list, in
the order of their weekly average efficiencies. (The efficiency of
low pressure, which proved to be the most important factor, was
computed by calling three minutes of low pressure 100 per cent and
two minutes either way 0 per cent.) As a result of simply posting
this record our efficiencies rose to over 60 per cent and our
moisture test increased a little less than 1 per cent. Some of the
best and most skilled men had an efficiency of over 80 per cent,
but quite a large percentage of them were down below 50 per cent.
We therefore decided that it was necessary to have the foreman
give more detailed information to the men as to what the machine
meant and how their efficiencies were obtained and to put the
instrument which did the recording into a glass case in the
machine room where all the men could see it. Each foreman took a
portion of the chart and one of the celluloid scales by which, we
obtained the efficiencies and explained in detail to each one of
the men how their records were calculated. As a result of this,
our efficiency rose from 60 per cent to 80 per cent in less than
four weeks, and it has remained at 80 per cent ever since--(ever
since being over two years)--enabling us to get a moisture of over
56 per cent."[A]

[Footnote A: Bulletin of the Taylor Society--March, 1917.]

This was accomplished, Mr. Wolf told them, without resorting to piece
work or bonus or any of the special methods of payments, their
men being hired by the day throughout the entire plant. Mr. Wolf
accomplished the result by giving meaning to a meaningless task,
by letting the men see for themselves how they arrived at results,
letting them see the different processes of getting results and
knowing on their own account which were the most valuable.

There may be other managers who appreciate the value of letting men
in on the experimental effort of getting results but it is not the
practice to do so and it is opposed to the idea of transferring
the responsibility from the workshop to the manager's office or
laboratory. Because of this practice the educational value of
establishing standards of workmanship is lost so far as the workers
are concerned. Mr. Wolf's criticism of orthodox scientific management
and his conclusions are illuminating; they are indeed revolutionary
in nature as they come from a manager of a successful industrial
enterprise