Ernest Dale: biography of this management expert.

A summary of the life of Ernest Dale, management theorist.

Ernest Dale's name may not mean much to many people, but he is actually considered one of the most revolutionary authors of administration and management of the 20th century, having written several books in which he dealt with these two important areas.

In his works you can find aspects related to the structure of companies, theoretical and practical concepts of the same and how companies should be structured to get the most out of each of its parts. In addition to this, he was a consultant to companies such as I.B.M., helping to improve their organizational structure by applying the same concepts he had proposed.

In the following we will see a little about his life and, especially, about his vision of companies, through this biography of Ernest Dale as a summary.

Brief biography of Ernest Dale

Ernest Dale was born in Hamburg, Germany, on February 4, 1917.. We know rather little about his childhood. What we do know about his youth is that, although he was born in Germany, he decided to study at the prestigious Yale University in the United States. Already at a young age he showed a deep interest in world economics and economic fluctuations throughout his life.

This interest is not surprising, since in his childhood and adolescence he lived in the his childhood and adolescence he lived through the most economically turbulent periods of his century.. He was born right at the end of World War I, lived through the Crash of '29, witnessed World War II, the rise and fall of Germany, its dissolution into two states with different economic regimes and how the whole world was divided into the capitalist bloc and the communist bloc. Of course, he witnessed how the economic dynamics were changing at a dizzying pace.

However, his professional interest was much more focused on how companies could be run and managed. In fact, after graduating in 1950, he began teaching business administration at Columbia University, in addition to teaching some courses in Pennsylvania.

During his years of teaching he put his ideas on paper, writing two important books, "The Great Organizers" (1960) and "Management: Theory and Practice" (1965).The book, which has been used as a fundamental tool in the courses of Administration and Management in many universities.

In addition to teaching, Ernest Dale had the opportunity to work in the business world. After finishing his studies at Yale, he worked as a consultant for well-known companies, including DuPont Corporation, I.B.M. and Unilever. He also served on the boards of other companies, such as Olivetti, Upjohn and Renault. He is considered the father of the empirical theory of management and one of its most relevant exponents.

As for his personal life, we can only say that he was married once and had one son. It is also worth mentioning that he had contacts with Martin Luther King, with whom he met in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1968. He worked in text development and as a consultant until his death on August 16, 1996 in Manhattan, New York.at the age of 79 due to a cerebral aneurysm.

Contributions to management sciences

As we mentioned, Ernest Dale has been an important exponent for the world of management and administration. In fact, he is he is considered the father of the empirical theory of management.. He affirmed that management policies and the quality of leadership were the foundations for the good individual performance of all the workers that make up an organization.

Dale had an advanced knowledge of how companies functioned and how they should be structured in order to get the most out of them. If the maximum advantage was taken of the capacity of each employee, the company could end up being very functional and successful, an idea that he expounded in several of his works. Among these works we can highlight the following:

Planning and Development of the Organizational Structure of a Company (1952).

This book, along with "Management: Theory and Practice", is considered one of Dale's most important books. In it Ernest Dale praises the application of systematic methods in business models that had been in use in the mid-20th century..

He considered that it was necessary for a good business plan to be subordinated to meticulously developed plans, which should be sent in an organized way to the employees so that they would be clear about what had to be done, and avoid confusion that would, of course, significantly reduce production or even ruin the organization.

In this book Dale combined concepts from his systematic thinking with their practical application in a company. He sought a balance between theory and actual practice in organizing a company and making it functional, paying special attention to the human aspect. It should also be said that this book was especially focused on manufacturing companies (assembly line), although it also deals with issues that can be extrapolated to companies that offer services or are in charge of sales.although it also deals with topics that can be extrapolated to companies that offer services or are in charge of sales.

As a limitation, this book does not fully break down the company's activity methods. Nor does it establish the policies that should be applied within the organization or the development of procedures and controls necessary for the management of personnel. It's not that he didn't take them into account, it's just that Dale considered that these topics were so extensive that an in-depth explanation would be necessary, even writing a book for each one.

Management: theory and practice (1960)

This other book by Ernest Dale deals with the most human part of an organization, which is undoubtedly all its workers. He stated that an organization cannot be governed simply by the rationality of its methods, since behind these methods there are still human beings who operate them and they are not cold machines that can be wound up indefinitely.The organization cannot be governed simply by the rationality of its methods, since behind these methods there are still human beings who operate them and they are not cold machines that can be wound up indefinitely; it must be borne in mind that they can make mistakes due to fatigue. The principles of human nature cannot be ignored.

In this text he broke down the enterprise into administrative units. He argued that every enterprise, irrespective of its size, can be broken down into smaller units. Each of these units should be viewed as if it were a company of its own and should have a manager, who controls the basic functions of the unit and knows and manages the personnel of the unit. Each unit knows what is going well and what is not, and can have the resources to fix it without the need for other levels of the organization.

This type of management, with controls in each of the units, helps the company's highest authorities to realize how well each unit is functioning so that, in the event that a problem arises that can only be solved at the organizational level, they can decide and implement the appropriate changes to bring the activity back on track.

Likewise, delegating certain responsibilities to the managers of each unit should improve human performance, since these managers would have direct contact with the workers, would know their strengths and weaknesses, and would also know first-hand what problems may have arisen in each unit, having a more personalized view of how to solve the problem.

Bibliographical references:

• Dale, E. (1960) The great organizers. McGraw-Hill.
• Dale, E. (1960) Management: Theory and Practice. McGraw-Hill.
• Dale, E. (1952) Planning and Developing the Company Organization Structure. American Management Association.