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Corporate manpower planning: Papers from ‘Personnel Review’
Long Range Planning Vol. 13
October 1980
Book Reviews Edited by Harry Jones
The Heart ofEnfer+e, STAFFORD BEER, Wiley, Chichester 582 pp. L9.75 (softback).
(1979),
How do you review a book that has a well-developed theory of reviewing and that actually ends with its own review? From The Putative International Journal of Pure and Applied Recursivity, no less. I have kept up my spirits during the writing of the present review by reflecting that some books can hardly be reviewed too often, and this is one of them. The book’s self-review is a delightful parody: a representation of a mind caught up in its own subtlety, weaving twisted nets about its own process of reflective reasoning. Such nets often end up as traps for both writer and reader. A clear and original book is presented to the potential reader through the tangled meshes of the reviewer’s personal confusion. But Stafford Beer has always been marvellous at springing traps and cutting through nets. He does it in many ways: with penetrating analysis, with dazzling insights, with novel forms of presentation, and-most of all-with practical team-work in implementing his ideas that few others would be asked to engage in, and-if asked-would probably funk or fumble. His books are a series of revelations to those who read them with care and insight. They always demand more of the reader than his lightness of touch and conversational style would suggest. In this book, particularly, if these demands are met, the rewards will be great.
association with his clients and with teams of associates of high professional standing. None of the applications is of a type in which single and simple measures of ‘success’ can be claimed or proved. But in my view it would be diffkult for careful readers of these accounts to deny the capacity of the approach to illuminate situations of enormous complexity, and to provide useful and continuing guidance to managers at all levels. There are not many current approaches for which a comparable claim could be made. Those working in planning will be interested in the vital role assigned in the five-level model to ‘System Four’, which provides the viable system with continuous information about the conditions of viability not met by the existing forms of activity within the system. ‘System Four’ provides a structural rationale for planning which challenges the current vogue for crisis-management and parochial notions of real-time. And since Stafford Beer is nothing ifnot even-handed, it also--throughout the many practical examples in both books-challenges conventional forms of planning. I hope that those engaged in all forms of planning this book, and will be led on to Brain ofthe Firm attempts at application. If we, as human beings times, are to prove viable beyond the moment, heart must work in the service of responsible and JOHN MORRIS,
The first demand is obvious as soon as you set eyes on the book. It is big: over 500 pages, in four parts, and with three appendices. It chats easily to the reader, and follows many of the chapters with imagined conversations between senior managers in a bar, chewing hard at the arguments presented stage by stage. But the chats and bar conversaeions move quickly and penetratingly into exceedingly difficult issues. The people in the bar are very bright: their company is demanding. The author is deploying many years’ hard thinking about the laws that lie at the heart of any viable system, including the viable system who provides the book’s paradigm--the human person. He is also speaking from the heart. If a human system-he says-does not show concern for the persons constituting it, the system will not be viable. Trust, intelligence and many kinds of skill are the essential constituents of viable systems: and they must come not only from particular people, but from the very conception of the system that seeks to include them. This book is issued alongside a new edition of Brain ofthe Firm, first published in 1972. Considered together, the two books are a major achievement. They derive a coherent five-level model of a viable system and apply it to a wide range of systems and situations. The five-level model is clearly shown to be both logically coherent and empirically relevant. The most sustained application is to a turbulent situation in Chile in the early seventies. Others include a major life assurance company, a business school, a professional society and a manufacturing fKm. In each application, the author worked in close
Professor of Management Business School
will plan to read and, above all, to living in stirring the brain and the intelligent action.
Development,
Manchester (680)
Corporate Manpower Planning: Papersfrom ‘Personnel Review’, edited
by A. R. SMITH, Gower Press, Famborough (hardback).
(1980), 187 pp. A9.50
Although not always recognized as such by managements, manpower planning is a critical and integral part of any effective corporate planning within organizations. Indeed, in the light of the changing environment in which many organizations now find themselves, the need for adequate planning of manpower resources has, if anything, increased in significance. Manpower is, for many organizations, their greatest cost, their greatest asset and their most significant constraint in achieving corporate objectives. While manpower has conventionally been viewed as a variable cost, growing trade union pressures against redundancy, the rising cost of redundancy, legal constraints on ‘hiring and firing’ and a general fall in turnover rates as a result of fewer job opportunities in a period of economic stringency, make this view increasingly outmoded. Manpower has tended to become a fixed rather than a variable cost with the result that more emphasis must be placed on internal policies of retraining, redeployment and the more flexible use of existing manpower resources. As organizations contemplate investment in new technology, the rationalization of production and administration, or diversification into new markets, such changes may have to be
Book Reviews achieved by adapting and developing the capabilities of existing employees. Indeed, any attempt to do otherwise might well prove fruitless. Apart from the restrictions on ‘hiring and firing’ referred to, there are pronounced shortages in the labour market of skilled, technical and professionally qualified manpower, with the result that organizations’ demand for such employees is unliiely to be satisfied by external recruitment alone. Organizations will therefore be required to become more innovative in their approach to manpower utilization. Manpower planning has a significant contribution to make in improving our understanding of the ways in which organizational manpower systems work, in highlighting the constraints they impose on the achievement of longer term corporate objectives and in aiding the development of manpower policies appropriate to the attainment of these objectives. For these reasons, a new book on manpower planning, particularly one which includes contributions by many of the country’s leading exponents of the technique, is particularly welcome. The book is made up of articles reprinted from the journal PersonnelReview and seeks to provide an historical analysis of the development of manpower planning and to place it within the context of current manpower problems facing organizations. An underlying theme of the book is the interdisciplinary nature of manpower handling, in particular the contribution of statistical operational research techniques, and a number of chapters are devoted to the consequent development of manpower models within various employing organizations. Despite the problems inherent in imposing a unified theme on material previously published in the form of articles, Mr. Smith has been relatively successful in doing so with only a minimum of repetition. The result is a most useful collection of contributions for the reader who is already familiar with manpower planning but wishes to broaden his knowledge. Less attention is paid to the important question of the inter-relationship between corporate and manpower planning, although one contributor notes that in many major companies no link exists and another presents an approach which aims to shift manpower planning away from a reactive role and towards one integrated into the planning procedure. A more effective inter-relationship between corporate and manpower planning is an important topic meriting greater attention than hitherto and one which I believe is likely to feature more prominently in the strategic planning of organizations. ALASTIUR EVANS,Manager, Organization and Manpower Planning, Institute of Personnel Management, London (695)
InterfirmComparison,H. INGHAM andL. T. HARRLNGTON, Heinemann, London (1980), 150 pp. E12.50 (hardback). Any person who is concerned with long range planning will be involved to a greater or lesser degree in selecting key ratios to evaluate those plans in depth. Interfirm comparison is a formalized development of ratios in a business enabling managers to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of an organization. It operates essentially by making comparisons with other similar companies and is used to reveal the effect of differences on the way in which companies perform. The authors of Interfirm Comparisonboth have a tremendous amount of experience in this field. The boo,k applies interfirm comparisons not only to manufacturing compames, but also to a lesser degree to say road hauliers, the retail trade and timber importers.
117
For manufacturing it starts with operating profit/operating assets and proceeds methodically and logically through a pyramid of performance ratios explaining the significance of each ratio, inferences that can be drawn from them and possibilities for further analysis. It covers the major problem of such comparisons-that is having to enforce the same definition of terms and valuation principles with regard to, particularly, the original costs of assets and the methods of depreciation. It does not rely on the published figures but uses its own well established, tried and proven definitions. Within this, interfirm comparisons make firms sufficiently comparable for meaningful performance differences and to further relevant analysis of companies’ features and practices. In this form it cannot be used for analysis of supplies and customers and only on competitors if they agree to participate in the scheme. However the form provides a very useful analysis of any company in its own right, even if one is deprived of the fuller comparisons. Because of confidentiality the exact ratios of any competitor will remain unknown, and this anonymity and lack of identification could be a limitation on the usef&ess of the whole concept. Similarly you can not insist that companies you wish to be compared with, participate in the scheme at all. This technique is probably of use mainly to smaller or medium sized companies when they apply it for the f&t time; it can as the writers point out be used for inter-divisional comparisons in a company, and also for analysing specific problems. The book itselfwill be useful for long range planners who have not had a formal training in ratio comparison techniques. It is a well written book, easy to follow and to learn from, although occasionally I feel it is over concerned with the mechanical and rigorous completeness of the exercise. As competition increases and economies stagnate such analysis between different companies in similar industries will become even more essential. This book may well provide a standard reference book to enable managers to perform their task. DF.REKSAUNDERS, Assistant Director of Studies, Ashridge Management College, Berkhamsted (693)
The Future ofthe U.K. Motor Industry,KRISHBHASKAR,Kogan-Page, London (1979), 472 pp. Ll2.50 (hardback). This is not a normal review but following upon the contentious attitude and reaction of those within the industry, is more a collection of views and opinions from the daiiy press and from executives and planners in the U.K. motor industry. Some common points are identifiable-the book contains interesting and valuable information in a useful format; as a work of reference it provides good historical, descriptive and technical data but there is more opinion than conclusions reached through argument. One planner asked who the book was for-thinking it to be too academic for most and failing to provide accurate and timely information and likely to be much quoted out of context. The question of timeliness appeared frequently in view of the rapid changes which have and are occurring within the industry, e.g. Chrysler/PeugeotCitroen, BYHonda and the European developments between Ford and GM. It was felt by one, that in spite of the amount of data provided, there was no evidence of real information or that the U.K. companies
October 1980
Book Reviews Edited by Harry Jones
The Heart ofEnfer+e, STAFFORD BEER, Wiley, Chichester 582 pp. L9.75 (softback).
(1979),
How do you review a book that has a well-developed theory of reviewing and that actually ends with its own review? From The Putative International Journal of Pure and Applied Recursivity, no less. I have kept up my spirits during the writing of the present review by reflecting that some books can hardly be reviewed too often, and this is one of them. The book’s self-review is a delightful parody: a representation of a mind caught up in its own subtlety, weaving twisted nets about its own process of reflective reasoning. Such nets often end up as traps for both writer and reader. A clear and original book is presented to the potential reader through the tangled meshes of the reviewer’s personal confusion. But Stafford Beer has always been marvellous at springing traps and cutting through nets. He does it in many ways: with penetrating analysis, with dazzling insights, with novel forms of presentation, and-most of all-with practical team-work in implementing his ideas that few others would be asked to engage in, and-if asked-would probably funk or fumble. His books are a series of revelations to those who read them with care and insight. They always demand more of the reader than his lightness of touch and conversational style would suggest. In this book, particularly, if these demands are met, the rewards will be great.
association with his clients and with teams of associates of high professional standing. None of the applications is of a type in which single and simple measures of ‘success’ can be claimed or proved. But in my view it would be diffkult for careful readers of these accounts to deny the capacity of the approach to illuminate situations of enormous complexity, and to provide useful and continuing guidance to managers at all levels. There are not many current approaches for which a comparable claim could be made. Those working in planning will be interested in the vital role assigned in the five-level model to ‘System Four’, which provides the viable system with continuous information about the conditions of viability not met by the existing forms of activity within the system. ‘System Four’ provides a structural rationale for planning which challenges the current vogue for crisis-management and parochial notions of real-time. And since Stafford Beer is nothing ifnot even-handed, it also--throughout the many practical examples in both books-challenges conventional forms of planning. I hope that those engaged in all forms of planning this book, and will be led on to Brain ofthe Firm attempts at application. If we, as human beings times, are to prove viable beyond the moment, heart must work in the service of responsible and JOHN MORRIS,
The first demand is obvious as soon as you set eyes on the book. It is big: over 500 pages, in four parts, and with three appendices. It chats easily to the reader, and follows many of the chapters with imagined conversations between senior managers in a bar, chewing hard at the arguments presented stage by stage. But the chats and bar conversaeions move quickly and penetratingly into exceedingly difficult issues. The people in the bar are very bright: their company is demanding. The author is deploying many years’ hard thinking about the laws that lie at the heart of any viable system, including the viable system who provides the book’s paradigm--the human person. He is also speaking from the heart. If a human system-he says-does not show concern for the persons constituting it, the system will not be viable. Trust, intelligence and many kinds of skill are the essential constituents of viable systems: and they must come not only from particular people, but from the very conception of the system that seeks to include them. This book is issued alongside a new edition of Brain ofthe Firm, first published in 1972. Considered together, the two books are a major achievement. They derive a coherent five-level model of a viable system and apply it to a wide range of systems and situations. The five-level model is clearly shown to be both logically coherent and empirically relevant. The most sustained application is to a turbulent situation in Chile in the early seventies. Others include a major life assurance company, a business school, a professional society and a manufacturing fKm. In each application, the author worked in close
Professor of Management Business School
will plan to read and, above all, to living in stirring the brain and the intelligent action.
Development,
Manchester (680)
Corporate Manpower Planning: Papersfrom ‘Personnel Review’, edited
by A. R. SMITH, Gower Press, Famborough (hardback).
(1980), 187 pp. A9.50
Although not always recognized as such by managements, manpower planning is a critical and integral part of any effective corporate planning within organizations. Indeed, in the light of the changing environment in which many organizations now find themselves, the need for adequate planning of manpower resources has, if anything, increased in significance. Manpower is, for many organizations, their greatest cost, their greatest asset and their most significant constraint in achieving corporate objectives. While manpower has conventionally been viewed as a variable cost, growing trade union pressures against redundancy, the rising cost of redundancy, legal constraints on ‘hiring and firing’ and a general fall in turnover rates as a result of fewer job opportunities in a period of economic stringency, make this view increasingly outmoded. Manpower has tended to become a fixed rather than a variable cost with the result that more emphasis must be placed on internal policies of retraining, redeployment and the more flexible use of existing manpower resources. As organizations contemplate investment in new technology, the rationalization of production and administration, or diversification into new markets, such changes may have to be
Book Reviews achieved by adapting and developing the capabilities of existing employees. Indeed, any attempt to do otherwise might well prove fruitless. Apart from the restrictions on ‘hiring and firing’ referred to, there are pronounced shortages in the labour market of skilled, technical and professionally qualified manpower, with the result that organizations’ demand for such employees is unliiely to be satisfied by external recruitment alone. Organizations will therefore be required to become more innovative in their approach to manpower utilization. Manpower planning has a significant contribution to make in improving our understanding of the ways in which organizational manpower systems work, in highlighting the constraints they impose on the achievement of longer term corporate objectives and in aiding the development of manpower policies appropriate to the attainment of these objectives. For these reasons, a new book on manpower planning, particularly one which includes contributions by many of the country’s leading exponents of the technique, is particularly welcome. The book is made up of articles reprinted from the journal PersonnelReview and seeks to provide an historical analysis of the development of manpower planning and to place it within the context of current manpower problems facing organizations. An underlying theme of the book is the interdisciplinary nature of manpower handling, in particular the contribution of statistical operational research techniques, and a number of chapters are devoted to the consequent development of manpower models within various employing organizations. Despite the problems inherent in imposing a unified theme on material previously published in the form of articles, Mr. Smith has been relatively successful in doing so with only a minimum of repetition. The result is a most useful collection of contributions for the reader who is already familiar with manpower planning but wishes to broaden his knowledge. Less attention is paid to the important question of the inter-relationship between corporate and manpower planning, although one contributor notes that in many major companies no link exists and another presents an approach which aims to shift manpower planning away from a reactive role and towards one integrated into the planning procedure. A more effective inter-relationship between corporate and manpower planning is an important topic meriting greater attention than hitherto and one which I believe is likely to feature more prominently in the strategic planning of organizations. ALASTIUR EVANS,Manager, Organization and Manpower Planning, Institute of Personnel Management, London (695)
InterfirmComparison,H. INGHAM andL. T. HARRLNGTON, Heinemann, London (1980), 150 pp. E12.50 (hardback). Any person who is concerned with long range planning will be involved to a greater or lesser degree in selecting key ratios to evaluate those plans in depth. Interfirm comparison is a formalized development of ratios in a business enabling managers to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of an organization. It operates essentially by making comparisons with other similar companies and is used to reveal the effect of differences on the way in which companies perform. The authors of Interfirm Comparisonboth have a tremendous amount of experience in this field. The boo,k applies interfirm comparisons not only to manufacturing compames, but also to a lesser degree to say road hauliers, the retail trade and timber importers.
117
For manufacturing it starts with operating profit/operating assets and proceeds methodically and logically through a pyramid of performance ratios explaining the significance of each ratio, inferences that can be drawn from them and possibilities for further analysis. It covers the major problem of such comparisons-that is having to enforce the same definition of terms and valuation principles with regard to, particularly, the original costs of assets and the methods of depreciation. It does not rely on the published figures but uses its own well established, tried and proven definitions. Within this, interfirm comparisons make firms sufficiently comparable for meaningful performance differences and to further relevant analysis of companies’ features and practices. In this form it cannot be used for analysis of supplies and customers and only on competitors if they agree to participate in the scheme. However the form provides a very useful analysis of any company in its own right, even if one is deprived of the fuller comparisons. Because of confidentiality the exact ratios of any competitor will remain unknown, and this anonymity and lack of identification could be a limitation on the usef&ess of the whole concept. Similarly you can not insist that companies you wish to be compared with, participate in the scheme at all. This technique is probably of use mainly to smaller or medium sized companies when they apply it for the f&t time; it can as the writers point out be used for inter-divisional comparisons in a company, and also for analysing specific problems. The book itselfwill be useful for long range planners who have not had a formal training in ratio comparison techniques. It is a well written book, easy to follow and to learn from, although occasionally I feel it is over concerned with the mechanical and rigorous completeness of the exercise. As competition increases and economies stagnate such analysis between different companies in similar industries will become even more essential. This book may well provide a standard reference book to enable managers to perform their task. DF.REKSAUNDERS, Assistant Director of Studies, Ashridge Management College, Berkhamsted (693)
The Future ofthe U.K. Motor Industry,KRISHBHASKAR,Kogan-Page, London (1979), 472 pp. Ll2.50 (hardback). This is not a normal review but following upon the contentious attitude and reaction of those within the industry, is more a collection of views and opinions from the daiiy press and from executives and planners in the U.K. motor industry. Some common points are identifiable-the book contains interesting and valuable information in a useful format; as a work of reference it provides good historical, descriptive and technical data but there is more opinion than conclusions reached through argument. One planner asked who the book was for-thinking it to be too academic for most and failing to provide accurate and timely information and likely to be much quoted out of context. The question of timeliness appeared frequently in view of the rapid changes which have and are occurring within the industry, e.g. Chrysler/PeugeotCitroen, BYHonda and the European developments between Ford and GM. It was felt by one, that in spite of the amount of data provided, there was no evidence of real information or that the U.K. companies