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The Administrative Staff College: Executive Development in Government and Industry*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Marshall E. Dimock
Marshall E. Dimock
Affiliation:
New York University
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Extract

The most interesting educational experiment in the world today for the student of comparative administration and business and government is the Administrative Staff College at Henley-on-Thames, England. This College is pioneering the methods which, in any industrialized nation, are needed to restore the flexibility and initiative that must always accompany free enterprise. The College also provides a new approach to leadership training in that enrollees are recruited in fixed proportions from public and private employment by a method that produces balanced management teams among the members (as the “students” are called), and the teaching procedure stresses group work and self-instruction rather than formal lectures.

This original venture, headed by Princeton-trained Noel F. Hall, was founded in 1946 and opened in 1948. Already it is being imitated in widely scattered parts of the world. Henley has turned out some 1,300 policy administrators of the average age of 39, all of whom had been tapped for higher responsibilities by their employers—who incidentally foot the bill—before going to Henley for the three months' session. Each session—there are three a year—is limited to 60 members; six of the 60 members may be drawn from overseas and the rest come from private business, the central civil service, local government, the nationalized industries, and banking.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , March 1956 , pp. 166 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1956

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References

1 See his The 20th Century Capitalist Revolution (New York, 1954), pp. 15–16Google Scholar.

2 Howard Hyde and I dealt with some of these problems in Temporary National Economic Commission Monograph No. 11, Bureaucracy and Trusteeship in Large Corporations (G.P.O., 1940)Google Scholar.

3 London Times, Nov. 7, 1945.

4 A term brought into use during World War II by the armed forces when men were trained for special missions in small groups.

5 The selection process, in brief, is as follows: After a business firm or a government department makes the nomination and the papers on the candidate have been received, the Principal usually talks in person with the employer to find out why he wants to send the man at that particular time, what the candidate's promotion prospects are, something about his qualities, and so on. Next, the candidate visits the College for interviews which may last most of a day, a technique that has been developed to a fine point. At this stage the Principal and his colleagues also consider such questions as: How would this man fit in with the group? How would he get along with the faculty member assigned to the particular syndicate? Would he make a good chairman of a project and, if so, should it be a major one or a minor one and should it come early in the session or late? So far as possible, nothing is left to guesswork or to chance.

6 The main parts of the course are comparative administrative structures, internal organization and administration, external relations, constructive administration, and conclusions. Comparative administrative structures is used largely to break the ice and get things started. The subheads under internal organization and administration are management of the individual, the structure of organization and interrelation of departments, delegation, control and accountability, and organization for production. The subdivisions under this last are dealt with by so-called specialist syndicates and are related to works management, research and development, office services, management accounting, and the personnel department. The section on external relations deals with commercial relationships (consumers, purchasing, sources of finance, trade associations), organized labor, central government, and local government. Under constructive administration come sections on adaptation to economic change, adaptation to technological change, and imparting and maintaining vitality. Finally, the part called conclusions usually deals with some immediate practical issue, especially foreign trade.

7 In “The Will to Greatness,” The Listener, Dec. 16, 1954, p. 1357Google Scholar.