Increasing Efficiency In Business by Walter Dill Scott (top 10 most read books in the world TXT) đź“–
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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
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