If this third chart had no other purpose, it would be useful to suggest to the student the wide tracts which still remain for study and development. It must not be thought that any of the steps omitted on this chart are not in existence. Every single possible combination of record and programme is in existence to-day, and must be studied by the manager of men. Not until these are all discovered, described, and standardized, the progression noted, and standard progressions outlined, can methods of least waste be adopted.
With a more thorough experimental study of the mind will come a possible prediction as to which stages the various types of mind must pass through. So, too, with the training of the young mind in the primary schools and in the methods of Scientific Management, will come the elimination of many stages now necessary, and the possibility, even, that the final stage may be introduced at the outset, and the enormous waste of time, energy and wearing of unnecessary brain paths be absolutely abolished.
THE PROGRAMME DERIVED FROM THE RECORD.—Having considered the various records and programmes and their relation, we will now consider the four stages of the record,—(1) unconscious, (2) conscious, (3) written, (4) standardized, and trace the derivation of the programme from each stage.
TABLE IV
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I. Record unconscious. Programme cannot be
definite.
Method is indefinite.
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II. Record conscious. Programme becomes
more definite.
Method becomes more definite.
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III. Record written. Programme yet more
definite.
Method definite.
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IV. Record standardized. Programme standardized,
i.e.,
Results predictable.
Methods standard.
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UNCONSCIOUS RECORDS MEAN INDEFINITE PROGRAMMES.—First, then, suppose that the records are unconscious. What does this imply? It implies in the first place that the worker has no idea of his capacity; never having thought of what he has done, he has no idea what can be done, neither has he a comparative idea of methods, that is, of how to do it. It is impossible for a definite programme to be laid out by such a worker,—that is to say, no predictions by him as to the time of completing the work are possible. Neither could a method be derived by him from his previous work.
Note here the alarming amount of waste. All good methods which the worker may possibly have acquired are practically lost to the world, and perhaps also to him. Not only this, but all bad methods which he has fallen into will be fallen into again and again, as there are no warning signs to keep him out of them.