Increasing Efficiency In Business by Walter Dill Scott (desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

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

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<p 133>

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

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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,

<p 135>

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-

<p 136>

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

<p 137>

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

<p 138>

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-

<p 139>

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

<p 140>

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_

<p 141>

_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

<p 142>

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

<p 143>

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_.

<p 144>

 

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