James D. Mooney Quotes

James David Mooney was an American engineer and corporate executive at General Motors who played a role in international affairs in the 1930s and early 1940s. His career was disrupted when he was accused of Nazi sympathies in 1940. Wikipedia

✵ 18. February 1884 – 21. September 1957

James D. Mooney: 36 quotes 1 like

Famous James D. Mooney Quotes

“My own principal interest lies in the sphere of industrial organization, which of all major forms of human organization is, in its present magnitude, the most modern. For this the reason is evident. The vast present-day units of industrial organization are products mainly of one creating factor, namely the technology of mass production, and this technology, born of the industrial revolution, has been almost exclusively an evolution of the last century. In contrast other major forms of human organization — the state, the church, the army — are as old as human history itself. Yet if we examine the structure of these forms of organization we shall find that, however diverse their purposes, the underlying principles of organization are ever the same.”

James D. Mooney

Source: "The principles of organization", 1937, p. 90

“The term organization, and the principles that govern it, are inherent in every form of concerted human effort, even where there are no more than two people involved. For example take two men who combine their efforts to lift and move a stone that is too heavy to be moved by one. In the fact of this combination of effort we have the reality of human organization for a given purpose. Likewise in the procedure necessary to this end we find the fundamental principles of organization. To begin with, the two lifters must lift in unison. Without this combination of effort the result would be futile. Here we have co-ordination, the first principle of organization. Likewise one of these two must give the signal "heave ho!" or its equivalent, to the other, thus illustrating the principle of leadership or command. Again the other may have a suggestion to make to the leader in the matter of procedure, which involves the vital staff principle of advice or counsel. And so on. Thus in every form of concerted effort principles of organization are as essential and inevitable as organization itself.”

James D. Mooney

Source: "The principles of organization", 1937, p. 90

“It is sufficient here to observe that the supreme coordinating authority must be anterior to leadership in logical order, for it is this coordinating force which makes the organization. Leadership, on the other hand, always presupposes the organization. There can be no leader without something to lead.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 21

“There are two prime requisites in efficient staff service, coordination and infiltration. The tertn "co-ordination" describes the necessary method of sound staff procedure, but "infiltration of knowledge" is the ultimate purpose of all staff activities. Staff service is not alone for the top leader. It comes to him first, for he needs it in the making of his initial decisions, but the subordinates in the scalar chain, down to the very rank and file, likewise need it in the intelligent execution of all plans.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 73

“It is essentially to the very idea and concept of organization that we there must be a process, formal in character, through which the supreme co-ordinating authority operates throughout the whole structure of the organized body. This process is not an abstraction; it is a tangible reality observable in every organization. It appears in a form so distinct and characteristic that it practically names itself, — hence the term Scalar Process.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 31

“The third and effectuating principle of the entire scalar process is Functional Definition.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 43

James D. Mooney Quotes

“Organization is as old as human society itself.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. xiii. Cited in: Morgen Witzel (2003) Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 196

“In organization it means the graduation of duties, not according to differentiated functions, for this involves another and distinct principle of organization, but simply according to degrees of authority and corresponding responsibility.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 31

“No advance in human knowledge will ever exclude the leader's need for the counsel of elemental human wisdom, and especially of collective wisdom, in the making of all important decisions.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 66

Wisdom , Knowledge , Decision

“While many brilliant writers and speech makers have been battling passionately about communism, fascism, socialism, and democracy, our studies of how governmental organizations actually function have forced us to the conclusion that there is little significance to these terms. Indeed, it has been our general observation that not only in different countries, but from generation to generation men go on organizing their governments and earning their living in much the same manner. Notable changes and improvements can be credited from time to time to the scientists and engineers, and in general to improved technology, but throughout history economic laws and the processes of production and distribution display an utter contempt for changes in the political complexion of government. In appraising the many experiments in governmental organization that are being tried currently throughout the world, it is important that we should not be thrown off the track by the circumstance that the various revolutionary movements or changes in government have adopted different symbols around which to rally supporters. The vital point is the plain fact that, once the controlling group gets into power, the practical circumstances of the situation force the new leaders to organize the government according to principles of organization that are as old as the hills.”

James D. Mooney

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 14-15; as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 251-252 ; Parts published earlier in: News and Views. General Motors Acceptance Corporation, General Exchange Insurance Corporation, Motors Insurance Corporation, 1938. p. 8

Men , World , Law , Democracy

“Cross-functionalism, however, cannot eliminate departmental organization; on the contrary the organized supervision of any function of this character becomes itself departmental. Thus out of cross-functionalism must grow cross-departmentalism. Cross-departmentalism is an extended application of the principle of horizontal correlation.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 47

“Coordination, therefore, is the orderly arrangement of group efforts, to provide unity of action in the pursuit of a common purpose. As coordination is the all inclusive principle of organization it must have its own principle and foundation in authority, or the supreme coordination power. Always, in every form of organization, this supreme authority must rest somewhere, else there would be no directive for any coordinated effort.”

James D. Mooney

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 6

Effort

“Organization begins when people, even if they be only two or more, combine their efforts for a given purpose. We have shown this by the simple illustration of two people uniting their efforts to lift and move some weighty object. This combination, however, is not the first principle of organization. It is only an illustration of organization itself. To find the first principle, let us carry the illustration a step further. The efforts of these two lifters must be coordinated, which means that they must act together. If first one lifted, and then the other, there would be no unity of action, and hence no true organization of effort. Here then we find the first principles of organization.
The next thing to do in order to explain is what we mean when we call coordination the first principle. We mean that this term expresses the principles of organization in toto; nothing less. This does not mean that there are no subordinated principles; it simply means that all the others are contained in this one of co-ordination. The others are simply the principles through which co-ordination operates, and thus becomes effective.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 19

People , Effort

“The staff function in organization means the service of advice or counsel, as distinguished from the function of authority or command. This service has three phases, which appear in a clearly integrated relationship. These phases ^ are the informative, the advisory, and the supervisory.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 60

Appearance

“The scalar principle is the same form in organization that is sometimes called hierarchical. But, to avoid all definitional variants, scalar is here preferred. A scale means a series of steps, something graded. In organization it means the grading of duties, not according to different functions, for this involves another principle of organization, but according to degrees of authority and corresponding responsibility. For convenience we shall call this phenomenon of organization the scalar chain. The common impression regards this scale or chain merely as a "type" of organization, characteristic only of the vaster institutions of government, army, church, and industry. This impression is erroneous. It is likewise misleading, for it seems to imply that the scalar chain in organization lacks universality. These great organizations differ from others only in that the chain is longer. The truth is that wherever we find an organization even of two people, related as superior and subordinate, we have the scalar principle. This chain constitutes the universal process of coordination, through which the supreme coordinating authority becomes effective throughout the entire structure.”

James D. Mooney

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 94-95; as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 251-252

People , Truth , Universe

“[Functionalism is] a distinction between kinds of duties.”

James D. Mooney

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 15

“By the term functionalism, considered as a principle of organization, we mean the differentiation or distinction between kind of duties. Thus it is clearly distinguished from the scalar principle, in which there is also differentiation, but of quite another kind. The scalar differentiation refers simply to degrees or gradations of authority.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 45

“Delegation means the conferring of a specified authority by a higher authority. In its essence it involves a dual responsibility. The one to vhom responsibility is delegated becomes responsible to the superior for doing the job. but the superior remains responsible for getting the Job done. This principle of delegation is the center of all processes in formal organization. Delegation is inherent in the very nature of the relation between superior and subordinate. The moment the objective calls for the organized effort of more than one person, there is always leadership with its delegation of duties.”

James D. Mooney

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 17

Nature , Effort , Personality

“Worthiness in the industrial sphere can have reference to one thing only, namely the contribution of industry to the sum total of human welfare. On this basis only must industry and all its works finally be judged… The lessons of history teach us that no efficiency of procedure will save from ultimate extinction those organizations that pursue a false objective; on the other hand, without such efficient procedure, all human group effort becomes relatively futile.”

James D. Mooney

Source: "The principles of organization", 1937, p. 97-98. Cited in: Morgen Witzel (2003) Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 196

History , Effort , Falseness

“Leadership is the form that authority assumes when it enters into process. As such it constitutes the determining principle of the entire scalar process, existing not only at the source, but projecting itself through its own action throughout the entire chain, until, through functional definition, it effectuates the formal coordination of the entire structure.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 33

“The reason for the phenomenon we call organization is as fundamental as human life itself. It has its roots in the fact that man, in every fibre of his being, with the full force of every motive he has brought with him through the ages, is stamped indelibly as a social creature.
Our primitive ancestors, before history began to be written, felt both the urge and the necessity to band together. By day, this awkward creature, with his new-found weapons in his clumsy hands, could stand alone and hold his enemy at bay by the power of his growing cunning. But when night fell, his helplessness weighed upon him and he fled in terror to the retreats where others of his kind were congregated, and sought with them a mutual solace of the fears that beset them all”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 1; Lead paragraphs

Life , Age , Fear , History

“The scalar process is the same form in organization which is sometimes called hierarchical. But in order to avoid all definitional ambiguities the term scalar is much to be preferred. A scale means a series of steps; hence, something graduated.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 31

“The technique of management, in its human relationships, can be best described as the technique of handling or managing people, which should be based on a deep and enlightened human understanding. The technique of organization may be described as that of relating specific duties or functions in a completely coordinated scheme. This statement of the difference between managing and organizing clearly shows their intimate relationship. It also shows, which is our present purpose, that the technique of organizing is inferior, in logical order, to that of management. It is true that a sound organizer may, because of temperamental failings, be a poor manager, but on the other hand it is inconceivable that a poor organizer may ever make a good manager… The prime necessity in all organization is harmonious relationships based on integrated interests, and, to this end, the first essential is an integrated and harmonious relationship in the duties, considered in themselves.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 14-15; As cited in: Morgen Witzel (2003) Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 197-8

People , Understanding

“As coordination contains all the principles of organization, it likewise expresses all the purposes of organization, in so far as these purposes relate to its internal structure. To avoid confusion we must keep in mind that there are always two objectives of organization, the internal and the external. The latter may be anything, according to the purpose or interest that calls the group together, but the internal objective is coordinative always.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 20

“Although a separate function of some kind is implicit in the very existence of a separate department, there may be, especially in manufacturing procedure, certain general functions, appearing in some form of departments, which in turn may require organized supervision and correlation. Thus we have cross-functionalism.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 46-47

Appearance

“The common impression regards this scale or chain merely as a "type" of organization, characteristic only of the vaster institutions of government, army, church and industry. This impression is erroneous. It is likewise misleading, for it seems to imply that the scalar chain in organization lacks universality. These great organizations differ from others only in that the chain is longer. The truth is that wherever we find an organization even of two people, related as superior and subordinate, we have the scalar principled.”

James D. Mooney

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 14-15

People , Truth , Universe

“As coordination is the all-inclusive principle of organization, it must have its own principle and foundation in Authority, or the supreme coordinating power. Always, in every form of organization, this supreme coordinating authority must rest somewhere, else there would be no directive for any truly coordinated effort. The term authority as here used need imply nothing of autocracy.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 20

Effort

“The fact that functions may not be separated in organization does not in any way way destroy their identity as functions… The ideal of organized efficiency is not the complete segregation but the integrated correlation |of the three primary functions… The organizer must identify these functional principles, as they appear in every job, and make them the basis of his correlation… his duty is to correlate functions as such… The duty of the manager is to correlate who performs these functions… Management however represents the scalar principle… perpendicular correlations… true horizontal correlation requires other contact… The dissemination of understanding… of common purpose, of the relation of individuals to that purpose & to each other.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 50-59, as cited in Lyndall Urwick (1937;50)

Way , Understanding , Appearance

“Failure to delegate causes managers to be crushed and fail under the weight of accumulated duties that they do not know and have not learned to delegate.”

James D. Mooney

James D. Mooney (1931), cited in: Guy Kimberley Hutt (1990), Organizational decentralization and delegation in large New York. p. 1

Failure , Learning

“Organization is the form of every human association for the attainment of a common purpose.”

James D. Mooney

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 10

“When a member of an organization is placed in a position with duties ill defined in their relation to other duties what happens? Naturally he attempts to make his own interpretation of those duties and, where he can, to impose this view on those about him. In this process he encounters others in similar cases, with friction and lack of coordination as the inevitable result.”

James D. Mooney

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 29-30

Nature

“The informative phase refers to those things which authority should know in framing its decisions; the advisory, to the actual counsel based on such information; the supervisory, to both preceding phases as applied to all the details of execution. The point is that the line represents the authority of man; the staff, the authority of ideas. The staff is purely an auxiliary service. Its function is to be informative and advisory with respect to both plans and their execution. This is implicit in the word "staff" which is something to support or lean upon but without authority to decide or initiate.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 60

Idea , Support , Decision

“The supreme coordinating authority must rest somewhere and in some form in every organization, else there could be no such thing as organized.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 20

“In the practical sense the word principle may be applied to any underlying cause of more or less correlated facts in any particular field of investigation. The word principles, as applied to organization, is used by us strictly in the latter meaning.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 17

Sense

“Management Mind in the Automobile Industry has always had a great contempt for politics. The point has been missed that although we, in the Automobile Industry have continually dismissed politics and government as quite unworthy of the attention of serious-minded men like ourselves, politics and government have been continually increasing their interest in the Automobile.”

James D. Mooney

James D. Mooney (1933), cited in: Glenn Yago (1980), ;;The Decline of Public Transit in the United States and Germany. p. 39

Men

“In every organization there must be some function that decides or determines the objective and the procedure necessary to its attainment… may be called the determinative… in secular government always known as the legislative.”

James D. Mooney

Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 47, as cited in Lyndall Urwick (1937;50)

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