التقييم السعري للسكراب و الخردة

HABITS play such an important part in the business world that they deserve far more at- tention than they receive. “ Scientific management " contends that as far as possible man's work should be standardised and that he should be taught the easiest, quickest and most efficient ways of performing his duties. This is to make his work as nearly automatic as possible through the formation of efficient habits. It is said that in some factories, where this method has been tried, that the average workman accomplishes from two to four times as much as he did before acquiring the prescribed habits. “Scientific management” is thus accom- plishing gratifying results in increasing ef- iciency through scientific physical habits. 

But habits are mental as well as physical, and the mental field is more important by far than the physical field. Habits are formed by frequent repetitions, and by far the greater part of our lives is given over to thinking and doing, according to habit. Habits are conditions under our control. By sufficient desire and will we can modify old habits or create new ones. This being So, we should study the habits we have and consider new habits that might be established with a view to making business and life in general more pleasant and profitable. 

We may dismiss personal and social hab- its with but a few words. They have an im- portant influence upon the estimation we make of ourselves and the estimation the world makes of us. They hold sway the greater part of the time over health and happiness, moulding character in habit grooves. In fact, we are, as the well-known phrase so aptly puts it, “ creatures of habit.” And as habit is important in the success of a man, so it is important in the success of a business. Of the many advantages to be gained through well-defined and positive habits, the following are among the most important. Habit shortens time for thought and ac- tion. If a man who is not in the habit of writing is asked for an editorial on a partic- ular subject, it would take him much longer to write it than an editor who has made such

HABIT writing a habit. A typist, who has become an expert in working at the typewriter op- erates that machine much more swiftly than a novice. Habit is conducive to ease. In fact, the commonest habits seem to require little men- tal or physical exertion. The effort is so slight in some cases that the process is almost automatic. When a new executive is first given responsibilities, they loom up in heroic size and greatly tire him. Several weeks later, these responsibilities no longer worry him, because he is in the habit of taking care of them. The first day at a machine that is new to him greatly fatigues a workman, whereas a month or so later, through the force of habit, he operates the same machine with ease.

 Habit increases accuracy. Hundreds of examples may be called to mind, such as a person learning to play the piano, where physical and mental habit are both developed through practice. There are other advantages that might be cited, all of them proving that habit con- tributes to efficiency. Habits are formed in two ways, passively and actively, by far the greater number of our habits developing along the line of least resistance. Environment is responsible for many habits, good and bad., The purpose of this chapter is not only to show the importance of habits, but to empha- sise the fact that through desire and will man can form such habits as please him and benefit him. The more good habits a man has, the less attention he will have to pay to detail. 

Whenever occasion arises that these habits can profitably be brought into play, the process of summoning them is almost au- tomatic, so that they detract but little from the attention he is giving to other matters. For example: if a salesman is talking to a prospective customer, he should put his en- ergy and enthusiasm into his effort to sell goods. He should automatically employ his habits of courtesy, politeness, confidence of manner, clearness and conciseness of speech, good nature and any other habits he may have that would beneficially influence the situation. If the habits named were not habits, and the salesman, instead of auto- matically summoning the listed qualities, called upon them with thought given to each, the result may easily be imagined.

 The salesman's brain would go through a process something after this fashion: "I must tell him the excellent qualities of HABIT my goods. Now I must be courteous to him, now polite. Now I must talk price. Now I must be confident of manner. Now I must tell him of our shipping facilities. I must speak clearly and concisely. I must ask him if he will place an order at once. I must remain good-natured throughout the transaction — " But the prospective cus- tomer, by this time, would either have dis- missed the salesman or fled. A man's mind should be free to deal with matters in hand. His habits should be so developed as to take care of themselves. We have said that there are two ways in which habits are developed, one passively, the other actively. 

By actively is meant, a man may select the habits he desires and cul- tivate them. First of all, he should use dis- cretion in selecting for development not only habits that will do him good, but habits that will do him the most good. He should then strongly impress upon his mind the various benefits the habits would mean to him. The next step is to repeat the act of thinking or doing as frequently as possible, until it be- comes 

 practically automatic, or part of the man himself. It may take some time and effort to work for a habit, but it should be remembered that

 when the habit is established, it works al- most automatically for the man. As a rule, too little attention is paid by a sales manager to the salesmen in his depart- ments. Most of his attention is given to pro- viding information for his representatives, while the salesmen's personal and social hab- its, which have much to do with their suc- cess, are overlooked. Salesmanship de- pends not only upon business knowledge, but also upon the habits of courtesy, sympathy, optimism, enthusiasm, brevity, courage, re- sponsiveness and many others that any man in a short time can cultivate. Not only in salesmanship, but in every de- partment of every business, every man's ef- ficiency depends upon habits. Scientific management studies the physical habits, with the view to making them more efficient. Employers, by studying the subject, could in like manner increase the mental efficiency of their executives. There is no end to the habits that a man may cultivate.

 The more good ones he can develop, the more he will be able to centre his energy upon the vital parts of proposi- tions, confident that his automatic habits will take care of the ordinary details. All of this doesn't mean that habits should

НАВІТ be used to cut down men's efforts. It means that, with habits taking care of more and more details, man may attempt more and accomplish more. A little story illustrating some of the points in this chapter was told me recently by a man who stands high in the financial world. “When I was a young man,” he said, “I went into a concern that did a large broker- age business with a very small force. I hadn't been there long when the owner was called from the city. The two other execu- tives happened to be away at the same time, and matters were left in my hands. “ The first day of my régime several busi- ness affairs came up that worried me so I scarcely got a wink of sleep that night. The next morning I pulled myself together suffi- ciently to figure out how the regular execu- tives handled far more responsibilities than had been entrusted to me and with no ap- parent anxiety. I happened to glance at our stenographer, who was a remarkably rapid typist. 

Then a practical line of reasoning dawned upon me. "Supposing she had been called away, in- stead of the proprietor, and he had asked me to undertake her work. I had to laugh when I thought of the boss dictating, with me trying to write down his rapid-fire talk. Then I pictured myself at the machine with sixty letters to be pounded out before five o'clock. The proposition seemed even a more difficult one than handling the duties imposed upon me. Then I figured it out. “If I was to sit at the typewriter I would hit each individual letter with one finger. I knew, because I had tried. I would have looked at each individual word on my page of notes to be copied. I would have looked at each line of type-written matter when I had finished it, to see if I had made any mistakes.

 And so I pictured out many more individual operations that I would have gone through but to which our stenog- rapher paid no heed. I saw it all. She had hammered on those keys until hammering upon them had become such a habit that she never failed to hit the right key even if she was looking out of the window. In fact, habit took care of everything save the read- ing of her notes as she wrote, the writing part being practically automatic. “ Then I took my propositions in hand and listed on a piece of paper all the habits I could think of that could automatically handle parts of those propositions. To my HABIT surprise I found that there was only a little initiative work necessary, provided a man had cultivated my list of good habits. I made a resolution to develop enough habits to make the handling of business as simple a matter for me as the operation of the typewriter to our stenographer. I haven't got that far yet, and never will, but from the day I started in the right direction I've ad- vanced far enough to know that I have at my command a force of well trained habits that make work easier, more accurate and far quicker of performance than otherwise, would be possible.”