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ORGANIZATION AND PROCEDURE: INAUGURATION 
AND EXTENSION OF PLAN 
Employee representation has been introduced under the most 
varying circumstances. Comparison of results gives no warrant for 
a dogmatic statement that only under certain precise conditions as 
to its inauguration will it succeed, nor the prediction—always hazar- 
dous—that following a recommended procedure will guarantee suc- 
cess. Many of the plans which today are among the most successful 
were inaugurated under conditions which, to say the least, would 
hardly be regarded as favorable. Doubtless among the plans which 
have been abandoned, on the other hand, there might be cited some 
which were begun under almost ideal conditions. Yet it is unques- 
tionably possible to “get off to a bad start” in the case of employee 
representation as well as in a foot race. 
IMPORTANCE OF THE FOREMEN’S ATTITUDE 
More important than any other single consideration is the spirit 
of the management. What that should be we have endeavored to 
indicate in earlier chapters. How far down into the ranks of minor 
supervisors this spirit should have been developed before the inaugu- 
ration of employee representation is a matter upon which various 
observers of the movement differ. Some have expressed the con- 
viction that all the foremen should be “sold” on the general, basic 
principles of employee representation before any effort should be 
made to install a plan. Others, pointing to the success of some of the 
plans which were introduced in the earlier years of the movement, 
feel that the attitude of the foremen is of no great consequence. 
When these older plans were installed there was little tested experi- 
ence to which executives might point when seeking to convert fore- 
men. There was even the thought in the minds of some executives, 
moreover, that one of the principal objectives of the plan should be