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INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY IN BUSINESS

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BUSINESS

BY

WALTER DILL SCOTT

AUTHOR OF ''THE THEORY OF ADVERTISING,'' ''THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADVERTISING,'' ''THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PUBLIC SPEAKING,'' ''INFLUENCING MEN IN BUSINESS''

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I. THE POSSIBILITY OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY......1 II. IMITATION AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY......................................26 III. COMPETITION AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY......................................48 IV. LOYALTY AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY......................................75 V. CONCENTRATION AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY...............................104 VI. WAGES AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY.....................................132 VII. PLEASURE AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY.....................................165 VIII. THE LOVE OF THE GAME AND EFFICIENCY...........186 IX. RELAXATION AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY.....................................204 X. THE RATE OF IMPROVEMENT IN EFFICIENCY............223 XI. PRACTICE PLUS THEORY............................254 XII. MAKING EXPERIENCE AN ASSET: JUDGMENT FORMATION......................................276 XIII. CAPITALIZING EXPERIENCE: HABIT FORMATION......303 <p v>

INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY IN BUSINESS

CHAPTER I

THE POSSIBILITY OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY

THE modern business man is the true heir of the old magicians. Every thing he touches seems to increase ten or a hundredfold in value and usefulness. All the old methods, old tools, old instruments have yielded to his transforming spell or else been discarded for new and more effective substitutes. In a thousand industries the profits of to-day are wrung from the wastes or unconsidered trifles of yesterday.

The only factor which has withstood this wizard touch is man himself. Development of the instruments of production and distribution has been so great it can hardly be <p 1> <p 2> measured: the things themselves have been so changed that few features of their primitive models have been retained.

Our railroad trains, steamships, and printing presses preserve a likeness more apparent than actual. Our telephones, electric lights, gas engines, and steam turbines, our lofty office buildings and huge factories crowded with wonderful automatic machinery are creations of the generation of business men and scientists still in control of them.

_By comparison the increase in human efficiency during this same period (except where the worker is the slave of the machine, compelled to keep pace with it or lose his place) has been insignificant_.

Reasons for this disproportion are not lacking. The study of the physical antedates the study of the mental always. In the history...

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