Increasing Efficiency In Business - Walter Dill Scott (ebook reader browser .txt) 📗

CHAPTER XI

PRACTICE PLUS THEORY

 

THE demand for trained and experienced

men is never supplied. Most business

and industrial organizations find their

growth impeded by the dearth of such men.

To employ men trained by competitors

or by inferior organizations is expensive and

unsatisfactory. A man trained till he has

become valuable to his “parent” organization

is not likely to be equally valuable to other

organizations that might employ him at a

later time. In general, the most valuable

men in any organization are the men who

have grown up in it.

 

The man who is “a rolling stone” secures,

in a way, more experience than the man who is

developed within a single organization, but his

wider experience does not of necessity make

him a more valuable man. It is not mere

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experience that educates, develops, and equips

men, but experience of particular sorts, and

acquired under very well defined conditions.

 

“Scientific management” has taken seriously

the problem of providing and utilizing

the most valuable experiences. But the viewpoint

of the leaders in this modern movement

is that of the employer seeking the most valuable

experiences for those employees whose

work is mainly mechanical, e.g. machine

tenders, stenographers, etc. Scientific management

has conclusively demonstrated the

fact that it is poor economy to depend upon

haphazard experiences for the development

of those employees whose excellence depends

upon the speed and accuracy of their occupation

habits. It has thus done great service

in demonstrating the kind of experience most

valuable in developing men for positions of

routine work. But it has done little for men

whose welfare depends upon judgment—in

making new adjustments and in solving the

new problems continually arising in all positions

of responsibility. It has left for others

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to consider the experiences most profitable

for developing executives.

 

_The most valuable experience in acquiring

an act of skill is frequent repetition in performing

the act_.

 

The value of the experience continues till

by frequent repetition the act has become so

mechanical that it is performed without attention.

Further experience has little or no

value.

 

On the other hand it is true that every

worthy calling demands forms of activity which

could not and should not be mechanized.

There are emergencies in every form of occupation

that call for new adjustments. The

ability to make such new adjustments depends

upon richness of experience and width

of view as well as upon skill in performing

the old processes.

 

The difference between a machine and a

man is that the man is capable of adjusting

himself to the changed situation, while a

machine cannot do so. The machine may work

more accurately and more rapidly than the man

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in routine work, but it is capable of nothing

but routine work. There is a need for much

experience to make the man approximate the

skill and accuracy obtained by a machine.

But there is also need of experience to develop

the man in that particular in which he surpasses

a machine, i.e. in a broad experience

that enables him to form judgments and hence

to make a multitude of different adjustments

when a need for a change occurs.

 

A machine is constructed to perform a

particular kind of routine work in a stereotyped

way, but so soon as there is discovered a

better way of performing this work the machine

is thrown to the scrap heap because it

cannot be adjusted to new requirements.

 

_Experience which renders human activity

machine-like is a form of experience that increases

the probability that the possessor will be

discarded and his work accomplished by the

introduction of some new tool or some new

method of work_.

 

Experience therefore which merely increases

the skill of action without increasing the width

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of horizon is necessary, but it is inadequate.

In addition to skill in routine work the man

should secure the broader experience that will

enable him to adjust himself to changed conditions

in his occupation and that will develop

the judgment necessary to enable him to

adjust his vocation to new demands. Every

form of occupation has many possibilities, a

few of which are from time to time discovered

to be significant. Advance in any sphere of

work depends upon the discovery of these

possibilities which the untrained eye of

inexperience does not detect. Although a broad

experience may enable the man to grasp the

possibilities of his occupation, it fails to secure

skill in the particulars that have already been

found to be important. While a broad experience

leaves a man incapable of present

competition, the narrow experience jeopardizes

his future.

 

The most valuable experience is therefore

one that equips the man to compete with the

skillful in the present and to comprehend his

task so that he may from time to time adjust

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it to new relationships. It emphasizes the

formation of necessary habits, but does not

neglect the development of the judgment.

Such an experience is both intensive and

extensive; informal and formal; mechanical

and theoretical; practical and scientific. Such

experience alone meets the demands of the

increasing complexity of industrial and commercial

life.

 

HOW MAY THE MOST VALUABLE EXPERIENCE

BE SECURED AND UTILIZED

 

I. Haphazard Experience

 

But little attention is given to providing

those experiences that most adequately prepare

one for commercial and industrial life.

The boy who is to become a skilled workman

is compelled to “pick up” his experience as

best he can. The same is true of the boy who

aspires to a position as salesman, banker, or

manufacturer. Every employer seeks only

experienced men, and but few places are available

where such experience can be economically

and honorably secured.

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The youth without experience, desiring to

become a skilled machinist, may secure some

experience with machinery in a second-rate

factory during the rush season. Because of

his incapacity, he is laid off as soon as the rush

is over. Thereupon he applies as an experienced

machinist in a better shop. If he is

lucky, he may secure a position. If the supervision

is inadequate, or the demand for labor

unusual, he may retain his position for several

hours, or days, or even weeks. After years

of such distressing experiences, the youth succeeds

in “stealing his trade.” In the meantime

he has been an economic loss to his many

employers, and his experience may have depraved

his character.

 

The condition found in the industrial world

is no worse than that in the commercial world.

The selling force is recuperated by green hands.

In most selling organizations no instruction is

given and no experience provided except what

is picked up haphazard behind the counter or

on the road. Most new men fail, are dismissed,

employed by another firm and dis-

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missed again, etc. We have here nothing but

a struggle for existence and the survival of the

fittest in a crude and destructive form.

 

The burnt child avoids the fire, and his

experience is most effective. However, the

wise parent arranges conditions so that the

burn shall not be too serious. The machinist

who “steals” his trade profits greatly by his

mistakes, and the new salesman never forgets

some of his most flagrant errors. Such experiences

are practical, lasting, effective, but

uneconomical. But such experiences are of

necessity unsystematic and inadequate to

modern industrial and commercial demands.

 

II. Apprenticeship Experience

 

The waste in the Haphazard method of

securing experience in the industrial world

has long been apparent and has led to attempts

to provide systems of apprenticeships which

would enable the youth to secure educative

experiences with a minimum of cost to himself

and his employer.

 

In theory the youth who becomes an ap-

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prentice is bound or indentured to serve his

master for a period of years. During that

time the master agrees to see to it that the

apprentice practices and becomes proficient in

performing all the processes of the trade.

The employer (master) is rewarded in that

he secures the continuous service of the boy

for the period of years upon the payment of

little or no wages. Furthermore the apprentice

when developed into a journeyman is

likely to become a valuable employee. The

apprentice is rewarded for his years of service

by the practical experience which he has been

permitted to secure in actual work with all the

various processes involved in the trade.

 

Although the apprenticeship system has

many excellent points, it has been found

inadequate to meet the needs of modern commercial

and industrial institutions. At least

in its primitive form it is decadent in every

industry which has been modernized. All

forms of commerce and industry have become

so complicated and each part demands such

perfection of skill that an apprentice can

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scarcely secure sufficient experience in even

the essentials of the trade to render him expert

in these various processes. In