Part 22

Came only the dawn.

The truckers were pretty sure that they were being had, although they couldn't figure out just how. 'Tis ever thus when the old order yields place to new.

There was nothing left to do but try a new tack. So the manager talked to his fifteen or eighteen truckers again. And this time he proposed taking two of them and putting them on the new plan. After a little conversation to assure themselves that there was no skullduggery afoot, the truckers consented. And Little Ed and Big Joe (sic!) were nominated.

Little Ed made 62 moves the very first day and was as fresh as a daisy when the 5 o'clock whistle blew. Big Joe made 56 trips and looked none the worse for it. Ed's bonus was $1.98; Joe's was $1.28. If you check up, we're sure you'll find those figures are wrong. But cheer up, we aren't nearly so much interested in the exact amounts of Ed's and Joe's earning as we are in the ultimate results and in the principles involved.

We may pass quickly over the former. Of course the men were convinced. And Big Ed would have beaten any trucker to a gentle pulp who wouldn't have been convinced. In a week's time, those truckers were making nearly twice as many trips a day--and their earnings had increased by something like 35 per cent.

If you don't believe it, look at the figure on page 158. See what happened to production? Yes, that pretty dotted line--the one with the big dip in it--marks labor costs per trip.

The manager, you see--and now we come to the principle involved--had MADE HIS HELP SEE THAT THE BONUS PLAN AMOUNTED TO GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANTED. And of course, that was more pay. At the same time it got the company what it wanted--more production.

Fundamentally, the manager's system was precisely like the messenger boy's. And you can prove that in a trice by charting it on the same old basis.

Try it. It won't take you more than a couple of minutes.

* * * * *

This might go on for a long, long time. Innumerable examples might be introduced into this text to illustrate this balancing of wants and its importance to the successful conduct of this business of MANAGING--to illustrate that your own personal method of seeking cooperation or service is more a matter of reason than innate ability to "size up the other fellow."

There is, in a word, method back of this "KNACK OF HANDLING THE HELP."

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!'