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3 ‘ Individual Experience Is Not Enough It Is Too Limited in Scope to Obtain Maximum Results —Should Adapt Methods Successfully Used by Others XPERIENCE is -necessary to F achieve success in any business or profession, but what is experi- ence? Is it not an accumulation of facts and ideas? Is your experience as large as the accumulated facts and ideas of everyone in the business? What are you doing toward enlarging your experience? Everyone is influenced by the ex- perience of others but it is a fact that too many executives and men in other important capacities resist the influx of facts from the experience of other men and organizations. A new con- ception, however, is gaining ground rapidly. This conception is that there is one best way to do everything un- der any given condition and that the one best way connot be determined un- less the sources of information are numerous, unless facts are obtained not from one’s own experiences and that of his neighbors alone, but from the experience of others the world over. Many an important decision has been made and has been proved wrong because the available facts had not been obtained before arriving at it. The willingness to dig out facts and Secondly, the willingness to face the facts are characteristic of the men who have accomplished the most in Ameri- can industry. It is the very essence of Scientific management one of the prin- ciples of which is “the systematic use of recorded experience.” Reverence for one’s own ideas and experience is probably the chief hin- drance to the greater acceleration of industrial progress. “Everyone has a right to his own opinions” only when his opinions are based on facts. Realiz- By H. E. Stocker ing this, great leaders in military, political and business affairs are noted for their contacts with wide sources of information. J. George Frederick in Business Research and Statistics brings this out in connection with Napoleon: “. . . his significant trait of cager and determined search after informa- tion; his personal interest in details UUUULUELLLLOPOT LEAL UPLATE EAU Using a Movable Gasoline Crane for Unloading Trucks and Freight Car UUUUTELETTEETCEATVGALECALUGA UOC PUTA LULUALLUVALURUALOREREULEA CALE EREO Using an Electric Chisel Truck to Good Advantage in Handling Bales on Pier at Seattle CUUVOALLVOATUUAULUUULLATHLELLEOA LULA UE of information down to inquiry into the very quality of the soldiers’ mess before going into action, by personally tasting the food in some random field kitchen; and then, once having co- ordinated all his information into a plan of action, making a special point of carrying it out with great swift- ness.” This being true, one of the most im- portant steps to be taken in an organi- zation is providing the machinery for collecting facts. Usually the vice presidents, the general managers and the terminal superintendents are too MARINE REVIEW—September, 1930 busy getting ships out on schedule and attending all the other details neces- sary to keep a business going, to have the time or energy to study their own operations, let alone dig out facts from the operations of others. Also, many very competent executives do not have analytical minds, a necessary requisite for getting the most out of the facts obtained. For this reason staff men in the organization or consultants are em- ployed. These men have the necessary time to get the facts, determine their significance by analysis and to develop new facilities and methods which they put into effect by working with mem- bers of the organization. Further fact getting machinery is provided in some organizations by or- ganized research and development de- partments. This work is performed by a regular department in the organ- ization or by government bureaus, col- leges or co-operative associations, or by all of these. A large company like the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. can afford to employ 4000 men in its research department laboratories. Many smaller companies have small research laboratories, but most small organizations must co-operate with the established research facilities. Research Work That Pays Research work is divided into two parts, that which is expected to de- velop immediate commercial results, and that which is pure scientific re- search, commercial results being a gamble in so far as any particular line of work is concerned, but sure so far as the whole effort is con- cerned. History proves that pure 53