Increasing Human Efficiency in Business Part 12

The effect of the suggestible att.i.tude of the body, as produced by pleasure, is increased by certain other effects which pleasure produces on the body.

Muscular strength is frequently measured by finding the maximum grip on a recording instrument. The amount of the grip varies from time to time and is affected by various

conditions. One of the phenomena which has been thoroughly investigated is the effect of pleasure and of pain on the intensity of the grip. It is well established that pleasure increases the grip or the available amount of energy. Displeasure reduces the strength.

The total volume of the body would seem to be constant for any particular short interval of time. Such, however, is not the case.

_With pleasure the lungs are filled with air from deepened breathing; the volume of the limbs is increased by the increased flow of blood.

Pleasure thus actually makes us larger and displeasure smaller_.

This increase in muscular strength and bodily volume due to pleasure has a very decided effect upon the mind. The increase of muscular strength gives us a feeling of power and a.s.surance, the increase in volume gives us a feeling of expansion and importance. These conditions produced by increase of muscular strength and bodily volume contribute to the general suggestible condition described above.

If I am in a suggestible condition and if I

also feel an unusual degree of a.s.surance in my own powers and importance, I shall have such confidence in the wisdom of my intended acts that there will seem to be no ground for delay.

Furthermore the increased action of the heart, due to the effect of pleasure, gives me a feeling of buoyancy and invigoration which adds appreciably to the tendency to action.

We thus see why pleasure renders us more suggestible and hence makes us more apt to purchase proffered merchandise or to respond to the suggestions of our foreman or our executive.

We also see why it is that a man may increase his efficiency by pleasing those with whom he has to work, whether they be customers or employees.

CHAPTER VIII

THE LOVE OF THE GAME

AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY

THE motives discussed in previous chapters are fairly adequate for developing efficiency in all except the owner or chief executive. The employee may imitate and compete with his equals and his superiors; he may work for his wage, and he may be loyal to the house. To increase the industry and enthusiasm of the head is a task of supreme importance. Interest and enthusiasm must be kindled at the top that the spark may be pa.s.sed down to the lower levels. It can never travel in the opposite direction.

How, then, is the president to light his fires and transmit his enthusiasm to his managers and other subordinates? Not by working for

money alone, nor through imitation, compet.i.tion, or loyalty to the works of his own hands.

All these may be essential, may be powerful subordinate incentives to action, but singly or collectively they are not adequate. In any organization, the head who attains the maximum of success must depend for his enthusiasm upon an instinctive love of the game.

The subordinate possessing such love of the game and independent of others for his enthusiasm is sure to rise. The subject is, therefore, of vital importance both to the executive and to the ambitious employee.

Every employer feels the need of such an att.i.tude towards work, both in himself and in his men.

An attempt will be made in this chapter to comprehend this instinctive love of the game, to discuss to what extent it is inherited and to what extent subject to cultivation, and to a.n.a.lyze the conditions most favorable for its development in respect to one's own work as well as that of his employees.

The love of the game is in part instinctive,

and its nature is made clear by consideration of certain of the instincts of animals.

The young lion spends much time in pretended stalking of game and in harmless struggles with his mates. He takes great delight in the exercise of his cunning and in his strength of limb and jaw. Fortunately for the young lion this is the sort of activity best adapted to develop his strength of muscle and his cunning in capturing prey. However, it is not for the sake of the training that the young lion performs these particular acts.

He does them simply because he loves to. In like manner the young greyhound chasing his mates and the young squirrel gathering and storing nuts have no thought beyond the instinctive pleasure they find in performing these functions. To each there is no other form of activity so satisfactory.

Man possesses more instincts than any of the lower animals. One p.r.o.nounced instinct in all normal males is the hunting instinct.

Grover Cleveland went fis.h.i.+ng because he loved the sport, not because of the value of

the fish caught. Theodore Roosevelt did not hunt big game in Africa because he was in need of luscious steaks or tawny hides. He was not working solely in the interest of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tute nor to secure material for his book. Doubtless these were subsidiary motives, but the chief reason why he killed the game was that he instinctively loves the sport.

He endured the hards.h.i.+ps of Africa for the same reason that fishermen spend days in the icy water of a trout stream and hunters lie still for hours suffering intense cold for a chance to shoot at a bear.

_For some men, buying and selling is as great a delight as felling a deer. For others the manufacture of goods is as great a joy as landing a trout. For such a man enthusiasm for his work is unfailing and industry unremittent_.

He is suited to his task as is the cub to the fight, the puppy to the chase, the squirrel to the burying of nuts, or the hunter to the killing of game. His labor always appeals to him as the thing of supremest moment. His interest in it is such that it never fails to in-

spire others by contagion. For such a man laziness or indifference in business seems anomalous, while industry and enthusiasm are as natural as the air he breathes and as inexhaustible as the air itself.

By cla.s.sifying the love of the game as an instinct, we seem to admit that it is born and not developed; that some men possess it and others do not; that if a man possesses it, he does not need to cultivate it, and that if he does not possess, he cannot acquire it.

There is doubtless much truth in this, but fortunately it is not the whole truth.

Some instincts are specific--even stereotyped --and not subject to cultivation or change. Thus the bee's instinctive method of gathering and storing honey is very specific and definite. The bee is unable to modify its routine to any great extent. The bee which does not instinctively perform the different acts properly will never learn to.

There are other instincts not so stereotyped in manner or constant in degree. The instincts of man are much more variable than

those of the lower animals and are much more subject to direction, inhibition, or development.

If this love of the game were solely a matter of inheritance, if the business genius were born and not made, and if it could not be cultivated and developed, our hope for the improvement of the race would be small.

Potential geniuses exist in large numbers but fail of discovery because they are not developed. Instincts manifest themselves only in the presence of certain stimulating conditions.

They are developed by exercise and stimulated further by the success attending upon their exercise.

Thus certain conditions, more or less definite, are effective in determining the line along which instincts shall manifest themselves, and the extent to which the instincts shall be developed and then ultimately supplemented by experience and reason.

Fortunately we have reason to believe that although the business genius must have a good inheritance, yet the inheritance does not determine what its possessor shall make of himself.

Many persons are inclined to overestimate the influence of inheritance in determining success in business. The folly of this att.i.tude is every day becoming more and more apparent.

The conditions essential for developing the love of the game in business may be summarized under three heads:--

First, a man will develop a love of the game in any business in which he is led to a.s.sume a responsibility, to take personal initiative, to feel that he is creating something, and that he is expressing himself in his work.

As organizations become larger and more complex in their methods, there is a corresponding increase in the difficulty of making the employees retain and develop this feeling of independent and creative responsibility. Business has become so specialized and the work of the individual seems so petty that he is not likely to feel that he is expressing himself through his work or to retain a feeling of independence.

Properly conceived, there is no position in trade or industry which does not warrant such

an att.i.tude. To promote this att.i.tude various devices have been adopted by business firms.

Some try to put a real responsibility on each employee and to make him feel it. Others have devised forms of partners.h.i.+p which give numerous employees shares in the business and so help to develop this att.i.tude.

In developing men for responsible positions this att.i.tude must be secured and retained even while they are occupying the lesser positions.

_Few things so stimulate a boy as the feeling that he is responsible for a certain task, that he is expressing himself in it, that he is creating something worth while_.

Many managers and more foremen are unable to develop this feeling in their subordinates because they a.s.sume all the responsibility and allow those under them no share of it. On the other hand, some executives have the happy faculty of inspiring this att.i.tude in all their men. The late Marshall Field made partners of his lieutenants and encouraged them to a.s.sume responsibility and to do

creative work. As a result they developed a love of the game--a fact to which he owed much of his phenomenal success.

The second condition or factor in the development of the love of the game in business is social prestige.

We have but partially expressed the nature of man when we have spoken of him as delighting in independent self-expression, as being self-centered and self-seeking. Man is inherently social in his nature and desires nothing more than the approval of his fellows.

That which society approves we do with enthusiasm.

We change our forms of amus.e.m.e.nts, our manner of life, and our daily occupations according to the whims of society. Fifteen years ago the riding of bicycles was quite the proper thing, and we all trained down till we could ride a century. To-day we are equally enthusiastic in lowering bogy on the golf course. This change in our ambitions is not because it is inherently more fun to beat bogy than to ride a century. The change has come about simply because of the change of

social prestige secured from the two forms of amus.e.m.e.nt.

We may expect to find enthusiastic industry in the accomplishment of any task which society looks upon as particularly worthy.

During the past few decades in America society has given the capitalist unusual honor and has allowed him monetary rewards unprecedented in the history of the world.

If the capitalist had been honored less than the poet, the preacher, or the soldier, and his material rewards fallen below theirs, our money captains would have been fewer in number.

In spite of occasional muck rakings, society's esteem for the capitalist has been unbounded.

He is in general the only man with a national reputation. Society bestows upon him unstinted praise and the most generous rewards for his toil. His rewards are so extravagant that the game seems worthy of every effort he can put forth. Love of the game has consequently been engendered within him, and his enthusiasm has been unbounded.

This motive of social prestige is less easy of application to the humbler ranks of employees.

Most men engaged in the industries are entirely deprived of the stimulus because their social group does not look with approval upon their daily tasks. It may even despise men for doing well work essential as preparatory to better positions. There are many young men engaged in perfectly worthy employment who prefer that their social set should not know of the exact nature of their work for fear it would be regarded as menial and not sufficiently "swell."

This disrespect for honest toil is due to various causes. One cause is that nearly all young men--and indeed most older men too--look upon their present positions merely as stepping stones. They look forward to promotion and more interesting work. They and their social group fail to accord dignity to the work which they are doing at any time.