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High Gravity Business Ebook

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2007-10-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

Increasing Efficiency in Business
Page 44

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.

2007-10-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

Increasing Efficiency in Business
Page 43

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.

2007-10-22T20:31:00.000-07:00

Increasing Efficiency in Business
Page 42

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.

2007-10-22T20:29:00.001-07:00

Increasing Efficiency in Business
Page 41

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.

2007-10-22T18:45:00.001-07:00

Increasing Efficiency in Business
Page 40

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.

2007-10-22T18:44:00.001-07:00

Increasing Efficiency in Business
Page 39

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.

2007-10-22T18:43:00.002-07:00

Increasing Efficiency in Business
Page 38

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_.

2007-10-22T18:43:00.001-07:00

Increasing Efficiency in Business
Page 37

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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_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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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_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.

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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.

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_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.

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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.

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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_.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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_.

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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.

Increasing Efficiency In Business - Page 1

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Increasing Efficiency in Business
by
WD Scott
Free Public Domain Business Books from the
Classic Literature Library
Increasing Efficiency in Business Page 01

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.
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