to buy a house Or banking and insurance. These are two good examples of the need, especially from the aspect of cost of management (or 'expense ratio', as it is called), for a constant review of the degree of effective decentralization which can be introduced, always remembering that the central management must still formulate policy and exert control by agreeing standards of performance with local managers against which achievement can be checked. A danger to be avoided is that a local manager or prospect manager or area manager there is a host of titles for 'decentralized' managers becomes so involved in administration which used to be done for him centrally that he loses touch with the urgencies of his job. If it is businessgetting, for example, it can happen that a manager on whose shoulders the Head Office has placed a lot of additional control work will cease to be known both by his customer and his salesmen. Or if he is an outstanding engineer or technician he may well find himself caught up in a maze of administrative routine which prevents him from using his proper talent. T Wi every type of business operation, when its growth, leads to decentralization, there is an increasing need for specialist services; the branch manager cannot be expected to control the Bank's reputation with the public at large by running his own public relations; the insurance branch manager cannot select and train his senior personnel; the manager of a local branch factory has not got time to undertake basic research. These specialist services must be arranged in such a way that they do not usurp a local manager's functions but, rather, enrich them. There is a good deal of controversy nowadays among management experts on the question of 'specialist' responsibilities and the way such specialists should be integrated into the management operation. The Services concept of 'staff and line' involves considerable difficulties for business organization; the service managers, often exercising power without responsibility, tend to plug their own theories and gimmicks in isolation from the straightforward management task. Indeed the question of specialization, which begins so early nowadays in business training, means that more and more specialists are crowding in where there should be better and better managers. Earlier in this book the phrase 'opting for wider horizons' was used. Possibly the solution to the question is to ensure that all specialists have a proper grounding in management before deciding to concentrate on, say, industrial relations, or staffing, or organization and methods. While it would be wrong to suggest, in modern conditions, that there is no room for specialist services which spread across an entire organization, the man or woman whose views are most likely to be acceptable is the one who, having had some management experience, sees the specialist's role as being a tool, not a master of management. A brief case history here will demonstrate some of the difficulties of specialist services. homemoney to purchasehow