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HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex
HCO POLICY LETTER OF 23 FEBRUARY 1966
Remimeo
Executive Hats
APPOINTMENTS AND PROMOTIONS
When a staff member is promoted, the principle will be solidly held that
if the post just vacated by him or her goes into Emergency or Danger
Condition within 90 days the promotion is to be suspended and the staff
member is to resume his or her former post.
It is obvious that a post which is not well organized or is held up by
personality alone will slump if changed.
A staff member being promoted may therefore object to the personnel
officer concerning a successor he does not believe capable.
The staff member being promoted has a dual responsibility-to learn his
new post and to write up his old hat and break in his successor properly.
In expanding organizations our greatest liability is promotion. It is
vital and necessary, but it tends to lose lines and leave a messy lower
strata in the orgs which can swamp them.
This follows as well Policy on undoing changes which occurred just
before a slumped statistic.
The Advisory Council and AdComms must always look at this factor of
persons promoted off a post just before a slump as the probable best reason
for the slump.
Similarly a person taking over a new post is in a Power Change Condition
and must not alter anything or do anything rash until enough time passes
for him to appreciate what the new post is all about. Most slumps following
after a promotion occur because the new occupant of the old post has either
lost the post's lines or has made some brand new order that applies to
nothing real. There is no majesty and innocence like ignorance. The first
day of a yacht under a new owner is the hardest day of its life as he
throws all the bits overboard that propped open the hatches thinking they
were kindling wood, tries to hoist the sails with a can opener and runs the
engine on the galley fuel.
A staff member is rarely promoted unless his statistic is good. That
means the old post he leaves is in good shape. If the old post slumps under
a new appointee then that new appointee must have thrown away the lines and
ordered the main cabin turned into the sail locker and the engine into the
anchor. It will take the old holder of the post weeks to get it running
again and he is obviously the only one that can. Further, he goofed in
letting an incapable or fast change artist fill his former shoes and he
didn't yell when he noticed next day that the keel had been hoisted as the
mainsail as soon as he, promoted, left his old post.
New brooms love to sweep clean. Especially the competent orders of old
brooms.
Taking over a post in danger or emergency is a feather in one's cap when
it rises to normal under new management.
Taking over a post in normal operation and getting it into emergency or
danger requires a lot of stupid changes or no work at all and should be the
subject of an Ethics hearing.
But also, the old holder of the post must be returned to it regardless
of holes left at the top for otherwise a hole exists below and the org will
sink into it.
I speak from long, hard experience. Time and again I have had to resume
a post I had left because it collapsed. So I have become very careful of
who succeeds me on a post. Very careful indeed. And I train them
individually and heavily no matter what new post I now hold. The bigger we
get the more I get promoted so I have to keep it up.
L. RON HUBBARD
LRH:ml.rd
Copyright © 1966
by L. Ron Hubbard
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED