on the meaning of the word "action." To be active is certainly the opposite of being at rest. This being true, punishment is just as surely an incentive to action as is reward. The man who is punished in every case will be led to some sort of action. Whether this really results in an increase of output or not simply determines whether the punishment is a scientifically prescribed punishment or not. If the punishment is of such a nature that the output ceases because of it, or that it incites the man punished against the general good, then it does not in any wise cease to be an active thing, but it is simply a wrong, and unscientifically assigned punishment, that acts in a detrimental way.
Soldiering Alone Cuts Down Activity. — It is interesting to note that the greatest cause for cutting down output is related more closely to a reward than a punishment. Under such managements as provide no adequate reward for all, and no adequate assurance that all can receive extra rewards permanently without a cut in the rate, it may be advisable, for the worker's best interests, to limit output in order to keep the wages, or reward, up, and soldiering results. The evils of soldiering will be discussed more at length under the "Systems of Pay." It is plain, however, here that soldiering is the result of a cutting down of action, and it is self-evident that anything which cuts down action is harmful, not only to the individual himself, but to society at large.
Nature of Rewards and Punishments. — Under all types of management, the principal rewards consist
of promotion and pay, pay being a broad word used here to include regular wages, a bonus, shorter hours, other forms of remuneration or recompense; anything which can be given to the man who does the work to benefit him and increase his desire to continue doing the work. Punishments may be negative, that is, they may simply take the form of no reward; or they may be positive, that is, they may include fines, discharge, assignment to less remunerative or less desirable work, or any other thing which can be given to the man to show him that he has not done what is expected of him and, in theory at least, to lead him to do better.
Nature of Direct Incentives. — Direct incentives will be such native reaction as ambition, pride and pugnacity; will be love of racing, love of play; love of personal recognition; will be the outcome of self-confidence and interest, and so on.
The Reward Under Traditional Management Unstandardized. — As with all other discussions of any part or form of Traditional Management, the discussion of the incentive under Traditional Management is vague from the very nature of the subject. "Traditional" stands for vagueness and for variation, for the lack of standardization, for the lack of definiteness in knowledge, in process, in results. The rewards under Traditional Management, as under all types of management, are promotion and pay. It must be an almost unthinkably poor system of management, even under Traditional Management, which did not attempt to provide for some sort of promotion of the man who did the most and best
work; but the lack of standardization of conditions, of instructions, of the work itself, and of reward, makes it almost impossible not only to give the reward, but even to determine who deserves the reward. Under Traditional Management, the reward need not be positive, that is, it might simply consist in the negation of some previously existing disadvantage. It need not be predetermined. It might be nothing definite. It might not be so set ahead that the man might look forward to it. In other words it might simply be the outcome of the good, and in no wise the incentive for the good. It need not necessarily be personal. It could be shared with a group, or gang, and lose all feeling of personality. It need not be a fixed reward or a fixed performance; in fact, if the management were Traditional it would be almost impossible that it would be a fixed reward. It might not be an assured reward, and in most cases it was not a prompt reward. These fixed adjectives describe the reward of Scientific Management — positive, predetermined, personal, fixed, assured and prompt. A few of these might apply, or none might apply to the reward under Traditional Management.
Reward a Prize Won by One Only. — If this reward, whether promotion or pay, was given to someone under Traditional Management, this usually meant that others thereby lost it; it was in the nature of a prize which one only could attain, and which the others, therefore, would lose, and such a lost prize is, to the average man, for the time at least, a dampener on action. The rewarding of the winner,
to the loss of all of the losers, has been met by the workmen getting together secretly, and selecting the winners for a week or more ahead, thus getting the same reward out of the employer without the extra effort.
Punishment Under Traditional Management Wrong in Theory. — The punishment, under Traditional Management, was usually much more than negative punishment; that is to say, the man who was punished usually received much more than simply the negative return of getting no reward. The days of bodily punishment have long passed, yet the account of the beatings given to the galley slaves and to other workers in the past are too vividly described in authentic accounts to be lost from memory. To-day, under Traditional Management, punishment consists of