Increasing Efficiency in Business by Walter Dill Scott is a winner.

Don’t you just love it when you find a book that reinforces your own beliefs? Scott’s a gutsy guy, because he’s prepared to take on modern thinkers with his in-ya-face ideas. In his book Increasing Efficiency in Business, Scott says, ‘the modern business man is the true heir of the old magicians.’

Some readers won’t like what Scott has to say or his take no prisoner’s style. I’m guessing some people will find his comments a bit too confronting and he’ll rattle their comfort zones.

Scott refers to F.W. Taylor on many occasions. If you’ve forgotten what line Taylor peddled, this is a quote from Vincenzo Sandrone, a former student of the University of Technology, Sydney, in his essay, F. W. Taylor & Scientific Management. Under Taylor's management system, factories are managed through scientific methods rather than by use of the empirical "rule of thumb", so widely prevalent in the days of the late nineteenth century when F. W. Taylor devised his system and published "Scientific Management" in 1911. "Few employers can gather a force of efficient workers and keep them at their best. Not only is it difficult to select the right men, but it is even harder to secure top efficiency after they are hired." Touching this, there will be no dispute. Experts in shop management go even farther. F. W. Taylor, who has made the closest and most scientific study, perhaps, of actual and potential efficiency among workers, declares that: "A first-class man can, in most cases, do from two to four times as much as is done on the average."

“While overwork has its place among the things which reduce energy and shorten life, it is my opinion that overwork is not so dangerous or so common as is ordinarily supposed.” And what about, “Those nations which expend the most energy are probably the ones among whom longevity is greatest and the mortality rate the lowest. In the city of Chicago there are many conditions adverse to health of body and mind, yet the city is famous for its relatively low mortality as a parallel fact. It is also affirmed that the average Chicago man works longer hours and actually accomplishes more than the average man elsewhere. This excess in the expenditure of energy -- in so far as it is wisely spent -- may be one of the reasons for the excellent health record of the city.” See what I mean. He’s a straight shooter. But he’ll get some women off side, because he only talks about men. He never mentions women. But cut him some slack girls. When he wrote the book women weren’t well represented in the workplace. In Scott's time most women didn't work outside the home. It was their job to take care of the men.

Hey, you can’t argue with this comment, “We have a choice between wearing out and rusting out. Most of us unwittingly have chosen the rusting process.” Right on!

If everyone reads Scott’s work and only 1 in 500 take on board his ideas, I reckon we’d all be better off. Because those people would start hassling all their mates and the people they work with, and they just might win them over.

A really good mate of mine says she believes we’ve all been brainwashed into believing we need three times as much sleep as we actually do. And we’ve be told over and over that we have to put limits on how much work we take on. She recons it’s all rubbish, and she pushes the boundaries every day to keep trying to find her maximum working potential and her minimum sleeping requirements.

I'm convinced! I want to fight the popular myths and take on Scott’s ideas to the max. Hey, I’ve got nothing to lose. If he’s right, then I’m going to be a whole lot more productive. If he’s wrong; what the heck. I’ll have a great reason to become a ‘slacker’ and join the beach bum brigade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Dill_Scott

When I discussed Scott with my hard working parents, they both said, 'It’s time we brought back his ideas so people will develop proper work ethics again.'

'I’m hooked. I hope you will be too. This one should be essential reading in preschools. I know I’ve said it before, but if you want to do yourself a favour, then do the download. http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Increasing/index.asp

Scott was a member of Phi Beta Kappa Society (ΦΒΚ) stands for Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης or philosophia biou kubernetes, "Love of learning is the guide of life."

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