Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2542

Letter from O. A. Ohmann, Director of Organization Planning and Management Development, The Standard Oil Company, Midland Building, Cleveland, Ohio

April 23, 1957

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Heath:

 

I have been away for a short vacation which accounts for this delay in replying to your letter of April 10^th with which you enclosed a copy of your letter to the Editor of the Harvard Business Review. I recall our meeting at a conference of Spiritual Mobilization held in Chicago last November and some of your very worthwhile contributions to that meeting. You also gave me some material on The Science of Society Foundation which I reas with interest on my return trip.

 

I am delighted that you have taken the time not only to read so carefully the “Skyhooks” article, but to comment on it in such a very thoughtful and constructive manner. In general your comments are very pertinent and I find myself very much in agreement with them. You have commented very well on some of the rather unfortunate implications contained in the article. I have had a few other letters of comment from businessmen who also felt that I was critical of the free enterprise system as such. I can see how this implication might be suggested even though I feel exactly as you do that the free enterprise system and the free market on which it rests is a sound basis for industrial activity — from the point of view of maximizing spiritual values in the human personality as well as providing the best approach to efficiency and creativity. Unfortunately our industrial system has become less and less free and the individual’s sense of participating in the decisions which directly affect him has been systematically reduced – not because of the evil design of certain individuals, but more as a consequence of the way our mass production system has developed. What is needed is a way of “keeping big business small” and preserving for each individual worker the maximum degree of participation in the decision-making processes on the job. The way jobs on the assembly line are structured leaves very little opportunity either for the exercise of individual creativity or for the operation of a real sense of community. I tried to indicate in the article that the way we set up our shop and the processes by which we produce represent an important value, as well as the product which finally comes off the line. The “work life” may in the long run turn out to be our most important product. Perhaps I am trying to suggest that this requires a certain sensitivity to and appreciation of human values, and that we may have passed these over too lightly in our complete preoccupation with the making of “things.”

 

It is a little difficult to say this without appearing to imply that there may be “something wrong with production.” I not only feel that there is “nothing wrong with production” but am very firmly convinced that only in the process of producing can an individual gain a real sense of achievement and develop his potentialities in the most wholesome way and to their maximum maturity. In other words, it is primarily through the medium of work that every individual must justify his existence and his maturity. I am equally certain that some of our concepts of managerial philosophy and the engineering approach to the way we have structured jobs tend to prevent many workers from developing their potentialities and exercising their maximum contribution to the creative process of production.

 

In a week or so I will have available some copies of a talk I am scheduled to give to the American Petroleum Institute in May and I shall forward a copy to you. In this writing you may sense a further development of some of these ideas which is not too different from your own.

 

As to the comments on science which are contained in the article, here again I have implied something which I did not intend. Certainly no one can object to an honest search for the truth. On the contrary, I believe that we should promote such a systematic search through scientific methods. I am sure that further scientific advance will demonstrate the validity of spiritual truths and values. Unfortunately the humanistic movement led in the 1920s and 1930s to a feeling that our very, very limited scientific knowledge outmoded spiritual values. There was an attitude of cockiness about our science and an egotistic notion that our very limited knowledge constituted an adequate explanation and that beyond its limits there was no need for values based on more intuitive experience. Perhaps in a sense there was a general attitude that the application of scientific knowledge and engineering principles would make the cultivation of some of the simple human values unnecessary. Science, in other words, became somewhat of a substitute for values when, as a matter of fact, science is primarily one of the ways of searching for the truth – and as such is not primarily concerned with the positive or negative applications of the truth that may be discovered in this manner. Perhaps I misread the attitudes of the times, but it seemed to me that among many students there was a tendency to make science a substitute for a spiritual faith.

 

Again, I appreciate very much the time you have taken to make your very pertinent comments as well as your courtesy in sending me a copy of your letter to the Editor.

 

 

Sincerely yours,

 

 

 

/s/O. A. Ohmann

 

 

OAO/mh

 

 

P.S. The enclosed material is not directly on this subject matter, but may throw some additional light on my views.

 

 

                                      O. A. O.