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INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY
IN BUSINESS
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF BUSINESS
BY
WALTER DILL SCOTT
AUTHOR OF ``THE THEORY OF ADVERTISING,'' ``THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF ADVERTISING,'' ``THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PUBLIC
SPEAKING,'' ``INFLUENCING MEN IN BUSINESS''
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE POSSIBILITY OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY......1
II. IMITATION AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN
EFFICIENCY......................................26
III. COMPETITION AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN
EFFICIENCY......................................48
IV. LOYALTY AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN
EFFICIENCY......................................75
V. CONCENTRATION AS A MEANS OF INCREASING
HUMAN EFFICIENCY...............................104
VI. WAGES AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN
EFFICIENCY.....................................132
VII. PLEASURE AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN
EFFICIENCY.....................................165
VIII. THE LOVE OF THE GAME AND EFFICIENCY...........186
IX. RELAXATION AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN
EFFICIENCY.....................................204
X. THE RATE OF IMPROVEMENT IN EFFICIENCY............223
XI. PRACTICE PLUS THEORY............................254
XII. MAKING EXPERIENCE AN ASSET: JUDGMENT
FORMATION......................................276
XIII. CAPITALIZING EXPERIENCE: HABIT FORMATION......303
INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY
IN BUSINESS
CHAPTER I
THE POSSIBILITY OF INCREASING HUMAN
EFFICIENCY
THE modern business man is the true
heir of the old magicians. Every
thing he touches seems to increase
ten or a hundredfold in value and usefulness.
All the old methods, old tools, old instruments
have yielded to his transforming spell or else
been discarded for new and more effective
substitutes. In a thousand industries the
profits of to-day are wrung from the wastes
or unconsidered trifles of yesterday.
The only factor which has withstood this
wizard touch is man himself. Development
of the instruments of production and distribution
has been so great it can hardly be
measured: the things themselves have been
so changed that few features of their primitive
models have been retained.
Our railroad trains, steamships, and printing
presses preserve a likeness more apparent
than actual. Our telephones, electric lights,
gas engines, and steam turbines, our lofty office
buildings and huge factories crowded with
wonderful automatic machinery are creations
of the generation of business men and scientists
still in control of them.
_By comparison the increase in human efficiency
during this same period (except where
the worker is the slave of the machine, compelled
to keep pace with it or lose his place) has been
insignificant_.
Reasons for this disproportion are not
lacking. The study of the physical antedates
the study of the mental always. In the history
of the individual as well as of nations,
knowledge of the psychical has dragged far
behind mastery of tangible objects. We come
in contact with our physical environment and
adjust ourselves to it long before we begin to
study the _*acts_ by which we have been able
to control objects around us.
It was inevitable, therefore, that attention
should have been concentrated upon the material
and mechanical side of production and
distribution. Results there were so tangible,
so easily figured. For example, if the speed
of a drill or the strokes of a punch press were
multiplied, the increase would be easily recognized.
The whole country, too, was absorbed
in invention, in the development of tools to
accomplish what had always required hand
labor. The effort was not so much to increase
the efficiency of the individual worker--
though many wise and far-sighted employers
essayed studies and experiments with varying
success--as to displace the human factor
altogether.
As the functions and limitations of machinery
have become clearer in recent years,
business men have generally recognized the
importance of the human factor in making
and marketing products. Selecting and handling
men is of much more significance to-day
than ever before in the history of the world
--the more so as organizations have increased
in size and scope and the individual
employee is farther removed from the head
and assigned greater responsibilities.
It is not a difficult task to build and equip
a factory, to choose and stock a store. The
problems of power and its transmission come
nearer solution every day. Physics and chemistry
have revealed the secrets of raw materials.
For any given service, the manufacturer
can determine the cheapest and most
suitable metal, wood, or fabric which will
satisfy his requirements, and the most economical
method of treating it.
Of the elements involved in production or
distribution, the human factor is to-day the
most serious problem confronting the business
man. The individual remains to be
studied, trained, and developed--to be
brought up to the standard of maximum
results already reached by materials and
processes.
Few employers can gather a force of effi-
cient workers and keep them at their best.
Not only is it difficult to select the right men
but it is even harder to secure top efficiency
after they are hired. Touching this, there
will be no dispute. Experts in shop management
go even farther. F. W. Taylor, who has
made the closest and most scientific study,
perhaps, of actual and potential efficiency
among workers, declares that:--
``_A first-class man can, in most cases, do
from two to four times as much as is done on
the average_.''
``This enormous difference,'' Mr. Taylor
goes on to say, ``exists in all the trades and
branches of labor investigated, from pick-
and-shovel men all the way up the scale to
machinists and other skilled workmen. The
multiplied output was not the product of a
spurt or a period of overexertion; it was
simply what a good man could keep up for
a long term of years without injury to his
health, become happier, and thrive under.''
Ask the head of any important business
what is the first qualification of a foreman
or manager, and he will tell you ``ability to
handle men.''
_Men who know how to get maximum results
out of machines are common; the power to get
the maximum of work out of subordinates or out
of yourself is a much rarer possession_.
Yet this power is not necessarily a sixth
sense or a fixed attribute of personality.
It is based on knowledge of the workings of
the other man's mind, either intuitive or
acquired. It is the purpose of this and
succeeding chapters to consider some of the
aspects of human nature that can be turned
to advantage in the cultivation of individual
efficiency and the elimination of lost motion
and wasted effort.
In a thousand instances, in factory and
market place, unrecognized use has been made
of the principles of psychology by business
men to influence other men and to attain their
ends.
_For the science of psychology is in respect
to certain data merely common sense, the wisdom
of experience, analyzed, formulated, and codified_.
_It has taken its place, alongside physics and
chemistry, as the ally and employee of trade and
industry_.
The time has come when a man's knowledge
of his business, if the larger success is to be
won, must embrace an understanding of the
laws which govern the thinking and acting of
the men who make and sell his products as well
as those others who buy and consume them.
The achievements of the human mind and
the human body seem to many to be out of
the range of possible improvement through
application of any science which deals with
these human activities. Muscular strength
and mental efficiency seem to be fixed quantities
not subject to increase or improvement.
_The contention here supported, however, is
that human efficiency is a variable quantity
which increases and decreases according to law.
By the application of known physical laws the
telephone and the telegraph have supplanted the
messenger boy. By the laws of psychology
applied to business equally astounding improvements
are being and will be secured_.
Employers sometimes find that their men
are not working well, that they loaf and kill
time on every possible occasion. The men
are not trying and are indifferent to results.
Under such circumstances a new foreman,
the dismissal of the poorer workmen,
modification of the wage scale or method of
payment, or some other device may correct
the evil and induce the men to exert themselves.
Again, the men are working industriously
and may feel that an increase in output would
be injurious to health or even impossible.
They think they are doing their best; while
the employer himself may feel that he is
achieving but little, although he assumes that
he is doing as much as it is wise to attempt.
For instance, Mr. Taylor, in his studies, found
that both employers and men had only a vague
conception of what constituted a full day's
work for a first-class man. The good workmen
knew they could do more than the average;
but refused to believe when, after close
observation and careful timing of the ele-
ments of each operation, they were shown that
they could accomplish twice or three times as
much as their customary tasks.
_Actual instances prove that great increase of
work and results can be secured by outside stimulus
and by conscious effort_.
If there is one place where the limit of
exertion can be counted upon, it is in an inter-
collegiate athletic contest. While taking part
in football games, I frequently observed that
my team would be able to push the opposing
team halfway across the field. Then the
tables would be turned and my team would
give ground. At one moment one team would
seem to possess much superior physical
strength to the other; the next moment the
equilibrium would be changed apparently
without cause. Often, however, the weaker
team would rally in response to the captain's
coaching. On the field a player frequently
finds himself unable to exert himself. His
greatest effort is necessary to force himself to
work. In such a mental condition a vigorous
and enthusiastic appeal from the coach may
supply the needed stimulus and stir him to
sudden display of all his strength.
I recently conducted a series of experiments
on college athletes to determine
whether coaching could actually increase a
man's strength when he was already trying
his ``best,'' and whether he could continue
to work after he was ``completely exhausted.''
I put each man at work on machines which allowed
him to exert himself to his utmost and
measured his accomplishment. While he was
thus employed, the coach began urging him to
increase his exertion. Ordinarily the increase
was marked--sometimes as much as fifty
per cent.
Again, when the man had exhausted himself
without coaching, the extra demand would
be made on him; usually he was able to continue,
even though without the coaching he
had been unable to do any more. There was,
of course, a point of exhaustion at which the
coaching ceased to be effective.
_The tests proved conclusively that when a man
is doing what he believes to be his best, he is still_
_able to do better; when he is completely exhausted,
he is, under proper stimulus, able to continue_.
Before a horse is started in a race it is
vigorously exercised, ``warmed up.'' To the
uninitiated this process seems so strenuous
as to defeat its purpose by wearing out the
strength of the horse. Every horseman knows,
however, that the animal cannot attain top
speed till after it has undergone this severe
discipline.
In training for a contest an athlete usually
takes long runs. Soon after the start he feels
weary and exhausted, but, by disregarding this
feeling and continuing to run, a sudden change
comes over him commonly known as ``getting
his second wind.''
Thus the runner feels wave upon wave of
exhaustion followed by waves of invigoration.
Had he stopped when he first began to tire,
he never would have known of his wonderful
reserve fund of strength which can be drawn
upon only by passing through the feeling
of exhaustion. He seems to be able to tap
deeper and deeper reservoirs of strength.
_Many men have never discovered their reserve
stores of strength because they have formed the
fixed habit of quitting at the first access of weariness_.
Thus they never become conscious of the
wonderful resources which might be used if
they were willing to disregard the trifling
wave of weariness.
Our best energies are not on the surface
and are not available without great exertion.
We have to warm up and get our second wind
before we are capable of our best physical or
mental accomplishments. All our muscular
and psychical processes are dependent upon
the activity of the nervous system. This activity
seems to be at its best only after repeated
and vigorous stimulation and after
it has reached down to profound and widely
distributed centers.
_Most of us never know of our possible achievements
because we have never warmed up and
got our second wind in our business or professional
affairs_.
When an individual succeeds in tapping his
reserve energies, others marvel at the tremendous
tasks he accomplishes. They judge in
terms of superficial energy, and for such the
results would, of course, be impossible, even
though many of the admiring spectators could
actually equal or excel the deed.
Consider for a moment the work achieved
by Mr. Edward Payson Weston who recently
walked the entire distance from New York
to San Francisco without halt or rest in one
hundred and four days. Throughout the
entire journey Mr. Weston covered about
fifty miles daily, once attaining the remarkable
distance of eighty-seven miles in twenty-four
hours. Though Mr. Weston is seventy years
of age, at the close of the walk he seemed to be
relatively free from exhaustion and undaunted
in spirit.
The work accomplished by such men as
Gladstone and Roosevelt is incomprehensible
to most of us who have never undertaken
more than puny tasks. These men retain their
strength and in no way seem to be undermining
their health by the accomplishment of their
Herculean labors. Body and mind seem to
respond to the demands made upon them.
Their periods of sleep and their vacations
seem to be no more than the hours and days
of rest required by those of us who accomplish
infinitely less.
No need, however, to go beyond the field
of business or industry to find men whose
super-energy has carried them to epochial
discoveries or feats of organization. The
invention of the incandescent lamp by Edison
is said to have been accomplished, for instance,
only after forty-eight hours' continuous
concentration on the final problem of finding the
right carbon filament and determining the
proper degree of vacuum in the inclosing
bulb. Months of experiment and research
had gone before; eighteen hours a day in the
laboratory had been no uncommon thing for
the inventor and his assistants, but in the last
strenuous grapple with success his own physical
and mental powers were alone equal to the
strain. Not once during the two days and
nights did he rest or sleep or take his attention
from the successive tests which led up to the
assembling of the lamp which lights the world's
work and play.
The steel blade that is used seems to last as
long as the one which is allowed to lie idle.
The wearing out in the one case does not seem
to be more destructive than the rusting out
in the other.
We have a choice between wearing out and
rusting out. Most of us unwittingly have
chosen the rusting process.
This, indeed, may be said to be Edison's
regular method of work, as it is the method of
many other men who have accomplished great
things in science and industry. Both mind
and body have been trained and accustomed to
exertions which seem quite impossible to ordinary
individuals.
Many persons find that increased intellectual
activity results in less fatigue and
greater achievements. As a student I did
my best work and enjoyed it most the year
I carried the greatest number of courses and
assumed the most outside duties. In my
capacity as adviser to college students I find
many who are able to accomplish thirty per
cent more work than is expected of college
students but fail to do equally well the regular
amount. There are others who can carry the
regular amount but not more without injury
to their health.
College grades afford a means of recording
intellectual efficiency directed toward particular
problems. With no apparent change in
bodily conditions the same student frequently
increases his efficiency a hundred per cent.
The increase seldom has an injurious effect
on health, but is merely evidence of the fact
that he has suddenly wakened up and is
applying energies which before were undiscovered.
A slow walk for a single mile leaves
many persons ``dragged out'' and exhausted,
but a brisk walk of the same or a greater distance
results in invigoration and recuperation.
Likewise the droning over an intellectual task
results in exhaustion, while vigorous treatment
whets the appetite for additional problems.
This swift, decisive attack on problems was
the method of Edward H. Harriman, who
crowded into ten years the railroad achievements
of an extraordinary lifetime. Decisions
involving expenditure of many millions of
dollars were arrived at so quickly as to seem
off-hand, even reckless. In reality, they were
the products of brief periods of intense application
in which he reviewed all the conditions
and elements involved, and forged his conclusion,
as it were, at white heat. Back of each
decision was exact and thorough knowledge
of the physical and traffic conditions of each
of his railroads. In the case of the Union
Pacific, at least, he gained this mastery by
patient, intensive study of each grade and
curve and freight-producing town on its 1800
miles of track.
The inhabitant of the torrid zone upon
moving to a northern climate is severely
affected by the chill of the atmosphere. The
discomfort may last for days or months, but
he becomes acclimated and is able to withstand
the cold without serious discomfort. Likewise
the inhabitant of a cool climate feels exhausted
by the heat of the torrid zone. In some cases
he is unable to accustom himself to the change,
but in many instances the acclimatization
follows rapidly and leaves the individual well
fortified against the dangers of excessive heat.
Persons who have accustomed themselves
to stimulants of any sort are completely depleted
if they are unable to get the special
form to which they have been accustomed.
This holds true for tobacco, morphine, coffee,
and many other forms of stimulants actually
indulged in by many persons. If they are
able to resist the temptation and deny themselves
the stimulant, the period of exhaustion
soon disappears and the subject may even lose
all craving for that which formerly seemed
essential to his very existence.
The quantity which we eat is partly a
matter of habit. There is doubtless a minimum
of nourishment which is absolutely necessary
for health and strength. On the other
hand there is doubtless a maximum limit
which cannot be passed without serious injury.
Our bodies seem to demand the amount of
food to which we have accustomed them. If
we should increase the amount ten or twenty
per cent, we might, for a while, feel some
discomfort from it, but soon our system
would begin to demand the greater quantity
and we could not again return to the lighter
diet without a period of discomfort. Likewise
the amount of food which most of us
consume could be reduced materially with no
permanent injury or reduction of energy or
danger to health. Following the reduction
would be a period of discomfort and probable
reduction of weight. This period would last
for but a relatively short time, after which we
would again strike a physiological equilibrium
such that an increase of food would not be
craved nor be of any benefit.
Any great increase in the amount of physical
or mental work results in a feeling of weariness
which is usually sufficient to cause us to return
to our habitual amount of expenditure of
energy. Our system is, however, wonderful
in its capacity to adjust itself to changed
demands which come upon it, whether these
demands be in the nature of changes in temperature,
in stimulants, in nourishment, or in
the expenditure of physical or mental energy.
There is, of course, a limit to possible human
achievements. There are resources which
may not be exhausted without serious injury
to health. Those who accomplish most, however,
compare favorably with others in length
of days and retention of health.
_While overwork has its place among the things
which reduce energy and shorten life, it is my
opinion that overwork is not so dangerous or so
common as is ordinarily supposed_.
In not a few industries, the dominant house
or firm has for its head a man past seventy
who still keeps a firm and vigorous grip on the
business: men like Richard T. Crane of
Chicago, E. C. Simmons of St. Louis, and
James J. Hill, whose careers are records of
intense industry and absorbed devotion to the
work in hand.
_Many persons confuse overwork with what is
really underwork accompanied with worry or
unhygienic practices_.
A recent writer on sociology calls attention
to the fact that nervous prostrations and
general breakdowns are most common among
those members of society who achieve the
least and who may be regarded as parasites.
Exercise both of brain and of muscle is necessary
for growth and for health.
Those nations which expend the most energy
are probably the ones among whom longevity
is greatest and the mortality rate the lowest.
In the city of Chicago there are many conditions
adverse to health of body and mind, yet
the city is famous for its relatively low mortality
as a parallel fact. It is also affirmed
that the average Chicago man works longer
hours and actually accomplishes more than
the average man elsewhere. This excess in the
expenditure of energy--in so far as it is
wisely spent--may be one of the reasons for
the excellent health record of the city.
In every walk of life we see that the race
is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong.
We all know men clearly of secondary ability
who nevertheless occupy high positions in
business and state. We are acquainted also
with men of excellent native endowment who
still have never risen above the ranks of mediocrity.
_Human efficiency is not measured in terms
of muscular energy nor of intellectual grasp. It
is dependent upon many factors other than native
strength of mind and body_.
The attitude which one takes toward life
in general and toward his calling in particular
is of more importance than native ability.
The man with concentration, or the power of
continued enthusiastic application, will surpass
a brilliant competitor if this latter is
careless and indifferent towards his work.
Many who have accomplished great things
in business, in the professions, and in science
have been men of moderate ability. For
testimony of this fact take this striking quotation
from Charles Darwin.
``I have no great quickness of apprehension
or wit, which is so remarkable in some clever
men,'' he writes. ``I am a poor critic. . . .
My power to follow a long and purely abstract
train of thought is very limited; and therefore
I never could have succeeded with metaphysics
or mathematics. My memory is extensive,
yet hazy; it suffices to make me cautious by
vaguely telling me that I have observed or read
something opposed to the conclusion which I
am drawing, or on the other hand in favor
of it. So poor in one sense is my memory,
that I have never been able to remember for
more than a few days a single date or a line
of poetry. I have a fair share of invention,
and of common sense or judgment, such as
every fairly successful lawyer or doctor must
have, but not, I believe, in any higher degree.''
This is presumably an honest statement
of fact, and in addition it should be remembered
that Darwin was always physically
weak, that for forty years he was practically
an invalid and able to work for only about
three hours a day. In these few hours he
was able to accomplish more, however, than
other men of apparently superior ability who
were able to work long hours daily for many
years. Darwin made the most of his ability
and increased his efficiency to its maximum.
For a parallel in business, Cyrus H. McCormick
might be named. The inventor of the
reaper and builder of the first American business
which covered the world was not a man of
extraordinary intellect, wit, or judgment. He
had, however, the will and power to focus his
attention on a single question until the answer
was evolved. Again and again, his biographers
tell us, he pursued problems which
eluded him far into the night and he was
frequently found asleep at his desk the morning
following. When roused, instead of seeking
rest, he addressed his task again and
usually overcame his obstacle before leaving
it.
All these considerations point to one conclusion.
It is quite certain, then, that most of
us are whiling away our days and occupying positions
far below our possibilities. A corollary
to this statement is Mr. Taylor's conclusion that
``few of our best-organized industries have attained
the maximum output of first-class men.''
_Not to give too wide application to his discovery
that the average day's work is only half
or less than half what a first-class man can do,
it is more than probable that the average man
could, with no injury to his health, increase his
efficiency fifty per cent_.
We are making use of only part of our existing
mental and physical powers and are not
taxing them beyond their strength. Increased
accomplishments, and heightened efficiency
would cultivate and develop them, would
waken the latent powers and tap hidden
stores of energy within us, would widen the
fields in which we labor and would open up
to us new and wider horizons of honorable
and profitable activity.
In succeeding chapters will be described
specific methods, many of which are employed
by individual firms, but which could be utilized
by other business men, to insure their own efficiency
and that of their employees. The experiences
of many successful houses will be linked
to the laws of psychology to point the way that
will bring about greater results from men.
CHAPTER II
IMITATION
AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN
EFFICIENCY
TWENTY years ago the head of an industry
now in the million-a-month
class sat listening to his ``star'' salesman.
The latter, in the first enthusiasm of
discovery and creation, was telling how he had
developed the company's haphazard selling
talk and had taken order after order with a
standard approach, demonstration, and summary
of closing arguments. To prove the
effectiveness of ``the one best way,'' he challenged
his employer to act as a customer,
staged the little drama he had arranged, secured
admissions of savings his machine would
make, ultimately cornered the other, and sold
him.
``That's great,'' the owner declared the in-
stant he had surrendered to the salesman's
logic. ``If we can get all our agents to learn
and use this new method of yours, we'll double
our business in three years.''
Then followed discussion of the means by
which the knowledge could be spread.
``I've got it,'' the manager announced at
last. ``I'll telegraph five or six men to come
in''--he named the agents within a night's
ride of the factory--``and you can show
them how you sold fifteen machines last week.
``We could take down your talk in shorthand
and send it to them, but that wouldn't
do the business. I want them to watch you
sell, to study how you make your points, how
you introduce yourself, how you get your
man's attention, how you bring out his
objections and meet them, how you lead up
to the signing minute, and show him where
to sign. _*What you say_ is about half the trick:
_*how you say it_ is the convincing part--the
thing the slowest man in the force by watching
you can learn more quickly than the smartest
could work out at home.''
The result of that conference was one of
the earliest organized training schools for
salesmen in the country. It was an unconscious,
but none the less certain, utilization
of the instinct of _*imitation_ for increasing the
efficiency in employees. Since then, business
has borrowed many well-recognized principles
from psychology and pedagogy and adapted
them to the same end.
Many important houses have grafted the
school upon their organizations and _*teach_
not only raw and untrained employees, but
provide instruction calculated to make workmen
and clerks masters of their jobs and also
to fit them for advancement to higher and
more productive planes. Teaching is by example
rather than by precept, just as it was
in the old apprentice system.
_The newer method uses even more than the
older a perfect example of the process and the
product for the learner's imitation and makes
them the basis of the instruction_.
No man was made to live alone. For an
individual, existence entirely independent of
other members of the race is the conception
of a dreamer; apart from others one would
fail to become _*human_. Modern psychology
has abandoned the individualistic and adopted
the social point of view. We no longer think
of _*imitation_ as a characteristic only of animals,
children, and weak-minded folk.
_We have come to see that imitation is the
greatest factor in the education of the young and
a continuous process with all of us. The part
of wisdom, then, is to utilize this power from
which we cannot escape, by setting up a perfect
copy for imitation_.
The child brought up by a Chinaman
imitates the sounds he hears, hence speaks
Chinese; brought up in an American home,
English is his speech--ungrammatical or
correct according to the usage of his companions.
If one boy in a group walks on
stilts or plays marbles, the others follow his
example. If a social leader rides in an automobile,
wears a Panama hat, or plays golf,
all the members of this circle are restless till
they have the same experience. The same
phenomenon is seen in the professions and in
business. If one bank decides to erect a
building for its own use, other banks in the
city begin to consult architects. If one manufacturer
or distributor in a given field adopts
a new policy in manufacturing or in extending
his trade zone, his rivals immediately consider
plans of a similar sort. Partly, of course,
this act is defensive. In the main, however,
imitation and emulation are at the bottom
of the move.
For the sake of clearness, in studying acts
of imitation we separate them into two
classes--_*voluntary_ imitation (also called conscious
imitation) and _*instinctive_ imitation (also
known as _*suggestive_ imitation).
A peculiar signature may strike my fancy
so that consciously and deliberately I may
try to imitate it. This is a clear case of
voluntary imitation. Threading crowded city
streets, I see a man crossing at a particular
point and voluntarily follow in his path. In
learning a new skating figure I watch an expert
attentively and try to repeat his perform-
ance. In writing letters or advertisements
or magazine articles, I analyze the work
of other men and consciously imitate what
seems best. Or I observe a fellow-laborer
working faster than I, and forthwith try to
catch and hold his pace.
The contagion of yawning, on the other
hand, is instinctive imitation. Also when in
a crowd during the homeward evening rush,
we instinctively quicken our pace though there
may be no reason for hurry.
For precisely similar reasons, a ``loafer''
or a careless or inefficient workman will lower
the efficiency or slow up the production of
the men about him, no matter how earnest
or industrious their natural habits. Night
work by clerks, also, is taken by some office
managers to indicate a slump in industry during
the day. To correct this the individuals
who are drags on the organization are discovered,
and either are revitalized or discharged.
_I have seen more than one machine shop where
production could have been materially raised_
_by the simple expedient of weeding out the workmen
who were satisfied with a mere living wage
earned by piecework, thereby setting a dilatory
example to the rest; and replacing them with
fresh men ambitious to earn all they could, who
would have been imitated by the others_.
In these instances it is assumed that the
imitation is not voluntary, but that we
unconsciously imitate whatever actions happen
to catch our attention. For the negative
action, the ``slowing down'' process, we have
the greater affinity simply because labor or
exertion is naturally distasteful. One such
influence or example, therefore, may sway us
more than a dozen positive impulses towards
industry.
Imitation thus broadly considered is seen
to be of the utmost importance in every walk
of life. The greatest and most original genius
is in the main a creature of imitation. By
imitation he reaches the level of knowledge
and skill attained by others; and upon this
foundation builds his structure of original and
creative thought, experiment, and achieve-
ment. Furthermore he does not imitate at
random; but concentrates his activity on
those things and persons in the line of his pursuits.
Among my associates are both industrious
and shiftless individuals. I instinctively imitate
the actions of all those with whom I come
in contact; but if I am sufficiently ambitious,
I will consciously imitate the acts of the industrious.
This patterning after energetic models
will render me more active and efficient than
would have been possible for me without such
examples.
_Imitation, accordingly, is an imperative factor
both in self-development and in the control of
groups of individuals. Knowing that I instinctively
imitate all sorts of acts, I must take
care that only the right sort shall catch my attention_.
And since imitation is a most effective aid
in development, I must provide myself with
the best models. To reduce my tendency to
idleness or procrastination I must avoid the
companionship of the shiftless. To acquire
ease and accuracy in the use of French, I must
consort with masters of that tongue.
In handling others, the same rule holds.
_To profit from the instinctive imitation of
my men, I must control their environment in
shop or office and make sure that examples of
energy and efficiency are numerous enough
to catch their attention and establish, as it were,
an atmosphere of industry in the place_.
There are instances in which it would be
to the mutual interest of employer and employee
to increase the speed of work, but conditions
may limit or forbid the use of pacemakers.
In construction work and in some
of the industries where there are minute subdivision
of operations and continuity of processes
this method of increasing efficiency is
very commonly applied. In many factories,
however, such an effort to ``speed up'' production
might stir resentment, even among the
pieceworkers, and have an effect exactly opposite
to that desired. The alternative, of
course, is for the employer to secure unconscious
pacemakers by providing incentives
for the naturally ambitious men in the way of
a premium or bonus system or other reward
for unusual efficiency.
To take advantage of their conscious or
voluntary imitation, workpeople must be
provided with examples which appeal to them
as admirable and inspire the wish to emulate
them. A common application of this principle
is seen in the choice of department heads,
foremen, and other bosses. Invariably these
win promotion by industry, skill, and efficiency
greater than that displayed by their fellows,
or by all-round mastery of their trades which
enable them to show their less efficient mates
how any and all operations should be conducted.
This focusing of attention upon individuals
worthy of imitation has been carried much
farther by various companies. Through their
``house organs''--weekly or monthly papers
published primarily for circulation within the
organization--they make record of every
incident reflecting unusual skill, initiative, or
personal power in an individual member of
the organization.
A big order closed, a difficult contract
secured, a complex or delicate operation performed
in less than the usual time, a new personal
record in production, the invention of
an unproved method or machine--whatever
the achievement, it is described and glorified,
its author praised and held up for emulation.
This, indeed, is one of the methods by which
the larger sales organizations have obtained
remarkable results.
_Graphically told, the story of an important
sale with the salesman's picture alongside makes
double use of the instinct of imitation. It
suggests forcibly that every man in the field can
duplicate the achievement and tells how he can
do it_.
Frequently, examples of initiative and efficiency
are borrowed from outside organizations.
``Carrying a message to Garcia'' has
long been a business synonym for immediate
and effective execution of orders. One big
company, employing thousands of mechanics
and developing all its executives and skilled
experts from boys and men within the or-
ganization, has printed in its house organ
studies of all the great American and English
inventors from Stephenson and Fulton to
Edison and Westinghouse. These histories
emphasize the facts that these men were self-
taught and bench-trained, and that their
achievements can be imitated by every intelligent
mechanic in the organization.
_In teaching and learning by imitation certain
modifying facts are to be kept constantly in mind.
We tend to imitate everything which catches our
attention, but certain things appeal more powerfully
than others_.
The acts of those whom I admire are particularly
contagious, but I remain indifferent
to the acts of those who are uninteresting.
Acts showing a skill to which I aspire are
immediately imitated, while acts representing
stages of development from which I have escaped
are less likely to be imitated. We imitate
the acts of hearty, jovial individuals more
than the acts of others. This point cannot
be pressed too far since a surly and selfish
individual often seems to corrupt a whole
group. Also it is not always the acts which
I admire that are imitated. If I am frequently
with a lame person, I am in danger
of acquiring a limp; one who stutters is
clearly injurious to my freedom of speech;
round-shouldered friends may at first cause
me to straighten up, but soon I am in danger
of a droop.
That imitation is merely something to be
avoided by teachers, employers, and foremen
is an idea soon banished when the importance
and complexity of the process is comprehended.
In teaching we find precept inferior
to example wherever the latter is possible.
Particularly in teaching all sorts of
acts of skill the imitation of perfect models
is the first resort. In business, however,
insufficient consideration has been given to the
possibilities of imitation in increasing human
efficiency.
_In the preparation of this article representative
business men who had been especially successful
in dealing with employees were asked
the following questions_:--
In increasing the efficiency of your employees
do you utilize imitation by
(1) placing efficient workmen where they
may be imitated by the less efficient?
(2) having the men visit highly efficient
establishments?
(3) bringing to the attention of your men
the lives of successful men and the work of
successful houses?
(4) bringing frequently to the attention of
the men model methods of work?
(5) Have you observed any pronounced
instance of increase or decrease in the work
of a department due to imitation?
The men interviewed took a decided interest
in the subject, and their answers
contained much of general value. Some admitted
that they had never made any conscious
effort to utilize imitation as implied
in the first four questions. Many others
had made particular use of one or more of
the methods. A few of the firms interviewed
had employed all four methods with entire
satisfaction.
The following is a fair representative of
the answers. It is the response of a very
successful general manager of a railroad:--
``I beg to give you below the answer to
the questions which you have asked:--
``1. The superintendent and foremen in
our shops are the most efficient we can find.
They are imitated, and thus influence the less
efficient.
``2. We have the heads of our departments
visit other shops to see how they are progressing
in the same line. If they notice anything
that is better than what we have as to the
output of work, we imitate it by following
their methods.
``3. We have not made a practice of bringing
to the attention of our employees the lives
of successful men or the work of successful
houses.
``4. We keep standard models of the different
kinds of work in plain view of the men. If
there is any doubt in their minds, they can
study these models.
``5. We have observed a pronounced in-
crease in the work of our shops, due to imitation,
since in lining up our organization we
put the most competent men we have at the
head. Their influence over the men in their
charge increases the work, as there is no
question that a good leader is imitated by
the men, and the company is benefited by
this imitation.''
_Judged by the results of the investigation the
most common use of imitation is in the training
or ``breaking in'' of new employees. The
accepted plan is to pick out the most expert and
intelligent workman available and put the new
man in his charge_.
By observing the veteran and imitating his
actions, working gradually from the simpler
operations to the more complex, the beginner
is able to master technic and methods in the
shortest possible time. The psychological
moment for such instruction, of course, is the
first day or the first week. New men learn
much more readily than those who have become
habituated to certain methods or tasks;
not having had time or opportunity to experi-
ment and learn wrong methods, they have
nothing to unlearn in acquiring the right.
They fall into line at once and adopt the stride
and the manner of work approved by the
house.
This is the specific process by which the
most advanced industrial organizations develop
machine hands and initiate skilled mechanics
into house methods and requirements.
It has been largely used by public service
corporations--street-car motormen and conductors,
for instance, learning their duties
almost entirely by observation of experienced
men either in formal schools or on cars in
actual operation. Many large commercial
houses give new employees regular courses in
company methods before intrusting work to
them; the instructor is some highly efficient
specialist, who shows the beginner _*how_ to get
output and quality with the least expenditure
of time and energy. The same method has
been adapted by leading manufacturers of
machines, who call their mechanics or assemblers
together at intervals and have the most
expert among them show how they conduct
operations in which they have attained special
skill.
_In the training of salesmen imitation has
received its widest application in teaching new
men the elements of salesmanship; in showing
them how to make the individual sale; in giving
old men the best and newest methods--all by
imitation_.
Not only is the recruit to the selling ranks
in formal schools given repeated examples of
the most effective ways to approach customers,
to demonstrate the house goods and secure the
order; but the more progressive companies,
after this preliminary instruction, assign him
to a training ground where he accompanies
one of the company's best salesmen and
merely observes how actual sales are made.
Then the new man is sent out alone; usually
he fails to secure as large an order as the
house wants. Again the star salesman takes
him in hand, analyzes the student's approach
and demonstration, points out their weaknesses
and, going back with the new man,
makes the right kind of approach and secures
a satisfactory order. For the beginner this is
the most vivid lesson in salesmanship; he
cannot but model his next selling effort on the
lines proved so effective.
The use of imitation, however, is carried
further. In the monthly or semiannual district
conventions of salesmen which most big
organizations call, the newest and most effective
selling methods are staged for the
instruction both of new men and veterans.
The district leader in sales, for example, or
the man who has closed an order by a new or
unusual argument is pitted against a salesman
equally able, and the whole force sees
how the successful man secured his results.
_Educational trips to other factories were
employed by several firms to stimulate mental
alertness and the instinct of imitation in their
men. These trips usually supplemented some
sort of suggestion system for encouraging employees
to submit to the management ideas for
improving methods, machines, or products_.
Cash payments were made for each suggestion
adopted, quarterly prizes of ten to fifty dollars
were awarded for the most valuable suggestions;
and finally a dozen or a score of the
men submitting the best ideas were sent on a
week's tour of observation to other industrial
centers and notable plants. In some instances
the expense incurred was considerable, but the
companies considered the money well spent.
Not only were the men making helpful suggestions
the very ones who would observe
most wisely and profit most extensively from
such educational trips, but they would bring
back to their everyday tasks a new perspective,
see them from a new angle, and frequently
offer new suggestions which would
more than save or earn the vacation cost.
Business managers, it was made plain, are
coming more and more to depend upon imitation
as one of the great forces in securing
a maximum of efficiency without risking the
rupture or rebellion which might follow if the
same efficiency were sought by force or by
any method of conscious compulsion. Tactfully
suggested, the examples for imitation will
lead men where no amount of argument or
reasonable compensation will drive them. I
am therefore led to suggest the following uses
of imitation for increasing the efficiency of the
working force.
In breaking in new recruits they should
be set to imitate expert workmen in all the
details possible.
Gang foremen and superintendents should
always be capable of ``showing how'' for the
sake of the men under them.
The better workmen should, where possible,
be located so that they will be observed
by the other employees.
Inefficient help should be avoided since the
example of the less efficient should become the
model for the larger group.
Educational trips or tours of inspection
should be regularly encouraged for both
workmen and superintendents.
The deeds of successful houses should be
brought to the attention of employees.
Where conditions admit, pacemakers should
be retained in various groups to key up the
other men.
Favorable conditions should be provided
for conscious and instinctive imitation for all
the members of the plant.
Persons who are sociable and much liked
are imitated more than others, and if efficient,
are particularly valuable; but if inefficient,
are especially detrimental to others.
At the formal and informal meetings of the
men of a house or a department, demonstrations
of how to do certain definite things are
very interesting and helpful to all concerned.
Demonstrations should be more common.
CHAPTER III
COMPETITION
AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN
EFFICIENCY
THIRTY years ago American steel
makers were astonishing the world
with new production records. What
English ironmasters, intrenched in their
supremacy for centuries, had regarded as a
standard week's output for Bessemer converters,
their young rivals in mills about the
Great Lakes were doubling, trebling, and even
further increasing. Hardly a month passed
without a new high mark and a shift in possession
of the leadership.
To this remarkable increase in efficiency
William R. Jones--``Captain Bill'' Jones as
he was familiarly known--contributed more
than any other operating man. He was a
genius among executives as well as an inventor
of resource and initiative--a natural leader
and handler of men. When he was asked by
the British Iron and Steel Institute in 1881,
to explain the reasons for the amazing development
in the United States, he attributed it to
organization spirit of the workmen and the
rivalry among the various mills.
``So long as the record made by a mill
stands first,'' he wrote, ``its workmen are
content to labor at a moderate rate. But let
it be known that some other establishment
has beaten that record and there is no content
until the rival's record is eclipsed.''
_It was on this idea of competition for
efficiency--of production as a game and achievement
as a goal--that the wonderful growth of
the steel industry was based_.
On the intensive development of this idea
by Andrew Carnegie, within his expanding
organization, hinged the tremendous progress
and profits of the Carnegie Company. ``The
little boss'' matched furnace against furnace,
mill against mill, superintendent against
superintendent. He scanned his weekly and
monthly reports not merely for records of
output, but for comparative consumption of
ore, fuel, and other supplies, for time and labor
costs in proportion to product.
If a superintendent, foreman, or gang failed
to respond to this urging, failed to get into
the race for the famous broom which crowned
the stack of the champion Carnegie mill or
furnace, the parallel showing of the other mills
became a club to drive the laggards into line.
So intense was the competition, so sharp the
verbal goads applied that Jones, after resigning
in indignation, parodied in sarcastic
notes in this manner the Carnegie fashion of
bringing executives to task: ``Puppy dog
number three, you have been beaten by puppy
dog number two on fuel. Puppy dog number
two, you are higher on labor than puppy
dog number one.''
How effective was this system of pitting
man against man, plant against plant, was
shown by the dominant position of the Carnegie
Company in the trade when the Steel
Corporation was launched and by the stag-
gering value put upon its business. Indirect
testimony of the same fact was given another
time by Jones when he refused thousands of
dollars in yearly royalties for the use of his
inventions by outside companies, this though
the men who sought them were personal friends
and his contract with the Carnegie Company
allowed such licenses. His excuse was eloquent
of the power residing in the Carnegie
contest for efficiency and results: leadership
for his charge, the Edgar Thompson works, in
output and costs, meant more to him than
money and a chance to help his friends.
_The Carnegie system was one of the most
comprehensive applications in business of man's
instinct of competition to the work of increasing
individual and organization efficiency_.
In the handling of executives it was carried
to such extremes as few great managers would
approve to-day. Undeniably, however, the
contest idea was an important influence in the
building up of a vast business in relatively brief
time, while the influence on the pace of the
whole industry gave the United States its
present supremacy in steel and iron. It survives
in the parallel comparisons of records
with which the Steel Corporation measures
the efficiency of its units of production and
keeps its mill superintendents to the mark.
It is utilized, in some degree and in varying
departments, by hundreds of successful houses.
Let us analyze the facts, the habits of
thought, the emotions behind competition and
determine where and how it may be applied
to the task of increasing our own and our
employees' efficiency.
The experienced horseman knows that a
horse is unable to attain his greatest speed
apart from a pacemaker. The horse needs the
stimulus of an equal to get under way quickly,
to strike his fastest gait and to keep it up.
In this particular an athlete in sprinting is like
the horse. He is unable by sheer force of will
to run a hundred yards in ten seconds. To
achieve it he needs a competitor who will push
him to his utmost effort.
_The struggle for existence, one of the main
factors in the evolution of man, has raged most_
_fiercely among equals; without it, development
scarcely would have been possible_.
So fundamental has been this struggle
that the necessity for it has become firmly
established within us. We require it to stimulate
us to attain our highest ends.
As is made evident by a consideration of
imitation we are eminently social creatures.
We imitate the acts of those about us. Imitation
is, however, only the first stage of our
social relationship. We first imitate and then
compete. I purchase an automobile in imitation
of the acts of my friends, but I compete
with them by securing a more powerful or
swifter car. By erecting a new building because
some other banker has done so, the
second individual does more than imitate.
He competes with the first by planning to
erect a more magnificent structure and on a
more commanding site. Or a great retail
store, announcing a ``February sale'' of ``white
goods'' or furniture, invariably tries to surpass
the bargains offered by rival establishments.
We do indeed imitate and compete with all
our associates, but those whom we recognize
as our peers are the ones who stimulate
us more to the instinctive acts of imitation and
competition.
_Our actual equals stimulate us less than those
whom we recognize as the peers of our ideal
selves--of ourselves as we strive and intend to
become. The man on the ladder just above me
stirs me irresistibly_.
The effect of one individual upon others,
then, is not confined to imitation. There is
a constant tendency to vary from and to excel
the model. My devotion to golf is mainly due
to he example of some of my friends. My
ambition is to outplay these same friends.
Imitation and competition, apparently antagonistic,
are in reality the two expressions
for our social relationships. We first imitate
and then attempt to differentiate ourselves
from our companions.
The manufacturer or merchant imitates his
competitor, but tries also to surpass him.
Indeed it is a truism that competition is the
life of trade. In the shop and in the office,
on the road and behind the counter, in all
buying and selling, competition is essential
to the greatest success. Competition, the
desire to excel, is universal and instinctive.
It gives a zest to our work that would otherwise
be lacking. In every sphere of human
activity competition seems essential for securing
the best results.
_We assume ordinarily that competition exists
only between individuals. As a matter of fact,
a slight degree of competition may be aroused
between a man's present efforts and his previous
records_.
While not so tense or so compelling as is
competition between individuals, it has the
advantage of avoiding the creation of jealousies.
In all the more exciting and stimulating
games, rivalry between individuals is a
prominent feature. In golf the game is frequently
played without this factor, the only
competition being with previous records or
with the mythical Bogy.
Such competition adds considerable zest
to the game, and the same principle is applicable
to business. The most compelling rivalry
is between peers; without this, however,
it is possible to pit the possibilities of the
present month against the achievements of
the previous four weeks or the past year or
even against a hypothetical individual ``bogy.''
This bogy may be fixed by the executive, and
the man induced to compete with it. Thus
the dangers of competition may be minimized
and the advantages of the human instinctive
desire for competition be gained.
In the average well-organized business the
carrying out of such a plan would not be difficult.
Studying the previous records of his
men, a manager or foreman could determine
what each individual bogy should be. The
employee should know just what the _*record
is_ that he is competing with, and that his
success or failure would be recorded to his
credit or otherwise. Above all, the bogy
must be fair and within the power of the man
to accomplish.
_Competition need not be confined to individuals._
_Frequently one city finds a stimulus in competing
with another. Nations compete with one another.
In any organization one section may compete
with another_.
In an army there may be competition between
regiments. Within the regiment there
may be the keenest rivalry between the different
companies. We are such social creatures
that we easily identify ourselves with our
block, our street, our town, our social set, our
party, our firm, or our department in the firm.
Like teams in any game or sport, these groups
may be rendered self-conscious and thus made
units for competition.
It is possible to create such units for
competition in business organizations. In some
instances individual employees of one firm
are pitted against those of a competing firm,
the contest proving stimulating to the men in
both. In other instances the competition is
restricted to the house, and similar departments
or sections are the units.
The closer the parallel between the units
and their activities, as in the Carnegie blast
furnaces and steel mills, the more interesting
and effective the competition becomes.
This principle has received widest recognition
and achieved greatest success in the
sales department. Here individuals are on
a footing of approximate equality or may be
given equality by a system of handicaps based
on conditions in their territories. Success
has also attended the pitting of selling districts
against each other. These larger competing
units work against bogies of the same
character as do the individual ones. The whole
house may be keyed up to surpass previous
records or to attain some fixed standard.
To ascertain to what extent the principle
of competition was consciously employed by
business firms and what methods were used
to apply it in increasing the efficiency of the
men, a number of successful business firms
were asked the following questions:--
_How do you utilize competition in increasing
efficiency among your employees?_
(1) Do you regard it as unwise to stimulate
competition in any form?
(2) Do you encourage men to excel their
own records of previous years?
(3) Do you encourage competition between
men in the same department?
(4) Do you encourage competition between
your own departments?
(5) Do you encourage competition with
departments of competing establishments?
(6) In competition do you make it fair
by ``handicapping'' your men?
_What reward does the winner receive, e.g_.:--
(1) Monetary reward?
(2) Promotion?
(3) Public commendation?
_In answers by equally successful managers
great diversity of opinion prevailed. Some
men were afraid of all forms of competition_.
They believed that coperation was essential
to success and that any form of competition
among the men tended to lessen such
coperation. Most of the men interviewed
believed that competition when wisely handled
is very effective in stimulating the men.
Of course, most firms try in some way to
encourage their men to excel their record of
previous years. The inquiry developed, however,
that a few are unwilling to employ competition
even in this mild form as a means to
increased efficiency. Most of the firms made
conscious use of this principle and were convinced
of its potency.
Competition between men in the same
department was approved by a majority of the
firms, and its adaptability to the selling
department was especially emphasized. But
some of the best houses will permit no such
competition. The diversity in opinion was
very pronounced in answering this question.
As to encouraging competition between departments
in the same firm, no general answer
is satisfactory. Organizations differ widely.
In many houses such competition is not practicable;
in others it certainly is not to be encouraged.
In many organizations which would
admit of such competition the experiment had
not been tried. In others it has become a
regular practice and is looked upon with favor.
In competition between members of the
same department or between departments the
danger of jealousy and enmity seems to be so
real that the greatest caution has to be
observed in managing the contests. When
such caution is exercised, the results are
ordinarily reported upon favorably.
As to encouraging competition with departments
of rival establishments, the diversity
of business makes general statements un-
illuminating. Even where such a course is
possible, some managers reject the practice
as unwise. They believe that it is not best
to recognize other houses or to consider them
in this particular. A few firms report that
they are able to stimulate their men successfully
in this way, even though the conditions for
such a contest are difficult to handle. Of those
who utilize competition a few houses employ
no handicaps to put their men on the same
level and make success equally possible to all.
_The principle of handicaps is so manifestly
fair that organizers of contests can hardly afford
to neglect this essential to the widest interest and
participation in the competition_.
If the little man in a country territory
doesn't feel that he has a fighting chance to
equal or surpass the man in the big agency,
he makes no attempt to qualify. And the
purpose of every contest, of course, is to get
every man into the game.
Touching monetary rewards for the winners,
there is practical unanimity of opinion.
The winner should receive a prize in cash or
its equivalent. Usually the effort is to distribute
the prizes so that all who excel their
average records receive compensation and
recognition for the additional work. In many
instances unusual increases in sales or output
are rewarded by a higher rate of compensation.
_That success in contests should influence
promotion was generally agreed. The knowledge
and energy shown are indications of capacity to
occupy a better position_.
The contest merely reveals such capacity;
the promotion might well follow as part of the
prize for the winner or winners.
Public commendation of winners in com-
petitions is held by many firms to be bad
policy. There is fear that such commendation
might render the participant conceited
and unfit for further usefulness. A majority
of firms, however, give the widest possible
publicity to such commendation. This, indeed,
is the reward most generally used and
apparently most keenly desired by employees.
Reproduction of photographs of the winners
in the house organ with an account of their
achievements is the commonest acknowledgment
of their success, though posting the
names of the winners in various parts of the
establishment is the method employed by
smaller houses.
_Many important houses use competition as
part of their regular equipment for handling
and energizing men_.
Particularly is this true of manufacturers
and distributors of specialties, patented machines,
trade-marked goods and lines, and
wholesalers whose travelers are selling in
territories where conditions are generally the
same. Several firms of this sort make con-
scious and elaborate use of the instinct of
competition in their ordinary scheme of management.
A concrete and typical illustration of its
application to selling is afforded by the
experience and the undoubted success of one
of the largest specialty houses which distributes
its products direct to the consumer.
The sales force numbers about 500 men, and
executives of wide experience declare that the
organization is, of its size, the most efficient
in the United States. Analysis of this company's
methods is most illuminating and suggestive
because every phase of the instinct
of competition has been exploited to the
advantage of both the house and its employees.
The medium of competition is a series of
contests--monthly, quarterly, even yearly which
bring into play all the motives urging
individuals to maximum effort and industry desire
to beat bogy, ambition to win in individual
contest with immediate neighbors and
against the whole organization, team spirit in
the matching of one group of agencies against
another group, and finally organization spirit
in the battle of the whole force to equal or
surpass the mark which has been set for it.
_The first and basic contest here is that of the
individual salesman against his bogy or ``sales
quota_.''
This quota, the monthly amount of business
which each agency should produce, has
been worked out with great care and has a
scientific foundation. Since the great bulk
of sales are made to retail merchants, the
possibilities of each territory are determined
by reckoning the total population of all towns
containing three retailers rated by commercial
agencies. For normal months there is a standard
quota, a little above the monthly average
of all agencies the previous year, reckoned
against their total urban populations. In
``rush'' months, this quota is advanced from
fifteen to forty per cent, as the judgment of the
sales manager dictates. If general and trade
conditions lead him to believe, for instance,
that the month of May should produce
$1,000,000 in orders, while the sum of the
usual quotas is $800,000, he calls for an over-
plus of twenty per cent. The territory containing
one per cent of the total urban population
of the country, as reckoned, would then be
expected to make sales equal to $10,000. This
would be the agency quota for the month,
and the first and most important task of the
agent would be to secure it.
_Because all quotas, both normal and special,
are figured on the productive population of the
territories and standings may be calculated by
percentages, it follows that all agents are on terms
of equality_.
This is essential in a contest for individual
leadership as well as in team or organization
matches. For at least eight months of the
year, there is such a competition for the best
selling record in the entire force. Variety
is given to these contests and the interest of
the men sustained by changing the terms of
the competition. One month the chief prize
will be given to the salesman who secures his
quota at the earliest date; next month the
award will be for the individual who first obtains
a fixed sum in orders, usually $2500;
leadership the third month will go to the man
who gets the highest per cent of his quota
during the entire period; again, the honor will
fall to the agent whose net sales total the
greatest for the month.
_Further changes are rung and the inspirational
effect of the contest immensely increased by enlarging
the conditions so that every third or
fourth agent is able to qualify for the month's
honors and a prize_.
Here, for instance, besides the prize for
the first agent selling $2500, there will be
prizes--like hats, umbrellas, and so on--for
every man who closes $2500 in orders before
the twentieth of the month, with the attendant
publicity of having his portrait and his record
printed in the house organ which goes to
every agent in the field and every department
and executive at the factory. Before leaving
the individual contests, mention should be
made of the ``star'' club of agents who sell
$30,000 or more during the year; the presi-
dency going to the agent who first secures
that total, the other official positions falling
to his nearest rivals in the order in which
they finish.
The team and organization contests are
usually carried on simultaneously with the
individual competitions. These range from
matches between the forces of the big city
offices, like New York, Chicago, and St. Louis,
upward to district contests in which each team
represents from thirty to fifty salesmen and
finally to international ``wars'' where the
American organization is pitted against all
the agents abroad. Challenges from one
district to another usually precipitate the
district competitions; once a year there is a
three months' general contest in which all the
districts take part for the championship of the
whole selling force.
_To announce contests is a simple matter;
to organize and execute them so that they are of
benefit is much more difficult_.
Unless the interest of the men is focused on
the contests, they are not worth while. To
make them successful the firm under consideration
utilized the following devices:--
During the contest the house organ appeared
often and was devoted almost exclusively
to the contest. In it the record of
each salesman was printed, his quota, his
sales to date, and other pertinent information.
The sheet was edited by a ``sporting editor,''
and great tact and skill were displayed in giving
the contest the atmosphere of an actual
race or game. In addition the sales manager,
the district managers, and the house executives
wrote letters and telegrams of encouragement,
and even made trips to the agencies that got
under way too slowly.
The unique feature of the contest was the
manner in which the ``sporting editor'' gave
actuality to the contests by pictorial
representations. One competition took the form
of a shooting match. The house organ contained
an enormous target with two rings
and a bull's eye. When a salesman qualified
with orders for $625, he was credited with a
shot inside the outer ring and his name was
printed there. With $1250 in sales, he moved
into the inner ring, and when his orders
amounted to $2500, he was credited with a
bull's eye and his name blazoned in the center
space.
Another contest was represented as a balloon
race between the different districts.
Each district was given a balloon, and as sales
increased, the airship mounted higher. On
the balloon the name of the district leader in
sales was printed, while cartoons enlivened
the race by showing the expedients, in terms
of orders, by which the district managers and
their crews sought to drive their airships
higher. Each issue of the house organ showed
the current standing of the districts by the
heights of their balloons. This conception of
the selling contest was very successful.
``Going up--going up--how far are you up
now?'' was used as a call, and it seemed to
strike the men and inspire them. It became
the greeting of the salesmen when they met, and
irresistibly produced a feeling of competition and
a desire to have the district balloon go higher.
Other ingenious fancies by which the contests
were given the appeal and interest of
popular sports was their conception as a baseball
game, a football game, an automobile
race, a Marathon run, and so on.
In providing prizes, the firm was rather
generous, though the expense was never great.
While the contest was in progress, all those
who were really ``in the running'' had the
satisfaction of honorable mention, with their
photographs reproduced in the house bulletin.
This honor and publicity was the chief reward
received by the great majority of contestants,
and was adequate. Minor prizes were offered
on conditions, allowing a large number to qualify,
and tempting virtually everybody to make
an effort to win one. The value of the prizes
did not need to be great, for each man was
impressed with the idea that his comrades were
watching him, that they observed every advance
or retrogression. Success in the contest
meant ``making good'' in the eyes of the
other salesmen as well as in the eyes of his
superiors.
_This desire for social approval and the spirited
comment of the editor had a marked influence
on the efficiency of many of the younger
salesmen_.
These special contests were conducted
chiefly during the ``rush'' seasons, when
activity and efficiency of salesmen meant
greater returns to the house. Because of
their varied forms the contests did not become
monotonous, and thus fail in their effect.
During the three or four ``big'' selling months
when special quotas were announced, an individual
pocket schedule was mailed to each
man, showing how much business he must close
each day to keep pace with ``Mr. Quota,'' the
constant competitor.
_The most industrious and ambitious men are
stimulated by competition; with the less industrious
such a stimulation is often wonder working
in its effects_.
For many positions in the business world a
hypothetical bogy should be created after the
style of the quota referred to above.
To increase the feeling of comradeship and
promote coperation between the men the
entire organization or single sections of it
occasionally should be made the unit of competition.
This is perhaps the most helpful
form of competition, but it is hard to execute.
Valuable prizes should always be given to
the winners. This ``need'' may not necessarily
be monetary.
Promotion should not depend upon success
in contests, but such success may be well
reckoned in awarding promotions.
Public commendation for success in competition
costs the company little and is greatly
appreciated by the winner. There seems to
be no reason why the head of the house should
not assist in the presentation.
The most essential factor in creating interest
in a contest is the skill of the ``sporting
editor'' in injecting the real spirit of the
game into each contest, thus securing wide
publicity, and enlisting the coperation of
large numbers of participants.
Prizes should be widely distributed, so that
the greatest number may be encouraged.
A fair system of handicapping should be
adopted in every case where equal opportunity
to win is not possessed by all. Previous records
often make successful bogies, and should be
more extensively employed.
It is possible to carry on contests between
individuals in the same department without
jealousies, but skill is required to conduct
them. There is the danger that individuals
will seek to win by hindering others as well
as by exerting themselves. Where it is not
possible to carry on a contest and retain a
feeling of comradeship between the men, no
competition should be encouraged.
CHAPTER IV
LOYALTY
AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY
DELAYED by a train of accidents, a
big contractor faced forfeiture of his
bond on a city tunnel costing millions
of dollars. He had exhausted his ingenuity
and his resources to comply with the terms of
his contract, but had failed. Because public
opinion had been condemning concessions on
other jobs on flimsy grounds, the authorities
refused to extend the time allowed for completing
the work. By canceling the contract,
collecting the penalty, and reletting the task,
the city would profit without exceeding its
legal rights.
In his dilemma, he called his foremen
together and explained the situation to them.
``Tell the men,'' he said. Many of these
had been members of his organization for
years, moving with him from one undertaking
to the next, looking to him for employment,
for help in dull seasons or in times of misfortune,
repaying him with interest in their
tasks and a certain rough attachment.
He had been unusually considerate, adopting
every possible safeguard for their protection,
recognizing their union, employing three shifts
of men, paying more than the required scale
when conditions were hard or dangerous.
A score of unions were represented in the
organization: miners, masons, carpenters,
plasterers, engineers, electricians, and many
grades of helpers. Learning his plight, they
rallied promptly to his aid. They appealed
to their trades and to the central body of
unions to intervene in his behalf with the city
officials.
_How One Considerate Employer was protected
by his Men_
As taxpayers, voters, and members of an
organization potentially effective in politics,
they approached the mayor and the department
heads concerned. They pointed out--
what was true--that the city's negligence in
prospecting and charting the course of the
tunnel was partly responsible for the contractor's
failure. They pleaded that the city
should make allowances rather than interrupt
their employment, and that the delay in the
work would counterbalance any advantage
contingent on forfeiture. They promised also
that if three additional months were given the
contractor, they would _*do all in their power to
push construction_.
The mayor yielded; the extension was
granted. And the men made their promise
good literally, waiving jealously guarded rights
and sparing no effort to forward the undertaking.
The miners, masons, carpenters, and
specialists in other lines in which additional
skilled men could not be secured labored frequently
in twelve-hour shifts and accepted
only the regular hourly rate for the overtime.
With such zeal animating them, only one conclusion
was possible. The tunnel was entirely
completed before the ninety days of grace had
expired.
Here was loyalty as stanch and effective
as that which wins battlefields and creates
nations. It increased the efficiency of the
individual workers; it greatly augmented the
effectiveness of the organization as a whole.
It was developed, without appeal to sentiment,
under conditions which make for division
rather than coperation between employer
and employee. The men were unionists;
wages, hours, and so on, were contract matters
with the boss. Yet in an emergency, the tie
between the tunnel builder and his men was
strong enough to stand the strain of the fatiguing
and long-continued effort necessary
to complete the job and save the former from
ruin. Like incidents, on perhaps a smaller
and less dramatic scale, are not uncommon;
but the historian of business has not yet risen
to make them known.
_Loyalty, to Nation or Organization, shows itself
in an Emergency_
As with patriotism, business loyalty needs
some such crisis as this to evoke its expression.
In peace the patriotism of citizens is
rarely evident and is frequently called in
question. In America we sometimes assume
that it is a virtue belonging only to past
generations. But every time the honor or
integrity of the country is threatened, a multitude
of eager citizens volunteer in its defense.
Likewise, many a business man who has
come to think his workmen interested only in
the wages he pays them, discovers in his hour
of need an unsuspected asset in their devotion
to the welfare of the business, and their willingness
to make sacrifices to bring it past the
cape of storms.
Study of any field, of any single house, or
of any of the periods of depression which have
afflicted and corrected our industrial progress,
will convince one of the unfailing and genuine
loyalty of men to able and considerate em-
ployers. So generally true is this, indeed, that
``house patriotism,'' ``organization spirit,'' or
``loyalty to the management'' is accepted
by all great executives as one of the essential
elements in the day-by-day conduct of their
enterprises.
Striking exhibitions of this loyalty may wait
for an emergency. Unless it exists, however,
unless it is apparent in the daily routine, there
is immediate and relentless search for the
antagonistic condition or method, which is
robbing the force of present efficiency and
future power. Coperation of employees is
the first purpose of organization. Without
loyalty and team work the higher levels in
output, quality, and service are impossible.
_Loyalty on Part of Employer begets Loyalty in
his Workers_
The importance of loyalty in business could
not readily be overestimated, even though its
sole function were to secure united action on
the part of the officers and men. Where no
two men or groups of men were working to
counter purposes, but all are united in a common
purpose, the gain would be enormous, even
though the amount of energy put forth by the
individuals was not increased in the least.
When to this fact of value in organized effort
we add the accompanying psychological facts
of increased efficiency by means of loyalty,
we then begin to comprehend what it means
to have or to lack loyalty.
The amount of work accomplished by an
individual is subject to various conditions.
The whole intellect, feeling, and will must work
in unity to secure the best results. Where
there is no heart in the work (absence of
feeling) relatively little can be accomplished,
even though the intellect be convinced and the
will strained to the utmost. The employee
who lacks loyalty to his employer can at least
render but half-hearted service even though
he strive to his utmost and though he be convinced
that his financial salvation is dependent
upon efficient service. _The employer who
secures the loyalty of his men not only secures
better service, but he enables his men to accomplish_
_more with less effort and less exhaustion_. The
creator of loyalty is a public benefactor.
Such loyalty is always reciprocal. The
feeling which workmen entertain for their
employer is usually a reflection of his attitude
towards them. Fair wages, reasonable hours,
working quarters and conditions of average
comfort and healthfulness, and a measure of
protection against accident are now no more
than primary requirements in a factory or
store. Without them labor of the better,
more energetic types cannot be secured in the
first place or held for any length of time.
And the employer who expects, in return for
these, any more than the average of uninspired
service is sure to be disappointed.
If he treats his men like machines, looks
at them merely as cogs in the mechanism
of his affairs, they will function like machines
or find other places. If he wishes to stir
the larger, latent powers of their brains and
bodies, thereby increasing their efficiency
as thinkers and workers, he must recognize
them as men and individuals and give in
some measure what he asks. He must identify
them with the business, and make them
feel that they have a stake in its success and
that the organization has an interest in the
welfare of its men. The boss to whom his
employees turn in any serious perplexity or
private difficulty for advice and aid is pretty
apt to receive more than the contract minimum
of effort every day and is sure of devoted
service in any time of need.
_The Effect of Personal Relations in creating
Loyalty in a Force_
It is on this personal relationship, this platform
of mutual interests and helpfulness, that
the success and fighting strength of many one-
man houses are built. As in the contractor's
dilemma already cited, it bears fruit in the
fighting zeal, the keener interest, and the extra
speed and effort which workers bring to bear
on their individual and collective tasks. All
the knowledge and skill they possess are
thrown into the scale; their quickened intelligences
reach out for new methods and short
cuts; when the crisis has passed, there may be
a temporary reaction, but there is likely to be
a permanent advance both in individual efficiency
and organization spirit.
On the employer's side, this feeling is expressed
in the surrender of profits to provide
work in dull seasons; in the retention of
aged mechanics, laborers, or clerks on the
payroll after their usefulness has passed;
in pensions; in a score of neighborly and
friendly offices to those who are sick, injured,
or in trouble. A reputation for ``taking care
of his men'' has frequently been a bulwark of
defense to the small manufacturer or trader
assailed by a greedy larger rival.
Personality is, beyond doubt, the primitive
wellspring of loyalty. Most men are capable
of devotion to a worthy leader; few are
ever zealots for the sake of a cause, a principle,
a party, or a firm. All these are too abstract
to win the affection of the average man. It is
only when they become embodied in an individual,
a concrete personality which stirs our
human interest, that they become moving
powers. The soldiers of the Revolution fought
for Washington rather than for freedom;
Christians are loyal to Christ rather than to
his teachings; the voter cheers his candidate
and not his party; the employee is loyal to the
head of the house or his immediate foreman
and not to the generality known as the House.
Loyalty to the individuals constituting the
firm may ultimately develop into house loyalty.
To attempt to create the latter sentiment,
however, except by first creating it for
the men higher up is to go contrary to human
nature--always an unwise expenditure of
energy.
_Human Sympathy as a Factor in developing
Loyalty in Men_
In developing loyalty, human sympathy is
the greatest factor. If an executive of a
company is confident that his directors approve
his policies, appreciate his obstacles,
and are ready to back him up in any crisis,
his energy and enthusiasm for the common
object never flag. If department heads and
foremen are assured that the manager is
watching their efforts with attention and regard,
approving, supporting, and sparing them
wherever possible, they will anticipate orders,
assume extra burdens, and fling themselves
and their forces into any breach which may
threaten their chief's program.
If a workman, clerk, or salesman knows that
his immediate chief is interested in him personally,
that he understands what service is
being rendered and is anxious to forward his
welfare as well as that of the house, there is
no effort, inconvenience, or discomfort which
he will not undertake to complete a task which
the boss has undertaken. Throughout the
entire organization, the sympathy and coperation
of the men above with the men below
is essential for securing the highest degree of
loyalty. No assumed or manufactured sympathy,
however, will take the place of the genuine
article.
_Personal Relationship with Workers as Basis
for creating Loyalty_
The effectiveness of human sympathy in
creating loyalty is most apparent in one-man
businesses where the head of the house is in
personal contact with all or many of his employees.
This personal touch, however, is
not necessarily limited to the small organization.
Many men have employed thousands
and secured it. Others have succeeded in impressing
their personalities, and demonstrating
their sympathy upon large forces, though
their actual relations were with a few. The
impression made upon these and the loyalty
created in them were sufficient to permeate and
influence the entire body. Potter Palmer, the
elder Armour, Marshall Field, and Andrew Carnegie
were among the hundreds of captains
who made acquaintance with the men in the
ranks the cornerstone on which they raised
their trade or industrial citadels.
When the size of the organization precludes
personal contact, or when conditions remove
the executive to a distance, the task of maintaining
touch is frequently and successfully
intrusted to a lieutenant in sympathy with
the chief's ideals and purposes. He may
be the head of a department variously styled,
--adjustments, promotion and discharge,
employment, labor,--but his express function
is to restore to an organization the simple
but powerful human relation without which
higher efficiency cannot be maintained. In
factories and stores employing many women
this understudy to the manager is usually a
woman, who is given plenary authority in the
handling of her charges, in reviewing disputes
with foremen, and in finding the right position
for the misplaced worker. Whether man
or woman, this representative of the manager
hears all grievances, reviews all discharges,
reductions, and the like, and makes sure that
the employee receives a little more than absolute
justice.
Many successful merchants and manufacturers,
however, disdain agents and intermediaries
in this relation and are always ac-
cessible to every man in their organizations;
holding that, since the coperation of employees
is the most important single element in
business, the time given to securing it is time
well spent.
Even though human sympathy may well
be regarded as the most important consideration
in increasing loyalty, it is not sufficient
in and of itself. The most patriotic citizens
are those who have, served the state. They
are made loyal by the very act of service.
They have assumed the responsibility of promoting
the welfare of the state, and their
patriotism is thereby stimulated and given
concrete outlet. A paternalistic government
in which the citizens had every right but no
responsibility would develop beggars rather
than patriots.
Similarly in a business house ideally organized
to create loyalty, each employee not
only feels that his rights are protected, but
also feels a degree of responsibility for the
success and for the good name of the house.
He feels that his task or process is an essen-
tial part of the firm's activity; and hence is
important and worthy of his best efforts. To
cement this bond and make closer the identification
of the employee with the house many
firms encourage their employees to purchase
stock in the company. Others have worked
out profit-sharing plans by which their men
share in the dividends of the good years and
are given a powerful incentive to promote
teamwork and the practice of the economies
from which the overplus of profit is produced.
_Loyalty may be developed by Education in House
History and Policies_
The stability of a nation depends on the
patriotism of its citizens. Among methods
for developing this patriotism, _*education_ ranks
as the most effective. In the public schools
history is taught for the purpose of awakening
the love and loyalty of the rising generations.
The founders, builders, and saviors of the country,
the great men of peace and war who have
contributed to its advancement, are held up
for admiration. From the recital of what
country and patriotism meant to Washington,
Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, and a host of lesser
heroes, the pupils come to realize what country
should, and does, mean to them. They
become patriotic citizens.
_Grounding the New Employee in Company
Traditions and Ideals_
In like manner the history of any house can
be used to inspire loyalty and enthusiasm
among its employees. Business has not been
slow to borrow the methods and ideals of
education, but the writer has been unable to
discover any company which makes adequate
use of this principle. That this loyalty may
be directed to the house as a whole, and not
merely to immediate superiors, every employee
should be acquainted with the purposes and
policies of the company and should understand
that the sympathy which he discovers in
his foreman is a common characteristic of the
whole organization, clear up to the president.
The best way to teach this is by example--
by incidents drawn from the past, or by a
review of the development of the company's
policy.
To identify one's self with a winning cause,
party, or leader, also, is infinitely easier than
to be loyal to a loser. For this reason the
study of the history of the firm may well include
its trade triumphs, past and present;
the remarkable or interesting uses to which its
products have been put; the honor or prestige
which its executives or members of the
organization have attained; and the hundred
other items of human interest which can be
marshaled to give it house personality. All
this would arouse admiration and appreciation
in employees, would stir enthusiasm and
a desire to contribute to future achievements,
and would foster an unwillingness to leave the
organization.
Some companies have begun in this direction.
New employees, by way of introduction,
listen to lectures, either with or without
the accompaniment of pictures, which review
what the house has accomplished, define its
standing in the trade, analyze its products and
their qualities or functions, sketch the plan and
purpose of its organization, and touch upon the
other points of chief human interest. Other
companies put this information in booklets.
Still others employ their house organs to recall
and do honor to the interesting traditions of
the company as well as to exploit the successful
deeds and men of the moment. An organized
and continuous campaign of education
along this line should prove an inexpensive
means of increasing loyalty and efficiency
among the men. To the mind of the writer, it
seems clear that the future will see pronounced
advances in this particular.
Personality can be overdone, however.
Workers instinctively give allegiance to strong,
balanced men, but resent and combat egotism
unchecked by regard for others' rights.
Exploitation of the employer's or foreman's
personality will do more harm than good unless
attended by consideration for the personality
of the employee. The service of more than
one important company has been made intolerable
for men of spirit and creative ability
by the arrogant and dominating spirit of the
management. The men who continue to
sacrifice their individuality to the whim or the
arbitrary rule of their superiors, in time lose
their ambition and initiative; and the organization
declines to a level of routine, mechanical
efficiency only one remove from dry-
rot.
_How Efficiency and Loyalty of Workers may be
Capitalized_
Conservation and development of individuality
in workers may be made an important
factor in creating loyalty as well as in directly
increasing efficiency. Great retail stores put
many department heads into business for
themselves, giving them space, light, buying
facilities, clerks, and purchasing and advertising
credit as a basis of their merchandising;
then requiring a certain percentage of profit
on the amount allowed them. The more successful
of Marshall Field's lieutenants were
taken into partnership and, as in the case of
Andrew Carnegie and his ``cabinet of young
geniuses,'' were given substantial shares of the
wealth they helped to create.
Some industries and stores carry this practice
to the point of making specialized departments
entirely independent of the general
buying, production, and selling organizations
whenever these fall short of the service offered
outside; while the principle of stock distribution
or other forms of profit sharing has
been adopted by so many companies that it
has come to be a recognized method of promoting
loyalty.
Regard for the employee's personality must
be carried down in an unbroken chain through
all the ranks. It may be broken at any step
in the descent by an executive or foreman
who has not himself learned the lesson that
loyalty to the house includes loyalty to the
men under him.
It is not uncommon, in some American
houses, to find three generations of workers
--grandfather, father, and apprentice son--
rendering faithful and friendly service; or to
discover a score of bosses and men who have
spent thirty or forty years--their entire
productive lives--in the one organization.
Where such a bond exists between employer
and employees, it becomes an active, unfailing
force in the development of loyalty, not only
among the veterans, but also among the newest
recruits for whom it realizes an illustration of
what true coperation means.
_Many Examples of the Loyalty of Executives for
their Men in Danger_
This double loyalty--to the chief and to
the organization--is not a plant of slow
growth. Few mine accidents or industrial
disasters occur without bringing to merited,
but fleeting, fame some heroic superintendent
or lesser boss who has risked his own life to
save his men or preserve the company's
property. The same sense of responsibility
extends to every grade. Give a man the
least touch of authority and he seems to take
on added moral stature. The engineer who
clings to his throttle with collision imminent
has his counterparts in the ``handy man''
who braves injury to slip a belt and save
another workman or a costly machine, and in
the elevator conductor who drives his car up
and down through flames and smoke to rescue
his fellows. Such efficiency and organization
spirit is the result of individual growth as well
as the impression of the employer's personality
upon his machine.
_A Disloyal Sales Manager and his Influence on
his Force_
On the other hand, lack of loyalty on the
part of employers towards their men is almost
as common as failing devotion on the part of
workers. Too many assume that the mere
providing of work and the payment of wages
give them the right to absolute fidelity, even
when they take advantage of their men. The
sales manager concerned in the following incident
refused to believe that his attitude
towards his men had anything to do with the
lack of enthusiasm and low efficiency in his
force.
An experienced salesman who had lost his
position because of the San Francisco fire
applied to the sales manager for a position.
He was informed that there were fifteen applicants
for the Ohio territory, but that the
place would be given to him because of his
better record. The manager laid out an
initial territory in one corner and ordered the
salesman to work it first.
Working this territory, the salesman secured
substantial orders, but refrained from
``over-selling'' any customer, gave considerable
time to missionary work and to cultivating
the acquaintance of buyers. His campaign
was planned less for immediate results
than for the future and for the effect on the
larger field of the state. Having no instructions
as to pushing his wider campaign, in
about sixty days he asked for instructions.
In answer he was ordered home and discharged
on the ground that business was dull and that
he had been a loss to the house. During the
sixty days he had been working on a losing
commission basis with the expectation of
taking his profits later. Investigation dis-
closed that he was but one of five salesmen to
whom the Ohio territory had been assigned
simultaneously. Of the five, one other also
had made good and had been retained because
he could be secured for less money.
This multiple try-out policy is entirely
fair when the applicants know the conditions.
But to lead each applicant to believe that he
has been engaged subject only to his ability
to make good is manifestly unjust. The facts
are bound to come out sooner or later and
create distrust among all employees of the
house. Loyalty is strictly reciprocal. If an
employee feels that he has no assurance of
fair treatment, his attitude towards the firm
is sure to be negative. Even the man who
secures the position will recognize the firm's
lack of candor and will never give his employers
the full measure of coperation which produces
maximum efficiency.
The ``square deal,'' indeed, is the indispensable
basis of loyalty and efficiency in an
organization. The spirit as well as the letter
of the bargain must be observed, else the work-
men will contrive to even up matters by loafing,
by slighting the work, or by a minimum production.
This means a loss of possible daily
earnings. On the other hand, employees never
fail to recognize and in time respect the executive
who holds the balance of loyalty and justice
level between them and the business.
Fair wages, reasonable hours, working quarters
and conditions of average comfort and
healthfulness, ordinary precautions against
accidents, and continuous employment are
all now regarded as primary requirements
and are not sufficient to create loyalty in the
men. More than this must be done.
The chief executive should create such a
spirit that his officers shall turn to him for
help when in perplexity or difficulty. The
superintendent and officers or bosses should
sustain this same sympathetic relationship
toward their men that the executive has toward
his officers. A reputation for taking care of
his men is a thing to be sought in a chief
executive as well as in all underofficers.
Personal relationships should be cultivated.
In some large organizations the chief executive
may secure this personal touch with individuals
through an agent or through a department
known as the department of ``promotion and
discharge,'' ``employment,'' or ``labor.'' In
others, occasional meetings on a level of equality
may be brought about through house picnics,
entertainments, vacation camps, and so
on, where employer and employee meet each
other outside their usual business environment.
It is not worth while to attempt to develop
loyalty to the house until there has been
developed a loyalty to the personalities
representing the house. Loyalty in business is
in the main a reciprocal relationship. The
way to begin it is for the chief to be loyal to
his subordinates and to see to it that all officers
are loyal to their inferiors. When loyalty
from above has been secured, loyalty from the
ranks may readily be developed.
The personality of the worker must be
respected by the employer. ``Giving a man
a chance'' to develop himself, allowing him
to express his individuality, is the surest way
of enlisting the interest and loyalty of a
creative man.
To identify the interests of employees with
the interests of the house, various plans of
profit sharing, sale of stock to employees,
pensions, insurance against sickness and accident,
and so on, have been successfully applied
by many companies.
So far as possible, responsibility for the
success of the house should be assumed by
all employees. In some way the workmen
should feel that they are in partnership with
the executives. We easily develop loyalty
for the cause for which we have taken responsibility
or rendered a service.
_Creating Loyalty to Firm itself by Educational
Campaign_
A perpetual campaign of publicity should be
maintained for the benefit of every man in the
employ of the house. In this there should be
a truthful but emphatic presentation of acts
of loyalty on the part of either employers or
workmen. Everything connected with the
firm which has human interest should be included
in this history. This educational campaign
should change the loyalty to the _*men_
in the firm into loyalty to the _*firm_ itself. It
should be an attempt to give the firm a personality,
and of such a noble character that it
would win the loyalty of the men. This could
be accomplished at little expense and with
great profit.
CHAPTER V
CONCENTRATION
AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY
THE owner of one of the largest and most
complex businesses in America handles
his day's work on a schedule as exacting
as a railway time-table. In no other way
could he keep in touch with and administer
the manifold activities of his industry and a
score of allied interests--buying of the day's
raw materials for a dozen plants in half as
many markets, direction of an organization
exceeding 20,000 men, selling and delivering
a multitude of products in a field as wide as
three continents, financing the whole tremendous
fabric.
Every department of his business, therefore,
has its hour or quarter hour in the daily program
when its big problems are considered
and settled on the tick of the clock. This
schedule is flexible, since no two days bring
from any division of production, distribution,
or financing the same demands upon the owner's
attention. Yet each keeps its place and
comes invariably under his eye--through
reports and his own mastery of conditions
affecting the department.
_To secure the high personal efficiency required
for this oversight and methodical dispatch of
affairs, the owner-executive is not only protected
from outside interruptions and distractions, but is
also guarded against intrusion of the vital
elements of his business--both men and matters
--except at the moment most advantageous for
dealing with them_.
Analysis and organization have determined
these moments--just as they have eliminated
every non-essential in the things presented
for consideration and decision. Except when
emergencies arise there is no departure from
the rule: ``One thing at a time--the big
thing--at the right time.'' The task in hand
is never cheated, or allowed to cheat the next
in line. Management is as much a continuous
process, organized and wasteproof, as the
journey of raw materials through his plants.
This is an illustration of remarkable individual
efficiency attained by concentration
--the power of the human mind which seems
inseparable from any great achievement in
business, in politics, in the arts, in education.
Through it men of moderate capacities have
secured results apparently beyond the reach
of genius. And in no field has this power of
concentration been displayed more vividly by
leaders or been more generally lacking in the
rank and file than in business. Analysis of
the conditions may suggest the reason and the
remedy.
_The modern business man is exhausted no
more by his actual achievements than by the
things which he is compelled to resist doing_.
Appeals for his attention are ceaseless.
The roar of the street, the ring of telephone
bells, the din of typewriting machines, the
sight of a row of men waiting for an interview,
the muffled voices from neighboring offices or
workers, the plan for the day's work which is
being delayed, the anxiety for the results for
certain endeavors, suspicion as to the loyalty
of employees--these and a score of other distractions
are constantly bombarding him.
Every appeal for attention demands expenditure
of energy--to ignore it and hold
the mind down to the business in hand. The
simple life with its single appeal is not for the
business man. For him life is complex and
strenuous. To overcome distractions and focus
his mind on one thing is a large part of his
task. If this single thing alone appealed to
his attention, the effort would be pleasing and
effective. It is not the work that is hard; the
strain comes in keeping other things at bay
while completing the pressing duty.
_He is exhausted, not because of his achievements,
but because of the expenditure of energy
in resisting distractions_.
He is inefficient, not through lack of industry,
but from lack of opportunity or of ability
to concentrate his energy upon the single task
at hand.
All sources of illumination--from the candle
to the sun--send out rays of light equally
in all directions. If illumination of only _*one_
point is desired, the loss is appalling. The rays
may be assembled, however, by reflectors and
lenses and so brought to bear in great force
at a single point.
This brilliancy is not secured by greater
expenditure of energy, but by utilizing the
rays which, except for the reflectors and lenses,
would be dissipated in other directions.
_As any source gives off equally in all directions,
so the human intellect seems designed to respond
to all forms and sorts of appeal for attention_.
To keep light from going off in useless directions
we use reflectors; to keep human energy
from being expended in useless directions we
must remove distractions. To focus the light
at any point we use lenses; to focus our minds
at any point we use concentration.
Concentration is a state secured by the mental
activity called attention. To understand
concentration we must first consider the more
fundamental facts of attention.
In the evolution of the human race certain
things have been so important for the individual
and the race that responses towards
them have become instinctive. They appeal
to every individual and attract his attention
without fail. Thus moving objects, loud
sounds, sudden contrasts, and the like, were
ordinarily portents of evil to primitive man,
and his attention was drawn to them irresistibly.
Even for us to pay attention to such
objects requires no intention and no effort.
Hence it is spoken of as _*passive_ or _*involuntary
attention_.
The attention of animals and of children
is practically confined to this passive form,
while adults are by no means free from it.
For instance, ideas and things to which I
have no intention of turning my mind attract
me. Ripe fruit, gesticulating men, beautiful
women, approaching holidays, and scores of
other things simply pop up in my mind and
enthrall my attention. My mind may be so
concentrated upon these things that I become
oblivious to pressing responsibilities. In some
instances the concentration may be but momentary;
in others there may result a day
dream, a building of air castles, which lasts
for a long time and recurs with distressing
frequency.
_Such attention is action in the line of least
resistance. Though it may suffice for the acts
of animals and children it is sadly deficient for
our complex business life_.
Even here, however, it is easy to relapse
to the lower plane of activity and to respond
to the appeal of the crier in the street, the
inconvenience of the heat, the news of the ball
game, or a pleasing reverie, or even to fall
into a state of mental apathy. The warfare
against these distractions is never wholly
won. Banishing these allurements results in
the concentration so essential for successfully
handling business problems. The strain is
not so much in solving the problems as in retaining
the concentration of the mind.
When an effort of will enables us to overcome
these distractions and apply our minds to the
subject in hand, the strain soon repeats itself.
It frequently happens that this struggle is
continuous--particularly when the distractions
are unusual or our physical condition is
below the normal. No effort of the will is
able to hold our minds down to work for any
length of time unless the task develops interest
in itself.
This attention with effort is known as _*voluntary
attention_. It is the most exhausting act
which any individual can perform. Strength
of will consists in the power to resist distractions
and to hold the mind down to even
the most uninteresting occupations.
_Fortunately for human achievement, acts
which in the beginning require voluntary effort
may later result without effort_.
The schoolboy must struggle to keep his
mind on such uninteresting things as the alphabet.
Later he may become a literary
man and find that nothing attracts his attention
so quickly as printed symbols. In commercial
arithmetic the boy labors to fix his
attention on dollar signs and problems involving
profit and loss. Launched in business,
however, these things may attract him more
than a football game.
It is the outcome of previous application
that we now attend without effort to many
things in our civilization which differ from
those of more primitive life. Such attention
without effort is known as _*secondary passive
attention_. Examples are furnished by the
geologist's attention to the strata of the
earth, the historian's to original manuscripts,
the manufacturer's to by-products, the merchant's
to distant customers, and the attention
which we all give to printed symbols and scores
of other things unnoticed by our distant ancestors.
Here our attention is similar to passive
attention, though the latter was the result
of inheritance, while our secondary passive
attention results from our individual efforts
and is the product of our training.
Through passive attention my concentration
upon a ``castle in Spain'' may be perfect
until destroyed by a fly on my nose. Voluntary
attention may make my concentration
upon the duty at hand entirely satisfactory
till dissipated by some one entering my office.
Secondary passive attention fixes my mind
upon the adding of a column of figures, and it
may be distracted by a commotion in my vicinity.
Thus concentration produced by any
form of attention is easily destroyed by a
legion of possible disturbances. If I desire
to increase my concentration to the maximum,
I must remove every possible cause of
distraction.
_Organized society has recognized the hindering
effect of some distractions and has made
halting attempts to abolish them_.
Thus locomotives are prohibited from sounding
whistles within city limits, but power
plants are permitted by noise and smoke to
annoy every citizen in the vicinity. Street
cars are forbidden to use flat wheels, but are
still allowed to run on the surface or on a
resounding structure and thus become a public
nuisance. Steam calliopes, newsboys, street
venders, and other unnecessary sources of
noise are still tolerated.
In the design and construction of office
buildings, stores, and factories in noisy neighborhoods,
too little consideration is given to
existing means of excluding or deadening
outside sounds, though the newer office buildings
are examples of initiative in this direction;
not only are they of sound-proof construction,
but in many instances they have replaced the
noisy pavements of the streets with blocks
which reduce the clatter to a minimum. In
both improvements they have been emulated
by some of the great retail stores which have
shut out external noises and reduced those
within to a point where they no longer distract
the attention of clerks or customers
from the business of selling and buying. In
many, however, clerks are still forced to call
aloud for cash girls or department managers,
and the handling of customers at elevators is
attended by wholly unnecessary shouting and
clash of equipment.
Of all distractions, sound is certainly the
most common and the most insistent in its appeal.
The individual efforts towards reducing
it quoted above were stimulated by the hope
of immediate and tangible profit--sound-
proof offices commanding higher rents and
quiet stores attracting more customers. In
not a few cases, manufacturers have gone
deeper, however, recognizing that anything
which claims the attention of an employee
from his work reduces his efficiency and cuts
profits, even though he be a piece worker. In
part this explains the migration of many industries
to the smaller towns and the development
of a new type of city factory with sound-
proof walls and floors, windows sealed against
noise, and a system of mechanical ventilation.
The individual manufacturer or merchant,
therefore, need not wait for a general crusade
to abate the noise, the smoke, and the other
distractions which reduce his employee's
effectiveness. In no small measure he can shut
out external noises and eliminate many of
those within. Loud dictation, conversations,
clicking typewriters, loud-ringing telephones,
can all be cut to a key which makes them virtually
indistinguishable in an office of any
size. More and more the big open office as
an absorbent of sound seems to be gaining in
favor. In one of the newest and largest of
these I know, nearly all the typewriting machines
are segregated in a glass-walled room,
and long-distance telephone messages can be
taken at any instrument in the great office.
_Like sound in its imperative appeal for attention
is the consciousness of strangers passing
one's desk or windows_.
Movement of fellow employees about the
department, unless excessive or unusual, is
hardly noticed; let an individual or a group
with whom we are not acquainted come within
the field of our vision, and they claim attention
immediately. For this reason shops or factories
whose windows command a busy street
find it profitable to use opaque glass to shut
out the shifting scene.
This scheme of retreat and protection has
been carried well-nigh to perfection by many
executives. Private offices guarded by secretaries
fortify them against distractions and
unauthorized claims on their attention, both
from within and without their organizations.
Routine problems, in administration, production,
distribution, are never referred to them;
these are settled by department heads, and
only new or vital questions are submitted to
the executive. In many large companies,
besides the department heads and secretaries
who assume this load of routine, there are
assistants to the president and the general
manager who further reduce the demands
upon their chiefs. The value of time, the
effect of interruptions and distractions upon
their own efficiency, are understood by countless
executives who neglect to guard their
employees against similar distractions.
_Individual business men, unsupported by
organizations, have worked out individual methods
of self-protection_.
One man postpones consideration of questions
of policy, selling conditions, and soon until
the business of the day has been finished, and
interruptions from customers or employees are
improbable. Another, with his stenographer,
reaches his office half an hour earlier than his
organization, and, picking out the day's big
task, has it well towards accomplishment
before the usual distractions begin. The foremost
electrical and mechanical engineer in the
country solves his most difficult and abstruse
problems at home, at night. His organization
provides a perfect defense against interruptions;
but only in the silence, the isolation of
his home at night, does he find the complete
absence of distraction permitting the absolute
concentration which produces great results.
This chapter was prefaced by an instance
where protection from distractions through
organization was joined with methodical
attack on the elements of the day's work. This
combination approaches the ideal; it is the
system followed by nearly all the great
executives of America. Time and attention are
equably allotted to the various interests,
the various departments of effort which must
have the big man's consideration during the
day. Analysis has determined how much of
each is required; appointments are made with
the men who must coperate; all other matters
are pushed aside until a decision is reached;
and upon the completion of each attention is
concentrated on the next task.
A striking instance of this organization of
work and concentration upon a single problem
is afforded by the ``cabinet meetings'' of some
large corporations and the luncheons of groups
of powerful financiers in New York. There
are certain questions to be settled, a definite
length of time in which to settle them. In the
order of their importance they are allotted so
many minutes. At the expiration of that time
a vote is taken, the president or chairman
announces his decision, and the next matter is
attacked.
_There is no royal method of training in
concentration. It is in the main developed by
repeated acts of attention upon the subject in
hand_.
If I am anxious or need to develop the power
of concentration upon what people say, either
in conversation or in public discourse, I may
be helped by persistently and continuously
forcing myself to attend. The habit of
concentration may to a degree be thus acquired;
pursuing it, I should never allow myself to
listen indifferently, but I must force myself to
strict attention.
Such practice would result ultimately in a
habit of concentration upon what I hear,
but would not necessarily increase my power
of concentration upon writing, adding, or other
activities. Specific training in each is essential,
and even then the results will be far short
of what might be desired. Persistent effort
in any direction is not without result, however,
and any increase in concentration is so valuable
that it is worth the effort it costs. If a man
lacks power of concentration in any particular
direction, he should force concentration in that
line and continue till a habit results.
Our control over our muscles and movements
far exceeds our direct control over our
attention. An attitude of concentration is
possible, even when the desired mental process
is not present. Thus by fixing my eyes on a
page and keeping them adjusted for reading,
even when my mind is on a subject far removed,
I can help my will to secure concentration. I
can likewise restrain myself from picking up a
newspaper or from chatting with a friend when
it is the time for concentrated action on my
work. By continuously resisting movements
which tend to distract and by holding myself
in the position of attention, the strain upon
my will in forcing concentration becomes less.
_Concentration is practically impossible when
the brain is fagged or the bodily condition is far
below the normal in any respect_.
The connection between the body and the
mind is most intimate, and the perfect working
of the body is necessary to the highest efficiency
of the mind. The power of concentration is
accordingly affected by surroundings in the
hours of labor, by sleep and recreation, by the
quality and quantity of food, and by every
condition which affects the bodily processes
favorably.
Recognition of this truth is behind the very
general movement, both here and abroad, to
provide the best possible conditions both in the
factories and the home environment of workers.
Employers are coming more and more to un-
derstand that conservation of physical forces
means maximum output. The foundation,
of course, is a clean, spacious, well-lighted, and
perfectly ventilated factory in a situation which
affords pure air and accessibility to the homes
of employees. In England and Germany the
advance towards this ideal has taken form in
the ``garden cities'' of which the plant is the
nucleus and the support. In America there is
no lack of industrial towns planned and built
as carefully as the works to which they are
tributary.
Some have added various ``welfare'' features,
ranging from hot luncheons served at
cost, free baths, and medical attendance to
night schools for employees to teach them how
to live and work to better advantage. The
profit comes back in the increased efficiency
of the employees.
_Even though the health be perfect and the
attitude of attention be sustained the will is
unable to retain concentration by an effort for
more than a few seconds at a time_.
When the mind is concentrated upon an
object, this object must develop and prove
interesting, otherwise there will be required
every few seconds the same tug of the will.
This concentration by voluntary attention is
essential, but cannot be permanent. To secure
enduring concentration we may have to
``pull ourselves together'' occasionally, but the
necessity for such efforts should be reduced.
This is accomplished by developing interest
in the task before us, through application of
the fundamental motives such as self-preservation,
imitation, competition, loyalty, and
the love of the game.
If the task before me is essential for my
self-preservation, I shall find my mind riveted
upon it. If I hope to secure more from speculation
than from the completion of my present
tasks, then my self-preservation is not
dependent upon my work and my mind will
irresistibly be drawn to the stock market and
the race track. If I wish my work to be
interesting and to compel my undivided attention,
I should then try to make it appeal
to me as of more importance than anything
else in the world. I must be dependent upon
it for my income; I must see that others are
working and so imitate their action; I must
compete with others in the accomplishment
of the task; I must regard the work as a service
to the house; and I must in every possible
way try to ``get into the game.''
_This conversion of a difficult task into an
interesting activity is the most fruitful method of
securing concentration_.
Efforts of will can never be dispensed with,
but the necessity for such efforts should be
reduced to the minimum. The assumption
of the attitude of attention should gradually
become habitual during the hours of work, and
so take care of itself.
The methods which a business man must
use to cultivate concentration in himself are
also applicable to his employees. The manner
of applying the methods is, of course, different.
The employer may see to it that as far as
possible all distractions are removed. He cannot
directly cause his men to put forth voluntary
effort, but he can see to it that they re-
tain the attitude of concentration. This may
require the prohibition of acts which are distracting
but which would otherwise seem indifferent.
The employer has a duty in regard
to the health of his men. Certain employers
have assumed to regulate the lives of their men
even after the day's work is over. Bad habits
have been prohibited; sanitary conditions of
living have been provided; hours of labor
have been reduced; vacations have been
granted; and sanitary conditions in shop and
factory have been provided for.
_Employers are finding it to their interest to
make concentration easy for their men by rendering
their work interesting_.
This they have done by making the work
seem worth while. The men are given living
wages, the hope of promotion is not too long
deferred, attractive and efficient models for
imitation are provided, friendly competition is
encouraged, loyalty to the house is engendered,
and love of the work inculcated. In addition,
everything which hinders the development of
interest in the work has been resisted.
How will a salesman, for instance, develop
interest in his work if he makes more from his
``side lines'' than from the service he renders
to the house which pays his expenses? How
can the laborer be interested in his work if he
believes that by gambling he can make more
in an hour than he could by a month's steady
work? The successful shoemaker sticks to his
last, the successful professional man keeps out
of business, and the wise business man resists
the temptation to speculate. Occasionally a
man may be capable of carrying on diverse
lines of business for himself, but the man is
certainly a very great exception who can hold
his attention to the interests of his employer
when he expects to receive greater rewards
from other sources.
_The power of concentration depends in part
upon inheritance and in part upon training_.
Some individuals, like an Edison or a Roosevelt,
seem to be constructed after the manner of
a searchlight. All their energy may be turned
in one direction and all the rest of the world
disregarded. Others are what we call scatter-
brained. They are unable to attend completely
to any one thing. They respond constantly
to stimulation in the environment and to
ideas which seem to ``pop up'' in their minds.
Some people can read a book or paper with
perfect satisfaction, even though companions
around them are talking and laughing. For
others, such attempts are farcical.
Many great men are reputed to have had
marvelous powers of concentration. When
engaged in their work, they became so absorbed
in it that distracting thoughts had no access
to their minds, and even hunger, sleep, and
salutations of friends have frequently been
unable to divert the attention from the absorbing
topic.
_There are persons who cannot really work except
in the midst of excitement_.
When surrounded by numerous appeals to
attention, they get wakened up by resisting
these attractions and find superfluous energy
adequate to attend to the subject in hand.
This is on the same principle that governs
the effects of poisonous stimulants. Taken
into the system, the whole bodily activity is
aroused in an attempt to expel the poison.
Some of this abnormally awakened energy
may be applied to uses other than those intended
by nature. Hence some individuals
are actually helped in their work at least
temporarily by the use of stimulants. Most
of the energy is of course required to expel the
poison, and hence the method of generating
the energy is uneconomical.
The men who find that they can accomplish
the most work and concentrate themselves
upon it the most perfectly when in the midst
of noise and confusion are paying a great price
for the increase of energy, available for profitable
work. To be dependent on confusion for
the necessary stimulation is abnormal and expensive.
Rapid exhaustion and a shortened
life result. It is a bad habit and nothing more.
_Many persons seem able to disregard the common
and necessary distractions of office, store, or
factory_.
Other persons are so constituted that these
distractions can never be overcome. Such
persons cannot hear a message through a telephone
when others in the room are talking;
they cannot dictate a letter if a third person is
within hearing; they cannot add a column of
figures when others are talking. Habit and
effort may reduce such disability, but in some
instances it will never even approximately
eliminate it. Such persons may be very
efficient employees, and their inability to concentrate
in the presence of distractions should
be respected. Every business man is careful
to locate every piece of machinery where it
will work best, but equal care has not been
given to locating men where they may work to
the greatest advantage.
By inheritance the power of concentration
differs greatly among intelligent persons. By
training, those with defective power may improve,
but will never perfect the power to concentrate
amidst distractions. To subject such
persons to distractions is an unwise expenditure
of energy
_Concentration by voluntary attention should be
avoided, but concentration by secondary passive_
_attention cultivated. Organized business interests
should eliminate such public nuisances as
surface street cars, elevated trains, venders of
wares, screeching newsboys, smoking chimneys,
and the like_.
In individual establishments walls may be
deadened to sounds, telephones may be muffled,
call bells may be replaced by buzzers with indicators,
clerks may have other methods than
that of calling aloud for ``cash'' or for floor
walkers, typewriters may be massed with a
view to reducing the general commotion, the
illumination at the desks may be increased,
discomforts should be reduced to a minimum,
work may be so systematized that only one
task at a time demands attention.
At least the attitude of concentration should
be habitual. The bodily condition favorable
to the best concentration may make profitable
such devices as firm lunch rooms, the
building of industrial villages, and so on.
Concentration is secured positively by bringing
into activity the various motives which
affect most powerfully the different individu-
als. There should be a universal taboo on
horse racing and all forms of gambling. Even
``side lines'' should be completely discouraged.
Some individuals are so hindered by the ordinary
and necessary distractions of business
that special protection should be granted to
them.
CHAPTER VI
WAGES
AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY
FIFTY years ago works on psychology
were devoted largely to discussion of
ideas and of concepts. To-day the
point of emphasis has changed, and we are
now paying much attention to a study of
``attitudes.'' It is doubtless important to
analyze my ideas or concepts, but it is of
much more importance to know my attitudes.
It is vital to know how to influence the ideas
of others; but to be able to influence their
attitudes is of still greater significance.
We all know in a general way what we
mean by an attitude, but it is difficult to define
or to comprehend it exactly. I have one attitude
towards a snake and a totally different
one towards my students. If when hunting
quail I happen upon a little harmless snake,
I find that I respond to the sight in a most
absurd manner. Dread and repulsion overcome
me. I can hardly restrain myself from
killing the snake, even though doing so will
frighten the birds I am hunting. I am predisposed
to react in a particular way towards
a snake. I sustain a particular attitude towards
it.
In the presence of my students I find that a
spirit of unselfish devotion and a desire to be
of assistance are likely to be uppermost.
That is to say, I sustain towards my students
an attitude of helpfulness, a predisposition
to react towards them in such a way that their
interests may be furthered. In fact, I find
that we all take particular attitudes towards
the people we know and towards every task of
our lives. These attitudes are very significant,
and yet they are often developed by circumstances
which made but little apparent impression
at the time, or may have been altogether
forgotten. I cannot recall, for instance,
the experience of my boyhood which developed
my present absurd attitude toward harmless
snakes.
When witnessing a play, my attitude of
suspicion towards a particular character may
have been promoted by means of music and
color, by means of the total setting of the play,
or by some other means which never seemed to
catch my attention. These concealed agencies
threw me into an attitude of suspicion, even
while I was not aware that such a result was
being attempted.
This modern conception of psychology
teaches us that in influencing others we are
not successful until we have influenced their
attitudes. Children in school do not draw
patriotism from mere information about their
country. Patriotism comes with the cultivation
of the proper attitude towards one's
native land.
_Success or failure in business is caused more
by mental attitude even than by mental capacities_.
Nothing but failure can result from the
mental attitude which we designate variously
as laziness, indifference, indolence, apathy,
shiftlessness, and lack of interest. All business
successes are due in part to the attitudes
which we call industry, perseverance, interest,
application, enthusiasm, and diligence.
In any individual, too, these attitudes may
not be the same towards different objects
and may be subject to very profound changes
and developments. A schoolboy is frequently
lazy when engaged in the study of grammar,
but industrious when at work in manual
training. A young man who is an indolent
bookkeeper may prove to be an indefatigable
salesman. Another who has shown himself
apathetic and indifferent in a subordinate
position may suddenly wake up when cast
upon his own responsibility.
Few men of any intelligence can develop
the same degree of interest in each of several
tasks. Personally I find that my shiftlessness
in regard to some of my work is appalling.
Touching my main activities, however, I
judge that my industry is above reproach.
The preceding chapters (particularly the
chapters on Imitation, Competition, and Loy-
alty) were attempts to discover and to present
the most effective motives or factors in producing
in workers an attitude of industry.
Based on a study of psychology and of business,
methods were presented which may be
utilized with but little expense and yet are
effective in awakening instinctive responses in
the worker and hence greatly increasing his
efficiency. The present chapter will deal with
an even more effective means of securing an
attitude of industry since it appeals to three
of the most fundamental and irresistible of
man's instincts.
_With most of us the degree of our laziness or
our industry depends partly upon our affinity
for the work, but chiefly upon the motives which
stimulate us_.
For our ancestors, preservation depended
upon their securing the necessary means for
food, clothing, and shelter. In the struggle
for existence only those individuals and races
survived who were able to secure these necessary
articles. In climates and regions removed
from the tropics only the exceedingly
industrious survived. In warm and fertile
lands those who were relatively industrious
managed to exist. Because of the absence of
the necessity for clothing and because of the
abundance of available food, races have developed
in the tropics which are notoriously
lazy. The human race, individually and collectively,
works only where and when it is
compelled to.
The energetic races, those which have advanced
in civilization, live in lands where the
struggle for existence has been continuous.
Necessity is a hard master, but its rule is
indispensable to worthy achievement. The instinct
of self-preservation and the industrious
attitude are responses which the human race
has learned to exercise, in the main, only in
case of need. Self-preservation is the first
law; where life and personal liberty are
dependent upon industry, idleness will not be
found. Wealth removes the obligation to
toil; hence the poor boy often outdistances
his more favored brother.
Individuals work for pay as a means of
self-preservation, and unless that is satisfactory
other motives have but little weight
with them. The needs of the self which preservation
demands are continuously increasing.
The needs of the American-born laborer are
greater than those of the Chinaman. Regardless
of this higher standard of living and
the ever increasing number of ``necessities,''
the instinct of self-preservation acts in connection
with them all.
_Almost without exception the interest of workers
centers in the wage. If they could retain
their accustomed wage with less effort, they would
do so. If the retention and increase depend on
individual production, they will respond to the
compulsion_.
Every student of psychology recognizes the
fact that the wage is more than a means of
self-preservation. Man is a distinctly social
creature. He has a social self as well as an
individual self. His social self demands social
approval as much as his individual self demands
bread, clothing, and shelter. In our
present industrial system this social distinc-
tion is most often indicated by means of monetary
reward. The laborer not only demands
that his toil shall provide the means for self-
preservation, but he seeks through his wages
the social distinction which he feels to be his
due. His desire for increase of wages is often
partly, and in some instances mainly, due to
his craving for distinction or social approval.
In such instances the wage is to be thought
of as something comparable to the score of a
ball player. The desire for a high score is
sufficient motive to beget the most extreme
exertion, even though the reward anticipated
is nothing more than a sign of distinction and
without any relationship whatever to self-
preservation.
In common with some of the lower animals
man has an instinct to collect and hoard all
sorts of things. This instinct is spoken of
in psychology as the hoarding or proprietary
instinct. In performing instinctive acts we
do so with enthusiasm, but blindly. We take
great delight in the performing of the act,
even though the ultimate result of the act
may be entirely unknown to us. The squirrel
collects and stores nuts with great delight and
industry. He has no idea of the approaching
winter, but gathers the nuts simply because
for him it is the most interesting process in his
experience.
Most persons display a like instinctive
tendency to make collections and hoard articles.
This is particularly apparent in collections
of such things as canceled postage
stamps, discarded buttons, pebbles, sticks,
magazines, and other non-useful articles.
When this hoarding instinct is not controlled
by reason or checked by other interests, we
have the miser. In a less degree, we all share
with the miser his hoarding instinct. We all
like to collect money just as the squirrel likes
to gather nuts. The octogenarian continues
to collect money with unabated zeal, even
though he be childless. He is probably not
aware that he is collecting merely for the pleasure
of collecting.
_Since the wage is the means ordinarily employed
to awaken in workers the three instincts_
_of self-preservation, of social distinction, and of
hoarding, it is not strange that an industrial
age should regard it as the chief means of increasing
efficiency_.
The employer has not attempted to discover
what instincts were appealed to by the wage,
or the most economical method of stimulating
these instincts. He has not undervalued the
wage in securing efficiency, but rather has
assumed that the service secured must be in
direct proportion to the amount expended.
Such an assumption is not warranted.
Of two employers with equal forces and payrolls
one may receive much more and better
service than the other. It is not a question
merely of how much is spent but how wisely
it is spent. The wage secures service to the
degree in which it awakens these fundamental
instincts under consideration.
It is apparent, therefore, that other factors
than the amount of money expended in wages
are to be considered by every employer. Without
increasing the pay roll he may increase the
efficiency of his men. The employer who has
determined the number of men he needs and
the wages he must pay has only begun to solve
his labor problem.
In the preparation of the present chapter a
large number of business men were interviewed
personally or by correspondence.
One of the questions asked was: ``How do
you make the most of the wages paid your
men?''
As subsidiary to this general question three
other questions were asked: ``In paying them
do you base the amount to be received by each
man upon a fixed salary? By some of the
men upon actual output--commissions or
piecework rates? By some upon a combination
including profit-sharing or bonus?''
The answers to these latter questions were
not uniform even among employers engaged
apparently in the same business and under
very similar conditions. Some reported that
all the methods suggested were used in their
establishment. Factory hands were employed
on piecework or on a premium or bonus basis
where conditions permitted; office assistants
on fixed salaries; department managers upon
a combination including profit sharing. The
results reported, however, were far from uniform.
The astounding feature was the diversity
of opinion among successful managers
of employees. By various houses one or more
of the systems had been tried under apparently
favorable conditions and had been discarded.
On the other hand each of the systems was
advocated by equally successful business firms.
In judging of the relative merits of fixed
salaries as compared with other methods the
experiences of individual firms offer no certain
data. The relative merits and demerits
are best disclosed by a psychological analysis
of the manner in which the various devices
appeal to the employee's instincts and reason.
_When wages are based on commission, piece
rate, or a bonus or premium system, the stimulus
to action is constantly present. Every stroke
of the hammer, every sale made, every figure
added, increases the wage. The wage thus continuously
beckons the worker to greater accomplishment_.
All other considerations lose in importance,
and the mind becomes focused on output.
The worker is blinded to all other motives,
and invariably sacrifices quality unless this
be guarded by rigid inspection. The piecework
or task system thus influences the worker
directly and incessantly without regard for
the particular instinct to which it may be appealing.
Every increase in rate adds directly
to the means of self-preservation, of social
distinction, and of the accumulation of
wealth.
_The worker with a fixed salary or wage does
not feel as continuously the goad of his wage.
It is less in mind and does not control his attitude
toward his work. The man on a fixed
salary, therefore, will not produce so much_.
If he be a workman, he may take better
care of his tools, keep his output up to a higher
standard of quality, prepare himself for more
responsible positions. If he be a salesman, he
may be more considerate of his customers and
hence really more valuable to his employer;
he may be more loyal to the house and hence
promote the ``team work'' of the organization,
and he may because of his more receptive state
of mind be preparing himself for much greater
usefulness to his house. If he be a superintendent,
he may be more thoughtful of his
men, or more scrupulous for the future of the
business.
Production methods or labor conditions
are often such that piecework is impossible.
There are many functions and processes which
thus far have not been satisfactorily adjusted
to task systems; there are others (the inspection
service in a factory, for instance) where a
premium on increased output would defeat
the first purpose of the service. Where results
can be accurately measured, however, and the
quality of the service can be automatically
secured or is not sacrificed by concentration
upon quantity, the task system--whether
it take the form of piece rates, premiums, or
bonus--has such superior psychological advantages
that it will probably come more and
more into use.
Under the general heading quoted above--
``How do you make the most of the wages
paid your employees?''--the following question
was asked: ``What special method do
you employ to make men satisfied or pleased
with their wages?'' The answers were most
interesting and instructive. One manager
having many thousand men in his organization
narrated various methods by which he
kept in personal touch with his men, and
turned this personal relationship to the advantage
of the house.
One illustration will make clear the line he
pursued. In the card catalogue of the employees,
the birthday of each is noted, the
executive recognizing that for the average
man this is an anniversary even more important
than New Year's.
_If for any reason a member of the organization
deserves or requires the executive's personal attention,
his birthday may be chosen as the date
of the interview. Then whether the man merits
an advance for extra good work or needs help to
correct a temporary slump in efficiency, the reward
or the appeal takes on added meaning_
_because it coincides with a turning point in his
life_.
To facilitate the plan, the manager's file
of employment cards is arranged, not by
initials or departments, but by birthdays.
Each workman's name falls under his eye a
few days in advance, long enough to secure
a report from his foreman, if knowledge is
lacking of his progress.
As I entered this manager's office, I met a
young man coming out. He had been in the
company's employ only a few months and his
relations with the organization had not yet
been established. Asked for a report, his
foreman gave him a good record and recommended
a small advance. Imagine the surprise,
the instant access of pride and loyalty,
the impulse towards greater effort and efficiency,
when the young man was called into the
manager's office on his birthday, congratulated
on his record, and informed that he would start
his new year with an advance in wages.
Double the advance, if allowed in the usual
way, would not have so impressed and satisfied
him. The increased wage made its appeal direct
to the instinct for social recognition, and
hence was very effective.
Such a method does not admit of general
application. Practiced in cold blood, it might
even be harmful. But in this case, it struck
me not as an act of selfish cleverness, but as
the expression of a real sympathy and interest
which the manager felt for his men. The
cleverness lay in the recognition that no man is
ever so susceptible to counsel, to appreciation,
or to rebuke as on his birthday, when the social
self is especially alert.
In other organizations, the effort to extend
this factor of human sympathy to each worker
and to see that full justice is rendered to him
takes the form of a department of promotion
and discharge. The head is the direct representative
of the ``front office'' and is independent
of superintendents and foremen. No
man can be ``paid off'' until the facts have been
submitted to the consideration of this department.
Here also the man may present his case
to an unprejudiced and sympathetic arbiter.
_In actual practice the man ``paid off'' is
sometimes retained and the foreman, on the evidence
of prejudice, bad temper, or other incompetency,
is discharged. In consequence every
workman knows that his place does not depend
upon the whim of his immediate superior, but
that faithful service will certainly be recognized_.
Furthermore, this department assumes the
task of shifting men from one department to
another and thus minimizing the misfits which
lower the efficiency of the whole organization.
Records of each man's performance are kept,
and promotions and discharge are more nearly
in accord with facts than would be possible in
a large house without some such agency. In
too many big establishments the individual
feels that he does not count in the crowd and
that he is helpless to do anything to advance
himself or to protect himself against an antagonistic
foreman. In large measure, such a department
reduces this feeling and bridges the
chasm between the men and the firm.
In its effect on the attitude and efficiency
of employees, the method of fixing and ad-
justing wages is no less important than the
wages themselves. The steady trend of the
labor market has been upward and always upward;
it is one of the notable achievements of
trade and industry that this constant appreciation
in the price of man power has been
neutralized by increase in the efficiency of its
application. This increase in earning capacity
has been secured not alone by the development
of automatic machinery, but by the division
of labor, the subdivision of processes, and the
education of workers to accept the new methods,
and acquire expert skill in some specialty.
Hardly a generation has passed since one
man, or perhaps two working together, built
farm wagons, steam engines, and a thousand
other articles entire. Now a hundred mechanics
or machine tenders may have contributed
to either wagon or engine before
it reaches the shipping department. Three
fourths of these workers are paid piece rates.
The substitution of these piece rates for day
wages, the striking of a satisfactory balance
between production and compensation, and
the endless changes in the scale as new parts
or faster or simpler processes are invented--
have all been operations in which the tact and
man-handling skill of executives have played a
significant part.
In the larger organization this knowledge or
skill is often supplied by a manager who has
``come up through the ranks'' and has not
forgotten his journeyman's dexterity on the
way or neglected to keep in touch with improved
methods.
_Frequently the advantage of a small industry
or trading venture over its larger rivals depends
on the owner's mastery of all the processes or
conditions involved and his ability to deal with
his employees on a personal plane in fixing
wages or in establishing the standard day's work_.
In a stove factory where four fifths of the
processes are paid by piece rates, it was necessary,
not long ago, to fix the remuneration for
the assembling of a new type of range. Most
of the operations were standard; the workmen
and the management differed, however,
on what should be paid for the setting and fas-
tening of a back piece with seventeen bolts.
The men asked fifteen cents a range. When refused,
they named twelve cents as an ultimatum.
The company was willing neither to pay
such a price nor to antagonize the workmen.
The dispute was settled by a demonstration.
The superintendent was himself a graduate
from the bench and had been an expert workman.
The company's contract with the assemblers'
union set $4.50 a day as the maximum
wage. To prove his contention that even
twelve cents was too great a price, he set the
back pieces on ten ranges himself, under the
eyes of a committee, and proved that at six
cents a range he could easily earn the maximum
day wage. The price agreed upon was
eight cents, little more than half the original
demand. Without the demonstration the
men would have accepted twelve cents reluctantly.
In the course of the interviews with employers,
it became evident that there was
agreement on one point--to educate the
worker to realize that the house's policy in
handling its men gave added value to the
sums paid out in wages.
_The shiftless or unskilled man works mainly
for the next pay envelope, with little or no regard
for the continuity of employment, the possibility
of promotion, of pension, of sick or accident
benefits, of working conditions, or the like_.
The skilled worker, on the contrary, and the
more desirable class of laborers, nearly always
rate their wages above or below par, according
to the presence or the absence of these contingent
benefits or emoluments.
To the average man with a family, the
``steady job'' at fair wages is the first
consideration. It appeals more strongly to him
than intermittent employment at a much
higher rate; while the younger, restless, and
less dependable man, both skilled and unskilled,
gravitates to the shop where he can command
a premium for a little while. Just as managers
are always looking for the steady worker,
nearly all agree in assuring their employees
that faithful and efficient service will be rewarded
with continuous employment.
To carry out this policy is sometimes difficult
in businesses where demand is seasonal
and where a large part of the product must
be made to order. Nevertheless, the manager
who adjusts his production program to cover
the entire year has the choice of the best
workers even when other factories offer higher
rates. Likewise, the employer who sacrifices
his profit in bad years to ``take care of his
men'' and hold his organization together recovers
his losses when the revival comes.
So deeply rooted is this desire for a ``steady
job'' and so generally recognized as an essential
of the labor problem that several large industries
have developed ``side lines'' to which
they can turn their organization during their
slack seasons; while others in periods of depression
pile up huge stocks of standard products,
making heavy investments of capital,
for the primary purpose of keeping their men
employed.
How such a policy reacts on the wage question,
and hence on the efficiency of employees,
is shown by an instance which lately fell under
my notice. By a long and persistent campaign
of education and demonstration, a small ``quality''
house forced a rival ten times as large
to adopt the careful processes on which this
quality depended. Adopting the small man's
methods, the competitor, instead of training its
own operatives to the new standards, sought
to hire the other man's skilled workers. The
premium offered was a thirty per cent advance.
It was refused, however. The tempted mechanics,
analyzing the rival's proposal, hit on
the disloyalty contemplated towards its own
employees. They were to be discharged or
transferred to other departments to make
room for the new men.
Measuring this cold-blooded policy against
the consideration, the unfailing effort of their
old employer to ``take care of them'' in bad
seasons, the workers decided to stick to the
smaller company and refuse the advance.
_Next to continuous employment, among methods
of increasing the value of wages, is the policy
of making promotions from the ranks_.
This practice seems to be commonly ac-
cepted as fruitful, although many firms believe
it impossible of application in filling some
of the higher as well as some of the more technical
positions. Where the system is applicable,
it acts as a powerful stimulus to the
men by adding to their present wages the
promise or possibility of better positions and
higher pay in the future. It gives assurance of
promotion for faithful service much greater
than in houses which fill the upper positions
from outside sources on the assumption that
they thus get ``new blood'' into the business.
The men secured from outside may be more
skilled or more productive of immediate results
than any available in the house organization.
By their importation, however, the
wages of all the men aspiring to the position
have been cheapened. Nor does the evil stop
there.
_The assumption is naturally drawn that the
same practice is likely to be followed in filling
other vacancies. The stimulus to initiative and
activity is thus weakened for men in every grade
and their wages are shrunk below par_.
The importance which some successful employers
attach to this principle of promotion
from the ranks is well illustrated by an incident
which recently occurred in a large manufacturing
establishment organized on a one-man
basis. During the president's absence it was
decided to open up a new zone of trade for a
new product. No one in the organization
knew the product and the field, so a new man
was put in charge. The work progressed
surprisingly well; the enterprise was in every
way successful.
When the real head returned, he called his
managers together and told them that the
new man must be removed and the most deserving
man in the regular organization appointed
in his place. He was met with the protest
that no employee was capable of taking up the
work and reminded that the new man had
already achieved great success. The president
answered that he was willing to lose money
in the department for the first year rather than
cheapen and disorganize the service by taking
away the certainty of promotion and by re-
moving the incentive to study and self-development
which had increased the efficiency of
every ambitious employee.
Innumerable examples of the same principle
in promotions could be gleaned from the
records of some of the oldest and most progressive
houses in the country. In one establishment
visited, the quality of whose wares
is strenuously guarded, it was discovered that
the chemist and metallurgist in charge of the
factory laboratory had been lifted out of one
of the departments and supplied with the
money to take a specialized course in physics,
chemistry, and metallurgy. The advertising
manager, the factory engineer, and two or three
of the foremen had been given leaves of absence
to study and fit themselves for the positions
to which their talents and inclinations
drew them. Even among the workmen there
was a fixed basis for advancement towards the
better jobs and the higher rates, dependent on
satisfactory service and output.
To these major considerations in increasing
the worth of wages, those companies which
have given the longest attention to the problem
add many other inducements.
_An efficient and contented employee has a
positive money value to any employer. To hold
him and keep him efficient, his personal comfort
and needs should be considered in every way
not detrimental to the company's interests_.
As nearly as possible, the ideal in factory
location and construction is approached. Some
industries have removed bodily to country
towns, less for the sake of a cheap site than
for the purpose of establishing themselves
where housing conditions for workers were
good, rents low, the cost of living cheaper, and
other factors tending to _*add value_ to every dollar
paid in wages were present. Direct appeal
was made to the intelligence of employees,
whose health is part of their capital, by making
and keeping working conditions as healthful
and sanitary, as little taxing on eyesight and
bodily vigor as circumstances and judicious
investment of capital allowed. Scores of
towns have been built outright, to benefit
employees.
In line with this policy are the systems of
benefit insurance for accident and sickness
maintained and partly supported by many
companies; the pension systems which have
been adopted within the last few years by
some of the greatest and most progressive
companies in America; the free medical service,
both in case of factory accidents and
sickness at home, which other firms provide
for employees; and various other activities
contributing to the welfare of workers, both
during working hours and afterwards.
Employers are coming more and more to
see that this is the case and to devote both
thought and money to the elimination of conditions
which cut wages below par.
_Whatever reduces hazard, discomfort, loss of
time, uncertainty, or the cost of living for workers
adds value to their wages and is a means of
influencing their attitude towards the company_.
Some employers are continually exercised
to keep the wages of their men from falling
below par. Others are equally solicitous that
their men may regard their wages as above
par. This classification is a real one and was
made plain by some of the interviews referred
to above. Thus in answer to the question,
``What special method do you employ to make
men satisfied or pleased with their wages?''
one employer immediately put his own interpretation
on the question. To him it meant,
``What method do you employ to keep your
men from being _*dissatisfied_ with their wages?''
His answer was: ``By paying them somewhere
near what they ask or expect. If we
don't,'' he added, ``they go out on strike and
we have to compromise.''
The majority of successful employers have
advanced beyond this negative, defensive
attitude and take a positive and aggressive
position in dealing with the problem.
_Instead of assuming their work accomplished
when the men are not dissatisfied or rebellious,
they do not rest until every dollar paid out in
wages is above par in its influence upon efficiency_.
Thus in innumerable ways the progressive
employer increases the value of all wages he
pays by making them appeal to the reason
and to the instincts of workers in a way un-
dreamed of by less enlightened men. The
purpose of wages is to produce a certain
psychological effect and to promote the most
favorable attitude on the part of the worker.
The methods of increasing the purchasing power
of money thus spent is one of the most interesting
and yet complex problems which the
business man has to face.
This chapter shows the psychological ground
for the following statements:--
Employees differ in their response to piecework
rates and to salaries. Some respond
more satisfactorily to one and some to the
other.
When the development of men for better
positions is of prime importance, the piecework
system is not to be adopted. If the
quantity of work per unit of wage is of greatest
importance, then some form of wage other
than fixed salary should be used.
An employee should not be dismissed as
hopelessly lazy till he has shown this attitude
in more than one department or has failed to
respond to different forms of stimulation.
Changes in wages may often be placed under
the authority of some person or committee
other than the immediate superiors of the
employees involved. This authority may be
vested in the direct representatives of the
executives or in such a committee as would
be formed by representatives of the executives
and also employees from the different departments
of the establishment.
_Payment of wages, so far as possible, should
be made to appeal to the instincts for social distinction
and for acquisition as well as to the instinct
for self-preservation_.
Wages should never be reduced without a
tactful and sincere attempt to convince the
men of the necessity of such an act.
Increase in wages may well be made a personal
matter. Some firms, however, are most
successful with a mechanical wage system in
which employees know exactly the conditions
necessary for an increase in wages.
All work should be thoroughly supervised
and inspected so that employees know that
good service will be recognized and rewarded.
The policy of filling all positions from the
ranks seems growing in favor, since it gives
certain hope for advancement and hence
greater satisfaction with the present wage.
The wage may well include a tacit insurance
for the future. Employees should be assured
that so long as they remain faithful to the
firm, their work and pay will continue, and
that in accident or old age they will be provided
for. Accepted thus, the wage secures
increased service.
CHAPTER VII
PLEASURE
AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY
TO prevent the usual ``summer slump''
in output, the manager of a factory
employing a hundred or more sewing
girls on piecework tried various methods.
He began with closer individual supervision
by the forewomen. He set up a bulletin
board and posted daily the names of the five
highest operators. He added small cash prizes
weekly. He adopted a modified bonus system
framed so as not to interfere with the
established average of winter tasks. With
each his success was only partial. Ten or a
dozen of the more energetic girls responded to
the stimulus; on the majority the effect was
slight.
The problem was serious. June, July, and
August comprised the season when his prod-
ucts were at a premium, when future orders
were frequently lost because partial deliveries
could not be made immediately. Studying
the question, he noted specifically, what he
already knew, that the output dropped as the
temperature rose. A cool day sandwiched
into a week of hot weather frequently equaled
the best winter records. This fact, coupled
with the observation that the spirit of his
working force seemed to change with the
change of temperature from warm to cold,
helped him to arrive at the right solution.
He made the discovery sitting in the draught
of an electric fan. He looked up, made a
mental note; and next morning he moved his
office ``comforter'' out to the head of one file of
machines. The draught tangled the goods
under the seamstresses' hands at times, but
the half dozen girls within range showed a
decided increase in production over the day
before and over operators at other tables.
He had found his remedy for the summer
slump. Within a week he had installed a
system of large overhead fans and an exhaust
blower and saw his production figures mount
to the winter's best average. From careless,
indifferent workers, on edge at trifles and difficult
to hold, his force developed steadiness
and efficiency. Not only was the output
increased twenty per cent over previous
summers, but the proportion of spoiled work
was considerably reduced.
One of the women who had been a subject
of the first day's experiment struck close to
the reason of her greater efficiency in her
off-hand answer to his inquiry.
``It was a pleasure to work to-day. It was
so comfortable after yesterday you just forgot
the other girls, forgot you wanted to rest,
forgot everything but the seams you were
running and the fact that it was a big day.
I'm not near so tired as usual either.''
_A successful day is likely to be a restful one,
an unsuccessful day an exhausting one. The
man who is greatly interested in his work and
who finds delight in overcoming the difficulties
of his calling is not likely to become so tired as
the man for whom the work is a burden_.
The experience related summarizes the
experience of every worker who has studied,
either on his own initiative or at some other's
instance, the effect upon output secured by
the removal of distressing or displeasing conditions
from the workroom.
The man who has been engaged in intellectual
or manual labor finds himself more or less
exhausted when the day's work is done. The
degree of exhaustion varies greatly from day
to day and is not in direct proportion to the
amount of energy expended or the results
attained. A comparatively busy day may
leave him feeling fresh, while at the end of a
day much less occupied he may be utterly
``dragged out'' and weary.
Some men habitually find themselves fatigued,
while others ordinarily end the day
with a feeling of vigor. These contrary
effects are not necessarily due primarily
to disparity in the amount of energy spent
or to unequal stores of energy available.
The discrepancy in many instances is due to
diverse attitudes toward the work or varying
degrees of success which has attended the
work.
Pleasure secured in and from work is the
best preventive and balm for tired muscles
and jaded brains. Dislike or discomfort, on
the other hand, adds to toil by sapping the
strength of the worker.
Victory in intercollegiate athletic events
depends on will power and physical endurance.
This is particularly apparent in football.
Frequently it is not the team with the
greater muscular development or speed of
foot that wins the victory, but the one with the
more grit and perseverance. At the conclusion
of a game players are often unable to walk from
the field and need to be carried. Occasionally
the winning team has actually worked the
harder and received the more serious injuries.
Regardless of this fact, it is usually
true that the victorious team leaves the
field less jaded than the conquered team.
Furthermore the winners will report next day
refreshed and ready for further training,
while the losers may require several days to
overcome the shock and exhaustion of their
defeat.
Recently I had a very hard contest at tennis.
Some hours after the game I was still too tired
to do effective work. I wondered why, until
I remembered that I had been thoroughly
beaten, and that, too, by an opponent whom I
felt I outclassed. I had been in the habit of
playing even harder contests and ordinarily
with no discomfort--especially when successful
in winning the match.
What I have found so apparent in physical
exertion is equally true in intellectual labor.
Writing or research work which progresses
satisfactorily leaves me relatively fresh;
unsuccessful efforts bring their aftermath of
weariness.
_Intellectual work which is pleasant is stimulating
and does not fag one, while intellectual
work which is uninteresting or displeasing is
depressing and exhausting_.
We can readily trace the source of energy
in mechanical devices. The hands of a clock
continue in their course because of the energy
locked up in a compressed spring or elevated
weight. The gun projects the bullet because
of the sudden chemical union of carbon with
saltpeter and sulphur. The steam engine
takes its energy from the steam secured by
combustion of coal or other fuel.
The work of the human organism is usually
classified as muscular or intellectual. In
either the expenditure of energy is as dependent
upon known causes as is the activity
of the mechanical devices mentioned
above.
Every muscular activity is dependent upon
muscular cells ready for combustion; without
such combustion no muscular work is
performed.
Every intellectual process is likewise dependent
upon brain cells ready for combustion,
and no intellectual work can be performed
without combustion of these brain cells.
To secure continued activity the clock must
be rewound, the gun must be recharged, more
coal must be supplied to the engine. In like
manner the continuation of muscular and in-
tellectual activity depends upon the restoration
of muscle and brain cells. The necessity
for renewal is greater or less according to the
amount stored in reserve and the rapidity of
consumption. A maximum head of steam
may keep the engine running for a long time
unless the load is too heavy or the speed too
great. Though under certain conditions the
amount of muscle and brain energy stored in
reserve is large, continuous or rapid activity of
necessity expends the reserve and leads to
exhaustion.
It is a simple process to rewind the clock,
to reload the gun, and to replenish the fuel.
To restore muscular and nerve cells is a very
delicate process. So wonderful is the human
organism, however, that the process is carried
on perfectly without our consciousness or
volition except under abnormal conditions.
Food and air are the first essentials of this
restoration. Indirectly the perfect working of
all the bodily organs contribute to the process
--especially deepened breathing, heightened
pulse, and increase of bodily volume due
to the expansion of the blood vessels running
just beneath the skin.
_Here pleasure enters. Its effect on the expenditure
of energy is to make muscle and brain
cells more available for consumption, and particularly
to hasten the process of restoration or
recuperation_.
The deepened breathing supplies more air
for the oxidation of body wastes. The heightened
pulse carries nourishment more rapidly
to the depleted tissues and relieves the tissues
more rapidly from the poisonous wastes
produced by work. The body, the machine,
runs more smoothly, and fewer stops for repairs
are made necessary.
In addition to these specific functions,
pleasure hastens all the bodily processes which
are of advantage to the organism. The hastening
may be so great that recuperation keeps
pace with the consumption consequent on
efficient labor, with the result that there is
little or no exhaustion. This is in physiological
terms the reason why a person can do more
when he ``enjoys'' his work or play, and can
continue his efforts for a longer period without
fatigue. The man who enjoys his work requires
less time for recreation and exercise, for
his enjoyment recharges the storage battery of
energy.
Not only can I endure more and achieve
more when I take pleasure in the task, but I
can also secure better results from others by
providing for their interest and for their pleasure
in what they are doing. This is a fact
which wise merchants and employers have
felt intuitively, but in most instances the
principle has not been consciously formulated.
High-grade stores do much to add to the pleasure
of their customers. Every resource of art
and architecture is employed to make store
rooms appeal to the sthetic sense and the
appreciation of customers. Clerks are instructed
to be obliging and courteous. Employees
are not allowed to dress in a style
likely to offend a customer and they are
schooled in manners and in speech. Space
is devoted to the convenience and comfort
of customers.
_The most successful establishments in the
world are the ones which do most to please their
patrons--not by cutting prices or simply by
supplying better goods, but by expediting and
making more pleasant the purchase of goods_.
They have discovered that customers inducted
into a beautiful shop and surrounded
by tactful obliging clerks are more willing to
buy and are more likely to be satisfied with
what they purchase. By adding to their patrons'
comfort and pleasure they are able to
accomplish more than by any other selling
argument. In like manner, restaurants and
hotels have learned that splendid rooms, flowers,
spotless linen, well-dressed and courteous
waiters, good furniture, and so on, all attract
customers and induce them to order more
generously.
Lawyers find in trying cases that it is quite
essential to regard the mood of clients, juries,
and judges. The pleased man is not suspicious;
he does not hesitate in coming to a conclusion,
and he is not likely to impute evil
motives to the actions of others. As has been
well said by Dickens, when speaking from the
viewpoint of the defendant, ``A good, contented,
well-breakfasted juryman is a capital
thing to get hold of. Discontented or hungry
jurymen always find for the plaintiff.''
The salesman with a pleasing personality
is able to sell more goods than others less
happily endowed. Some salesmen try to supplement
this power--or supply the lack of a
pleasing personality--by ``jollying'' the possible
customer in various ways. Dinners,
theaters, cigars, and various other devices
are thus used, and in many instances with success.
Modern business employs such methods less
and less, chiefly because the customer recognizes
the purpose of the attempt, and either
refuses to accept the ``hospitality'' or is on
his guard to resist the effect. A pleasing
personality, however, inspires confidence, tends
to put the customer in a good humor and optimistic
mood, and results in sales.
A cold, formal manner, ill temper, or a
pessimistic outlook, on the contrary, will
handicap the sale of the best merchandise
made.
A man is said to be suggestible when he
comes to conclusions or acts without due
deliberation. Suggestion, then, is nothing but
the mental condition which causes us to believe
and respond without the normal amount
of weighing of evidence. While in a suggestible
condition we are credulous, responsive,
and impulsive. Such a mental condition is
favored and induced by pleasure. Discomfort
or dissatisfaction with the conditions or
surroundings prompts the opposing attitude;
we become suspicious and slow to act or believe.
While in a suggestible condition, we
place our orders freely and promptly. The
merchant who can please his customers and
bring them to a suggestible mood before he
displays his wares, therefore, has done much to
secure generous sales.
Advantageous results from suggestion are
not limited to the relationship between buyer
and seller.
_The pleased and satisfied employee is open_
_to the suggestions of foreman and manager and
responds with an enthusiasm impossible of
generation in one dissatisfied from any cause_.
Methods of insuring this pleasure in work
for employees are yet in the formative stage.
Until recently the want of such methods, indeed,
was not felt. The slave driver with the
most profane vocabulary and the greatest
recklessness in the use of fist and foot was
supposed to be the most effective type of boss.
The task system set an irreducible minimum
for the day's work; the employer exacted the
task and assumed that no better way of handling
men could be devised. Piecework rates
provided a better and more reasonable basis
for securing something like a maximum day's
work; bonus and premium systems have carried
the incentive of the wage in increasing efficiency
to the last point short of coperative
organization. But all of these systems fall
short in assuming that men are machines;
that their powers and capacities are fixed quantities;
that the efficiency of a well-disposed and
industrious employee ought to be proof against
varying conditions or environment; that a
man can achieve the desired standard, if only
he has the will to achieve it.
_Discipline has become less brutal if not less
strict. The laborer works, not alone to avoid
poverty and hunger, but to secure the means of
pleasure_.
It is not so long since harsh discipline was
common both in homes and in business. The
boy worked hard because he was afraid not to.
The man labored because poverty threatened
him if idle. We were in what might be called
a ``pain economy''; we worked to escape pain.
To-day this has largely been changed.
Employers, too, are experimenting boldly
with the idea of creating pleasure in work.
The first step has been taken in the very
general elimination of the old wasteful, neglectful
elements of factory and office environment.
Comfort, the first neutral element
of pleasure, is provided for employees just as
solid foundations are provided for the factory
buildings. There is light, heat, and ventilation
where a generation ago there were tiny windows,
shadows, lonely stoves, and foul air. Cleanliness
is provided and preserved; not a few of
the larger industries employ a regular corps of
janitors to keep floors, walls, and windows clean.
The walls are tinted; the lights are arranged
so as to provide the right illumination without
straining the workers' eyes. The departments
are symmetrically arranged; the aisles are
wide; the working space is ample; there is
no fear to haunt machine tenders that a mis-
step or a moment of forgetfulness will entangle
them in a neighboring machine. The factory
buildings themselves, without being pretentious,
have pleasing, simple lines and unobtrusive
ornamentation. They look like, and
are, when the human equation does not interfere,
_*pleasant_ places to work in.
This is the typical modern factory; thousands
can be found in America. On this
foundation of good working conditions and
pleasant environment, many companies have
built more or less elaborate systems of welfare
work, whose effectiveness in creating
pleasure and efficiency seem to depend on the
purpose and spirit of the men behind them.
These systems frequently begin with beautification
of the factory premises and workrooms
--window boxes, factory lawns, ivied walls,
trees, and shrubs--and advance by various
stages to lunch rooms for workers, factory
libraries, rest rooms for women workers, factory
nurses and physicians, and sometimes the
development of a social life among employees
through picnics, lectures, dances, night schools,
and like activities. The methods employed
are too diverse and too recent to permit an accurate
estimate of their work or a true analysis
of the elements of their success. It is incumbent
on the employer to find or work out for
himself the method best suited to his individual
needs.
_To understand how pleasure heightens the
suggestibility of the individual it is but necessary
to consider the well-known effects which pleasure
has on the various bodily and mental processes_.
The action of pleasure and displeasure upon
the muscles of the body is most apparent.
With displeasure the muscles of the forehead
contract; folds and wrinkles appear. The
corners of the mouth are drawn down; the
head bowed; the shoulders stoop and draw
together over the breast; the chest is contracted;
the fingers of the hand close, and there
is also a tendency to bend the arms so as to
protect the fore part of the body. In displeasure
the body is thus seen to contract and
to put itself on the defensive. It closes itself
to outside influences and attempts to ``withdraw
within its shell.''
With pleasure the forehead is smoothed
out; the corners of the mouth are lifted; the
head is held erect; the shoulders are thrown
back; the chest is expanded; the fingers of
the hand are opened, and the arm is ready to
go out to grasp any object. The whole body
is thrown into a receptive attitude. It is prepared
to be affected by outside stimulations
and is ready to profit by them.
That these characteristic bodily attitudes
of pleasure and displeasure have an effect
on the mind is evident. Bodily and mental attitudes
have developed together in the history
of the race. The conditions which cause a
receptive attitude of body cause also a suggestible
state of mind. The conditions which
call for bodily protection also demand a suspicious
and non-responsive attitude of mind.
The bodily and the mental attitudes have become
so intimately associated that the presence
of one assures the presence of the other.
_Pleasure and a particular attitude of body are
indissolubly united, and when these two are
present, a suggestible condition of mind seems of
necessity to follow_.
Thus by the subtle working of pleasant
impressions the customer is disarmed of his
suspicion and made ready to respond to the
suggestions of the merchant.
The effect of the suggestible attitude of the
body, as produced by pleasure, is increased
by certain other effects which pleasure produces
on the body.
Muscular strength is frequently measured
by finding the maximum grip on a recording
instrument. The amount of the grip varies
from time to time and is affected by various
conditions. One of the phenomena which has
been thoroughly investigated is the effect of
pleasure and of pain on the intensity of the
grip. It is well established that pleasure
increases the grip or the available amount of
energy. Displeasure reduces the strength.
The total volume of the body would seem
to be constant for any particular short interval
of time. Such, however, is not the case.
_With pleasure the lungs are filled with air
from deepened breathing; the volume of the
limbs is increased by the increased flow of blood.
Pleasure thus actually makes us larger and displeasure
smaller_.
This increase in muscular strength and bodily
volume due to pleasure has a very decided
effect upon the mind. The increase of muscular
strength gives us a feeling of power and
assurance, the increase in volume gives us a
feeling of expansion and importance. These
conditions produced by increase of muscular
strength and bodily volume contribute to the
general suggestible condition described above.
If I am in a suggestible condition and if I
also feel an unusual degree of assurance in my
own powers and importance, I shall have such
confidence in the wisdom of my intended acts
that there will seem to be no ground for delay.
Furthermore the increased action of the heart,
due to the effect of pleasure, gives me a feeling
of buoyancy and invigoration which adds appreciably
to the tendency to action.
We thus see why pleasure renders us more
suggestible and hence makes us more apt to
purchase proffered merchandise or to respond
to the suggestions of our foreman or our executive.
We also see why it is that a man may
increase his efficiency by pleasing those with
whom he has to work, whether they be customers
or employees.
CHAPTER VIII
THE LOVE OF THE GAME
AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY
THE motives discussed in previous chapters
are fairly adequate for developing
efficiency in all except the owner or
chief executive. The employee may imitate
and compete with his equals and his superiors;
he may work for his wage, and he may be loyal
to the house. To increase the industry and
enthusiasm of the head is a task of supreme
importance. Interest and enthusiasm must
be kindled at the top that the spark may be
passed down to the lower levels. It can never
travel in the opposite direction.
How, then, is the president to light his fires
and transmit his enthusiasm to his managers
and other subordinates? Not by working for
money alone, nor through imitation, competition,
or loyalty to the works of his own hands.
All these may be essential, may be powerful
subordinate incentives to action, but singly or
collectively they are not adequate. In any
organization, the head who attains the maximum
of success must depend for his enthusiasm
upon an instinctive love of the game.
The subordinate possessing such love of
the game and independent of others for his
enthusiasm is sure to rise. The subject is,
therefore, of vital importance both to the
executive and to the ambitious employee.
Every employer feels the need of such an attitude
towards work, both in himself and in his
men.
An attempt will be made in this chapter
to comprehend this instinctive love of the
game, to discuss to what extent it is inherited
and to what extent subject to cultivation, and
to analyze the conditions most favorable for
its development in respect to one's own work
as well as that of his employees.
The love of the game is in part instinctive,
and its nature is made clear by consideration
of certain of the instincts of animals.
The young lion spends much time in pretended
stalking of game and in harmless
struggles with his mates. He takes great
delight in the exercise of his cunning and in his
strength of limb and jaw. Fortunately for the
young lion this is the sort of activity best
adapted to develop his strength of muscle
and his cunning in capturing prey. However,
it is not for the sake of the training that the
young lion performs these particular acts.
He does them simply because he loves to. In
like manner the young greyhound chasing his
mates and the young squirrel gathering and
storing nuts have no thought beyond the instinctive
pleasure they find in performing these
functions. To each there is no other form of
activity so satisfactory.
Man possesses more instincts than any of
the lower animals. One pronounced instinct
in all normal males is the hunting instinct.
Grover Cleveland went fishing because he
loved the sport, not because of the value of
the fish caught. Theodore Roosevelt did not
hunt big game in Africa because he was in need
of luscious steaks or tawny hides. He was not
working solely in the interest of the Smithsonian
Institute nor to secure material for his
book. Doubtless these were subsidiary motives,
but the chief reason why he killed the
game was that he instinctively loves the sport.
He endured the hardships of Africa for the
same reason that fishermen spend days in the
icy water of a trout stream and hunters lie still
for hours suffering intense cold for a chance to
shoot at a bear.
_For some men, buying and selling is as great a
delight as felling a deer. For others the manufacture
of goods is as great a joy as landing a
trout. For such a man enthusiasm for his work
is unfailing and industry unremittent_.
He is suited to his task as is the cub to the
fight, the puppy to the chase, the squirrel to
the burying of nuts, or the hunter to the killing
of game. His labor always appeals to
him as the thing of supremest moment. His
interest in it is such that it never fails to in-
spire others by contagion. For such a man
laziness or indifference in business seems anomalous,
while industry and enthusiasm are as
natural as the air he breathes and as inexhaustible
as the air itself.
By classifying the love of the game as an
instinct, we seem to admit that it is born
and not developed; that some men possess
it and others do not; that if a man possesses
it, he does not need to cultivate it, and that
if he does not possess, he cannot acquire it.
There is doubtless much truth in this, but
fortunately it is not the whole truth.
Some instincts are specific--even stereotyped
--and not subject to cultivation or
change. Thus the bee's instinctive method of
gathering and storing honey is very specific
and definite. The bee is unable to modify its
routine to any great extent. The bee which
does not instinctively perform the different
acts properly will never learn to.
There are other instincts not so stereotyped
in manner or constant in degree. The
instincts of man are much more variable than
those of the lower animals and are much more
subject to direction, inhibition, or development.
If this love of the game were solely a
matter of inheritance, if the business genius
were born and not made, and if it could not
be cultivated and developed, our hope for the
improvement of the race would be small.
Potential geniuses exist in large numbers
but fail of discovery because they are not
developed. Instincts manifest themselves only
in the presence of certain stimulating conditions.
They are developed by exercise and
stimulated further by the success attending
upon their exercise.
Thus certain conditions, more or less definite,
are effective in determining the line along which
instincts shall manifest themselves, and the
extent to which the instincts shall be developed
and then ultimately supplemented by
experience and reason.
Fortunately we have reason to believe that
although the business genius must have a good
inheritance, yet the inheritance does not determine
what its possessor shall make of himself.
Many persons are inclined to overestimate
the influence of inheritance in determining
success in business. The folly of this attitude
is every day becoming more and more
apparent.
The conditions essential for developing
the love of the game in business may be
summarized under three heads:--
First, a man will develop a love of the game
in any business in which he is led to assume a
responsibility, to take personal initiative, to
feel that he is creating something, and that he
is expressing himself in his work.
As organizations become larger and more complex
in their methods, there is a corresponding
increase in the difficulty of making the employees
retain and develop this feeling of independent
and creative responsibility. Business
has become so specialized and the work of the
individual seems so petty that he is not likely
to feel that he is expressing himself through his
work or to retain a feeling of independence.
Properly conceived, there is no position in
trade or industry which does not warrant such
an attitude. To promote this attitude various
devices have been adopted by business firms.
Some try to put a real responsibility on each
employee and to make him feel it. Others
have devised forms of partnership which give
numerous employees shares in the business
and so help to develop this attitude.
In developing men for responsible positions
this attitude must be secured and retained
even while they are occupying the lesser
positions.
_Few things so stimulate a boy as the feeling
that he is responsible for a certain task, that he is
expressing himself in it, that he is creating something
worth while_.
Many managers and more foremen are
unable to develop this feeling in their subordinates
because they assume all the responsibility
and allow those under them no share of
it. On the other hand, some executives have
the happy faculty of inspiring this attitude
in all their men. The late Marshall Field
made partners of his lieutenants and encouraged
them to assume responsibility and to do
creative work. As a result they developed
a love of the game--a fact to which he owed
much of his phenomenal success.
The second condition or factor in the
development of the love of the game in business
is social prestige.
We have but partially expressed the nature
of man when we have spoken of him as delighting
in independent self-expression, as
being self-centered and self-seeking. Man is
inherently social in his nature and desires
nothing more than the approval of his fellows.
That which society approves we do with enthusiasm.
We change our forms of amusements,
our manner of life, and our daily occupations
according to the whims of society. Fifteen
years ago the riding of bicycles was quite the
proper thing, and we all trained down till we
could ride a century. To-day we are equally
enthusiastic in lowering bogy on the golf
course. This change in our ambitions is
not because it is inherently more fun to beat
bogy than to ride a century. The change has
come about simply because of the change of
social prestige secured from the two forms of
amusement.
We may expect to find enthusiastic industry
in the accomplishment of any task which
society looks upon as particularly worthy.
During the past few decades in America
society has given the capitalist unusual honor
and has allowed him monetary rewards unprecedented
in the history of the world.
If the capitalist had been honored less than
the poet, the preacher, or the soldier, and his
material rewards fallen below theirs, our
money captains would have been fewer in
number.
In spite of occasional muck rakings, society's
esteem for the capitalist has been unbounded.
He is in general the only man with
a national reputation. Society bestows upon
him unstinted praise and the most generous
rewards for his toil. His rewards are so extravagant
that the game seems worthy of every
effort he can put forth. Love of the game has
consequently been engendered within him,
and his enthusiasm has been unbounded.
This motive of social prestige is less easy
of application to the humbler ranks of employees.
Most men engaged in the industries are
entirely deprived of the stimulus because
their social group does not look with approval
upon their daily tasks. It may even despise
men for doing well work essential as preparatory
to better positions. There are many young
men engaged in perfectly worthy employment
who prefer that their social set should not
know of the exact nature of their work for
fear it would be regarded as menial and not
sufficiently ``swell.''
This disrespect for honest toil is due to
various causes. One cause is that nearly
all young men--and indeed most older men
too--look upon their present positions merely
as stepping stones. They look forward to promotion
and more interesting work. They and
their social group fail to accord dignity to the
work which they are doing at any time.
Another reason why the motive of social
prestige has no effect in the more humble
positions is that in business we have practically
abandoned the standard of the artist
and adopted that of the capitalist. The
artist's standard is diametrically opposed to
the capitalistic standard. We honor the capitalist
not for what he does, but for the money
he gets for what he does. We honor the artist
for what he does and never because of the
monetary considerations which follow his
creation.
_To substitute the standard of the artist for the
standard of the capitalist would be impossible
in business, yet a harmonious working of the
two is possible_.
Such a harmony was probably present in the
old industrial guilds, which developed a class
consciousness creating its own ideals. Within
the guild the most skillful workman had the
highest honor. The work itself, independent
of the money which might be received for it,
was uppermost in the worker's mind.
The executive seeking to stimulate love of
the game among his workmen should in some
way see that social approval attaches itself
to the work as such and not to the wage which
is secured by means of the work. The workmen
must be given an interest in the work as
well as in the wage.
Executives everywhere find that ``getting
together'' with others engaged in the same
work is most stimulating. We are inspired
by the presence of others engaged in the same
sort of work and giving approval to success in
our particular field.
_The third condition for securing a love of the
game is that the work itself must appeal to the
individual as something important and useful_.
Its useful function must be apparent, and
the necessity and advantage of perfect
performance must be emphasized. I play golf
because the game permits me to assert myself
and engage in independent and exhilarating
activity. My devotion to my professional
tasks, however, is dependent upon the fact
that I regard psychology, whether the work
be in research or instruction, as of the greatest
importance to science and to mankind in
general. The work as a whole and all the
details of it seem to me to be important. In
performing my daily tasks they seem to me to
be worthy of the most persistent and enthusiastic
effort.
Doubtless there are classes of work incapable
of appealing to individuals as does my work to
me. But in many instances work seems menial
and ignoble because it is not understood. It is
not seen in its relationships and broader aspects.
The single task as performed by the
individual is so small and so specialized that
it does not seem worth while.
The dignity of labor demands that the
workman should respect the work of his
hands.
He should look upon his accomplished
tasks as of inherent dignity independent
of the monetary recompense to be received.
To keep the workman's efficiency keyed up,
the employer should see to it that this broader
aspect of labor is emphasized and that the day
laborer finds some reason for his labor besides
his wage. It is the only game he may ever
have time to play. It is to the interest of
himself, his employer, and society at large that
he should enter enthusiastically into it and be
ennobled by it.
_Professional, technical, and vocational schools
are serving a noble function in emphasizing the
dignity of the work for which they are preparing
young men_.
They are more and more presenting the
broader aspects of the subjects taught. Even
the altruistic and extremely technical aspects
of the subject are found profitable. The narrower
and apparently the more practical course
does not result so successfully as the broader
and more cultural ones.
The boy who goes direct into work from
the public school is not likely to cordinate
his task with the general activity of the
establishment, and he is not likely to see how he
is in anyway contributing to the welfare of
humanity by his work. He needs to be shown
how each line of industry and profession serves
a great function, has an interesting history, and
is vitally connected with many of the most
important human interests. He should learn
to see how the different cogs are essential and
worthy factors in the total process. The boy
who thus comprehends his task looks upon it
and is inspired by it in a way that would
otherwise be quite impossible.
Some of the most successful houses have
been so impressed with the importance of this
form of industrial education that at their own
expense they have established night schools for
new employees as well as for those who have
been years with the firm. Not only are the
students taught how to perform their respective
tasks, but a broader program is attempted.
Sometimes an attempt is made to lead the
students to appreciate the dignity of the particular
activity in which the firm is engaged.
The history of the firm is then fully presented
so that the employees will comprehend the part
the house has actually taken in the world.
Some firms try to show each man how his
work is related to the work of the house as a
whole and to other departments. In various
ways schools and individual firms are successfully
attempting to inject a nobler regard
and appreciation for labor. The result is most
gratifying and manifests itself in increased
enthusiasm and other expressions of the increased
love of the game.
The three conditions which we have been
considering for developing the love of the
game are quite different, appeal to the different
sides of the individual, and are not all
equally applicable to the young man who
seeks to become a leader among his fellows or
to the manager of men who seeks to develop
leaders.
The attitude of independent, creative responsibility
appeals to our individualistic and
self-centered self. It is an attitude that may
be assumed by the ambitious young man and
encouraged by the manager. It is absolutely
indispensable for developing this much-coveted
love of the game in any form of useful endeavor.
It is readily assumed or developed in the chief
executive, but may be developed in subordinates
with great difficulty.
Social prestige appeals to our selfishly
social natures, and yet the desire to secure this
social favor is in the main ennobling. It is
of special value to the manager of large groups
of men. The manager may create the social
atmosphere which is most favorable to the
development of the love of the game in his
particular industry.
The last condition discussed, regard for
the work as important and as useful, makes
its appeal to our nobler and what we might in
some instances speak of as our altruistic selves.
This condition is equally serviceable to the
ambitious youth and to the successful superintendent
of men. We all look out for number
one, but appeals made to the higher self
are not unavailing. We are most profoundly
stirred when we are appealed to from all sides.
However, the love of the game will never be
universal in the professional and industrial
world. We can scarcely imagine the millennium
when all employees would cease to despise
their toil and cease to serve for pay alone.
CHAPTER IX
RELAXATION
AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY
_Be not therefore anxious for the Morrow_
A STUDY of the lives of great men is
both interesting and profitable. In
such a study we are amazed at the
records of the deeds of the men whom the
world calls great. The results of the labors
of Hercules seem to be approximated according
to many of these truthful accounts.
In studying the lives of contemporary business
men two facts stand out prominently.
The first is that their labors have brought about
results that to most of us would have seemed
impossible. Such men appear as giants, in
comparison with whom ordinary men sink to
the size of pygmies.
The second fact which a study of successful
business men (or any class of successful men)
reveals is that they never seem rushed for
time.
_Men noted for efficiency almost never appear to
be hurried. They have plenty of time to accomplish
their tasks, and therefore can afford to take
their work leisurely_.
Such men have time to devote to objects in
no way connected with their business. It cannot
be regarded as accidental that this characteristic
of mind is found so commonly among
successful men during the years of their most
fruitful labor.
According to the American Ideal, the man
who is sure to succeed is one who is continuously
``keyed up to concert pitch,'' who is ever
alert and is always giving attention to his business
or profession. As far as the captains of
industry are concerned, such is not the case.
They devote relatively few hours a day to their
strenuous toil, but they keep a cool head and a
steady hand. They are always composed,
never confused, but ever ready to attack a new
problem with their maximum ability. They
follow the injunction of Christ expressed in
His Sermon on the Mount: ``Be not therefore
anxious for the morrow.''
Of all the nations of the world, Americans
are supposed to be the hardest working. We
have attributed our industrial success to the
fact that there is a bustle and snap to our work
which are not equaled in any other country.
But recent students of the industrial world are
now telling us that even in the case of day
and piece labor this characteristic is frequently
a weakness rather than an advantage. They
say that the American product ``suffers from
hurry, want of finish, and want of solidity.''--
``Industrial Efficiency,'' Arthur Shadwell,
Vol. 1, p. 26.
_In the great middle class of American society,
there is a lack of repose and an absence of relaxation
which astonishes foreign observers_.
They tell us that we are wild-eyed and too
intense. Dr. Clauston of Scotland is quoted
as saying:--
``You Americans wear too much expression
in your faces. You are living like an army
with all its reserves engaged in action. The
duller countenance of the British population
betokens a better scheme of life. They suggest
stores of reserved nervous force to fall
back upon, if any occasion should arise that
requires it. The inexcitability, this presence
at all times of power not used, I regard as the
great safeguard of our British people. The
other thing in you gives me a sense of insecurity,
and you ought somehow to tone yourselves
down. You do really carry too much expression,
you take too intensely the trivial moments
of life.''
The late Professor William James of Harvard
makes the following pertinent remark
concerning the overtension of Americans:--
``Your intense, convulsive worker breaks
down and has bad moods so often that you
never know where he may be when you most
need his help,--he may be having one of his
`bad days.' We say that so many of our
fellow-countrymen collapse, and have to be
sent abroad to rest their nerves, because they
work so hard. I suspect that this is an im-
mense mistake. I suspect that neither the nature
nor the amount of our work is accountable
for the frequency and severity of our breakdowns,
but that their cause lies rather in those
absurd feelings of hurry and having no time,
in that breathlessness and tension, that anxiety
of feature and that solicitude of results,
that lack of inner harmony and ease, in short,
by which with us the work is apt to be accompanied,
and from which a European who should
do the same work would nine times out of ten
be free. . . . It is your relaxed and easy
worker, who is in no hurry, and quite thoughtless
most of the while of consequences, who
is your efficient worker; and tension and anxiety,
and present and future, all mixed up together
in one mind at once, are the surest
drags upon steady progress and hindrances to
our success.''--``Talks to Teachers,'' pp. 214-
218.
Mr. Joseph Lyons, who is recognized as one
of the particularly active and efficient men of
England, has taken great interest in the way
things are done in America. And after ob-
serving us at work here he expressed himself
as dissatisfied with the tension under which we
work. His words areas follows:--
``I do not believe in what Americans call
hustling. The American hustler in my opinion
does not represent the highest type of
human efficiency. He wastes a lot of nervous
power and energy instead of accomplishing
the greatest possible amount of work for the
force expended. Judging the American hustler
from my observation of him in his own country,
I should say that the American hustler
shows a lack of adaptation of means to ends
because he puts more mental, physical, and
nervous energy into his work at all times than
it demands. Regarded as a machine he is not
an economical one. He breaks down too often
and has to be laid off for repairs too often.
He tries to do everything too fast.''
When Mr. Lyons was asked to explain how
he had been able to accomplish so much without
hustling, he replied: ``By organizing myself
to run smoothly as well as my business;
by schooling myself to keep cool, and to do
what I have to do without expending more
nervous energy on the task than is necessary;
by avoiding all needless friction. In consequence,
when I finish my day's work, I feel
nearly as fresh as when I started.''-- Quoted
from _New York Herald_, Aug. 30, 1910.
RELAXATION A PHYSIOLOGICAL NECESSITY
_The necessity for relaxation is adherent in the
human organism. Even those life processes
which seem to be constant in their activity require
frequent periods of complete rest_.
The heart beats regularly and at short intervals,
but after each beat its muscles come
into a state of complete relaxation and enjoy
a refreshing rest, even though it be but for
a moment. Likewise the lungs seem to be
unceasing in their activity, but a careful study
of their action discloses the fact that every
contraction is followed by a perfect relaxation,
and that the rest secured between successive
respirations is adequate for recuperations.
In all bodily processes the same alternation is
discovered. No bodily activity is at all con-
tinuous. Mental processes, too, can be continued
for but a very short time. By attempting
to eliminate these periods of rest for bodily
and mental acts, we merely exhaust without a
corresponding increase in efficiency. The laws
of nature are firm and countenance no infringement.
The periods between activity and rest,
as well as the durations of the two processes,
may be changed. Thus, up to a certain limit,
the periods devoted to activity may follow
more rapidly and endure longer. There is,
however, a danger point which may not be
passed with impunity. The danger signal
may manifest itself in several ways: The over-
trained athlete becomes ``stale''; the over-
worked brain worker becomes nervous; the
overworked laborer becomes indifferent and
generally inefficient.
In all these and in similar instances, the
amount of energy expended is out of proportion
to the results of the labor. The athletic
trainer has learned to guard against overtraining
and is severely condemned for making
such a mistake. The brain worker often
regards overwork as a commendable thing.
However, sentiment is changing. The employer
of labor is finding that rest and relaxation
are essential to the greatest efficiency.
Employees accomplish as much in a week of
six days as they do in one of seven. The reduction
in the hours of daily toil has not decreased
the total efficiency.
The periods devoted to rest are not as
profitable as they should be unless they are
actually devoted to recuperation. It may be
that some of the time supposed to be devoted
to rest should be devoted to thoughts of toil.
Again during the hours of work there should
be a freedom from jerkiness, breathlessness,
nervousness, and anxiety. It is not necessarily
true that the greatest and most constant display
of energy accompanies the greatest presence
of energy. The tugboat in the river is
constantly blowing off steam and making a
tremendous display of energy, while the ocean
liner proceeds on its way without noise and
without commotion. The still current runs
deep, and the man who is actually accomplishing
the most is frequently--perhaps always the
man who is making the least display of his
strength. He can afford to be calm and collected,
for he is equal to his task. The man
who frets and fumes, who is nervous and excited,
who is strung up to such a pitch that
energy is being dissipated in all directions--
such a man proclaims his weakness from the
housetop.
_Many business men know they are going at a
pace that kills, and at the same time they feel
that they are accomplishing too little. For such,
the pertinent question is, How may I reduce the
expenditure of energy without reducing the
efficiency of my labor_?
The ability to relax at will and to remain in
an efficient condition, but free from nervousness,
is a thing which may be acquired more
or less completely by all persons. It is accomplished
by a voluntary control of the muscles
of the arms, legs, and face, by breathing
slowly and deeply, and by placing the body in a
condition of general relaxation.
This antecedent condition of relaxation
brings all the forces of the mind and body more
completely under control and makes it possible
to marshal them more effectively. It also
gives one a feeling of control and assurance,
which minimizes the possibility of confusion
and embarrassment in the presence of an important
task. The possibility of developing
the power of relaxation by means of special
training is being taken advantage of in teaching
acts of skill, in all forms of mental
therapeutics, and in numerous other instances
where overtension hinders the acquisition or
accomplishment of a useful act. By assuming
the attitude of assurance and composure, the
actual condition is produced in a manner most
astonishing to those who have never attempted
it. No man can do his best when he is hurried
and fearful, when he is expending energy in a
manner as useless as a tug blowing off steam.
That relief is within his own power seems to
him impossible. He is not aware of his power
of will to change from his state of anxiety to
one of composure.
That the gospel of relaxation is more important
to the chief executive than to the day
laborer is quite apparent. Even in the case of
the day laborer the crack of the lash and the
curse of the driver may have been capable of
securing a display of activity among the laborers,
but such means are not comparable in
efficiency to the more modern methods. Laborers
are now given more hours of rest, are
not kept fearful and anxious, but are given
short hours of labor and long hours of rest.
They are judged by the actual results of their
labor rather than by their apparent activity.
_When accomplishing intellectual work of any
sort, it is found that worry exhausts more than
labor_.
Anxiety as to the results is detrimental to
efficiency. The intellectual worker should
periodically make it a point to sit in his chair
with the muscles of his legs relaxed, to breathe
deeply, and to assume an attitude of composure.
Such an attitude must not, of course,
detract from attention to the work at hand,
but should rather increase it. Upon leaving
his office, the brain worker should cultivate
the habit of forgetting all about his business,
except in so far as he believes that some particular
point needs special attention out of
office hours. The habit of brooding over
business is detrimental to efficiency and is
also suicidal to the individual.
It is, of course, apparent to all that relaxation
may mean permanent indifference, and
such a condition is infinitely worse than too
great a tension. An employer who is never
keyed up to his work, and an employee who
goes about his work in an indifferent manner,
are not regarded in the present discussion.
A complete relaxation of the body often
gives freedom to the intellect. The inventor
is often able, when lying in bed, to devise his
apparatus with a perfection impossible when
he attempts to study it out in the shop. The
forgotten name will not come till we cease
straining for it. Very many of the world's
famous poems have been conceived while
the poet was lying in an easy and relaxed condition.
This fact is so well recognized by some
authors that they voluntarily go to bed in the
daytime and get perfectly relaxed in order
that their minds may do the most perfect
work. Much constructive thinking is done
in the quiet of the sanctuary, when the monotony
of the liturgy or the voice of the speaker
has soothed the quiet nerves, and secured a
composed condition of mind. The preacher
would be surprised if he knew how many costumes
had been planned, how many business
ventures had been outlined, all because of the
soothing influence of his words.
_This relaxation of the body not only gives
freedom to the intellect, but it is the necessary
preliminary condition for the greatest physical
exertion and for the most perfect execution of
any series of skillful acts_.
Mr. H. L. Doherty not only held the world's
championship in tennis, but he was the despair
of his opponents, because of the apparent lack
of exertion which he put forth to meet their
volleys. So far as an observer could judge,
Mr. Doherty kept only those muscles tense
that were used in the game. The muscles
especially necessary for tennis were also, so
far as possible, kept lax except at the instant
for making the stroke. Partly because of this
relaxation, his muscles were free from exhaustion
and under such perfect control that at the
critical moment he was able to exert a strength
that was tremendous and a skill that was
amazing.
In a very striking paragraph Professor James
has shown the reason why poise and efficiency
of mind are incompatible with tenseness of
muscles:--
``By the sensations that so incessantly pour
in from the overtense excited body the overtense
and excited habit of mind is kept up; and
the sultry, threatening, exhausting, thunderous
inner atmosphere never quite clears away. If
you never give yourself up wholly to the chair
you sit in, but always keep your leg and body
muscles half contracted for a rise; if you
breathe eighteen or nineteen instead of sixteen
times a minute, and never quite breathe out at
that,--what mental mood can you be in but
one of inner panting and expectancy, and how
can the future and its worries possibly forsake
your mind? On the other hand, how can they
gain admission to your mind if your brow be
unruffled, your respiration calm and complete,
and your muscles all relaxed?''--``Talks to
Teachers,'' p. 211.
In ancient Greece, one of the chief functions
of the school was to prepare citizens to profit
by the hours of freedom from toil. Herbert
Spencer, in his great work on Education, gives
a prominent place to training for leisure hours.
Such training is attracting the attention of
the American educator to-day as never before.
A few decades ago the majority of the American
population lived on farms, spent long hours of
the day in toil, and scarcely thought of recreation.
We have now become an urban population,
the hours of labor have been greatly reduced
during the days of the week, and Sunday
is a day in which the laborer is found in
neither the factory nor the church.
The employer of laborers fears the effect of
long hours of freedom from toil. He has
prophesied that such hours would be spent
in dissipations. He feared that as a result
his laborers would enter their shops with unsteady
hands and sleepy brains. That such
results are all too often due to freedom from
toil, no one would deny. That they are not
necessary will also be admitted. One of the
problems of the American people as a whole,
and of employers of labor in particular, is to
train up the rising generations so that they
may make the best use of the increasing hours
of freedom from labor.
To this end the schools are doing much.
Settlement workers are contributing their
part. Welfare work is becoming popular in
certain places. Local clubs are being organized
to develop interest in local improvement,
literature, politics, ethics, religion, music,
athletics. These agencies are so beneficial
in results that they are being generously
encouraged by business men.
_Upon entering business every young man
should select some form of endeavor or activity
apart from business to which he shall devote a
part of his attention. This interest should be so_
_absorbing that when he is thus engaged, business
is banished from mind_.
This interest may be a home and a family;
it may be some form of athletics; it may be
club life; it may be art, literature, philanthropy,
or religion. It must be something
which appeals to the individual and is adapted
to his capabilities. Some men find it advisable
to have more than a single interest for the
hours of recreation. Some form of athletics
or of agriculture is often combined with an
interest in art, literature, religion, or other
intellectual form of recreation. Thus Gladstone
is depicted as a woodchopper and as an
author of Greek works. Carnegie is described
as an enthusiast in golf and in philanthropy.
Rockefeller is believed to be interested in golf
and philanthropy, but his philanthropy takes
the form of education through endowed schools.
Carnegie's philanthropy is in building libraries.
If the lives of the great business men
are studied it will be found that there is a
great diversity in the type of recreation chosen;
but philanthropy, religion, and athletics are
very prominent--perhaps the most popular
of the outside interests.
These interests cannot be suddenly acquired.
Many a man who has reached the years of
maturity has found to his sorrow that he is
without interests in the world except his specialty
or business. With each succeeding year
he finds new interests more difficult to acquire.
Hence young men should in their youth
choose wisely some interests to which they
may devote themselves with perfect abandon
at more or less regular intervals throughout
life.
The more noble and the more worthy the
interest, the better will be the results when
considered from any point of view. Indeed,
the interests which we call the highest are
properly so designated, because in the history
of mankind they have proved themselves to be
the most beneficial to all.
CHAPTER X
THE RATE OF IMPROVEMENT IN EFFICIENCY
NO novice develops suddenly into an
expert. Nevertheless the progress
made by beginners is often astounding.
The executive with experience is
not deceived by the showing made by new
men. He has learned to accept rapid initial
progress, but he does not assume that this
initial rate of increase will be sustained.
The rate at which skill is acquired has been
the subject of many careful studies. The results
have been charted and reduced to curves,
variously spoken of as ``efficiency curves,''
``practice curves,'' ``learning curves,'' according
to the nature of the task or test. Some of
these dealt with the routine work of office and
factory. In others typical muscular and mental
activities were observed in a simpler form
than could be found in actual practice.
Five of my advanced students joined me in
strenuous practice in adding columns of figures
for a few minutes daily for a month. Our
task was to add 765 one-place figures daily in
the shortest possible time. No emphasis was
placed on accuracy, but each one tried to make
{illust. caption = FIG. 1.}
the highest daily record for speed. The
results of our practice are graphically shown in
Curve A of Fig. 1. As shown in that curve
for the first day our average speed was only
forty-two combinations per minute, but for the
thirtieth day our average was seventy-four
combinations per minute, We did not quite
double our speed by the practice, and we made
but little improvement in accuracy. The most
rapid gain was, as anticipated, during the first
few days. We made but little progress from
the sixteenth to the twenty-third day, and
also from the twenty-fourth to the thirtieth
day.
Of the six persons practicing addition, five
of us also practiced the making of a maximum
grip with a thumb and forefinger. Just before
beginning the adding each day this maximum
grip (or pinch) was exerted once a second for
sixty seconds, first with the right hand and
then with the left. Likewise at the completion
of the addition sixty grips were taken by
the right hand and sixty by the left. The total
pressure exerted by each individual in the 240
trials (four minutes) was then recorded and
expressed in kilograms. The result of the
experiment is shown in curve B of Fig. 1.
The average total pressure for each of the
five persons was for the first day 620 kilograms;
for the twenty-fourth day 1400 kilograms.
Our increase was very rapid for the
first few days, and no general slump was encountered
till the last week of practice. In
one particular our results in the test on physical
strength were not anticipated--we did not
suppose that by practicing four minutes daily
for thirty days we could double our physical
strength in any such a series of maximum
grips with the thumb and forefinger.
It is a simple matter to measure day by day
the accomplishment of one learning to use the
typewriter. All beginners who take the work
seriously and work industriously pass through
similar stages in this learning process. Figure
2 represents the record for the first eighty-
six days of a learner who was devoting, in all,
sixty minutes daily to actual writing. The
numbers to the left of the figure in the vertical
column indicate the number of strokes (including
punctuations and shifts) made in ten
minutes. The numbers on the base line indicate
the days of practice. Thus on the ninth
day the learner wrote 700 strokes in the ten
minutes; on the fifty-fourth day 1300 strokes;
on the eighty-sixth day over 1400 strokes.
Figure 3 represents the results of a writer
of some little experience who spent one hour a
day writing a special form of copy.
In this curve it will be observed that the
{illust. caption = FIG. 2.}
increase in efficiency was very great during
the first few weeks, but that during the
succeeding weeks little improvement was
made.--BOOK, W. R, ``The Psychology of
Skill,'' p. 20.
The progress of a telegraph operator is
determined by the number of words which he
{illust. caption = FIG. 3.}
can send or receive with accuracy per minute.
In learning telegraphy, progress is rapid for a
few weeks and then follow many weeks of less
rapid improvement. Figure 4 presents the
reached a speed of sending which he would
probably never greatly excel even though
his speed was far below that attained by many
operators. The receiving rate might possibly
rise either slowly or rapidly until it equaled
or exceeded the sending rate.--BRYAN &
HARTER, ``Studies in the Physiology and Psychology
of the Telegraphic Language,'' _Psychological
Review_, Vol. IV, p. 49.
There are certain forms of learning and
practice which do not readily admit of quantitative
determinations. Nevertheless very successful
attempts have been made even in the
most difficult realms of learning. A beginner
with the Russian language spent 30 minutes
daily in industrious study and then was tested
for 15 minutes as to the number of Russian
words he could translate. Figure 5 shows
diagrammatically the results of the experiment.
Thus on the thirteenth day 22 words
were translated; on the fiftieth day 45 words.
Improvement was rather rapid until the nineteenth
day, and then followed a slump till the
forty-sixth day. Improvement was very ir-
regular.--SWIFT, E. J., ``Mind in the Making,''
p. 198.
These five figures are typical of nearly all
{illust. caption = FIG. 5.}
practice, or learning, curves. They depict the
rate at which the beginner increases his
efficiency. In every case we discover very great
fluctuations. On one day or at one moment
there is a sudden phenomenal improvement.
The next day or even the next moment the
increase may be lost and a return made to a
lower stage of efficiency.
There are certain forms of skill which cannot
be acquired rapidly in the beginning. In
such instances a period of time is necessary
in which to ``warm up'' or in which to acquire
the knack of the operation or the necessary
degree of familiarity and self-confidence before
improvement becomes possible. This is
true particularly in the ``breaking in'' of new
operators on large machines like steam hammers,
cranes, and the like, where the mass and
power of the machine awes the new man, even
though he has had experience with smaller
units of some kind. It applies also to new
inspectors of mechanical parts and completed
products in factories--especially where the
factor of judgment enters into the operation.
Such instances are exceptions, however, and
differ from those cited only in having a period of
slow advance preliminary to the rapid progress.
Apparently, improvement should be continuous
until the learner has entered into the
class of experts or has reached his possible
maximum. As a matter of fact the curve
which expresses his advance towards efficiency
never rises steadily from a low degree to a high
one. Periods of improvement are universally
followed by stages of stagnation or retrogression.
These periods of little or no improvement
following periods of rapid improvement
are called ``plateaus'' and are found in the experience
of all who are acquiring skill in any
line.
These plateaus are not all due to the same
cause.
They differ somewhat with individuals and
even more with the nature of the task in which
skill is being acquired. With all, however, the
following four factors are the most important
influence:--
1. _The enthusiasm dependent upon novelty
becomes exhausted_.
2. _All easy improvements have been made_.
3. _A period of ``incubation'' is needed in_
_which the new habits under formation may
have time to develop_.
4. _Voluntary attention cannot be sustained
for a long period of time_.
These four factors are not only the causes
of the first plateau, but, as soon as any
particular plateau is overcome and advance
again begun, they are likely to arrest the advance
and to cause another period of recession
or of no advance. These four factors
are therefore most significant to every man
who is trying to increase his own efficiency or
promote the progress of others.
_When the interest in work is dependent on
novelty, the plateau comes early in the development,
and further progress is possible only by the
injection of new motives to action_.
Many young persons begin things with enthusiasm,
but drop them when the novelty has
worn off. They develop no stable interests
and in all their tasks are superficial. They
often have great potential ability, but lack
training in habits of industry and of continued
application. They change positions
often, acquire much diversified experience,
and frequently, in a new position, give promise
of developing unusual skill or ability. This
is due to the fact that during the first weeks or
months of their new employment the novelty
of the work stimulates them to activity, and the
methods or habits learned in other trades are
available for application to the new tasks.
When the novelty wears off, however, they
become wearied and cast about for a fresh and
therefore more alluring field. Such nomads
prove unprofitable employees even when they
are the means of introducing new methods or
short cuts into a business. They strike a
plateau and lose interest and initiative just
at the point where more industrious and less
superficial men would begin to be of the
greatest value.
Plateaus are not confined to clerks and other
subordinates. Executives frequently ``go
stale'' on their jobs and lose their accustomed
energy and initiative. Sometimes they are
able to diagnose their own condition and
provide the corrective stimulus. Again the
man higher up, if he has the wisdom and
discernment which some gain from experience,
observes the situation and prescribes
for his troubled lieutenant. In the majority
of cases, however, the occupant of a
plateau, if he continues thereon for any
length of time, either resigns despondent or
is dismissed.
Such a case, coming under my notice recently,
illustrates the man-losses suffered by
organizations whose heads do not realize that
salaries alone will not buy efficiency.
A young advertising man had almost grown
up with his house, coming to it when not yet
twenty in a minor position in the sales department.
Enthusiastic about his possibilities,
with the friendship and coperation of
his immediate superior, he carried out well the
successive duties put to him. Promotion was
rapid. No position was retained more than
six months. In five years he had occupied
nearly every subordinate position in the sales
department, and was promoted to the head of
the mail-order section.
His fertility in originating plans, his schemes,
his booklets, and advertising copy brought
results with regularity. He became known as
a man who could ``put the thing over'' in a
pinch, with a vigor and enthusiasm that
seemed irresistible. He fairly earned his
standing as the live wire among executives
of the second rank.
So, when the general sales manager resigned,
there was no question but that this young man
should succeed him. He had been a personal
friend of his predecessor, had coperated with
him in many phases of his work, and knew his
new duties well; in fact, he took them up with
little necessity for ``breaking in.''
This apparently favorable condition was the
very reason for his lack of success in the new
work. There was not the novelty in this position
that there had been in his former successive
positions. In such an executive position,
it was not a question of taking care of an emergency
demand, but of organization, of establishing
routine, of organizing bigger campaigns.
Before the end of the first season it became evi-
dent that the new sales manager was not making
good. Everything--organization, discipline,
routine system, ginger--had deserted
him. Neither he himself nor his employers,
however, found the real cause. ``I have lost
my grip,'' he told the general manager. ``I
am worn out and of no further use to this
business.''
Furthermore he thought he was of no use
to any business. But he made a connection
with a big house which had a large advertising
campaign on its hands. He threw himself
into the task of recasting the firm's selling
literature, the planning of new campaigns,
and the reorganization of the correspondence
department. Within the year, he had duplicated
on a magnified scale his early triumphs
with his first employers. Moreover, he continued
this record of efficiency the second year,
thus entirely refuting the fear of himself
and his friends that he would ``last less
than a year'' and that he lacked staying
power.
His first employer described the case for me
the other day, requesting that I discover the
reason for the young man's initial failure among
friends and his subsequent triumph in a new
environment. He had kept in close touch with
the other's progress and supplied a hundred
details which helped to make the situation
clear. Finally, after consideration, he agreed
with my diagnosis that his young friend's
falling off in efficiency--his plateau--had
been due to the exhaustion of novelty interest
in his work.
His first success was built on a long series
of separate plans or ``stunts,'' each of which
was begun and executed in a burst of creative
enthusiasm. His first few months' achievement
as sales manager was due to the same
stimulus, but as the months went by the spur
of novelty became dulled. Lacking the discipline
which would have enabled him to
force voluntary attention and the resulting
interest in his tasks, he failed also to trace the
cause of his flagging invention and energy and
assumed that this was due to exhaustion of his
resources.
This is further borne out by his experience
in his present position. Addressing a succession
of new tasks, the interest of novelty has
stimulated him to an uncommon degree and
produced an unbroken record of high efficiency.
That this has continued over a considerable
period is partly due, beyond doubt, to the
sustained interest in his work excited by the
broadness of the field before him, the bigness
of the company, the size of the appropriation
at his disposal, the unusual experience of scoring
hit after hit by comparison with the
house's low standards, the frank and prompt
appreciation of his superiors, and substantial
advances in salary.
It is only human to be more or less dependent
upon novelty. If I am to stir myself to continuous
and effective exertion, I must frequently
stimulate my interest by proposing new
problems and new aspects of my work. If
I am to help others to increase their efficiency,
I must devise new appeals to their interest and
new stimulations to action. If I have been
dependent upon competition as a stimulus
I must change the form of the contest--a
fact which receives daily recognition and
application by the most efficient sales organization
in the country. If I have been depending
upon the stimulating effect of wages,
there is profit occasionally in varying the
method of payment or in furnishing some new
concrete measure of the value of the wage. To
the average worker, for example, a check means
much less than the same amount in gold. In
deference to this common appreciation of
``cold cash,'' various firms have lately abandoned
checks and pay in gold and banknotes,
even though this change means many hours
of extra work for the cashier.
_At every stage of our learning, progress is aided
by the utilization of old habits and old fragments
of knowledge_.
In learning to add, the schoolboy employs
his previous knowledge of numbers. In learning
to multiply he builds upon his acquaintance
with addition and subtraction. In solving
problems in percentage his success is
measured by the freedom with which he can
use the four fundamental processes of addition,
subtraction, Multiplication, and division. In
computing bank discount, his skill is based on
ability to employ his previous experience with
percentage and the fundamental processes of
arithmetic.
The advance here is typical of all learning
processes. In mastering the typewriter no
absolutely new movement is required. The
old familiar movements of arm and hand are
united in new combinations. The student has
previously learned the letters found in the copy
and can identify them upon the keys of the
typewriter. Scrutiny enables him to find any
particular key, and in the course of a few hours
be develops a certain awkward familiarity with
the keyboard and acquires some speed by
utilizing these familiar muscular movements
and available bits of knowledge. All these
prelearned movements and associations are
brought into service in the early stages of
improvement, and a degree of proficiency is
quickly attained which cannot be exceeded
so long as these prelearned habits and asso-
ciations alone are employed. Further advance
in speed and accuracy is dependent
upon combinations more difficult to make
because they involve organization of the old
and acquisition of new methods of thought or
movement. When such a difficulty is faced, a
plateau in the learning curve is almost inevitable.
The young man who enters upon the work
of a salesman can make immediate use of a
multitude of previous habits and previously
acquired bits of knowledge. He performs by
habit all the ordinary movements of the body;
by habit he speaks, reads, and writes. During
his previous experience he has acquired some
skill in judging people, in addressing them, and
in influencing them. His general information
and his practice in debate and conversation--
however crude--enable him to analyze his
selling proposition and unite these selling
points into an argument. He learns, too, to
avoid certain errors and to make use of certain
factors of his previous experience. Thus
his progress is rapid for a short time but soon
the stage is reached where his previous experience
offers no more factors which can be easily
brought to his service. In such an emergency
the novice may cease to advance--if indeed
there is not a positive retrogression.
Nor is this tendency to strike a plateau
confined to clerks in the office and to semi-
skilled men in the factory. Often the limitations
of a new executive are brought out
sharply by his failure to handle a situation
much less difficult than scores which he has
already mastered and thereby built up a reputation
for unusual efficiency. His collapse,
when analyzed, can usually be traced to the
fact that his previous experience contained
nothing on which he could directly base a
decision. His prior efficiency was based on
empirical knowledge rather than on judgment
or ability to analyze problems.
The office manager of an important mercantile
house is a case in point. Though
young, he had served several companies in
the same capacity, making a distinct advance
at each change. He was a trained accountant,
a clever employment man, and a successful
handler of men and women. His association
with the various organizations from which he
had graduated gave him an unusual fund of
practical knowledge and tried-out methods to
draw upon.
His first six months were starred with brilliant
detail reorganizations. The shipping
department, first; the correspondence division
next; the accounting department third, and he
literally swept through the office like the
proverbial new broom, caught up all the loose
ends, and established a routine like clockwork.
So successful was his work that the directors
hastened to add supervision of sales and collections.
Forthwith the new manager struck his
plateau. His previous experience offered little
he could readily use in shaping a sales policy
or laying out a collection program. He
plunged into the details of both, effected some
important minor economies, but failed altogether
--as subsequent events showed--to
grasp the constructive needs and opportunities
of management. He puzzled and irritated his
district managers by overemphasizing details
when they wanted decisions or policies or
help in handling sales emergencies. In the
same way, he neglected collections,--chiefly
because he could not distinguish between
detail and questions of policy,--but escaped
blame for more than six months because the
season was conceded to be a poor one.
Not till he resigned and the general manager
investigated the sales and collection departments
did the real cause of the failure become
evident. Important and numerous as had
been the economics instituted, they all fell
under the head of the ``easy improvements ''
based on previous experience and observation.
When problems outside this experience presented
themselves, the manager encountered
his plateau.
In the acquisition of skill, days of progress
are followed by stationary periods. ``Time
must be taken out'' to allow the formation of a
habit or the organization of this new knowledge
or skill.
All trees and plants have periods of growth
followed by periods of little or no growth. In
May and June the leaves and branches shoot
forth very rapidly, but the new growth is
pulpy and tender. During succeeding days
or months, these tender shots are filled in and
developed. In learning and in habit formation
a similar sequence is lived through. We
have days of swift advancement followed by
days in which the new stage or method of
thinking and acting takes time to become
organized and solidified. The nervous system
has to adjust itself to the new demands, and
such adjusting requires time.
Although periods of incubation are essential
for every specific habit, practically every act
of skill is dependent upon a number of simpler
habits. At any one time progress may be made
in utilizing some of these habits, even though
others could not be advantageously hastened.
Thus the period of incubation should not
necessarily cause any profound slump in the
advance. Almost invariably, however, it produces
a plateau which persists until the worker
has mastered the expert way. The golf
player, for example, usually finds he is able
to drive longer and straighter balls at the beginning
of the season than a little later. The
reason is that in golf the perfect stroke is the
product of almost automatic muscular action.
In the first round the swing of the driver or
iron is not consciously governed, and the muscular
habit of the previous year controls.
Later, as the player concentrates on his task
of correcting little faults or learning more
effective methods, his stroke loses its automatic
quality, his game falls off, and it is not
until he masters his new form that he attains
high efficiency.
The same cycle is repeated in office and factory
operations, where efficiency is possible
only when the hands carry out automatically
the desired action. In typewriting and telegraphy,
in the handling of adding machines,
in the feeding of drill presses, punch presses,
and hundreds of special machines, the learner
passes through three distinct phases: first,
swift improvement in which prelearned move-
ments and skill are brought to bear on the task
under the stimulus of both novelty interest and
voluntary interest; second, arrested progress--
the period of incubation or habit formation; and
the final stage of automatic skill and efficiency.
_Since increase of efficiency is dependent upon
continued efforts of will, slumps are inevitable.
Voluntary attention cannot be sustained for a
long period_.
Work requiring effort is always subject
to fluctuations. The man with a strong will
may make the lapses in attention relatively
short. He may be on his guard and ``try to
try'' most faithfully, but no exertion of the will
can keep up a steady expenditure of effort in
any single activity. All significant _*increases_
in efficiency, however, are dependent upon
voluntary attention--upon extreme exertions
of the will.
No man can develop into an expert without
great exertion of the will. Such exertions of
the will are recognized by authorities as being
very exhaustive and unstable. One of the
greatest of the authorities and one who in
particular has emphasized the necessity of
a ``do-or-die'' attitude of work concludes his
discussion with the following significant admission:
``All this suggests that if one wants
to improve at the most rapid rate, he must
work when he can feel good and succeed, then
lounge and wait until it is again profitable to
work. It is when all the conditions are favorable
that the forward steps or new adaptations
are made.''
Voluntary attention must be employed in
making the advance step, in improving our
method of work, and in making any sort of
helpful changes. But voluntary attention
must not be depended upon to secure steady
and continuous utilization of the improved
method or rate of work. To secure this end,
an attempt should be made to reduce the
work to habit so far as possible and also to secure
spontaneous interest either from interest
and pleasure in the work itself or because of
the reward to be received.
The case of the young sales manager, described
in the first part of this article, suggests
some of the methods by which this interest
can be secured. The chief factor in his progress
was the interest in the work itself due to
the novelty of his successive tasks--an element
impossible to introduce into the average
man's job. Yet there were other and powerful
motives stimulating his interest: the responsibility
of organizing a big department and of
directing the expenditure of large sums of
money; the prompt credit given him and the
growing confidence extended to him; and the
expression of their appreciation in the concrete
shape of salary increases.
It is quite true that these various stimulating
factors cannot be produced indefinitely;
tasks must ``stale,'' praise grow monotonous,
salaries touch their top level. But ``making
good'' and finding interests in work crystallize
into habits which endure as long as conditions
remain fair. The rise of the efficiency curve
thus depends upon recurrent periods of successful
struggle followed by periods of habit
formation and by the development of powerful
spontaneous interests.
Voluntary interest is a valuable thing to
possess, but a difficult thing to secure either
within ourselves or in those under our charge.
In its psychological aspect, scientific
management enters here. By working out and
establishing a standard method and standard
time for various ``repeat'' operations a workman
is engaged in, it encourages--and even
enforces--the formation of new efficiency
habits. The bonus paid for the accomplishment
of the task in the specified time supplies
an immediate and powerful motive to the effort
necessary to master the ``right way'' of doing
things.
In the main, employees do their best to acquire
efficiency; but their humanness must
not be forgotten, and the burden of increasing
efficiency must be carried largely by the executive.
His part it is to supply interest, if
the nature of the work forbids the finding of
it there, he must introduce it from outside
either by competition, by emphasizing the
connection between the task and the reward,
as in piecework, or by provision of a bonus
for the achievement of a certain standard of
efficiency.
He must eliminate the factors in environment
or organization which distract employees
and make voluntary interest more difficult.
He must provide the means of training and
must understand the possibilities and the
limitations of training. If a man ``slumps''
in efficiency, he must look for the cause and
make sure this is not beyond the man's control
before he punishes him. In a word, he must
allow for periods of incubation or unconscious
organization before expecting maximum results
from a new employee or an old man assigned
to a new job.
_The man who by persistent effort has developed
himself into an expert has greatly enhanced
his value to society. The boss who demands expert
service from untrained men is either a tyrant
or a fool. But the executive who develops novices
into experts and the company which transforms
mere ``handy men'' into mechanics are public
benefactors because of the service rendered to the
country and their men_.
CHAPTER XI
PRACTICE PLUS THEORY
THE demand for trained and experienced
men is never supplied. Most business
and industrial organizations find their
growth impeded by the dearth of such men.
To employ men trained by competitors
or by inferior organizations is expensive and
unsatisfactory. A man trained till he has
become valuable to his ``parent'' organization
is not likely to be equally valuable to other
organizations that might employ him at a
later time. In general, the most valuable
men in any organization are the men who
have grown up in it.
The man who is ``a rolling stone'' secures,
in a way, more experience than the man who is
developed within a single organization, but his
wider experience does not of necessity make
him a more valuable man. It is not mere
experience that educates, develops, and equips
men, but experience of particular sorts, and
acquired under very well defined conditions.
``Scientific management'' has taken seriously
the problem of providing and utilizing
the most valuable experiences. But the viewpoint
of the leaders in this modern movement
is that of the employer seeking the most valuable
experiences for those employees whose
work is mainly mechanical, _e.g_. machine
tenders, stenographers, etc. Scientific management
has conclusively demonstrated the
fact that it is poor economy to depend upon
haphazard experiences for the development
of those employees whose excellence depends
upon the speed and accuracy of their occupation
habits. It has thus done great service
in demonstrating the kind of experience most
valuable in developing men for positions of
routine work. But it has done little for men
whose welfare depends upon judgment--in
making new adjustments and in solving the
new problems continually arising in all positions
of responsibility. It has left for others
to consider the experiences most profitable
for developing executives.
_The most valuable experience in acquiring
an act of skill is frequent repetition in performing
the act_.
The value of the experience continues till
by frequent repetition the act has become so
mechanical that it is performed without attention.
Further experience has little or no
value.
On the other hand it is true that every
worthy calling demands forms of activity which
could not and should not be mechanized.
There are emergencies in every form of occupation
that call for new adjustments. The
ability to make such new adjustments depends
upon richness of experience and width
of view as well as upon skill in performing
the old processes.
The difference between a machine and a
man is that the man is capable of adjusting
himself to the changed situation, while a
machine cannot do so. The machine may work
more accurately and more rapidly than the man
in routine work, but it is capable of nothing
but routine work. There is a need for much
experience to make the man approximate the
skill and accuracy obtained by a machine.
But there is also need of experience to develop
the man in that particular in which he surpasses
a machine, _i.e_. in a broad experience
that enables him to form judgments and hence
to make a multitude of different adjustments
when a need for a change occurs.
A machine is constructed to perform a
particular kind of routine work in a stereotyped
way, but so soon as there is discovered a
better way of performing this work the machine
is thrown to the scrap heap because it
cannot be adjusted to new requirements.
_Experience which renders human activity
machine-like is a form of experience that increases
the probability that the possessor will be
discarded and his work accomplished by the
introduction of some new tool or some new
method of work_.
Experience therefore which merely increases
the skill of action without increasing the width
of horizon is necessary, but it is inadequate.
In addition to skill in routine work the man
should secure the broader experience that will
enable him to adjust himself to changed conditions
in his occupation and that will develop
the judgment necessary to enable him to
adjust his vocation to new demands. Every
form of occupation has many possibilities, a
few of which are from time to time discovered
to be significant. Advance in any sphere of
work depends upon the discovery of these
possibilities which the untrained eye of
inexperience does not detect. Although a broad
experience may enable the man to grasp the
possibilities of his occupation, it fails to secure
skill in the particulars that have already been
found to be important. While a broad experience
leaves a man incapable of present
competition, the narrow experience jeopardizes
his future.
The most valuable experience is therefore
one that equips the man to compete with the
skillful in the present and to comprehend his
task so that he may from time to time adjust
it to new relationships. It emphasizes the
formation of necessary habits, but does not
neglect the development of the judgment.
Such an experience is both intensive and
extensive; informal and formal; mechanical
and theoretical; practical and scientific. Such
experience alone meets the demands of the
increasing complexity of industrial and commercial
life.
HOW MAY THE MOST VALUABLE EXPERIENCE
BE SECURED AND UTILIZED
_I. Haphazard Experience_
But little attention is given to providing
those experiences that most adequately prepare
one for commercial and industrial life.
The boy who is to become a skilled workman
is compelled to ``pick up'' his experience as
best he can. The same is true of the boy who
aspires to a position as salesman, banker, or
manufacturer. Every employer seeks only
experienced men, and but few places are available
where such experience can be economically
and honorably secured.
The youth without experience, desiring to
become a skilled machinist, may secure some
experience with machinery in a second-rate
factory during the rush season. Because of
his incapacity, he is laid off as soon as the rush
is over. Thereupon he applies as an experienced
machinist in a better shop. If he is
lucky, he may secure a position. If the supervision
is inadequate, or the demand for labor
unusual, he may retain his position for several
hours, or days, or even weeks. After years
of such distressing experiences, the youth succeeds
in ``stealing his trade.'' In the meantime
he has been an economic loss to his many
employers, and his experience may have depraved
his character.
The condition found in the industrial world
is no worse than that in the commercial world.
The selling force is recuperated by green hands.
In most selling organizations no instruction is
given and no experience provided except what
is picked up haphazard behind the counter or
on the road. Most new men fail, are dismissed,
employed by another firm and dis-
missed again, etc. We have here nothing but
a struggle for existence and the survival of the
fittest in a crude and destructive form.
The burnt child avoids the fire, and his
experience is most effective. However, the
wise parent arranges conditions so that the
burn shall not be too serious. The machinist
who ``steals'' his trade profits greatly by his
mistakes, and the new salesman never forgets
some of his most flagrant errors. Such experiences
are practical, lasting, effective, but
uneconomical. But such experiences are of
necessity unsystematic and inadequate to
modern industrial and commercial demands.
_II. Apprenticeship Experience_
The waste in the Haphazard method of
securing experience in the industrial world
has long been apparent and has led to attempts
to provide systems of apprenticeships which
would enable the youth to secure educative
experiences with a minimum of cost to himself
and his employer.
In theory the youth who becomes an ap-
prentice is bound or indentured to serve his
master for a period of years. During that
time the master agrees to see to it that the
apprentice practices and becomes proficient in
performing all the processes of the trade.
The employer (master) is rewarded in that
he secures the continuous service of the boy
for the period of years upon the payment of
little or no wages. Furthermore the apprentice
when developed into a journeyman is
likely to become a valuable employee. The
apprentice is rewarded for his years of service
by the practical experience which he has been
permitted to secure in actual work with all the
various processes involved in the trade.
Although the apprenticeship system has
many excellent points, it has been found
inadequate to meet the needs of modern commercial
and industrial institutions. At least
in its primitive form it is decadent in every
industry which has been modernized. All
forms of commerce and industry have become
so complicated and each part demands such
perfection of skill that an apprentice can
scarcely secure sufficient experience in even
the essentials of the trade to render him expert
in these various processes. In short, the
traditional apprenticeship system is unable to
give either the general comprehension of the
industry or the skill in the specialized processes.
_III. Theoretical-practical Experience_
In contrast with the two methods discussed
above (Haphazard Experience and
Apprenticeship Experience) schools must be
considered as a method of providing experiences
preparatory to industrial life. The first
two methods secure skill, but the schools secure
learning. The first two might be said to
educate the hands and the latter the head.
The comparative advantages of these contrasted
systems is the theme of unceasing
debate. The man skilled in one thing can at
least do that one thing well. The man who is
learned but not skilled in any activity of his
chosen occupation is unable to compete with
the boys who at the expense of schooling,
``went to work'' in that particular occupation.
An advanced general school education has
very distinct advantages. But skill in reading
Latin does not greatly increase one's ability
to read instruments of precision. Skill in
applying mathematical formul will not greatly
assist in estimating the value of merchandise.
A knowledge of general psychology will not
insure ability in selecting employees. Even
great proficiency in discoursing upon ethical
theories does not protect one from the temptation
to be dishonest in business.
Skill in one thing does not insure skill in
other and even in similar things. Learning
in one field is not incompatible with gross
ignorance in other and related fields. We
have discovered that skill and learning are
largely specialized, and accordingly we see the
necessity of acquiring skill and learning in the
particular fields in which the skill and learning
are desired. To meet these demands
various modifications in our schools have been
made. To meet the needs of training for the
industries we have the manual training schools,
industrial schools, trade schools, continuation
schools, correspondence schools, night schools,
technological schools, etc. To provide the
appropriate experiences for commercial life
we have commercial schools, business colleges,
store schools, schools of commerce, etc.
These schools have rendered invaluable
service and are rapidly increasing in number,
yet they do not provide either the skill or the
learning which should be possessed by the
employee.
_IV. Practical-theoretical Experience_
The weakness of the Haphazard and Apprenticeship
methods of securing experience
is twofold: (1) They cease too early. So soon
as the man really enters into his occupation his
education ceases. (2) They are too narrow,
they fail to provide experiences that give proper
perspective; they do not give adequate
theoretical comprehension of the work being
accomplished from day to day; they do not
develop the judgment.
The weakness with the Theoretical-practical
method of providing experience resembles
the weakness of the Haphazard and the Apprenticeship
methods in that it ceases too
early. It ceases _*before_ the individual begins
his life work. It may have the special weakness
of not being closely organized with the
vocation for which it is assumed to be a preparation,
hence of being impracticable.
The Practical-theoretical form of providing
experience is based on two assumptions: The
first assumption is that the practical and the
theoretical should be equally emphasized;
that they should be closely organized; and
that the theory should be deduced from the
practice. The second assumption is that the
educative processes should continue so long
as the man is engaged in his occupation.
A concrete illustration will make clear the
difference between the four different methods of
acquiring experience as given above.
During the present summer vacation I have
been spending a few weeks in a boarding house.
Some previous boarder had bequeathed to the
house an intricate Chinese block puzzle.
During this summer one lad in the house spent
eight hours in solving the puzzle. He worked
by the Haphazard method, trying blindly, till
he just happened to get it right. The next
attempt did not take so long, but it was many
days before he could solve the problem rapidly.
As soon as the lad had learned to solve the
puzzle, my son watched him solve it many
times, and kept trying to do it as he saw it
done. My son learned to solve the puzzle in
perhaps two hours by thus watching another
and then trying it himself. He was employing
the Apprenticeship method, and his education
was accomplished in one fourth the time required
by the Haphazard method.
In the boarding house was an expert mechanical
engineer. He took up the task of
solving the problem and was most scientific
in his procedure. He figured out the principles
that he thought might be involved,
tried them, and immediately abandoned methods
that proved unsuccessful. He was able
to solve the puzzle in a half hour. Later trials
were all successful and rapid. He knew just
how he had solved the puzzle, and therefore
did not have to experiment or take chances on
later trials. This engineer employed the
Theoretical-practical method of learning.
The engineer volunteered to instruct me in
the problem. I took up the blocks and began
trying to unite them. As one difficulty after
another arose, I was given instruction in the
principle for overcoming it. No principle
was presented to me till I had faced a situation
demanding that particular principle. The
practice and the theory went together, and so
far as the instruction was concerned the practice
preceded the theory step by step. I was
therefore employing the Practical-theoretical
method. As a result I was enabled to solve
the problem in fifteen minutes. Furthermore
I knew just how I had done it and could do it
again and could apply the same principles
to other puzzles.
A comparison of these results is most instructive.
The lad who went at it blindly by
the Haphazard method required eight hours
and even then did not analyze out the principles
that would help him solve later prob-
lems. My son, who employed the Apprenticeship
method, accomplished his task in two
hours but discovered no principles. His work
was blindly mechanical. The engineer worked
according to the Theoretical-practical method,
completed his task in thirty minutes, and understood
perfectly what he had done. By employing
the Practical-theoretical method I was
enabled to accomplish the task in fifteen
minutes and to understand also how it was
done.
Whether I have in mind my own development
or that of my employees, if I am seeking
to utilize the Practical-theoretical method of
capitalizing experience, I am confronted with
two problems: (1) How shall I secure or
provide the requisite practical experiences?
(2) How shall I secure or provide the appropriate
theoretical interpretation of such experiences?
During recent years in the educational,
industrial, and commercial world serious attempts
have been made to answer these two
questions, and the results are most significant.
The College of Engineering of the University
of Cincinnati believes that it has solved
the problem for certain fields of activity by
``coperative courses.'' In these courses the
students spend one week in some manufacturing
plant and the next week in the college.
This weekly alternation of practical and theoretical
is kept up for six years. The number
of students in the college and the number of
workers in the manufacturing plant is kept
constant by dividing each group of students
into two sections which alternate with each
other, so that when one section is at the college
the other is at the shop. The college teaches
the principles that are necessary for understanding
and solving the problems arising
from week to week in the shop. As the Dean
of the college expresses it, ``It aims to teach
the theory underlying the work, to teach the
intent of the work, to give such cultural subjects
as will tend to make him a more intelligent
civic unit.'' It is thought that such
coperative courses could be arranged by
schools of different ranks of advancement and
that the students could spend their alternate
weeks in almost any class of industrial or commercial
institution of importance.
One of the most conspicuous attempts to
provide Practical-theoretical experiences of an
educative sort is that of the General Electric
Company of West Lynn, Massachusetts. This
institution has provided a corps of instructors
and rooms devoted exclusively to instruction
within the plant itself. The theoretical instruction
is assumed to be perfectly cordinated
with the practical. In fact the young
apprentice spends much of his time almost
daily in constructing commercial articles and
under the same conditions that will confront
him in later years. His theoretical instruction
is thus planned to help him to accomplish
his practical task more quickly, perfectly, and
with more perfect understanding. The training
is so broad that the graduate is prepared to
become an industrial foreman in any mechanical
establishment.
The John Wanamaker Commercial Institute
of Philadelphia is a school conducted
within the store and for the benefit of the
employees of the store. In this school theoretical
instruction is given that is designed to
give the principles underlying commercial
life. The results are said to be most gratifying
both to the employer and the employees.
The Practical-theoretical form of education
is not limited to the apprentice or to the new
employee but is equally valuable to the expert,
the oldest employees, and the employer.
This fact is taken advantage of most wisely
by the National Cash Register Company.
This company provides instruction suited to
the needs of all its salesmen, whether they are
new and inexperienced or whether they are the
oldest, most efficient salesmen. By means of
letters, books, demonstrations, and conventions
the salesmen are constantly provided with
educative experiences and are kept from the
narrowness and lack of progress so characteristic
of men in the commercial life after they
have become thoroughly established and relatively
efficient in their work.
In keeping with this modern tendency to
supplement practical experience with theoretical
interpretation, we find a very pronounced
increase in the utilization of all agencies that
interpret and enrich the daily toil. Men who
are fully employed (_e.g_. journeymen and salesmen)
have realized the necessity of some form
of theoretical instruction to enable them to
profit by their daily practical experience.
This fact is almost pathetically demonstrated
by the multitudes who are seeking for such
instruction through correspondence and evening
schools. Every progressive engineer,
teacher, physician, and lawyer keeps abreast
of the best thought of the day by means of
frequent conventions, conferences, books, and
periodicals. The experience secured from such
agencies is essential to progress; only by such
agencies can he learn the latest and most perfect
interpretation of the experience of his
professional life. Likewise the non-professional
man engaged in commerce or industry
finds the modern world to be so complex that
mere practical experience is no longer adequate
to enable him to meet the demands made
upon him. The theoretical training of his
youth (even though it include the college and
the technical school) is totally inadequate to
interpret for him the new relationships which
arise from day to day. He needs a theory
that grows out of his practical experience and
that enables him to understand and to improve
upon his practical work. The most common
means for providing him with such experience
he finds in his conventions and informal conferences
with his peers and in his trade
journals and technical books.
There is no warfare between theory and
practice. The most valuable experience demands
both, and the methods of procuring
the most valuable experience in business and
industry demand that the theory should supplement
the practice and not precede it.
The environment most conducive to securing
and utilizing the most valuable experience is
in the work-a-day world. But this is the very
environment in which men become engulfed
in the practical and neglect the theoretical.
To the extent to which men thus neglect the
theoretical do they lower themselves and class
themselves with mere machines, and so hasten
the day when they shall be discarded. Whether
we be apprentices or experts, employees or
employers, we are all in a similar condition.
In every case advance is dependent upon
the proper utilization of practical and theoretical
experiences--upon the practical experience
which is adequately interpreted.
CHAPTER XII
MAKING EXPERIENCE AN ASSET: JUDGMENT
FORMATION
WHY is it that of two men who are
working at the same desk or bench
the one acquires valuable experience
rapidly and the other slowly?
Why is it that of two houses each employing
a thousand men the one sees its employees
securing experiences that enhance their earning
capacity rapidly, but the other house is
compelled periodically to secure new blood by
importing men from rival firms?
Modern psychology teaches that experience
is not merely the best teacher but the only
possible teacher. All that any instructor can
do is to select and to provide the conditions
necessary for appropriate experiences and to
stimulate the learner to make the most of
them. The ignorant is changed into the learned
by means of the utilization of profitable
experiences. By the same method the novice is
changed into the expert; the amateur into the
professional; the inefficient into the efficient;
and the errand boy into the manager.
One of the most important questions any
man can ask is this: What experience am I
actually getting from day to day and what experience
might my situation offer?
One of the most important questions the
employer of men can ask is this: How much
more efficient will my men be to-morrow because
of the experience of to-day? How
might their experience be changed or utilized
so that their efficiency might be increased
more rapidly?
In planning to secure permanent increase in
efficiency, whether for one's self or for one's
employees, we simplify our problem by considering
it under the two following subdivisions:--
What Experiences are Most Valuable?
How may these Most Valuable Experiences
be Secured and Utilized?
Preparatory to the answering of these two
questions it will simplify matters to consider
the general conditions which affect the value
of experience.
GENERAL CONDITIONS GIVING VALUE TO
EXPERIENCE
1. Health and Vigor.
The mind and body are so intimately connected
that the value of an experience is seriously
affected by depletion or exhaustion of
the body. The experiences acquired when one
is fresh and vigorous are remembered; those
acquired when one is tired are forgotten. Most
college students find that lessons gotten in the
morning are better remembered and are more
readily applied than those learned after a day
of exhaustive work. We get most out of those
experiences secured when we are feeling the
most vigorous, whether the vigor be dependent
upon age, rest, or general health.
2. Experience is valuable proportionately as
we apply ourselves to the task on hand. By
intensity of application we not only accomplish
more, but each unit of work contributes more
to our development. Under the stress of voluntary
and spontaneous attention, under the
stimulus of personal efficiency-ideals, and under
such social demands as competition and imitation
we develop new methods of thought and
action which are thereupon adopted as the
methods for future action.
3. The value of an experience depends upon
what has been called the ``personal attitude''
sustained during the experience. Three forms
of ``personal attitudes'' have been distinguished
and are designated as follows:--
(_a_) The submissive or suggestible attitude.
(_b_) The self-attentive attitude.
(_c_) The objective or the problem attitude.
(_a_) One is likely to be thrown into the submissive
attitude when a new situation arises
(a business problem), if one knows that he is
in the presence of others who could solve the
problem with relative ease or accuracy. In
such a situation the individual is hampered
in his thinking by the presence of those who
are more expert than he. His thinking is
therefore futile for the present difficulty and is
devoid of educative value.
(_b_) The self-attentive attitude is similar
to the submissive attitude, but is not to be
confused with it. If when confronted with a
difficult problem my attack upon it is weakened
by the expectation of assistance from others, I
am in a submissive attitude. If, however, my
attack is weakened by my realization that I
am on trial,--that what I do with the problem
will be observed by others,--then I become
self-conscious and am thrown into the self-
attentive attitude. If I am conscious that I
am being watched, it is quite difficult for me to
hit a golf ball, to add a column of figures, or
to deliver a lecture on psychology. So long
as I am self-attentive my efficiency is reduced;
I hit on no improved methods of thought or
action, and my experience therefore has no
permanent value.
(_c_) So soon as I can forget others and myself
and can take the objective, or the problem
attitude, the chances of efficient action are
greatly increased. I find it relatively easy
to assume this attitude when I feel that I
stand on my own responsibility; that the
problem cannot possibly be referred to any
higher authority, but that the solution depends
upon me alone. My chances of solving the
problem would be much reduced, if it were proposed
to me at a time when I felt domineered
by a superior, or when I felt that he knew much
more about it and could settle it much more
easily and surely than I. If the problem demanded
previous experience and the possession
of knowledge which I did not possess, it would
be likely to make me self-conscious and hence
incapable of utilizing even the experience and
the knowledge that I do possess. Past success,
the possession of wide experience, and
technical instruction keep me from assuming
the self-attentive attitude and enable me to
take the problem or objective attitude. This
is the only attitude consistent with improved
form of thought or action, and hence is the
attitude essential for valuable experience.
4. That experience is the most valuable that
is acquired in dealing with conditions similar
to those in connection with which improvement
is sought. Experience in wood-chopping makes
one a better chopper but does not necessarily
increase his skill in sawing wood. Experience
in bookkeeping increases one's ability in
that particular, but does not appreciably increase
his ability to handle men. Speed and
accuracy of judgment secured in inspecting one
sort of goods cannot be depended upon, if a
different sort of goods is to be inspected.
The experience secured in responding to one
situation will be valuable in responding to a
similar situation because of the three following
facts:--
(_a_) Two similar conditions may secure identical
factors in our activity. Thus school life
and the executive's work secure such identical
activities as are involved in reading, in writing,
or in arithmetic, and so forth, whether accomplished
in the schoolroom or the office.
(_b_) The method developed in one experience
may be applied equally well to another activity.
In connection with a course in college, a
student may acquire a scientific method of
procedure. At a later time he may (or he may
not) apply this same method to the problems
arising in his business or industrial life.
(_c_) Ideals developed in one experience may
be projected into other experiences. If the
ideals of promptness, neatness, accuracy, and
honesty are developed in one relationship of
life, the probabilities are somewhat increased
that the same ideals will be applied to all
experiences.
Provided that the four general conditions
discussed are secured, we then have the more
specific and important question to ask:--
WHAT EXPERIENCES ARE THE MOST VALUABLE?
Only those experiences are valuable that in
an appreciable degree modify future action.
One way in which an experience or a series of
experiences modifies future action is in the
formation of habits.
_Habit Formation_
Habit has a beneficial influence on future
action in five particulars:--
(_a_) Habit reduces the necessary time of
action. Repeating the twenty-six letters of
the alphabet has become so habitual that I can
repeat them forward in two seconds. To repeat
them in any other than an habitual order,
_e.g_. backwards, requires sixty seconds.
(_b_) Habit increases accuracy. I can repeat
the alphabet forward without danger of error,
but when I try to repeat it backward I am
extremely likely to go astray.
(_c_) Habit reduces the attendant exhaustion.
Reading English is for me more habitual than
reading French. Hence the latter is the more
exhausting process.
(_d_) Habit relieves the mind from the necessity
of paying attention to the details of the
successive steps of the act. When piano
playing has been completely reduced to habit,
the finger movement, the reading of the notes,
etc., are all carried on successively with the
minimum of thought.
(_e_) Habit gives a permanency to experience.
For many years in playing tennis I served the
ball in a way that had become for me perfectly
habitual. For an interval of three years I
played no tennis, but when I began again I
found that I could serve as well as ever. If
the manner of service had not been so perfectly
reduced to habit, I would have found
after an interval of three years that I was completely
out of practice, _i.e_. that my previous
experience did not have a permanent value.
(The subject of habit formation will be more
completely presented in Chapter XIII.)
A second form of experience that is capitalized
and so predetermines a man's capacity to
act and to think is the formation of what is
known as practical judgments.
_Practical judgments_
By a practical judgment is meant the conscious
recall of a concrete past experience and
the determination of some action by means of
this consciously recalled event. I find that it
will be necessary for me to secure a new stenographer.
I solve the problem by consciously
recalling how I got one before. Upon the
basis of that consciously recalled previous
experience I decide how to act now. This is a
practical judgment.
In strictness what is capitalized is not the
practical judgment itself but the original
concrete experience that is recalled at a later
time, and upon the basis of which a practical
judgment is formed.
Practical judgments cannot be more
comprehensive than one's previous experience.
The necessary condition for fertility in the
formations of practical judgments is therefore
richness of previous experience. Indeed one's
practical judgments are much more restricted
than one's actual experiences. A practical judgment
is dependent not merely upon having had
the necessary experience, but upon the recall
of it at the appropriate occasion. The key to a
side door of my house was temporarily lost.
After trying scores of keys, I found that a key
to a room in the attic would also open the side
door. This side-door key was again carried
off last week. After much vexation and after
trying numerous keys, I again discovered that
the key to the room in the attic would open the
side door. I failed to make the necessary
practical judgment. If when the key was lost
the second time I had recalled my former experience
and had taken advantage of it, I would
have formed a practical judgment and would
have saved myself much inconvenience.
The formation of practical judgments is not
a high form of thought. Indeed it is held by
many that the animals are capable of some
form of practical judgment. A much more
effective form of thought is the formation of
reflective judgments.
_Reflective judgments_
A practical judgment is based on a single
concrete case. A reflective judgment is based
on a generalization, an abstraction, or a principle
derived from many previous experiences.
Last night a salesman tried to induce me to
purchase an interest in an Idaho apple orchard.
Thereupon I recalled an instance of a friend
who a year ago had made such a purchase and
had found it a profitable investment. If on
the basis of this or some other concrete case I
had accepted or rejected his offer, I would have
made a practical judgment. As a matter of
fact I caused several concrete instances to
pass through my mind, made the generalization
that most professional men lose when they invest
in distant properties, and upon the basis of this
generalization made my reflective judgment
and rejected his proposition.
Last week on the golf links I saw a Bohemian
peasant woman wearing clothes full of small
holes. I tried to figure out how the clothing
had become so injured. I recalled seeing a
coat that had been left all summer in an attic
till it had been eaten to pieces by the moths.
On the basis of that recalled incident I satisfied
myself by means of the practical judgment
that she was wearing moth-eaten clothing. A
few days later I saw three of these women
working on one of the greens, and each of
them had on clothing full of small holes. I
began to reflect as to the cause of the holes. I
observed that each woman held a bottle in
her hand and was apparently applying the contents
of the bottle to the roots of the dandelion
plants. I inferred that the liquid must be
an acid. Then of all the qualities of an acid I
considered merely its corrosiveness. With
that abstraction in mind I made the reflective
judgment that the women were working with
an acid and that from time to time particles
of the acid got on their clothes and corroded
them.
A manager of a large manufacturing and
selling organization made a study of the conditions
affecting the prosperity of his organization.
From his observations he deduced the
principle that for him it is more important to
increase the loyalty of the men to the organization
than to reduce the apparent labor cost.
With this principle in mind he made various
reflective judgments in upbuilding his organization.
In these illustrations of theoretical or reflective
judgments it will be observed that no
previous single experience was in the mind of
the one forming the judgment but merely a
generalization, an abstraction, or principle.
The experience that is really capitalized is
the formation of the generalizations, abstractions,
and principles which are thereafter available
for reflective judgments and can be applied
to a multitude of novel situations but situations
in which the generalization, abstraction,
or principle is a factor.
The significance of reflective judgments in
increasing human efficiency was manifested
in a striking manner by the following experiment.
A group of individuals were tested
as to their ability to solve a number of mechanical
puzzles. The time required for each
individual was recorded. The subjects then described
as completely as possible how they had
solved the problem (worked the puzzle). In
some instances the subjects kept trying blindly,
till by accident they hit upon the right method.
In such cases the second and third trials might
take as long or even longer than the first trial.
If, however, the subject had in mind the right
principle or principles for solving the problems,
the time required for succeeding attempts fell
abruptly. Curve A of Figure 6 is a graphic
representation of the results of A with one of
the puzzles. To solve the problem the first
time required 1476 seconds. While solving
it this first time A discovered a principle upon
which success depended. The second attempt
consumed 241 seconds. While solving the
problem this second time he discovered a second
principle. With these two principles in
mind succeeding attempts were rendered rapid
and certain.
Another young man, B, in solving his problem.
(Chinese Rings Puzzle) succeeded after
working 1678 seconds. At the completion of
this successful attempt he had in mind no principle
for working it. The second trial was not
so successful as the first and lasted 2670
seconds. With succeeding trials he reduced
his time but not regularly and was still working
``in the dark.'' His method was one of
extreme simplicity and probably not different
from the ``try, try again'' method employed
by animals in learning. The results of his
first ten trials are graphically shown in Curve
B of Figure 6.
A comparison of Figure 6 with the five
{illust. caption = FIG. 6.}
figures of Chapter X will show how rapidly increase
of efficiency is when dependent upon
judgments as contrasted with improvement
dependent upon habit.
A judgment once having been made may be
utilized again and again. The process of
applying these preformed judgments is known
as an intuitive or perhaps better called an expert
judgment.
_Expert judgments_
Just as appropriate concrete experiences determine
the nature and the range of practical
judgments, and as the formation of generalizations,
abstractions, and principles determine
the possibilities of reflective judgments, so the
actual formation of the practical and reflective
judgments determine the nature and the range
of the intuitive or expert judgments.
Some years ago I had a need for an attorney
to perform for me a petty service. Just
at that critical moment I met a friend who was
a lawyer. I employed him forthwith. At a
later time I needed a lawyer again, recalled my
former experience, and called up the same
attorney. This employing him the second
time was clearly a practical judgment. If I
have frequent need for an attorney, I shall
probably make use of my preformed practical
judgment and employ this same attorney.
This act will never become a habit, but it will
approximate more and more a habitual action,
and will seem to be performed intuitively, and
will be an illustration of an expert judgment.
This morning I was asked to find a cook and
man of general utility for an outing camp. I
had no preformed practical judgment which I
could apply to the case and did not even possess
a remembrance of any experience upon
which I might base a practical experience. In
such a case therefore I am not only not an
expert but I do not possess the necessary preliminary
experiences for developing such ability.
During the last decade I have given much
thought to this question: Does the efficiency
of one's thinking depend at all upon the clearness
and distinctness of the mental image used
in the thinking? I settled the question in the
negative. The formation of this principle
(clear thinking does not depend upon clear
visual image) was an act of reflective judgment.
But now the application of this preformed
judgment has developed into an expert judgment.
Recently I was given the manuscript
of a course in psychology and asked to appraise
it. One of the chief points of the author was
to advise all business men to develop clear
visual images. In fact he asserted that clearness
of thinking was in proportion to clearness
of the visual image with which the thinking is
carried on. Without again weighing the evidence
for my principle, I applied my preformed
judgment and by means of this expert judgment
condemned the course.
A man is expert only in those fields in which
he has developed the appropriate habits, the
necessary, practical, and reflective judgments,
and has had some practice in applying these
judgments.
We find that four classes of experiences are
valuable, _i.e_. such experiences as result in the
formation of habits; such as result in practical
judgments, in reflective judgments, and in
expert judgments. Our final task is to consider
methods for increasing the probabilities
that such experiences may be secured and
utilized.
SECURING AND UTILIZING THESE MOST
VALUABLE EXPERIENCES
The conditions best adapted for procuring
and utilizing one class of these most valuable
experiences may not be the best for the other
three classes. Our final problem must therefore
be subdivided into four parts corresponding
to the four classes of valuable experience.
_Special Conditions Favorable to Habit Formation_
The essential condition for habit formation
is repetition with intensity of application.
The modern movement in the industrial world
known as scientific management supplies this
need for repetition by standardizing all activities
so that they will be repeated over and
over in identical form; and it secures the intensity
of application by means of the task and
bonus system. By these means the most
valuable experiences for habit formation are
secured and utilized.
The working out of this fact is so admirably
described in recent reports upon scientific
management that further description here
would be superfluous.
_Special Conditions Favorable to the Formation
of Practical judgments_
In addition to the four general conditions
discussed on pages 278 to 283@@@ the special
conditions most favorable to the formation of
practical judgments are the three following:--
1. The experiences most effective in arousing
practical judgments are those that are most
recent. A few days ago I purchased a piece
of real estate and was asked how I wanted the
property transferred. I replied immediately
that I wanted a warranty deed and a guarantee
policy. This was a practical judgment made
upon the basis of a recent previous experience.
As a matter of fact there are three distinct
methods of transferring real estate, but until
after my judgment had been made I was perfectly
oblivious of the other methods, although
I had had experience with them some years
before. Thus I utilized only my recent experience
in making my practical judgment.
2. Other things being equal, those experiences
are most valuable in arousing practical
judgments that have been the most frequent.
I have seen burns dressed many times and in
many ways, but most often they have been
dressed with soda and water. When I was
called upon recently to dress a burn I recalled
the method which I had seen most often and
formed a practical judgment based thereupon
and was helped out of my difficulty.
3. Our most vivid and intense experiences
are the ones most likely to be recalled and to
be utilized in the formation of practical judgments.
The mistakes that I have to pay for
and the deed that secured my promotion are
the experiences most fertile in the formation of
practical judgments.
_Special Conditions Favorable to the Formation
of Reflective judgments_
In addition to the general conditions mentioned
on page 278@@@ the special conditions favorable
for the formation of reflective judgments
are as follows:--
1. A theoretical education. Proverbially
schools teach generalizations, abstractions, and
principles. The scholar and the student are
compelled to practice in this most effective form
of thinking. A justifiable criticism of the
schools is that they are inclined to neglect the
lower forms of thinking--the dealing with the
concrete--in their zeal for the highest forms of
thinking. However, a school education not
only gives practice in handling generalizations,
abstractions, and principles, but it provides
the conditions necessary to stimulate the learners
to amass a useful stock of concepts that at
a later time will be used in reflective judgments.
2. Suggestions from others. Reflective
judgments depend upon condensed experience.
The condensation is not produced by compres-
sion but by selecting the common though essential
element from various former experiences
and by uniting these elements into a new unity.
This breaking up of former experiences by
analyzing out the essential factor is a difficult
task and one in which no man can proceed far
without assistance from others.
At a recent meeting of psychologists a
speaker presented a paper on the most helpful
order of presentation of topics for a course in
psychology. He simply called our attention to
certain facts which we had all experienced as
teachers of psychology. He then combined
these abstracted elements in a new unity in
such a way that I was enabled to form a reflective
judgment as to the order of presenting
topics in psychology. Without his suggestion
I probably never would have been able to make
the analysis necessary for the reflective judgment.
We need all the help we can get to assist us
to analyze our own experiences. To this end
we employ with great profit such agencies as
conferences with fellow-workmen, conventions,
visitations, trade journals, and technical discussions
upon our own problem (cf. Chapter
XI).
3. Verbal expression. We cannot well unite
factors of previous experience into a new whole
unless we have some symbol to stand for the
new unity. As such a symbol, a word is the
most effective. Animals never carry on reflective
judgments and never can, since they do
not possess a language adequate to such demands.
The attempt to express one's thought
in words is in reality often a means for creating
the thought as well as a means for its expression.
A few years ago I prepared a paper on
the subject, ``Making Psychology Practical.''
In my attempt to express myself I clarified
my thinking, formed new generalizations, and
therefore was enabled to do with full consciousness
(with reflective judgments) what previously
I had done but blindly.
It is a most helpful practice to attempt to
express in words just what one is trying to
accomplish; what are the conditions necessary
for success; what the conditions that are lower-
ing efficiency; and what are the possibilities of
the work, etc. The method of analysis and
expression assists wonderfully in abstracting
the aspects of one's experience necessary for
the generalization, abstraction, and principle
used in reflective judgments.
_Special Conditions Favorable to the Formation
of Expert judgments_
There are no clearly defined special conditions
for increasing one's capacity to apply expert
judgments. The general conditions discussed
on page 278@@@ seem to cover the case. If I have
provided, as an executive, for all these conditions
for developing expert judgments:--
(1) if I have good vigorous health,
(2) if I am working with enthusiastic application,
(3) if I have the right attitude towards my
work,
(4) and finally, if I am having frequent
experience in making practical and theoretical
judgments,--I am then fulfilling the conditions
most favorable for the development of expert
judgments.
CHAPTER XIII
CAPITALIZING EXPERIENCE--HABIT FORMATION
AFTER spending four years in an Eastern
college, a young graduate was put in
charge of a group of day laborers. He
assumed toward them the attitude of the athletic
director and the coach combined. He set
out to develop a winning team, one that could
handle more cubic yards of dirt in a day than
any other group on the job.
He had no guidebook and no official records
to direct him. He did not know what the
best ``form'' was for shoveling dirt, and he
did not know how much a good man could
accomplish in an hour. With stop watch
and notebook in hand, he began to observe
the movements of the man who seemed the
best worker in the group. He counted the
different movements made in handling a
shovelful of dirt, and the exact time required
for each of the movements. He then made similar
observations upon other men. He found
that the best man was making fewer movements
and faster movements than his companions.
But he also discovered that even
this best workman was making movements
which were not necessary, and that he was
making some movements too slowly and thus
losing the advantage of the momentum which a
higher speed would have produced, and which
would have enabled him to accomplish the task
with less effort.
The young collegian then set about to standardize
the necessary movements and the most
economical speed for each movement required
in the work of his group. He instructed his
best man in the improved method of working,
and offered him a handsome bonus if he would
follow the specifications and accomplish the
task in the estimated time. The man, eager
to earn the increase, followed the directions
closely, and in a few weeks was enabled to
accomplish more than twice the work of the
average workman. The improved habit of
working was then taught the other workmen,
and the result was a winning team.
The success of the young collegian did not
get into the colored supplements of the daily
press, but it was heralded by mechanical engineers
as marking an epoch in the industrial
advance of humanity. It made manifest
the necessity of a study of habits, the elimination
of the useless ones, and the acquisition
of those most beneficial.
The study of habit has not received from the
practical business man the attention which it
deserves because he has too often looked upon
habit as something detrimental to efficiency.
The possession of any and of all habits has at
times been regarded as a misfortune.
An employer of men for responsible positions
recently made this inquiry concerning each
applicant for a position, ``Does he have any
habits? If so, what are they?'' This employer
confused all habits with such things
as habits of intemperance, habits of slovenliness,
habits of dishonesty, and habits of loafing.
Little did he suspect that the habits of the men
were in reality their strongest recommendation.
He did not realize that the capitalized experience
of these men was funded in the masses of
useful habits which they had acquired.
Habits are but ways of thinking and of acting
which by reason of frequent repetition
have become more or less automatic. We are
all creatures of habit; we all possess both good
and bad habits.
In performing an habitual act we do not pay
attention to the individual separate steps included
in the act. So we are liable to think of
our habitual acts as those done _*carelessly_, and
of other acts as those performed with caution
and consideration. The folly of such a criticism
of habit is made apparent by the study of
any act which may be performed by one person
as a habit and by another person as an act
every step of which demands attention. A
barber stropping his razor is a familiar
illustration of the working of habit. An adult
attempting to strop a razor for the first time
and compelled to give attention to each step
in the process is a typical illustration of an act
demanding attention in contrast with an
habitual act which needs no such attention.
We are also inclined to deprecate habits on
the ground that the man in the grip of habit
is hopelessly in the _*rut_, that the man who has
reduced his work to habit ceases to be original
and is incapable of further improvement.
On the contrary, the grip of habit is but a
support. The editor could not write his
trenchant editorials, and the advertiser could
not write his compelling copy, unless in the act
of writing each could turn over to habit the
manipulation of the pen, the formation of the
letters, and the spelling of the words. The
attorney cannot make his most logical arguments
and the salesman cannot make the best
presentation of his goods, unless they can depend
upon habit for correct verbal expressions,
unless their thoughts clothe themselves
automatically in appropriate verbal forms.
When we are in the grip of habit, if it be a good
habit, we are not so much in a rut as on the
steel rails where alone the greatest progress is
made possible. We are not enslaved by good
habits, but rather might it be said that no
man is truly free to advance and to make
rapid progress till he has succeeded in establishing
a mass of useful habits.
HOW HABITS ARE FORMED
Modern physiological psychology has dealt
with the problem of explaining the possibility
of the formation and maintenance of habits.
The explanation is found in the mutual development
of the mind and the nervous system
and in the dependence of thought and
action upon the nervous system, and particularly
upon the brain. To understand habit
we must look beyond thought and action and
consider some of the fundamental characteristic
features of the nervous system. One
such characteristic is the plasticity of the nervous
substance. If I bend a piece of paper and
crease it, the crease will remain even after the
paper is straightened out again. The paper is
plastic, and plasticity means simply that the
substance offers some resistance to adopting a
new form, but that when the new form is once
impressed upon the substance it is retained.
Some effort is required to overcome the plasticity
of the paper and to form the crease, but
when it is once formed the plasticity of the
paper preserves the crease.
Modern conceptions of psychology have
emphasized the intimate relationship existing
between our thoughts and our brains. Every
time we think, a slight change takes place in
the delicate nerve-cells in some part of the
brain. Every action among these cells leaves
its indelible mark, or crease. Just as it is
easy for the paper to bend where it has been
creased before, it is likewise easy for action to
take place in the brain where it has taken place
before.
The brain may also be likened to the cylinder
or disk used in a dictating machine and in
phonographs, and a thought likened to the
needle making the original record. It takes
some energy to force the needle through the
substance of the cylinder, but thereafter it
moves along the opened groove with a mini-
mum of resistance. In a similar way it is
easy to think the old thought or to perform
the old act, but it is most difficult to be original
in thinking and in acting. When an idea
has been thought or an act performed many
times, the crease or groove becomes so well
established that thinking or acting along that
crease or groove is easier than other thoughts
or actions, and so this easier one may be said
to have become habitual. In a very real sense
the thoughts and actions form the brain by
means of the delicate physical changes which
they produce; and then, when the brain is
formed, its plasticity is so great that it determines
our future thinking and acting.
HABIT SHORTENS THE TIME NECESSARY FOR A
THOUGHT OR AN ACT
Human efficiency depends in part upon the
rapidity with which we are able to accomplish
our tasks. It is surprising to us all when we
find how rapidly we can accomplish our habitual
acts and how slowly we perform the tasks to
which we are compelled to give specific atten-
tion. I find that I can repeat the twenty-six
letters of the alphabet in two seconds. I do
not give attention to the order of the letters)
but all I seem to do is to start the process, and
then it says itself. If, however, I attempt to
pronounce the alphabet backward, my first
attempt takes a full minute. If I attempt to say
the alphabet forward but to insert after each
letter a single syllable, such as ``two,'' it takes
sixteen seconds. Thus, a 2, b 2, C 2, d 2, etc.,
requires eight times as many seconds as the
simple alphabet, a, b, c, d, e, etc. The
sequence which has become most perfectly
habitual requires but two seconds; the process
which employs the old habit in part requires
sixteen seconds; but the act which
has never been reduced to a habit at all (repeating
the alphabet backward) requires at
least sixty seconds.
Some time ago I could pick out the letters
on a typewriter at the rate of about one per
second. Writing is now becoming reduced
to a habit, and I can write perhaps three
letters a second. When the act has been
reduced to the pure habit form, I shall be
writing at the rate of not less than five letters
per second.
I can send a telegraph message at a rate but
little faster than one contact per second.
Those who have reduced the transmission of
messages to a habit are capable of making
twelve contacts per second.
In multiplying one three-place number by
another I have the fixed habit of writing the
multiplier under the multiplicand, the partial
products under these, and the final product
beneath all. If I reverse all these positions,
the multiplying should be no more difficult,
but as a matter of fact this simple reversal
increases the time of operation about eighty-five
per cent. All mathematical operations are
rapid in proportion to the degree to which they
are habitual.
The speed of thought is slow unless it follows
the old creases and the old grooves. No
adequate speed is possible so long as attention
must be given to the succeeding stages of the
thought or act. This is true of all acts and
of all thoughts, whether in the home or upon
the street, in the shop or in the office.
Great speed of thought and action must
not be confused with hurried thought and
action. Speed which is habitual is never
hurried. There are many acts of skill which
can be done much more easily if performed
rapidly than if performed slowly. When
working hurriedly, there is a speeding up of
all movements whether necessary or unnecessary;
but the speed secured from correct habits
is primarily dependent upon the elimination of
useless movements and the concentration of
energy at the essential point.
HABIT INCREASES ACCURACY OF ACTING AND
THINKING
Where machinery can be employed we find
greatly increased accuracy of work. The
product of the loom and the lathe are more
perfect, more uniform, and more accurate in all
details than similar work produced by hand.
The product of the printing press thus attains
a greater degree of accuracy in details than
was ever attained by the ancient monk in the
printing of his scrolls.
In general, our work becomes accurate, as
well as swift, in the degree to which we are
able to mechanize it into habits. The beginner
in piano playing or typewriting pays
attention to the striking of each key. When
he is in this stage of development he is liable
at any time to strike the wrong key and certainly
cannot be depended upon for regularity
of touch. As soon as he has reduced the
striking of the keys to a habit, he ceases to
strike the wrong keys and secures uniformity of
touch.
The expert marksman has reduced to a habit
the necessary steps of shooting and gives no
special attention to the position of the fingers,
the tension of the hands, the angle of the head,
the closing of the eye, and the pulling of the
trigger. He has reduced all these to habit
before he is able to secure his expert skill.
The reliable bookkeeper has reduced to
habit the combining of all the ordinary sums
of the ledger. The man of accuracy of speech
is the one whose thoughts clothe themselves
in the verbal expressions by habit but with
no conscious selection of words. The man of
the most accurate judgment in any field is the
one who has succeeded in reducing to habit most
of the steps of the judgments in that field, the
one who has the largest stock of intuitive
judgment.
HABIT RELIEVES THE ATTENTION FROM DETAILS
Attention cannot be directed to more
than one thing at a time. It is doubtless
true that the ``one thing'' may be very complex,
_e.g_. four letters or even four words.
So long as the performance of an act demands
attention, this one act is practically all that
can be done at that time. As soon as this
thing is reduced to habit, it may go on automatically,
and the attention may be turned
to other things.
When I begin to learn to play the piano,
the finger movements require all my attention
so that I cannot read the notes on the
scale and make the proper execution at the
same time. Gradually, the reading of notes
and the execution are reduced to habit, and
I can then turn my attention to the reading
of the words of the air. As each essential detail
is reduced to habit, I acquire the ability to
read the score, to make the correct finger and
foot movements, to read the words of the
song, to sing it correctly, and at the same
time to be thinking more or less of other
things.
My use of the pen has become so reduced
to habit that I need pay no attention to the
writing, but am enabled to give my entire
attention to the thought which I am attempting
to formulate. So every useful habit
becomes a power or a tool which may be used
for multiplying the efficiency of the individual.
Habit formation is the greatest labor saving
device in the human economy. No one has
expressed this truth so forcefully as the late
Professor William James.
``The great thing, then, in all education,
is to make our nervous system our ally instead
of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize
our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the
interest of the fund. For this we must make
automatic and habitual, as early as possible,
as many useful actions as we can, and guard
against the growing into ways that are likely
to be disadvantageous to us as we should
guard against the plague. The more of the
details of our daily life we can hand over to the
effortless custody of automatism, the more our
higher powers of mind will be set free for their
own proper work. There is no more miserable
human being than one in whom nothing is
habitual but indecision, and for whom the
lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every
cup, the time of rising and going to bed every
day, and the beginning of every bit of work,
are subjects of express volitional deliberation.
Full half the time of such a man goes to the
deciding or regretting of matters which ought
to be so ingrained in him as practically not to
exist for his consciousness at all. If there be
such daily duties not yet ingrained in any one
of my readers, let him begin this very hour to
set the matter right.''
HABIT REDUCES EXHAUSTION
The various acts connected with my morning
toilet have been reduced to sheerest habit.
I do not think of the different acts as I perform
them--they seem to perform themselves.
The sequence of the various acts and the manner
of performing them are not particularly
good, but I do not seem inclined to change
them. I put on my left shoe before my right,
my right sleeve before my left. I have the
absurd habit of washing my teeth after I
have washed my face. That my habits may
execute themselves automatically, all the articles
of my toilet must be in their proper
places. I am thwarted in carrying out my
habits unless my laundry has been properly
placed, unless towels, brushes, etc., are all
where they should be. If everything is in its
place, I get down to breakfast refreshed and
recuperated. If the toilet articles are so located
that I am compelled to do consciously
what I might have done subconsciously, I get
down to breakfast irritated and nervously
depleted. The peace and restfulness of an
orderly and systematic household are in part
dependent upon the fact that it is only in such
a household that we are enabled to turn over
to habit the accomplishment of untold recurrent
acts.
The experienced accountant can add figures
continuously for eight hours a day, and
at the end of the day may feel no great
exhaustion. The man who has not reduced
to habit the necessary steps in addition
cannot add continuously for two hours
without a degree of exhaustion so great that
it paralyzes effort. The same is true with
typewriting, telegraphing, and with all forms
of manipulations which may be reduced to
habit.
The habit of reading in a foreign language
is rarely so well established as the habit of
interpreting the printed symbols of the mother
tongue. Even when I seem to be reading
German as easily as English, a few hours spent
in reading German is to me much more exhausting
than the same amount of time spent
with an English book. Attending lectures
delivered in German is to me more exhausting
than the same lectures would be if delivered
in English.
Work that requires much constructive thinking
cannot be continued for many hours a day.
This is due to the fact that such thinking does
not admit of complete reduction to specific
habits. The executive who accomplishes much
is the man who has formed many useful habits
and who is able to fall back on them for a large
part of his work. His decisions are reached
in a habitual manner. Investigations take a
regular, automatic course. All the details
of the office are reduced to mechanical system.
No useless energy is spent in giving attention
to details that can be better done by habit,
and the mind is thus freed from exhaustion
and left fresh for attacking the problems
arising for solution.
The performance of every new act and the
thinking of every new idea is of necessity exhausting,
and they become easy to the extent
to which they utilize old habits. Although
constructive thinking is most stimulating and
exciting, no man can continue it for more than
a few hours or a few minutes unless it depends
mainly upon old habits.
Some of the most constructive thinkers of
the world have been men who could work at
their original work for but a few minutes at
a time. One brilliant contemporary writer
accomplishes most when he works not more
than fifteen minutes at a time. Charles
Darwin is famous for the originality of his
thinking, and hence we are not surprised when
we find that he was able to work but three
hours out of the twenty-four.
PERSONAL HABITS
Personal habits are the most apparent and
those by which we most often judge an individual.
Manner of dress becomes so much a
matter of habit that the wearing apparel is
sometimes spoken of as the habit, and, as
Shakespeare says, it oft betrays the man.
Cleanliness and neatness of appearance, the
tone and accent of voice, the manner of walk-
ing and of carrying the head, and the use of
language are personal habits which are acquired
early in life, but which mean much in
the chances of success. The manner of eating,
of sleeping, and of caring for all the needs
of body and mind are for most persons mainly
a matter of habit, yet they, to a large extent,
determine the condition of health and the
length of days.
We become fond of doing things in the
manner to which we have become habituated.
This tendency manifests itself to an abnormal
degree in the drinking and the smoking habit.
In a lesser degree we see the same thing in the
attachment of the babe for his pacifier and the
child for his chewing gum. Habit creates a
craving for the good as well as for the bad.
The ways to which we have become habituated
seem pleasing to us whether they be good or
bad. There is truth in the proverb, ``Train
up a child in the way he should go and when
he is old, he will not depart from it.'' It might
be added that the child will not want to depart
from the way to which he has been trained, for
the habits thus acquired beget a fondness for
the acts themselves.
It is very unusual for any one to acquire
a language after the age of twenty so as to
speak it without a foreign accent. All other
personal habits are like the use of language in
that they are acquired during the early years
and are not easily changed. So far as personal
habits are concerned, but little change
need be anticipated after the twentieth year.
SOCIAL HABITS
Our treatment of others is largely a matter
of habit. We are affable or gruff according
to habit. Honesty and dishonesty in dealing
with others is, in the main, a matter of habit.
The honest man is the one who takes honesty
for granted and acts honestly from habit.
So soon as he begins to observe that he is an
honest man, to call attention to the fact, and
to be much impressed by the honor of his
choices--at that moment suspicion of him
should be entertained, for honesty has with
him ceased to be a habit.
We classify individuals largely by means
of their personal and social habits. By these
the gentleman is recognized as surely as the
boor. By means of them we select our friends
and engage new employees. Efficiency in
every life calling depends upon our success in
dealing with people. Such success is largely
dependent upon the social habits that we
acquire.
OCCUPATION HABITS
Until the recent rise of interest in psychology,
relatively little attention had been given
to the study of those habits which are developed
in business. When proper care is not
given to the formation of these habits developed
in connection with one's daily occupation,
wrong habits are certain to appear. The mason
makes two motions with his trowel where
he should make but one. The accountant
substitutes ``short cuts'' in adding where all
the operations should be taken in regular order
and made as automatic as the few short cuts
previously developed. The executive has the
habit of depending upon ``desultory'' memory
where the logical should be developed. The
salesman in speaking to a critical customer
says ``he don't,'' instead of saying ``he doesn't'';
``gents' goods'' instead of ``men's goods.''
Every investigation into the human actions
and the human methods of thinking as involved
in business reveals the presence of unfortunate
habits such as the examples here cited.
Therefore, one of the most noteworthy events
in the business and industrial world of the last
twenty years is the study of the occupation
habits of the workman to which reference was
made in the first paragraphs of this chapter.
The research has been especially successful
in dealing with the occupation habits of mechanics.
The fundamental discovery was made that
the workman's occupation habits are not such
as enable him to accomplish his task in an
economical and efficient manner. To discover
what occupation habits should be developed,
experts in each of several typical
establishments were assigned the task of
making a careful study of every movement of
eye, hand, foot, and body, and the rate and
sequence of all the movements necessary for
performing single tasks most easily and efficiently.
The experts were also to study the
tools, the materials, and conditions best
adapted to the work. In general, the experts
found the greatest opportunity for improvement
in the _*movements_ of the men. As a
result of this research, numerous processes
have been scientifically standardized. The
workmen have been taught the new and better
way and have been drilled till the processes
have been, so far as possible, reduced to occupation
habits. The workmen have been easily
induced to acquire the new habits, as their
earning capacity is thereby greatly increased.
Ordinarily, a considerable bonus is awarded to
all workmen who develop the desired habits
and perform the task exactly as prescribed by
the expert.
An investigation into the results secured
from the adoption of this scientific attempt
to study and to regulate the occupation
habits of workmen reveals most gratifying
success.
Mr. H. R. Hathaway, an expert engineer,
testifies that ``under this system a workman
can turn out from two to four times as much
work'' as he was able to accomplish when
working with his old habits,
Mr. Lewis Sanders, of the General Engineering
Company, New York, reports most
satisfactory results from the introduction of
this systematic attempt to regulate the occupation
habits of employees. A typical example
which he reports is the following: It
regularly took a man one minute and forty
seconds to set a piece in a jig. ``After a study
of the exact motions required to pick the piece
up and set it accurately, we showed the same
man how to do it in twenty seconds.'' This
workman soon reduced the correct movement
to habit, attained the specified speed, and
without in any way working harder than formerly
was assisted to increase his efficiency four
hundred per cent.
A well-known engineering company re-
quired the reading of twelve thermometers,
each every two minutes. The man assigned
to the task could rarely read so many as
eight of them in the two minutes. An expert
took up the problem and at first could
do no better than the first man. The expert
studied the most favorable position of the
head and eyes for reading, eliminated all
useless motions, and discovered that the
twelve thermometers could then be read in
one minute and fifty seconds. The workman
who previously had with difficulty read
eight thermometers in two minutes soon
acquired the proper occupation habits and
was enabled to read the twelve with perfect
ease. His efficiency was increased forty per
cent, and the task was rendered less exacting
than before.
Typewriting is carried on by habits. The
habit of writing most naturally formed is
that known as the sight system. Recently,
attempts have been successfully made to enable
the operators to form the habit of writing
by touch rather than by sight. The
operator who acquires the habit of locating
the keys by touch writes much faster and
with less nervous strain than the operator
who writes from sight.
No one has been more successful in studying
occupation habits than Mr. Frank B.
Gilbreth, an expert in the building trades.
He discovered that in constructing a brick
wall a good mason can lay one hundred
and twenty bricks in an hour and that in
laying each brick he makes eighteen distinct
motions. The motions were not made in an
economical sequence; some of them were
useless, and merely exhausted the energy
of the workman. Mr. Gilbreth attempted
to apply to the industry of bricklaying the
principles of billiard playing. Every motion
of the mason should be a ``play for position.''
He should make each motion so
as to be ready for the next. For example,
the motion of placing the mortar for the end
joint should end with the trowel in position
ready to cut off the hanging mortar. When
the motions are made in the correct sequence,
two or more of them can be combined and
performed in but little more time than would
be required to make each of the separate
motions. Thus, cutting off mortar, buttering
the end of the laid brick, and reaching for
more mortar can all be performed as a single
movement. In this way the motions of the
mason have been reduced from eighteen to
five per brick. All this change has been
brought about from a study of the occupation
habits of masons. In discussing the results,
Mr. Gilbreth says: ``It has changed the entire
method of laying bricks by reducing the kind,
number, sequence, and length of motions.
The economic value of motion study has been
proved by the fact that we have more than
tripled the workman's output in bricklaying
and at the same time lowered cost and increased
wages simultaneously, and the end
is not yet.''
Attempts to develop beneficial occupation
habits in executives have not yet been
exhaustively and scientifically carried out.
Such experiments are, however, sure to be
successful, and it is quite probable that before
another decade has passed the habits
of executives will have been as successfully
studied and controlled as have the occupation
habits of mechanics cited above.
The introduction of physics and chemistry
have led to marvelous results in methods
of manufacture and transportation. Those
who have given most attention to the advances
of psychology during the past two
decades are confident that by the proper
application of psychology the efficiency of
men is to be increased beyond the idle dream
of the optimist of the past. Since by a study
of habits the efficiency of men in fundamental
occupations has been increased from forty
to four hundred per cent, it is hard to prophesy
what results are to be secured from more extensive
studies.
{The remaider of this etext (Index + Advert.) is raw OCR}
INDEX
Ability, potential, 231.
Accidents, mine, 96.
Acclimated, 17.
Acclimatization, 18.
Accountant, experienced, 319.
Advance, periods of, 232; of
learning, 242.
Africa, 189.
Air, 172; foul, 180.
Alertness, mental, 44.
Alphabet, repeating, 284.
Altruistic, 203.
American, business, 24; steel-
makers, 48, 206; executives,
118; ideals, 205; people, 209 f.,
219.
Architecture, 174.
Armour, 87.
Athletic, contest, 9; events, 169;
trainer, 2 11.
Attention, 3; passive, 109 f.;
secondary passive, 112 ff.;
voluntary, III ff., 123, 234,
249 ff., 279.
Attitudes, 132 ff., 177; receptive,
182, 183, 187; promotion of,
193, 202, 215; ``do-or-die,''
250; personal, 279 ff.
Authority, plenary, 88.
``Bad days,'' 207.
Bessemer converters, 48.
Bicycles, 194.
``Big'' selling months, 72.
``Bogy'' in golf, 55 f.
Bohemian woman, 288.
Bonus, 35, 142, 145, 165, 178,
252, 304; system, 297, 326.
Book, W. F., ``Psychology of
Skill,'' 227.
Bookkeeping, experience in, 282.
Boor, 324.
Boss, 49, 83, 178, 253.
Boy, messenger, 7; errand, 277.
Brain, 309.
Breakdowns, 208.
`` Breaking in,'' 41, 232, 237.
British Iron and Steel Institute,
49.
Brooding, habit of, 216.
Bryan & Harter, _Psychological
Review_, 230.
Cabinet meetings,'' 119.
Campaign, educational, 102, 155;
advertising, 238.
Capacities, mental, 134, 178.
Capitalizing
experience, 303 ff.
Carnegie,
Andrew, 49 ff.; mills,
57 f., 87; his cabinet, 94 f.,
221.
Caution in competition, 61.
Cells, brain and muscle, 172,
173.
Chemistry, 4, 7, 331.
Christ,
85, 206.
Clauston, Dr., 206.
Cleveland, Grover, 188.
Clubs, local, 220.
Coach, 9, 303.
Coaching, effect of, 9, 10.
College grades, 16.
Combustion, 171.
Commendation in competition,
62 f., 73.
Competition, 48 ff .
Concentration,
104 ff .
Connection,
body and mind, 121.
Consciousness, 172.
Conservation of individuality,
94.
Consumption,
comparative, 50,
172,173.
Contests, 68; shooting match, 69;
balloon race, 70.
Coperation of employees, 80.
Cost of living, 160.
Courses, coperative, 270 f; in
college, 282; automatic, 320.
Crane, R. P., 20.
Curve practice, 224 ff.
Danger signal, 211.
Darwin, Charles, 22 ff.
Devices, mechanical, 170.
Dickens, C., 176.
Discipline, 11, 179.
Discomfort,
165, 177.
Disparity, 168.
Dissipations, 220.
Distinction, social, 141.
Distribution,
1, 3, 4-
Doherty, H. L., 217.
``Dragged out,'' 08.
Drill, 3.
``Easy improvements,'' 246.
Edison, 14, 37.
Education, industrial, 201; work
on, 21Q; school, 264; theoretical,
299.
Efficiency, see Chap. 1, 7, A;
personal, io5, 18o, 186; curve
Of, 223, 251; high, 240; slumps
in, 253.
Effort, voluntary, 111[, 124.
Electric, fans, YL66; lights, 2.
`` Employment,'' ioi.
Energies, 16; mental, 20; expenditure
Of, 21.
Engines, gas, 2; steam turbine, 2.
English, ironmasters, 48, 319,
320.
Enthusiasm, 186, 1187, 190.
Environment, physical, 2, 179 f.,
18o; factors in, 253.
Establishments, 49, 158; successful,
175.
European, 208.
Exhaustion, A8, 172, 173, 284.
Experience, see Chaps. XI-XII;
most valuable, 296.
Expression, verbal, 3oi.
``February sale,'' 53.
Field, Marshall, 87, 94, 193.
Fluctuations, in learning, 232;
subject to, 249.
Food, 172.
Football, 9.
Forfeiture of bond, 75.
French, reading, 284.
Fulton,
37.
``Garden cities,'' 122.
General Electric CO., 271.
Generations, rising, 220.
Geniuses, potential, T.9i; business,
igi.
German, 319, 320.
`` Getting together,'' 198.
Gilbreth, F. B., 329 f.
Girls, sewing, 05.
Gladstone, 113, 2 2 1.
Golf, 54; bogy, 194, 248.
``Go stale,'' 235, 251.
Government, paternalistic, 8o.
Grant, 9r.
Grasp, intellectual, 22.
Great Lakes, 48.
Greece,
ancient, 219.
Grip, maximum, 225 f.
Guilds, industrial, 1197-
Habit formation, see Chap. XIII;
special conditions, 296 ff., 3o8;
social, 323; personal, 3 2 1
reduce exhaustion, 318.
Handicaps,
in competition, 61;
principle of, 61 f.
Handy men,'' o6, 253.
Harriman,
E. H., 17.
Hathaway,
H. R., 327.
Health and vigor, 278.
Herculean, 14, 205.
Hill,
J. J., 20,
Hours, reasonable, 82; of freedom,
219.
House organs,'' see papers,
35; photographs in, 63, 67, 69,
House patriotism,'' 8o; history
and policies, go; picnics,
101.
Human sympathy, as a factor,
85 ff.
Idaho orchard, 287.
Ideas, management, 44.
Illumination, i8o.
Imitation, 26 ff., 53; voluntary,
30.
Improvements,
periods Of, 233.
Incubation, periods Of, 233, 247,
249, 253.
Industrial
towns, 122.
Industry, attitude of, 136.
Injuries, 16q.
Instincts, to collect, 139, 188;
hunting, 188; specific, igo;
of man, igo; of competition,
64.
Institute, Smithsonian, r8g.
Insurance, 16o.
Interests, outside, 222; novelty,
239, 249; sustained, 240;
appeals to, 240; spontaneous,
251.
In the running,'' 71.
Instruction,
270 f.
Invention, 3, 48, 217; flagging,
239.
James, Professor William, 207,
218) 30.
Jefferson,
gi.
Jones, W. R.) A 50 f.
Judgments, practical, 285 ff.;
reflective, 287 ff. ; expert,
293 ff.
Knowledge, empirical, 244; acquired,
243.
Labor, hand, 3, 101; intellectual,
168, 70; manual, r68; dignity
of, 19q.
Law, 7.
Lawyers, 175.
Learning,
rate Of, 231.
Lincoln,
9r.
Love of the game, 186 ff.;
classifying, 19o; summarized,
192; social prestige, 194, 1195;
tostimulate, 97; developing,
202.
Loyalty, 75 ff .
Lyons,
Joseph, 208, 209.
McCormick, C. H., 24.
Machinist, skilled, 26o.
Magician, i.
Making Experience an Asset,
276 ff.
Making good,'' 71, 25T.
Making Psychology Practical,''
301.
Manager, 6, 154; successful, 143;
office, 244.
Marketing, 3.
Medium of competition, 64.
Memory, desultory, 325.
Methods, business, i; specific, 25;
of training, iig; improved, 181,
304; acquisition Of, 243, 266 ff.
Millennium, 203.
Miser, i4o.
Models, energetic, 2, 33.
Mood,
mental, 218.
Movements, preleamed, 246;
necessary, 303 ff.
Muck
raking, 195-
National Cash Register CO., 272.
Nature, laws Of, 211.
Need,'' 73.
New blood,'' 156, 276.
New York Herald, 210.
Nourishment, 18.
Nervous system, 12.
Novice, 244, 277.
Ohio territory, o8.
One thing,'' 315.
Organization spirit,'' 8o, 84.
Ornamentation, unobtrusive, i8o.
Output, 158, 165, 167, 08.
`` Overselling,'' 98.
Overtension, 214.
Pace, 2.
Pacemaker, 52.
`` Pain economy,'' 179.
Palmer,
Potter, 87.
Papers, weekly or monthly, 35.
Peers, rivalry between, 56.
Perseverance, 16q.
Personal relations in loyalty, 83.
Personal
relationship with workers,
87 ff .
Personality,
84, 87, 93~ 176.
Philanthropy, 221 f.
Physics, 7, 331.
Piano playing, 284.
``Pick Up,'' 259.
Piecework, 142,143, 145) 162,178,
252.
Plans, profit-sharing, go.
Plateau, 233 ff., 239, 243 ff.
Pleasure,
165 ff .
Policy,
house's, 152; Multiple
tryout, 99.
Population, British, 207.
`` Pop Up,'' 127.
Poverty,
179.
Practice
plus Theory, 254 ff .
Press,
printing, 2; punch, 3.
Preventive, 16q.
Prizes in competition, 62, 67,
165.
Production, instruments of, i.
Profits, surrender of, 84.
Promotions, 73, 101, 155, 156,
157.
Prostrations, nervous, 21.
Psychology, 6, 7; law Of, 25;
modem, 20; work on, 132;
conception Of, T34; student of,
x38; research, iog; course,
295, 300, 3o8 ff.; interest in,
324, 331.
Public opinion, 75.
Puzzle,
Chinese block, 266 ff.;
mechanical, 290; results Of, 291.
Quarters, working, 82.
Quota, 72.
Rate of Improvement in Efficiency,
223 ff.
Recognition, social, 148.
Recreation, 174; hours Of, 221.
Recruits, new, 46, 96.
Regiments, 57.
Relaxation,
204 ff.; necessity for,
210; power Of. 214; gospel Of.
215;
complete, 216.
Research, 14.
Resistance, line of, i io.
Reward, monetary, 139.
''
Right way, 11 252.
Rockefeller, 221.
R6oms, work, 181; lunch, 181.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 13, 189.
``Rush'' months, 65; seasons,
72.
Sales quota,'' 65 ff .
Sanders,
Lewis, 327.
San
Francisco fire, 98.
School, night, 181, 201 ; life, 282
engineering, 270, 299; sales.
men
training, 28 f.
Scientific manage-it,'' 252
Scientific study, 5.
Second wind, 12.
Self-preservation, means of, 139,
139, 144; instincts of, 1141 .
Self-protection, methods of, iij.
Selling, haphazard, 5o.
Settlement workers, 220.
Shadwell, Arthur, 206.
Ships, steam, 2.
`` Showing how,'' 46.
`` Sidelines,'' 26, 131Y 154.
Simmons,
E. C., 20.
Sixth sense, 6.
Skill, special, 43; acquisition of,
246; act of, 256; in perform-
ing, 256 ff.; perfection Of, 262,
264 f.
Sleep, 14.
``Slowing down'' process, 32.
Slump, summer, 165 f.; general,
226 ; profound, 247.
Social, Y94; prestige, 202; demands,
279.
Social approval, desire for, 72.
Society, organized, 113; whims
Of, 194.
Speed, extra, 83; daily record for,
224; average, 224, 282; economical,
304.
Speeding up, 34, 313.
Spencer,
Herbert, 219.
`` Sporting editor,'' 69, 73.
`` Square deal,'' 99.
Stability, native, 2 2 f.
Stagnation, periods of, 233.
Standard, of artist, 197; Of
capitalist, 197; method, 252;
of efficiency, 253.
`` Star'' club, 67.
``Steady job,'' 154.
`` Stealing his trade,'' 26o ff.
Steel Corporation, 5o ff.
Stephenson, 37.
Stepping stones, 196.
Stimulus, YL96; personal efficiencyideals,
279.
Storage battery, 174.
Strength,
muscular, 7, 183, 184;
physical, 226.
Strike, 161.
Students, 16, 133; colleges, 278.
Subordinate, 187.
Success, first, 239-
Suggestible, 177.
Suggestion, 177, 178, 183, 185.
Sunday,219.
`` Swell,'' 196.
Swift, E. J., ``Mind in the
Making,'' 231.
System, apprentice, 26; suggestion,
44; premium, 178.
Talks to Teachers,'' 208, 219.
Taylor, F. W., 5 ff., 24.
Teachers, college, 270.
Team work, go, 145.
Telegraph, 7; operator, 226 f.
Telephone, 2, 7.
Temperature,
165.
Tennis, 284 f.
Therapeutics, mental, 214.
Thompson, Edgar, works, Si.
Torrid zone, 17 f.
Traditions and ideals, or.
Trifles, I.
Trips, educational, 44 ff.
Tugboat, 213, 2X4,
Union, assemblers', 152.
Union Pacific, 17.
Vacation camps, iox.
Vacations, 14.
Ventilation, 179.
Wages, fair, 82, 153,~ cOrAmiFsions,
143; piece rates for, i5o;
maximum, 152; sums paid in,
153; value, 241; little or no,
262.
Wanamaker, John, 271.
Warming up, I 1, 12, 232.
``Wars,'' 68.
Washington, 85) 91.
Waste,
elimination of, 6; body,
173; poisonous, 173; in methods,
261.
Watson, E. P., 13 f.
Weariness, 12; aftermath of, 177-
``Welfare,'' features, 122.
Westinghouse, 37.
Will, effort of, 111, 124; strength
Of, ITLI.
Wizard, I.
Yawning, contagion of, 31.
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freshness.''
Roberts--Kings in Exile. By CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS.
``The author catches the spirit of forest and sea life, and the reader
comes to have a personal love and knowledge of our animal friends.''
- Boston Globe.
Robins -The Convert. By ELIZABETH ROBINS.
``' The Convert ' devotes itself to the exploitation of the recent
suffragist movement in England. It is a book not easily forgotten
by any thoughtful reader.''--Chicago Evening Post.
Robins--A Dark Lantern. By ELIZABETH ROBINS.
A powerful and striking novel, English in scene, which takes an
essentially modern view of society and of certain dramatic situations.
Ward- The History of David Grieve. By MRS. HUMPHREY WARD.
`` A perfect picture of life, remarkable for its humor and extraordinary
success at character analysis.''
========
THE MACMILLAN JUVENILE LIBRARY
This collection of juvenile books contains works of standard quality,
on a variety of subjects--history, biography, fiction, science, and
poetry--carefully chosen to meet the needs and interests of both
boys and girls.
Each volume, cloth, 12mo, 50 cents net; postage, 10 cents extra
Altsheler--The Horsemen of the Plains. By JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER.
A story of the West, of Indians, of scouts, trappers, fur traders,
and, in short, of everything that is dear to the imagination of a healthy
American boy.''--New York Sun.
Bacon--While Caroline Was Growing. By JOSEPHINE DASKAM
BACON.
Only a genuine lover of children, and a keenly sympathetic
observer of human nature, could have given us this book.''
Boston Herald.
Carroll--Alice's Adventures, and Through the Looking Glass. By
LEWIS CARROLL.
One of the immortal books for children.''
Dix- A Little Captive Lad. By MARIE BEULAH Dix.
``The human interest is strong, and children are sure to like it.'' Washington
Times.
Greene--Pickett's Gap. BY HOMER GREENE.
``The story presents a picture of truth and honor that cannot fail
to have a vivid impression upon the reader.''--Toledo Blade.
Lucas--Slowcoach. By E. V. LUCAS.
``The record of an English family's coaching tour in a great old-
fashioned wagon. A charming narrative, as quaint and original as
its name.''--Booknews Monthly.
Mabie--Book of Christmas. By H. W. MABIE.
``A beautiful collection of Christmas verse and prose in which all
the old favorites will be found in an artistic setting.''--The St.
Louis Mirror.
Major- The Bears of Blue River. BY CHARLES MAJOR.
`` An exciting story with all the thrills the title implies.''
Major--Uncle Tom Andy Bill. BY CHARLES MAJOR.
``A stirring story full of bears, Indians, and hidden treasures.'' Cleveland
Leader.
Nesbit--The Railway Children. By E. NESBIT.
``A delightful story revealing the author's intimate knowledge of
juvenile ways.''--The Nation.
Whyte- The Story Book Girls. BY CHRISTINA G. WHYTE.
``A book that all girls will read with delight--a sweet, wholesome
story of girl life.''
Wright- Dream Fox Story Book. BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT.
``The whole book is delicious with its wise and kindly humor, its
just perspective of the true value of things.''
Wright- Aunt Jimmy's Will. BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT.
Barbara has written no more delightful book than this.''
End of Project Gutenberg Etext Increasing Human Efficiency In Business
