AIM 65th Anniversary

Under Old Management

What began as a small gathering of young foremen eventually blossomed into an organisation of international repute, but the development of the Australian Institute of Management was not free of growth pangs.

It had been a long but rewarding year for the young men celebrating over a few drinks on a late November night. Having begun a night course in foremanship in March, studying the essentials of management on the manufacturing floor, they’d stuck at it through Melbourne’s bitter winter. Spring brought its promised changes, and finally the men had graduated from the Melbourne Technical College as confident managers, armed with the knowledge required to transform their companies’ processes and practices. It was 1938, summer was one week away, and without knowing it these men were about to change the face of management in Australia forever.

The 30 men who had completed the course (original enrolment was 35) were so impressed with their new managerial skills that they decided to request another year’s extension of their education. More importantly, they also agreed to form an association through which they could maintain contact and continue learning from each other’s experience. The Melbourne Technical College Foremanship Association was born, a humble entity that would ultimately become the Australian Institute of Management.

Melbourne Technical College Foremanship
Association’s first annual dinner, December 1939.

As difficult as it is to imagine, there was virtually no formal management training in any organisation or educational institution in the decade following the depression, the one exception being the Broken Hill Proprietary Company’s Staff Training Scheme. Management skills were expected to be picked up on the job and were not considered to be something that could be taught in a classroom.

Certain senior manufacturing managers, however, realised that if their industry was going to rebuild itself after the depression, it was going to need more efficient and well-managed processes on the shop floors. Foremen were not only required to be exceptional tradespeople, they also had to organise work, manage men, ensure efficient and waste-free supply and usage of raw products and carry out the instructions of the factory manager. The foremanship course at the Melbourne Technical College had been set up to fulfil this requirement.

The course itself was soon extended to three years, its importance becoming even greater after the outbreak of war in 1939. Factories were required to manufacture products for the war effort, meaning expert management was suddenly essential.

Sir John Storey

One of the men responsible for the course’s existence was John Storey, Director of Manufacturing at the GMH plant at Fisherman’s Bend. During the war, Storey was appointed to the post of Director of the Beaufort Division of the Aircraft Production Commission, but later he would be instrumental in shaping the future of the AIM. In his wartime role, during a trip to the UK with Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies, Storey was disgusted with the poor management of English factories and concluded that this was due to a lack of formal management training.

On August 15, 1940, the Foremanship Association changed its name to the Industrial Management Association of Australia, and 12 months later it became the Institute of Industrial Management of Australia, with John Storey as President. The organisation’s grand title was somewhat misleading, as at the time it was still very much a Melbourne-based institution. Its stated aims were the promotion, encouragement and co-ordination of the art and practice of industrial management, the formulation of standards of training in industrial management and the initiation and maintenance of research into management issues.

Just like in Victoria, in South Australia in 1938 the launch of a management course was closely followed by the formation of the South Australian Society of Industrial Supervisors. In March 1944 this group was absorbed into the Institute of Industrial Management.

John Storey travelled to Sydney during 1943 to discuss the formation of an NSW-based organisation and by May 1944 the Institute’s New South Wales Division was formed. In the previous few years Storey had also been in contact with the American Management Association and the London-based Confederation of Management Associations, both of whom were keen to share knowledge and even to have representatives on each other’s councils.

News of the good work of the Institute of Industrial Management spread fast, and by 1945 there was also a Wollongong and Newcastle branch. On September 28, 1949, the various bodies unified under one national title, the Australian Institute of Management. Each local branch would be known, for instance, as the AIM Melbourne Division, or the AIM Sydney Division.

The Australian Institute of Management now had a strong identity and a broad reach. By 1951 a Brisbane Division had opened and Hobart followed suit in 1957. In March 1958 it was agreed that a Canberra Branch be formed, to be affiliated with the Sydney Division, and one month later the Perth Division held its inaugural meeting. AIM’s very visible success, though, would also prove to be one of its greatest weaknesses as others suddenly wanted a piece of the action.

“Better Management Through Better Teamwork” Seminar, Perth
1962. Left to right: G Lapsley, B R Scott, F Pryke, and H Ende.

The individual AIM Divisions had set up their own courses and training activities to serve the needs of businesses in their regions, but other educational institutions had also launched their own offerings. By 1958 the AIM had begun to notice a fall in demand for their courses. Originally the Institute had perceived its role as encouraging the technical colleges to provide training, but those very courses were now in competition with the AIM. From the early to mid-60s membership began to drop off.

Criticism included the fact that the AIM had failed to cater for the needs of top management, had not introduced any new management techniques and had failed to act publicly as Australia’s recognised management authority. It was also accused of not having a sufficiently positive approach to management education at higher levels and of lacking a truly national voice and image.

From a previously narrow focus of education in the field of industrial management, the perceived scope of the AIM’s field of responsibility had expanded along with its geographical sphere of influence. The management trainers now faced their own management challenge.

As major universities launched MBA and other business courses, the AIM felt its role was to encourage and assist the development of these courses, even though this threatened its own financial stability. The organisation’s original charter was to develop management education, so it could hardly work against the creation of these courses. But the Institute soon realised it could have its cake and eat it too, by creating short courses to fill the educational gaps left by the larger courses.

The AIM also began facilitating visits from prominent authorities on certain management subjects, including Lillian Gilbreth, famous for her theories on workplace motivation, in 1960 and 1964, and professors from Stanford University, in what was known as the Advanced Management Programme, annually from 1962 to 1968. By the end of the 1960s the AIM’s business was booming, once again.

Over the following decades the AIM broke new ground, controversially conducting Australia’s first National Salary Survey, launching its own Interfirm Comparison Service and championing the roles of women in management.

In 1976 the suggestion of inviting one of the Institute’s female members to fill a vacancy on Council of the Victorian Division was warmly received – that year businesswoman Mrs Jean Downing and Principal of the Janet Clark Hall at the University of Melbourne, Dr Eva Eden, both became Fellows of the Victorian Division. In 1987 Mrs Elizabeth Manley stepped up to the position of President of the South Australian Division and in 1990 Mrs Noel Waite took the helm of the Victorian Division.

The AIM was also very quick to recognise the benefits of a journal or magazine to communicate and share knowledge amongst members. The first national issue of Management Digests was published in 1955. In 1962 that publication was replaced by a new journal called The Australian Manager, which in 1968 became Management Australia. This magazine was discontinued in December 1969, due to escalating costs. In 1987 a partnership was formed with BRW magazine. A regular supplement, sponsored by the AIM, concentrating on management skills would be inserted into every issue. This agreement, however, only lasted one year. Finally, Management Today was launched.

From the very beginning AIM, under its various guises and titles, has seen as its key responsibility the improvement of management skills through discussion, research and formal education. Amazingly, through 65 years of rapidly changing business environments, and even through a world war, the organisation has remained true to the original hopes and wishes of those young men in the Melbourne hotel.

With the recognition that management skills are universally applicable in business, the Institute widened its scope over the years to include businesses of all kinds. As business courses developed in tertiary institutions the AIM encouraged higher standards. The AIM has constantly grappled with its own image, taking a long time to develop a national identity, as opposed to being perceived as a national organisation with several separate state mouthpieces.

Today AIM is the country’s largest private provider of management training and consultancy services. Over 25,000 managers and 6,000 organisations are a part of the AIM Network, which employs over 250 staff. Most importantly, the AIM’s current mission is this – "To grow management and leadership excellence by supporting, developing, promoting and practising the profession of management at all levels”. The young foremen who shared a drink at a Melbourne pub in the spring of 1938 would be proud!

SOURCE: Fogarty, John. Leaders In Management: Australian Institute of Management, 1941-1991. (St. Kilda, Vic: Australian Institute of Management - Victoria, 1992).