Some companies have begun in this direction. New employees, by way of introduction, listen to lectures, either with or without the accompaniment of pictures, which review what the house has accomplished, define its standing in the trade, analyze its products and their qualities or functions, sketch the plan and purpose of its organization, and touch upon the other points of chief human interest. Other companies put this information in booklets. Still others employ their house organs to recall and do honor to the interesting traditions of the company as well as to exploit the successful deeds and men of the moment. An organized and continuous campaign of education along this line should prove an inexpensive means of increasing loyalty and efficiency among the men. To the mind of the writer, it seems clear that the future will see pronounced advances in this particular.

Personality can be overdone, however. Workers instinctively give allegiance to strong, balanced men, but resent and combat egotism unchecked by regard for others' rights. Exploitation of the employer's or foreman's personality will do more harm than good unless attended by consideration for the personality of the employee. The service of more than one important company has been made intolerable for men of spirit and creative ability by the arrogant and dominating spirit of the management. The men who continue to sacrifice their individuality to the whim or the arbitrary rule of their superiors, in time lose their ambition and initiative; and the organization declines to a level of routine, mechanical efficiency only one remove from dry- rot.

How Efficiency and Loyalty of Workers may be Capitalized

Conservation and development of individuality in workers may be made an important factor in creating loyalty as well as in directly increasing efficiency. Great retail stores put many department heads into business for themselves, giving them space, light, buying facilities, clerks, and purchasing and advertising credit as a basis of their merchandising; then requiring a certain percentage of profit on the amount allowed them. The more successful of Marshall Field's lieutenants were taken into partnership and, as in the case of Andrew Carnegie and his "cabinet of young geniuses,'' were given substantial shares of the wealth they helped to create.

Some industries and stores carry this practice to the point of making specialized departments entirely independent of the general buying, production, and selling organizations whenever these fall short of the service offered outside; while the principle of stock distribution or other forms of profit sharing has been adopted by so many companies that it has come to be a recognized method of promoting loyalty.

Regard for the employee's personality must be carried down in an unbroken chain through all the ranks. It may be broken at any step in the descent by an executive or foreman who has not himself learned the lesson that loyalty to the house includes loyalty to the men under him.

It is not uncommon, in some American houses, to find three generations of workers —grandfather, father, and apprentice son— rendering faithful and friendly service; or to discover a score of bosses and men who have spent thirty or forty years—their entire productive lives—in the one organization. Where such a bond exists between employer and employees, it becomes an active, unfailing force in the development of loyalty, not only among the veterans, but also among the newest recruits for whom it realizes an illustration of what true coperation means.

Many Examples of the Loyalty of Executives for their Men in Danger

This double loyalty—to the chief and to the organization—is not a plant of slow growth. Few mine accidents or industrial disasters occur without bringing to merited, but fleeting, fame some heroic superintendent or lesser boss who has risked his own life to save his men or preserve the company's property. The same sense of responsibility extends to every grade. Give a man the least touch of authority and he seems to take on added moral stature. The engineer who clings to his throttle with collision imminent has his counterparts in the "handy man'' who braves injury to slip a belt and save another workman or a costly machine, and in the elevator conductor who drives his car up and down through flames and smoke to rescue his fellows. Such efficiency and organization spirit is the result of individual growth as well as the impression of the employer's personality upon his machine.

A Disloyal Sales Manager and his Influence on his Force

On the other hand, lack of loyalty on the part of employers towards their men is almost as common as failing devotion on the part of workers. Too many assume that the mere providing of work and the payment of wages give them the right to absolute fidelity, even when they take advantage of their men. The sales manager concerned in the following incident refused to believe that his attitude towards his men had anything to do with the lack of enthusiasm and low efficiency in his force.

An experienced salesman who had lost his position because of the San Francisco fire applied to the sales manager for a position. He was informed that there were fifteen applicants for the Ohio territory, but that the place would be given to him because of his better record. The manager laid out an initial territory in one corner and ordered the salesman to work it first.

Working this territory, the salesman secured substantial orders, but refrained from "over-selling'' any customer, gave considerable time to missionary work and to cultivating the acquaintance of buyers. His campaign was planned less for immediate results than for the future and for the effect on the larger field of the state. Having no instructions as to pushing his wider campaign, in about sixty days he asked for instructions. In answer he was ordered home and discharged on the ground that business was dull and that he had been a loss to the house. During the sixty days he had been working on a losing commission basis with the expectation of taking his profits later. Investigation dis- closed that he was but one of five salesmen to whom the Ohio territory had been assigned simultaneously. Of the five, one other also had made good and had been retained because he could be secured for less money.

This multiple try-out policy is entirely fair when the applicants know the conditions. But to lead each applicant to believe that he has been engaged subject only to his ability to make good is manifestly unjust. The facts are bound to come out sooner or later and create distrust among all employees of the house. Loyalty is strictly reciprocal. If an employee feels that he has no assurance of fair treatment, his attitude towards the firm is sure to be negative. Even the man who secures the position will recognize the firm's lack of candor and will never give his employers the full measure of coperation which produces maximum efficiency.

The "square deal,'' indeed, is the indispensable basis of loyalty and efficiency in an organization. The spirit as well as the letter of the bargain must be observed, else the work- men will contrive to even up matters by loafing, by slighting the work, or by a minimum production. This means a loss of possible daily earnings. On the other hand, employees never fail to recognize and in time respect the executive who holds the balance of loyalty and justice level between them and the business.

Fair wages, reasonable hours, working quarters and conditions of average comfort and healthfulness, ordinary precautions against accidents, and continuous employment are all now regarded as primary requirements and are not sufficient to create loyalty in the men. More than this must be done.

The chief executive should create such a spirit that his officers shall turn to him for help when in perplexity or difficulty. The superintendent and officers or bosses should sustain this same sympathetic relationship toward their men that the executive has toward his officers. A reputation for taking care of his men is a thing to be sought in a chief executive as well as in all underofficers.

Personal relationships should be cultivated. In some large organizations the chief executive may secure this personal touch with individuals through an agent or through a department known as the department of "promotion and discharge,'' "employment,'' or "labor.'' In others, occasional meetings on a level of equality may be brought about through house picnics, entertainments, vacation camps, and so on, where employer and employee meet each other outside their usual business environment.

It is not worth while to attempt to develop loyalty to the house until there has been developed a loyalty to the personalities representing the house. Loyalty in business is in the main a reciprocal relationship. The way to begin it is for the chief to be loyal to his subordinates and to see to it that all officers are loyal to their inferiors. When loyalty from above has been secured, loyalty from the ranks may readily be developed.

The personality of the worker must be respected by the employer. "Giving a man a chance'' to develop himself, allowing him to express his individuality, is the surest way of enlisting the interest and loyalty of a creative man.

To identify the interests of employees with the interests of the house, various plans of profit sharing, sale of stock to employees, pensions, insurance against sickness and accident, and so on, have been successfully applied by many companies.

So far as possible, responsibility for the success of the house should be assumed by all employees. In some way the workmen should feel that they are in partnership with the executives. We easily develop loyalty for the cause for which we have taken responsibility or rendered a service.

Creating Loyalty to Firm itself by Educational Campaign

A perpetual campaign of publicity should be maintained for the benefit of every man in the employ of the house. In this there should be a truthful but emphatic presentation of acts of loyalty on the part of either employers or workmen. Everything connected with the firm which has human interest should be included in this history. This educational campaign should change the loyalty to the *men in the firm into loyalty to the *firm itself. It should be an attempt to give the firm a personality, and of such a noble character that it would win the loyalty of the men. This could be accomplished at little expense and with great profit.



CHAPTER V

CONCENTRATION

AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY

THE owner of one of the largest and most complex businesses in America handles his day's work on a schedule as exacting as a railway time-table. In no other way could he keep in touch with and administer the manifold activities of his industry and a score of allied interests—buying of the day's raw materials for a dozen plants in half as many markets, direction of an organization exceeding 20,000 men, selling and delivering a multitude of products in a field as wide as three continents, financing the whole tremendous fabric.

Every department of his business, therefore, has its hour or quarter hour in the daily program when its big problems are considered and settled on the tick of the clock. This schedule is flexible, since no two days bring from any division of production, distribution, or financing the same demands upon the owner's attention. Yet each keeps its place and comes invariably under his eye—through reports and his own mastery of conditions affecting the department.

To secure the high personal efficiency required for this oversight and methodical dispatch of affairs, the owner-executive is not only protected from outside interruptions and distractions, but is also guarded against intrusion of the vital elements of his business—both men and matters —except at the moment most advantageous for dealing with them.

Analysis and organization have determined these moments—just as they have eliminated every non-essential in the things presented for consideration and decision. Except when emergencies arise there is no departure from the rule: "One thing at a time—the big thing—at the right time.'' The task in hand is never cheated, or allowed to cheat the next in line. Management is as much a continuous process, organized and wasteproof, as the journey of raw materials through his plants.

This is an illustration of remarkable individual efficiency attained by concentration —the power of the human mind which seems inseparable from any great achievement in business, in politics, in the arts, in education. Through it men of moderate capacities have secured results apparently beyond the reach of genius. And in no field has this power of concentration been displayed more vividly by leaders or been more generally lacking in the rank and file than in business. Analysis of the conditions may suggest the reason and the remedy.

The modern business man is exhausted no more by his actual achievements than by the things which he is compelled to resist doing.

Appeals for his attention are ceaseless. The roar of the street, the ring of telephone bells, the din of typewriting machines, the sight of a row of men waiting for an interview, the muffled voices from neighboring offices or workers, the plan for the day's work which is being delayed, the anxiety for the results for certain endeavors, suspicion as to the loyalty of employees—these and a score of other distractions are constantly bombarding him.

Every appeal for attention demands expenditure of energy—to ignore it and hold the mind down to the business in hand. The simple life with its single appeal is not for the business man. For him life is complex and strenuous. To overcome distractions and focus his mind on one thing is a large part of his task. If this single thing alone appealed to his attention, the effort would be pleasing and effective. It is not the work that is hard; the strain comes in keeping other things at bay while completing the pressing duty.

He is exhausted, not because of his achievements, but because of the expenditure of energy in resisting distractions.

He is inefficient, not through lack of industry, but from lack of opportunity or of ability to concentrate his energy upon the single task at hand.

All sources of illumination—from the candle to the sun—send out rays of light equally in all directions. If illumination of only *one point is desired, the loss is appalling. The rays may be assembled, however, by reflectors and lenses and so brought to bear in great force at a single point.

This brilliancy is not secured by greater expenditure of energy, but by utilizing the rays which, except for the reflectors and lenses, would be dissipated in other directions.

As any source gives off equally in all directions, so the human intellect seems designed to respond to all forms and sorts of appeal for attention.

To keep light from going off in useless directions we use reflectors; to keep human energy from being expended in useless directions we must remove distractions. To focus the light at any point we use lenses; to focus our minds at any point we use concentration.

Concentration is a state secured by the mental activity called attention. To understand concentration we must first consider the more fundamental facts of attention.

In the evolution of the human race certain things have been so important for the individual and the race that responses towards them have become instinctive. They appeal to every individual and attract his attention without fail. Thus moving objects, loud sounds, sudden contrasts, and the like, were ordinarily portents of evil to primitive man, and his attention was drawn to them irresistibly. Even for us to pay attention to such objects requires no intention and no effort. Hence it is spoken of as *passive or *involuntary attention.

The attention of animals and of children is practically confined to this passive form, while adults are by no means free from it. For instance, ideas and things to which I have no intention of turning my mind attract me. Ripe fruit, gesticulating men, beautiful women, approaching holidays, and scores of other things simply pop up in my mind and enthrall my attention. My mind may be so concentrated upon these things that I become oblivious to pressing responsibilities. In some instances the concentration may be but momentary; in others there may result a day dream, a building of air castles, which lasts for a long time and recurs with distressing frequency.

Such attention is action in the line of least resistance. Though it may suffice for the acts of animals and children it is sadly deficient for our complex business life.

Even here, however, it is easy to relapse to the lower plane of activity and to respond to the appeal of the crier in the street, the inconvenience of the heat, the news of the ball game, or a pleasing reverie, or even to fall into a state of mental apathy. The warfare against these distractions is never wholly won. Banishing these allurements results in the concentration so essential for successfully handling business problems. The strain is not so much in solving the problems as in retaining the concentration of the mind.

When an effort of will enables us to overcome these distractions and apply our minds to the subject in hand, the strain soon repeats itself. It frequently happens that this struggle is continuous—particularly when the distractions are unusual or our physical condition is below the normal. No effort of the will is able to hold our minds down to work for any length of time unless the task develops interest in itself.

This attention with effort is known as *voluntary attention. It is the most exhausting act which any individual can perform. Strength of will consists in the power to resist distractions and to hold the mind down to even the most uninteresting occupations.

Fortunately for human achievement, acts which in the beginning require voluntary effort may later result without effort.

The schoolboy must struggle to keep his mind on such uninteresting things as the alphabet. Later he may become a literary man and find that nothing attracts his attention so quickly as printed symbols. In commercial arithmetic the boy labors to fix his attention on dollar signs and problems involving profit and loss. Launched in business, however, these things may attract him more than a football game.

It is the outcome of previous application that we now attend without effort to many things in our civilization which differ from those of more primitive life. Such attention without effort is known as *secondary passive attention. Examples are furnished by the geologist's attention to the strata of the earth, the historian's to original manuscripts, the manufacturer's to by-products, the merchant's to distant customers, and the attention which we all give to printed symbols and scores of other things unnoticed by our distant ancestors. Here our attention is similar to passive attention, though the latter was the result of inheritance, while our secondary passive attention results from our individual efforts and is the product of our training.

Through passive attention my concentration upon a "castle in Spain'' may be perfect until destroyed by a fly on my nose. Voluntary attention may make my concentration upon the duty at hand entirely satisfactory till dissipated by some one entering my office. Secondary passive attention fixes my mind upon the adding of a column of figures, and it may be distracted by a commotion in my vicinity. Thus concentration produced by any form of attention is easily destroyed by a legion of possible disturbances. If I desire to increase my concentration to the maximum, I must remove every possible cause of distraction.

Organized society has recognized the hindering effect of some distractions and has made halting attempts to abolish them.

Thus locomotives are prohibited from sounding whistles within city limits, but power plants are permitted by noise and smoke to annoy every citizen in the vicinity. Street cars are forbidden to use flat wheels, but are still allowed to run on the surface or on a resounding structure and thus become a public nuisance. Steam calliopes, newsboys, street venders, and other unnecessary sources of noise are still tolerated.

In the design and construction of office buildings, stores, and factories in noisy neighborhoods, too little consideration is given to existing means of excluding or deadening outside sounds, though the newer office buildings are examples of initiative in this direction; not only are they of sound-proof construction, but in many instances they have replaced the noisy pavements of the streets with blocks which reduce the clatter to a minimum. In both improvements they have been emulated by some of the great retail stores which have shut out external noises and reduced those within to a point where they no longer distract the attention of clerks or customers from the business of selling and buying. In many, however, clerks are still forced to call aloud for cash girls or department managers, and the handling of customers at elevators is attended by wholly unnecessary shouting and clash of equipment.

Of all distractions, sound is certainly the most common and the most insistent in its appeal.

The individual efforts towards reducing it quoted above were stimulated by the hope of immediate and tangible profit—sound- proof offices commanding higher rents and quiet stores attracting more customers. In not a few cases, manufacturers have gone deeper, however, recognizing that anything which claims the attention of an employee from his work reduces his efficiency and cuts profits, even though he be a piece worker. In part this explains the migration of many industries to the smaller towns and the development of a new type of city factory with sound- proof walls and floors, windows sealed against noise, and a system of mechanical ventilation.

The individual manufacturer or merchant, therefore, need not wait for a general crusade to abate the noise, the smoke, and the other distractions which reduce his employee's effectiveness. In no small measure he can shut out external noises and eliminate many of those within. Loud dictation, conversations, clicking typewriters, loud-ringing telephones, can all be cut to a key which makes them virtually indistinguishable in an office of any size. More and more the big open office as an absorbent of sound seems to be gaining in favor. In one of the newest and largest of these I know, nearly all the typewriting machines are segregated in a glass-walled room, and long-distance telephone messages can be taken at any instrument in the great office.

Like sound in its imperative appeal for attention is the consciousness of strangers passing one's desk or windows.

Movement of fellow employees about the department, unless excessive or unusual, is hardly noticed; let an individual or a group with whom we are not acquainted come within the field of our vision, and they claim attention immediately. For this reason shops or factories whose windows command a busy street find it profitable to use opaque glass to shut out the shifting scene.

This scheme of retreat and protection has been carried well-nigh to perfection by many executives. Private offices guarded by secretaries fortify them against distractions and unauthorized claims on their attention, both from within and without their organizations. Routine problems, in administration, production, distribution, are never referred to them; these are settled by department heads, and only new or vital questions are submitted to the executive. In many large companies, besides the department heads and secretaries who assume this load of routine, there are assistants to the president and the general manager who further reduce the demands upon their chiefs. The value of time, the effect of interruptions and distractions upon their own efficiency, are understood by countless executives who neglect to guard their employees against similar distractions.

Individual business men, unsupported by organizations, have worked out individual methods of self-protection.

One man postpones consideration of questions of policy, selling conditions, and soon until the business of the day has been finished, and interruptions from customers or employees are improbable. Another, with his stenographer, reaches his office half an hour earlier than his organization, and, picking out the day's big task, has it well towards accomplishment before the usual distractions begin. The foremost electrical and mechanical engineer in the country solves his most difficult and abstruse problems at home, at night. His organization provides a perfect defense against interruptions; but only in the silence, the isolation of his home at night, does he find the complete absence of distraction permitting the absolute concentration which produces great results.

This chapter was prefaced by an instance where protection from distractions through organization was joined with methodical attack on the elements of the day's work. This combination approaches the ideal; it is the system followed by nearly all the great executives of America. Time and attention are equably allotted to the various interests, the various departments of effort which must have the big man's consideration during the day. Analysis has determined how much of each is required; appointments are made with the men who must coperate; all other matters are pushed aside until a decision is reached; and upon the completion of each attention is concentrated on the next task.

A striking instance of this organization of work and concentration upon a single problem is afforded by the "cabinet meetings'' of some large corporations and the luncheons of groups of powerful financiers in New York. There are certain questions to be settled, a definite length of time in which to settle them. In the order of their importance they are allotted so many minutes. At the expiration of that time a vote is taken, the president or chairman announces his decision, and the next matter is attacked.

There is no royal method of training in concentration. It is in the main developed by repeated acts of attention upon the subject in hand.

If I am anxious or need to develop the power of concentration upon what people say, either in conversation or in public discourse, I may be helped by persistently and continuously forcing myself to attend. The habit of concentration may to a degree be thus acquired; pursuing it, I should never allow myself to listen indifferently, but I must force myself to strict attention.

Such practice would result ultimately in a habit of concentration upon what I hear, but would not necessarily increase my power of concentration upon writing, adding, or other activities. Specific training in each is essential, and even then the results will be far short of what might be desired. Persistent effort in any direction is not without result, however, and any increase in concentration is so valuable that it is worth the effort it costs. If a man lacks power of concentration in any particular direction, he should force concentration in that line and continue till a habit results.

Our control over our muscles and movements far exceeds our direct control over our attention. An attitude of concentration is possible, even when the desired mental process is not present. Thus by fixing my eyes on a page and keeping them adjusted for reading, even when my mind is on a subject far removed, I can help my will to secure concentration. I can likewise restrain myself from picking up a newspaper or from chatting with a friend when it is the time for concentrated action on my work. By continuously resisting movements which tend to distract and by holding myself in the position of attention, the strain upon my will in forcing concentration becomes less.

Concentration is practically impossible when the brain is fagged or the bodily condition is far below the normal in any respect.

The connection between the body and the mind is most intimate, and the perfect working of the body is necessary to the highest efficiency of the mind. The power of concentration is accordingly affected by surroundings in the hours of labor, by sleep and recreation, by the quality and quantity of food, and by every condition which affects the bodily processes favorably.

Recognition of this truth is behind the very general movement, both here and abroad, to provide the best possible conditions both in the factories and the home environment of workers. Employers are coming more and more to un- derstand that conservation of physical forces means maximum output. The foundation, of course, is a clean, spacious, well-lighted, and perfectly ventilated factory in a situation which affords pure air and accessibility to the homes of employees. In England and Germany the advance towards this ideal has taken form in the "garden cities'' of which the plant is the nucleus and the support. In America there is no lack of industrial towns planned and built as carefully as the works to which they are tributary.

Some have added various "welfare'' features, ranging from hot luncheons served at cost, free baths, and medical attendance to night schools for employees to teach them how to live and work to better advantage. The profit comes back in the increased efficiency of the employees.

Even though the health be perfect and the attitude of attention be sustained the will is unable to retain concentration by an effort for more than a few seconds at a time.

When the mind is concentrated upon an object, this object must develop and prove interesting, otherwise there will be required every few seconds the same tug of the will. This concentration by voluntary attention is essential, but cannot be permanent. To secure enduring concentration we may have to "pull ourselves together'' occasionally, but the necessity for such efforts should be reduced. This is accomplished by developing interest in the task before us, through application of the fundamental motives such as self-preservation, imitation, competition, loyalty, and the love of the game.

If the task before me is essential for my self-preservation, I shall find my mind riveted upon it. If I hope to secure more from speculation than from the completion of my present tasks, then my self-preservation is not dependent upon my work and my mind will irresistibly be drawn to the stock market and the race track. If I wish my work to be interesting and to compel my undivided attention, I should then try to make it appeal to me as of more importance than anything else in the world. I must be dependent upon it for my income; I must see that others are working and so imitate their action; I must compete with others in the accomplishment of the task; I must regard the work as a service to the house; and I must in every possible way try to "get into the game.''

This conversion of a difficult task into an interesting activity is the most fruitful method of securing concentration.

Efforts of will can never be dispensed with, but the necessity for such efforts should be reduced to the minimum. The assumption of the attitude of attention should gradually become habitual during the hours of work, and so take care of itself.

The methods which a business man must use to cultivate concentration in himself are also applicable to his employees. The manner of applying the methods is, of course, different. The employer may see to it that as far as possible all distractions are removed. He cannot directly cause his men to put forth voluntary effort, but he can see to it that they re- tain the attitude of concentration. This may require the prohibition of acts which are distracting but which would otherwise seem indifferent. The employer has a duty in regard to the health of his men. Certain employers have assumed to regulate the lives of their men even after the day's work is over. Bad habits have been prohibited; sanitary conditions of living have been provided; hours of labor have been reduced; vacations have been granted; and sanitary conditions in shop and factory have been provided for.

Employers are finding it to their interest to make concentration easy for their men by rendering their work interesting.

This they have done by making the work seem worth while. The men are given living wages, the hope of promotion is not too long deferred, attractive and efficient models for imitation are provided, friendly competition is encouraged, loyalty to the house is engendered, and love of the work inculcated. In addition, everything which hinders the development of interest in the work has been resisted.

How will a salesman, for instance, develop interest in his work if he makes more from his "side lines'' than from the service he renders to the house which pays his expenses? How can the laborer be interested in his work if he believes that by gambling he can make more in an hour than he could by a month's steady work? The successful shoemaker sticks to his last, the successful professional man keeps out of business, and the wise business man resists the temptation to speculate. Occasionally a man may be capable of carrying on diverse lines of business for himself, but the man is certainly a very great exception who can hold his attention to the interests of his employer when he expects to receive greater rewards from other sources.

The power of concentration depends in part upon inheritance and in part upon training.

Some individuals, like an Edison or a Roosevelt, seem to be constructed after the manner of a searchlight. All their energy may be turned in one direction and all the rest of the world disregarded. Others are what we call scatter- brained. They are unable to attend completely to any one thing. They respond constantly to stimulation in the environment and to ideas which seem to "pop up'' in their minds.

Some people can read a book or paper with perfect satisfaction, even though companions around them are talking and laughing. For others, such attempts are farcical.

Many great men are reputed to have had marvelous powers of concentration. When engaged in their work, they became so absorbed in it that distracting thoughts had no access to their minds, and even hunger, sleep, and salutations of friends have frequently been unable to divert the attention from the absorbing topic.

There are persons who cannot really work except in the midst of excitement.

When surrounded by numerous appeals to attention, they get wakened up by resisting these attractions and find superfluous energy adequate to attend to the subject in hand. This is on the same principle that governs the effects of poisonous stimulants. Taken into the system, the whole bodily activity is aroused in an attempt to expel the poison. Some of this abnormally awakened energy may be applied to uses other than those intended by nature. Hence some individuals are actually helped in their work at least temporarily by the use of stimulants. Most of the energy is of course required to expel the poison, and hence the method of generating the energy is uneconomical.

The men who find that they can accomplish the most work and concentrate themselves upon it the most perfectly when in the midst of noise and confusion are paying a great price for the increase of energy, available for profitable work. To be dependent on confusion for the necessary stimulation is abnormal and expensive. Rapid exhaustion and a shortened life result. It is a bad habit and nothing more.

Many persons seem able to disregard the common and necessary distractions of office, store, or factory.

Other persons are so constituted that these distractions can never be overcome. Such persons cannot hear a message through a telephone when others in the room are talking; they cannot dictate a letter if a third person is within hearing; they cannot add a column of figures when others are talking. Habit and effort may reduce such disability, but in some instances it will never even approximately eliminate it. Such persons may be very efficient employees, and their inability to concentrate in the presence of distractions should be respected. Every business man is careful to locate every piece of machinery where it will work best, but equal care has not been given to locating men where they may work to the greatest advantage.

By inheritance the power of concentration differs greatly among intelligent persons. By training, those with defective power may improve, but will never perfect the power to concentrate amidst distractions. To subject such persons to distractions is an unwise expenditure of energy

Concentration by voluntary attention should be avoided, but concentration by secondary passive attention cultivated. Organized business interests should eliminate such public nuisances as surface street cars, elevated trains, venders of wares, screeching newsboys, smoking chimneys, and the like.

In individual establishments walls may be deadened to sounds, telephones may be muffled, call bells may be replaced by buzzers with indicators, clerks may have other methods than that of calling aloud for "cash'' or for floor walkers, typewriters may be massed with a view to reducing the general commotion, the illumination at the desks may be increased, discomforts should be reduced to a minimum, work may be so systematized that only one task at a time demands attention.

At least the attitude of concentration should be habitual. The bodily condition favorable to the best concentration may make profitable such devices as firm lunch rooms, the building of industrial villages, and so on.

Concentration is secured positively by bringing into activity the various motives which affect most powerfully the different individu- als. There should be a universal taboo on horse racing and all forms of gambling. Even "side lines'' should be completely discouraged. Some individuals are so hindered by the ordinary and necessary distractions of business that special protection should be granted to them.



CHAPTER VI

WAGES

AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY

FIFTY years ago works on psychology were devoted largely to discussion of ideas and of concepts. To-day the point of emphasis has changed, and we are now paying much attention to a study of "attitudes.'' It is doubtless important to analyze my ideas or concepts, but it is of much more importance to know my attitudes. It is vital to know how to influence the ideas of others; but to be able to influence their attitudes is of still greater significance.

We all know in a general way what we mean by an attitude, but it is difficult to define or to comprehend it exactly. I have one attitude towards a snake and a totally different one towards my students. If when hunting quail I happen upon a little harmless snake, I find that I respond to the sight in a most absurd manner. Dread and repulsion overcome me. I can hardly restrain myself from killing the snake, even though doing so will frighten the birds I am hunting. I am predisposed to react in a particular way towards a snake. I sustain a particular attitude towards it.

In the presence of my students I find that a spirit of unselfish devotion and a desire to be of assistance are likely to be uppermost. That is to say, I sustain towards my students an attitude of helpfulness, a predisposition to react towards them in such a way that their interests may be furthered. In fact, I find that we all take particular attitudes towards the people we know and towards every task of our lives. These attitudes are very significant, and yet they are often developed by circumstances which made but little apparent impression at the time, or may have been altogether forgotten. I cannot recall, for instance, the experience of my boyhood which developed my present absurd attitude toward harmless snakes.

When witnessing a play, my attitude of suspicion towards a particular character may have been promoted by means of music and color, by means of the total setting of the play, or by some other means which never seemed to catch my attention. These concealed agencies threw me into an attitude of suspicion, even while I was not aware that such a result was being attempted.

This modern conception of psychology teaches us that in influencing others we are not successful until we have influenced their attitudes. Children in school do not draw patriotism from mere information about their country. Patriotism comes with the cultivation of the proper attitude towards one's native land.

Success or failure in business is caused more by mental attitude even than by mental capacities.

Nothing but failure can result from the mental attitude which we designate variously as laziness, indifference, indolence, apathy, shiftlessness, and lack of interest. All business successes are due in part to the attitudes which we call industry, perseverance, interest, application, enthusiasm, and diligence.

In any individual, too, these attitudes may not be the same towards different objects and may be subject to very profound changes and developments. A schoolboy is frequently lazy when engaged in the study of grammar, but industrious when at work in manual training. A young man who is an indolent bookkeeper may prove to be an indefatigable salesman. Another who has shown himself apathetic and indifferent in a subordinate position may suddenly wake up when cast upon his own responsibility.

Few men of any intelligence can develop the same degree of interest in each of several tasks. Personally I find that my shiftlessness in regard to some of my work is appalling. Touching my main activities, however, I judge that my industry is above reproach.

The preceding chapters (particularly the chapters on Imitation, Competition, and Loy- alty) were attempts to discover and to present the most effective motives or factors in producing in workers an attitude of industry. Based on a study of psychology and of business, methods were presented which may be utilized with but little expense and yet are effective in awakening instinctive responses in the worker and hence greatly increasing his efficiency. The present chapter will deal with an even more effective means of securing an attitude of industry since it appeals to three of the most fundamental and irresistible of man's instincts.

With most of us the degree of our laziness or our industry depends partly upon our affinity for the work, but chiefly upon the motives which stimulate us.

For our ancestors, preservation depended upon their securing the necessary means for food, clothing, and shelter. In the struggle for existence only those individuals and races survived who were able to secure these necessary articles. In climates and regions removed from the tropics only the exceedingly industrious survived. In warm and fertile lands those who were relatively industrious managed to exist. Because of the absence of the necessity for clothing and because of the abundance of available food, races have developed in the tropics which are notoriously lazy. The human race, individually and collectively, works only where and when it is compelled to.

The energetic races, those which have advanced in civilization, live in lands where the struggle for existence has been continuous. Necessity is a hard master, but its rule is indispensable to worthy achievement. The instinct of self-preservation and the industrious attitude are responses which the human race has learned to exercise, in the main, only in case of need. Self-preservation is the first law; where life and personal liberty are dependent upon industry, idleness will not be found. Wealth removes the obligation to toil; hence the poor boy often outdistances his more favored brother.

Individuals work for pay as a means of self-preservation, and unless that is satisfactory other motives have but little weight with them. The needs of the self which preservation demands are continuously increasing. The needs of the American-born laborer are greater than those of the Chinaman. Regardless of this higher standard of living and the ever increasing number of "necessities,'' the instinct of self-preservation acts in connection with them all.

Almost without exception the interest of workers centers in the wage. If they could retain their accustomed wage with less effort, they would do so. If the retention and increase depend on individual production, they will respond to the compulsion.

Every student of psychology recognizes the fact that the wage is more than a means of self-preservation. Man is a distinctly social creature. He has a social self as well as an individual self. His social self demands social approval as much as his individual self demands bread, clothing, and shelter. In our present industrial system this social distinc- tion is most often indicated by means of monetary reward. The laborer not only demands that his toil shall provide the means for self- preservation, but he seeks through his wages the social distinction which he feels to be his due. His desire for increase of wages is often partly, and in some instances mainly, due to his craving for distinction or social approval.

In such instances the wage is to be thought of as something comparable to the score of a ball player. The desire for a high score is sufficient motive to beget the most extreme exertion, even though the reward anticipated is nothing more than a sign of distinction and without any relationship whatever to self- preservation.

In common with some of the lower animals man has an instinct to collect and hoard all sorts of things. This instinct is spoken of in psychology as the hoarding or proprietary instinct. In performing instinctive acts we do so with enthusiasm, but blindly. We take great delight in the performing of the act, even though the ultimate result of the act may be entirely unknown to us. The squirrel collects and stores nuts with great delight and industry. He has no idea of the approaching winter, but gathers the nuts simply because for him it is the most interesting process in his experience.

Most persons display a like instinctive tendency to make collections and hoard articles. This is particularly apparent in collections of such things as canceled postage stamps, discarded buttons, pebbles, sticks, magazines, and other non-useful articles.

When this hoarding instinct is not controlled by reason or checked by other interests, we have the miser. In a less degree, we all share with the miser his hoarding instinct. We all like to collect money just as the squirrel likes to gather nuts. The octogenarian continues to collect money with unabated zeal, even though he be childless. He is probably not aware that he is collecting merely for the pleasure of collecting.

Since the wage is the means ordinarily employed to awaken in workers the three instincts of self-preservation, of social distinction, and of hoarding, it is not strange that an industrial age should regard it as the chief means of increasing efficiency.

The employer has not attempted to discover what instincts were appealed to by the wage, or the most economical method of stimulating these instincts. He has not undervalued the wage in securing efficiency, but rather has assumed that the service secured must be in direct proportion to the amount expended.

Such an assumption is not warranted. Of two employers with equal forces and payrolls one may receive much more and better service than the other. It is not a question merely of how much is spent but how wisely it is spent. The wage secures service to the degree in which it awakens these fundamental instincts under consideration.

It is apparent, therefore, that other factors than the amount of money expended in wages are to be considered by every employer. Without increasing the pay roll he may increase the efficiency of his men. The employer who has determined the number of men he needs and the wages he must pay has only begun to solve his labor problem.

In the preparation of the present chapter a large number of business men were interviewed personally or by correspondence.

One of the questions asked was: "How do you make the most of the wages paid your men?''

As subsidiary to this general question three other questions were asked: "In paying them do you base the amount to be received by each man upon a fixed salary? By some of the men upon actual output—commissions or piecework rates? By some upon a combination including profit-sharing or bonus?''

The answers to these latter questions were not uniform even among employers engaged apparently in the same business and under very similar conditions. Some reported that all the methods suggested were used in their establishment. Factory hands were employed on piecework or on a premium or bonus basis where conditions permitted; office assistants on fixed salaries; department managers upon a combination including profit sharing. The results reported, however, were far from uniform. The astounding feature was the diversity of opinion among successful managers of employees. By various houses one or more of the systems had been tried under apparently favorable conditions and had been discarded. On the other hand each of the systems was advocated by equally successful business firms.

In judging of the relative merits of fixed salaries as compared with other methods the experiences of individual firms offer no certain data. The relative merits and demerits are best disclosed by a psychological analysis of the manner in which the various devices appeal to the employee's instincts and reason.

When wages are based on commission, piece rate, or a bonus or premium system, the stimulus to action is constantly present. Every stroke of the hammer, every sale made, every figure added, increases the wage. The wage thus continuously beckons the worker to greater accomplishment.

All other considerations lose in importance, and the mind becomes focused on output. The worker is blinded to all other motives, and invariably sacrifices quality unless this be guarded by rigid inspection. The piecework or task system thus influences the worker directly and incessantly without regard for the particular instinct to which it may be appealing. Every increase in rate adds directly to the means of self-preservation, of social distinction, and of the accumulation of wealth.

The worker with a fixed salary or wage does not feel as continuously the goad of his wage. It is less in mind and does not control his attitude toward his work. The man on a fixed salary, therefore, will not produce so much.

If he be a workman, he may take better care of his tools, keep his output up to a higher standard of quality, prepare himself for more responsible positions. If he be a salesman, he may be more considerate of his customers and hence really more valuable to his employer; he may be more loyal to the house and hence promote the "team work'' of the organization, and he may because of his more receptive state of mind be preparing himself for much greater usefulness to his house. If he be a superintendent, he may be more thoughtful of his men, or more scrupulous for the future of the business.

Production methods or labor conditions are often such that piecework is impossible. There are many functions and processes which thus far have not been satisfactorily adjusted to task systems; there are others (the inspection service in a factory, for instance) where a premium on increased output would defeat the first purpose of the service. Where results can be accurately measured, however, and the quality of the service can be automatically secured or is not sacrificed by concentration upon quantity, the task system—whether it take the form of piece rates, premiums, or bonus—has such superior psychological advantages that it will probably come more and more into use.

Under the general heading quoted above—

"How do you make the most of the wages paid your employees?''—the following question was asked: "What special method do you employ to make men satisfied or pleased with their wages?'' The answers were most interesting and instructive. One manager having many thousand men in his organization narrated various methods by which he kept in personal touch with his men, and turned this personal relationship to the advantage of the house.

One illustration will make clear the line he pursued. In the card catalogue of the employees, the birthday of each is noted, the executive recognizing that for the average man this is an anniversary even more important than New Year's.

If for any reason a member of the organization deserves or requires the executive's personal attention, his birthday may be chosen as the date of the interview. Then whether the man merits an advance for extra good work or needs help to correct a temporary slump in efficiency, the reward or the appeal takes on added meaning because it coincides with a turning point in his life.

To facilitate the plan, the manager's file of employment cards is arranged, not by initials or departments, but by birthdays. Each workman's name falls under his eye a few days in advance, long enough to secure a report from his foreman, if knowledge is lacking of his progress.

As I entered this manager's office, I met a young man coming out. He had been in the company's employ only a few months and his relations with the organization had not yet been established. Asked for a report, his foreman gave him a good record and recommended a small advance. Imagine the surprise, the instant access of pride and loyalty, the impulse towards greater effort and efficiency, when the young man was called into the manager's office on his birthday, congratulated on his record, and informed that he would start his new year with an advance in wages. Double the advance, if allowed in the usual way, would not have so impressed and satisfied him. The increased wage made its appeal direct to the instinct for social recognition, and hence was very effective.

Such a method does not admit of general application. Practiced in cold blood, it might even be harmful. But in this case, it struck me not as an act of selfish cleverness, but as the expression of a real sympathy and interest which the manager felt for his men. The cleverness lay in the recognition that no man is ever so susceptible to counsel, to appreciation, or to rebuke as on his birthday, when the social self is especially alert.

In other organizations, the effort to extend this factor of human sympathy to each worker and to see that full justice is rendered to him takes the form of a department of promotion and discharge. The head is the direct representative of the "front office'' and is independent of superintendents and foremen. No man can be "paid off'' until the facts have been submitted to the consideration of this department. Here also the man may present his case to an unprejudiced and sympathetic arbiter.

In actual practice the man "paid off'' is sometimes retained and the foreman, on the evidence of prejudice, bad temper, or other incompetency, is discharged. In consequence every workman knows that his place does not depend upon the whim of his immediate superior, but that faithful service will certainly be recognized.

Furthermore, this department assumes the task of shifting men from one department to another and thus minimizing the misfits which lower the efficiency of the whole organization. Records of each man's performance are kept, and promotions and discharge are more nearly in accord with facts than would be possible in a large house without some such agency. In too many big establishments the individual feels that he does not count in the crowd and that he is helpless to do anything to advance himself or to protect himself against an antagonistic foreman. In large measure, such a department reduces this feeling and bridges the chasm between the men and the firm.

In its effect on the attitude and efficiency of employees, the method of fixing and ad- justing wages is no less important than the wages themselves. The steady trend of the labor market has been upward and always upward; it is one of the notable achievements of trade and industry that this constant appreciation in the price of man power has been neutralized by increase in the efficiency of its application. This increase in earning capacity has been secured not alone by the development of automatic machinery, but by the division of labor, the subdivision of processes, and the education of workers to accept the new methods, and acquire expert skill in some specialty.

Hardly a generation has passed since one man, or perhaps two working together, built farm wagons, steam engines, and a thousand other articles entire. Now a hundred mechanics or machine tenders may have contributed to either wagon or engine before it reaches the shipping department. Three fourths of these workers are paid piece rates. The substitution of these piece rates for day wages, the striking of a satisfactory balance between production and compensation, and the endless changes in the scale as new parts or faster or simpler processes are invented— have all been operations in which the tact and man-handling skill of executives have played a significant part.

In the larger organization this knowledge or skill is often supplied by a manager who has "come up through the ranks'' and has not forgotten his journeyman's dexterity on the way or neglected to keep in touch with improved methods.

Frequently the advantage of a small industry or trading venture over its larger rivals depends on the owner's mastery of all the processes or conditions involved and his ability to deal with his employees on a personal plane in fixing wages or in establishing the standard day's work.

In a stove factory where four fifths of the processes are paid by piece rates, it was necessary, not long ago, to fix the remuneration for the assembling of a new type of range. Most of the operations were standard; the workmen and the management differed, however, on what should be paid for the setting and fas- tening of a back piece with seventeen bolts. The men asked fifteen cents a range. When refused, they named twelve cents as an ultimatum. The company was willing neither to pay such a price nor to antagonize the workmen.

The dispute was settled by a demonstration. The superintendent was himself a graduate from the bench and had been an expert workman. The company's contract with the assemblers' union set $4.50 a day as the maximum wage. To prove his contention that even twelve cents was too great a price, he set the back pieces on ten ranges himself, under the eyes of a committee, and proved that at six cents a range he could easily earn the maximum day wage. The price agreed upon was eight cents, little more than half the original demand. Without the demonstration the men would have accepted twelve cents reluctantly.

In the course of the interviews with employers, it became evident that there was agreement on one point—to educate the worker to realize that the house's policy in handling its men gave added value to the sums paid out in wages.

The shiftless or unskilled man works mainly for the next pay envelope, with little or no regard for the continuity of employment, the possibility of promotion, of pension, of sick or accident benefits, of working conditions, or the like.

The skilled worker, on the contrary, and the more desirable class of laborers, nearly always rate their wages above or below par, according to the presence or the absence of these contingent benefits or emoluments.

To the average man with a family, the "steady job'' at fair wages is the first consideration. It appeals more strongly to him than intermittent employment at a much higher rate; while the younger, restless, and less dependable man, both skilled and unskilled, gravitates to the shop where he can command a premium for a little while. Just as managers are always looking for the steady worker, nearly all agree in assuring their employees that faithful and efficient service will be rewarded with continuous employment.

To carry out this policy is sometimes difficult in businesses where demand is seasonal and where a large part of the product must be made to order. Nevertheless, the manager who adjusts his production program to cover the entire year has the choice of the best workers even when other factories offer higher rates. Likewise, the employer who sacrifices his profit in bad years to "take care of his men'' and hold his organization together recovers his losses when the revival comes.

So deeply rooted is this desire for a "steady job'' and so generally recognized as an essential of the labor problem that several large industries have developed "side lines'' to which they can turn their organization during their slack seasons; while others in periods of depression pile up huge stocks of standard products, making heavy investments of capital, for the primary purpose of keeping their men employed.

How such a policy reacts on the wage question, and hence on the efficiency of employees, is shown by an instance which lately fell under my notice. By a long and persistent campaign of education and demonstration, a small "quality'' house forced a rival ten times as large to adopt the careful processes on which this quality depended. Adopting the small man's methods, the competitor, instead of training its own operatives to the new standards, sought to hire the other man's skilled workers. The premium offered was a thirty per cent advance. It was refused, however. The tempted mechanics, analyzing the rival's proposal, hit on the disloyalty contemplated towards its own employees. They were to be discharged or transferred to other departments to make room for the new men.

Measuring this cold-blooded policy against the consideration, the unfailing effort of their old employer to "take care of them'' in bad seasons, the workers decided to stick to the smaller company and refuse the advance.

Next to continuous employment, among methods of increasing the value of wages, is the policy of making promotions from the ranks.

This practice seems to be commonly ac- cepted as fruitful, although many firms believe it impossible of application in filling some of the higher as well as some of the more technical positions. Where the system is applicable, it acts as a powerful stimulus to the men by adding to their present wages the promise or possibility of better positions and higher pay in the future. It gives assurance of promotion for faithful service much greater than in houses which fill the upper positions from outside sources on the assumption that they thus get "new blood'' into the business. The men secured from outside may be more skilled or more productive of immediate results than any available in the house organization. By their importation, however, the wages of all the men aspiring to the position have been cheapened. Nor does the evil stop there.

The assumption is naturally drawn that the same practice is likely to be followed in filling other vacancies. The stimulus to initiative and activity is thus weakened for men in every grade and their wages are shrunk below par.

The importance which some successful employers attach to this principle of promotion from the ranks is well illustrated by an incident which recently occurred in a large manufacturing establishment organized on a one-man basis. During the president's absence it was decided to open up a new zone of trade for a new product. No one in the organization knew the product and the field, so a new man was put in charge. The work progressed surprisingly well; the enterprise was in every way successful.

When the real head returned, he called his managers together and told them that the new man must be removed and the most deserving man in the regular organization appointed in his place. He was met with the protest that no employee was capable of taking up the work and reminded that the new man had already achieved great success. The president answered that he was willing to lose money in the department for the first year rather than cheapen and disorganize the service by taking away the certainty of promotion and by re- moving the incentive to study and self-development which had increased the efficiency of every ambitious employee.

Innumerable examples of the same principle in promotions could be gleaned from the records of some of the oldest and most progressive houses in the country. In one establishment visited, the quality of whose wares is strenuously guarded, it was discovered that the chemist and metallurgist in charge of the factory laboratory had been lifted out of one of the departments and supplied with the money to take a specialized course in physics, chemistry, and metallurgy. The advertising manager, the factory engineer, and two or three of the foremen had been given leaves of absence to study and fit themselves for the positions to which their talents and inclinations drew them. Even among the workmen there was a fixed basis for advancement towards the better jobs and the higher rates, dependent on satisfactory service and output.

To these major considerations in increasing the worth of wages, those companies which have given the longest attention to the problem add many other inducements.

An efficient and contented employee has a positive money value to any employer. To hold him and keep him efficient, his personal comfort and needs should be considered in every way not detrimental to the company's interests.

As nearly as possible, the ideal in factory location and construction is approached. Some industries have removed bodily to country towns, less for the sake of a cheap site than for the purpose of establishing themselves where housing conditions for workers were good, rents low, the cost of living cheaper, and other factors tending to *add value to every dollar paid in wages were present. Direct appeal was made to the intelligence of employees, whose health is part of their capital, by making and keeping working conditions as healthful and sanitary, as little taxing on eyesight and bodily vigor as circumstances and judicious investment of capital allowed. Scores of towns have been built outright, to benefit employees.

In line with this policy are the systems of benefit insurance for accident and sickness maintained and partly supported by many companies; the pension systems which have been adopted within the last few years by some of the greatest and most progressive companies in America; the free medical service, both in case of factory accidents and sickness at home, which other firms provide for employees; and various other activities contributing to the welfare of workers, both during working hours and afterwards.

Employers are coming more and more to see that this is the case and to devote both thought and money to the elimination of conditions which cut wages below par.

Whatever reduces hazard, discomfort, loss of time, uncertainty, or the cost of living for workers adds value to their wages and is a means of influencing their attitude towards the company.

Some employers are continually exercised to keep the wages of their men from falling below par. Others are equally solicitous that their men may regard their wages as above par. This classification is a real one and was made plain by some of the interviews referred to above. Thus in answer to the question, "What special method do you employ to make men satisfied or pleased with their wages?'' one employer immediately put his own interpretation on the question. To him it meant, "What method do you employ to keep your men from being *dissatisfied with their wages?''

His answer was: "By paying them somewhere near what they ask or expect. If we don't,'' he added, "they go out on strike and we have to compromise.''

The majority of successful employers have advanced beyond this negative, defensive attitude and take a positive and aggressive position in dealing with the problem.

Instead of assuming their work accomplished when the men are not dissatisfied or rebellious, they do not rest until every dollar paid out in wages is above par in its influence upon efficiency.

Thus in innumerable ways the progressive employer increases the value of all wages he pays by making them appeal to the reason and to the instincts of workers in a way un- dreamed of by less enlightened men. The purpose of wages is to produce a certain psychological effect and to promote the most favorable attitude on the part of the worker. The methods of increasing the purchasing power of money thus spent is one of the most interesting and yet complex problems which the business man has to face.

This chapter shows the psychological ground for the following statements:—

Employees differ in their response to piecework rates and to salaries. Some respond more satisfactorily to one and some to the other.

When the development of men for better positions is of prime importance, the piecework system is not to be adopted. If the quantity of work per unit of wage is of greatest importance, then some form of wage other than fixed salary should be used.

An employee should not be dismissed as hopelessly lazy till he has shown this attitude in more than one department or has failed to respond to different forms of stimulation.

Changes in wages may often be placed under the authority of some person or committee other than the immediate superiors of the employees involved. This authority may be vested in the direct representatives of the executives or in such a committee as would be formed by representatives of the executives and also employees from the different departments of the establishment.

Payment of wages, so far as possible, should be made to appeal to the instincts for social distinction and for acquisition as well as to the instinct for self-preservation.

Wages should never be reduced without a tactful and sincere attempt to convince the men of the necessity of such an act.

Increase in wages may well be made a personal matter. Some firms, however, are most successful with a mechanical wage system in which employees know exactly the conditions necessary for an increase in wages.

All work should be thoroughly supervised and inspected so that employees know that good service will be recognized and rewarded.

The policy of filling all positions from the ranks seems growing in favor, since it gives certain hope for advancement and hence greater satisfaction with the present wage.

The wage may well include a tacit insurance for the future. Employees should be assured that so long as they remain faithful to the firm, their work and pay will continue, and that in accident or old age they will be provided for. Accepted thus, the wage secures increased service.



CHAPTER VII

PLEASURE

AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY

TO prevent the usual "summer slump'' in output, the manager of a factory employing a hundred or more sewing girls on piecework tried various methods. He began with closer individual supervision by the forewomen. He set up a bulletin board and posted daily the names of the five highest operators. He added small cash prizes weekly. He adopted a modified bonus system framed so as not to interfere with the established average of winter tasks. With each his success was only partial. Ten or a dozen of the more energetic girls responded to the stimulus; on the majority the effect was slight.

The problem was serious. June, July, and August comprised the season when his prod- ucts were at a premium, when future orders were frequently lost because partial deliveries could not be made immediately. Studying the question, he noted specifically, what he already knew, that the output dropped as the temperature rose. A cool day sandwiched into a week of hot weather frequently equaled the best winter records. This fact, coupled with the observation that the spirit of his working force seemed to change with the change of temperature from warm to cold, helped him to arrive at the right solution.

He made the discovery sitting in the draught of an electric fan. He looked up, made a mental note; and next morning he moved his office "comforter'' out to the head of one file of machines. The draught tangled the goods under the seamstresses' hands at times, but the half dozen girls within range showed a decided increase in production over the day before and over operators at other tables.

He had found his remedy for the summer slump. Within a week he had installed a system of large overhead fans and an exhaust blower and saw his production figures mount to the winter's best average. From careless, indifferent workers, on edge at trifles and difficult to hold, his force developed steadiness and efficiency. Not only was the output increased twenty per cent over previous summers, but the proportion of spoiled work was considerably reduced.

One of the women who had been a subject of the first day's experiment struck close to the reason of her greater efficiency in her off-hand answer to his inquiry.

"It was a pleasure to work to-day. It was so comfortable after yesterday you just forgot the other girls, forgot you wanted to rest, forgot everything but the seams you were running and the fact that it was a big day. I'm not near so tired as usual either.''

A successful day is likely to be a restful one, an unsuccessful day an exhausting one. The man who is greatly interested in his work and who finds delight in overcoming the difficulties of his calling is not likely to become so tired as the man for whom the work is a burden.

The experience related summarizes the experience of every worker who has studied, either on his own initiative or at some other's instance, the effect upon output secured by the removal of distressing or displeasing conditions from the workroom.

The man who has been engaged in intellectual or manual labor finds himself more or less exhausted when the day's work is done. The degree of exhaustion varies greatly from day to day and is not in direct proportion to the amount of energy expended or the results attained. A comparatively busy day may leave him feeling fresh, while at the end of a day much less occupied he may be utterly "dragged out'' and weary.

Some men habitually find themselves fatigued, while others ordinarily end the day with a feeling of vigor. These contrary effects are not necessarily due primarily to disparity in the amount of energy spent or to unequal stores of energy available. The discrepancy in many instances is due to diverse attitudes toward the work or varying degrees of success which has attended the work.

Pleasure secured in and from work is the best preventive and balm for tired muscles and jaded brains. Dislike or discomfort, on the other hand, adds to toil by sapping the strength of the worker.

Victory in intercollegiate athletic events depends on will power and physical endurance. This is particularly apparent in football. Frequently it is not the team with the greater muscular development or speed of foot that wins the victory, but the one with the more grit and perseverance. At the conclusion of a game players are often unable to walk from the field and need to be carried. Occasionally the winning team has actually worked the harder and received the more serious injuries. Regardless of this fact, it is usually true that the victorious team leaves the field less jaded than the conquered team. Furthermore the winners will report next day refreshed and ready for further training, while the losers may require several days to overcome the shock and exhaustion of their defeat.

Recently I had a very hard contest at tennis. Some hours after the game I was still too tired to do effective work. I wondered why, until I remembered that I had been thoroughly beaten, and that, too, by an opponent whom I felt I outclassed. I had been in the habit of playing even harder contests and ordinarily with no discomfort—especially when successful in winning the match.

What I have found so apparent in physical exertion is equally true in intellectual labor. Writing or research work which progresses satisfactorily leaves me relatively fresh; unsuccessful efforts bring their aftermath of weariness.

Intellectual work which is pleasant is stimulating and does not fag one, while intellectual work which is uninteresting or displeasing is depressing and exhausting.

We can readily trace the source of energy in mechanical devices. The hands of a clock continue in their course because of the energy locked up in a compressed spring or elevated weight. The gun projects the bullet because of the sudden chemical union of carbon with saltpeter and sulphur. The steam engine takes its energy from the steam secured by combustion of coal or other fuel.

The work of the human organism is usually classified as muscular or intellectual. In either the expenditure of energy is as dependent upon known causes as is the activity of the mechanical devices mentioned above.

Every muscular activity is dependent upon muscular cells ready for combustion; without such combustion no muscular work is performed.

Every intellectual process is likewise dependent upon brain cells ready for combustion, and no intellectual work can be performed without combustion of these brain cells.

To secure continued activity the clock must be rewound, the gun must be recharged, more coal must be supplied to the engine. In like manner the continuation of muscular and in- tellectual activity depends upon the restoration of muscle and brain cells. The necessity for renewal is greater or less according to the amount stored in reserve and the rapidity of consumption. A maximum head of steam may keep the engine running for a long time unless the load is too heavy or the speed too great. Though under certain conditions the amount of muscle and brain energy stored in reserve is large, continuous or rapid activity of necessity expends the reserve and leads to exhaustion.

It is a simple process to rewind the clock, to reload the gun, and to replenish the fuel. To restore muscular and nerve cells is a very delicate process. So wonderful is the human organism, however, that the process is carried on perfectly without our consciousness or volition except under abnormal conditions.

Food and air are the first essentials of this restoration. Indirectly the perfect working of all the bodily organs contribute to the process —especially deepened breathing, heightened pulse, and increase of bodily volume due to the expansion of the blood vessels running just beneath the skin.

Here pleasure enters. Its effect on the expenditure of energy is to make muscle and brain cells more available for consumption, and particularly to hasten the process of restoration or recuperation.

The deepened breathing supplies more air for the oxidation of body wastes. The heightened pulse carries nourishment more rapidly to the depleted tissues and relieves the tissues more rapidly from the poisonous wastes produced by work. The body, the machine, runs more smoothly, and fewer stops for repairs are made necessary.

In addition to these specific functions, pleasure hastens all the bodily processes which are of advantage to the organism. The hastening may be so great that recuperation keeps pace with the consumption consequent on efficient labor, with the result that there is little or no exhaustion. This is in physiological terms the reason why a person can do more when he "enjoys'' his work or play, and can continue his efforts for a longer period without fatigue. The man who enjoys his work requires less time for recreation and exercise, for his enjoyment recharges the storage battery of energy.

Not only can I endure more and achieve more when I take pleasure in the task, but I can also secure better results from others by providing for their interest and for their pleasure in what they are doing. This is a fact which wise merchants and employers have felt intuitively, but in most instances the principle has not been consciously formulated. High-grade stores do much to add to the pleasure of their customers. Every resource of art and architecture is employed to make store rooms appeal to the sthetic sense and the appreciation of customers. Clerks are instructed to be obliging and courteous. Employees are not allowed to dress in a style likely to offend a customer and they are schooled in manners and in speech. Space is devoted to the convenience and comfort of customers.

The most successful establishments in the world are the ones which do most to please their patrons—not by cutting prices or simply by supplying better goods, but by expediting and making more pleasant the purchase of goods.

They have discovered that customers inducted into a beautiful shop and surrounded by tactful obliging clerks are more willing to buy and are more likely to be satisfied with what they purchase. By adding to their patrons' comfort and pleasure they are able to accomplish more than by any other selling argument. In like manner, restaurants and hotels have learned that splendid rooms, flowers, spotless linen, well-dressed and courteous waiters, good furniture, and so on, all attract customers and induce them to order more generously.

Lawyers find in trying cases that it is quite essential to regard the mood of clients, juries, and judges. The pleased man is not suspicious; he does not hesitate in coming to a conclusion, and he is not likely to impute evil motives to the actions of others. As has been well said by Dickens, when speaking from the viewpoint of the defendant, "A good, contented, well-breakfasted juryman is a capital thing to get hold of. Discontented or hungry jurymen always find for the plaintiff.''

The salesman with a pleasing personality is able to sell more goods than others less happily endowed. Some salesmen try to supplement this power—or supply the lack of a pleasing personality—by "jollying'' the possible customer in various ways. Dinners, theaters, cigars, and various other devices are thus used, and in many instances with success.

Modern business employs such methods less and less, chiefly because the customer recognizes the purpose of the attempt, and either refuses to accept the "hospitality'' or is on his guard to resist the effect. A pleasing personality, however, inspires confidence, tends to put the customer in a good humor and optimistic mood, and results in sales.

A cold, formal manner, ill temper, or a pessimistic outlook, on the contrary, will handicap the sale of the best merchandise made.

A man is said to be suggestible when he comes to conclusions or acts without due deliberation. Suggestion, then, is nothing but the mental condition which causes us to believe and respond without the normal amount of weighing of evidence. While in a suggestible condition we are credulous, responsive, and impulsive. Such a mental condition is favored and induced by pleasure. Discomfort or dissatisfaction with the conditions or surroundings prompts the opposing attitude; we become suspicious and slow to act or believe. While in a suggestible condition, we place our orders freely and promptly. The merchant who can please his customers and bring them to a suggestible mood before he displays his wares, therefore, has done much to secure generous sales.

Advantageous results from suggestion are not limited to the relationship between buyer and seller.

The pleased and satisfied employee is open to the suggestions of foreman and manager and responds with an enthusiasm impossible of generation in one dissatisfied from any cause.

Methods of insuring this pleasure in work for employees are yet in the formative stage. Until recently the want of such methods, indeed, was not felt. The slave driver with the most profane vocabulary and the greatest recklessness in the use of fist and foot was supposed to be the most effective type of boss. The task system set an irreducible minimum for the day's work; the employer exacted the task and assumed that no better way of handling men could be devised. Piecework rates provided a better and more reasonable basis for securing something like a maximum day's work; bonus and premium systems have carried the incentive of the wage in increasing efficiency to the last point short of coperative organization. But all of these systems fall short in assuming that men are machines; that their powers and capacities are fixed quantities; that the efficiency of a well-disposed and industrious employee ought to be proof against varying conditions or environment; that a man can achieve the desired standard, if only he has the will to achieve it.

Discipline has become less brutal if not less strict. The laborer works, not alone to avoid poverty and hunger, but to secure the means of pleasure.

It is not so long since harsh discipline was common both in homes and in business. The boy worked hard because he was afraid not to. The man labored because poverty threatened him if idle. We were in what might be called a "pain economy''; we worked to escape pain. To-day this has largely been changed.

Employers, too, are experimenting boldly with the idea of creating pleasure in work. The first step has been taken in the very general elimination of the old wasteful, neglectful elements of factory and office environment. Comfort, the first neutral element of pleasure, is provided for employees just as solid foundations are provided for the factory buildings. There is light, heat, and ventilation where a generation ago there were tiny windows, shadows, lonely stoves, and foul air. Cleanliness is provided and preserved; not a few of the larger industries employ a regular corps of janitors to keep floors, walls, and windows clean. The walls are tinted; the lights are arranged so as to provide the right illumination without straining the workers' eyes. The departments are symmetrically arranged; the aisles are wide; the working space is ample; there is no fear to haunt machine tenders that a mis- step or a moment of forgetfulness will entangle them in a neighboring machine. The factory buildings themselves, without being pretentious, have pleasing, simple lines and unobtrusive ornamentation. They look like, and are, when the human equation does not interfere, *pleasant places to work in.

This is the typical modern factory; thousands can be found in America. On this foundation of good working conditions and pleasant environment, many companies have built more or less elaborate systems of welfare work, whose effectiveness in creating pleasure and efficiency seem to depend on the purpose and spirit of the men behind them. These systems frequently begin with beautification of the factory premises and workrooms —window boxes, factory lawns, ivied walls, trees, and shrubs—and advance by various stages to lunch rooms for workers, factory libraries, rest rooms for women workers, factory nurses and physicians, and sometimes the development of a social life among employees through picnics, lectures, dances, night schools, and like activities. The methods employed are too diverse and too recent to permit an accurate estimate of their work or a true analysis of the elements of their success. It is incumbent on the employer to find or work out for himself the method best suited to his individual needs.

To understand how pleasure heightens the suggestibility of the individual it is but necessary to consider the well-known effects which pleasure has on the various bodily and mental processes.

The action of pleasure and displeasure upon the muscles of the body is most apparent. With displeasure the muscles of the forehead contract; folds and wrinkles appear. The corners of the mouth are drawn down; the head bowed; the shoulders stoop and draw together over the breast; the chest is contracted; the fingers of the hand close, and there is also a tendency to bend the arms so as to protect the fore part of the body. In displeasure the body is thus seen to contract and to put itself on the defensive. It closes itself to outside influences and attempts to "withdraw within its shell.''

With pleasure the forehead is smoothed out; the corners of the mouth are lifted; the head is held erect; the shoulders are thrown back; the chest is expanded; the fingers of the hand are opened, and the arm is ready to go out to grasp any object. The whole body is thrown into a receptive attitude. It is prepared to be affected by outside stimulations and is ready to profit by them.

That these characteristic bodily attitudes of pleasure and displeasure have an effect on the mind is evident. Bodily and mental attitudes have developed together in the history of the race. The conditions which cause a receptive attitude of body cause also a suggestible state of mind. The conditions which call for bodily protection also demand a suspicious and non-responsive attitude of mind. The bodily and the mental attitudes have become so intimately associated that the presence of one assures the presence of the other.

Pleasure and a particular attitude of body are indissolubly united, and when these two are present, a suggestible condition of mind seems of necessity to follow.

Thus by the subtle working of pleasant impressions the customer is disarmed of his suspicion and made ready to respond to the suggestions of the merchant.

The effect of the suggestible attitude of the body, as produced by pleasure, is increased by certain other effects which pleasure produces on the body.

Muscular strength is frequently measured by finding the maximum grip on a recording instrument. The amount of the grip varies from time to time and is affected by various conditions. One of the phenomena which has been thoroughly investigated is the effect of pleasure and of pain on the intensity of the grip. It is well established that pleasure increases the grip or the available amount of energy. Displeasure reduces the strength.

The total volume of the body would seem to be constant for any particular short interval of time. Such, however, is not the case.

With pleasure the lungs are filled with air from deepened breathing; the volume of the limbs is increased by the increased flow of blood. Pleasure thus actually makes us larger and displeasure smaller.

This increase in muscular strength and bodily volume due to pleasure has a very decided effect upon the mind. The increase of muscular strength gives us a feeling of power and assurance, the increase in volume gives us a feeling of expansion and importance. These conditions produced by increase of muscular strength and bodily volume contribute to the general suggestible condition described above.

If I am in a suggestible condition and if I also feel an unusual degree of assurance in my own powers and importance, I shall have such confidence in the wisdom of my intended acts that there will seem to be no ground for delay. Furthermore the increased action of the heart, due to the effect of pleasure, gives me a feeling of buoyancy and invigoration which adds appreciably to the tendency to action.

We thus see why pleasure renders us more suggestible and hence makes us more apt to purchase proffered merchandise or to respond to the suggestions of our foreman or our executive. We also see why it is that a man may increase his efficiency by pleasing those with whom he has to work, whether they be customers or employees.



CHAPTER VIII

THE LOVE OF THE GAME

AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY

THE motives discussed in previous chapters are fairly adequate for developing efficiency in all except the owner or chief executive. The employee may imitate and compete with his equals and his superiors; he may work for his wage, and he may be loyal to the house. To increase the industry and enthusiasm of the head is a task of supreme importance. Interest and enthusiasm must be kindled at the top that the spark may be passed down to the lower levels. It can never travel in the opposite direction.

How, then, is the president to light his fires and transmit his enthusiasm to his managers and other subordinates? Not by working for money alone, nor through imitation, competition, or loyalty to the works of his own hands. All these may be essential, may be powerful subordinate incentives to action, but singly or collectively they are not adequate. In any organization, the head who attains the maximum of success must depend for his enthusiasm upon an instinctive love of the game.

The subordinate possessing such love of the game and independent of others for his enthusiasm is sure to rise. The subject is, therefore, of vital importance both to the executive and to the ambitious employee. Every employer feels the need of such an attitude towards work, both in himself and in his men.

An attempt will be made in this chapter to comprehend this instinctive love of the game, to discuss to what extent it is inherited and to what extent subject to cultivation, and to analyze the conditions most favorable for its development in respect to one's own work as well as that of his employees.

The love of the game is in part instinctive, and its nature is made clear by consideration of certain of the instincts of animals.

The young lion spends much time in pretended stalking of game and in harmless struggles with his mates. He takes great delight in the exercise of his cunning and in his strength of limb and jaw. Fortunately for the young lion this is the sort of activity best adapted to develop his strength of muscle and his cunning in capturing prey. However, it is not for the sake of the training that the young lion performs these particular acts. He does them simply because he loves to. In like manner the young greyhound chasing his mates and the young squirrel gathering and storing nuts have no thought beyond the instinctive pleasure they find in performing these functions. To each there is no other form of activity so satisfactory.

Man possesses more instincts than any of the lower animals. One pronounced instinct in all normal males is the hunting instinct. Grover Cleveland went fishing because he loved the sport, not because of the value of the fish caught. Theodore Roosevelt did not hunt big game in Africa because he was in need of luscious steaks or tawny hides. He was not working solely in the interest of the Smithsonian Institute nor to secure material for his book. Doubtless these were subsidiary motives, but the chief reason why he killed the game was that he instinctively loves the sport. He endured the hardships of Africa for the same reason that fishermen spend days in the icy water of a trout stream and hunters lie still for hours suffering intense cold for a chance to shoot at a bear.