Page:Graphic methods for presenting facts (1914).djvu/318

 of locking up the summarized control curves for the whole corporation is therefore mentioned here as a possible safeguard.

Directors and executives change quite frequently in large corporations. When a new man comes into a corporation as an executive or a director, the value of his service to the corporation is at first practically nothing, and he may even for a while be considered a handicap to the corporation in that it is necessary for men who have been associated longer with the corporation to spend a great deal of their time in explaining to the new member the facts relating to the various departments and to the present scope of the business. This information is generally passed on from man to man by word of mouth. Usually there is no written statement giving in condensed form a bird's-eye view of the whole history and present field of the corporation. Broadly, it is now almost impossible for any new director in a corporation to give an intelligent director's vote on any proposition brought up within a year after he has joined the directorate.

It will not be long before every man holding the position of a corporation director or a corporation executive will be able to read, quickly and intelligently, simple curves and figures like those combined on the curve cards here. With a card-index file of curves and a record department like that described in this chapter, it should be possible for any trained man coming into a corporation as a new director or new official to give a fairly intelligent vote after only half a day's study of the curves, and this too without having spoken a single word to anyone. If the record department and the curves are properly kept, the whole situation would be shown on the face of the cards with far more clearness than it would ordinarily be possible to give by words alone, even if the whole history and present status of the corporation were told.

Consider the value of a record department like that suggested, if such a department were part of the equipment of the mayor's office of any city. The department could be maintained continuously by civil-service employees who could keep the records in standardized form year after year, no matter what shake-ups there might be in political parties and in spite of the numerous changes in personnel usual when one set of city officers follow another with great rapidity. In municipal work there would be no necessity for keeping any except the original curve cards under lock and key, as all the information would be public property and, of course, available to properly authorized persons. It would certainly make a great difference to any new mayor if he could