“And can they do it?” we asked, puzzled and yet fascinated. “Can they all do it?”
“They do, and they can,” said the Stranger. “The proof of it is that they are doing it. Listen. Here is an answer to my circular No. 6, Efficiency and Recompense, that came in this morning. It is from a steel firm. Listen.” The Stranger picked out a letter and read it.
Dear Sir:
Our firm is a Steel Corporation. We roll rails. As soon as we read your circular on the Stimulus of Competition we saw that there were big things in it. At once we sent one of our chief managers to the rolling, mill. He carried a paper bag in his hand. “Now boys,” he said, “every man who rolls a rail gets a gum-drop.” The effect was magical. The good fellows felt a new stimulus. They now roll out rails like dough. Work is a joy to them. Every Saturday night the man who has rolled most gets a blue ribbon; the man who has rolled the next most, a green ribbon; the next most a yellow ribbon, and so on through the spectroscope. The man who rolls least gets only a red ribbon. It is a real pleasure to see the brave fellows clamouring for their ribbons. Our output, after defraying the entire cost of the ribbons and the gum-drops, has increased forty per cent. We intend to carry the scheme further by allowing all the men who get a hundred blue ribbons first, to exchange them for the Grand Efficiency Prize of the firm,—a pink ribbon. This the winner will be entitled to wear whenever and wherever he sees fit to wear it.
The stranger paused for breath.
“Marvellous,” we said. “There is no doubt the stimulus of keen competition—”
“Shut up,” he said impatiently. “Let me explain it further. Competition is only part of it. An item just as big that makes for efficiency is to take account of the little things. It’s the little things that are never thought of.”
Here was another wonder! We realized that we had never thought of them. “Take an example,” the Stranger continued. “I went into a hotel the other day. What did I see? Bell-boys being summoned upstairs every minute, and flying up in the elevators. Yes,—and every time they went up they had to come down again. I went up to the manager. I said, ‘I can understand that when your guests ring for the bell-boys they have to go up. But why should they come down? Why not have them go up and never come down?’ He caught the idea at once. That hotel is transformed. I have a letter from the manager stating that they find it fifty per cent. cheaper to hire new bell-boys instead of waiting for the old ones to come down.”
“These results,” we said, “are certainly marvellous. “You are most assuredly to be congratulated on—”
“You talk too much,” said the Stranger. “Don’t do it. Learn to listen. If a young man comes to me for advice in business,—and they do in hundreds, lots of them,—almost in tears over their inefficiency,—I’d say, ‘Young man, never talk, listen; answer, but don’t speak.’ But even all this is only part of the method. Another side of it is technique.”