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In absolute proof of this, in a tiny org it is always observed that
everyone there wears each one all the hats. It is a madhouse of individual
cross-endeavour. Show me an org that stays small and I will show you an org
where every staff member is wearing all the hats in the place. They can't
grow because they violate the law that a large organization is composed of
groups.
Russia, just yesterday sweeping the world has begun to lose ground and
her empire withdraws. Russia won't allow companies. She never says to the
head of Georgia "Get your statistics up, bub" and leaves him to it. Instead
she governs the Georgian individual with spies, secret police and even
income tax and is more apt to shoot the head of Georgia if his statistics
do rise as he is then looked on by a paranoid central government as capable
enough to be a menace. Russia once governed via cells and did so as long as
she was expanding. Now she has Income tax! Russia expanded despite bad
management solely because she was composed of cells and collectives-but she
went too far and erased the individual entirely, so, though growing she
starves. Her groups were mainly dedicated to politics, not production,
which is a frailty of governments anyway. But the basic group is composed
of individuals. (For heaven's sakes don't tell Russia as we don't want her
growing-tell her she must govern her individuals individually and she'll
vanish. You can tell the US, if you like, but only because no president yet
ever listened to anything except his popularity poll and with only a four
year career, isn't likely to. In the US, the government itself vanishes
regularly and only the companies, with plenty of interference, keep the
civilization going.)
England's sad old empire was great as long as India was run by the East
India Company, etc. etc. Its colonies and dominions did fine right up to
the moment the government in Westminster and Whitehall started to run the
natives as individuals, by-passing the company controlled colonies. Then
the "Empire" started to go broke because it never was a political empire
but a commercial one. As a political empire it uniformly failed until about
350 years ago it began to charter companies to rule and govern foreign
lands. Then it got an "empire". When it began to by-pass its company heads
and set up crown controlled governors and then by-pass these it ceased to
be an English Empire and it looks today that soon there won't even be an
England. It could not control even one colony the moment it started to
govern individual colonial citizens on a by-pass of the colonial companies.
You can use the same argument they use. That "concentrating only on
groups is hell on the individual". Marx used that line. Well it isn't true.
When you get too big a group the individual in it, suffering the whole
pressure of the state suffers. The reverse is true-"by concentrating only
on groups the individual is protected and prospers".
Now we get to the philosophic question in the law, how large is large,
how small is small.
Oddly tins is easily answered, unlike most philosophic conundrums. You
have to have the answer to "how big should a group be in order for the
individuals in it to be effectively managed without oppression in order to
get the job done". That asks and answers it. A correct group size is one
where the individuals in it are not made too small by the group being too
large. This is a ratio question. The Government of England! and the
individual Englishman are of incomparable magnitude. What the hell can Joe
Cockney a citizen do against the Government of England! Nothing! So Joe
Cockney goes to pieces. You can't have a comm line between a Billion
horsepower motor and one grasshopper! Something is going to explode and it
isn't the Billion h.p. motor. It's the grasshopper. Therefore when the
management unit is too big the individual (despite all the protection laws
in the world) becomes apathetic and can't work or doesn't see himself as
important enough to bother about.
So what is a proper sized basic group?
A GROUP IS A PROPER SIZE WHEN THE INDIVIDUALS IN IT CAN EASILY APPROACH
THE MANAGER OF THAT GROUP ON A FAMILIAR FRIENDLY BASIS AND BE SURE HE KNOWS
WHAT THEY'RE DOING AND WHY AND IF THEY'RE DOING IT.
The individual in that group is not oppressed. His charm counts. He
feels up to arguing with that manager. The executive (with a deputy on his
side) feels up to confronting the rest of the group. His own personality
counts.