Rebel with Many Causes

By Marshall Loeb

Executive View/Marshall Loeb

The Organization Man, wrote William H. Whyte in the final paragraph of his 1956 classic, must fight The Organisation William Whyte, meet fletcher Byrom. A feisty fellow, Byrom lives by the philosophy that the highest form of loyalty is to battle organizational rigidities and inertia.

Just after World War II, admirals had been nervous about the stocky ingotsize metallurgist from Penn State who badgered them to scrap their old anti-aircraft guns and start developing surface-to-air missiles. Byrom won that round--and he won the Navy's Distinguished Civilian Service Award A few years later, by-the-book bosses at Koppers Co. fumed when they learned that their young executive disobeyed orders and put in a costly distillation process. When it proved enormously profitable, they hailed him.

Because it is hard to keep a good rebel down, Byrom became President of Koppers at 42. In the 18 years since, sales of the Pittsburgh conglomerate (chemicals, metals and forest products) have almost quintupled to well over $ 1 billion, and Byrom, by cheerfully delegating authority, can now spend half of his 16-hour days spreading his eclectic messages to bureaucrats, business people, reverend clergy and irreverent students. He draws his ideas from many intellectuals-- a catholic collection that includes Social Activist Saul Alinsky, Semanticist Senator S.I. Hayakawa, Anthropologist Margaret Mead. Byrom always argues that people have to break down the barriers within and between corporations, state governments, whole nations. Make room for individualism and incentive.

His own company, he is happy to say, has no organization charts, no procedure manuals. He encourages managers to take risks, even make mistakes; they will learn from them. Says he: "We don't want good administrators, because that implies efficient operation of the status quo." He advises junior executives and foremen: "We, top management, will set standards. It is up to you to decide how to get things done."

The same good sense should apply to the shotgun marriage between Government and business, in Bryom's view. Instead of telling companies how to combat pollution or industrial accidents, the Government should set short-term and long-term goals then use a tax system to reward companies that exceed them and penalize firms that "fail. Exasperated by the managers and regulgators who think that they can make sweeping decisions from a distant pinnacle he likes to say, "Santayana defined fanatics as those people who know what they are doing is what God would be doing if he only had all the facts."

Byrom despairs of the rigidities that prevent companies from allying to exploit technology and the economies of great size and cooperation. To remain competitive in the world, he says, U.S. steelmakers should be building modern plants with 10-million-ton capacity at deepwater ports. Since no one company can justify spending so much, the Government should allow several steelmakers to join in such projects. To stop the alarming erosion of America's capital base he contends, companies should be permitted to take their full depreciation allowances within one year--so long as they invest them all-instead of being obliged to stretch them over many years. Fast depreciation would cost the Treasury some tax revenues, but only for the first year. After that, tax collections would go up because profits would rise-- and so would investments.

Instead of myriad local water districts, he continues, the U.S. needs large regional authorities to handle pollutin and potability and development of water resources. A Constitutional convention might even be called to reorganize America's rigid international boundaries. Says Byrom: "I dont think the state of Pennsylvania should exist. And the world is sufficiently interdependent that we will come to realize, maybe 50 years from now, that the concept of sovereign nation states is fallacious."

Strong talk from a corporate chief. But Fletcher Byrom's business is to deal with change. He is unsure what kind of institutions should replace those that exist today but of one thing he is certain: we had better start planning right now for the competitive demands of the 21st century.

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