Avoiding the pitfalls of growth
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Avoiding the pitfalls of growth Should we insist that "a little chaos is a good thing? Elton N. Kaufmann MRS President
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ast February, I received a letter from the long-time executive secretary of the Society, Ernest M. Hawk of the Pennsylvania State University. Ernie's association with us dates back to the Society's inception. He was the only focus of activity that could legitimately be called a headquarters operation of sorts. While the role of his office was crucial, a great deal of the day-to-day business of the Society (which was nearly exclusively planning the Boston meeting) was dispersed among the various Officers and program and symposium chairs. In those days procedural guidelines were nonexistent. A healthy dose of common sense, technical judgment, and many telephone consultations sufficed. Those of us who enjoyed that free hand and suffered that lack of definitive guidance are most sensitive to the changes that are overtaking our Society as it grows. Thus the following excerpt from Ernie Hawk's letter struck a resonant chord. He wrote: "Those of us involved in the organization through the early struggling years cannot help but be awed by the growth and vitality it has attained. The impressive signs are all around—the quality of and interest in its technical programming, the increasing number and geographical spread of technical meetings (we've come a long way from that one Boston meeting a year), the flourishing publications business, the exhibition feature, and more. "Then, too, we have competent professional services to support and facilitate this energetic enterprise. I, especially, can appreciate the importance of the work done by the headquarters support staff which MRS needed so badly, and I rejoice that it is now in place and functioning so effectively. "Yet it is these very accomplishments which give me pause for reflection. I am concerned, in the first instance, about growth that is too rapid and uncontrolled, that may in the long run work to the detriment of the body. Perhaps we should have a strategy or technique for doing periodic growth impact assessment to provide guidance in this area. "Similarly we must find a way to ensure that an enlarged professional staff does not choke off the dynamic voluntarism that has, in my opinion, been the secret of MRS's rapid rise as a respected technical society. So we also need a strategy to keep voluntarism and professionalism in wholesomely productive partnership." These concerns are not unique to MRS. As anyone knows who has observed the growth of organizations in many other spheres, there is an inexorable sequence of entirely predictable stages as the evolution from small and entrepreneurial to large and bureaucratic progresses.1 The question is how and at what price does MRS avoid the pitfalls of growth? As the activities of MRS expand beyond that manageable by a small cadre of volunteers, we are indeed seeing an ever increasing tendency to transfer responsibility for and implementation of tasks to our professional staff. Naturally in this way, we
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