Human efficiency : a psychological study of modern problems

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER

I. — Efficiency as an Ideal .

II. — The Basis of Efficiency

Chapter I

EFFICIENCY is becoming the great word in modern life. We are passing out of the period of careless and wasteful use of resources, in this great land of promise, and entering a period of conservation and scientific management. We are dividing and subdividing human labour that we may place each man where he can work best. Specialisation is being carried to a point never before dreamed of even by devotees of Utopian schemes. The age of organisation has come as the logical result of an age in which the central idea was evolution, for we had to learn nature’s law of production before we could begin economically to use nature’s resources. Having enjoyed many of the benefits of a rich period of development in the world of scientific invention and discovery, we are now proceeding to use our resources so as to take full advantage of the new machinery thus put within our power. The ensuing age is very far from being purely mechanical, but is more truly the age of a new form of idealism. Efficiency is not the standard for engineers merely, for the man of affairs, or the expert in governmental matters ; it can be extended th roughout the lines of human endeavour. It is. well to consider some of the achievements already in process, that we may realise the scope of efficiency as an ideal.

At first thought, efficiency appears to be the effort to get out of a machine or person as many foot-pounds of energy as possible in the shortest time. For example, it was formerly customary to use a locomotive at less frequent intervals, spend a considerable amount of money in repairs, and keep the locomotive in use for many years. Nowadays, on the great railroads, an engine is used very steadily on longer hauls, is not left idle in the roundhouse until the same engineer takes it forth again ; but is kept in service while in good condition to be forthwith cast aside in favour of a new locomotive of the latest type when it is more economical to do this than to spend money in repairs. A similar tendency obtains in the human world in so far as the untrained are displaced by the skilful, and when men who are approaching middle life are set aside in favour of the young. The principle of efficiency may indeed become a tool in the hands of the soul-less corporation. The strife for efficiency is in a measure the struggle of the fittest or strongest to survive. Thus the • modem tendency has its pathetic side. It is well to consider this side very carefully and ask what should be done to counteract it. The new movement is, however, far larger than this. Our interest is to determine how far the idea of efficiency can be carried at its best.

On the whole, the movement in behalf of efficiency means an intelligent effort to provide for individual work under conditions more favourable for all concerned. Hence in the organisations and lines of business in which the idea has been most fully carried out, co-operation has been secured. Without co-operation from first to last, from lowest to highest, little headway can be made. It therefore becomes a matter of scientific necessity to provide for the welfare of each employee. When it is a question of the best work each can do, work that is performed in the best manner, attention must be given to any number of conditions that would otherwise be neglected. Accordingly, more heed is paid to sanitary conditions, to recreation grounds or roof-gardens, appropriate holidays, the use of social centres of various sorts, conferences for furthering mutual interests, also to the number of hours and the conditions under which each employee can work to greatest advantage.

Hence it may come about that while the locomotive, for instance, is pressed into more frequent service for a greater number of hours than under former conditions, the expert engineer may work a shorter time in order that he may spend his intensely active hours more efficiently. The principle is complex, and much thought is required to apply it to the various industries and vocations, but it is far-reaching and holds promise of solution of any number of problems that have hitherto baffled the wits of men.

The new science of business has brought about radical changes in all these respects. While it is not the purpose of these pages to regard efficiency as a commercial principle, we may well approach the larger question by noting some of these changes. The change in brief is from “system” in the old sense of the word to “science,” based on the principle set forth by Frederick W. Taylor that there is but one efficient way to do a thing, a way that may be resolved into elemental principles with special regard to the activity in question. According to the old method, the mechanic arts were to a large extent handed down from generation to generation, and acquired in a more or less haphazard manner. The machinery and tools were not always adapted to the purposes for which they were employed, and comparatively little attention was given to securing a large output with an economical expenditure of time. Under the new order of things, recognition is given to the fact that each kind of work has laws of its own which should be taken into account and kept free from confusion with the best methods of doing other kinds of work. It also means recognition of the fact that there are average workmen and first-class workmen, manual labourers and brain-workers and need for closer co-operation between these. Heretofore, the work of those who plan and those who execute has not been kept sufficiently distinct, nor have there been a sufficient number of functional foremen and instructors to carry out the ideas of those who plan and manage. In the large establishments, where the new method has been scientifically applied, there are not only heads of departments but time-planners whose province it is to develop schedules according to the type of work, the degree of skill, differences in cerebral capacity, in physical strength and nerve-power. Each workman is assigned a task for the day according to his training and his powers, and with a view to adequacy in the use of the resources or machinery at hand. Efficiency as thus elaborately sought means decrease in the cost of production under better conditions, saving of time under careful supervision, increase of output, better workmen attracted by higher wages, and the standardisation of materials and equipment.

Otherwise stated, the modem idea of efficiency involves saving of time, energy, and money, in production and distribution. It means closer connection between departments, hence more unity in the system as a whole. It calls for experts at every important point, and has room for expert service in every department. The system has not been introduced without opposition, and long experimentation, as Mr. Taylor and others have shown in recent periodical literature. But such is the history of every idea of real value.

The objection to such a system is that it seems to be one more scheme for the benefit of the capitalist. Under its use the manual labourer would appear to be an instrument whose energies are to be employed to the full while they last. To drive oneself to accomplish as much as possible in a given length of time, with a time-schedule ever before the eye, would apparently be to draw upon one’s reserves to the limit, presently to be as useless as the locomotive that once drew the fastest express but now is not even serviceable on the leisurely schedule of the milk-train. These objections are serious enough, and the problem of the right use of our energies is one that must be considered in a separate chapter, but everything depends upon one’s understanding of the system and the extent to which the principle is carried.

The term “efficiency” is in the largest sense a synonym for the art of life, for adaptation to nature. As a higher animal, a part of nature, man is efficient if able to protect himself, to provide sustenance and shelter, and maintain his strength. As a social being, he attains the standard if not merely able to provide for his family but so to adjust himself to economic conditions in a world where competition is intense as to minister to the manifold interests of human nature in its wondrous variety. The husband must be efficient as a wage-earner and in a hundred other ways, the wife as mother in respects that tax her affection, intelligence, ingenuity, and strength in full measure. Thus the idea extends into the whole of life and the economic adjustment becomes intense in proportion as the wants of a family increase. The test questions turn about the relation between efficiency in a commercial sense and efficiency as applied to the physical, moral, and spiritual welfare of society at large.

A merely commercial idea of efficiency would have regard for economy in the cost of production and distribution, so that there might be increase in dividends. But experience may show that commercial efficiency is furthered by conditions under which the workman also benefits through increased skill, higher wages, and better conditions. Industrial and commercial efficiency belong together, and logically lead to consideration of higher types of success. The workman or boss cannot be made even a more successful cog in the machine without becoming very much more. The idea of efficiency once clearly grasped must lead to consideration of every factor that enters into human life. It must moderate the sternness of the soul-less corporation, if such exist. In the end it must make men and women more human, not less so, or fail in its purpose.

Efficiency as a commercial program seems to be for the benefit of the large producer or the great department stores and institutions. Hence the day of individual betterment and detailed social welfare appears to be farther off than ever. But this is a misunderstanding of the idea. The modern idea is indeed a product of the great industries. In the large enterprise there is room for elaborate organisation, and this is the field in which to try out the science. In the smaller business many tasks must be assigned to each employee and foreman. In the home the housewife must be skilled in any number of arts, and it is difficult to separate planning from execution in such a way as to secure freedom for each person to contribute the best that can be given. Yet division of labour and efficiency are not identical. The ideal is to make each person more efficient, whatever his work or capacity, and whatever the facilities at his disposal. It is never a mere question of mechanical equipment and external co-operation. Efficiency means not only economy of time and energy but advancement in many other directions, as we shall presently see more clearly. In so far as it becomes a mental and moral ideal, including the conservation of human energy, it may be realised in the world of moral conduct even when the physical conditions are not what they might be. Hence there is no reason for limiting the idea to the large industries. The more relentlessly the idea is developed in the commercial world, the greater will be the reasons for extending the principle of mental and moral efficiency into all departments of life.

Looking at the matter from the point of view of the individual, the first need is that each man shall find something that he can do and do well, thereby gaining the power required for advancement. He may then make a study of the conditions most likely to secure progress. The man who becomes a skilled workman or manager does not necessarily begin in the occupation in which he eventually achieves success, but he puts his energies in motion and then uses his powers of initiative. For every man must learn the art of work, acquiring the power to apply himself, to be thorough, to hold out. This means concentration on the task at hand with a view to cutting down the waste, observation to see wherein the work can be imio Human Efficiency

proved, what conditions should be changed, what alterations should be made in the machinery and in executive management. The artisan may have no opportunity to make changes or introduce improvements, for his ideas may not be wanted. But he can think. He can learn the art of adaptation, patiently biding his time. He can acquire control, and store away knowledge. If he takes the long look ahead, watching to see whither trade is tending, what changes are imminent, in what place to locate, he will be in a position to strike out and reveal his talent or genius. What he needs above all is initiative, creative ideas, definite plans of action to which he can give himself in full vigour. While he may not be wanted as an expert workman he may indeed be eagerly sought for as a planner or executive manager. Thus mental application to a purely manual task may lead the way through mere routine to intellectual efficiency. Efficiency as an individual ideal is without limits.

Some of the most expert men and women in the world gained their preliminary training in remote fields. Success in an undertaking does not necessarily mean long preparation in that type of work. The man who watches his opportunity is able to seize upon certain directive ideas, learn an important method, then carry over into the new occupation the power and the ideas which he has acquired elsewhere. The occasion that ‘ * makes the man ’

n is an event that summons into full activity the best habits, forces, and ideas which various experiences have produced. Co-ordination of powers is oftentimes of more consequence than specific skill. Granted a certain command of the resources that constitute a live individual, the other requisites may be quickly acquired. Thus a good teacher will turn to a new subject and begin successful instruction in it by reading a few lessons ahead of the class, or a wide-awake young man in need of employment will consult works of reference in a library and secure a position over the heads of men who have had experience in that field. The development of the modem idea in scientific form will enable an increasing number to grasp and apply the principles although they may not have been trained in a scientific establishment.

A common mode of regarding the question of successful work is in the light of the training required to fulfil the duties of the chosen vocation. Hence many young people wait until they have found a congenial occupation before they begin to become efficient. Or, efficiency is identified with manual skill and there the matter is supposed to end. But it is a mistake to postpone the day of preparation, or wait for the right leaders. The greatest time-planner in the world could not create efficiency. Increased efficiency at one point calls for efficiency at all points. The way to learn this and to prove it is to begin with the individual, that is, with yourself. One can hardly consider the matter in full seriousness without gaining a new view of the whole of life. For this question, we insist, is not limited to economic conditions and tendencies. Nor is it a mere question of environment. There may of course be factors at work which make it difficult even for the most skilled labourer to find a place worthy of his powers. It is not alone the soul-less corporation that makes this difficult, but unfortunate restrictions placed on skilled performance by the labour unions which tend to bring down the average, hence to discourage efficiency. Nevertheless, there is always room for the growth of inner efficiency, for the development of the individual through acquisition of the power that creates occasions. Our inquiry begins in earnest when we learn how we are actually using our energies to-day.

A teacher of ethics, dissatisfied with the usual results of class-room instruction, once asked a hundred young men and women to take careful note for a week of the way they lived, their modes of work, methods of thought, manner of resting, taking pleasure, and the like. He did not preach to them or propound a moral doctrine, but merely asked them to observe. The results were gratifying in the extreme. The thought required to make these discoveries revealed manifold directions in which improvements could be made. Better methods of study, wiser modes of living, and higher ideals followed in due time as matters of course. Such results prove that the self-consciousness demanded for purposes of observation is worth while. They show, in fact, that without taking careful thought to learn how we now live and work, we can hardly expect to work and live in any better way. Sometimes, as a wise man has remarked, “nothing succeeds like failure. ”

In due course, there will doubtless be vocational and other experts who will carry these matters farther back through wise advice given to the young in plastic periods. Education for efficiency will then become the standard. But first we must educate our experts. The expert who shall show us how to find ourselves, summon ideals into actuality, and point out the best we can do, must have a firm grasp of fundamental principles, must begin with himself. For, plainly, something more is required than knowledge of the various vocations and professions under the changing conditions of our time, supplemented by a working scheme of the four types of human character by which people are judged. Something more than disinterested desire to serve humanity is also required, namely, insight, coupled with a wide range of sympathies. There must be a method by which to learn through skilful conversations and the study of written reports, what manner of man the youth in question is tending to become. Again, the vocational expert may well make use of every aid, such as acute observation of facial characteristics, general appearance, handwriting, hints gathered from mannerisms, deportment, modes of speech, and from inferences based on general impressions. Yet back of all this lies the necessity for a science of human nature fundamental alike to the vocations, the professions, and to life. Hence we have to do with precisely the same need which faces the individual who takes all these matters into his own hands. Efficiency is not merely a vocational idea but pertains to the whole of life. It is a human question.

Until our attention is called to the deeper considerations, we are apt to think of efficiency as wholly external, well exemplified by the carpenter who knows how to mold and fit boards because he has been trained to use appropriate tools in methodical fashion. Industrial efficiency at large appears to be no less external. This is of course why the whole question apparently revolves about the idea of making a livelihood, or attaining commercial success. The transition is easy to a merely materialistic theory of economics or social reform. To hold such a view would be to give vocational advice accordingly, thereby aiding every one to find his place in the hard-and-fast world of business.

Not even in the commercial world, however, does such a view obtain exclusively. The problem of efficiency becomes a moral one for every employer and for every worker who endeavours to do his best, what is right. No thoughtful man is likely to be satisfied unless endeavouring to make himself more efficient, and this interest very quickly leads out of the commercial and the external into the moral world. Self-knowledge and the control of energy enable men in all the walks of life to become more efficient. The better equipped a man is mentally the more successfully he will work at any task, however objective. Hence the deeper questions are, What is intellectual efficiency? What is really worth while? For educational and moral principles must also be subjected to efficiency as the new test — efficiency not in a sordid sense of the term, but in the largest humanitarian sense.

We do not need to spend much time observing the ways and wiles of men in legislative halls to discover that there is an enormous waste of energy. The complete and genuine introduction of business methods into the senate and the house, as in the case of government by commission, would doubtless result in remarkable improvements. Likewise in the schools and in the churches, in the management of public institutions, there is room for great improvement. We need not fear lest the i6 encroachment of the scientific theory of business shall mean the greater triumph of materialism, or even of commercialism; for it is essentially a question of increased efficiency in general, and efficiency means in the end more room for higher interests.

In a sense, we seriously begin to live for the first time when we undertake to make ourselves thoroughly efficient. The ideals of efficiency appeal to a man even when education, moral suasion, and religion have failed. The saying that “nothing succeeds like success” arouses a response from every sort of man. Efficiency is another word for success in this practical age of ours. It begins in all seriousness with the more central problem, What is within man’s power? For the radical defect of many principles and methods in education, in religion, in commercial life, is that they spring from theoretical considerations, whereas success means adaptation to the actual forces and conditions which confront men and women in the real world.

If the day of the time-planner is at hand, the day of the one who shall teach us to understand, control, master, skilfully use, and wisely conserve our energies must follow. So long as the time-planner shall rule, the question of efficiency will indeed be essentially external ; but when the centre of interest shifts to the energies that must be

1 7 mastered before one can intelligently save time, the whole matter becomes an individual one. As such it underlies all human work, is of vital importance for every human being.

In a former age it might still have been maintained that the question of the control of our energies is an external one, that we acquire the art by physical exercise, through out-of-door sports and through skill in manual vocations. But in the light of the profounder knowledge of our day we now realise that more depends upon character, and the sort of doctrine or standard to which a man is subject. It is difficult for some even now to see that this is the case, hence it is necessary to be most explicit in the insistence upon psychological considerations.

Yet one does not need to look far even in the commercial world to find reason to believe that psychology is in many respects the most important science. It is now widely acknowledged, for instance, that a great deal depends upon the impression produced by advertisements, hence more attention is given to the preparation of advertisements by experts. In fact, more than half the success of many ventures depends upon the manner of presentation to the public. Again, the art of salesmanship depends in part on the methods employed to persuade the human mind. Every executive leader must know how to approach i8 those who work under and with him. Back of every undertaking in the world of affairs there are principles that make for success, hence the psychology of success naturally becomes an interest in itself. To make the science explicit is to prepare the way for a further development of the art of success.

It is significant that Mr. Taylor declares that “the chief and essential feature of scientific management is the change in the mental attitude of both employer and employees toward their common work.”1 Hence persuasion must take the lead, supported by the long series of object lessons which prove to each man the advantages to be gained through hearty co-operation in carrying out the idea of efficiency. Furthermore, time is required to make the demonstration complete, a few men must be persuaded, then larger numbers, until whole social groups respond. The idea grows enormously in import when it is seen that efficiency involves the substitution of science for “rule of thumb” methods all along the line, the development of harmony in place of discords, the substitution of co-operation as a working idea in place of individualism, and the development of resources in such a manner as to add to the welfare of all concerned. This means far more thought given to every factor and every branch of work

1 American Magazine, May, 1911.

than formerly. It means that questions such as that of just compensation, and what constitutes a fair day’s work, will be objects for scientific investigation, no longer wrangled over in discordant fashion. More than anything else, Mr. Taylor believes, will be the gain accomplished through “the close, intimate co-operation, the personal conduct established” between the two sides in the labouring world ; for it is difficult for those “whose interests are the same, and who work side by side in accomplishing the same object . . . to keep up a quarrel.” The change comes about not merely because the workman has grown in industrial efficiency, but because he has “acquired a friendly mental attitude towards his employers, and his whole working conditions, whereas before a considerable part of his time was spent in criticism, suspicious watchfulness, and sometimes in open warfare. This direct gain to all of those working under the system is without doubt the most important single element in the whole problem.”1

The importance of these changes begins to dawn upon our consciousness when we realise that the whole sphere of interest has shifted to the human world, and to the world of mind. This means that a profounder study of human character

1 Op. cit. See also Mr. Taylor’s recently published volume, The Principles of Scientific Management, New York, 1911.

becomes imperative, and with it a study of all the influences that effect human life. We can no longer leave these factors to “rule of thumb” methods but must be as scientific in our study of mental attitudes and influences as in the investigation of the conditions that make for industrial efficiency. The scientific study of the mind and character of men has long been in process, to be sure, but now it is becoming possible to establish the connection as never before between the intellectual sciences and the industrial arts. Whatever the occupation, environment, or social position of workman, manager, or any other man or woman, the subject of mental efficiency forthwith becomes a subject of great importance.

In accordance with these tendencies, the capitalist must as surely become aware of reformative influences as the labouring man. The time should come when the severe, relentless, cruel types shall cease to be. Instead, we should have more heads of industries of the type already in existence in many quarters, that of the kindly disposed capitalist who has the welfare of each of his workers at heart, who confers with them, and affords full opportunity for the expression of ideas from all quarters; whose ideal is not merely to develop a successful commercial enterprise in the face of fierce competition, but to be all that is best as a human being, a genuine man. For no man is really efficient if a mere machine for money-making any more than a manual worker can be deemed successful if a mere cog in the great industrial engine. Hence the time must come when co-operation in the largest sense shall not only bring labour and capital closely together, but when it shall introduce radical changes in the very life and system of the commercial world. The beginning of all this is in the realm of the idea.

The psychology of efficiency must win its way as industrial efficiency has been fought for. But the battle can be won by making the utmost of tendencies already in operation. One branch of the subject readily leads to another, and to all the rest, when we once grasp the idea. If, for example, there be a “ psychology of dressmaking” as some allege, there must be a psychology of fashions in general, hence of conventional life, including the power and distributive influence of the contagious idea, the law of imitation, the subserviency of the many to the few. New light is being thrown on all the undertakings of men by this growing interest in mental laws and processes. The psychology of religion, for example, is one of the newer branches of this modern tree of knowledge, highly important because in a measure fundamental even to modern criticism itself. The result is profounder knowledge of the ways in which the mind operates in the development of its beliefs, their emotional accompaniments, and other associates. Thus to know what a man believes, or is likely to believe, in so far as you may wish to influence him, you must know how his mind works. Moreover, there are many popular beliefs in our day, all more or less psychological in type, involving new hopes, sometimes confusions of ideas, and reaching into every pathway of human endeavour ; and the only way to deal with these intelligently is through knowledge of genuinely scientific psychology.

For example, there are people in our day who have gone so far over into the mental world, in their reaction against materialism, that it seems no longer necessary to take physical and economic conditions into account. For them everything depends upon the idea, and they see such potency in mental attitudes that they believe these alone will work physical and economic changes by direct impact. The result is a new series of illusions in favour of a supposed royal road to wealth and success of all sorts, a new attempt to shirk responsibility, and to wait in theoretical idleness for everything to be made right. It is hardly necessary to say that such a belief is even more removed from adaptation to natural law than belief in material forces as fundamentally decisive. For if we begin with material factors we can indeed work upward into the life of the idea, while to begin with the idea is to prepare for a downfall in order that we may first reckon with natural facts. The psychology of efficiency must be founded both in the idea and in the thing.