Increasing Efficiency In Business, Walter Dill Scott [best novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗
- Author: Walter Dill Scott
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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,
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shadows, lonely stoves, and foul air. Cleanliness
is provided and preserved; not a few of
the larger industries employ a regular corps of
janitors to keep floors, walls, and windows clean.
The walls are tinted; the lights are arranged
so as to provide the right illumination without
straining the workers’ eyes. The departments
are symmetrically arranged; the aisles are
wide; the working space is ample; there is
no fear to haunt machine tenders that a mis-step or a moment of forgetfulness will entangle
them in a neighboring machine. The factory
buildings themselves, without being pretentious,
have pleasing, simple lines and unobtrusive
ornamentation. They look like, and
are, when the human equation does not interfere,
*pleasant places to work in.
This is the typical modern factory; thousands
can be found in America. On this
foundation of good working conditions and
pleasant environment, many companies have
built more or less elaborate systems of welfare
work, whose effectiveness in creating
pleasure and efficiency seem to depend on the
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purpose and spirit of the men behind them.
These systems frequently begin with beautification
of the factory premises and workrooms
—window boxes, factory lawns, ivied walls,
trees, and shrubs—and advance by various
stages to lunch rooms for workers, factory
libraries, rest rooms for women workers, factory
nurses and physicians, and sometimes the
development of a social life among employees
through picnics, lectures, dances, night schools,
and like activities. The methods employed
are too diverse and too recent to permit an accurate
estimate of their work or a true analysis
of the elements of their success. It is incumbent
on the employer to find or work out for
himself the method best suited to his individual
needs.
_To understand how pleasure heightens the
suggestibility of the individual it is but necessary
to consider the well-known effects which pleasure
has on the various bodily and mental processes_.
The action of pleasure and displeasure upon
the muscles of the body is most apparent.
With displeasure the muscles of the forehead
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contract; folds and wrinkles appear. The
corners of the mouth are drawn down; the
head bowed; the shoulders stoop and draw
together over the breast; the chest is contracted;
the fingers of the hand close, and there
is also a tendency to bend the arms so as to
protect the fore part of the body. In displeasure
the body is thus seen to contract and
to put itself on the defensive. It closes itself
to outside influences and attempts to “withdraw
within its shell.”
With pleasure the forehead is smoothed
out; the corners of the mouth are lifted; the
head is held erect; the shoulders are thrown
back; the chest is expanded; the fingers of
the hand are opened, and the arm is ready to
go out to grasp any object. The whole body
is thrown into a receptive attitude. It is prepared
to be affected by outside stimulations
and is ready to profit by them.
That these characteristic bodily attitudes
of pleasure and displeasure have an effect
on the mind is evident. Bodily and mental attitudes
have developed together in the history
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of the race. The conditions which cause a
receptive attitude of body cause also a suggestible
state of mind. The conditions which
call for bodily protection also demand a suspicious
and non-responsive attitude of mind.
The bodily and the mental attitudes have become
so intimately associated that the presence
of one assures the presence of the other.
_Pleasure and a particular attitude of body are
indissolubly united, and when these two are
present, a suggestible condition of mind seems of
necessity to follow_.
Thus by the subtle working of pleasant
impressions the customer is disarmed of his
suspicion and made ready to respond to the
suggestions of the merchant.
The effect of the suggestible attitude of the
body, as produced by pleasure, is increased
by certain other effects which pleasure produces
on the body.
Muscular strength is frequently measured
by finding the maximum grip on a recording
instrument. The amount of the grip varies
from time to time and is affected by various
<p 184>
conditions. One of the phenomena which has
been thoroughly investigated is the effect of
pleasure and of pain on the intensity of the
grip. It is well established that pleasure
increases the grip or the available amount of
energy. Displeasure reduces the strength.
The total volume of the body would seem
to be constant for any particular short interval
of time. Such, however, is not the case.
_With pleasure the lungs are filled with air
from deepened breathing; the volume of the
limbs is increased by the increased flow of blood.
Pleasure thus actually makes us larger and displeasure
smaller_.
This increase in muscular strength and bodily
volume due to pleasure has a very decided
effect upon the mind. The increase of muscular
strength gives us a feeling of power and
assurance, the increase in volume gives us a
feeling of expansion and importance. These
conditions produced by increase of muscular
strength and bodily volume contribute to the
general suggestible condition described above.
If I am in a suggestible condition and if I
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also feel an unusual degree of assurance in my
own powers and importance, I shall have such
confidence in the wisdom of my intended acts
that there will seem to be no ground for delay.
Furthermore the increased action of the heart,
due to the effect of pleasure, gives me a feeling
of buoyancy and invigoration which adds appreciably
to the tendency to action.
We thus see why pleasure renders us more
suggestible and hence makes us more apt to
purchase proffered merchandise or to respond
to the suggestions of our foreman or our executive.
We also see why it is that a man may
increase his efficiency by pleasing those with
whom he has to work, whether they be customers
or employees.
THE LOVE OF THE GAME
AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY
THE motives discussed in previous chapters
are fairly adequate for developing
efficiency in all except the owner or
chief executive. The employee may imitate
and compete with his equals and his superiors;
he may work for his wage, and he may be loyal
to the house. To increase the industry and
enthusiasm of the head is a task of supreme
importance. Interest and enthusiasm must
be kindled at the top that the spark may be
passed down to the lower levels. It can never
travel in the opposite direction.
How, then, is the president to light his fires
and transmit his enthusiasm to his managers
and other subordinates? Not by working for
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<p 187>
money alone, nor through imitation, competition,
or loyalty to the works of his own hands.
All these may be essential, may be powerful
subordinate incentives to action, but singly or
collectively they are not adequate. In any
organization, the head who attains the maximum
of success must depend for his enthusiasm
upon an instinctive love of the game.
The subordinate possessing such love of
the game and independent of others for his
enthusiasm is sure to rise. The subject is,
therefore, of vital importance both to the
executive and to the ambitious employee.
Every employer feels the need of such an attitude
towards work, both in himself and in his
men.
An attempt will be made in this chapter
to comprehend this instinctive love of the
game, to discuss to what extent it is inherited
and to what extent subject to cultivation, and
to analyze the conditions most favorable for
its development in respect to one’s own work
as well as that of his employees.
The love of the game is in part instinctive,
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and its nature is made clear by consideration
of certain of the instincts of animals.
The young lion spends much time in pretended
stalking of game and in harmless
struggles with his mates. He takes great
delight in the exercise of his cunning and in his
strength of limb and jaw. Fortunately for the
young lion this is the sort of activity best
adapted to develop his strength of muscle
and his cunning in capturing prey. However,
it is not for the sake of the training that the
young lion performs these particular acts.
He does them simply because he loves to. In
like manner the young greyhound chasing his
mates and the young squirrel gathering and
storing nuts have no thought beyond the instinctive
pleasure they find in performing these
functions. To each there is no other form of
activity so satisfactory.
Man possesses more instincts than any of
the lower animals. One pronounced instinct
in all normal males is the hunting instinct.
Grover Cleveland went fishing because he
loved the sport, not because of the value of
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the fish caught. Theodore Roosevelt did not
hunt big game in Africa because he was in need
of luscious steaks or tawny hides. He was not
working solely in the interest of the Smithsonian
Institute nor to secure material for his
book. Doubtless these were subsidiary motives,
but the chief reason why he killed the
game was that he instinctively loves the sport.
He endured the hardships of Africa for the
same reason that fishermen spend days in the
icy water of a trout stream and hunters lie still
for hours suffering intense cold for a chance to
shoot at a bear.
_For some men, buying and selling is as great a
delight as felling a deer. For others the manufacture
of goods is as great a joy as landing a
trout. For such a man enthusiasm for his work
is unfailing and industry unremittent_.
He is suited to his task as is the cub to the
fight, the puppy to the chase, the squirrel to
the burying of nuts, or the hunter to the killing
of game. His labor always appeals to
him as the thing of supremest moment. His
interest in it is such that it never fails to in-
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spire others by contagion. For such a man
laziness or indifference in business seems anomalous,
while industry and enthusiasm are as
natural as the air he breathes and as inexhaustible
as the air itself.
By classifying the love of the game as an
instinct, we seem to admit that it is born
and not developed; that some men possess
it and others do not; that if a man possesses
it, he does not need to cultivate it, and that
if he does not possess, he cannot acquire it.
There is doubtless much truth in this, but
fortunately it is not the whole truth.
Some instincts are specific—even stereotyped
—and not subject to cultivation or
change. Thus the bee’s instinctive method of
gathering and storing honey is very specific
and definite. The bee is unable to modify its
routine to any great extent. The bee which
does not instinctively perform the different
acts properly will never learn to.
There are other instincts not so stereotyped
in manner or constant in degree. The
instincts of man are much more variable than
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those of the lower animals
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