Increasing Efficiency In Business | Page 9

sell, to study
how you make your points, how you introduce yourself, how you get
your man's attention, how you bring out his objections and meet them,
how you lead up to the signing minute, and show him where to sign.
*What you say is about half the trick: *how you say it is the convincing
part--the thing the slowest man in the force by watching you can learn
more quickly than the smartest could work out at home.''

The result of that conference was one of the earliest organized training
schools for salesmen in the country. It was an unconscious, but none
the less certain, utilization of the instinct of *imitation for increasing
the efficiency in employees. Since then, business has borrowed many

well-recognized principles from psychology and pedagogy and adapted
them to the same end.
Many important houses have grafted the school upon their
organizations and *teach not only raw and untrained employees, but
provide instruction calculated to make workmen and clerks masters of
their jobs and also to fit them for advancement to higher and more
productive planes. Teaching is by example rather than by precept, just
as it was in the old apprentice system.
_The newer method uses even more than the older a perfect example of
the process and the product for the learner's imitation and makes them
the basis of the instruction_.
No man was made to live alone. For an individual, existence entirely
independent of

other members of the race is the conception of a
dreamer; apart from others one would fail to become *human. Modern
psychology has abandoned the individualistic and adopted the social
point of view. We no longer think of *imitation as a characteristic only
of animals, children, and weak-minded folk.
_We have come to see that imitation is the greatest factor in the
education of the young and a continuous process with all of us. The
part of wisdom, then, is to utilize this power from which we cannot
escape, by setting up a perfect copy for imitation_.
The child brought up by a Chinaman imitates the sounds he hears,
hence speaks Chinese; brought up in an American home, English is his
speech--ungrammatical or correct according to the usage of his
companions. If one boy in a group walks on stilts or plays marbles, the
others follow his example. If a social leader rides in an automobile,
wears a Panama hat, or plays golf, all the members of this circle are
restless till they have the same experience. The same

phenomenon is seen in the professions and in business. If one bank
decides to erect a building for its own use, other banks in the city begin
to consult architects. If one manufacturer or distributor in a given field
adopts a new policy in manufacturing or in extending his trade zone,
his rivals immediately consider plans of a similar sort. Partly, of course,

this act is defensive. In the main, however, imitation and emulation are
at the bottom of the move.
For the sake of clearness, in studying acts of imitation we separate
them into two classes--*voluntary imitation (also called conscious
imitation) and *instinctive imitation (also known as *suggestive
imitation).
A peculiar signature may strike my fancy so that consciously and
deliberately I may try to imitate it. This is a clear case of voluntary
imitation. Threading crowded city streets, I see a man crossing at a
particular point and voluntarily follow in his path. In learning a new
skating figure I watch an expert attentively and try to repeat his
perform-

ance. In writing letters or advertisements or magazine
articles, I analyze the work of other men and consciously imitate what
seems best. Or I observe a fellow-laborer working faster than I, and
forthwith try to catch and hold his pace.
The contagion of yawning, on the other hand, is instinctive imitation.
Also when in a crowd during the homeward evening rush, we
instinctively quicken our pace though there may be no reason for hurry.
For precisely similar reasons, a ``loafer'' or a careless or inefficient
workman will lower the efficiency or slow up the production of the
men about him, no matter how earnest or industrious their natural
habits. Night work by clerks, also, is taken by some office managers to
indicate a slump in industry during the day. To correct this the
individuals who are drags on the organization are discovered, and either
are revitalized or discharged.
_I have seen more than one machine shop where production could have
been materially raised_

_by the simple expedient of weeding
out the workmen who were satisfied with a mere living wage earned by
piecework, thereby setting a dilatory example to the rest; and replacing
them with fresh men ambitious to