  There used to be a good old golden rule of thumb that was plenty good enough for the good old rule-of-thumb days. It was: If you would be fair, treat all your men alike. As a matter of fact it wasn't a bad rule in those halcyon days for man wanted then but little here below. And he got it. Those were the days when a certain plant of a certain electrical concern was known affectionately among the employees as "Siberia." With good reason, too, for it was the dreariest, bleakest place in winter you can imagine. And a transfer to it was like nothing so much as a sentence to Siberia. Well, well, their plant today is as com Yet the management, in those days beyond recall, would have shown you that all men were treated alike. Perhaps that was the trouble. Anyway, if you asked the management today how to handle "help," dollars to doughnuts the answer would come closer to being: To be fair, TREAT EVERY MAN DIFFERENTLY. A suggestive statement—significant because it is indicative of tremendous change in the relationships of capital and labor, of employer and employee. Fifteen years ago a lad graduated from an Eastern university. His folks were poor but proud—as Mr. Alger used to say—but managed to see Phil through. Phil had made a good record in school—and some good friends. Through one of them he got a letter to Mr. H—, the head of an old established firm of stockbrokers—and the letter got him a job. The job paid $5 a week. Even in those days there wasn't much left over after carfare and lunches had been deducted. But Phil was "learning the bond business." He wouldn't be worth even $5 a week the first six months. After that, maybe. He stuck. Graduated from "running the street" to a stool in the stock clerk's cage. Came the New Year and Phil found an extra dollar in his pay envelope. He asked the cashier if there wasn't some mistake. There wasn't. Two days later he got a job in a factory near his home at $12 a week. Told Mr. Mr. H— confessed later that he had let the most promising prospect in years slip through his fingers. All—if you ask us—because it was a fixed policy of the house to treat all alike. For years it had been doing just exactly that. Each June it took on a new crop of young men to "learn the business." Each young man got $5 a week. No favorites. But nine out of every ten came from prosperous, even wealthy families. That $5 bill was nothing in their young lives. Their families were glad to have them work for nothing, for they were getting an insight into the investment business—and some day, whether they became bond salesmen or just plain manufacturers and solid bankers, that knowledge would be worth its weight in gold. Phil was the tenth man. Mr. H— knew well enough that he couldn't get by on $5 No, we can't wind up by telling how Phil did well in the pants factory, married the boss's daughter and owns the business today. That would be wandering far from the truth. He couldn't "see" the boss' daughter for one thing—and besides the pants factory wasn't such a much. No, you'll find Phil today doing a bang-up job in an Ohio plant. It says "General Manager" on his door. And as far as he is concerned, it was the best thing that ever happened when Mr. H— treated him like all the rest. Mr. H—, though, is still taking them on, still paying them $5 a week—or maybe it's $10—still treating them all alike. He gets a lot of bright young fellows into the business. But every so often he passes up a chance to get an exceptionally promising boy—because he is fair and treats them all alike. What's a rule for, anyway, except But more later of the newer viewpoint. For the moment we are talking about handling the "help"—and making it sound as though it were solely the problem of the big employer. Not so. It is a problem with every one of you in business—unless you do nothing but sit in one spot and do one job from nine to five, five days—we hope—a week. The editor who wants a manuscript typed; the salesman who must get long distance; the man at the machine who has to get tools from the toolroom; the errand boy with his bundle to carry—all have the same problem. To all of them it is just as important in relation to their own scale of things as it is to the manager of a business with ten or a hundred or a thousand em Some men are good at it; others are total failures. Many a man on the bench or at the machine has the ability, knowledge and experience which qualify him for a job as foreman or even superintendent. But he can't hold down a foreman's job because he hasn't the knack of getting hearty, whole-souled cooperation from others. Foremen, too, have changed, you see. Today the successful foreman is less often the hard-boiled driver, more often the student of his job, of his men, of himself. He has learned that, to be fair, he must treat every man differently. Often we hear of Bill's losing his job as a mechanic, not because he didn't know his job, not because he couldn't run every lathe in the shop, but because he "couldn't get along" with the other men. And we think, Poor Bill! it's too bad he's so quick-tempered. Generally we blame it on "temperament." Yet some of the very best handlers of men are the crabbiest, crankiest gents in seven states. Others are as cold as steel. And like as not the warm-hearted, generous man is a monumental failure at handling his "help." No, when you check specific methods of handling people—methods which are successful for the most part—something much more fundamental than temperament will be found. Mrs. Thompson was in charge of the information desk and switchboard in a medium-sized New England factory. A well-bred Englishwoman in her late thirties, the boss liked her for her pleasant voice over the phone, for her unfailingly courteous treatment of visitors. But if the boss liked her, almost no one else did. Salesmen particularly complained of her crankiness and of the unsatisfactory One day the office manager asked him how on earth he did it. Bacon thought he was being taken for a ride, but finally answered: "Why, that's a cinch. I take Mrs. Thompson's job seriously." Pressed for details, he supplied them. "I never try to kid her. I never bawl her out. When I want a number I treat her as though the switchboard were her own particular business and I a customer. Just as if she had something to sell, and I something to buy. When I ask for some special service, she gives it to me. Or she tells me why she can't." Afterwards the office manager took the trouble to look into the situation. The switchboard job was a life saver to that woman of 38. She needed the money in the first place. And besides the job gave her a sense of responsibility. She was The solution was obvious. The office manager talked Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Thompson's job over with the salesmen. It wasn't long before they changed their tactics, with resultant improvement in the quality of the telephone service they got. Sounds like a case of knowing the foibles of the person involved, doesn't it? It's more than that. Edna is a switchboard operator, too. She No one thought much about that until some of the more serious-minded men discovered they couldn't get a thing out of Edna. She was too busy listening to Joe's latest exploit with one hand, and plugging Jack in with the other. She played favorites in putting through long distance calls, took advantage of the friendly feeling everyone had toward her. The telephone service in that office just folded up and died. There wasn't any. The obvious remedy was to fire Edna. But the manager was a cagey old codger. Beneath a rough exterior beat a heart of gold, and somehow he felt that maybe it wasn't all Edna's fault. Why, blast it, she'd been treated like a pretty, petulant girl. Why shouldn't she act like one? A memo was the result. It announced the creation of a new department. "Telephone Service" was its name—and Edna Blank was its head. It was just as much He had sense enough to PUT DEFINITE RESPONSIBILITIES UPON EDNA'S SHOULDERS. He did it not only to instill in her a sense of duty, but also to impress her with his confidence in her ability to perform those duties. Then, under the rose, he instructed the men to treat her just as they treated the capable woman in charge of the accounting end of the business. They did. And Edna rose to the occasion, took pride in her work, discouraged the hangers-on, played no favorites in putting through calls, and became as good an operator as ever you'd hope to see. Now, then, scratch the surface and what do you find? Not that it was simply a case of understanding Mrs. Thompson's and Edna's foibles. Not at all. Mrs. Thompson stopped being cranky and became accommodating, Edna dropped her irresponsible ways and became an alert, at And need we look for further proof of our postulate that TO BE FAIR, YOU MUST TREAT ALL YOUR ASSISTANTS DIFFERENTLY? You must know them, know yourself, if you would get whole-hearted cooperation. That is fundamental in any attempt to acquire the KNACK OF HANDLING THE "HELP." For there is a KNACK of handling the help. It can be acquired. This we say despite the difficulty of analyzing the relations of one person to another, despite the seeming impossibility of setting down a rule which will work universally. Take a man running a peanut stand, a hosiery mill, or a steel plant. There are three things he wants for himself: (1) to build up and hold a good trade; (2) to Remember these three wants when you're dealing with your help. Get your "help"—it may be the switchboard operator or it may be a thousand automobile workmen—in the position of wanting those same three things. The help's job is his "trade," you are his customer; and his compensation is his profit. When you do that, you have an employee or helper who is going to give you the hearty cooperation you're looking for—just so long as you are a good customer, and his compensation for helping you is a fair profit. Next time you go into a store, try to keep that thought fixed in your mind. Everyone working in a business, you see, is selling his services—and when you use those services you are the buyer. Perhaps you pay in money for the services rendered—perhaps you simply repay him by mak But that, you say, is PERSONALITY. Then how do you account for this? A. is a big, breezy salesman. He busts into a hotel, calls the "greeter" behind the desk by name, asks for 1209 "same as last time"—and gets all kinds of real service from porters, bell-hops and waiters. It looks as though it might be personality. Yet right behind him walks B. He's a horse-faced bird who never smiles—wiry, monosyllabic—asks brusquely for a $4 room—gets it. And gets everything else he asks for—just as promptly as A. does. No, it can't be personality. For there's C. and there's D. C. is A's twin—and B. These aren't exaggerated cases. Hotel men will tell you they happen every day. Why, then, did A. and B. rate such good service while their fellow knights of the road got none? Because when A. and B. asked for something, there was about the transaction a well-defined air of "you've something you can do for me—I've something I want done—what say we trade?" Whereas, when C. and D. came along, regardless of the personal manners involved, there was created the atmosphere of a one-sided business deal. C's breeziness had in it a touch of condescension, or D's brusqueness was the brusqueness of assumed superiority. Thus is it seen, when we forget all about personality and study effects, that coop Trade with an elevator man as though running an elevator were his own business—trade with the chief chemist as though the laboratory were his store—and they'll trade with you and be eager to make a satisfactory deal of it. Under this fixed policy—or rule—the proper attitude to take towards this or that class of "help" becomes a matter of automatic selection. And that is how we begin to acquire the KNACK OF HANDLING THE HELP. Thus do we step high, wide and handsome on our road to the KNACK OF MANAGING. Now enters the business of COMPENSATION. There must be compensation in a trade if all hands are to be satisfied. Everyone is in business because he wants When you get ready to "trade" with someone, therefore, consider what the other man wants—that is, if you want to get the most help or cooperation out of the transaction. Then consider what you can give in return—balancing his wants. There must be that balance in every satisfactory deal. Examine the chart on this page. It will save a lot of paper and ink because it shows diagrammatically what must happen if A word or two by way of interpretation may serve to show how it works out. When the "help" is in your employ, the compensation—what you can give and he can take, leaving both parties satisfied—is his monthly pay check or his weekly envelope. Or it is the rate of commission. And bearing upon it are such things as local living conditions, and so on. When the "help" is someone not in your direct employ, then the compensation is regulated by the effect which performing the service you require, has on the success of the "help's" regular day's work. For the moment, let's us return to the messenger boy whom we left in Chapter III just as he was about to deliver a message. Or, at least, let's talk about another messenger boy whose task of managing his job differs in no wise from the first's—or, for This boy worked in a large Chicago building and his job was carting light but bulky packages back and forth between his company's quarters and its customers'. There were a dozen other boys, and most of them complained of having trouble getting up and down in the elevators. It seemed that the starter took delight in making the boys wait for the freight elevator—even when there was plenty of room in the others. But this particular boy—an impudent youngster with a "fresh" way about him—had no trouble at all. So the office manager was anxious to know "how come." He posted himself where he could observe without being seen. And sure enough, in came the fresh messenger boy with a bundle almost as big as himself. Down he set it, favored the starter with an impudent military salute and leaned "Hello, feller," said he breezily; "lemme know when there's room. And don't keep me waiting too long, or I'll be out on my ear." Picture the manager's astonishment when the starter replied: "Git in here, then, and git in quick," and let him in the first car going up. Somewhere, somehow, that impudent youngster had struck a responsive chord. Instinctively—or else because of past experience with elevator starters—he had put the problem of that particular starter's service on a business basis. He had put it in the starter's power to perform his own work without trouble, and to feel at the same time that he was "a man of affairs." He was able to show his authority without taking it out on the boy. Analyze this "trade" with the "compensation" chart in mind. Do you not see the Is there not in this very unimportant transaction the BALANCE OF INTERESTS suggested by our little chart? At this stage of our approach to the KNACK OF MANAGEMENT, a ready objection comes to mind. We are now dealing in human values and relationships—and you can't chart them. Analysis, planning, organization—certain rules may be set down which will enable one to attain some degree of effectiveness in carrying them out. But human nature? You can't deal with it by rule. The objection is well founded. You Our chart on page 146 is based upon what successful managers have learned about finding the wants of the human element when it works, and is constructed to supply a method of supplying those wants with as much productiveness and as little friction as possible. When you buy a new car and "put it to work," your first care is to find out its wants—how much you must give to get what it has to "sell"—what parts need oil and grease and so on. So, IF YOU WANT TO GET WORK OUT OF A HUMAN BEING, your best bet is to find out what that human being needs and must get in return for the work he performs or the service he gives. Some men seem to be born with an instinct for finding this out. But if you aren't built that way, there is no reason See, for example, how a study of this sort gets the most out of men in a large New England plant where modern management methods are making serious inroads into the old rule-of-thumb ways of doing things. This concern was confronted with the very serious problem of maintaining a steady flow of product from one manufacturing department to another. Because of the nature of the product, skids and power trucks had been chosen as the equipment best suited for the job. Skids and lift trucks are effective handling units. No argument about that. Their introduction into any factory which has been using more primitive handling methods should automatically cut costs. But they save precious little time and money when they aren't working, or when they are being worked uneconomically. The problem, then, as this concern saw it, was how to be sure that Big Ed hadn't shipped off for a quiet smoke far from the maddening crowd—or that Little Joe wasn't arranging his work so that there'd be a handful of skids left over at closing time—moves that called for overtime pay. In other words, to get 100 per cent efficiency out of very efficient handling equipment, the management realized that it must take out some sort of insurance which would guarantee Little Joe's and Big Ed's and all the other truckers' being engaged in gainful occupation eight hours—count 'em—each and every day. The best insurance seemed to be a central dispatching system. No need to go into the details of its operation. Suffice it to say that it went a long way toward directing the efforts of the truckers along gainful lines. There came to be an orderliness which had never existed before. When a foreman put in a call for a trucker, he knew that the move would be made BUT—no attempt had been made to sell this system to the truckers. It met with some little resistance, just as anything new does. And there are ways, as who does not know, of beating any "game" designed to get more work out of human beings. So the management—after many a huddle over this particular situation—decided upon a bonus plan. And they set about selling it to the truckers—somewhat in the fashion about to be narrated. "See here, men," said the manager in effect, "I'm going to put this plan right up to you and let you decide for yourselves. We've looked into it carefully. You men average 30 moves a day. So we've chosen 40 moves as the starting point. We're sure you can make 40 moves "So, if a man makes 50 trips, his day's pay is not $4.50, but $5.05 because he has earned 55 cents in bonus. Do you get it?" "Yeah, we get it all right, all right. We do twice as much work for 50 or 60 cents more a day. How come? Why don't we get paid extra for all the moves we make over 30?" "Because we're just like you. The company wants to make more money. We've shown you how it can be done and we'll split pretty much 50-50. But we won't give you all the extra profit any more than we'd think of keeping it ourselves. Now think it over tonight and if you want to make $5 or $5.50 a day instead of $4.50, come 'round in the morning and we'll talk some more about it." Came only the dawn. The truckers were pretty sure that they were being had, although they couldn't figure out just how. 'Tis ever thus when the old order yields place to new. There was nothing left to do but try a new tack. So the manager talked to his fifteen or eighteen truckers again. And this time he proposed taking two of them and putting them on the new plan. After a little conversation to assure themselves that there was no skullduggery afoot, the truckers consented. And Little Ed and Big Joe (sic!) were nominated. Little Ed made 62 moves the very first day and was as fresh as a daisy when the 5 o'clock whistle blew. Big Joe made 56 trips and looked none the worse for it. Ed's bonus was $1.98; Joe's was $1.28. If you check up, we're sure you'll find those figures are wrong. But cheer up, we aren't nearly so much interested in the exact amounts of Ed's and Joe's earning as we We may pass quickly over the former. Of course the men were convinced. And Big Ed would have beaten any trucker to a gentle pulp who wouldn't have been convinced. In a week's time, those truckers were making nearly twice as many trips a day—and their earnings had increased by something like 35 per cent. If you don't believe it, look at the figure on page 158. See what happened to production? Yes, that pretty dotted line—the one with the big dip in it—marks labor costs per trip. The manager, you see—and now we come to the principle involved—had MADE HIS HELP SEE THAT THE BONUS PLAN AMOUNTED TO GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANTED. And of course, that was more pay. At the same time it got the company what it wanted—more production. CHART OF RECORDS OF DISPATCHING ELECTRIC TRUCKS 1922-1929 CHART OF RECORDS OF DISPATCHING ELECTRIC TRUCKS 1922-1929 Fundamentally, the manager's system Try it. It won't take you more than a couple of minutes. This might go on for a long, long time. Innumerable examples might be introduced into this text to illustrate this balancing of wants and its importance to the successful conduct of this business of MANAGING—to illustrate that your own personal method of seeking cooperation or service is more a matter of reason than innate ability to "size up the other fellow." There is, in a word, method back of this "KNACK OF HANDLING THE HELP." The method is this. Ask yourself each time this simple question: What does your "helper" want? Does your stenographer want to leave promptly at five so she can get ready for an evening of whoopee? Or does she have Can your truckers live in the style to which they are accustomed on $4.50 a day? Or will $5.50 enable them to put away a bit for a rainy season? Then why not arrange a wage payment method which will help them to do it? And above all, tell them WHY. To do such things is not philanthropy. Successful managers will tell you IT IS NOTHING MORE NOR LESS THAN GOOD BUSINESS. Strip from their methods the individual characteristics required by the individual conditions involved. What do you find? EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM IS BASED ON OUR PRIMARY RULE. That, you remember, is to find out what you want from your "help" and what your "help" wants Don't you see, to grasp the real KNACK OF HANDLING "HELP," the necessity for making what you want from them balance with what they want from you? If there isn't that balance, there won't be whole-souled COOPERATION. To paraphrase what Henry Ford once said—or what one of his collaborators made him say: "See that each man in doing the best he can for you is also doing the best he can for himself." Thus, by digging in and finding out what everybody involved in the situation wants, it is possible to get the utmost in cooperation and loyalty. Where one man does so instinctively, another gets equally good results by making a deliberate study along the lines we have pointed out. Hundreds of jobs don't get done Mark Twain knew all about the KNACK OF MAKING WORK INTERESTING AND ATTRACTIVE. Remember his description of Tom Sawyer's whitewashing the fence? Even if you do, it won't hurt to read it again. Poor Tom. It was on a summer's morn just made for swimming or fishing—and he had to work. Along comes Ben, one of his cronies. Tom begins to do some tall thinking. But let's not try to improve the original: "He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work.... "Ben said: 'Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?' "Tom wheeled suddenly and said: 'Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing.' "'Say—I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of course you'd ruther work—wouldn't you? Course you would!' "Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said: 'What do you call work?' "'Why, ain't that work?' "Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly: 'Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer.' "'Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on you like it?' "The brush continued to move. "'Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?' "That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch here and there—criticized the effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. "Presently he said: 'Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.' "Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind. 'No, no—I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly's awful particular about this fence—right here on the street—you know—but if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind and she wouldn't. Yes, she's awful particular about this fence; it's got to be done very careful; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, mebbe two thousand, that can do it the way it's got to be done.' "'No—is that so? Oh, come now—lemme just try. Only just a little—I'd let you, if you was me, Tom.' "'Ben, I'd like to, honest Injun; but Aunt Polly—well, Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't let Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it——' "'Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. "'Well, here—no, Ben, now don't. I'm afeard——' "'I'll give you all of it!' "Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while the late Steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with—and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in "He had a nice, good, idle time all the while—plenty of company—and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village." Mark Twain didn't have the worker on the modern assembly line in mind—nor the stenographer tapping her typewriter—but he did see that THE WORK MEN CAN DO BEST IS THE WORK THAT IS MADE ATTRACTIVE TO THEM—either through the money in it or the sheer success in doing it. Find out what's wanted But you can't fool your "help"—at least not for long. If you play upon the desire for responsibility, you must give it up to capacity. If it is promotion you hold out as a reward, you must give it when it is deserved. If you play upon the desire for good pay, you must give it as far as the job will allow. And the nearer you come to giving all you can afford for the service received, in as nearly as possible the form that is wanted, whether in courtesy or in coin, in reasonable hours or in rapid advancement, in self-respect or in reciprocal service, THE MORE COOPERATION YOU MAY EXPECT. |
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