accurate measurement determines his
actual capacity to be.

IGNORANCE OF REAL CAPACITY.--Dr. Taylor has emphasized the fact
that the average workman does not know either his true efficiency or
his true capacity.[7] The experience of others has also gone to show
that even the skilled workman has little or inaccurate knowledge of
the amount of output that a good worker can achieve at his chosen
vocation in a given time.[8]

For example,--until a bricklayer has seen his output counted for
several days, he has little idea of how many bricks he can lay, or
has laid, in a day.[9]

The average manager is usually even more ignorant of the
capacity of the workers than are the men themselves.[10] This is
because of the prevalence of, and the actual necessity for the
worker's best interest, under some forms of management, of
"soldiering." Even when the manager realizes that soldiering is
going on, he has no way, especially under ordinary management, of
determining its extent.

LITTLE MEASUREMENT IN TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--Under Traditional
Management there was little measurement of a man's capacity. The
emphasis was entirely on the results. There was, it is true, in
everything beyond the most elementary of Traditional Management, a
measurement of the result. The manager did know, at the end of
certain periods of time, how much work had been done, and how much
it had cost him. This was a very important thing for him to know. If
his cost ran too high, and his output fell too low, he investigated.
If he found a defect, he tried to remedy it; but much time had to be
wasted in this investigation, because often he had no idea where to
start in to look for the defects. The result of the defects was
usually the cause for the inquiry as to their presence.

He might investigate the men, he might investigate the methods,
he might investigate the equipment, he might investigate the
surroundings, and so on,--and very often in the mind of the
Traditional manager, there was not even this most elementary
division. If things went wrong he simply knew,--"Something is wrong
somewhere," and it was the work of the foremen to find out where the
place was, or so to speed up the men that the output should be
increased and the cost lowered. Whether the defects were really
remedied, or simply concealed by temporarily speeding up, was not
seriously questioned.

Moreover, until measuring devices are secured, the only