Increasing Efficiency In Business by Walter Dill Scott (top 10 most read books in the world TXT) đź“–
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To the extent to which men thus neglect the
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theoretical do they lower themselves and class
themselves with mere machines, and so hasten
the day when they shall be discarded. Whether
we be apprentices or experts, employees or
employers, we are all in a similar condition.
In every case advance is dependent upon
the proper utilization of practical and theoretical
experiences—upon the practical experience
which is adequately interpreted.
MAKING EXPERIENCE AN ASSET: JUDGMENT
FORMATION
WHY is it that of two men who are
working at the same desk or bench
the one acquires valuable experience
rapidly and the other slowly?
Why is it that of two houses each employing
a thousand men the one sees its employees
securing experiences that enhance their earning
capacity rapidly, but the other house is
compelled periodically to secure new blood by
importing men from rival firms?
Modern psychology teaches that experience
is not merely the best teacher but the only
possible teacher. All that any instructor can
do is to select and to provide the conditions
necessary for appropriate experiences and to
stimulate the learner to make the most of
them. The ignorant is changed into the learned
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by means of the utilization of profitable
experiences. By the same method the novice is
changed into the expert; the amateur into the
professional; the inefficient into the efficient;
and the errand boy into the manager.
One of the most important questions any
man can ask is this: What experience am I
actually getting from day to day and what experience
might my situation offer?
One of the most important questions the
employer of men can ask is this: How much
more efficient will my men be to-morrow because
of the experience of to-day? How
might their experience be changed or utilized
so that their efficiency might be increased
more rapidly?
In planning to secure permanent increase in
efficiency, whether for one’s self or for one’s
employees, we simplify our problem by considering
it under the two following subdivisions:—
What Experiences are Most Valuable?
How may these Most Valuable Experiences
be Secured and Utilized?
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Preparatory to the answering of these two
questions it will simplify matters to consider
the general conditions which affect the value
of experience.
GENERAL CONDITIONS GIVING VALUE TO
EXPERIENCE
1. Health and Vigor.
The mind and body are so intimately connected
that the value of an experience is seriously
affected by depletion or exhaustion of
the body. The experiences acquired when one
is fresh and vigorous are remembered; those
acquired when one is tired are forgotten. Most
college students find that lessons gotten in the
morning are better remembered and are more
readily applied than those learned after a day
of exhaustive work. We get most out of those
experiences secured when we are feeling the
most vigorous, whether the vigor be dependent
upon age, rest, or general health.
2. Experience is valuable proportionately as
we apply ourselves to the task on hand. By
intensity of application we not only accomplish
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more, but each unit of work contributes more
to our development. Under the stress of voluntary
and spontaneous attention, under the
stimulus of personal efficiencyideals, and under
such social demands as competition and imitation
we develop new methods of thought and
action which are thereupon adopted as the
methods for future action.
3. The value of an experience depends upon
what has been called the “personal attitude”
sustained during the experience. Three forms
of “personal attitudes” have been distinguished
and are designated as follows:—
(_a_) The submissive or suggestible attitude.
(_b_) The self-attentive attitude.
(_c_) The objective or the problem attitude.
(_a_) One is likely to be thrown into the submissive
attitude when a new situation arises
(a business problem), if one knows that he is
in the presence of others who could solve the
problem with relative ease or accuracy. In
such a situation the individual is hampered
in his thinking by the presence of those who
are more expert than he. His thinking is
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therefore futile for the present difficulty and is
devoid of educative value.
(_b_) The self-attentive attitude is similar
to the submissive attitude, but is not to be
confused with it. If when confronted with a
difficult problem my attack upon it is weakened
by the expectation of assistance from others, I
am in a submissive attitude. If, however, my
attack is weakened by my realization that I
am on trial,—that what I do with the problem
will be observed by others,—then I become
self-conscious and am thrown into the self-attentive attitude. If I am conscious that I
am being watched, it is quite difficult for me to
hit a golf ball, to add a column of figures, or
to deliver a lecture on psychology. So long
as I am self-attentive my efficiency is reduced;
I hit on no improved methods of thought or
action, and my experience therefore has no
permanent value.
(_c_) So soon as I can forget others and myself
and can take the objective, or the problem
attitude, the chances of efficient action are
greatly increased. I find it relatively easy
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to assume this attitude when I feel that I
stand on my own responsibility; that the
problem cannot possibly be referred to any
higher authority, but that the solution depends
upon me alone. My chances of solving the
problem would be much reduced, if it were proposed
to me at a time when I felt domineered
by a superior, or when I felt that he knew much
more about it and could settle it much more
easily and surely than I. If the problem demanded
previous experience and the possession
of knowledge which I did not possess, it would
be likely to make me self-conscious and hence
incapable of utilizing even the experience and
the knowledge that I do possess. Past success,
the possession of wide experience, and
technical instruction keep me from assuming
the self-attentive attitude and enable me to
take the problem or objective attitude. This
is the only attitude consistent with improved
form of thought or action, and hence is the
attitude essential for valuable experience.
4. That experience is the most valuable that
is acquired in dealing with conditions similar
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to those in connection with which improvement
is sought. Experience in woodchopping makes
one a better chopper but does not necessarily
increase his skill in sawing wood. Experience
in bookkeeping increases one’s ability in
that particular, but does not appreciably increase
his ability to handle men. Speed and
accuracy of judgment secured in inspecting one
sort of goods cannot be depended upon, if a
different sort of goods is to be inspected.
The experience secured in responding to one
situation will be valuable in responding to a
similar situation because of the three following
facts:—
(_a_) Two similar conditions may secure identical
factors in our activity. Thus school life
and the executive’s work secure such identical
activities as are involved in reading, in writing,
or in arithmetic, and so forth, whether accomplished
in the schoolroom or the office.
(_b_) The method developed in one experience
may be applied equally well to another activity.
In connection with a course in college, a
student may acquire a scientific method of
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procedure. At a later time he may (or he may
not) apply this same method to the problems
arising in his business or industrial life.
(_c_) Ideals developed in one experience may
be projected into other experiences. If the
ideals of promptness, neatness, accuracy, and
honesty are developed in one relationship of
life, the probabilities are somewhat increased
that the same ideals will be applied to all
experiences.
Provided that the four general conditions
discussed are secured, we then have the more
specific and important question to ask:—
WHAT EXPERIENCES ARE THE MOST VALUABLE?
Only those experiences are valuable that in
an appreciable degree modify future action.
One way in which an experience or a series of
experiences modifies future action is in the
formation of habits.
Habit Formation
Habit has a beneficial influence on future
action in five particulars:—
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(_a_) Habit reduces the necessary time of
action. Repeating the twenty-six letters of
the alphabet has become so habitual that I can
repeat them forward in two seconds. To repeat
them in any other than an habitual order,
e.g. backwards, requires sixty seconds.
(_b_) Habit increases accuracy. I can repeat
the alphabet forward without danger of error,
but when I try to repeat it backward I am
extremely likely to go astray.
(_c_) Habit reduces the attendant exhaustion.
Reading English is for me more habitual than
reading French. Hence the latter is the more
exhausting process.
(_d_) Habit relieves the mind from the necessity
of paying attention to the details of the
successive steps of the act. When piano
playing has been completely reduced to habit,
the finger movement, the reading of the notes,
etc., are all carried on successively with the
minimum of thought.
(_e_) Habit gives a permanency to experience.
For many years in playing tennis I served the
ball in a way that had become for me perfectly
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habitual. For an interval of three years I
played no tennis, but when I began again I
found that I could serve as well as ever. If
the manner of service had not been so perfectly
reduced to habit, I would have found
after an interval of three years that I was completely
out of practice, i.e. that my previous
experience did not have a permanent value.
(The subject of habit formation will be more
completely presented in Chapter XIII.)
A second form of experience that is capitalized
and so predetermines a man’s capacity to
act and to think is the formation of what is
known as practical judgments.
Practical judgments
By a practical judgment is meant the conscious
recall of a concrete past experience and
the determination of some action by means of
this consciously recalled event. I find that it
will be necessary for me to secure a new stenographer.
I solve the problem by consciously
recalling how I got one before. Upon the
basis of that consciously recalled previous
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experience I decide how to act now. This is a
practical judgment.
In strictness what is capitalized is not the
practical judgment itself but the original
concrete experience that is recalled at a later
time, and upon the basis of which a practical
judgment is formed.
Practical judgments cannot be more
comprehensive than one’s previous experience.
The necessary condition for fertility in the
formations of practical judgments is therefore
richness of previous experience. Indeed one’s
practical judgments are much more restricted
than one’s actual experiences. A practical judgment
is dependent not merely upon having had
the necessary experience, but upon the recall
of it at the appropriate occasion. The key to a
side door of my house was temporarily lost.
After trying scores of keys, I found that a key
to a room in the attic would also open the side
door. This side-door key was again carried
off last week. After much vexation and after
trying numerous keys, I again discovered that
the key to the room in the attic would open the
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side door. I failed to make the necessary
practical judgment. If when the key was lost
the second time I had recalled my former experience
and had taken advantage of it, I would
have formed a practical judgment and would
have saved myself much inconvenience.
The formation of practical judgments is not
a high form of thought. Indeed it
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