ABSTRACT
A manager is a person who assigns work to others. The art of assigning work is therefore central to the business of management even though in the past it has scarcely been recognized as an art and has been conceived mainly in contractual terms. The manager specifies requirements and, in return for a willingness to comply, the worker receives a wage. That is the lynchpin of the relationship between manager and the worker. Any failure to heed a work instruction, on the one hand, or to pay the agreed wage, on the other, means that the contract collapses.
