Drucker 談 Alfred P. Sloan； Deming 談 Morris H Hansen

Alfred P. Sloan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_P._Sloan

Sloan's memoir, My Years with General Motors, written in the 1950s but withheld from publishing until an updated version was finally released in 1964,  ...

斯隆的專業風采，出自 {旁觀者－管理大師杜拉克回憶錄 }(Adventures of A Bystander)

Alfred Sloan, 187, 203, 205, 211, 461；《我在通用汽車的日子》(My Years with General Motors), 204 系統與變異: 淵博知識與理想設計法 (2010) 的索引 (1) a-e

February 18, 1966

OBITUARY

Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Dead at 90; G.M. Leader and Philanthropist

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Alfred P. Sloan Jr., who shaped the General Motors Corporation into one of the world's largest manufacturing enterprises, died of a heart attack yesterday afternoon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Center here. He was 90 years old.
Mr. Sloan had been in excellent health until Tuesday, when he complained of not feeling well. He was taken to the hospital, which his philanthropy helped to establish, on Wednesday afternoon from his home at 820 Fifth Avenue. He succumbed yesterday at 2:35 P.M.
With him at the hospital was his brother, Raymond P., special lecturer in the School of Public Health and Hospital Administration of Columbia University.
Mr. Sloan was acclaimed last night as one of the great captains of industry of his age, not alone for his managerial skills but also for the pioneering automotive advances that he oversaw. These included four-wheel brakes, ethyl gasoline, crankcase ventilation and knee-action front springs.
In a joint statement Frederic G. Donner, chairman of General Motors, and James W. Roche, its president, said:
"His contributions to science and education and those of the foundation that bears his name were matched only by his accomplishments in business and industry."
Mr. Sloan made his mark, his associates said, "as a planner, organizer and administrator."
Roy Abernathy, president of the American Motors Corporation, called Mr. Sloan "the most advanced practitioner of modern management of our time."
A friend in the industry, Lynn A. Townsend, president of the Chrysler Corporation, said last night that Mr. Sloan's "services to our nation and our industry cannot be measured."
In Detroit, Henry Ford 2d, chairman of the Ford Motor Company, extolled Mr. Sloan as "one of the small handful of men who actually made automotive history."
"Under his leadership," Mr. Ford said, "General Motors developed from a loosely organized group of companies into the present highly efficient giant corporation."
At his death Mr. Sloan was honorary chairman of General Motors, and in this capacity he had attended a board of directors meeting here last month. Associates who talked with him then said yesterday that he participated in the session with his usual acuity.
Mr. Sloan headed General Motors as president and then chairman from 1923 to 1956.
His Work, His Hobby, His Love
In the nineteen-thirties when Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. was chief executive officer of the General Motors Corporation a friend told him that a man of his position ought to own a yacht. After some hesitation, the slim, dandily dressed industrialist agreed and bought a 236-footer for $1 million.
He incorporated it, christened it Rene, hired a crew of 43 at an annual cost of $119,609 and embarked on a few cruises. But life afloat quickly bored him, and the yacht was virtually laid up until he sold it in 1941 to the Maritime Commission for $175,000.
This nautical flying was notable in Mr. Sloan's life because it was one of the few ventures that did not turn a handsome profit and because it was a leisure-time caper. Indeed, it was perhaps his only frivolity, for Mr. Sloan did not smoke, rarely drank, read little for pleasure and never engaged in golf or any other sport. A functional, frill-less man, he was convinced that sports were a waste of a man's time.
Such dissipations, moreover, interfered with his work, his hobby, his love--the running of General Motors. Even in retirement, when Mr. Sloan was administering his multimillion dollar medical and educational benefactions, his sole relaxation was an evening's television watching.
When Mr. Sloan became vice president of operations of General Motors in 1920 the company accounted for less than 12 percent of motor vehicle sales in the nation; when he stepped down as chairman in 1956 its share was 52 per cent. Moreover, General Motors had expanded into one of the world's largest companies. It was also among the most profitable and, operationally, one of the smoothest.
These accomplishments were credited to Mr. Sloan's management policies. He centralized administration and decentralized operations, grouping together those that had a common relationship. He also realigned the company's products so that one brand of automobiles did not conflict with another. Each product--cars, electric iceboxes or whatever--was set apart in its own division. It was part of Mr. Sloan's genius that he was familiar with every detail of each division.
Along Staff Lines
In his 14 years as president of General Motors (1923-37) and in almost 20 years as chairman of the board (1937-56) Mr. Sloan ran the company on the staff principle, with himself as chief. But despite the eminence of his position he did not comport himself like an autocrat, nor did he hoot and holler. (He was known throughout the organization as "Silent Sloan.") He also refrained from ordering underlings about.
"I never give orders," Mr. Sloan once said. "I sell my ideas to my associates if I can. I accept their judgment if they convince me, as they frequently do, that I am wrong. I prefer to appeal to the intelligence of a man rather than attempt to exercise authority over him."
An associate likened him to a roller bearing--"self-lubricating, smooth, eliminates friction and carries the load." A typical workday bore out this portrayal.
Mr. Sloan arrived at his office in the General Motors Building, 1775 Broadway (at 57th Street) at 9:30 A.M. (In winter he drove from his 14-room apartment on Fifth Avenue; in summer he commuted to Pennsylvania Station from his 25 acres in Great Neck, L.I., and rode the subway to West 59th Street.)
Father Was Well-to-Do
With metronomic precision he ticked off the day's conferences. He was restless, squirming in his chair, gesturing, putting his small, well-shod feet on the table. When he talked, it was in a quiet voice that curled out of the side of his mouth with a trace of a Brooklyn accent. When he listened, it was with the extra intentness of the deaf.
By 5:30 he was ready to depart for home with a briefcase under his arm; and after dinner with his wife he usually worked for a few hours and was in bed at 10 o'clock. Two weeks a month he spent in Detroit, where he rarely stirred out of the gray G.M. building, not even to a hotel.
Summarizing his recipe for success, Mr. Sloan said:
"Get the facts. Recognize the equities of all concerned. Realize the necessity of doing a better job every day. Keep an open mind and work hard. The last is most important at all. There is no short cut."
He was born in New Haven on May 23, 1875. His father was a well-to-do coffee and tea importer, and later a wholesale grocer. The Sloans moved to 240 Garfield Place, Brooklyn, when Alfred Jr., was 10. He attended public school until he was 11, when he entered Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute where he established a reputation as a prodigy in mechanics and engineering. At 17 he enrolled in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and by grinding away every possible minute he graduated in three years.
With his father's help Alfred got a draftsman's job in the Hyatt Roller Bearing Company at Harrison, N. J. The company was not doing very well, but Alfred had confidence that it could be made to show a profit. He persuaded his father and another man to put up $5,000 and place him in control. In the first six months the business yielded $12,000 in profits.
It was the automotive industry, however, that made the company's fortune. Automakers had been using a heavily greased wagon axle until Mr. Sloan persuaded the Olds Motors Company to try his bearings. Henry Ford and the other manufacturers soon followed suit, and Hyatt Bearing started making money hand over fist.
By 1916 the company was doing a gross business of $10-million a year and making profits as high as $4-million. Of equal importance, Mr. Sloan had made a name for himself in Detroit as a knowledgeable and reliable business man with keen insights into the auto industry.
His First $5-Million
By that year General Motors, replacing Ford, had become Mr. Sloan's largest customer, and there was some hint that it might make its own bearings. Instead, General Motors, which had been stitched together from several independent auto concerns by the mercurial William Crapo Durant, bought Hyatt for $13.5-million.
He promptly merged it with some other parts and accessory companies into the United Motors Corporation and installed Mr. Sloan as president. In the process Mr. Sloan pocketed his first $5-million, a start on a fortune that was to rise to $250-million.
Late in 1918, through the initiative of John J. Raskob, General Motors took over United Motors as its own parts division, and Mr. Sloan went along as its executive head. Successively, he was named a member of the G. M. board of directors and a vice president.
Meanwhile, Mr. Durant, his backer and sponsor, was swept out of the company through stock purchases by the du Pont interests. Two and a half million shares passed to them in a single day.
Pierre S. du Pont thereupon became president of General Motors, but being unfamiliar with the motor-car business he leaned on Mr. Sloan, who became vice president of operations in 1920. Three years later Mr. du Pont left the presidency and put Mr. Sloan in the chair.
The corporation's net sales were then $698-million; six years later there were $1.5- billion. In the process, General Motors' Chevrolet displaced Ford as sales leader in the low-price field, and the market price of its stock was up 480 per cent.
This growth cost Mr. Sloan much leg work. "It may surprise you to know," he said at the time, "that I have personally visited, with many of my associates, practically every city in the United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to Mexico.
"On these trips I visit from 5 to 10 dealers a day. I meet them in their own places of business, talk with them across their own desks and solicit from them suggestions and criticisms as to their relations with the corporation."
And a Sloan visit was not soon forgotten, for Mr. Sloan was 6 feet tall and weighed 130 pounds. He arrived dressed in what was then the height of fashion--a dark, double- breasted suit, a high starch collar, conservative tie fixed with a pearl stickpin, a handkerchief cascading out of his breast pocket and spats. It was enough to awe any dealer.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933 Mr. Sloan at first cooperated with the New Administration, becoming a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration. When the dollar was devalued, however, the New Deal lost a friend and gained a persistent critic.
Early in 1937 Mr. Sloan encountered one of the major crises of his business life when newly organized workers in General Motors plants staged a 44-day sitdown strike to obtain union recognition.
The industrialist haughtily refused to deal with the strikers while they "continue to hold our plants unlawfully." He joined the chorus of those assailing John L. Lewis, head of the Committee for Industrial Organization, as seeking to dominate the motor industry. President Roosevelt rebuked him, public sympathy ran against him and he beat a retreat, which was signalized when Gov. Frank Murphy of Michigan brought labor and management together.
Mr. Sloan, however, did not carry on the negotiations personally. He remained in New York, delegating the distasteful job to William S. Knudsen, then vice president in charge of operations, and other executives. A few months later he turned over the company presidency to Mr. Knudsen and became chairman of the board.
A month later, in June, 1937, Mr. Sloan was in the headlines again when Treasury experts reported to a Congressional committee that he and his wife had avoided payment of $1,921,587 in income taxes over a three-year period through personal holding companies.
Although there was no Government charge that this means of tax avoidance was illegal, the implications were so unpleasant that Mr. Sloan issued a statement denying that he ever sought to evade a just share of the tax burden. He said that he and his wife had received in 1936 income totaling $2,876,310. Their Federal and state income taxes, he asserted, ate up $1,725,790, and the remainder--$1,150,520--was divided evenly between charity and themselves.
Toward the end of the year Mr. Sloan made a substantial foray into philanthropy by endowing the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation with $10-million. In announcing the benefaction, he said:
"Having been connected with industry during my entire life, it seems eminently proper that I should turn back, in part, the proceeds of that activity with the hope of promoting a broader as well as a better understanding of the economic principles and national policies which have characterized American enterprise down through the years."
Up to 1966 the value of Mr. Sloan's gifts to the foundation and those of his wife, Irene, totaled $305-million, of which about $130-million has been given away. The gifts have not been restricted to economic studies.
One of the foundation's first large benefactions was in 1945--provision of $2.56-million for the establishment of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York, a component of the Memorial Cancer Center. Grants of $300,000 annually were also made at the same time to help finance research. Charles F. Kettering, the co-sponsor of the institute, was a close friend of Mr. Sloan's and director of the General Motors Research Laboratory. Until his death he was an institute trustee.
Additional funds were given the institute over the years, and it and the hospital were eventually reorganized as the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, with a medical and scientific staff of 1,500 persons.
Another recipient of Mr. Sloan's benefactions was M.I.T., his alma mater. These included a laboratory for study of automotive and aircraft engines and aeronautical engineering problems. In 1945 he gave $350,000 for an industrial management professorship and four years later he donated $1-million for a metals processing laboratory.
In 1950 the Sloan Foundation gave M.I.T. $5.25-million for a School of Industrial Management, subsequently named the Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. Mr. Sloan gave the school $1-million for management research in 1952.
The foundation also gave M.I.T. $5-million to establish a Center for Advanced Engineering Study, whose students are practicing engineers and professors of engineering.
Two years ago Mr. Sloan established the Alfred P. Sloan Fund for Basic Research in the Physical Sciences at M.I.T. The fund included a personal gift of $5-million from Mr. Sloan and an equal amount from his foundation. Last year a similar fund was established at the California Institute of Technology.
As a further venture into education, the Sloan Foundation in 1958 established a program under which four-year scholarships are awarded to outstanding college students. Forty- five institutions now participate in the project, in which 600 students are enrolled.
In an official biographical sketch issued by Mr. Sloan's office in 1966, his attitude toward philanthropy was outlined. "As chairman of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation," the sketch said, "Mr. Sloan has the responsibility of establishing the fact that every proposed grant is a sound investment in some area of human need, and not in any sense of the word a 'giveaway'; further, that adequate responsibility exists to administer the program intelligently. Here is Mr. Sloan's description of what a foundation should be--a well- organized, efficiently managed business enterprise with a wholesome respect for every dollar at its disposal."
A friend once put it more directly, saying, "He's no Scrooge, but he still knows the value of a dollar."
In World War II General Motors, under Mr. Sloan's direction, converted its automotive plants to the manufacture of armaments. A total of 102 plants was involved, and from February, 1942, to September, 1945, no automobiles were produced. Reconversion was a back-breaking process, but it was accomplished more smoothly than many observers had predicted, for virtually all G.M. lines were back in civilian production by the end of 1945.
After the war General Motors expanded its activities in the household appliance field and in diesel motors. The company also developed overseas plants and outlets.
In 1946 Mr. Sloan stepped down as the company's chief executive officer after 25 years in that post. He remained as chairman of the board until 1956, when he was elected honorary chairman, a position he held until his death.
Held Corporate Posts
Although Mr. Sloan's business life was centered on General Motors, he was a director of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., the Pullman Company, J. P. Morgan & Co., the Kennecott Copper Corporation, the Johns Manville Corporation and the Braden Copper Company.
In retirement, Mr. Sloan turned his mind to writing a book. "My Years With General Motors" was published in 1964 by Doubleday. A documented insider's story of the management of General Motors. It sold more than 50,000 hard-cover copies.
In it, he told why one management is successful and another is not. "The causes of success or failure are deep and complex," he wrote, "and chance plays a part. Experience has convinced me, however, that for those who are responsible for a business, two important factors are motivation and opportunity. The former is supplied in good part by incentive compensation, the latter by decentralization."
Mr. Sloan also took time to reply to critics of General Motors and its success. "General Motors has become what it is because of its people and the way they work together, and because of the opportunity afforded those people to participate in an enterprise which combined their activities efficiently.
"The field was open to all; technical knowledge flows from a common storehouse of scientific progress; the techniques of production are an open book, and the related instruments of production are available to all. The market is world-wide, and there are no favorites except those chosen by the customers."
Also in retirement, Mr. Sloan devoted himself to his foundation. He maintained daily hours at its offices, 630 Fifth Avenue. On days when he had no luncheon engagement, he ate in his paneled office. His fare was a homemade sandwich, which he had brought with him, neatly wrapped in paper, in his coat pocket.
The office was always brightened by fresh flowers and it contained a portrait of his wife, the former Irene Jackson, whom he married in 1898. She died in 1956. They had no children.
In addition to Raymond, Mr. Sloan is survived by two other brothers, Harold S. and Clifford A., both of New York, and sister, Mrs. Katherine Sloan Pratt of Syossett, L.I.
A funeral service will be held tomorrow at 11 A.M. in Christ Church Methodist, 520 Park Avenue. There will be no pallbearers. Until the funeral, his body will be at Frank E. Campbell's, Madison Avenue at 81st Street.
Burial will be private at St. John's Cemetery, Cold Spring Harbor, L.I.
------

Morris H Hansen,

在美國人囗普查局的發揚與運用。在大型機構之中，進行品質和生產力全面改善，最早期而且最成功的例子，要算是1937年，在Morris H. Hansen所領導的人囗普查局了。無數的作業在普查局的生產線上界於A.現場計數人員或問卷回郵及B.最終出版之圖表間展開了。

   每個月和每一季的調查，包括︰失業、批發商品的流動、罹病率，與其他有關於個人和企業的一些特性，以作為企業和政府安排計劃時的主要參考。這種調查的精密度，要十分可靠，而不容出問題。

速度是必需的，以免數據過時，但不可因而不計較準確度。要同時改善速度和準確度，有賴新的訓練與督導方法，並借助於統計方法來完成。

   一些由Morris H. Hansen和他的同事所撰寫的若干重要文獻與著作，顯示對抽樣的改進、非抽樣誤差的減少，與這兩者之間求得經濟的平衡點。在一九三九到一九五五年間的著作和文獻中，此處無法摘述。在1953年，由Hansen，Hurwitz，與Madow合著的Sampling Survey Method and Theory, Vol.1及Vol. 2（Wiley,1953）一書中曾詳細提到。

   若非人口普查局顧問與最高管理階層的支持，由普查所帶來對品質和生產力的貢獻，恐怕也就無從談起。

全世界從事普查的團體，都如同手足，並且互相學習。我們的普查局更是扮演著一個替全世界改進品質與生產力的要角。

----

美國人口統計調查局(Census)的統計組織，是約在1940 年由Morris H. Hansen博士所手創，其計畫如圖61。1945年後，該局在品質及生產力的卓越成就上，已領先各國相當之單位。值得一提的，該局是服務機構，也是政府機構。


-----第5章新領導力

某位領導的例子。茲舉個實例，或許有助於說明我用領導者的意思。在歷史上有許許多多的領導者，有些是對人有利的善人，有些則是惡人。我的故友韓森(Morris H. Hansen 1990年10月9日過世，享年79歲)，是個偉大而良善的領導者，足為典範。 (譯按，參考《轉危為安》第7章”服務組織的品質與生產力”的”在美國人囗普查局的運用”一節”。)

    1929年美國股市大崩盤之後，全國陷人經濟大蕭條。在1930年代，失業非常嚴重，當時對「失業者」還沒有可運作的定義，但有一個通用的名詞是「有工資者」(gainful worker)。

    至於不屬於「有工資者」的人究竟有多少，每位專家各有不同的估計，而且數字差異很大，因而都不被當局採用。

    國會對於這些離譜的估計值很不滿意，下令對非「有工資者」進行全面普查。

他們命令全國的郵務士，都必須負責向自己郵遞路線上的每個人去蒐集其就業資訊。位於華府的郵政總局，有郵務士的完整名冊，因此這看起來應該是一件很簡單的工作。奉命執行這項任務的聯邦緊急救難署(The Federal Emergency Relief Administration)，聘請畢格斯(John B. Biggers)主持研究。因此，後來這項研究就被稱為畢格斯研究。由於取得的資料量過於龐大，完全派不上用場是可想而知的。

    另一方面，韓森當時只有24歲，自1935年起於華盛頓的人口普查局任統計員的工作。他曾在大學選修統計理論的課程，有一些機率理論以及調查誤差等方面的知識。他擬訂一個計畫，以隨機的方式選取52條郵遞路線，加以特別處理，除了涵蓋的範圍完整，也深入了解相關問題的回答的意義。

   韓森根據抽樣郵遞路線所作的研究結果，出版了一本薄薄的報告，也為國會接受。而畢格斯的普查研究，因為有太多未作答與錯誤回答，被人束之高閣。

   我要說的是，韓森是一位真正的領導者：他的腦海中有一些機率理論，同時也能基於務實的考量，設計郵遞路線的樣本，以取得必要的資訊。再者，他有能力將自己的計畫說明給別人了解。

  他明白無法以一己之力來完成這項計晝，所以他說服了許多有意願並能夠了解他的理論的人士，共同參與這項工作。以下是其中部分名單：

郝瑟(Philip M. Hausr)博士狄瑞克(Carvert L. Dedrick)博士，人口普查局統計長史帝芬(Fredrick F. Stephan)﹐顧問史篤佛(Samuel A.Stouffer)博士，威斯康辛大學社會學教授，顧問韋布(JohnWebb)，負責執行工作

    附帶一提，韓森的郵務士樣本有可能並不符合國會的原要求，因為當初國會曾經指明，這次研究應該包括每一家庭在內，以求結果能夠精確。

   這項研究的另一個貢獻，是把「勞動力」、「失業」以及「部分就業」的概念以及其可運作定義界定出來。 (注1)

   此後，美國政府不斷以統計方法進行調查工作。工作進展署(Works Progress Administrationn)在史鐸克(J.C. Stock)與弗蘭可(Lester Frankel)的指導下開始每季(後來改為每月)調查失業的狀況，1940年以後改由人口普查局執行。之後還有每月和每季的生活費用的物價調查，以及房屋開工率調查，都是以機率理論為指導。

卡普特(J.C. Capt)於1940年出任人口普查局的局長。他具有識人之能，重用具有領導能力的人士，像韓森，當時已升任助理局長的郝瑟、以及擔任顧問的史帝芬和史篤佛。卡普特先生有完全的決策自由，他曾經告訴我說：「只有總統才能阻止我。」

   1940年美國人口普查中，關於個人以及家庭資訊的蒐集，主要是靠平均每20個人抽1個人，每20家抽1家。抽樣方式提升了結果的精確度﹐也節省了許多製表的時間與經費。

   不久之後，世界各國政府紛紛派員跟韓森學習，人口普查局為此特別成立一個專門接待與指導的部門，由狄瑞克主管。

   韓森William N. Hurwitz的協助下，知識與地位不斷提升，於1945年升任人口普查局的助理局長﹐專門負責人口普查局的統計標準。

  在《轉危為安》英文書第467頁上所示的組織虛線關係圖，就是韓森當年為人口普查局所作的整體規劃模式，圖中的虛線，代表了負責人口、農業、政府、生命、地理等不同統計工作的人員與韓森(即領導者)之間的關係。

Census Crunch Time

Published: January 8, 2009

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to quickly nominate a commerce secretary after his first choice, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, withdrew this week. Frankly, the far more pressing task at the Commerce Department is to name a new director of the Census Bureau.

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Times Topics: Census Bureau

With only a year to go before the nationwide count in 2010, Mr. Obama needs to nominate a strong new director who can move swiftly to counteract years of political meddling and neglect that have left the bureau ill prepared to conduct the next census.
This page has issued many warnings about the bureau’s state of unreadiness, as have members of Congress and advocates for groups that tend to be undercounted in a less-than-robust census, especially racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, the poor and the disabled. In November, Congressional investigators named the 2010 census as one of 13 issues requiring Mr. Obama’s immediate attention.
Any further delay increases the chances, which are already too high, of a botched census in 2010. That would be a very expensive failure of a constitutionally mandated duty on Mr. Obama’s watch. The damage would be compounded in 2012, when the new census data will be used by state governments to redraw electoral districts. If the census is not accurate, the electoral map also would not be — for years to come.
If Mr. Obama and his team need any more reasons to act now to rescue the census, they should note that the party most likely to benefit from a faulty count is certainly not their own. That’s because an inaccurate census generally overcounts people who tend to fit the Republican profile — white, English-speaking and suburban — and to undercount diverse, mobile urban populations.
The census also is used to allocate federal aid to states — an increasingly important issue in the midst of the country’s deep economic troubles.
More than a month ago, this page noted that the director of the acclaimed 2000 census, Kenneth Prewitt, would be the obvious choice to pull the 2010 census out of the hat. If the Obama team has a better candidate, it’s past time to put his or her name forward.

人口普查漏列少數裔 兩黨政爭焦點

【世界日報╱編譯中心綜合華盛頓23日電】 2009.02.24 08:04 pm

國會參議員葛雷格(Judd Gregg，共和黨，新罕布夏州)本月12日退出商務部長提名，不僅使歐巴馬總統邀請共和黨人士入閣的努力破局，舊金山紀事報23日指出，此事還凸顯一年後將進行的2010年人口普查，已成為兩黨政爭的焦點。 人口普查本身即具有高度的政治性，事關選區視人口增減重新公平規劃，影響國會議員席位分配；聯邦政府也將根據人口普查數據，決定撥給地方政府的公路、學校、警察經費，因此備受政界重視。 葛雷格退出提名時公然表示，他與歐巴馬就2010年人口普查，有「無法化解的歧見」。問題在於，歐巴馬決定把原屬商務部主管的人口普查，讓白宮扮演更重要角色。早先的報導指出，歐巴馬政府擬把人口普查局的預算追加70億至80億元，也令葛雷格不滿。 舊金山紀事報指出，歐巴馬的行動旨在安撫非洲裔和拉丁美洲裔，他們抗議任命葛雷格出任商務部長，因為他一向主張限制人口普查局經費。 他們擔心，葛雷格上任後，將使人口普查少算非洲裔和拉丁美洲裔人口問題，更加嚴重。 歐巴馬加強白宮對人口普查的監督權，激怒了共和黨人士，指控他放任民主黨「奪權」。歐巴馬強調，他沒有剝奪商務部主管人口普查的權力，但無論如何，葛雷格退出提名。 紀事報指出，華府這場戲劇化政爭的背後，有一個長期問題：窮人、移民和年輕人，很難清點，因為他們流動性太高，而且不大理會人口普查的清點員。 都市的少數族裔被人口普查漏列，是政爭的焦點。他們通常投票支持民主黨，所以民主黨對人口普查非常認真。相對的，少算這類人口，對共和黨比較有利。