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An introductory editorial essay about various fundamental principles of management, developing new techniques, and making sure that the changes get accepted.

The academic disputes between the “humanistic” and the “mechanistic” schools of management theory are essentially sterile because they both focus primarily on the arrangement of activities within an organization. They tend to move rather casually over the fundamental fact that any organization exists—or should be permitted to exist—only in order to produce an incremental social or economic value. The effectiveness with which that end is achieved through the skillful application of accessible resources must be the final measure of management performance. But this criterion demands a high facility in relating causes and effects, which is a rational process. There is no way to master it except to think.

It is widely appreciated that the larger an organization is the longer it takes to get things done. Yet one of the most common errors of judgment by CEO's is to underestimate the time lag involved before their decisions can take effect. The result is frustration, ill-advised efforts to forcefully accelerate an organizational response, and—most damaging—an inappropriate time perspective in approaching the responsibilities of senior management. An empirical formula about the duration of the response lag is proposed.

Erratum to Kastens, Merritt L. 1974. Kastens' law. Interfaces 5 (1, November) 19.