Increasing Human Efficiency in Business Part 19

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 ill.u.s.tration 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 ma.n.u.script 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 a.s.serted 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s of these most valuable experiences may not be the best for the other three cla.s.ses. Our final problem must therefore be subdivided into four parts corresponding to the four cla.s.ses of valuable experience.

_Special Conditions Favorable to Habit Formation_

The essential condition for habit formation is repet.i.tion with intensity of application.

The modern movement in the industrial world known as scientific management supplies this need for repet.i.tion 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.

_Special Conditions Favorable to the Formation of Practical judgments_

In addition to the four general conditions discussed on pages 278 to [email protected]@@ the special conditions most favorable to the formation of practical judgments are the three following:--

1. The experiences most effective in arousing practical judgments are those that are most recent. A few days ago I purchased a piece of real estate and was asked how I wanted the property transferred. I replied immediately that I wanted a warranty deed and a guarantee policy. This was a practical judgment made upon the basis of a recent previous experience.

As a matter of fact there are three distinct methods of transferring real estate, but until after my judgment had been made I was perfectly oblivious of the other methods, although I had had experience with them some years before. Thus I utilized only my recent experience in making my practical judgment.

2. Other things being equal, those experiences are most valuable in arousing practical judgments that have been the most frequent.

I have seen burns dressed many times and in many ways, but most often they have been dressed with soda and water. When I was called upon recently to dress a burn I recalled the method which I had seen most often and formed a practical judgment based thereupon and was helped out of my difficulty.

3. Our most vivid and intense experiences are the ones most likely to be recalled and to be utilized in the formation of practical judgments.

The mistakes that I have to pay for and the deed that secured my promotion are the experiences most fertile in the formation of practical judgments.

_Special Conditions Favorable to the Formation of Reflective judgments_

In addition to the general conditions mentioned on page [email protected]@@ the special conditions favorable for the formation of reflective judgments are as follows:--

1. A theoretical education. Proverbially schools teach generalizations, abstractions, and principles. The scholar and the student are compelled to practice in this most effective form of thinking. A justifiable criticism of the schools is that they are inclined to neglect the lower forms of thinking--the dealing with the concrete--in their zeal for the highest forms of thinking. However, a school education not only gives practice in handling generalizations, abstractions, and principles, but it provides the conditions necessary to stimulate the learners to ama.s.s a useful stock of concepts that at a later time will be used in reflective judgments.

2. Suggestions from others. Reflective judgments depend upon condensed experience.

The condensation is not produced by compres-

sion but by selecting the common though essential element from various former experiences and by uniting these elements into a new unity.

This breaking up of former experiences by a.n.a.lyzing out the essential factor is a difficult task and one in which no man can proceed far without a.s.sistance from others.

At a recent meeting of psychologists a speaker presented a paper on the most helpful order of presentation of topics for a course in psychology. He simply called our attention to certain facts which we had all experienced as teachers of psychology. He then combined these abstracted elements in a new unity in such a way that I was enabled to form a reflective judgment as to the order of presenting topics in psychology. Without his suggestion I probably never would have been able to make the a.n.a.lysis necessary for the reflective judgment.

We need all the help we can get to a.s.sist us to a.n.a.lyze our own experiences. To this end we employ with great profit such agencies as conferences with fellow-workmen, conventions,

visitations, trade journals, and technical discussions upon our own problem (cf. Chapter XI).

3. Verbal expression. We cannot well unite factors of previous experience into a new whole unless we have some symbol to stand for the new unity. As such a symbol, a word is the most effective. Animals never carry on reflective judgments and never can, since they do not possess a language adequate to such demands.

The attempt to express one's thought in words is in reality often a means for creating the thought as well as a means for its expression.

A few years ago I prepared a paper on the subject, "Making Psychology Practical."

In my attempt to express myself I clarified my thinking, formed new generalizations, and therefore was enabled to do with full consciousness (with reflective judgments) what previously I had done but blindly.

It is a most helpful practice to attempt to express in words just what one is trying to accomplish; what are the conditions necessary for success; what the conditions that are lower-

ing efficiency; and what are the possibilities of the work, etc. The method of a.n.a.lysis and expression a.s.sists wonderfully in abstracting the aspects of one's experience necessary for the generalization, abstraction, and principle used in reflective judgments.

_Special Conditions Favorable to the Formation of Expert judgments_

There are no clearly defined special conditions for increasing one's capacity to apply expert judgments. The general conditions discussed on page @@ seem to cover the case. If I have provided, as an executive, for all these conditions for developing expert judgments:--

(1) if I have good vigorous health,

(2) if I am working with enthusiastic application,

(3) if I have the right att.i.tude towards my work,

(4) and finally, if I am having frequent experience in making practical and theoretical judgments,--I am then fulfilling the conditions most favorable for the development of expert judgments.

CHAPTER XIII

CAPITALIZING EXPERIENCE--HABIT FORMATION

AFTER spending four years in an Eastern college, a young graduate was put in charge of a group of day laborers. He a.s.sumed toward them the att.i.tude of the athletic director and the coach combined. He set out to develop a winning team, one that could handle more cubic yards of dirt in a day than any other group on the job.

He had no guidebook and no official records to direct him. He did not know what the best "form" was for shoveling dirt, and he did not know how much a good man could accomplish in an hour. With stop watch and notebook in hand, he began to observe the movements of the man who seemed the best worker in the group. He counted the different movements made in handling a

shovelful of dirt, and the exact time required for each of the movements. He then made similar observations upon other men. He found that the best man was making fewer movements and faster movements than his companions.

But he also discovered that even this best workman was making movements which were not necessary, and that he was making some movements too slowly and thus losing the advantage of the momentum which a higher speed would have produced, and which would have enabled him to accomplish the task with less effort.

The young collegian then set about to standardize the necessary movements and the most economical speed for each movement required in the work of his group. He instructed his best man in the improved method of working, and offered him a handsome bonus if he would follow the specifications and accomplish the task in the estimated time. The man, eager to earn the increase, followed the directions closely, and in a few weeks was enabled to accomplish more than twice the work of the

average workman. The improved habit of working was then taught the other workmen, and the result was a winning team.

The success of the young collegian did not get into the colored supplements of the daily press, but it was heralded by mechanical engineers as marking an epoch in the industrial advance of humanity. It made manifest the necessity of a study of habits, the elimination of the useless ones, and the acquisition of those most beneficial.