Long‐range management planning

Towards the end of the 1950s, it was apparent that with industrial management demanding ever higher levels of ability and with all growing businesses competing for a fairly limited supply of talent, the prevailing shortage of men of first‐class management quality would grow worse. For an organization the size of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies this problem was particularly acute in view of the demands made by the continuing growth of the enterprise. To avoid a possible shortage of management abilities, an overall Shell management personnel strategy was developed which was dubbed “Long‐range management planning”. It has now been in operation for nearly seven years and to explore its operation and its effectiveness, Peter Smith of Avon Rubber talked to H. P. FORD, Personnel Adviser for General Management in Shell International Petroleum Co. Ltd.