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

all-round mastery of their trades which

enable them to show their less efficient mates

how any and all operations should be conducted.

 

This focusing of attention upon individuals

worthy of imitation has been carried much

farther by various companies. Through their

“house organs”—weekly or monthly papers

published primarily for circulation within the

organization—they make record of every

incident reflecting unusual skill, initiative, or

personal power in an individual member of

the organization.

<p 36>

 

A big order closed, a difficult contract

secured, a complex or delicate operation performed

in less than the usual time, a new personal

record in production, the invention of

an unproved method or machine—whatever

the achievement, it is described and glorified,

its author praised and held up for emulation.

This, indeed, is one of the methods by which

the larger sales organizations have obtained

remarkable results.

 

_Graphically told, the story of an important

sale with the salesman’s picture alongside makes

double use of the instinct of imitation. It

suggests forcibly that every man in the field can

duplicate the achievement and tells how he can

do it_.

 

Frequently, examples of initiative and efficiency

are borrowed from outside organizations.

“Carrying a message to Garcia” has

long been a business synonym for immediate

and effective execution of orders. One big

company, employing thousands of mechanics

and developing all its executives and skilled

experts from boys and men within the or-

<p 37>

ganization, has printed in its house organ

studies of all the great American and English

inventors from Stephenson and Fulton to

Edison and Westinghouse. These histories

emphasize the facts that these men were self-taught and bench-trained, and that their

achievements can be imitated by every intelligent

mechanic in the organization.

 

_In teaching and learning by imitation certain

modifying facts are to be kept constantly in mind.

We tend to imitate everything which catches our

attention, but certain things appeal more powerfully

than others_.

 

The acts of those whom I admire are particularly

contagious, but I remain indifferent

to the acts of those who are uninteresting.

Acts showing a skill to which I aspire are

immediately imitated, while acts representing

stages of development from which I have escaped

are less likely to be imitated. We imitate

the acts of hearty, jovial individuals more

than the acts of others. This point cannot

be pressed too far since a surly and selfish

individual often seems to corrupt a whole

<p 38>

group. Also it is not always the acts which

I admire that are imitated. If I am frequently

with a lame person, I am in danger

of acquiring a limp; one who stutters is

clearly injurious to my freedom of speech;

round-shouldered friends may at first cause

me to straighten up, but soon I am in danger

of a droop.

 

That imitation is merely something to be

avoided by teachers, employers, and foremen

is an idea soon banished when the importance

and complexity of the process is comprehended.

In teaching we find precept inferior

to example wherever the latter is possible.

Particularly in teaching all sorts of

acts of skill the imitation of perfect models

is the first resort. In business, however,

insufficient consideration has been given to the

possibilities of imitation in increasing human

efficiency.

 

_In the preparation of this article representative

business men who had been especially successful

in dealing with employees were asked

the following questions_:—

<p 39>

 

In increasing the efficiency of your employees

do you utilize imitation by

 

(1) placing efficient workmen where they

may be imitated by the less efficient?

 

(2) having the men visit highly efficient

establishments?

 

(3) bringing to the attention of your men

the lives of successful men and the work of

successful houses?

 

(4) bringing frequently to the attention of

the men model methods of work?

 

(5) Have you observed any pronounced

instance of increase or decrease in the work

of a department due to imitation?

 

The men interviewed took a decided interest

in the subject, and their answers

contained much of general value. Some admitted

that they had never made any conscious

effort to utilize imitation as implied

in the first four questions. Many others

had made particular use of one or more of

the methods. A few of the firms interviewed

had employed all four methods with entire

satisfaction.

<p 40>

 

The following is a fair representative of

the answers. It is the response of a very

successful general manager of a railroad:—

 

“I beg to give you below the answer to

the questions which you have asked:—

 

“1. The superintendent and foremen in

our shops are the most efficient we can find.

They are imitated, and thus influence the less

efficient.

 

“2. We have the heads of our departments

visit other shops to see how they are progressing

in the same line. If they notice anything

that is better than what we have as to the

output of work, we imitate it by following

their methods.

 

“3. We have not made a practice of bringing

to the attention of our employees the lives

of successful men or the work of successful

houses.

 

“4. We keep standard models of the different

kinds of work in plain view of the men. If

there is any doubt in their minds, they can

study these models.

 

“5. We have observed a pronounced in-

<p 41>

crease in the work of our shops, due to imitation,

since in lining up our organization we

put the most competent men we have at the

head. Their influence over the men in their

charge increases the work, as there is no

question that a good leader is imitated by

the men, and the company is benefited by

this imitation.”

 

_Judged by the results of the investigation the

most common use of imitation is in the training

or “breaking in” of new employees. The

accepted plan is to pick out the most expert and

intelligent workman available and put the new

man in his charge_.

 

By observing the veteran and imitating his

actions, working gradually from the simpler

operations to the more complex, the beginner

is able to master technic and methods in the

shortest possible time. The psychological

moment for such instruction, of course, is the

first day or the first week. New men learn

much more readily than those who have become

habituated to certain methods or tasks;

not having had time or opportunity to experi-

<p 42>

ment and learn wrong methods, they have

nothing to unlearn in acquiring the right.

They fall into line at once and adopt the stride

and the manner of work approved by the

house.

 

This is the specific process by which the

most advanced industrial organizations develop

machine hands and initiate skilled mechanics

into house methods and requirements.

It has been largely used by public service

corporations—street-car motormen and conductors,

for instance, learning their duties

almost entirely by observation of experienced

men either in formal schools or on cars in

actual operation. Many large commercial

houses give new employees regular courses in

company methods before intrusting work to

them; the instructor is some highly efficient

specialist, who shows the beginner *how to get

output and quality with the least expenditure

of time and energy. The same method has

been adapted by leading manufacturers of

machines, who call their mechanics or assemblers

together at intervals and have the most

<p 43>

expert among them show how they conduct

operations in which they have attained special

skill.

 

_In the training of salesmen imitation has

received its widest application in teaching new

men the elements of salesmanship; in showing

them how to make the individual sale; in giving

old men the best and newest methods—all by

imitation_.

 

Not only is the recruit to the selling ranks

in formal schools given repeated examples of

the most effective ways to approach customers,

to demonstrate the house goods and secure the

order; but the more progressive companies,

after this preliminary instruction, assign him

to a training ground where he accompanies

one of the company’s best salesmen and

merely observes how actual sales are made.

Then the new man is sent out alone; usually

he fails to secure as large an order as the

house wants. Again the star salesman takes

him in hand, analyzes the student’s approach

and demonstration, points out their weaknesses

and, going back with the new man,

<p 44>

makes the right kind of approach and secures

a satisfactory order. For the beginner this is

the most vivid lesson in salesmanship; he

cannot but model his next selling effort on the

lines proved so effective.

 

The use of imitation, however, is carried

further. In the monthly or semiannual district

conventions of salesmen which most big

organizations call, the newest and most effective

selling methods are staged for the

instruction both of new men and veterans.

The district leader in sales, for example, or

the man who has closed an order by a new or

unusual argument is pitted against a salesman

equally able, and the whole force sees

how the successful man secured his results.

 

_Educational trips to other factories were

employed by several firms to stimulate mental

alertness and the instinct of imitation in their

men. These trips usually supplemented some

sort of suggestion system for encouraging employees

to submit to the management ideas for

improving methods, machines, or products_.

 

Cash payments were made for each suggestion

<p 45>

adopted, quarterly prizes of ten to fifty dollars

were awarded for the most valuable suggestions;

and finally a dozen or a score of the

men submitting the best ideas were sent on a

week’s tour of observation to other industrial

centers and notable plants. In some instances

the expense incurred was considerable, but the

companies considered the money well spent.

Not only were the men making helpful suggestions

the very ones who would observe

most wisely and profit most extensively from

such educational trips, but they would bring

back to their everyday tasks a new perspective,

see them from a new angle, and frequently

offer new suggestions which would

more than save or earn the vacation cost.

 

Business managers, it was made plain, are

coming more and more to depend upon imitation

as one of the great forces in securing

a maximum of efficiency without risking the

rupture or rebellion which might follow if the

same efficiency were sought by force or by

any method of conscious compulsion. Tactfully

suggested, the examples for imitation will

<p 46>

lead men where no amount of argument or

reasonable compensation will drive them. I

am therefore led to suggest the following uses

of imitation for increasing the efficiency of the

working force.

 

In breaking in new recruits they should

be set to imitate expert workmen in all the

details possible.

 

Gang foremen and superintendents should

always be capable of “showing how” for the

sake of the men under them.

 

The better workmen should, where possible,

be located so that they will be observed

by the other employees.

 

Inefficient help should be avoided since the

example of the less efficient should become the

model for the larger group.

 

Educational trips or tours of inspection

should be regularly encouraged for both

workmen and superintendents.

 

The deeds of successful houses should be

brought to the attention of employees.

 

Where conditions admit, pacemakers should

be retained in various groups to key up the

other men.

<p 47>

 

Favorable conditions should be provided

for conscious and instinctive imitation for all

the members of the plant.

 

Persons who are sociable and much liked

are imitated more than others, and if efficient,

are particularly valuable; but if inefficient,

are especially detrimental to others.

 

At the formal and informal meetings of the

men of a house or a department, demonstrations

of how to do certain definite things