of the events for the anniversary program have been finally selected.

As Co-ordinator you have done an excellent and discreet job of making people aware that something is going on. Now it be­comes necessary to put across the fact that a big-league celebra­tion is in preparation, and that, if it is to amount to anything worth the trouble, incubation won't be entirely painless to anyone.

Certainly it won't be "business as usual" in the company. The production of this observance program is guaranteed to be felt in every building and division and section and unit, affecting every one of them, and everyone in them, at least a little bit. And some of them quite a bit.

No organization gets an anniversary celebration any other way. A superior celebration doesn't result solely from management ap­proval, or because the Board of Directors agrees it's a good idea. It evolves from changing the whole organization and everyone in it just a hair, albeit most always without anyone being quite aware of the change at all.

Since it is the business of a Co-ordinator to engineer the changes which permit the growth and emergence of the finished celebra­tion, you must now face the uncomfortable fact that comparatively few definite decisions have yet been made. Not only that, but there is nothing binding about the few decisions that have been made. And you should be keenly aware that soon will come a time when final decisions must be made and final responsibilities finally fixed. Because the real job of getting Ideas off paper and into production hasn't even started yet.

It is on these parallel facts of swiftly passing time and slowly crystallizing decisions that you and your General Chairman should bear most heavily in your next—your third—Progress Meet­ing.

PRELIMINARY PLANNING FOR PROGRESS MEETING #3

We recommend that you plan to hold Progress Meeting #3 approximately halfway through this sixth month. That will place it about six weeks after Progress Meeting #2. Right this minute is none too soon to approach your General Chairman with a re­quest for a specific date. You should bring along routinely, when you make your request, a suggested interoffice memorandum that his secretary may use to notify the Policy Committee members of the chosen date for the meeting. (See Fig. 16, on page 125.) Equally routinely you should confirm an appointment for a Pre­view Meeting a week or ten days before the committee meeting.

Now, while the General Chairman is notifying the members of the Policy Committee about the upcoming third meeting, let's do a quick bit of review.

When Progress Meeting #2 ended, you returned to your desk with X (number) of Ideas Eliminated by a NO vote of the Policy Committee.
Y (number) of Ideas held For Further Consideration, and so still in the running, because they received an FFC vote (some of them for the second time).
Z (number) of Ideas Approved by the Policy Committee and so possessing a reasonable chance of becoming a part of the anniversary program.

You face a lot of revising, rewriting, and investigating for Progress Meeting #3 and for Progress Report #3 on which the meeting will be based.

MEMORANDUM
Dates_______________________________
TO: Name of Policy Committee Member
FROM: General Chairman's Name
SUBJECT: Progress Meeting #3 re Anniversary Celebration Planning
The next meeting of our Policy Committee on anniversary activities is now set for my office at 10 A.M. on the morning of the above date*
In addition to further screening of old and new Ideas, there are a number of decisions which should be reached at this meeting. We will work as fast as possible, but I suggest you make no commitments for lunch on the day of the meeting. If necessary we plan to work straight through as we did before.
Copies of Progress Report #3 and the agenda for the day will reach your hands for review about a week prior to the meeting.
Please notify my secretary whether you will be able to attend the meeting.
Many Thanks.
(Signed or initialed)                         Genera 1 Chairman
Fîg. 16. Suggested form for General Chairman’s Interoffice memorandum notifying Policy Committee members of the date chosen for Progress Meeting-#3.

Now:
The investigating should focus particularly on the group of Ideas held For Further Consideration. It should concentrate re­lentlessly on those Ideas in the group which have collected two FFC votes. That latter group must be cleared up, because the Policy Committee has been shirking its responsibility, and you know perfectly well that there exists no present agreement about when, if, by whom, and on what basis a decision finally will be rendered—if ever.

The Ideas which have collected two FFC votes are probably above average as Ideas go, and nobody wants to say, "Throw them out." Yet for one reason or another they are not being ac­cepted. Question: Is it because you have not provided enough information for a clean-cut decision?

To eliminate that possibility you will, prior to the next Prog­ress Meeting, visit individually the members of the Policy Com­mittee who have been voting to hold these Ideas. Talk at some length with each of them concerning the Ideas that are being held For Further Consideration meeting after meeting. Find out why a decision is hard to make. Talk also with the people in the organization who will have to produce, or help to produce, the FFC Ideas if, as, and when they are moved into the Approved column. Then, at your Preview Meeting, place the facts before the General Chairman and ask him what he wants to do.

Naturally, you will have ready your own recommendation for action on each of the Ideas under discussion. They will be based firmly on reasons developed from your talks with persons who are, or would be, involved. Your Chairman will either make his own recommendations, approve and agree to support yours, put you on your own to solve the jam, or come up with some com­bination of these alternatives.

In any event, a decision on each must be made at Progress Meeting #3. Rendering of these decisions by the Policy Com­mittee has top spot on the agenda. You must request that the committee include them in the Approved group or refuse to in­clude them in the Approved group. No Idea should be held For Further Consideration three times.

Those Ideas which, despite this request, draw a third For Fur­ther Consideration should be dropped quietly by you from future Progress Reports. Whenever, in our experience, we have found a committee which could not or would not commit itself after having reviewed an Idea three times, we have assumed respon­sibility for dropping the Idea from further presentation. This is generally sound procedure, and we recall no instance where such an Idea, once dropped by us, was ever later recalled for examina­tion by a committee. (Maybe you'll drop one and a week later or a meeting later it will be recalled. Fine. Put it back on the block. Maybe you'll get some action.)

IMMEDIATE PLANNING FOR PROGRESS MEETING #3

Bearing these thoughts in mind, you should begin preparing for Progress Meeting #3.
A quick tally will show that preparatory activities will include: 1. Preparation of an agenda for the meeting. (See Fig. 17, on page 127.) Again it will foretell a lengthy meeting.
AGENDA for PROGRESS MEETING #3
of the Policy Committee for the Anniversary Celebration
Place ' _____ Date .
(Approximately in the middle of your 6th month on the job)
PART I: Review (responsibility of Co-ordinator) Recapitulation of accomplishments to date.
PART II: Progress Meeting #3 (responsibility of Chairman) Review the purposes of this meeting. At its conclusion the committee should have

1. Reviewed the additional information now available on (number) For Further Consider­
   ation Ideas and finally Approved or Eliminated each of them. None should again be held For Further Consideration.
2. Reviewed the (number) new Ideas incorporated into the current Progress Report #3 and Approved or Eliminated each of them. We hope that there will be no further For Further Consideration votes at this meeting.
3. Chosen a final list of Approved Ideas.
4. Discussed the question of additional staff needed to produce the approved program for the celebration.
5. Discussed the matter of budget, at least tentatively.
6. Discussed any other pertinent matters to be covered.

PART III: Conclusion (responsibility of Chairman)

Concluding comments, with setting of tentative date- for the next meeting (Progress Meeting #4) about six weeks in the future. Committee members will be notified well in advance. Express the hope that at the next meeting it will be possible to complete se­lection of a final anniversary "package" of events. After all, this committee can't go on indefinitely Screening ideas, without taking some steps toward actual production.

Fig. 17. Suggested form for agenda: Progress Meeting #3.

1. The organizing, typing, and copying for committee mem­bers all new Ideas which reach your desk up to the hour you start assembling your material.
2. Revision and updating of the Comment section of the new Progress Report (#3) to include all information and material resulting from discussions at Progress Meeting #2 and your follow-ups thereon.
3. Making copies of the goals for the Anniversary Year, and
   incorporating them into Progress Report #3 for committee ref­
   erence and guidance in evaluating Ideas.
4. Discussion and clearance of this material at a Preview Meet­ing with the General Chairman; revision where necessary.

1. Incorporation of all this—and any other pertinent—material
   into a neatly bound folder. This folder is Progress Report #3, the basis of Progress Meeting #3.
2. Making a copy of Progress Report #3 for each member of the Policy Committee, and distributing the copies in advance of the meeting date.

PREPARING PROGRESS REPORT #3

If you have developed a report form of your own, excellent. If you haven't, you may wish to follow the general outline pre­sented in Fig. 19.
These pages show substantially the same form as that suggested for Progress Report #2. You will note from Fig. 18 that the col­umns have been narrowed somewhat.

This narrowing provides space for the addition of one new column—column 5—and brings the total number of columns in this report to six. Column 5 carries the double heading "Depart­ment Responsible & Goal Number." In this new column, across from each Idea, you will identify (a) the company department with major production responsibility if the Idea is finally in­cluded in the program, and (b) the number(s) of the goal(s)1 under which the Idea was accepted by the Policy Committee.

Otherwise the content and purpose of the columns remains as first presented to you in the description of Progress Report #2. You may observe that we alter or drop some Ideas in each suc­ceeding Progress Report. This is done simply to provide authen­ticity. In this series of sample reports, some Ideas remain as is, some remain in a revised form, some are eliminated permanently, just as actually will happen to you as your own program plans mature.

So far as any entry in column 3 is concerned, you are again warned that figures appearing in charts, reports, diagrams, and digests in this book are included only to lend verisimilitude to the examples. They may not be presumed accurate.

1 By keeping a watchful eye on these numbers, it is easy to keep your over-all program in balance. Or, of course, slant it toward any particular objective you favor. You can tell quickly, for example, if you begin to pile up too much emphasis on employee pride. Your schedule will be top-heavy with Ideas accepted by the Policy Committee under Goal #4. Again, if you are not doing quite all you should to increase over-all organizational efficiency, you'll soon note too few Ideas accepted under Goal #1. And so on.

PROGRESS MEETING #3

The meeting which you are conducting this month (and it's your meeting whether you are Chairman or not) is as important to you, though in a different way, as the first one you arranged three months ago.

At that time, you were a comparative newcomer in the com­pany; today you are part of the scenery. At that time, aims and plans and responsibilities were in a state which, with charity, could be described as fluid; today they have begun to take definite shape and substance. At that time, the future was festooned with question marks; today the answers to many of the questions have been obtained. At that time, your energy was divided between hoping you were making a good impression, would run a good meeting, and would do a good job with your assignment; today, on the basis of the performance you've turned in, you are de­pended on as a sound, productive, reliable cog in the organiza­tional machine.

But despite all the plusses—the solid foundation, the steady headway, the auspicious outlook—many important questions still remain without firm answers. Some of them are on the agenda for this meeting, and we offer in the following pages pertinent dis­cussion material for your use. It is material quite openly slanted to your viewpoint because (a) you are the one who needs ammuni­tion to offset committee weight and (b) you are the one who has most to lose if these matters drag on unresolved much longer.

Be realistic and face the fact that, nice people though the com­mittee members are, they do not have your responsibilities in this project. They will drag their feet on decisions right up to the last moment, if it is permitted.

Then they'll make a decision. Then they'll put on their hats and go home. They're through. They've done their job. They've Made a Decision.

But you? You're the fellow who's still down at the plant at 10 p.m. Saturday night trying to glue the ends together. This might not be so bad except that just when you get the ends dragged into place the committee shows up and makes another Decision. And that sort of vacillating will go on just as long as it is permitted. Not because they're your enemies, not because they want to foul you up, not because they're just plain ornery. They're human, that's all, and human nature rebels against the finality and the responsibilities implicit in a firm decision.

So use the following ammunition, and the General Chairman's authority, to get some definite rulings on

THE QUESTION OF ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL TO PRODUCE THE ANNIVERSARY PROGRAM

As usual, the best way to get action is to present your problem to your General Chairman ahead of time. Make no secret of your concern. He may not share it, but he must respect it. After all, it's hardly surprising if he hasn't thought of these matters, which are presently your whole existence, precisely from your point of view.
But it's time your point of view got an airing.

So ask him what help you may expect from this point forward.
Probably much depends on what operating agreements were reached when you discussed the points in Chapter 1 months ago. The extent of your right, as Co-ordinator, to requisition help as you need it should have been decided then. And perhaps it was decided then, and in a way quite satisfactory to you. But regardless of whether, or how, it was decided then, situations change. More than one decision arrived at during that exploratory discussion has since been modified. The production load is going to grow steadily heavier, and this matter of additional production as­sistance merits a thorough re-examination. So ask.

You may learn from the General Chairman that no additional assistance presently is planned for you, either from inside or from outside the organization. That will end that. The question won't even go to committee. You are on your own, as we have assumed from the beginning, and you'll have to do the best you can.

On the other hand, the General Chairman may be undecided about what to do. In that case, ask him if he will directly question each of the members of the Policy Committee in approximately these words:

"Mr. (name) , how many people can you assign from your department to help the Co-ordinator? Who can you assign from today on to help him with anniversary program production?"

What, if the General Chairman agrees to ask this question, do you stand to gain? You stand to gain a decidedly more favor­able attitude on the part of committee members toward your re­quest for outside (commercial or free-lance) help. Naturally you'll get no volunteers from the committee. We hope you don't expect any. After all, which of them will admit publicly that there's any­body in his department with so much free time that he can be spared for other duties? Not one of them. But they'll be inclined to look much more favorably on your request for outside help if that's the alternative to closer scrutiny of their departmental personnel situation.

If the General Chairman is unwilling to enter this particular fray, but will not interfere with whatever you can wring out of the committee, ask him for permission to use the above direct question at the next meeting, and permission to speak more fully on the subject. He'll grant the permission and look forward with quiet interest to what happens. And if you really feel that your side of this additional personnel question is not getting a fair hearing, you can provide some food for reflective thought.

GIVING THE STORY TO THE POLICY COMMITTEE

"We began our anniversary planning reasonably early, gentle­men, and thereby temporarily postponed the need for additional personnel to produce our celebration program. All tasks pertain­ing to development of the program have up to now been per­formed by me. However, as our celebration begins to assume really meaningful size and multiple deadlines converge, I will inevitably need assistance in one form or another.

"Therefore I believe that the following points—and the ques­tions raised by them—merit serious and early thought.
"1. I have clearly understood from the beginning that our operating departments cannot be expected to handle any major production requests of mine on any deadline or priority basis. From my first day on the job I have accepted such restrictions and only occasionally asked for help. If this practice is to be followed as the celebration develops, then no major production items may be assigned by me and even minor requests must give way, from a production angle, to the daily routine of the various departments.

"You cannot construct an anniversary celebration on any such basis. Right now our program is too big for one man to produce alone.
"2. Therefore, as celebration commitments grow and additional personnel becomes necessary, will the company provide such personnel? Will the additional people be 'borrowed* from in-company departments and trained in anniversary program re­quirements 'for the duration? Or will they be hired outside the company and added to the company census? Who will select them? And train them? Or is all this pointless because there is no inten­tion of assigning help to me?
"3. If such assistants are selected and trained, will they work under the supervision of the head of the department within which a given project falls? Or under my supervision? For example, if the company should decide on a county-wide saturation billboard campaign during the peak of the celebration, would the work be handled by the Advertising Manager (the department into which the project normally would fall) in addition to his other chores, but with the added staff assistance provided? Or would it be handled by me as Co-ordinator, plus the added staff assistance— my staff assistants—working in co-operation with the Advertising Manager and his staff?

"These are obviously not idle questions. It is all very well to preach 'Organize—Deputize—Supervise' and it is good administra­tive technique. But first there must be someone to organize, depu­tize, and supervise. Since I have been on this job, I have, of neces­sity, formed habits of running my own errands, producing my own material, sharpening my own pencils, and cleaning my own type­writer. If that is to continue, fine. But it is time I knew.

"If, on the other hand, that sort of thinking is to be adjusted, if the full support of all company facilities are henceforth to be put at my disposal for the completion and production of our anni­versary program, if production of a worthy celebration is now to rank equally in importance and priority with anything else (as it should), it is time I knew that, too.
"Because before long there will be material to be written, printing to order, displays to approve and construct, plans to be made, and contracts to let for each item approved for production (an­nouncements, decals, book matches, souvenirs, and whatever). Arrangements must be made for transportation and storage and distribution. Plans must be made for additional sales help, drivers, guides, hostesses, guards, insurance. There will be interminable research and revision and clearance; conferences, schedules, con­tact. There will be delegation of authority and responsibility for planning, designing, producing, writing, accepting, rejecting, ordering, transporting, installing. There will be activities and events to be broken down and co-ordinated with affected depart­ments and parallel projects to avoid duplication and overlapping of effort. Projects will multiply within projects.2

"And I will be, as I should be, right in the middle of it all. But the cold fact remains, gentlemen, that it is useless for any of us to dream of vast projects with inadequate assistance—or none
at all."

DISCUSSING THE BUDGET

When the General Chairman turns the meeting over to a discus­sion of the Anniversary Year budget be prepared to (a) listen carefully, and (b) conceal your disappointment. Nothing much is going to happen. Or perhaps that is not an entirely accurate state­ment. Despite the backing and filling and ducking and dodging which you will observe with discouragement, the subject has finally been dragged out into the open, and everybody knows it can't ever be swept back under the rug.

If you recently have reviewed our section on Costs in Chapter 6, you are fortified with some opinions. Hold them for presentation on request. If there is no request, we recommend that you remain silent for the most part and let the committee handle this one. If things bog down (and it's an even bet they will), we'll tell you

2 For example, do we plan a dinner? Selection and entertainment of guests becomes a project within a project. Will we write anything? Once decided on, printed material—whether a slogan, news release, or definitive company his­tory—requires developing, writing, clearing, printing, distribution. Projects within a project. Will we have a contest? It is easy to say so, but once it is agreed on, there appear a multiplicity of details—promotion, rules, judges, entry blanks, prizes—to be attended to. Projects within a project. Do we want a Speakers' Bureau? Some of the persons accepting assignments for such a bureau will wish to write their own material, but many will want help. There will have to be a clearinghouse for engagements. Projects within a project.

how to make everyone happy—long enough to salvage the heart of your program anyway. And who could ask for more?
Meantime, we offer these few thoughts to help you feel better about what you're hearing:

Remember that the acid comments are not aimed at you. They are resentfully aimed at the cost factor of the celebration. Any­body who had to submit an estimated cost figure would hear the same things. Assignment of a budget to handle a program of the scope you visualize has not yet been made. In fact, no budget appropriation of any kind has been made. And here are you, asking a group of men—each with his own little ax to grind—to quit stalling and assign one—and assign one on a basis you admit to be an approximation only! You know only too well (and you assume that they know, too, but they probably don't) how im­mensely a decision on this matter at this time would aid in ex­pediting the program. But what you maybe forget is that there is at least one member of the committee who doesn't care if the company has a celebration or not.

There's somebody who's never going to get your viewpoint! And the others, responsible for the financial soundness of the company, remain interested but cautious.

So don't take it all too seriously. We think it very bad practice to begin an undertaking of the importance of an anniversary celebration with a budget figure already picked, either openly or secretly. We believe such predetermination hamstrings initiative and imagination. But it's an even bet that (a) your General Chair­man knew the day he hired you how much the company would spend on the celebration (including your salary); and that (b) actually the only task facing the Policy Committee is to pick a group of events which can be produced for the prescribed amount; and that (c) most of what you are seeing is meeting-room shadow-boxing to test prestige and give the impression of deep thought.

We feel that whatever budget is assigned to the project, there should also be a reserve established to take care of unforeseen contingencies and the last-minute, too-good-to-pass-up suggestions which make their appearance. We know that some executives are solidly opposed to the idea of a reserve. They make the point— a true one—that, human nature being what it is, a reserve is not an unmixed blessing. They contend you don't hold tight enough to the established program design if you have a reserve; that the temptation to experiment, and stretch, and expand is the result of an ever-present consciousness of a reserve. A decision must be made, and we take our stand for the reserve because estimating a program is one thing. Producing that program is something else entirely.

Strangely enough the committee members do not appear to realize, or even suspect, that their present experience (they call it a dilemma) is not one bit different from the experience of any other group of men who ever have had to run an anniversary celebration. It is an old and routine problem: nobody can afford all the good Ideas submitted. You yourself have been surprised at how many really good Ideas began to sprout after you dug and nourished for a while. And there is only one remedy: Murder the darlings. Or at least put them on starvation diets. As you screen and weigh, few will escape tailoring in some degree. Some few will receive just about the amount your estimate calls for. Some will receive a reduced budget and will be trimmed to fit; others, tested for effectiveness versus cost and found wanting, must be eliminated ruthlessly. And so finally you bring your program and your budget into an area where final, and reasonably satis­factory, compromises are possible.

But probably not today.

SAVING FACE

So at the point where you feel everybody has had his say, that the discussion has continued long and fruitlessly enough, recom­mend to the General Chairman that the discussion be closed for the day and that you be allowed to make a suggestion. Then say something like this:

"I have no way of knowing what management is thinking of in terms of the amount of money that will be invested in our celebration. Obviously, however, we are getting nowhere this way —sifting individual Ideas and arguing about individual costs—so I'd like to postpone further budget discussion until the next meet­ing. For that next meeting (which will take place about six weeks from now), I will prepare a set of four different Anniversary Year "packages" or groups of Ideas. I will scale them respectively to budgets of $50,000, $75,000, $100,000, and over $100,000. In this way you gentlemen will have a chance to study four different programs one by one. Out of that choice you may find it easier to select a likely program."

The proposal will be approved amid gusty sighs of relief.
However, though you have taken the Policy Committee off the hook in this particular matter, they will soon have to demonstrate leadership traits in areas other than approving or discarding Ideas.

SIX COMMITTEE RESPONSIBILITIES

Talk with the General Chairman and see when and how he wants the following responsibilities presented to the Policy Com­mittee. If the company's observance, as presently visualized, is to proceed smoothly and efficiently to a punctual and successful public unveiling, someone—and most logically the Policy Com­mittee—must soon

1. Accept or reject a "package" of anniversary events. An opportunity to select a unified, well-rounded group of activities will be offered the committee at the next Progress Meeting. Enough ac­ceptable Ideas have thus far been presented and reviewed to make final choice possible. Procrastination and delay should no longer be tolerated.
2. Appropriate and assign an anniversary celebration budget, including an emergency reserve.
3. Authorize, or refuse to authorize, the Co-ordinator to select or hire, and train, additional personnel as soon as such assistance becomes, in his opinion, necessary to complete the program on time. (Earliest foreseeable needs: two persons, one with art and layout skills, one with typing and secretarial skills.)
4. Provide, or refuse to provide, the Co-ordinator with a work budget or expense account. This is another of those points sup­posedly thrashed out months ago, but often neglected. If indi­vidual requests have been required each time the Co-ordinator wanted a picture taken, a taxicab hired, or a prop hauled, it's a wonder he hasn't split a seam!
5. Decide on steps to put the accepted program into production.
6. Approve and designate channels of communication for in­forming employees and public about anniversary planning and progress. It is our belief, emphasized elsewhere and repeated here, that the most carefully laid plans can fail miserably unless properlines of communication are opened and kept open to inform staff and public. It must be decided who is important to the company. Then information on each evolving phase of the celebration must be channeled to them regularly. Use the medium best suited to the objective. Consult "Publicity" on page 268.

OR AREN'T THEY?

It is possible, of course, that the decisions required above are out of the jurisdiction of the Policy Committee. Perhaps they can and will be supplied only by the General Chairman as senior officer of the company. If, for the sake of argument, we assume that this is the situation, then sooner or later the General Chair­man must either decide them or fail to decide them. Being human, he will first try to "wait and see" as long as possible in the hope that some of the problems may solve themselves. And maybe they will, but we doubt it.

So maybe he just does nothing. Some executives handle prob­lems that way. And in that event, you probably don't get addi­tional personnel, and you don't get a work budget, and you figure your own way of getting the accepted program into production.
All right.

But wherever the finger of responsibility points, the important thing for you to remember is this: Make sure that the General Chairman is aware of the existence of these questions, aware that you know of their existence, and aware that you are concerned for their solution.

Otherwise you are going to live to see the day when the ques­tions, unanswered, full-grown, and menacing, loom over both of you while he asks, "Didn't you foresee this?"

Short months from today the company will be right square in the middle of its kick-off month. At that time, every single thing which is today mere conversation and theoretical argument must be an accomplished, operating fact. And it's going to take so much doing that there isn't any more time to waste in procrastination.

A SIX-MONTHS' REPORT

Written reports are part of the business scenery. An annual report is simply good administration on any job, but here, at the end of six months, is a report you should prepare for your General Chairman, unasked and unexpected.

True, the General Chairman has been working closely with you, and, if you weren't producing, you'd have heard from him before now. Therefore you may feel that it is belaboring the obvi­ous to hand him a written report about things he himself has participated in.

We do not agree. We emphatically do not agree if he is the report-loving type. We don't agree even if he is one who shrinks from anything to read.
Such a report as we recommend is neither difficult to assemble nor to read. It is extremely simple if you've been keeping that daily work sheet we recommended back in Chapter 2. It does not have to be massive—a couple of pages will do—and the reward you'll receive in added stature in the eyes of your employer will be payment in full.

Such a report will provide you with a neat, thumbnail sketch of the progress you have made, and the accomplishments you've completed. It provides the same for your General Chairman. It puts "in writing" evidence that you've earned your salary and maybe a little more, which is never a bad point to emphasize to the man who signs your checks. It spotlights areas in which too much, or not enough, emphasis is being placed, enabling you to level off these areas to the advantage of the over-all plan. And besides all this, it's part of your job.

So to get you started, we're presenting here a check list of things you probably have accomplished in the course of the past six months. Only you can be specific, and only you can write your report. Again: we are offering you one more of the patterns we have included in this book to help produce a finished professional performance. What you do with it is your affair.

TWELVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

1. A basic working knowledge of the organization has been obtained, including acquaintanceship with its history, policies, ideals, preferred modes of operation, personnel, equipment, re­sources.
2. From (1) above has been developed a set of operational pro­cedures, project requirements, performance standards, personal responsibilities and obligations pertinent to the successful produc­tion of an anniversary program.
3. A total of (number) ideas for the anniversary celebration has been assembled, presented, screened, culled, revised, and sep­arated into departmental classifications.
4. Numerous departments and sources inside and outside the organization have been contacted (e.g., libraries, museums, adver­
   tising agencies, government bureaus, business, financial, industrial
   and commercial establishments) to discuss methods of procedure
   and estimated costs for each tentatively approved anniversary
   activity.
5. The scope of a preliminary budget has been outlined and approved.
6. A 12-months' Calendar of Events, broken down by months, has been prepared.
7. Three major Progress Reports have been assembled and written, and each report has been the basis of a major meeting of the Policy Committee.
8. A variety of continuing miscellaneous activities have been carried on, including initiating and attendance at meetings and conferences inside and outside the company; preparation of sam­ple radio spots; preparation of general and institutional advertis­ing copy; a review of all currently used printed forms; perform­ance of all pertinent allied clerical and secretarial duties, includ­ing preparation of all necessary correspondence, keeping of daily work sheet, local and long-distance telephone calls, obtaining and maintaining office supplies and equipment, submission of regular verbal and written reports to management.
9. (Number) public-speaking assignments have been ac­cepted and completed.
10. Miscellaneous public relations suggestions have been presented to management in memorandum form, outside the framework of the anniversary celebration assignment and simply with the good of the company at heart.
11. A statewide mailing list for publicity releases has been assembled and address plates made.
12. A six-months' report of accomplishment—an "account of stewardship"—has been prepared.

If you accept our recommendation and prepare a six-months' activities report for the General Chairman, carry the matter one step further and see that copies reach each member of the Policy Committee also. Don't distribute them yourself unless you must. The best way is to have a sufficient number of copies made up and take them all to the General Chairman's office when you deliver his copy. Then you say: "Shall I distribute the rest of these to the committee myself, or do you want your secretary to take care of it?"

The committee should know what you've been doing, and the report will do you more good if it comes from the General Chair­man's

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...