Increasing Efficiency In Business, Walter Dill Scott [best novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗
- Author: Walter Dill Scott
- Performer: -
Book online «Increasing Efficiency In Business, Walter Dill Scott [best novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗». Author Walter Dill Scott
the novelty of his successive tasks—an element
impossible to introduce into the average
man’s job. Yet there were other and powerful
motives stimulating his interest: the responsibility
of organizing a big department and of
directing the expenditure of large sums of
money; the prompt credit given him and the
growing confidence extended to him; and the
expression of their appreciation in the concrete
shape of salary increases.
It is quite true that these various stimulating
factors cannot be produced indefinitely;
tasks must “stale,” praise grow monotonous,
salaries touch their top level. But “making
good” and finding interests in work crystallize
into habits which endure as long as conditions
remain fair. The rise of the efficiency curve
thus depends upon recurrent periods of successful
struggle followed by periods of habit
formation and by the development of powerful
spontaneous interests.
<p 252>
Voluntary interest is a valuable thing to
possess, but a difficult thing to secure either
within ourselves or in those under our charge.
In its psychological aspect, scientific
management enters here. By working out and
establishing a standard method and standard
time for various “repeat” operations a workman
is engaged in, it encourages—and even
enforces—the formation of new efficiency
habits. The bonus paid for the accomplishment
of the task in the specified time supplies
an immediate and powerful motive to the effort
necessary to master the “right way” of doing
things.
In the main, employees do their best to acquire
efficiency; but their humanness must
not be forgotten, and the burden of increasing
efficiency must be carried largely by the executive.
His part it is to supply interest, if
the nature of the work forbids the finding of
it there, he must introduce it from outside
either by competition, by emphasizing the
connection between the task and the reward,
as in piecework, or by provision of a bonus
<p 253>
for the achievement of a certain standard of
efficiency.
He must eliminate the factors in environment
or organization which distract employees
and make voluntary interest more difficult.
He must provide the means of training and
must understand the possibilities and the
limitations of training. If a man “slumps”
in efficiency, he must look for the cause and
make sure this is not beyond the man’s control
before he punishes him. In a word, he must
allow for periods of incubation or unconscious
organization before expecting maximum results
from a new employee or an old man assigned
to a new job.
_The man who by persistent effort has developed
himself into an expert has greatly enhanced
his value to society. The boss who demands expert
service from untrained men is either a tyrant
or a fool. But the executive who develops novices
into experts and the company which transforms
mere “handy men” into mechanics are public
benefactors because of the service rendered to the
country and their men_.
PRACTICE PLUS THEORY
THE demand for trained and experienced
men is never supplied. Most business
and industrial organizations find their
growth impeded by the dearth of such men.
To employ men trained by competitors
or by inferior organizations is expensive and
unsatisfactory. A man trained till he has
become valuable to his “parent” organization
is not likely to be equally valuable to other
organizations that might employ him at a
later time. In general, the most valuable
men in any organization are the men who
have grown up in it.
The man who is “a rolling stone” secures,
in a way, more experience than the man who is
developed within a single organization, but his
wider experience does not of necessity make
him a more valuable man. It is not mere
<p 254>
<p 255>
experience that educates, develops, and equips
men, but experience of particular sorts, and
acquired under very well defined conditions.
“Scientific management” has taken seriously
the problem of providing and utilizing
the most valuable experiences. But the viewpoint
of the leaders in this modern movement
is that of the employer seeking the most valuable
experiences for those employees whose
work is mainly mechanical, e.g. machine
tenders, stenographers, etc. Scientific management
has conclusively demonstrated the
fact that it is poor economy to depend upon
haphazard experiences for the development
of those employees whose excellence depends
upon the speed and accuracy of their occupation
habits. It has thus done great service
in demonstrating the kind of experience most
valuable in developing men for positions of
routine work. But it has done little for men
whose welfare depends upon judgment—in
making new adjustments and in solving the
new problems continually arising in all positions
of responsibility. It has left for others
<p 256>
to consider the experiences most profitable
for developing executives.
_The most valuable experience in acquiring
an act of skill is frequent repetition in performing
the act_.
The value of the experience continues till
by frequent repetition the act has become so
mechanical that it is performed without attention.
Further experience has little or no
value.
On the other hand it is true that every
worthy calling demands forms of activity which
could not and should not be mechanized.
There are emergencies in every form of occupation
that call for new adjustments. The
ability to make such new adjustments depends
upon richness of experience and width
of view as well as upon skill in performing
the old processes.
The difference between a machine and a
man is that the man is capable of adjusting
himself to the changed situation, while a
machine cannot do so. The machine may work
more accurately and more rapidly than the man
<p 257>
in routine work, but it is capable of nothing
but routine work. There is a need for much
experience to make the man approximate the
skill and accuracy obtained by a machine.
But there is also need of experience to develop
the man in that particular in which he surpasses
a machine, i.e. in a broad experience
that enables him to form judgments and hence
to make a multitude of different adjustments
when a need for a change occurs.
A machine is constructed to perform a
particular kind of routine work in a stereotyped
way, but so soon as there is discovered a
better way of performing this work the machine
is thrown to the scrap heap because it
cannot be adjusted to new requirements.
_Experience which renders human activity
machine-like is a form of experience that increases
the probability that the possessor will be
discarded and his work accomplished by the
introduction of some new tool or some new
method of work_.
Experience therefore which merely increases
the skill of action without increasing the width
<p 258>
of horizon is necessary, but it is inadequate.
In addition to skill in routine work the man
should secure the broader experience that will
enable him to adjust himself to changed conditions
in his occupation and that will develop
the judgment necessary to enable him to
adjust his vocation to new demands. Every
form of occupation has many possibilities, a
few of which are from time to time discovered
to be significant. Advance in any sphere of
work depends upon the discovery of these
possibilities which the untrained eye of
inexperience does not detect. Although a broad
experience may enable the man to grasp the
possibilities of his occupation, it fails to secure
skill in the particulars that have already been
found to be important. While a broad experience
leaves a man incapable of present
competition, the narrow experience jeopardizes
his future.
The most valuable experience is therefore
one that equips the man to compete with the
skillful in the present and to comprehend his
task so that he may from time to time adjust
<p 259>
it to new relationships. It emphasizes the
formation of necessary habits, but does not
neglect the development of the judgment.
Such an experience is both intensive and
extensive; informal and formal; mechanical
and theoretical; practical and scientific. Such
experience alone meets the demands of the
increasing complexity of industrial and commercial
life.
HOW MAY THE MOST VALUABLE EXPERIENCE
BE SECURED AND UTILIZED
I. Haphazard Experience
But little attention is given to providing
those experiences that most adequately prepare
one for commercial and industrial life.
The boy who is to become a skilled workman
is compelled to “pick up” his experience as
best he can. The same is true of the boy who
aspires to a position as salesman, banker, or
manufacturer. Every employer seeks only
experienced men, and but few places are available
where such experience can be economically
and honorably secured.
<p 260>
The youth without experience, desiring to
become a skilled machinist, may secure some
experience with machinery in a second-rate
factory during the rush season. Because of
his incapacity, he is laid off as soon as the rush
is over. Thereupon he applies as an experienced
machinist in a better shop. If he is
lucky, he may secure a position. If the supervision
is inadequate, or the demand for labor
unusual, he may retain his position for several
hours, or days, or even weeks. After years
of such distressing experiences, the youth succeeds
in “stealing his trade.” In the meantime
he has been an economic loss to his many
employers, and his experience may have depraved
his character.
The condition found in the industrial world
is no worse than that in the commercial world.
The selling force is recuperated by green hands.
In most selling organizations no instruction is
given and no experience provided except what
is picked up haphazard behind the counter or
on the road. Most new men fail, are dismissed,
employed by another firm and dis-
<p 261>
missed again, etc. We have here nothing but
a struggle for existence and the survival of the
fittest in a crude and destructive form.
The burnt child avoids the fire, and his
experience is most effective. However, the
wise parent arranges conditions so that the
burn shall not be too serious. The machinist
who “steals” his trade profits greatly by his
mistakes, and the new salesman never forgets
some of his most flagrant errors. Such experiences
are practical, lasting, effective, but
uneconomical. But such experiences are of
necessity unsystematic and inadequate to
modern industrial and commercial demands.
II. Apprenticeship Experience
The waste in the Haphazard method of
securing experience in the industrial world
has long been apparent and has led to attempts
to provide systems of apprenticeships which
would enable the youth to secure educative
experiences with a minimum of cost to himself
and his employer.
In theory the youth who becomes an ap-
<p 262>
prentice is bound or indentured to serve his
master for a period of years. During that
time the master agrees to see to it that the
apprentice practices and becomes proficient in
performing all the processes of the trade.
The employer (master) is rewarded in that
he secures the continuous service of the boy
for the period of years upon the payment of
little or no wages. Furthermore the apprentice
when developed into a journeyman is
likely to become a valuable employee. The
apprentice is rewarded for his years of service
by the practical experience which he has been
permitted to secure in actual work with all the
various processes involved in the trade.
Although the apprenticeship system has
many excellent points, it has been found
inadequate to meet the needs of modern commercial
and industrial institutions. At least
in its primitive form it is decadent in every
industry which has been modernized. All
forms of commerce and industry have become
so complicated and each part demands such
perfection of skill that an apprentice can
<p 263>
scarcely secure sufficient experience in even
the essentials of the trade to render him expert
in these various processes. In
Comments (0)