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 noble 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 assume 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
{illust. caption = FIG. 1.}
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 anticipated, 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 anticipated–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 pass 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 shifts) 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
{illust. caption = FIG. 2.}
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
{illust. caption = FIG. 3.}
can send or receive with accuracy per minute. In learning telegraphy, progress is rapid for a few weeks and then follow many weeks of less rapid improvement. Figure 4 presents the
history of a student of telegraphy who was devoting all his time to sending and receiving messages. His speed was measured once aweek from his first week to the time when he
{illust. caption = FIG. 4.}
could be classed as a fully accomplished operator. By the twentieth week this operator
could receive less than 70 letters a minute, although he could send over 120 letters a minute. At the end of the fortieth week he had
reached a speed of sending which he would probably never greatly excel even though his speed was far below that attained by many operators. The receiving rate might possibly rise either slowly or rapidly until it equaled or exceeded the sending rate.–BRYAN & HARTER, “Studies in the Physiology and Psychology of the Telegraphic Language,” _Psychological Review_, Vol. IV, p. 49.
There are certain forms of learning and practice which do not readily admit of quantitative determinations. Nevertheless very successful attempts have been made even in the
most difficult realms of learning. A beginner with the Russian language spent 30 minutes daily in industrious study and then was tested for 15 minutes as to the number of Russian words he could translate. Figure 5 shows diagrammatically the results of the experiment. Thus on the thirteenth day 22 words
were translated; on the fiftieth day 45 words. Improvement was rather rapid until the nineteenth day, and then followed a slump till the
forty-sixth day. Improvement was very ir-
regular.–SWIFT, E. J., “Mind in the Making,” p. 198.
These five figures are typical of nearly all
{illust. caption = FIG. 5.}
practice, or learning, curves. They depict the rate at which the beginner increases his efficiency. In every case we discover very great
fluctuations. On one day or at one moment there is a sudden phenomenal improvement. The next day or even the next moment the increase may be lost and a return made to a lower stage of efficiency.
There are certain forms of skill which cannot be acquired rapidly in the beginning. In such instances a period of time is necessary in which to “warm up” or in which to acquire the knack of the operation or the necessary degree of familiarity and self-confidence before improvement becomes possible. This is
true particularly in the “breaking in” of new operators on large machines like steam hammers, cranes, and the like, where the mass and power of the machine awes the new man, even though he has had experience with smaller units of some kind. It applies also to new inspectors of mechanical parts and completed products in factories–especially where the factor of judgment enters into the operation. Such instances are exceptions, however, and differ from those cited only in having a period of slow advance preliminary to the rapid progress.
Apparently, improvement should be continuous until the learner has entered into the
class of experts or has reached his possible maximum. As a matter of fact the curve
which expresses his advance towards efficiency never rises steadily from a low degree to a high one. Periods of improvement are universally followed by stages of stagnation or retrogression. These periods of little or no improvement following periods of rapid improvement
are called “plateaus” and are found in the experience of all who are acquiring skill in any
line.
These plateaus are not all due to the same cause.
They differ somewhat with individuals and even more with the nature of the task in which skill is being acquired. With all, however, the following four factors are the most important influence:–
1. _The enthusiasm dependent upon novelty becomes exhausted_.
2. _All easy improvements have been made_.
3. _A period of “incubation” is needed in_
_which the new habits under formation may have time to develop_.
4. _Voluntary attention cannot be sustained for a long period of time_.
These four factors are not only the causes of the first plateau, but, as soon as any particular plateau is overcome and advance again begun, they are likely to arrest the advance and to cause another period of recession or of no advance. These four factors
are therefore most significant to every man who is trying to increase his own efficiency or promote the progress of others.
_When the interest in work is dependent on novelty, the plateau comes early in the development, and further progress is possible only by the injection of new motives to action_.
Many young persons begin things with enthusiasm, but drop them when the novelty has
worn off. They develop no stable interests and in all their tasks are superficial. They often have great potential ability, but lack training in habits of industry and of continued application. They change positions
often, acquire much diversified experience, and frequently, in a new position, give promise of developing unusual skill or ability. This is due to the fact that during the first weeks or months of their new employment the novelty of the work stimulates them to activity, and the methods or habits learned in other trades are available for application to the new tasks. When the novelty wears off, however, they become wearied and cast about for a fresh and therefore more alluring field. Such nomads prove unprofitable employees even when they are the means of introducing new methods or short cuts into a business. They strike a plateau and lose interest and initiative just at the point where more industrious and less superficial men would begin to be of the greatest value.
Plateaus are not confined to clerks and other subordinates. Executives frequently “go stale” on their jobs and lose their accustomed energy and initiative. Sometimes they are able to diagnose their own condition and provide the corrective stimulus. Again the
man higher up, if he has the wisdom and discernment which some gain from experience, observes the situation and prescribes
for his troubled lieutenant. In the majority of cases, however, the occupant of a
plateau, if he continues thereon for any length of time, either resigns despondent or is dismissed.
Such a case, coming under my notice recently, illustrates the man-losses suffered by
organizations whose heads do not realize that salaries alone will not buy efficiency.
A young advertising man had almost grown up with his house, coming to it when not yet twenty in a minor position in the sales department. Enthusiastic about his possibilities,
with the friendship and co
his immediate superior, he carried out well the successive duties put to him. Promotion was rapid. No position was retained more than six months. In five years he had occupied nearly every subordinate position in the sales department, and was promoted to the head of the mail-order section.
His fertility in originating plans, his schemes, his booklets, and advertising copy brought results with regularity. He became known as a man who could “put the thing over” in a pinch, with a vigor and enthusiasm that
seemed irresistible. He fairly earned his standing as the live wire among executives of the second rank.
So, when the general sales manager resigned, there was no question but that this young man should succeed him. He had been a personal friend of his predecessor, had co
him in many phases of his work, and knew his new duties well; in fact, he took them up with little necessity for “breaking in.”
This apparently favorable condition was the very reason for his lack of success in the new work. There was not the novelty in this position that there had been in his former successive positions. In such an executive position, it was not a question of taking care of an emergency demand, but of organization, of establishing routine, of organizing bigger campaigns. Before the end of the first season it became evi-
dent that the new sales manager was not making good. Everything–organization, discipline, routine system, ginger–had deserted
him. Neither he himself nor his employers, however, found the real cause. “I have lost my grip,” he told the general manager. “I am worn out and of no further use to this business.”
Furthermore he thought he was of no use to any business. But he made a connection with a big house which had a large advertising campaign on its hands. He threw himself
into the task of recasting the firm’s selling literature, the planning of new campaigns, and the reorganization of the correspondence department. Within the year, he had duplicated on a magnified scale his early triumphs
with his first employers. Moreover, he continued this record of efficiency the second year, thus entirely refuting the fear of himself and his friends that he would “last less than a year” and that he lacked staying power.
His first employer described the case for me
the other day, requesting that I discover the reason for the young man’s initial failure among friends and his subsequent triumph in a new environment. He had kept in close touch with the other’s progress and supplied a hundred details which helped to make the situation clear. Finally, after consideration, he agreed with my diagnosis that his young friend’s falling off in efficiency–his plateau–had been due to the exhaustion of novelty interest in his work.
His first success was built on a long series of separate plans or “stunts,” each of which was begun and executed in a burst of creative enthusiasm. His first few months’ achievement as sales manager was due to the same
stimulus, but as the months went by the spur of novelty became dulled. Lacking the discipline which would have enabled him to
force voluntary attention and the resulting interest in his tasks, he failed also to trace the cause of his flagging invention and energy and assumed that this was due to exhaustion of his resources.
This is further borne out by his experience in his present position. Addressing a succession of new tasks, the interest of novelty has stimulated him to an uncommon degree and produced an unbroken record of high efficiency. That this has continued over a considerable period is partly due, beyond doubt, to the sustained interest in his work excited by the broadness of the field before him, the bigness of the company, the size of the appropriation at his disposal, the unusual experience of scoring hit after hit by comparison with the
house’s low standards, the frank and prompt appreciation of his superiors, and substantial advances in salary.
It is only human to be more or less dependent upon novelty. If I am to stir myself to continuous and effective exertion, I must frequently stimulate my interest by proposing new
problems and new aspects of my work. If I am to help others to increase their efficiency, I must devise new appeals to their interest and new stimulations to action. If I have been dependent upon competition as a stimulus
I must change the form of the contest–a fact which receives daily recognition and application by the most efficient sales organization in the country. If I have been depending upon the stimulating effect of wages,
there is profit occasionally in varying the method of payment or in furnishing some new concrete measure of the value of the wage. To the average worker, for example, a check means much less than the same amount in gold. In deference to this common appreciation of “cold cash,” various firms have lately abandoned checks and pay in gold and banknotes,
even though this change means many hours of extra work for the cashier.
_At every stage of our learning, progress is aided by the utilization of old habits and old fragments of knowledge_.
In learning to add, the schoolboy employs his previous knowledge of numbers. In learning to multiply he builds upon his acquaintance with addition and subtraction. In solving problems in percentage his success is
measured by the freedom with which he can
use the four fundamental processes of addition, subtraction, Multiplication, and division. In computing bank discount, his skill is based on ability to employ his previous experience with percentage and the fundamental processes of arithmetic.
The advance here is typical of all learning processes. In mastering the typewriter no absolutely new movement is required. The old familiar movements of arm and hand are united in new combinations. The student has previously learned the letters found in the copy and can identify them upon the keys of the typewriter. Scrutiny enables him to find any particular key, and in the course of a few hours be develops a certain awkward familiarity with the keyboard and acquires some speed by
utilizing these familiar muscular movements and available bits of knowledge. All these prelearned movements and associations are brought into service in the early stages of improvement, and a degree of proficiency is quickly attained which cannot be exceeded so long as these prelearned habits and asso-
ciations alone are employed. Further advance in speed and accuracy is dependent
upon combinations more difficult to make because they involve organization of the old and acquisition of new methods of thought or movement. When such a difficulty is faced, a plateau in the learning curve is almost inevitable.
The young man who enters upon the work of a salesman can make immediate use of a multitude of previous habits and previously acquired bits of knowledge. He performs by habit all the ordinary movements of the body; by habit he speaks, reads, and writes. During his previous experience he has acquired some skill in judging people, in addressing them, and in influencing them. His general information and his practice in debate and conversation– however crude–enable him to analyze his selling proposition and unite these selling points into an argument. He learns, too, to avoid certain errors and to make use of certain factors of his previous experience. Thus his progress is rapid for a short time but soon
the stage is reached where his previous experience offers no more factors which can be easily brought to his service. In such an emergency the novice may cease to advance–if indeed there is not a positive retrogression.
Nor is this tendency to strike a plateau confined to clerks in the office and to semi- skilled men in the factory. Often the limitations of a new executive are brought out
sharply by his failure to handle a situation much less difficult than scores which he has already mastered and thereby built up a reputation for unusual efficiency. His collapse,
when analyzed, can usually be traced to the fact that his previous experience contained nothing on which he could directly base a decision. His prior efficiency was based on empirical knowledge rather than on judgment or ability to analyze problems.
The office manager of an important mercantile house is a case in point. Though
young, he had served several companies in the same capacity, making a distinct advance at each change. He was a trained accountant,
a clever employment man, and a successful handler of men and women. His association with the various organizations from which he had graduated gave him an unusual fund of practical knowledge and tried-out methods to draw upon.
His first six months were starred with brilliant detail reorganizations. The shipping
department, first; the correspondence division next; the accounting department third, and he literally swept through the office like the proverbial new broom, caught up all the loose ends, and established a routine like clockwork. So successful was his work that the directors hastened to add supervision of sales and collections.
Forthwith the new manager struck his
plateau. His previous experience offered little he could readily use in shaping a sales policy or laying out a collection program. He
plunged into the details of both, effected some important minor economies, but failed altogether –as subsequent events showed–to
grasp the constructive needs and opportunities
of management. He puzzled and irritated his district managers by overemphasizing details when they wanted decisions or policies or help in handling sales emergencies. In the same way, he neglected collections,–chiefly because he could not distinguish between detail and questions of policy,–but escaped blame for more than six months because the season was conceded to be a poor one.
Not till he resigned and the general manager investigated the sales and collection departments did the real cause of the failure become evident. Important and numerous as had
been the economics instituted, they all fell under the head of the “easy improvements ” based on previous experience and observation. When problems outside this experience presented themselves, the manager encountered
his plateau.
In the acquisition of skill, days of progress are followed by stationary periods. “Time must be taken out” to allow the formation of a habit or the organization of this new knowledge or skill.
All trees and plants have periods of growth followed by periods of little or no growth. In May and June the leaves and branches shoot forth very rapidly, but the new growth is pulpy and tender. During succeeding days or months, these tender shots are filled in and developed. In learning and in habit formation a similar sequence is lived through. We
have days of swift advancement followed by days in which the new stage or method of thinking and acting takes time to become organized and solidified. The nervous system has to adjust itself to the new demands, and such adjusting requires time.
Although periods of incubation are essential for every specific habit, practically every act of skill is dependent upon a number of simpler habits. At any one time progress may be made in utilizing some of these habits, even though others could not be advantageously hastened. Thus the period of incubation should not necessarily cause any profound slump in the advance. Almost invariably, however, it produces a plateau which persists until the worker
has mastered the expert way. The golf player, for example, usually finds he is able to drive longer and straighter balls at the beginning of the season than a little later. The
reason is that in golf the perfect stroke is the product of almost automatic muscular action. In the first round the swing of the driver or iron is not consciously governed, and the muscular habit of the previous year controls.
Later, as the player concentrates on his task of correcting little faults or learning more effective methods, his stroke loses its automatic quality, his game falls off, and it is not until he masters his new form that he attains high efficiency.
The same cycle is repeated in office and factory operations, where efficiency is possible only when the hands carry out automatically the desired action. In typewriting and telegraphy, in the handling of adding machines,
in the feeding of drill presses, punch presses, and hundreds of special machines, the learner passes through three distinct phases: first, swift improvement in which prelearned move-
ments and skill are brought to bear on the task under the stimulus of both novelty interest and voluntary interest; second, arrested progress– the period of incubation or habit formation; and the final stage of automatic skill and efficiency.
_Since increase of efficiency is dependent upon continued efforts of will, slumps are inevitable. Voluntary attention cannot be sustained for a long period_.
Work requiring effort is always subject to fluctuations. The man with a strong will may make the lapses in attention relatively short. He may be on his guard and “try to try” most faithfully, but no exertion of the will can keep up a steady expenditure of effort in any single activity. All significant _*increases_ in efficiency, however, are dependent upon voluntary attention–upon extreme exertions of the will.
No man can develop into an expert without great exertion of the will. Such exertions of the will are recognized by authorities as being very exhaustive and unstable. One of the greatest of the authorities and one who in
particular has emphasized the necessity of a “do-or-die” attitude of work concludes his discussion with the following significant admission: “All this suggests that if one wants
to improve at the most rapid rate, he must work when he can feel good and succeed, then lounge and wait until it is again profitable to work. It is when all the conditions are favorable that the forward steps or new adaptations are made.”
Voluntary attention must be employed in making the advance step, in improving our method of work, and in making any sort of helpful changes. But voluntary attention must not be depended upon to secure steady and continuous utilization of the improved method or rate of work. To secure this end, an attempt should be made to reduce the
work to habit so far as possible and also to secure spontaneous interest either from interest and pleasure in the work itself or because of the reward to be received.
The case of the young sales manager, described in the first part of this article, suggests
some of the methods by which this interest can be secured. The chief factor in his progress was the interest in the work itself due to the novelty of his successive tasks–an element impossible to introduce into the average man’s job. Yet there were other and powerful motives stimulating his interest: the responsibility of organizing a big department and of
directing the expenditure of large sums of money; the prompt credit given him and the growing confidence extended to him; and the expression of their appreciation in the concrete shape of salary increases.
It is quite true that these various stimulating factors cannot be produced indefinitely; tasks must “stale,” praise grow monotonous, salaries touch their top level. But “making good” and finding interests in work crystallize into habits which endure as long as conditions remain fair. The rise of the efficiency curve thus depends upon recurrent periods of successful struggle followed by periods of habit
formation and by the development of powerful spontaneous interests.
Voluntary interest is a valuable thing to possess, but a difficult thing to secure either within ourselves or in those under our charge.
In its psychological aspect, scientific management enters here. By working out and establishing a standard method and standard time for various “repeat” operations a workman is engaged in, it encourages–and even
enforces–the formation of new efficiency habits. The bonus paid for the accomplishment of the task in the specified time supplies an immediate and powerful motive to the effort necessary to master the “right way” of doing things.
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.
The difference between a machine and a man is that the man is capable of adjusting himself to the changed situation, while a machine cannot do so. The machine may work more accurately and more rapidly than the man
in routine work, but it is capable of nothing but routine work. There is a need for much experience to make the man approximate the skill and accuracy obtained by a machine. But there is also need of experience to develop the man in that particular in which he surpasses a machine, _i.e_. in a broad experience
that enables him to form judgments and hence to make a multitude of different adjustments when a need for a change occurs.
A machine is constructed to perform a particular kind of routine work in a stereotyped way, but so soon as there is discovered a better way of performing this work the machine is thrown to the scrap heap because it
cannot be adjusted to new requirements.
_Experience which renders human activity machine-like is a form of experience that increases the probability that the possessor will be discarded and his work accomplished by the introduction of some new tool or some new method of work_.
Experience therefore which merely increases the skill of action without increasing the width
of horizon is necessary, but it is inadequate. In addition to skill in routine work the man should secure the broader experience that will enable him to adjust himself to changed conditions in his occupation and that will develop
the judgment necessary to enable him to adjust his vocation to new demands. Every form of occupation has many possibilities, a few of which are from time to time discovered to be significant. Advance in any sphere of work depends upon the discovery of these possibilities which the untrained eye of inexperience does not detect. Although a broad experience may enable the man to grasp the possibilities of his occupation, it fails to secure skill in the particulars that have already been found to be important. While a broad experience leaves a man incapable of present
competition, the narrow experience jeopardizes his future.
The most valuable experience is therefore one that equips the man to compete with the skillful in the present and to comprehend his task so that he may from time to time adjust
it to new relationships. It emphasizes the formation of necessary habits, but does not neglect the development of the judgment. Such an experience is both intensive and extensive; informal and formal; mechanical and theoretical; practical and scientific. Such experience alone meets the demands of the increasing complexity of industrial and commercial life.
HOW MAY THE MOST VALUABLE EXPERIENCE
BE SECURED AND UTILIZED
_I. Haphazard Experience_
But little attention is given to providing those experiences that most adequately prepare one for commercial and industrial life.
The boy who is to become a skilled workman is compelled to “pick up” his experience as best he can. The same is true of the boy who aspires to a position as salesman, banker, or manufacturer. Every employer seeks only
experienced men, and but few places are available where such experience can be economically and honorably secured.
The youth without experience, desiring to become a skilled machinist, may secure some experience with machinery in a second-rate factory during the rush season. Because of his incapacity, he is laid off as soon as the rush is over. Thereupon he applies as an experienced machinist in a better shop. If he is
lucky, he may secure a position. If the supervision is inadequate, or the demand for labor
unusual, he may retain his position for several hours, or days, or even weeks. After years of such distressing experiences, the youth succeeds in “stealing his trade.” In the meantime he has been an economic loss to his many employers, and his experience may have depraved his character.
The condition found in the industrial world is no worse than that in the commercial world. The selling force is recuperated by green hands. In most selling organizations no instruction is given and no experience provided except what is picked up haphazard behind the counter or on the road. Most new men fail, are dismissed, employed by another firm and dis-
missed again, etc. We have here nothing but a struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest in a crude and destructive form.
The burnt child avoids the fire, and his experience is most effective. However, the wise parent arranges conditions so that the burn shall not be too serious. The machinist who “steals” his trade profits greatly by his mistakes, and the new salesman never forgets some of his most flagrant errors. Such experiences are practical, lasting, effective, but
uneconomical. But such experiences are of necessity unsystematic and inadequate to modern industrial and commercial demands.
_II. Apprenticeship Experience_
The waste in the Haphazard method of
securing experience in the industrial world has long been apparent and has led to attempts to provide systems of apprenticeships which would enable the youth to secure educative experiences with a minimum of cost to himself and his employer.
In theory the youth who becomes an ap-
prentice is bound or indentured to serve his master for a period of years. During that time the master agrees to see to it that the apprentice practices and becomes proficient in performing all the processes of the trade. 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 apprenticeship system has many excellent points, it has been found inadequate to meet the needs of modern commercial and industrial institutions. 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 apprenticeship 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
Apprenticeship 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
assist in estimating the value of merchandise. 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 Apprenticeship 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 Apprenticeship 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 assumed to be a preparation, hence of being impracticable.
The Practical-theoretical form of providing experience is based on two assumptions: The first assumption 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 assumption is that the educative processes should continue so long as the man is engaged in his occupation.
A concrete illustration 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 Apprenticeship 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 analyze out the principles that would help him solve later prob-
lems. My son, who employed the Apprenticeship 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 “co
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
co
that the students could spend their alternate weeks in almost any class of industrial or commercial institution 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, Massachusetts. This institution has provided a corps of instructors and rooms devoted exclusively to instruction within the plant itself. The theoretical instruction is assumed to be perfectly co
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 Institute 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 pronounced 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 multitudes 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 relationships 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 class 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 ASSET: 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 competition and imitation we develop new methods of thought and
action which are thereupon adopted as the methods for future action.
3. The value of an experience depends upon what has been called the “personal attitude” sustained during the experience. Three forms of “personal attitudes” have been distinguished and are designated as follows:–
(_a_) The submissive or suggestible attitude.
(_b_) The self-attentive attitude.
(_c_) The objective or the problem attitude.
(_a_) One is likely to be thrown into the submissive attitude when a new situation arises
(a business problem), if one knows that he is in the presence of others who could solve the problem with relative ease or accuracy. In such a situation the individual is hampered in his thinking by the presence of those who are more expert than he. His thinking is
therefore futile for the present difficulty and is devoid of educative value.
(_b_) The self-attentive attitude is similar to the submissive attitude, but is not to be confused with it. If when confronted with a difficult problem my attack upon it is weakened by the expectation of assistance from others, I am in a submissive attitude. If, however, my attack is weakened by my realization that I am on trial,–that what I do with the problem will be observed by others,–then I become self-conscious and am thrown into the self- attentive attitude. If I am conscious that I am being watched, it is quite difficult for me to hit a golf ball, to add a column of figures, or to deliver a lecture on psychology. So long as I am self-attentive my efficiency is reduced; I hit on no improved methods of thought or action, and my experience therefore has no permanent value.
(_c_) So soon as I can forget others and myself and can take the objective, or the problem attitude, the chances of efficient action are greatly increased. I find it relatively easy
to assume this attitude when I feel that I stand on my own responsibility; that the problem cannot possibly be referred to any higher authority, but that the solution depends upon me alone. My chances of solving the problem would be much reduced, if it were proposed to me at a time when I felt domineered
by a superior, or when I felt that he knew much more about it and could settle it much more easily and surely than I. If the problem demanded previous experience and the possession
of knowledge which I did not possess, it would be likely to make me self-conscious and hence incapable of utilizing even the experience and the knowledge that I do possess. Past success, the possession of wide experience, and
technical instruction keep me from assuming the self-attentive attitude and enable me to take the problem or objective attitude. This is the only attitude consistent with improved form of thought or action, and hence is the attitude essential for valuable experience.
4. That experience is the most valuable that is acquired in dealing with conditions similar
to those in connection with which improvement is sought. Experience in wood-chopping makes one a better chopper but does not necessarily increase his skill in sawing wood. Experience in bookkeeping increases one’s ability in that particular, but does not appreciably increase his ability to handle men. Speed and
accuracy of judgment secured in inspecting one sort of goods cannot be depended upon, if a different sort of goods is to be inspected.
The experience secured in responding to one situation will be valuable in responding to a similar situation because of the three following facts:–
(_a_) Two similar conditions may secure identical factors in our activity. Thus school life and the executive’s work secure such identical activities as are involved in reading, in writing, or in arithmetic, and so forth, whether accomplished in the schoolroom or the office.
(_b_) The method developed in one experience may be applied equally well to another activity. In connection with a course in college, a student may acquire a scientific method of
procedure. At a later time he may (or he may not) apply this same method to the problems arising in his business or industrial life.
(_c_) Ideals developed in one experience may be projected into other experiences. If the ideals of promptness, neatness, accuracy, and honesty are developed in one relationship of life, the probabilities are somewhat increased that the same ideals will be applied to all experiences.
Provided that the four general conditions discussed are secured, we then have the more specific and important question to ask:–
WHAT EXPERIENCES ARE THE MOST VALUABLE?
Only those experiences are valuable that in an appreciable degree modify future action. One way in which an experience or a series of experiences modifies future action is in the formation of habits.
_Habit Formation_
Habit has a beneficial influence on future action in five particulars:–
(_a_) Habit reduces the necessary time of action. Repeating the twenty-six letters of the alphabet has become so habitual that I can repeat them forward in two seconds. To repeat them in any other than an habitual order, _e.g_. backwards, requires sixty seconds.
(_b_) Habit increases accuracy. I can repeat the alphabet forward without danger of error, but when I try to repeat it backward I am extremely likely to go astray.
(_c_) Habit reduces the attendant exhaustion. Reading English is for me more habitual than reading French. Hence the latter is the more exhausting process.
(_d_) Habit relieves the mind from the necessity of paying attention to the details of the successive steps of the act. When piano
playing has been completely reduced to habit, the finger movement, the reading of the notes, etc., are all carried on successively with the minimum of thought.
(_e_) Habit gives a permanency to experience. For many years in playing tennis I served the ball in a way that had become for me perfectly
habitual. For an interval of three years I played no tennis, but when I began again I found that I could serve as well as ever. If the manner of service had not been so perfectly reduced to habit, I would have found
after an interval of three years that I was completely out of practice, _i.e_. that my previous experience did not have a permanent value.
(The subject of habit formation will be more completely presented in Chapter XIII.)
A second form of experience that is capitalized and so predetermines a man’s capacity to act and to think is the formation of what is known as practical judgments.
_Practical judgments_
By a practical judgment is meant the conscious recall of a concrete past experience and the determination of some action by means of this consciously recalled event. I find that it will be necessary for me to secure a new stenographer. I solve the problem by consciously
recalling how I got one before. Upon the basis of that consciously recalled previous
experience I decide how to act now. This is a practical judgment.
In strictness what is capitalized is not the practical judgment itself but the original concrete experience that is recalled at a later time, and upon the basis of which a practical judgment is formed.
Practical judgments cannot be more
comprehensive than one’s previous experience. The necessary condition for fertility in the formations of practical judgments is therefore richness of previous experience. Indeed one’s practical judgments are much more restricted than one’s actual experiences. A practical judgment is dependent not merely upon having had
the necessary experience, but upon the recall of it at the appropriate occasion. The key to a side door of my house was temporarily lost. After trying scores of keys, I found that a key to a room in the attic would also open the side door. This side-door key was again carried off last week. After much vexation and after trying numerous keys, I again discovered that the key to the room in the attic would open the
side door. I failed to make the necessary practical judgment. If when the key was lost the second time I had recalled my former experience and had taken advantage of it, I would
have formed a practical judgment and would have saved myself much inconvenience.
The formation of practical judgments is not a high form of thought. Indeed it is held by many that the animals are capable of some form of practical judgment. A much more
effective form of thought is the formation of reflective judgments.
_Reflective judgments_
A practical judgment is based on a single concrete case. A reflective judgment is based on a generalization, an abstraction, or a principle derived from many previous experiences.
Last night a salesman tried to induce me to purchase an interest in an Idaho apple orchard. Thereupon I recalled an instance of a friend who a year ago had made such a purchase and had found it a profitable investment. If on the basis of this or some other concrete case I
had accepted or rejected his offer, I would have made a practical judgment. As a matter of fact I caused several concrete instances to pass through my mind, made the generalization that most professional men lose when they invest in distant properties, and upon the basis of this generalization made my reflective judgment and rejected his proposition.
Last week on the golf links I saw a Bohemian peasant woman wearing clothes full of small holes. I tried to figure out how the clothing had become so injured. I recalled seeing a coat that had been left all summer in an attic till it had been eaten to pieces by the moths. On the basis of that recalled incident I satisfied myself by means of the practical judgment that she was wearing moth-eaten clothing. A few days later I saw three of these women working on one of the greens, and each of them had on clothing full of small holes. I began to reflect as to the cause of the holes. I observed that each woman held a bottle in her hand and was apparently applying the contents of the bottle to the roots of the dandelion
plants. I inferred that the liquid must be an acid. Then of all the qualities of an acid I considered merely its corrosiveness. With that abstraction in mind I made the reflective judgment that the women were working with an acid and that from time to time particles of the acid got on their clothes and corroded them.
A manager of a large manufacturing and selling organization made a study of the conditions affecting the prosperity of his organization. From his observations he deduced the
principle that for him it is more important to increase the loyalty of the men to the organization than to reduce the apparent labor cost.
With this principle in mind he made various reflective judgments in upbuilding his organization.
In these illustrations of theoretical or reflective judgments it will be observed that no
previous single experience was in the mind of the one forming the judgment but merely a generalization, an abstraction, or principle.
The experience that is really capitalized is
the formation of the generalizations, abstractions, and principles which are thereafter available for reflective judgments and can be applied to a multitude of novel situations but situations in which the generalization, abstraction, or principle is a factor.
The significance of reflective judgments in increasing human efficiency was manifested in a striking manner by the following experiment. A group of individuals were tested
as to their ability to solve a number of mechanical puzzles. The time required for each
individual was recorded. The subjects then described as completely as possible how they had
solved the problem (worked the puzzle). In some instances the subjects kept trying blindly, till by accident they hit upon the right method. In such cases the second and third trials might take as long or even longer than the first trial. If, however, the subject had in mind the right principle or principles for solving the problems, the time required for succeeding attempts fell abruptly. Curve A of Figure 6 is a graphic representation of the results of A with one of
the puzzles. To solve the problem the first time required 1476 seconds. While solving it this first time A discovered a principle upon which success depended. The second attempt consumed 241 seconds. While solving the
problem this second time he discovered a second principle. With these two principles in
mind succeeding attempts were rendered rapid and certain.
Another young man, B, in solving his problem. (Chinese Rings Puzzle) succeeded after
working 1678 seconds. At the completion of this successful attempt he had in mind no principle for working it. The second trial was not so successful as the first and lasted 2670 seconds. With succeeding trials he reduced his time but not regularly and was still working “in the dark.” His method was one of
extreme simplicity and probably not different from the “try, try again” method employed by animals in learning. The results of his first ten trials are graphically shown in Curve B of Figure 6.
A comparison of Figure 6 with the five
{illust. caption = FIG. 6.}
figures of Chapter X will show how rapidly increase of efficiency is when dependent upon
judgments as contrasted with improvement dependent upon habit.
A judgment once having been made may be utilized again and again. The process of applying these preformed judgments is known as an intuitive or perhaps better called an expert judgment.
_Expert judgments_
Just as appropriate concrete experiences determine the nature and the range of practical
judgments, and as the formation of generalizations, abstractions, and principles determine
the possibilities of reflective judgments, so the actual formation of the practical and reflective judgments determine the nature and the range of the intuitive or expert judgments.
Some years ago I had a need for an attorney to perform for me a petty service. Just
at that critical moment I met a friend who was a lawyer. I employed him forthwith. At a later time I needed a lawyer again, recalled my
former experience, and called up the same attorney. This employing him the second
time was clearly a practical judgment. If I have frequent need for an attorney, I shall probably make use of my preformed practical judgment and employ this same attorney.
This act will never become a habit, but it will approximate more and more a habitual action, and will seem to be performed intuitively, and will be an illustration of an expert judgment.
This morning I was asked to find a cook and man of general utility for an outing camp. I had no preformed practical judgment which I could apply to the case and did not even possess a remembrance of any experience upon
which I might base a practical experience. In such a case therefore I am not only not an expert but I do not possess the necessary preliminary experiences for developing such ability.
During the last decade I have given much thought to this question: Does the efficiency of one’s thinking depend at all upon the clearness and distinctness of the mental image used
in the thinking? I settled the question in the negative. The formation of this principle (clear thinking does not depend upon clear visual image) was an act of reflective judgment. But now the application of this preformed judgment has developed into an expert judgment. Recently I was given the manuscript
of a course in psychology and asked to appraise it. One of the chief points of the author was to advise all business men to develop clear visual images. In fact he asserted that clearness of thinking was in proportion to clearness of the visual image with which the thinking is carried on. Without again weighing the evidence for my principle, I applied my preformed judgment and by means of this expert judgment condemned the course.
A man is expert only in those fields in which he has developed the appropriate habits, the necessary, practical, and reflective judgments, and has had some practice in applying these judgments.
We find that four classes of experiences are valuable, _i.e_. such experiences as result in the
formation of habits; such as result in practical judgments, in reflective judgments, and in expert judgments. Our final task is to consider methods for increasing the probabilities that such experiences may be secured and utilized.
SECURING AND UTILIZING THESE MOST
VALUABLE EXPERIENCES
The conditions best adapted for procuring and utilizing one class of these most valuable experiences may not be the best for the other three classes. Our final problem must therefore be subdivided into four parts corresponding to the four classes of valuable experience.
_Special Conditions Favorable to Habit Formation_
The essential condition for habit formation is repetition with intensity of application. The modern movement in the industrial world known as scientific management supplies this need for repetition by standardizing all activities so that they will be repeated over and
over in identical form; and it secures the intensity of application by means of the task and
bonus system. By these means the most valuable experiences for habit formation are secured and utilized.
The working out of this fact is so admirably described in recent reports upon scientific management that further description here would be superfluous.