Increasing Efficiency In Business | Page 4

store. The problems of power and its transmission come nearer
solution every day. Physics and chemistry have revealed the secrets of
raw materials. For any given service, the manufacturer can determine
the cheapest and most suitable metal, wood, or fabric which will satisfy
his requirements, and the most economical method of treating it.
Of the elements involved in production or distribution, the human
factor is to-day the most serious problem confronting the business man.
The individual remains to be studied, trained, and developed--to be
brought up to the standard of maximum results already reached by
materials and processes.
Few employers can gather a force of effi-

cient workers and keep
them at their best. Not only is it difficult to select the right men but it is
even harder to secure top efficiency after they are hired. Touching this,
there will be no dispute. Experts in shop management go even farther.
F. W. Taylor, who has made the closest and most scientific study,
perhaps, of actual and potential efficiency among workers, declares
that:--
``_A first-class man can, in most cases, do from two to four times as
much as is done on the average_.''
``This enormous difference,'' Mr. Taylor goes on to say, ``exists in all
the trades and branches of labor investigated, from pick- and-shovel
men all the way up the scale to machinists and other skilled workmen.
The multiplied output was not the product of a spurt or a period of

overexertion; it was simply what a good man could keep up for a long
term of years without injury to his health, become happier, and thrive
under.''
Ask the head of any important business what is the first qualification of
a foreman

or manager, and he will tell you ``ability to handle
men.''
_Men who know how to get maximum results out of machines are
common; the power to get the maximum of work out of subordinates or
out of yourself is a much rarer possession_.
Yet this power is not necessarily a sixth sense or a fixed attribute of
personality. It is based on knowledge of the workings of the other
man's mind, either intuitive or acquired. It is the purpose of this and
succeeding chapters to consider some of the aspects of human nature
that can be turned to advantage in the cultivation of individual
efficiency and the elimination of lost motion and wasted effort.
In a thousand instances, in factory and market place, unrecognized use
has been made of the principles of psychology by business men to
influence other men and to attain their ends.
_For the science of psychology is in respect to certain data merely
common sense, the wisdom of experience, analyzed, formulated, and
codified_.

_It has taken its place, alongside physics and
chemistry, as the ally and employee of trade and industry_.
The time has come when a man's knowledge of his business, if the
larger success is to be won, must embrace an understanding of the laws
which govern the thinking and acting of the men who make and sell his
products as well as those others who buy and consume them.
The achievements of the human mind and the human body seem to
many to be out of the range of possible improvement through
application of any science which deals with these human activities.
Muscular strength and mental efficiency seem to be fixed quantities not
subject to increase or improvement.

_The contention here supported, however, is that human efficiency is a
variable quantity which increases and decreases according to law. By
the application of known physical laws the telephone and the telegraph
have supplanted the messenger boy. By the laws of psychology applied
to business equally astounding improvements are being and will be
secured_.

Employers sometimes find that their men are not working well, that
they loaf and kill time on every possible occasion. The men are not
trying and are indifferent to results. Under such circumstances a new
foreman, the dismissal of the poorer workmen, modification of the
wage scale or method of payment, or some other device may correct the
evil and induce the men to exert themselves.
Again, the men are working industriously and may feel that an increase
in output would be injurious to health or even impossible. They think
they are doing their best; while the employer himself may feel that he is
achieving but little, although he assumes that he is doing as much as it
is wise to attempt. For instance, Mr. Taylor, in his studies, found that
both employers and men had only a vague conception of what
constituted a full day's work for a first-class man. The good workmen
knew they could do more than the average; but refused to believe when,
after close