Increasing Human Efficiency in Business Part 17

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 apprentices.h.i.+p system has many excellent points, it has been found inadequate to meet the needs of modern commercial and industrial inst.i.tutions. 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

scarcely secure sufficient experience in even the essentials of the trade to render him expert in these various processes. In short, the traditional apprentices.h.i.+p system is unable to give either the general comprehension of the industry or the skill in the specialized processes.

_III. Theoretical-practical Experience_

In contrast with the two methods discussed above (Haphazard Experience and Apprentices.h.i.+p Experience) schools must be considered as a method of providing experiences preparatory to industrial life. The first two methods secure skill, but the schools secure learning. The first two might be said to educate the hands and the latter the head.

The comparative advantages of these contrasted systems is the theme of unceasing debate. The man skilled in one thing can at least do that one thing well. The man who is learned but not skilled in any activity of his chosen occupation is unable to compete with the boys who at the expense of schooling, "went to work" in that particular occupation.

An advanced general school education has very distinct advantages. But skill in reading Latin does not greatly increase one's ability to read instruments of precision. Skill in applying mathematical formul

A knowledge of general psychology will not insure ability in selecting employees. Even great proficiency in discoursing upon ethical theories does not protect one from the temptation to be dishonest in business.

Skill in one thing does not insure skill in other and even in similar things. Learning in one field is not incompatible with gross ignorance in other and related fields. We have discovered that skill and learning are largely specialized, and accordingly we see the necessity of acquiring skill and learning in the particular fields in which the skill and learning are desired. To meet these demands various modifications in our schools have been made. To meet the needs of training for the industries we have the manual training schools, industrial schools, trade schools, continuation

schools, correspondence schools, night schools, technological schools, etc. To provide the appropriate experiences for commercial life we have commercial schools, business colleges, store schools, schools of commerce, etc.

These schools have rendered invaluable service and are rapidly increasing in number, yet they do not provide either the skill or the learning which should be possessed by the employee.

_IV. Practical-theoretical Experience_

The weakness of the Haphazard and Apprentices.h.i.+p methods of securing experience is twofold: (1) They cease too early. So soon as the man really enters into his occupation his education ceases. (2) They are too narrow, they fail to provide experiences that give proper perspective; they do not give adequate theoretical comprehension of the work being accomplished from day to day; they do not develop the judgment.

The weakness with the Theoretical-practical method of providing experience resembles

the weakness of the Haphazard and the Apprentices.h.i.+p methods in that it ceases too early. It ceases _*before_ the individual begins his life work. It may have the special weakness of not being closely organized with the vocation for which it is a.s.sumed to be a preparation, hence of being impracticable.

The Practical-theoretical form of providing experience is based on two a.s.sumptions: The first a.s.sumption is that the practical and the theoretical should be equally emphasized; that they should be closely organized; and that the theory should be deduced from the practice. The second a.s.sumption is that the educative processes should continue so long as the man is engaged in his occupation.

A concrete ill.u.s.tration will make clear the difference between the four different methods of acquiring experience as given above.

During the present summer vacation I have been spending a few weeks in a boarding house.

Some previous boarder had bequeathed to the house an intricate Chinese block puzzle.

During this summer one lad in the house spent

eight hours in solving the puzzle. He worked by the Haphazard method, trying blindly, till he just happened to get it right. The next attempt did not take so long, but it was many days before he could solve the problem rapidly.

As soon as the lad had learned to solve the puzzle, my son watched him solve it many times, and kept trying to do it as he saw it done. My son learned to solve the puzzle in perhaps two hours by thus watching another and then trying it himself. He was employing the Apprentices.h.i.+p method, and his education was accomplished in one fourth the time required by the Haphazard method.

In the boarding house was an expert mechanical engineer. He took up the task of solving the problem and was most scientific in his procedure. He figured out the principles that he thought might be involved, tried them, and immediately abandoned methods that proved unsuccessful. He was able to solve the puzzle in a half hour. Later trials were all successful and rapid. He knew just how he had solved the puzzle, and therefore

did not have to experiment or take chances on later trials. This engineer employed the Theoretical-practical method of learning.

The engineer volunteered to instruct me in the problem. I took up the blocks and began trying to unite them. As one difficulty after another arose, I was given instruction in the principle for overcoming it. No principle was presented to me till I had faced a situation demanding that particular principle. The practice and the theory went together, and so far as the instruction was concerned the practice preceded the theory step by step. I was therefore employing the Practical-theoretical method. As a result I was enabled to solve the problem in fifteen minutes. Furthermore I knew just how I had done it and could do it again and could apply the same principles to other puzzles.

A comparison of these results is most instructive.

The lad who went at it blindly by the Haphazard method required eight hours and even then did not a.n.a.lyze out the principles that would help him solve later prob-

lems. My son, who employed the Apprentices.h.i.+p method, accomplished his task in two hours but discovered no principles. His work was blindly mechanical. The engineer worked according to the Theoretical-practical method, completed his task in thirty minutes, and understood perfectly what he had done. By employing the Practical-theoretical method I was enabled to accomplish the task in fifteen minutes and to understand also how it was done.

Whether I have in mind my own development or that of my employees, if I am seeking to utilize the Practical-theoretical method of capitalizing experience, I am confronted with two problems: (1) How shall I secure or provide the requisite practical experiences?

(2) How shall I secure or provide the appropriate theoretical interpretation of such experiences?

During recent years in the educational, industrial, and commercial world serious attempts have been made to answer these two questions, and the results are most significant.

The College of Engineering of the University of Cincinnati believes that it has solved the problem for certain fields of activity by "coperative courses." In these courses the students spend one week in some manufacturing plant and the next week in the college.

This weekly alternation of practical and theoretical is kept up for six years. The number of students in the college and the number of workers in the manufacturing plant is kept constant by dividing each group of students into two sections which alternate with each other, so that when one section is at the college the other is at the shop. The college teaches the principles that are necessary for understanding and solving the problems arising from week to week in the shop. As the Dean of the college expresses it, "It aims to teach the theory underlying the work, to teach the intent of the work, to give such cultural subjects as will tend to make him a more intelligent civic unit." It is thought that such coperative courses could be arranged by schools of different ranks of advancement and

that the students could spend their alternate weeks in almost any cla.s.s of industrial or commercial inst.i.tution of importance.

One of the most conspicuous attempts to provide Practical-theoretical experiences of an educative sort is that of the General Electric Company of West Lynn, Ma.s.sachusetts. This inst.i.tution has provided a corps of instructors and rooms devoted exclusively to instruction within the plant itself. The theoretical instruction is a.s.sumed to be perfectly cordinated with the practical. In fact the young apprentice spends much of his time almost daily in constructing commercial articles and under the same conditions that will confront him in later years. His theoretical instruction is thus planned to help him to accomplish his practical task more quickly, perfectly, and with more perfect understanding. The training is so broad that the graduate is prepared to become an industrial foreman in any mechanical establishment.

The John Wanamaker Commercial Inst.i.tute of Philadelphia is a school conducted

within the store and for the benefit of the employees of the store. In this school theoretical instruction is given that is designed to give the principles underlying commercial life. The results are said to be most gratifying both to the employer and the employees.

The Practical-theoretical form of education is not limited to the apprentice or to the new employee but is equally valuable to the expert, the oldest employees, and the employer.

This fact is taken advantage of most wisely by the National Cash Register Company.

This company provides instruction suited to the needs of all its salesmen, whether they are new and inexperienced or whether they are the oldest, most efficient salesmen. By means of letters, books, demonstrations, and conventions the salesmen are constantly provided with educative experiences and are kept from the narrowness and lack of progress so characteristic of men in the commercial life after they have become thoroughly established and relatively efficient in their work.

In keeping with this modern tendency to

supplement practical experience with theoretical interpretation, we find a very p.r.o.nounced increase in the utilization of all agencies that interpret and enrich the daily toil. Men who are fully employed (_e.g_. journeymen and salesmen) have realized the necessity of some form of theoretical instruction to enable them to profit by their daily practical experience.

This fact is almost pathetically demonstrated by the mult.i.tudes who are seeking for such instruction through correspondence and evening schools. Every progressive engineer, teacher, physician, and lawyer keeps abreast of the best thought of the day by means of frequent conventions, conferences, books, and periodicals. The experience secured from such agencies is essential to progress; only by such agencies can he learn the latest and most perfect interpretation of the experience of his professional life. Likewise the non-professional man engaged in commerce or industry finds the modern world to be so complex that mere practical experience is no longer adequate to enable him to meet the demands made

upon him. The theoretical training of his youth (even though it include the college and the technical school) is totally inadequate to interpret for him the new relations.h.i.+ps which arise from day to day. He needs a theory that grows out of his practical experience and that enables him to understand and to improve upon his practical work. The most common means for providing him with such experience he finds in his conventions and informal conferences with his peers and in his trade journals and technical books.

There is no warfare between theory and practice. The most valuable experience demands both, and the methods of procuring the most valuable experience in business and industry demand that the theory should supplement the practice and not precede it.

The environment most conducive to securing and utilizing the most valuable experience is in the work-a-day world. But this is the very environment in which men become engulfed in the practical and neglect the theoretical.

To the extent to which men thus neglect the

theoretical do they lower themselves and cla.s.s themselves with mere machines, and so hasten the day when they shall be discarded. Whether we be apprentices or experts, employees or employers, we are all in a similar condition.

In every case advance is dependent upon the proper utilization of practical and theoretical experiences--upon the practical experience which is adequately interpreted.

CHAPTER XII

MAKING EXPERIENCE AN a.s.sET: JUDGMENT FORMATION

WHY is it that of two men who are working at the same desk or bench the one acquires valuable experience rapidly and the other slowly?

Why is it that of two houses each employing a thousand men the one sees its employees securing experiences that enhance their earning capacity rapidly, but the other house is compelled periodically to secure new blood by importing men from rival firms?

Modern psychology teaches that experience is not merely the best teacher but the only possible teacher. All that any instructor can do is to select and to provide the conditions necessary for appropriate experiences and to stimulate the learner to make the most of them. The ignorant is changed into the learned

by means of the utilization of profitable experiences. By the same method the novice is changed into the expert; the amateur into the professional; the inefficient into the efficient; and the errand boy into the manager.

One of the most important questions any man can ask is this: What experience am I actually getting from day to day and what experience might my situation offer?

One of the most important questions the employer of men can ask is this: How much more efficient will my men be to-morrow because of the experience of to-day? How might their experience be changed or utilized so that their efficiency might be increased more rapidly?

In planning to secure permanent increase in efficiency, whether for one's self or for one's employees, we simplify our problem by considering it under the two following subdivisions:--

What Experiences are Most Valuable?

How may these Most Valuable Experiences be Secured and Utilized?

Preparatory to the answering of these two questions it will simplify matters to consider the general conditions which affect the value of experience.

GENERAL CONDITIONS GIVING VALUE TO EXPERIENCE

1. Health and Vigor.

The mind and body are so intimately connected that the value of an experience is seriously affected by depletion or exhaustion of the body. The experiences acquired when one is fresh and vigorous are remembered; those acquired when one is tired are forgotten. Most college students find that lessons gotten in the morning are better remembered and are more readily applied than those learned after a day of exhaustive work. We get most out of those experiences secured when we are feeling the most vigorous, whether the vigor be dependent upon age, rest, or general health.

2. Experience is valuable proportionately as we apply ourselves to the task on hand. By intensity of application we not only accomplish

more, but each unit of work contributes more to our development. Under the stress of voluntary and spontaneous attention, under the stimulus of personal efficiency-ideals, and under such social demands as compet.i.tion and imitation we develop new methods of thought and action which are thereupon adopted as the methods for future action.