Increasing Efficiency In Business by Walter Dill Scott (desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

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

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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

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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

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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-

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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

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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_.

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_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_.

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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-

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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 intercollegiate 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

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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_

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_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.

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_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