Individual traits under this point of view become for us the decisive
psychological factors, and experimental psychology had to show us a
method to determine those personal differences and their relation to
the demands for industrial efficiency. This first goal may be reached
with all the means of science, as we hope it will be in the future, or
everything may be left to unscientific, haphazard methods as in the
past: in any case a second task stands before the community, namely,
the securing of the best possible work from every man in his place.
Indeed, the nation cannot delay the solution of this second problem
until the first has been solved in a satisfactory way. We might even
say that the answer to the second question is the more important, the
less satisfactory the answer to the first is. If every place in the
economic world were filled only by those who are perfectly adapted by
their mental traits, it would be much less difficult to get efficient
work from everyone. The fact that so many misfits are at work makes it
such an urgent necessity to find ways and means by which the
efficiency can be heightened.
It must be acknowledged, however, that the problem of the best work is
not quite such a clear one as that of the best man. From various
standpoints a different answer may be given to the question which kind
of work is the best. A capitalistic, profit-seeking egotism may
consider the quickest performance, or, if differences of quality are
involved, the most skillful performance, the only desirable end.
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