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

activity of the nervous system. This activity

seems to be at its best only after repeated

and vigorous stimulation and after

it has reached down to profound and widely

distributed centers.

 

_Most of us never know of our possible achievements

because we have never warmed up and

got our second wind in our business or professional

affairs_.

 

When an individual succeeds in tapping his

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reserve energies, others marvel at the tremendous

tasks he accomplishes. They judge in

terms of superficial energy, and for such the

results would, of course, be impossible, even

though many of the admiring spectators could

actually equal or excel the deed.

 

Consider for a moment the work achieved

by Mr. Edward Payson Weston who recently

walked the entire distance from New York

to San Francisco without halt or rest in one

hundred and four days. Throughout the

entire journey Mr. Weston covered about

fifty miles daily, once attaining the remarkable

distance of eighty-seven miles in twenty-four

hours. Though Mr. Weston is seventy years

of age, at the close of the walk he seemed to be

relatively free from exhaustion and undaunted

in spirit.

 

The work accomplished by such men as

Gladstone and Roosevelt is incomprehensible

to most of us who have never undertaken

more than puny tasks. These men retain their

strength and in no way seem to be undermining

their health by the accomplishment of their

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Herculean labors. Body and mind seem to

respond to the demands made upon them.

Their periods of sleep and their vacations

seem to be no more than the hours and days

of rest required by those of us who accomplish

infinitely less.

 

No need, however, to go beyond the field

of business or industry to find men whose

super-energy has carried them to epochial

discoveries or feats of organization. The

invention of the incandescent lamp by Edison

is said to have been accomplished, for instance,

only after forty-eight hours’ continuous

concentration on the final problem of finding the

right carbon filament and determining the

proper degree of vacuum in the inclosing

bulb. Months of experiment and research

had gone before; eighteen hours a day in the

laboratory had been no uncommon thing for

the inventor and his assistants, but in the last

strenuous grapple with success his own physical

and mental powers were alone equal to the

strain. Not once during the two days and

nights did he rest or sleep or take his attention

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from the successive tests which led up to the

assembling of the lamp which lights the world’s

work and play.

 

The steel blade that is used seems to last as

long as the one which is allowed to lie idle.

The wearing out in the one case does not seem

to be more destructive than the rusting out

in the other.

 

We have a choice between wearing out and

rusting out. Most of us unwittingly have

chosen the rusting process.

 

This, indeed, may be said to be Edison’s

regular method of work, as it is the method of

many other men who have accomplished great

things in science and industry. Both mind

and body have been trained and accustomed to

exertions which seem quite impossible to ordinary

individuals.

 

Many persons find that increased intellectual

activity results in less fatigue and

greater achievements. As a student I did

my best work and enjoyed it most the year

I carried the greatest number of courses and

assumed the most outside duties. In my

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capacity as adviser to college students I find

many who are able to accomplish thirty per

cent more work than is expected of college

students but fail to do equally well the regular

amount. There are others who can carry the

regular amount but not more without injury

to their health.

 

College grades afford a means of recording

intellectual efficiency directed toward particular

problems. With no apparent change in

bodily conditions the same student frequently

increases his efficiency a hundred per cent.

The increase seldom has an injurious effect

on health, but is merely evidence of the fact

that he has suddenly wakened up and is

applying energies which before were undiscovered.

A slow walk for a single mile leaves

many persons “dragged out” and exhausted,

but a brisk walk of the same or a greater distance

results in invigoration and recuperation.

Likewise the droning over an intellectual task

results in exhaustion, while vigorous treatment

whets the appetite for additional problems.

 

This swift, decisive attack on problems was

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the method of Edward H. Harriman, who

crowded into ten years the railroad achievements

of an extraordinary lifetime. Decisions

involving expenditure of many millions of

dollars were arrived at so quickly as to seem

off-hand, even reckless. In reality, they were

the products of brief periods of intense application

in which he reviewed all the conditions

and elements involved, and forged his conclusion,

as it were, at white heat. Back of each

decision was exact and thorough knowledge

of the physical and traffic conditions of each

of his railroads. In the case of the Union

Pacific, at least, he gained this mastery by

patient, intensive study of each grade and

curve and freight-producing town on its 1800

miles of track.

 

The inhabitant of the torrid zone upon

moving to a northern climate is severely

affected by the chill of the atmosphere. The

discomfort may last for days or months, but

he becomes acclimated and is able to withstand

the cold without serious discomfort. Likewise

the inhabitant of a cool climate feels exhausted

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by the heat of the torrid zone. In some cases

he is unable to accustom himself to the change,

but in many instances the acclimatization

follows rapidly and leaves the individual well

fortified against the dangers of excessive heat.

 

Persons who have accustomed themselves

to stimulants of any sort are completely depleted

if they are unable to get the special

form to which they have been accustomed.

This holds true for tobacco, morphine, coffee,

and many other forms of stimulants actually

indulged in by many persons. If they are

able to resist the temptation and deny themselves

the stimulant, the period of exhaustion

soon disappears and the subject may even lose

all craving for that which formerly seemed

essential to his very existence.

 

The quantity which we eat is partly a

matter of habit. There is doubtless a minimum

of nourishment which is absolutely necessary

for health and strength. On the other

hand there is doubtless a maximum limit

which cannot be passed without serious injury.

Our bodies seem to demand the amount of

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food to which we have accustomed them. If

we should increase the amount ten or twenty

per cent, we might, for a while, feel some

discomfort from it, but soon our system

would begin to demand the greater quantity

and we could not again return to the lighter

diet without a period of discomfort. Likewise

the amount of food which most of us

consume could be reduced materially with no

permanent injury or reduction of energy or

danger to health. Following the reduction

would be a period of discomfort and probable

reduction of weight. This period would last

for but a relatively short time, after which we

would again strike a physiological equilibrium

such that an increase of food would not be

craved nor be of any benefit.

 

Any great increase in the amount of physical

or mental work results in a feeling of weariness

which is usually sufficient to cause us to return

to our habitual amount of expenditure of

energy. Our system is, however, wonderful

in its capacity to adjust itself to changed

demands which come upon it, whether these

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demands be in the nature of changes in temperature,

in stimulants, in nourishment, or in

the expenditure of physical or mental energy.

 

There is, of course, a limit to possible human

achievements. There are resources which

may not be exhausted without serious injury

to health. Those who accomplish most, however,

compare favorably with others in length

of days and retention of health.

 

_While overwork has its place among the things

which reduce energy and shorten life, it is my

opinion that overwork is not so dangerous or so

common as is ordinarily supposed_.

 

In not a few industries, the dominant house

or firm has for its head a man past seventy

who still keeps a firm and vigorous grip on the

business: men like Richard T. Crane of

Chicago, E. C. Simmons of St. Louis, and

James J. Hill, whose careers are records of

intense industry and absorbed devotion to the

work in hand.

 

_Many persons confuse overwork with what is

really underwork accompanied with worry or

unhygienic practices_.

<p 21>

 

A recent writer on sociology calls attention

to the fact that nervous prostrations and

general breakdowns are most common among

those members of society who achieve the

least and who may be regarded as parasites.

Exercise both of brain and of muscle is necessary

for growth and for health.

 

Those nations which expend the most energy

are probably the ones among whom longevity

is greatest and the mortality rate the lowest.

In the city of Chicago there are many conditions

adverse to health of body and mind, yet

the city is famous for its relatively low mortality

as a parallel fact. It is also affirmed

that the average Chicago man works longer

hours and actually accomplishes more than

the average man elsewhere. This excess in the

expenditure of energy—in so far as it is

wisely spent—may be one of the reasons for

the excellent health record of the city.

 

In every walk of life we see that the race

is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong.

We all know men clearly of secondary ability

who nevertheless occupy high positions in

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business and state. We are acquainted also

with men of excellent native endowment who

still have never risen above the ranks of mediocrity.

 

_Human efficiency is not measured in terms

of muscular energy nor of intellectual grasp. It

is dependent upon many factors other than native

strength of mind and body_.

 

The attitude which one takes toward life

in general and toward his calling in particular

is of more importance than native ability.

The man with concentration, or the power of

continued enthusiastic application, will surpass

a brilliant competitor if this latter is

careless and indifferent towards his work.

Many who have accomplished great things

in business, in the professions, and in science

have been men of moderate ability. For

testimony of this fact take this striking quotation

from Charles Darwin.

 

“I have no great quickness of apprehension

or wit, which is so remarkable in some clever

men,” he writes. “I am a poor critic… .

My power to follow a long and purely abstract

<p 23>

train of thought is very limited; and therefore

I never could have succeeded with metaphysics

or mathematics. My memory is extensive,

yet hazy; it suffices to make me cautious by

vaguely telling me that I have observed or read

something opposed to the conclusion which I

am drawing, or on the other hand in favor

of it. So poor in one sense is my memory,

that I have never been able to remember for

more than a few days a single date or a line

of poetry. I have a fair share of invention,

and of common sense or judgment, such as

every fairly successful lawyer or doctor must

have, but not, I believe, in any higher degree.”

 

This is presumably an honest statement

of fact, and in addition it should be remembered

that Darwin was always physically

weak, that for forty years he was practically

an invalid and able to work for only about

three hours a day. In these