Increasing Human Efficiency in Business Part 14

However, sentiment is changing. The employer of labor is finding that rest and relaxation are essential to the greatest efficiency.

Employees accomplish as much in a week of six days as they do in one of seven. The reduction in the hours of daily toil has not decreased the total efficiency.

The periods devoted to rest are not as profitable as they should be unless they are actually devoted to recuperation. It may be that some of the time supposed to be devoted to rest should be devoted to thoughts of toil.

Again during the hours of work there should be a freedom from jerkiness, breathlessness, nervousness, and anxiety. It is not necessarily true that the greatest and most constant display of energy accompanies the greatest presence of energy. The tugboat in the river is constantly blowing off steam and making a tremendous display of energy, while the ocean liner proceeds on its way without noise and without commotion. The still current runs

deep, and the man who is actually accomplis.h.i.+ng the most is frequently--perhaps always the man who is making the least display of his strength. He can afford to be calm and collected, for he is equal to his task. The man who frets and fumes, who is nervous and excited, who is strung up to such a pitch that energy is being dissipated in all directions-- such a man proclaims his weakness from the housetop.

_Many business men know they are going at a pace that kills, and at the same time they feel that they are accomplis.h.i.+ng too little. For such, the pertinent question is, How may I reduce the expenditure of energy without reducing the efficiency of my labor_?

The ability to relax at will and to remain in an efficient condition, but free from nervousness, is a thing which may be acquired more or less completely by all persons. It is accomplished by a voluntary control of the muscles of the arms, legs, and face, by breathing slowly and deeply, and by placing the body in a condition of general relaxation.

This antecedent condition of relaxation brings all the forces of the mind and body more completely under control and makes it possible to marshal them more effectively. It also gives one a feeling of control and a.s.surance, which minimizes the possibility of confusion and embarra.s.sment in the presence of an important task. The possibility of developing the power of relaxation by means of special training is being taken advantage of in teaching acts of skill, in all forms of mental therapeutics, and in numerous other instances where overtension hinders the acquisition or accomplishment of a useful act. By a.s.suming the att.i.tude of a.s.surance and composure, the actual condition is produced in a manner most astonis.h.i.+ng to those who have never attempted it. No man can do his best when he is hurried and fearful, when he is expending energy in a manner as useless as a tug blowing off steam.

That relief is within his own power seems to him impossible. He is not aware of his power of will to change from his state of anxiety to one of composure.

That the gospel of relaxation is more important to the chief executive than to the day laborer is quite apparent. Even in the case of the day laborer the crack of the lash and the curse of the driver may have been capable of securing a display of activity among the laborers, but such means are not comparable in efficiency to the more modern methods. Laborers are now given more hours of rest, are not kept fearful and anxious, but are given short hours of labor and long hours of rest.

They are judged by the actual results of their labor rather than by their apparent activity.

_When accomplis.h.i.+ng intellectual work of any sort, it is found that worry exhausts more than labor_.

Anxiety as to the results is detrimental to efficiency. The intellectual worker should periodically make it a point to sit in his chair with the muscles of his legs relaxed, to breathe deeply, and to a.s.sume an att.i.tude of composure.

Such an att.i.tude must not, of course, detract from attention to the work at hand, but should rather increase it. Upon leaving

his office, the brain worker should cultivate the habit of forgetting all about his business, except in so far as he believes that some particular point needs special attention out of office hours. The habit of brooding over business is detrimental to efficiency and is also suicidal to the individual.

It is, of course, apparent to all that relaxation may mean permanent indifference, and such a condition is infinitely worse than too great a tension. An employer who is never keyed up to his work, and an employee who goes about his work in an indifferent manner, are not regarded in the present discussion.

A complete relaxation of the body often gives freedom to the intellect. The inventor is often able, when lying in bed, to devise his apparatus with a perfection impossible when he attempts to study it out in the shop. The forgotten name will not come till we cease straining for it. Very many of the world's famous poems have been conceived while the poet was lying in an easy and relaxed condition.

This fact is so well recognized by some

authors that they voluntarily go to bed in the daytime and get perfectly relaxed in order that their minds may do the most perfect work. Much constructive thinking is done in the quiet of the sanctuary, when the monotony of the liturgy or the voice of the speaker has soothed the quiet nerves, and secured a composed condition of mind. The preacher would be surprised if he knew how many costumes had been planned, how many business ventures had been outlined, all because of the soothing influence of his words.

_This relaxation of the body not only gives freedom to the intellect, but it is the necessary preliminary condition for the greatest physical exertion and for the most perfect execution of any series of skillful acts_.

Mr. H. L. Doherty not only held the world's champions.h.i.+p in tennis, but he was the despair of his opponents, because of the apparent lack of exertion which he put forth to meet their volleys. So far as an observer could judge, Mr. Doherty kept only those muscles tense that were used in the game. The muscles

especially necessary for tennis were also, so far as possible, kept lax except at the instant for making the stroke. Partly because of this relaxation, his muscles were free from exhaustion and under such perfect control that at the critical moment he was able to exert a strength that was tremendous and a skill that was amazing.

In a very striking paragraph Professor James has shown the reason why poise and efficiency of mind are incompatible with tenseness of muscles:--

"By the sensations that so incessantly pour in from the overtense excited body the overtense and excited habit of mind is kept up; and the sultry, threatening, exhausting, thunderous inner atmosphere never quite clears away. If you never give yourself up wholly to the chair you sit in, but always keep your leg and body muscles half contracted for a rise; if you breathe eighteen or nineteen instead of sixteen times a minute, and never quite breathe out at that,--what mental mood can you be in but one of inner panting and expectancy, and how

can the future and its worries possibly forsake your mind? On the other hand, how can they gain admission to your mind if your brow be unruffled, your respiration calm and complete, and your muscles all relaxed?"--"Talks to Teachers," p. 211.

In ancient Greece, one of the chief functions of the school was to prepare citizens to profit by the hours of freedom from toil. Herbert Spencer, in his great work on Education, gives a prominent place to training for leisure hours.

Such training is attracting the attention of the American educator to-day as never before.

A few decades ago the majority of the American population lived on farms, spent long hours of the day in toil, and scarcely thought of recreation.

We have now become an urban population, the hours of labor have been greatly reduced during the days of the week, and Sunday is a day in which the laborer is found in neither the factory nor the church.

The employer of laborers fears the effect of long hours of freedom from toil. He has prophesied that such hours would be spent

in dissipations. He feared that as a result his laborers would enter their shops with unsteady hands and sleepy brains. That such results are all too often due to freedom from toil, no one would deny. That they are not necessary will also be admitted. One of the problems of the American people as a whole, and of employers of labor in particular, is to train up the rising generations so that they may make the best use of the increasing hours of freedom from labor.

To this end the schools are doing much.

Settlement workers are contributing their part. Welfare work is becoming popular in certain places. Local clubs are being organized to develop interest in local improvement, literature, politics, ethics, religion, music, athletics. These agencies are so beneficial in results that they are being generously encouraged by business men.

_Upon entering business every young man should select some form of endeavor or activity apart from business to which he shall devote a part of his attention. This interest should be so_

_absorbing that when he is thus engaged, business is banished from mind_.

This interest may be a home and a family; it may be some form of athletics; it may be club life; it may be art, literature, philanthropy, or religion. It must be something which appeals to the individual and is adapted to his capabilities. Some men find it advisable to have more than a single interest for the hours of recreation. Some form of athletics or of agriculture is often combined with an interest in art, literature, religion, or other intellectual form of recreation. Thus Gladstone is depicted as a woodchopper and as an author of Greek works. Carnegie is described as an enthusiast in golf and in philanthropy.

Rockefeller is believed to be interested in golf and philanthropy, but his philanthropy takes the form of education through endowed schools.

Carnegie's philanthropy is in building libraries.

If the lives of the great business men are studied it will be found that there is a great diversity in the type of recreation chosen; but philanthropy, religion, and athletics are

very prominent--perhaps the most popular of the outside interests.

These interests cannot be suddenly acquired.

Many a man who has reached the years of maturity has found to his sorrow that he is without interests in the world except his specialty or business. With each succeeding year he finds new interests more difficult to acquire.

Hence young men should in their youth choose wisely some interests to which they may devote themselves with perfect abandon at more or less regular intervals throughout life.

The more n.o.ble and the more worthy the interest, the better will be the results when considered from any point of view. Indeed, the interests which we call the highest are properly so designated, because in the history of mankind they have proved themselves to be the most beneficial to all.

CHAPTER X

THE RATE OF IMPROVEMENT IN EFFICIENCY

NO novice develops suddenly into an expert. Nevertheless the progress made by beginners is often astounding.

The executive with experience is not deceived by the showing made by new men. He has learned to accept rapid initial progress, but he does not a.s.sume that this initial rate of increase will be sustained.

The rate at which skill is acquired has been the subject of many careful studies. The results have been charted and reduced to curves, variously spoken of as "efficiency curves,"

"practice curves," "learning curves," according to the nature of the task or test. Some of these dealt with the routine work of office and factory. In others typical muscular and mental activities were observed in a simpler form than could be found in actual practice.

Five of my advanced students joined me in strenuous practice in adding columns of figures for a few minutes daily for a month. Our task was to add 765 one-place figures daily in the shortest possible time. No emphasis was placed on accuracy, but each one tried to make

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the highest daily record for speed. The results of our practice are graphically shown in Curve A of Fig. 1. As shown in that curve for the first day our average speed was only forty-two combinations per minute, but for the thirtieth day our average was seventy-four combinations per minute, We did not quite

double our speed by the practice, and we made but little improvement in accuracy. The most rapid gain was, as antic.i.p.ated, during the first few days. We made but little progress from the sixteenth to the twenty-third day, and also from the twenty-fourth to the thirtieth day.

Of the six persons practicing addition, five of us also practiced the making of a maximum grip with a thumb and forefinger. Just before beginning the adding each day this maximum grip (or pinch) was exerted once a second for sixty seconds, first with the right hand and then with the left. Likewise at the completion of the addition sixty grips were taken by the right hand and sixty by the left. The total pressure exerted by each individual in the 240 trials (four minutes) was then recorded and expressed in kilograms. The result of the experiment is shown in curve B of Fig. 1.

The average total pressure for each of the five persons was for the first day 620 kilograms; for the twenty-fourth day 1400 kilograms.

Our increase was very rapid for the

first few days, and no general slump was encountered till the last week of practice. In one particular our results in the test on physical strength were not antic.i.p.ated--we did not suppose that by practicing four minutes daily for thirty days we could double our physical strength in any such a series of maximum grips with the thumb and forefinger.

It is a simple matter to measure day by day the accomplishment of one learning to use the typewriter. All beginners who take the work seriously and work industriously pa.s.s through similar stages in this learning process. Figure 2 represents the record for the first eighty- six days of a learner who was devoting, in all, sixty minutes daily to actual writing. The numbers to the left of the figure in the vertical column indicate the number of strokes (including punctuations and s.h.i.+fts) made in ten minutes. The numbers on the base line indicate the days of practice. Thus on the ninth day the learner wrote 700 strokes in the ten minutes; on the fifty-fourth day 1300 strokes; on the eighty-sixth day over 1400 strokes.

Figure 3 represents the results of a writer of some little experience who spent one hour a day writing a special form of copy.

In this curve it will be observed that the

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increase in efficiency was very great during the first few weeks, but that during the succeeding weeks little improvement was made.--BOOK, W. R, "The Psychology of Skill," p. 20.

The progress of a telegraph operator is determined by the number of words which he