Chester Barnard: Functions of the Executive

I HAVE found it impossible to go far in the study of organizations or of the behavior of people in relation to them without being confronted with a few questions which can be simply stated. For example: “What is an individual?” “What do we mean by a person?” “To what extent do people have a power of choice or free will ?” The temptation is to avoid such difficult questions, leaving them to the philosophers and scientists who still debate them after centuries. It quickly appears, however, that even if we avoid answering such questions definitely, we cannot evade them. We answer them implicitly in whatever we say about human behavior; and, what is more important, all sorts of people, and especially leaders and executives, act on the basis of fundamental assumptions or attitudes regarding them, although these people are rarely conscious that they are doing so. For example, when we undertake to persuade others to do what we wish, we assume that they are able to decide whether they will or not. When we provide for education or training we assume that without them people cannot do certain things, that is, that their power of choice will be more limited. When we make rules, regulations, laws — which we deliberately do in great quantities — we assume generally that as respects their subject matter those affected by them are governed by forces outside themselves.