The method is this. Ask yourself each time this simple question: What
does your "helper" want?
Does your stenographer want to leave promptly at five so she can get
ready for an evening of whoopee? Or does she have to catch a particular
train in order not to find a cold supper waiting for her at home? Then
why not fix things so she can work during the hours she is paid to
work--and so she can leave at the hour when pay stops?
Can your truckers live in the style to which they are accustomed on
$4.50 a day? Or will $5.50 enable them to put away a bit for a rainy
season? Then why not arrange a wage payment method which will help them
to do it?
And above all, tell them WHY.
To do such things is not philanthropy. Successful managers will tell you
IT IS NOTHING MORE NOR LESS THAN GOOD BUSINESS. Strip from their methods
the individual characteristics required by the individual conditions
involved. What do you find? EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM IS BASED ON OUR
PRIMARY RULE. That, you remember, is to find out what you want from your
"help" and what your "help" wants from you; then a way to make the two
meet on a ground of mutual satisfaction--the compensation you can give
and the compensation they can take--and BOTH OF YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT.
Don't you see, to grasp the real KNACK OF HANDLING "HELP," the necessity
for making what you want from them balance with what they want from you?
If there isn't that balance, there won't be whole-souled COOPERATION. To
paraphrase what Henry Ford once said--or what one of his collaborators
made him say: "See that each man in doing the best he can for you is
also doing the best he can for himself."
Thus, by digging in and finding out what everybody involved in the
situation wants, it is possible to get the utmost in cooperation and
loyalty. Where one man does so instinctively, another gets equally good
results by making a deliberate study along the lines we have pointed
out.
Hundreds of jobs don't get done promptly and enthusiastically for no
other reason than that they aren't interesting. They can be made
interesting if you get the right line on what your work requires, what
your "help" wants, and then make a common meeting ground.
Mark Twain knew all about the KNACK OF MAKING WORK INTERESTING AND
ATTRACTIVE.
Remember his description of Tom Sawyer's whitewashing the fence? Even if
you do, it won't hurt to read it again.
Poor Tom. It was on a summer's morn just made for swimming or
fishing--and he had to work.
Along comes Ben, one of his cronies. Tom begins to do some tall
thinking. But let's not try to improve the original:
"He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work....
"Ben said: 'Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?'
"Tom wheeled suddenly and said: 'Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't
noticing.'
"'Say--I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of
course you'd ruther _work_--wouldn't you? Course you would!'
"Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said: 'What do you call work?'
"'Why, ain't that work?'
"Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly: 'Well, maybe it
is, and maybe it ain't. All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer.'
"'Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on you like it?'
"The brush continued to move.
"'Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a
chance to whitewash a fence every day?'
"That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom
swept his brush daintily back and forth--stepped back to note the
effect--added a touch here and there--criticized the effect again--Ben
watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more
absorbed.
"Presently he said: 'Say, Tom, let _me_ whitewash a little.'
"Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind. 'No,
no--I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly's awful
particular about this fence--right here on the street--you know--but if
it was the back fence I wouldn't mind and she wouldn't. Yes, she's awful
particular about this fence; it's got to be done very careful; I reckon
there ain't one boy in a thousand, mebbe two thousand, that can do it
the way it's got to be done.'
"'No--is that so? Oh, come now--lemme just try. Only just a little--I'd
let you, if you was me, Tom.'
"'Ben, I'd like to, honest Injun; but Aunt Polly--well, Jim wanted to do
it, but she wouldn't let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't let
Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this fence
and anything was to happen to it----'
"'Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say--I'll give
you the core of my apple.'
"'Well, here--no, Ben, now don't. I'm afeard----'
"'I'll give you all of it!'
"Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his
heart. And while the late Steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the
sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled
his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more
innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every
little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time
Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a
kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in
for a dead rat and a string to swing it with--and so on, and so on, hour
after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor
poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in
wealth. He had, besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles,
part of a jew's-harp, a piece of blue bottle glass to look through, a
spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk,
a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six
firecrackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass doorknob, a dog
collar--but no dog--the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange peel
and a dilapidated old window sash.
"He had a nice, good, idle time all the while--plenty of company--and
the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of
whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village."
Mark Twain didn't have the worker on the modern assembly line in
mind--nor the stenographer tapping her typewriter--but he _did_ see that
THE WORK MEN CAN DO BEST IS THE WORK THAT IS MADE ATTRACTIVE TO
THEM--either through the money in it or the sheer success in doing it.
Find out what's wanted to make your work attractive, then find out what
you can give that will meet those wants. Then you get not only good
work, but loyalty in it and enthusiasm for it.
But you can't fool your "help"--at least not for long. If you play upon
the desire for responsibility, you must give it up to capacity. If it is
promotion you hold out as a reward, you must give it when it is
deserved. If you play upon the desire for good pay, you must give it as
far as the job will allow.
And the nearer you come to giving all you can afford for the service
received, in as nearly as possible the form that is wanted, whether in
courtesy or in coin, in reasonable hours or in rapid advancement, in
self-respect or in reciprocal service, THE MORE COOPERATION YOU MAY
EXPECT.
V