The Fourth Principle- Discipline

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 Leading on from the last, Emerson’s fourth principle of efficiency is related to discipline. When thinking about the meaning of discipline, words like regulation, order and control spring to mind. In order to be disciplined, you need to have a clear idea of what it is you have to do otherwise it can be easy to get side-tracked. Therefore, in scenarios with a need for discipline, generally there is little to no ambiguity and an overriding sense of clarity instead. Inefficiency is one of the greatest problems within organisations, but this single principle has the ability to improve this. 

Members of an organisation that are disciplined are also reliable and responsible, knowing and understanding what their role is and how they contribute. In a lot of ways, this links back the third principle of competent counsel because a leader when it comes to efficiency cannot be successful without being disciplined. 

One of the most important factors when it comes to this principle, is that discipline must be applied before the task is undertaken, rather than once it has started. Most of the harder discipline must be applied to prevent predetermined faults: bad habits, laziness, procrastination etc. 


As stated in Emerson’s book, ‘there can be organisation without discipline, as in all plant life; there can be discipline without organisation, as in all animal life’. However, what he tries to make clear is that man is different. If organisation is lost, progress across centuries diminishes at a much quicker rate because we cannot be organised without being disciplined. He uses the example of a bee when explaining a situation that demonstrates the fundamentals of this principle. He says, ‘no bee appears to obey any other bee, no bee seems consciously to cooperate with any other bee’, yet still the “spirit of the hive” is maintained and strong with each bee carrying out their own tasks and an understanding that every other bee is also busy working to try and achieve a common goal. ‘Cooperation is a matter of course, not virtue; its absence is the crime’. 


Using Emerson’s words ‘Any system or act of discipline that cannot pass the test of each of the other eleven principles is near-discipline, not supernal discipline’. 

No principle stands alone. Each principle strengthens and is supported by the other 11. These principles have a level of co-dependency but not a complete reliance. One could be removed, and the entire system would weaken, however it would not crumble. 


-Alana




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