The Seventh Month

At the end of this month you should hold Progress Meeting #4. The basis of the meeting will, of course, be Progress Report #4. It is from this meeting and this report that a final determination of anniversary program events should be made.

PLANNING PROGRESS MEETING #4

On page 163 you will find a suggested agenda for Progress Meeting #4. We recommend that you use it as a guide, that you compose your agenda immediately, and that you lose no time in bringing it to the General Chairman for clearance.

Make sure that the General Chairman understands you consider it a major responsibility of the Policy Committee to produce an Anniversary Year program at this next meeting.

We know that despite the hopeful agenda for the last Progress Meeting, it's unlikely you achieved a final determination of Approved Ideas. We do hope, however, that you managed to end the meeting with no For Further Consideration entries still float­ing about. If you got those holdouts nailed down, you accom­plished a lot. All the Ideas you have now are Approved Ideas.

Then, with an agenda approved, a specific date set, and a confirming memorandum on its way to committee members from the General Chairman, you should bend all your energies toward preparation of Progress Report #4.

PREPARING PROGRESS REPORT #4

You promised last meeting that Progress Report #4 would be a different type of report, and so it will. You promised that it would offer the members of the Policy Committee an opportunity to select from among several complete programs, and so it will. Preparation of such a report is very simple. You break preparation down into six easy steps, thus:

1. The moment you begin preparation of Progress Report #4, cut off the flow of new Ideas, not by trying to go to the sourcesthere are too many sources working for you now—but simply by letting the Ideas accumulate, temporarily untouched, as they arrive at your desk. Confine your efforts to running down all obtainable information on the Ideas which will make up this Progress Report #4. There'll be some new ones included, of course. Up to the moment you impose your cutoff date, you'll be working on some Ideas not previously seen by the committee. But beyond those, don't bring any more Ideas to the Policy Committee for a while. Let's face it. They're tired of Ideas.
2. You gather together on your desk all the Ideas which you plan to include in Progress Report #4. You then begin to prepare the report with a built-in design which will, you hope, operate to keep Progress Meeting #4 from becoming another inconclusive sifting of Ideas.
3. You begin by saying thoughtfully to yourself:

"If I am maybe going to be granted $50,000 to produce this celebration, what activities and events do I consider musts?"

And then you review, one by one, the entire list of Ideas which you have in front of you on your desk, and you write a big, fat, black capital A alongside the ones which, in your opinion, would constitute the absolute basic minimum effort of any celebration. Even if it is a new Idea not yet exposed to Policy Committee action but scheduled for such at this upcoming meeting, you mark it thus if you think proper.

Remember, however, that you may not select a total of Ideas which will cost more than $50,000 net. If, when you total the costs of your A Group of Ideas—the rock-bottom minimum selec­tion for an anniversary program—you find that you've run past the $50,000 mark, there is nothing to do but somehow pare down your minimum selection still further to reach the permissible figure.

As Co-ordinator you must be concerned with both internal and external public relations. For this reason, you will need to give more than ordinary attention to the public relations values of each Idea you choose for the A Group. This is because in any such minimum effort as is represented by the A Group, the public relations importance of each single entry increases astronomically. As you review your list of A Ideas you will find that you have included some which are marked NONE in the Estimated Net Cost column. This is good. All Ideas Approved by the Policy Committee and carrying no direct cost should be included in the A Group. They are a sort of bonus. They may all be included automatically in any program without chewing into your precious budget.
4.     Then, setting to one side the Ideas comprising the A Group,
you say to yourself:
"But just suppose I get more than a bare minimum? Suppose as much as $75,000? What then?"

Well, then you go once more through the list of Ideas which will make up Progress Report ¢4 (minus, of course, the Ideas which have been set aside to become A Group) and write a big, black capital B alongside the Ideas which you feel should be included in any worthwhile Anniversary Year presentation—up to the amount of $25,000. Then you answer yourself: "In that case," you say, "I'd recommend addition of this B Group of Ideas. If we add the B Group to the A Group, well have a fairly decent pro­gram and it will cost about $75,000."
5.     Then you say to yourself:
"Let's float awhile. What if I should get real lucky and be given a nice round sum like, say, $100,000? What would I want to add?"

Once more you examine the Ideas you have left. Groups A and B are out
of the running, but there are still enough left for a careful choice. Through these you go, marking a big fat C along­side those which merit a spot in a celebration that wants some meat on its bones—but not past the amount of $25,000. And you say: "I'd add this group of Ideas marked with a C. Add them to the A Group and the B Group and the whole thing would cost about $100,000."
6.     Then you lose your grasp on reality and say dreamily:"Suppose they give me a blank check and say 'We're going all out'?"
In that case you simply mark a big capital D alongside all remaining Ideas and the entire contents of your Progress Report #4 becomes the proposed anniversary program. Because, of course, when added together the Ideas in Groups A, B, C, and D make up the contents of Progress Report #4.

Bear in mind that you are responsible for making the wisest possible first, second, third, and fourth choice of activities. Weigh carefully in each instance the factors of effectiveness versus cost, and the value of the activity in attaining the objectives of the celebration.

Do not be too proud to seek all the advice you can get-seasoned advice, that is—in arriving at sound decisions. Responsi­bility for final evaluation of such advice, and final decision as to which Idea goes where, is yours. However, there is much depend­able help available to you, just for the asking, from supervisory personnel familiar with the area in which each Idea falls.

And, finally, when you've made your choices, look them over suspiciously. Don't present a selection of activities to the Policy Committee without being able to defend vigorously and intelli­gently the placing of every item in the list.
"Because I like it, somehow!" won't do as a reason for including an event.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRESS REPORT #4

The suggested form for Progress Report #4 contains seven columns. You may see the form by consulting Fig. 20, on page 150. As usual, the headings of the columns are descriptive of the information the columns carry.

Column 1. "Number" (abbreviated to "No.") at the top of the first (extreme left-hand) column is simply identification of se­quence. Don't read any secret meanings into these numbers. Number 1 is not necessarily the best Idea. Number 2 is not neces­sarily the second best. It is merely the number which the particu­lar Idea happened to get in this report at this time.

Column 2. "Group" at the top of the second left-hand column identifies the Group (A or B or C or D) to which you assigned that particular Idea {i.e., suggestion for activity or event) when you were breaking down the entire list.

Column 3. This provides three important pieces of informa­tion about each Idea: the company division or department which will be mainly responsible for producing it; the number of the goal under which the Policy Committee accepted it; and the "public" it is primarily intended to affect. Two examples:

Idea #1 (See Fig. 20) carries Group letter A. That means the Co-ordinator considered that Idea a program must. If it is finally accepted by the Policy Committee, it will be a major production responsibility of the advertising department. It was originally accepted under Goals #1, #2, and #3. Its chief impact will be on the general public. Now note: This Idea lists no direct cost (NONE) in the Estimated Net Cost column (column 6), so it would automatically receive an A designation no matter what you personally thought of it. The NONE Ideas would have to be pretty revolting to get tossed out—NONE Ideas that bad wouldn't have survived until now—so they'll automatically show up in any basic program. Naturally. They cost next to nothing.

Idea #2 carries a Group A designation also. This indicates that in breaking down the entire list, the Co-ordinator consid­ered it a "must" Idea, important enough to rate a spot in any basic anniversary program. If the Policy Committee finally ac­cepts it, it will be a responsibility of the display department. It was originally accepted by the committee under Goal #4.. Its chief impact will be on the general public.
And so on.  

There is probably no way in which such classification can avoid being somewhat arbitrary. After all, how do you define general public? How much of the public-at-large makes up the general public? Are you sure that Idea #3 (the slick Annual Re­port) in this Progress Report is really aimed at just a special sec­tion of the public rather than at the general public? How do you know? What do you mean by an "internal'' activity?
Do you see?

Column 3 should be produced slowly and with a great deal of thought. Carefully prepared, it will provide a tremendous amount of insight into how your anniversary celebration is shap­ing up. In your previous Progress Report (#3) you introduced the device of listing the goal number under which each Idea was accepted originally by the Policy Committee. On page 128 you learned how to use that information to keep your over-all program in balance. In the present column 3, you simply carry this "watchdog" progress one step further. You now may balance goals against publics. (Although the categories of "publics" [or targets] given here are broad and general, you can select and pin­point your own as precisely as you choose.) Then you can easily find out if your program as a unit is leaning too far in one di­rection. Simply count the entries. Is the general public getting too much attention at, for example, the expense of the employees? Compare the number of activities identified in column 3 as aimed at each, and see. Are there so many internal activities scheduled that the employees will have a barrel of fun, but nobody outside will know there's a celebration? Check up on the number of in­ternal activities against those designed for the general public.

Column 4. The column marked "Idea (Activity or Event)" is simply a brief description of the Idea under consideration.

Column 5 and column 6, entitled respectively "Estimated Gross Cost" and "Estimated Net Cost," take up the space previously used by the Comments column. (Reference to previous reports will provide comments and recommendations on each Idea.) In column 5 you put the closest estimate you can obtain on what it will cost the company to produce the Idea. If it happens that the company is doing something of the sort already, this gross cost will include the amount the company is already spending, and will be misleading. You will straighten out the record in column 6. In column 6 you place the figure which represents the net cost of the Idea to the company. This will be the additional (plus) cost over what normally is spent by the company for the activity. If the recommended Idea is something new to the com­pany, then the net cost will be the same as the gross cost. If, how­ever, the Idea is simply receiving some extra money to do a better job in the Anniversary Year, then the net cost is less be­cause it should not include the amount the company routinely spends on the Idea anyway.

As an example, take Idea #3 ("Produce a slick Annual Report for the year"):
Let's say you have estimated that about $6,000 will produce the kind of annual report you'd like to have for the anniversary. That's your estimated, gross, all-inclusive cost to get the job done. Fine. But the company always produces an annual report. Each year it spends about $2,500 on the job. Therefore, the an­nual report you want for the anniversary will actually cost the

company only $3,500. That's the cost of the Idea after you sub­tract from the gross cost the amount that the company will spend on the annual report anyway. That is the estimated net cost—the "plus-over-normal" cost—of that particular anniversary activity. Column 7. In the extreme right-hand column, you record the final disposition ordered for each Idea as the Policy Committee renders its decision.

PROGRESS MEETING #4

So comes the meeting.
According to the agenda (see Fig. 24), the first job you face when the Chairman calls the meeting to order is to describe the format changes in the report and review the meanings of the column headings. That material has been presented in the section imme­diately above.

Next in order comes responsibility for explaining to the Policy Committee two additional innovations in the report: the Review of Recent Meetings (see Fig. 25), and the Anniversary Program Groups and Costs chart. (See Fig. 26.)

The Review of Recent Meetings, page 164, is a synopsis, a di­gest, a thumbnail review of recent Progress Meetings. Naturally yours will differ from this example since our details (e.g., totals, divisions of Ideas, estimated costs) are intended only to show how such a synopsis might look. It is, for example, extremely unlikely that you ended your third Progress Meeting with 25 Ideas remaining Approved and representing an estimated net cost of exactly $122,605! However, by inserting your own figures in an itemized summary of this type and binding it into your report, you provide your Policy Committee with a quick and valuable review of the road you've traveled together.

Anniversary Program Groups and Costs, page 165, diagrams a way in which you may present to the Policy Committee the prom­ised four groups of Anniversary Year activities.

When you originally divided the total list of Ideas comprising Progress Report :jf£4, you divided them by marking a capital A, or B, or C, or D alongside each one. This mark indicated your considered opinion of the value and public relations potential of each Idea for the celebration. The selection was influenced strongly by the budget theoretically available.

This form (Anniversary Program Groups and Costs) reveals the four resulting separate groups. Now follow:

In Fig. 20, we present Progress Report #4. It shows 25 chosen Ideas. We know that it is more than likely you'll be entering your own Progress Meeting #4 with 125 Ideas rather than 25. The process in either case is exactly the same, so for our purposes of instruction you are entering this meeting with 25 Approved Ideas.

These 25 Ideas you have divided into four groups.
Group A contains a total of 14 Ideas. It contains Ideas num­bered 1, 2, 6, 7, and all the rest of the Ideas you considered basic anniversary activities at the time you went through the whole list.

In our miniature report, the cost of the 14 Ideas in the A Group add up to $28,385, as you may verify by adding the 14 sums in the Estimated Net Costs column of the report. (Yes, we know that is a long way from $50,000 which theoretically is permitted in this basic program. But we are not writing your report. We are showing you how your report may be written efficiently. You'll have more than enough Ideas to reach the $50,000 limit for A Group without half trying!)

Group B—allowing you another $25,000—contains six Ideas. These six are Ideas which you considered worthy of a place in any program that could possibly include them. Their value here amounts to $19,900. The accumulated total in this miniature re­port is now $48,285 for Group A plus Group B. But we'll bet you won't find it hard to spend $75,000 with the list of good Ideas you accumulate.

And so it goes: Group C melts the next $25,000 in a puff.
And Group D, with its three Ideas, takes you past the $100,000 mark, and you haven't even touched all those new Ideas left at your desk!
Note that the net grand totals are cumulative, with the final total equal to the total estimated net cost of the Ideas making up Progress Report #4.
Your final net grand total will, in the same way, equal the sum of all your Ideas, be they 25 or 225.

INTERNAL COMBUSTION

As you present your report, and explain it, and try to guide the discussion along the path suggested by the agenda, you get the feeling that you aren't making much headway. Despite your best efforts, you see the discussion you hoped to shorten dete­riorate once again into the "I like this/' "I don't like that" type of policy making, and it is hard to conceal your disappoint­ment.
Get a grip on your feelings and smile it out.
You're too close to see, but things are happening at this meet­ing!

The work of the Policy Committee up to now, and so far as you have been concerned, has mainly involved screening and choosing for the anniversary program the Ideas you have pre­sented at Progress Meetings. The committee has counseled, sug­gested, opposed, guided, argued, advised, and admonished. But whatever they did, there was always another meeting ahead where errors could be corrected.
Now, suddenly, some definite, final recommendations for an anniversary program are expected.

But look: that is just what you have done. In this report you have made careful recommendations as to which activities con­stitute the "musts"—the A Group. You have made further rec­ommendations about the positioning of other anniversary ac­tivities, too. And, besides, you report directly to the General Chairman!

And so, despite the fact that your arrangement of available Ideas into separate, understandable, manageable groups has given them a clearer picture than they've ever had of what may be expected for a given amount of money, they don't especially like it.

Though you alone have, for the past seven months, given all your thought and effort to making a success of this assignment, they won't take your recommendations without kicking up some dust. Yet they are not unreservedly happy about having to make recommendations of their own and stick with—or be stuck with— the results! So they indulge in this skipping and shuffling and jumping to reassert their authority.

What to do?
Nothing.

Resign yourself to a complete reshuffling of your four groups, knowing that when this meeting is over, the list of activities and events that remain must be considered The Anniversary Pro­gram. There is too much to do to delay program determination any longer.

You may as well forget any hope of getting action on the final item on the day's agenda. Establishment of a production organi­zation to get the program off paper will probably be postponed. It is extremely unlikely that you will get any such at this meeting.

DRAFTING AN ANNIVERSARY PROGRAM

At last it ends.
You return to your desk with the remnants of the four groups of Progress Report #4, plus countless comments, restrictions, exceptions, revisions, and conditions.

From this material, you now proceed to fashion what will, in all probability, become The Anniversary Program of the com­pany. It is not a difficult task. You do it in the following steps:

1. On separate 3"x 5" cards, or on separate pages of paper, write afresh and one per card, the titles of Ideas that have sur­vived committee screenings up to now. Go completely through the list of Ideas remaining from Progress Meeting #4 until you have prepared a single pile of cards or pages, each containing the title of a single Idea.
2. Then, going through this pile, write under each Idea the estimated net cost (calculated as carefully as possible), and the name of the division, section, or department wherein major pro­duction responsibility probably will fall.

Then, going through the pile of cards again one by one, separate the Ideas according to responsible departments as per the information you have included under (2) above. In other words, into one single pile put all the Ideas you have which are logically assignable to an advertising department for production. Into another single pile sort all the Ideas which normally should be a prime responsibility of a personnel department. Into a third pile assemble all Ideas which would appear to be a natural re sponsibility of a publicity department. Continue in this way, until each and every Approved Idea is departmentalized.

(First Draft)
PROGRAM for the observance of THE COMPANY ANNIVERSARY
Date______________________________
Responsibility: The ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT
Estimated Net Cost
1.Continuously use observance fact in advertising — never let public forget it.      NONE

2.Make standard-size, glossy, give-away pix of company delivery wagon (black-and-white pix).                                                               $100

3.Make all possible added use of metered mail.

4.Develop special series of decorative anniversary posters incorporating emblem, slogan, color; use in multiple locations, changing monthly.          $1,200

5.County-wide saturation billboard promotion, birthday month only.   $4,000

6.Accepted institutional ad program.      $IQ,OOO

TOTAL
% of anniversary budget:
Fig. 21 · A sample first-draft page depicting anniversary activities assignable to a company's advertising department.

4. All Ideas are now identified and departmentalized. So far this has been an operation similar to the one you performed after Progress Meeting #1. It's a shaking-down process, you see.
5. Now please direct your attention to Figs. 21, 22, and 23, on pages 157, 158, and 159. Lay out your Ideas in some such de­partmentalized form as this. In other words, pick up the pile of cards containing the Ideas you think should (or would) be a responsibility of the advertising department. Transfer these Ideas to a single (if possible) sheet of typewriter-size paper in the manner shown in Fig. 21, on page 157. Then turn to the pile of cards containing the Ideas which will be a prime responsibility
   of a personnel department. Transfer their contents to a single page in the manner shown in Fig. 22, on page 158. Then pick up the pile of cards containing Ideas you feel are natural responsibilities o£ any publicity department, and transfer the Ideas to a publicity department page as depicted in Fig. 23, on page 159. And so on.

(First Draft)
PROGRAM for the observance of THE COMPANY ANNIVERSARY
Date______________________________
Responsibility; The PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT
Estimated
____ IDEA____________________ Net Cost

1. Produce a special anniversary issue of the employee house publication. $5,000
2. Institute strong employee information program.        NONE
3. Identifying service pin (badge? ribbon?) to each regular employee, noting years of service and anniversary celebration.
4. Every piece printed matter going to staff during observance period should stress anniversary theme.            $50
5. Seek employee participation in anniversary planning by submittingIdeas and suggestions.                        NONE
6. Departmental, sectional sales contests            NONE
   TOTAL
   % of anniversary budget:
   Fig. 22. This is a sample first-draft page showing anniversary activities logically assignable to a company's personnel department.

5. Have the usual number o£ copies o£ each page made up, just as you routinely do for your Progress Reports. Clip the pages together in sets. Do not distribute them immediately, however. Instead, bring to the General Chairman his set. As you present it to him (and without referring to the breakdown by groups you submitted at the recent meeting) express your approval of the selections as made by the Policy Committee and rewritten and incorporated herein by you. You invite him to review the result and distribute the extra copies to the members of the Policy Committee. Tell him that you stand ready to consult with him or the committee at any time, but that here is The Anniversary Program which you recommend. It is now a matter for their decision, and the program should be accepted or rejected as a

(First Draft)
PROGRAM
£or the observance of THE COMPANY ANNIVERSARY
Date______________________________
Responsibility: The PUBLICITY DEPARTMENT
Estimated
____ IDEA____________________ Net Cost

1. Arrange for signature of proclamation by Mayor.      $ 25
2. Prepare and route old-fashioned horse-drawn delivery wagon.         $3,000
3. Arrange company gift to local public institution.         $5,000
4. Barbershop quartette singing.
5. Press, radio, •and television coverage of pertinent news events
   throughout the period.
6. Fill, seal, and store a Memory Chest at the end of the Anniversary

Year.                                                         
TOTAL
% of anniversary
budget;
Fig. 23. This Is a sample first-draft page of anniversary activities logically assignable to a company's publicity department.
unit. (It won't be.) You express the hope that he will soon give you permission to proceed with production. You take your de­parture.

DESCENT OF THE GREAT SILENCE

And then descends the Great Silence.
The executive suite is ominously quiet, your telephone stands mute, spiders spin unmolested webs across your office door.
And there isn't a single thing you can do about it.

If business is generally good and the stock market is behaving and the morning toast hasn't been too badly burned, the Silence may not last long, and your wait for a production green light may not be prolonged unduly.

You may as well face the fact, however, that rarely is business that good!
Naturally, there isn't any completely "right" time to do any­thing in this world. There are always plenty of reasons—and good reasons, too—for not going forward with celebrations, with renova­tions, with expansion, with modernization. The fact that there are equally good reasons favoring such moves too frequently goes unnoticed. It's the cloudy sky that gets the attention.

The man who waits for "the right time" to go to college, to get married, to enter business, to buy a home, rarely does any of those things. The company which waits for all the omens to be auspicious before deciding to move ahead with an anniversary program usually ends by referring cautiously to their birthday in a corner of their standard Sunday newspaper ad.

So, in the deliberations of the Policy Committee there is weari­ness and irritation and uncertainty. The business picture is foggy, the stock market is on a pogo stick, the foreign situation looks touchy, the monthly profit isn't up to expectations, and what is Congress going to do about taxes? Besides, how can anybody justify to employees and stockholders an expenditure on this kind of foolishness when a fundamental tenet of the company has always been thrift-thrift—THRIFT?
And you wait.

According to your temperament, this may or may not be a particularly trying period. However, basing our hypothesis on the assumption that you really care about what happens to this pro­gram, you're probably going to experience at least a little trouble keeping your hands off the telephone and holding your peace.
And hold your peace you must.
Patiently.

Even when you find yourself excluded from sessions where the fate of the program is settled.

You should feel no slight at such exclusion. It has no more personal meaning than would exclusion from a staff meeting deal­ing with labor or credit or merchandising problems. You were hired to produce an anniversary program and you've done so, and that's all there is to it.

Certainly, though, we sympathize with your concern. You feel that you have an important stake in what is transpiring at those meetings, and in what may be happening to the well-balanced program you presented. Yet you have no vote at all. There is nobody there to defend it.

That is not quite an accurate estimate of the situation, however. First of all, the Policy Committee is not a collective sworn enemy of an anniversary program. And the General Chairman, no light­weight in the organization, is there to defend it. He liked what he was bringing to the committee or you'd have heard about it, never fear. And by liking it he is committed to it. He has a stake in it equal to yours, and maybe a bit bigger.

So the thing for you to do right now is to stop gnawing your fingernails and look around. For the time being, your responsibili­ties lie in other directions.

The first thing to do is to have a look at the anniversary pro­gram Ideas which carry a NONE in the Estimated Net Cost column. Those are Ideas that you can, and in conscience should, begin working on right away. Why? Because they're an integral part of the program and you are being paid to work on the program. Besides, they require no assignment of budget, they won't be thrown out, and your work won't be wasted.

We know: for all anyone can tell at the moment the Policy Committee may have canceled the whole program and left for Northern Rhodesia. Even so, you've still got an obligation, and there is much to be done, for example, in the area of

WRITING FOR THE ANNIVERSARY PROGRAM

Any items in the following list which are accepted for use in the anniversary celebration must be completed prior to the open­ing of the period. In other words they must be ready at the begin­ning of business on the morning of (date) .

Each will require special technical attention, including plan­ning, research, writing, revision, clearance, production, and super­vision from start to finish. Not to mention transportation, storage, and distribution.

1. The anniversary book.
2. The slick annual report.
3. Advertising campaigns' special material. All forms, all media. Kick-off, institutional, press, radio, television, bill boards, special posters, mail meter, etc.
4. Kit for suppliers—to include thumbnail biographical sketches of top management; general announcement of an­niversary plans; historical sketch including past, present, and hopes for future; report on expansion or renovation either accomplished or planned.
5. Company history.
6. Contest rules, forms, outlines, blanks, flyers, announce­ ments, etc.
7. Employee publication. Special kick-off issue prepared for distribution between Christmas and New Year's prior to Anniversary Year. Perhaps to include historical background copy and pictures; Calendar of Events; the company in war and peace; stories on active long-time employees, Quarter Century Club members, ten-gallon blood donors, third-
   generation employees, other special groups; the company and the community; and so on.
8. The information packet.
9. The Mayor's proclamation.
10. Special posters. Should be ready in storage, with completed
    schedule of color, content, sequence, distribution, and display dates.
11. Speeches for the Speakers' Bureau.
12. Promotions, special. And sales literature. And stuffers.
13. Releases to press, radio, television. Copy and pictures. Spe­cial event and routine. All local and state dailies, weeklies, wire services, trade press. If you're smart you'll decide very early in your operation what outlets will be getting the bulk of your releases. Then either have address plates made or have at least a dozen sets of envelopes typed up ahead
    of time. The address plates are best, but the typed envelopes will at least give you a head start on the days when you simply won't get your news out if you have to wait to address envelopes.

On a number of these items (e.g., the anniversary book, the Mayor's proclamation, the kits and packets and speeches, the special issue of the employee publication, the institutional ad­vertisements, the company history), the person assigned to draft preliminary copy will have no more informational resources available a year from now than exist today. Does it not therefore seem the better part of wisdom to avoid a last-minute jam of too-much-to-do and not-enough-time by putting all possible tasks into production as soon as possible? In short, now?

Take that Mayor's proclamation, for example. You will find a sample proclamation on page 264. It will serve you as a guide or framework for the one you will develop. So why wait? Why not make a draft NOW?

Or the institutional advertisements. There is a chore to keep you from brooding.

And a company history will never spring from any wishing well, full-blown and bound in hard covers.

Here are some jobs to be done. Here are some jobs that must be done. You can make an impressive start on them simply by putting on your hat, going to the library, and forgetting your troubles for a while in the stacks.
And the period of waiting won't seem so endlessly long.

AGENDA for PROGRESS MEETING #4
of the Policy Committee for the Anniversary Celebration
Place____ Date_
(At approximately the end of your 7th month on the Job)
PART I: Review of material (responsibility of Co-ordinator)
Explain to the Policy Committee the changes in the format of Progress Report #4 and review the meanings of the headings at the top of each column.
Explain the Recap of Recent Meetings page; the Anniversary Program Groups and Costs page; the footnotes on both.
PART II: Progress Report #4 (responsibility of Chairman) The Policy Committee shall
1. Discuss the alternate choices among the four program groups. (Discuss each, first as a unit.) Then
2.. Select one of the groups to be The Anniversary Program.
3. Recommend and incorporate into the selected program group, Ideas from other groups which the committee feels should be a part of The Anniversary Program.
4.¯ Establish a production organization to begin getting The Anniversary Program off paper.
PART III: Conclusion (responsibility of Chairman) Concluding remarks* Adjournment.
Fig. 24. Agenda for Progress Meeting #4.

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