About this edition
Written by Heinrich Neuhaus for use in the first civilian freight company he founded after completing his military service, these instructions are retained under the later title ‘The Original Doctrine’. This English reading edition presents the founding company instruction, not the subsequent HLN codification. No precise date of issue is assigned. Its concern is the conduct of a road-freight business: the duties owed to employees, customers and those awaiting supplies. The six principles of the modern Neuhaus Doctrine develop from these obligations; its fleet institutions, intervention rules and constitutional arrangements belong to later periods.
Opening instruction
Having concluded my military service, I have established this firm to carry goods in civilian employment. I bring experience of transport, but I do not intend to make a barracks of the office or the yard. We undertake work for which other people pay and upon which they may depend. Our authority extends to carrying out that undertaking properly. It extends no further.
To those employed here
These instructions apply to me as proprietor no less than to the driver, the mechanic or the clerk. Keep them where they can be consulted. If my instructions conflict with them, bring the matter to me; an exception is not to be concealed in an oral order.
I. Keep the work in order
A vehicle shall not leave because the office finds delay embarrassing. Before dispatch, establish that the vehicle is fit, the load secure, the driver rested and the receiving place able to accept the goods. A timetable is a promise about work, not permission to neglect what makes the work possible.
The handover
Leave the next person an account they can use: what has been loaded, what remains, what is defective and what has been promised. Do not make the business dependent on a fact carried only in your memory. The relief driver must not discover a fault on the road which was known in the yard.
II. Answer for what you direct
Whoever assigns a journey must be prepared to explain the route, the load and the means provided. I remain responsible for the conditions under which I ask a man to work. I cannot promise a delivery without consulting the people who must perform it and then make their difficulty proof of their unwillingness.
The record
Enter a mistake when it becomes known. Preserve the original entry and make the correction legible. No one is to improve a figure because it reflects badly upon this office. I would rather explain a shortage while it can still be remedied than defend a complete ledger beside an empty store.
III. Undertake difficult work honestly
A damaged road or an inconvenient destination does not make a necessary consignment less necessary. We shall accept such work where we can make proper provision for it. Before agreeing, establish the fuel, assistance, rest and alternative route required. Courage cannot supply a spare part, and goodwill cannot take the place of wages. Where our knowledge of a road makes passage possible when others cannot or will not attempt it, we must consider what help that passage can carry. A doctor, a repair crew or a family leaving danger may need the same skill as a consignment of supplies. Arrange suitable transport, consent, a receiving party and a safe return or onward journey; people are not cargo to be deposited and forgotten.
The limits of a promise
If we cannot perform an undertaking, say so before someone arranges their affairs around it. If circumstances change after acceptance, notify the receiving party and agree what can still be done. Do not leave them waiting merely because the truth is unpleasant to report.
IV. Complete the delivery
Our work is not finished when the goods leave our premises. It is finished when the proper recipient has received them in the quantity and condition agreed, or when any discrepancy has been acknowledged and an arrangement made to put it right. Obtain a receipt for what was actually unloaded, never for what the dispatch sheet says should have arrived.
Those awaiting the load
A consignment of food, fuel or medical stores is not merely a sum in our accounts. Someone has arranged work or sustenance around its arrival. When a journey fails, find out who is affected and what can be supplied in the meantime. The cost of a second attempt is to be faced, not hidden by calling the first attempt complete.
V. Do not confuse responsibility with possession
Goods entrusted to us remain the property of those entitled to them. A store placed in our care does not become ours to command. We shall not use another person’s dependence on our vehicles or premises to obtain an advantage unrelated to the agreed work.
Restraint and departure
Protect the load and the people entrusted to us, but do not seek a quarrel or presume the powers of the civil authorities. Report a threat and seek lawful assistance. When temporary work is complete, settle the accounts, return what was borrowed and leave the receiving organisation able to continue without us. Dependence prolonged for our benefit is not service. We may assist a public authority or a military service where our transport can preserve life, bring relief or restore essential work. The standing of the customer does not settle the merit of the journey. Establish whom it helps and what it enables; refuse work which would make us an instrument of persecution or unlawful harm.
VI. Teach the reason for the rule
Show a new employee how the work is done and why a precaution is required. Do not punish a person for failing to know what no one has explained. Equally, experience does not exempt an old hand from a check whose omission could injure someone else.
Correction and succession
When a method proves inadequate, change it and record the reason. These instructions are not an argument for preserving a bad arrangement because I established it. Whoever eventually takes charge of this firm will inherit its debts and unfinished undertakings as well as its name. Let the records show plainly what remains to be done.
The proprietor’s undertaking
I do not ask that this firm be praised for its principles. I ask that its accounts, its vehicles and the treatment of those who work with it should bear examination. If we claim that a delivery has been made, the recipient should be able to confirm it. If we claim that a duty has been discharged, there should not be another person left to carry it without our knowledge. — Heinrich Neuhaus, Proprietor