Yeah, right.

There is no such thing as an Ideal Org “setting.” This is a creation of the fertile imagination of Chairman of the Blind who leads the blind.

You have bought the bs hook, line and sinker.

As a self-proclaimed green on white man, I suggest you re-read the Ideal Org PL again and see what mention it makes of “settings” for an Ideal Org….

There are now plenty of “Ideal Org settings” but they contain NO ORGS.

See the latest posting on Phoenix.

Or go visit whatever your local “IDeal Org” is.

Come back with a report on what you find….

PTBA, for a “consulting service” firm like the Scientology organization, square feet per employee is not necessarily a useful metric. I am sure that a space planner looking to lease an office building for a new division will look at a general “rule of thumb” number for the amount of square feet per employee to get an idea of how big a floor plate they would want. But I don’t think that number would really tell you much about the operating efficiency of the business. Also, in the case of Ideal Orgs, I think the number would fluctuate wildly based on peculiarities of the individual building — I’m going to guess that because the Tel Aviv org is renting itself out for theater-style events that even if it were successful, the large footprint of the auditorium would make the square feet/employee number look far less impressive than, say, the New York org.

Retailers typically use a sales/square foot metric as a way to look at store efficiency since real estate is a fixed cost (the same whether you sell a lot or a little product), and when things are going badly it eats up your profit faster and faster. So that’s one of the things my fellow capitalists who invest in retailers’ stocks watch like hawks. It has proven to be extremely useful over the years.

I would suggest a useful number for Scientology is dollars of sales (“gross income” they call it) per employee. Microsoft does about $700,000 sales per employee every year and is one of the most profitable companies in existence. Based on some articles that Mike has done previously, Scientology does perhaps $10,000 in sales per employee per year in the orgs, but it makes that up with IAS donations, Flag services Narconon and a few other things. But the core business is pretty crappy. Even at $50 per week for staff, it’s a wonder that the orgs manage to stay financially solvent. If you paid people decently and tried to get revenue up to the level of a service business like a hair salon, with, say $100,000 per person per year, you could be a lot more profitable paying a lot better than Scientology does because you would have a motivated employee instead of a bunch of clueless drones.

Sorry AQuamarine but I agree with you 100%.

Hey Dave,
Don’t get me wrong, I think there is real value in the Green vols, some real gems. I just don’t think it is the be-all, end-all. I agree, the programs pushed by upper management are absurd (if they are still like they were when I was on staff). I fondly recall 16 page programs with orders like “Contact your entire field and get them started on the Free FSM Course” – I mean really. For decades now programs are simply an admin exercise, the “product” is a CR and paperwork.

Regarding the blind: this is probably the common denominator to all that is wrong with the church. I stopped looking and started believing, not overnight, but over a couple of decades.

BTW, I’ve read your entire blog in one sitting 🙂 Ranks up there with one of the best.

People are messy, they make demands, they create problems, and DM doesn’t understand them or trust them. In fact, he’s pretty sure they all hate him. MEST buildings are different. They are much more predictable, and they are hardly ever out to get him. He likes buildings, especially ones that are better than yours.

What we are seeing in Tel Aviv and Spanish Lake is the transition of a business which used to get its income from Scientology services to one that gets its income from real estate. I predict we will soon see this renting of space as a standard operating basis in Orgs all over the planet.

Statpush said: “How long does the church continue to flog this dead horse before they come to the ultimate conclusion – ‘it just doesn’t work'”.

What doesn’t work? The major programs being pushed by the church for years and years are contrary to the policy anyway. For the most part, they aren’t even up to the point of applying the policy that they have, much less observe whether it works or not.

In other words, how would anyone ever observe whether something works or not if, not only are they not applying it, but they think they are applying it when they are not? The only thing worse than being blind is thinking that you see when you don’t.

I do agree however, with the rest of your comment. Good points. I think anyone who has ever had any decent amount of success in using the admin tech has done it in a way that aligns with what you have said here.