salesmen, and people in middle and high level management
position. Many of these were to be trained in crash courses. Tran-
sport and communications are irregular, at best, particularly up-
country, yet stock levels at the regional and district levels were to
be uniform throughout the country and based on the assumption
that orders would be made regularly and received and filled by the
product divisions in Dar es Salaam. The commercial community
has always been hostile to socialist policies in Tanzania but the
initial S.T.C. orders for items and the stock levels chosen were
based upon information sought from existing private traders.
English proficiency varies considerably, even among secondary
school graduates, yet nearly all participants had to be fully literate
in English in order to read stock lists, place orders, fill out forms,
etc.® In fact, of course many posts went unfilled, others were staf-
fed by people wholly unqualified, letters were lost or never sent,
files were hopelessly confused, books improperly kept at all levels,
orders dispatch without confirmations and others confirmed but
not dispatched, stock surpluses occurred in one part of the country
.of goods while in short supply elsewhere, and vastly incorrect in-
formation was provided by the private sector traders.
A fundamental assumption failure was contained in the fact
that S.T.C. was organised by McKinsey and Co. to operate as a
capitalist trading organisation would. Thus, for example, it was
implicitly assumed that S.T.C. salesmen would service their ac-
counts, visit them regularly, assist them with problems, try to get
them special treatment, etc; that customers would demand this
service and complain to higher authorities if it were not for-
thcoming; that sales managers would watch their staff’s per-
formance and intervene when it was lacking; and that higher
management would closely supervise total sales and hold
managers accountable. None of these assumptions were correct.
Salesmen did not service their accounts adequately in most cases;
customers were afraid to complain to the Head Office (invisibility
is the guiding principle of private traders and S.T.C. is regarded as
‘Government’, authoritative and ‘dangerous’) salesmen were not
brought into line; and management did not hold those below them
accoutable.
Among the specific reasons the organisational structure and
management systems did not produce expected results, four stand
out; (1) the accounting system failed in nearly every respect; (2) the

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