tions which are repeated in a prescribed or habitual manner each time the entry is made.

In this sense, the performance of clerical duties in this manner may or may not be desirable, depending altogether upon the way in which the habit was formed, for habits may be either good or bad. Most of our actions are habitual in any case, whether we make a conscious effort to avoid habitual methods of working or not. The office manager who seeks to destroy habitual methods of working on the part of his clerks is not only attempting the impossible, but he is at the same time introducing inhibitions which make the development of good habits extremely difficult. It is far wiser to endeavor to develop good while correcting bad habits of work, for by this method clerks become increasingly valuable, as they learn to do, habitually, easily, and as a natural procedure, things which in the beginning they found it difficult to do.

The office manager should continually direct his efforts to having all daily work performed in a routine manner, even going to the length of demanding that each operation, and the various actions and movements which constitute it, shall always be done in exact accordance with the manner he has prescribed, and he should insist on this, though it is possible or even probable that a different manner would accomplish equal results. The constant and rigid insistence on a specified routine of performance quickly results in the formation of correct working habits on the part of all clerks, and this will reduce errors to a minimum, while making certain that standard methods of work are carried out. Mere instructions that work must be done in a specified manner will never result in those instructions being thoroughly carried out, but when clerks are trained and taught to perform work in a standard routine manner until they have formed a fixed working habit of doing so, it will not require constant reference to the instructions for the permanent maintenance of the standards,

for there is no force so strong for such maintenance as habit. When work is done in a routine manner, it is also possible to perform it more expeditiously than when any one of several possible methods are used by the clerks. The routine thus improves service, and as the work is done more quickly, it naturally follows that it will also be done more economically.

For the same reasons, work which is done at stated periods, such as weekly or monthly, should also be performed in a routine manner.

WHY A ROUTINE METHOD INCREASES INITIATIVE

It has been asserted by some critics that this method of working is destructive of initiative and original thought, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Oft-repeated work of an original character can always be performed more effectively if done in a routine manner. For example, every great artist develops certain habitual methods of using his brush, pen or pencil, and these methods actually give distinction to his work and help to form his "style." In other words, this simply means that the mechanisms for producing the general effect he is striving for are subordinated to the main idea. If it were necessary for him to develop a new brush stroke to accomplish his result, an unusual and unnecessary amount of his thought would have to be expended on the manner of his stroke, and his main idea, his creation, would suffer accordingly. It may be, of course, that the new brush stroke would stand out as a creative effort of a sort, but it would be a poor compensation for the sacrifice of the theme, and besides few would recognize the familiar genius of the master artist in it.

So is it with every other kind of creative work. If one would succeed in this activity he must repeat over and over again the same sort of effort-a painter must paint

constantly, a writer must write constantly, and a thinker must think constantly, for the best results are never obtained by a single effort. The proverb is somewhat trite, but worth repeating-"Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains."

In the oft-repeated attempts at the same sort of work, the worker gradually masters certain phases until they become habitual, or can be performed in a subconscious manner, as it were, leaving the mind free to grapple with the main theme rather than with its mechanisms. Just as one can never write fluently in a newly acquired language, because he must constantly think of new words, the spelling and the grammar, as well as the subject on which he endeavors to write, so is it difficult for a creative worker of any kind to do good work until he has formed certain routine habits of doing it.

In exact contrary to the assertions above refuted, routine and methodical work as here described promotes a healthy flow of ideas and leaves the mind free to deal with problems that could not be handled otherwise. Every great thinker has been a "methodist"—that is, he had certain routine methods of mental work, thought, and analysis; for as we must learn how to think, it is impossible not to form habits of thinking, and these habits in turn become routine.

The performance of work in a routine manner is exceedingly valuable for an executive, and practically every great executive is a methodical thinker and worker, though, of course, he may, and usually does, have his own individual methods. A methodical manner of thought and analysis renders it possible to make correct decisions quickly, which, without such methods, might not be reached for hours and even days. Indecision and vacillation are never found as accompaniments of methodical thinking and working.

The foregoing remarks, it must be remembered, are based upon the assumption that the routine habits are themselves

the result of sound analytical thinking. Every person develops habits of one sort or another, and if these are scientifically analyzed it will be usually found that the majority of them are not basically correct. It is not habits of this kind that are meant. But if the habits of an executive are the result of long training and careful scientific analysis, and, in addition, have been tested by experience and found correct, they are the best possible sort of asset. The same remarks apply to the working habits of clerks. If a task has been studied in the manner outlined in the chapter on Scientific Analysis, and the best methods taught to the worker, the habits that result from that sort of teaching and training are not only valuable assets to the employee but to the company employing him.

IX

THE FORMATION OF ROUTINES

Routines usually copied. Getting a perspective. A detailed analysis of steps. Visualizing the problem. The final analysis. Synthetically building the new routine. Additional considerations. The importance of flow of work.

FEW office managers are ever called upon to design a new routine for the performance of a particular piece of work, and they have, therefore, little opportunity for doing so. Even in the case of newly organized offices the routines are usually copied from those of some other business in the same or allied lines, few business men having sufficient individuality to cast aside customary imitative habits in this respect and construct a routine based upon their own original thinking. Rather than try to think out one, they find out in one way or another how Smith and Company are doing it, making no inquiry and giving no thought to the question whether or not Smith and Company are competent to devise an effective routine; indeed it will often be found that Smith and Company borrowed from some one else. This wholesale copying of routines from one firm to another results in enormous waste, for the reason that the routine is not strengthened by this continual transplanting, but rather progressively weakened. After its establishment such a routine usually grows by accretion, and this growth, like that of a lone tree standing in an open, wind-swept space, is gnarled and twisted by every wind that blows, until in the course of a few years a dissection would show that the sap (the piece of work) was compelled to travel a most tortuous path. Analysis will usually uncover steps which can hardly be justified.