In the main, employees do their best to acquire efficiency; but their humanness must not be forgotten, and the burden of increasing efficiency must be carried largely by the executive. His part it is to supply interest, if the nature of the work forbids the finding of it there, he must introduce it from outside either by competition, by emphasizing the connection between the task and the reward, as in piecework, or by provision of a bonus
for the achievement of a certain standard of efficiency.
He must eliminate the factors in environment or organization which distract employees and make voluntary interest more difficult. He must provide the means of training and must understand the possibilities and the limitations of training. If a man ``slumps'' in efficiency, he must look for the cause and make sure this is not beyond the man's control before he punishes him. In a word, he must allow for periods of incubation or unconscious organization before expecting maximum results from a new employee or an old man assigned to a new job.
_The man who by persistent effort has developed himself into an expert has greatly enhanced his value to society. The boss who demands expert service from untrained men is either a tyrant or a fool. But the executive who develops novices into experts and the company which transforms mere ``handy men'' into mechanics are public benefactors because of the service rendered to the country and their men_.
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
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
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.