Psychology and profits

Front matter

bif Donald Alaird

From the collection of the

PreTinger

Part Five Profits From Loyal Morale 227 Parti Introduction

A Friendly Word to the Reader

PSYCHOLOGY yields two kinds of profits. One is immediately tangible and can be found on the books. The other kind is found in greater industrial happiness and more complete self-realization. Experience has shown that the second kind also yields in a short time profits which can be found on the books. Many times these are greater than the immediately tangible profits.

The profits from self-realization cannot be achieved from a formula. Most productive of these profits is the psychological attitude in the executive's grasp of his problems. This little book is designed to aid in the cultivation of this attitude. It will fail, however, unless the reader thoughtfully considers the use of each section in his own experience before he proceeds to the next sub-title. The practical value of each section will grow as the reader carefully thinks himself thoroughly into the section until it and his experience blend to form a useful psychological attitude.

i. EVERY EXECUTIVE His OWN PSYCHOLOGIST

A FEW YEARS ago one had to possess great faith to see that psychology might have much potential usefulness for the hard-pressed executive. Imagination had almost to be strained to fill the gap between the text books on psychology and the daily routine of the industrial manager's desk. But a few had the imagination. They did not strain it but kept their feet on solid ground. Upon the heels of these pioneers, who were often laughed at even by their fellow psychologists, came a wave of graduate students who wanted to specialize in psychology so they could later apply it in industry. And upon the heels of these graduate students of ten years ago there is another wave — but that is getting somewhat ahead.

While imaginations had to be strained before the war, in the past half dozen years there have been the following industrial accomplishments of psychology which I happen to know about:

In the assembly department of a telephone manufacturer's establishment an annual saving of $7,500 was brought about in 1927 by the use of motion psychology.

One of the largest taxicab operating companies in the world had accidents reduced by one-third by having a psychologist help in selecting drivers.

In the saw mill of a motor car body builder a single shift is now producing more than a double shift did formerly. Fatiguing walking in a printer's bindery has been reduced to half. And a closer co-operation has been developed between the management and the workers.

Customers in a department store now have to wait 25% fewer minutes (or seconds) to receive their change, due to psychologists rearranging the working conditions and methods in the tube room so that less fatigue is caused.

The piece rate earnings of a group of machine tapestry weavers was increased 10% by psychologists having them rest more in the plant!

Racks to prevent stooping and similar recommendations by a psychologist cost an oil refinery $20,000 for the capital outlay, but yielded $25,000 annually. Not a bad investment by any means.

Rearranging men and materials in an automobile factory department, so that greater freedom of movement was possible, increased the bonus earnings of the workers by 28%. And, paradoxical as it may seem, this rearrangement to give greater freedom of movement also yielded space for increasing the number of workers in the department by 32%.

The output of a group of coal miners was increased 1 6% by psychologists making a study of the picks they were using and recommending a few simple alterations.

There are other almost phenomenal savings in capital expense and fatigue which have been effected not by professional psychologists but by the regular run-of-the-mine executives who have been reading up on psychology. There is an inherent danger, however, in reading psychologists' reports and then attempting to try the same thing for oneself. That danger arises because in the reports one is likely to discover only some figures and formulas; what really distinguishes the psychological approach to the problems of business is not so much knowing all the formulas in the world, but having what may be called the psychological attitude.

I know a number of executives who are innocent of any courses in psychology, but who have this psychological attitude to a great degree. Without exception they are outstanding executives, and they lead me to suspect that this psychological attitude is highly desirable for every executive whether he tries to use some tests and formulas or not.

"What do you think of the condition of these machines," a manager recently asked W. Spiehnan, an English industrial psychologist. She hesitated to answer, telling the executive she was not an engineer.

" No," he said, " I mean the machines sitting behind and working the machines."

The manager obviously did not have a psychological attitude toward his manpower problems. [16]

Viscount Haldane of Cloan understood this psychological attitude when he said: " It is observed that in seeking to carry out their purposes these people, like many others, are often unnecessarily handicapped by conditions and arrangements made for them by those in control, conditions and arrangements made in ignorance of the hampering effect which ill-thought-out restrictions bring about, even when well meant. Industrial psychology aims at laying bare these hindrances and what distinguishes them, and at showing how the maximum of freedom and liking can be combined with the greatest energy in producing. In this way work can be made less distasteful and more satisfactory to employed and employer alike."

So it is natural to expect that the appreciation of this human side of the " machines sitting behind and working the machines " would in turn be highly esteemed by the workers. This is precisely what we find in these quotations from the mouths of workers themselves:

" Could we have more like this. It has made it a lot easier for us."

" It feels much safer now; we can get on with the work much quicker."

" I wish you had been here when I was a girl; I wouldn't look the old hag I do now."

" This place is not what it used to be; you are not shouted at now, and there's not so many gets the sack."

In England, where psychological work of the sort is more highly organized than in the United States, the National Union of Railwaymen, and the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation have contributed generously to the financial support of the work of their National Institute of Industrial Psychology.

There was a time, only a few years ago, when a long list of academic degrees and a pocket full of colored pencils was essential for psychological work in industry. These researchers are still needed, but thanks to the fruits of their early discoveries the time is now here when anyone with the intelligence and understanding of an executive can use many of their findings to save worker fatigue (and his own! ), to in- [18]

crease output and individual earnings and to have a more loyal group of workers under him. The information is available, and if the executive can become saturated with the psychological attitude which sees human beings and not " machines sittings behind and working the machines," he can reasonably expect his executive services to increase greatly in value.

The late president of a chain of small banks realized some time ago that he was facing manpower problems in his organization as he had never faced them before. So he took matters into his own hands — with which I agree, and with which many of my friends who are professional psychologists disagree. He called in a few academic psychologists as consultants, but they failed miserably in his estimation; they wanted to do too much researching and wanted to take too long a time to accomplish anything. So he decided to develop his own psychologists from within his organization, using outside professionals only to train his own organization. His younger and more alert executives were put to work reading, discussing, and trying out until he had developed a group in his organization with the psychological attitude who knew where to find psychological information.

In the last year they have accomplished wonders in reducing turnover, preventing defalcations and building morale. It is one of the best examples of psychology put to work of which I know, and it was accomplished principally by a group of executives, such as can be found within any organization, who had literally become saturated with the psychological attitude.

This illustrates the chief way in which psychology can be of use to management, namely, in training the rank and file of executives to be better equipped to cope with their problems of manpower.

You cannot hire another man to work with your men for you. Only you can do that. That it can be done better when technical knowledge has added to it the psychological attitude has been demonstrated time and time again. For instance, in the United States there are not more than five hundred professional psychologists of recognized merit; yet more University presidents are drawn from this group than from any other group (clergymen being excluded, since we are speaking not of small college presidents). Most people do not realize, either, that Dr. Hugo Eckener, commander of the Graf Zeppelin, was trained as a psychologist in the first psychological laboratory in the world, at Leipzig, where he received his doctor's degree in 1892, and that he tried unsuccessfully to obtain a psychological position in the States shortly after.

There is no mystery or hokum about psychology. In a very real sense it is simply common sense which has been tested and certified as workable. Lots of common sense is just hunch and opinion and is not workable, although on the surface it may appear perfectly plausible. But it may not work because workers are not simple machines, they are machines plus — plus aspirations, prejudices, weaknesses, troubles of their own, peculiar abilities, temperament. A temperamental automatic screw machine has no temperament at all in comparison with its operator.

Executives who have failed in their manpower problems have usually not failed because they were lacking in humanity. My impression is that the typical executive has much more sympathy for his people than even his most loyal worker would vouch for. The trouble is not a lack of well-meant humanity and sympathy on the part of the executive but rather is the difficulty localized in the executive's lack of understanding of human-kind and its motives, strengths and weaknesses.

Insight is what is needed, not greater appreciation of humanity. A consultant, or a book, can give one the formulas; but insight takes personal reading and thought. And it is the insight of the psychological attitude that makes the formulas work.

Where men and women enter into the picture psychology is involved. Jigs and fixtures have to be designed to do one thing well — and they should be designed also for use by human beings. Even the tool designer needs a psychological slant.

Time study men who know their formulae backwards and forwards are often colossal failures when they enter the shop because they are poor practical [22]

psychologists. They know watches, formulas, and operations — but they fail to understand the operator.

Where there is an operator, the man just above should know how to use psychology. The man hired as plant psychologist often has the least need of knowing this psychology of the worker.

There is still a great amount of rule-of-thumb in psychology, but there is also a lot of established fact. The " man next above " should have a sound working knowledge of this, regardless of whether he is an employment interviewer or a conveyor specialist.

Part II Profits From The Right Job

2. WHERE TO FIND SKILL

SKILL almost to the point of perfection is to be found in unexpected places — if only we seek it out.

A leader in American industry who supports music lavishly is said to have been up against a knotty problem many years ago when he attended a concert. In the midst of one of the selections the solution of his problem appeared in his mind, and since then he has been music's outstanding patron.

It has been suggested that the executive perturbed with some personnel problems attend the first opportunity night at the nearby vaudeville theatre, when amateur talent is given a chance to show its hidden abilities.

A few weeks ago an industrial observer was staying over at Schenectady. He abruptly called off two evening appointments when he found that this was opportunity night at the local theatre. He went to the performance seeking not recreation or amusement but looking for a personnel lesson.

An hour before he had given an Italian lad of perhaps ten years a few pennies in exchange for the local paper. When the curtain rose on the first amateur act, there was the newsboy with two older brothers. For weeks they had been rehearsing in barns and alleys the most thrilling gymnastic act one could witness. The lad of a newsboy was thrown from one side of the stage to the other, perilously near catastrophe it seemed, only to land, accurately and safely, high in the air on the upstretched hands of an older brother. There may have been more serious " deathdefying " deeds, but none of them gave the thrill that this did because here was the uncovering of ability and skill that otherwise undoubtedly never would have been discovered and developed.

In a waffle shop that morning the observer had been amused by the " raw edges " and squeaky voice of a Vermont granite cutter who was taking a short vacation and did not quite seem to know what to do with himself. " Poor fellow," he thought that morning, but after the third amateur act he said " Poor fellow '' about himself.

There stood the granite cutter beside the piano in his starchy Sunday best; he was plainly ill at ease. But as the accompanist, chosen hurriedly from the orchestra, picked out the opening chords for him, the stocky Welshman apparently forgot the crowd, forgot himself and held the crowded auditorium breathless with the most thrilling tenor voice conceivable. The observer told me that he used to motor thirty miles to Ravinia every time Edward Johnson was billed to sing; but now he would not step across the street to hear him after Dave Hughes, the Welsh granite cutter from Vermont, brought home the lesson that skill almost to the point of perfection is to be found in unexpected places — if only we seek it out.

Knotty personnel problems can often be solved by an " opportunity night " in the works. One night each week the neighborhood vaudeville theatre features its opportunity night — one period each week the executive should give to an opportunity survey of his subordinates.

Through vocational misplacement many workers seem totally useless, when a minor change would often revive their zeal and renew their superior's faith in human nature. Edison spent too much time in his baggage car laboratory to be a successful news butcher. His opportunity night came when the conductor in desperation put him off the train with a cuff on the head which brought about deafness.

Patrick Henry would have been a total failure as a correspondent, and Washington Irving could not have earned his salt as a contact worker. Transplanting personalities so that their latent skills are given a chance to reach full bloom will often resolve personnel problems that at first present a blank wall. And it yields the most satisfying dividends to the executive, dividends which are intangible but by which men live.

Gene Buck does not talk about the fortune he is making as a theatrical producer who was once associated with Ziegfield, but he tells you with pride that he discovered the possibilities of Will Rogers.

He should not take any special pride in this, however, for this is his business. It is the business of every executive.

3. DON'T PUT TOO MUCH FAITH IN WORK

WORK may be a virtue, but its virtue is much overworked.

The statements of eminent persons, in which they credit their accomplishments largely to serious and continued work, should be liberally discounted. Biographers as well as the living should have their statements about the efficacy of work taken with a small handful of salt.

Frank A. Munsey probably meant well and was undoubtedly trying to be truthful when he said, " The fortune I have, such as it is, has come primarily from two sources: the forty dollars capital I brought with me from Maine to New York forty years ago, and the capacity God gave me for work. I am a thorough believer in work." But he told only a logical halftruth.

Henry Ford, Elbert Hubbard, Theodore Roosevelt, and whole hosts of other eminently successful men have all glorified the virtue of work. The executive will make many mistakes in handling his subordinates if he acts completely upon this belief in the importance of work. Time clocks, attendance bonuses, rewards for high production are intentionally used to focus attention upon work. Inspirational mottoes and personal interviews are added to these to hammer into the conduct of the subordinate executives the virtue and wisdom of pure, unadulterated work.

The administrative danger in this does not lie in the possibility of the force overworking itself. Unfortunately, as most readers' experience has demonstrated, this is only a remote possibility. The greater danger lurks in the executive wasting his effort and overlooking what is more significant than mere work itself in producing the results for which he is striving.

Intensive work is usually an effect, not a cause. Hard work is an indicator, not a generator.

The individual with great ability, by and large, is usually the one who will apply himself without needing the prodding of an embellished motto or reading the lives of great men who also worked seriously and eternally. There are a few dubs, of course, who wrinkle their brows, move by rapid jerks, and try to work hard but at the end of the day have little accomplished to show for their efforts. This is abortive work, not real work. Pep talks focused upon the topic of hard work are more likely to produce abortive work than they are to inculcate the production of wide, clean swaths each day that indicate real work. The idling pulley on the countershaft goes around just as fast as its twin keyed into the drive shaft of the machine, but it produces nothing except friction and wear. The idling pulley can be speeded, and only friction and wear will be increased.

There are many persons who are not keyed to the drive shaft of their present jobs. Most of those who are keyed to the job do not need to be prodded.

More effective than trusting to the virtue of effort itself is the executive attitude of assuming that the fellow who needs prodding is the fellow who could not do the job even if he did respond to the prods. The widespread faith in the usefulness of simple stimulation to work harder needs to be supplemented to a large extent — perhaps even supplanted — by the faith that if you have the right man for the job he will not need the stimulation.

An extra week spent in selecting the subordinate may result in saving years of misdirected time trying to get him to produce more.

Work has produced results for successful people because their application to their life's tasks was caused by ability. It is not ability to just work, but ability to do that particular work. Resultful work is a good evidence of inborn skill for the job itself. The real virtue of hard work is in revealing in what lines one's abilities lie. The real slaves in this world are the men of ability; but they will not relinquish their slavery even after they have made the first million.

A mid-western psychologist who some time ago invented a machine to measure mathematical relationships has just now attempted to estimate the importance of industriousness in job-success. He finds that it merits a rating of about 35%. Luck or accident merits only 15%. And to capacity or ability he gives a weight of 50%.

This is in marked contrast to the reports we find in interviews with men who are upstanding successes. Some of them attribute it all to luck. Those who are less modest give the credit to industrious work on their part. But none of them have been honest and plainspoken enough to give the principal credit to their inborn capacities. Perhaps they have confided to their valets what great ability their masters had; but I doubt it, for great men seldom realized they were great.

True work is self-expression. The able man has more self to express, and true work is a natural outcome. I am trusting the percentages above which were compiled by Dr. Clark L. Hull at the University of Wisconsin, and I am not trusting the modest statements of those who credit the fact that they have worked hard.

Tony Sarg is a hard worker by all outward signs, or perhaps he is getting great quantities of self-expression. Listen to him and then decide:

" Between my marionette workshop on 44th street and my laboratory in Chatham, New Jersey — devoted to the making of animated cartoons for the movies; between the writing of children's books and drawing for the magazines, I succeed in keeping pretty busy. But my early army training has given me such vitality that I have never been able to use up all the energy I have for the daily stint. If I have been sketching all day, for example, I do modeling at night, or toy with mechanics. All of it is recreation to me. If anyone asks me about working, I say I have never done a day's work in my life — and that's the truth."

This busy world hums with work because many men are at jobs for which they have the ability and for which they have a liking. It is not a busy world because they have been stimulated by being divided into teams for a production contest.

The virtue of hard work is in showing that at last the individual has a job that he can do and that he likes.

4. THE SHORT-CHANGE IN HUMAN NATURE

THE POSSIBLE variations in human make-up almost stagger the imagination. In a simple thing like a game of auction-bridge, the number of possible card combinations in the four hands is more than five hundred million. With many more than 52 abilities to be shuffled think of the infinite mosaic of ups and downs that are inevitable in executives!

So we find former college classmates in the president's chair of the General Electric and General Motors. But Swope is a great convention-goer while Sloan keeps to himself. Swope makes direct and incisive decisions. Sloan uses conferences. They are almost diametrical opposites in methods and maneuvers. Each has been short-changed, yet what firm would not be elated to have either join them?

Disappointed in the performance of their subordinate executives, several top-control executives have talked over these problems with me during the past few months. Where they had thought that it might be possible to use a rating scale or some secret serum to bring their executives up to expectations, I am afraid that I, too, disappointed them.

" You must be the most religious president in the world," soon became the hackneyed introduction to the explanation of their short-change problems. " Otherwise you would not expect to approach Heavenly perfection on this drab earth."

When the man trained in manufacturing per se reaches the point where he has to tackle problems of organization and personnel, he is very likely to be too religious in this sense. His manufacturing experience has taught him that mechanical weaknesses can be overcome readily by engineering ingenuity. And at first blush it seems logical that organization difficulties could be remedied by similar human engineering.

Our psychological knowledge of human differences in skill and aptitude, which is now based upon great quantities of verified experimental work, makes it imperative for the consultant called in on such a problem to alter the expectations the controlling executive has, rather than to work some miracle upon the personnel with which he is especially concerned.

It is said, for instance, that great men have their moments of weakness. It would be more correct psychologically to say that all men, great and small, have their permanent areas of strengths and weaknesses. Armies cannot advance equally on all fronts; one sector may be fighting a victory while another is taking a defeat. Generals are like their armies. Napoleon came so near the bottom of his class that his parents were probably humiliated, and Ulysses S. Grant was allowed to stay at West Point only by a miracle of tolerance and politics. Edison's school teachers threw him out of school as a hopeless case before he was ten.

This short-change in the great lottery which gives humans their abilities is most marked in a few exceptional cases such as the man who without difficulty remembered the makes and license numbers of all automobiles that had passed along the boulevard in front of his lodgings on any day for more than a dozen years. A phenomenal accomplishment, and achieved without any great effort on the man's part — but when I knew him he was under care in a western mental hospital and ten minutes after lunch could not remember whether he had eaten or not. While this is a rare and extreme instance, it is worth carrying permanently in mind since it strikingly typifies this short-change. There are many executives who maintain that looking at each of their subordinates with the background of this man has helped them greatly by stimulating them to search for the weaknesses of their subordinates and to delegate and develop with this in mind, rather than to expect equally skilled performance in all phases by each one.

The strong executive knows the weaknesses of his subordinates and is tolerant of these failings because of the knowledge that all humans — including himself— have been short-changed in some respect. Columbus would have become an eccentric wharf character but for the help of the Queen of Spain.

It came somewhat as a shock to the successful and outstandingly conceited president of a large chain of small-loan banks that even he probably had numerous short-changes. After he had recovered from the shock he took a vacation to take stock of himself. His strong conceit had previously prompted him to take stock only of his successes and his strong points. But he was intrinsically great enough that after once being awakened to the facts of human nature's short-change he spent this vacation period in taking stock of his weaknesses and failures.

It was a highly profitable three weeks. He returned to his office determined to associate closely with him expensive assistants whose strengths would compensate for his weaknesses. This would have been a humiliating move for a thoroughly weak man to make; but this man, great enough to face his own weaknesses frankly and unblushingly, strengthened his controlling reins; and his business increased two and a half times in a year.

The strong man must know his own weaknesses. There is really nothing humiliating in knowing about one's short-changes. As Mose said when questioned about the merits of different breeds of poultry: " It all depends upon the kind I'm aftah. The white ones is easiest to find and the dark ones am easiest to hide. Both taste good! "

The prevalent notion that the man with outstanding abilities in one direction is vastly weak in others is contrary to verified fact. Greatness in a few qualities is not invariably attained at the price of profound mediocrity in others. Supremely endowed men do have their ups and downs in abilities, but it is not usual for some of their aptitudes to fall to the lowest levels. Due to their remarkable performance in some lines the contrast with their short-changed abilities may be so marked as to make their poorer abilities appear poorer than they actually are when compared to the range of this ability in other men. This encouraging fact, however, does not lessen the importance for the executive who handles the organization to realize and act upon the knowledge that even these slight weaknesses may seriously depreciate an executive's function and that subordinates or assistants should be provided to compensate for the partial vacuum.

A small portion of mankind has the unfortunate negative tendency of looking only upon their failures and weaknesses. We see the inevitable results of this negative inward look in a few associates and friends who carry on with an air of humiliation and inferiority. But for every one of this sort who needs to be directed to look upon his successes and strengths we discover ten who need rather to know their weaknesses and to be great enough to call for assistance just as the general sends reserves to the sector which is on the verge of defeat.

The reserves in the form of skills in others should be called upon for assistance to keep the organization advancing uniformly on all fronts. A frank and complete co-operation magnifies the strengths, a lack of co-operation exaggerates the weaknesses.

5. You CAN NEVER GET A MAN TO TAKE JONES' PLACE

PRACTICALLY everything can be standardized except human nature. In this fact lies both the bane of maintaining a going organization and the blessing that has brought centuries of progress. Ancient Sparta tried to organize itself on the assumption that human beings could be standardized; how well they succeeded is revealed by history's recording scarcely an eminent individual during Sparta's dominance in the world.