CHAPTER XIII
CAPITALIZING EXPERIENCE—HABIT FORMATION Increasing Human Efficiency in Business: A Contribution to the Psychology of Business | ||
OCCUPATION HABITS
Until the recent rise of interest in psychology, relatively little attention had been given to the study of those habits which are developed in business. When proper care is not given to the formation of these habits developed in connection with one's daily occupation, wrong habits are certain to appear. The mason makes two motions with his trowel where he should make but one. The accountant substitutes "short cuts" in adding where all the operations should be taken in regular order and made as automatic as the few short cuts previously developed. The executive has the
Therefore, one of the most noteworthy events in the business and industrial world of the last twenty years is the study of the occupation habits of the workman to which reference was made in the first paragraphs of this chapter. The research has been especially successful in dealing with the occupation habits of mechanics.
The fundamental discovery was made that the workman's occupation habits are not such as enable him to accomplish his task in an economical and efficient manner. To discover what occupation habits should be developed, experts in each of several typical establishments were assigned the task of
An investigation into the results secured from the adoption of this scientific attempt to study and to regulate the occupation
Mr. H. R. Hathaway, an expert engineer, testifies that "under this system a workman can turn out from two to four times as much work" as he was able to accomplish when working with his old habits,
Mr. Lewis Sanders, of the General Engineering Company, New York, reports most satisfactory results from the introduction of this systematic attempt to regulate the occupation habits of employees. A typical example which he reports is the following: It regularly took a man one minute and forty seconds to set a piece in a jig. "After a study of the exact motions required to pick the piece up and set it accurately, we showed the same man how to do it in twenty seconds." This workman soon reduced the correct movement to habit, attained the specified speed, and without in any way working harder than formerly was assisted to increase his efficiency four hundred per cent.
A well-known engineering company required
Typewriting is carried on by habits. The habit of writing most naturally formed is that known as the sight system. Recently, attempts have been successfully made to enable the operators to form the habit of writing by touch rather than by sight. The
No one has been more successful in studying occupation habits than Mr. Frank B. Gilbreth, an expert in the building trades. He discovered that in constructing a brick wall a good mason can lay one hundred and twenty bricks in an hour and that in laying each brick he makes eighteen distinct motions. The motions were not made in an economical sequence; some of them were useless, and merely exhausted the energy of the workman. Mr. Gilbreth attempted to apply to the industry of bricklaying the principles of billiard playing. Every motion of the mason should be a "play for position." He should make each motion so as to be ready for the next. For example, the motion of placing the mortar for the end joint should end with the trowel in position ready to cut off the hanging mortar. When the motions are made in the correct sequence,
Attempts to develop beneficial occupation habits in executives have not yet been exhaustively and scientifically carried out. Such experiments are, however, sure to be
The introduction of physics and chemistry have led to marvelous results in methods of manufacture and transportation. Those who have given most attention to the advances of psychology during the past two decades are confident that by the proper application of psychology the efficiency of men is to be increased beyond the idle dream of the optimist of the past. Since by a study of habits the efficiency of men in fundamental occupations has been increased from forty to four hundred per cent, it is hard to prophesy what results are to be secured from more extensive studies.
CHAPTER XIII
CAPITALIZING EXPERIENCE—HABIT FORMATION Increasing Human Efficiency in Business: A Contribution to the Psychology of Business | ||