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The Commoner
MAY 23, 1013
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"The- Limits of Efficiency
Tn thn Heht of tho SUfreefltinn that Mia hnard
Fof efficiency recently abolished be re-established
;at tuo national capital, an address delivered
November 19r 1912, before tho Cleveland, O.,
-chamber of commerco by Hon. William C. Rod-
fcfield, now secretary of commerco. will bo in-
iteresting. On that occasion Mr. Redfleld said:
Mr. President and Gentlemen: I roalizfi fullv
I in speaking to this audience tho danger of
.sweeping statements. As the French say "All
1 Generalizations are raise, including tiiis one."
Nor have I any final solution roadv to offor fnr
I all Industrial problems. Rather have I come
to reason together with thoughtful men, with
my nignest nope that something may be said
tnat win oo suggestive.
In one of our eastern states were two mills of
like size and eauinmont. mnlHnf nlmiinr irnmia
I and located a short distance apart on the same
r stream, une or mem did a' successful business
i tllfi Other Was a falllirA. Tn tn. Ml o InM-nr nnmn.
I a new superintendent, and soon the downward
progress was checked and in time prosperity
began.
In another business there were, twenty-five
years ago, about eight houses among them one
prominently successful. The smaller, hnwvor
I. of the eight, beginning with a rented wooden
I: shed and less than a hundred thmifmnH riniinva
1' has grown until it is the largest of thirty or
more now in tnis particular line, and. without
any additional invested capital or special ad
vantage has accumulated nronertv cnnRPrvnMvAlv
valued at over a million dollars, after marking
ou noeraiiy ror depreciation.
In still another industry, one concern making
the cheapest class of goods, in which there Is
the largest Competition, has so developed that In
a recent financial paper it was named as one of
the three or four great successes in its line.
To explain such cases we say that the manage
ment of the successful mill waa more efficient
than that of the others, or we speak of tho mill
as being Tun with a higher degree of efficiency.
Of late this word "efficiency" has come to be
much used. We all think we know what it
means, but perhaps none of us have thought
carefully enough to bo able to define it with
accuracy or completeness. Most of us would
admit that what we call "efficiency" accounts for
business success and that its absence is pretty
sure to spell failure. If we manufacture a ma
chine with a high degree of efficiency in its
field, it is sure to sell, for men look for this
particular thing eagerly. If, on the other hand,
the machine is below standard In efficiency, it
must be re-designed, else we can not continue
long to sell it. The workman who is efficient
has always a job, white he that lacks efficiency
wanders from door to door in search of employ
ment. We shall agree, therefore, that this thing
called "efficiency" is worth study; that its re
sults are good; that we do not all get it, or
that we get it in different degrees. Why do
Wi? not a11 have Ifc or If we havo lt why do we nt
all have as much as some other concern? What
are the limitations upon getting this desirable
thing? In what way are we shut out or do we
shut ourselves out from securing it? It can only
o good to spend a brief time in a thoughtful
discussion of so weighty a theme.
First of all let us see what efficiency is not.
it is not strenuousness. The man who hustles
may or may not be efficient; probably he is not.
Hustling is not a normal element in efficiency,
nor is strenuous work apt to be efficient just be
cause it Is strenuous. You work at a lathe with
tne casting you are finishing piled ten feet away.
J- nis means strenuous hut not efficient labor. To
work at that same lathe with the castings piled
so near that you .can get them without moving
irom your place is less strenuous but far more
omciont labor. We are familiar with the fact
that an over-loaded machine leads a strenuous
"re. None of us will, if we understand me
cuanics, say that it is an efficient life. This is
true of men as well as of machines; true of us
as well as of our employees We must get rll
H. idea tliat strenuousness and efficiency are
either similar or the same. Driving is one
?m efflciency te something else.
Efficiency is not something we can go out and
ny. it does not come in packages with direc
tions for use. It is more like a plant; that is,
; ls something that grows; and it is like a plant
in mis, too, that the longer it takes to grow the
stronger and more enduring it is. Hqre we run
against a very common mistake; for John, find
ing that Henry is winning by his efficiency, wants
to get it himself to beat Henry, and he hires a
man to teach It to him very much as I onco
had to study a book which gave a course in
chemistry in fourteen weeks, or as thero are so
called methods of learning stenography In one
month. None of tho get-knowledge-quick
schemes work in teaching efficiency. It ls not
learned that way. There are, Indeed, thoso who
would try to sell John something thoy call by
that name, but if Henry has the genuine artlclo
and John geta his by short-time methods, Henry
will smile and John will be sad. Time is as
necessary for tho growth of efficiency as it is for
tho the growth of an oak tree. Truo, we can
do some things at once, just as wo can dig tho
ground and plant tho acorn and wo can nurture
tho plant from its birth upward, and perhaps
find a Burbank who will make it grow faster.
But I do not know of anyone anywhere who has
efficiency in stock ready to bo shipped by ex
press and to bo delivered at your shop door in
full working order tho next morning. Try to
make. a good sized shop really efficlont, and if
you do it in three years you have done well and
will then find moro to do.
Furthermore, not only is efficiency a matter of
evolution but it is not always pleasant at first.
It is an acquired taste. It runs counter to many
things that we did before we tried it, and wo
have to learn that it is like some cheese tho
taste is much better than the smell, and that
. it is really finer food than our senses would at
first lead us to believe.
For efficiency destroys factory habits. It has
no mercy on such as are bad and it tells us to
substitute better ones for thoso that aro good.
Wo all run moro or less in what wo will call for
politeness "grooves" but which tho inconsiderate
call "ruts," and this new Idea does not tolerate
such things. Then, too, it is a destroyer of
complacency. How often we feel that wo aro
doing something just In the right way only to
have a competitor underbid us. When the shock
has passed wo discover that thero was a better
way than ours after all. Eternal vigilance is
the price' of efflciency. Every man must bo his
own watchdog, and his first duty will bo to bark
at himself. A lot of us would like efflciency
if it did not interfere with our own ways. How
angry was that officer to whom a friend reported
that the improvement in his factory methods
whiph he sought must begin by radical changes
in his own behavior.
Therefore, too, this new intruder hurts our
self-love. We don't like to admit that our hori
zons have been narrow, that our opinions have
been prejudices, or that what we call caution
may have had a measure of cowardice. It takes
a strong man to be highly efficient, because ho
must usually win a victory over himself before
lie can pass tho threshold of tho temple of effi
ciency. Ho must learn his own Ignorance and
then put it away. He must abandon prejudices
in mind and habits in action, must throw away
unbeliefs, learn to think that littlo which once
seemed large and that vital which was deemed
unimportant. It will bo clear that this ideal of
efflciency is something different from merely
improving a method hero and there, getting a
new machine, or hiring an abler superintendent.
These may be done without grasping the first
principles of efflciency.
A great employer in ono of our eastern towns
was building a large new plan in which many
hundreds of saleswomen wero employed. Of
course, other similar plants were studied and
everything thq,t current knowledge and past ex
perience directed -was dono to make the build
ing and its equipment perfect; but in doing this,
efflciency was not fully gained, for these are but
the tools with which efficiency works and not
the thing Itself. His thought ran as to how,
when he had a' perfect plant, it should bo put
to its perfect use, and he went deeper than the
surfaco to gain this end. He reasoned on one
subject somewhat thus "I have here many
hundred saleswomen. They have suffered seri
ously in the past from headache. Now headache
is a thing which I can not afford to have about,
for common sense says that a saleswoman with
a headache can not be expected to be efficient.
In short headache does not pay. What can I
do to get rid of it? Oculists tell me headache
often comes from eye-strain, and eye-strain
often comes from imperfect or ill-arranged
light. Here Is something for me to work out."
So his lightning system was in part at least
arranged with this In view; and he said that
the amount of neadache in his establishment
was very much less than it had been, and of
courso by so mucji his force was moro efficient,
and that meant more goods sold and more
money made.
Let us look at our nubjoct brlofly In two
phases as applied in factory and commercial
management. Thoso aro:
(1) Mechanical officloncy,
(2) Human officloncy.
The first of theso has had its wlso advocates
for many years, and oven yet much needs to he
done. Tho limiting factors of old, slow or
woak machinery ought to bo protty well under
stood, yet somo still cling to their anciont tools
with a dovotlon proper In an archaologlut but
dangoroua In business. Repairs to venerable
wrecks of buildings and apparatus aro still
made rathor than consign them to that kindly
burial which Is their duo. Machines nro crowdod
into spaco on tho thoory that tho moro machines
tho moro output, wheroas ten machines rightly
spaced will produce moro than twelve so in
stalled that tho production of them all Is held
back, even a fow minutes dally, becauso of
crowding. It may bo costly and inconvonloni
to put in a new engine, but tho plant that if
undor-poworod cats a hole in its own profib
which appals tho owner if ho has oxocutlvi
imagination enough to see it. Unwiso savini
limits efficiency sadly.
To theso sins may bo added such an tho kcoc
ing of costs in ono's head, as is still qulto con.
mon. Tho man who only knows at the end of
a year whether ho has mado or lost monoy Is
always somo mouths behind dato, without bo
ing able to say how things havo gone mean
while, and never can tell save by tho merest
guess whether ono or moro of his dlfforont de
partments operate at a loss or profit. It is
common to havo leaks in ono division mado good
by gains In another or vice versa tho avorago
concealing the facts in both cases.
Not a thousand miles from Cleveland wero
six prosperous concerns in ono industry; that
is, they thought they wero prosperous, for thoy
paid dividends. It fell out that an examination
was mado of tho six. Tho best was found to
bo running at 78 per cent efficiency and tho
worst at but 30 per cent, tho result in each caso
being reckoned upon what was not only pos
sible but fair by using the best methods with
tho plant each had.
I was employed onco In a foundry and machine-shop
whore tho secretary of tho company
did what ho called "taking tho time." Ho went
to a foreman and asked him how many hours ho
thought a certain order took, and his foreman's
opinion was put down in a notebook. When
theso results were brought to me I pointed out
that tho number of hours' labor thus stated did
not conform to tho total hours on tho payroll.
This troubled tho secretary, and when I re
fused to accept his memoranda until they did
conform to tho total hours for which wages
wero paid, ho took the difference between his
total and that upon tho wage-roll and distributed
it as ho thought best over tho dlfforont ordors.
It is not surprising that I found a machine cost
something like $9,000 which sold-at $8,000, or
that after tho death of tho founder, whose thor
ough knowledge of his trade had alone kept his
business alive, it speedily died. Ignorance of
exact facts about our business is a serious limi
tation on efficiency.
Tho Bible says severe things about unbelief,
which I used to think were hard. My view
altered when the superintendent of a mine in
Pennsylvania refusd for months to Install and
use a modern fan,merery because it was so much
smaller than Its 'huge predecessor that he did
not believe it would work. I have found heat
ing apparatus intended for exhaust steam
operated with live steam at many times the
proper cost, only because tho mill owner would
not believe that exhaust steam was sufficient,
and had never tried.
The manager of a large plant told me only
a few days ago that his foreman was a master
of the technique of his business but that he
would not look at any new thing. It required
the death of the chief engineer of a steamship
company to permit the use In their vessels of
modern apparatus which the navies and mer
chant marine of the world had in common ser
vice. Unbelief is an expensive thing, and some
times In Its results throws a strange light on
the unbelievers. About 1828 my grandfather
was carried by the crowd In tho New York pro
duce exchange out into the street and dumped
there, because he had the hardihood to ea k
railroad would some day be built out to the
Mississippi river. Those were the days of
canals.
I shall purposely touch but lightly on the me
chanical side of efficiency, because that part of
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