ABSTRACT
Proper management requires balanced stress on objectives, especially by top management. Indeed, one of the major contributions of management by objectives is that it enables to substitute management by self-control for management by domination. There can be little doubt that the feeling of confidence and trust in the company that even casual contact with general electric managers reveals is directly traceable to this practice of using information for self-control rather than for control. Management by self-control requires complete rethinking concerning our use of reports, procedures, and forms. The hierarchical structure of management aggravates the danger. Higher management must, of course, reserve the power to approve or disapprove those objectives. The greatest advantage of management by objectives is perhaps that it makes it possible for a manager to control his own performance. A large insurance company started a big program for the “improvement of management.”
