WHY WOMEN SUCCEED IN BUSINESS

BY LILLIAN M. GILBRETH

THE title of this article is a very charming one, for it takes for granted what one otherwise would have to prove. But this is in no wise a controversial presentation or a statistical one, and does not aim either to prove that a large number of women do succeed in business or anywhere else, or that this number, whatever it may be, bears a significant relationship to a similar number of men in industry or out. It aims rather to show that women succeed in business or anything else because of certain definite things. As it happens these things or most of them bring success to men also, but that is beside the question, except that it stamps what is to be said from the start as having little value as an argument.

Success is a difficult thing to define or to measure, but we may perhaps take it to mean here a certain amount of satisfaction that a person takes in her achievements, that her associates take, and that the world at large takes. It is a pleasant thing to study, if we characterize it in this way, so that it is surprising that more time has not been devoted to it. We are always avid to investigate failures. The front pages of the yellow dailies, the most popular magazines and films and novels, are full of the details of people who have failed in business, in marriage, in life in general. Compared with accounts of these, stories of successes occupy little space and arouse little interest; that is, if written in a simple and straightforward fashion and not transformed into romantic adventures.

The reason for this is probably because success does not usually come through a lucky accident, a marvellous endowment and equipment, or an extraordinary combination of circumstances, but through a definite plan of work, ability to stick to a job, and a realization that real satisfactions come only from keeping at a thing until it is done and done thoroughly. It is true of course

that if a successful man or woman is asked how he has succeeded, he will probably give an account of the unimportant things which he remembers to have contributed in some way to his getting on, but will forget the big underlying principles which have really been the cause of his succeeding. They have become a very part of his living and he will never think to speak of them unless he is asked definitely about them.

Fundamental to success in business as in everything else is a right philosophy of work. A person who believes that work is in and of itself desirable and worth while, goes at any kind of work she has to do as at an opportunity. She does not attempt to rush it through with the idea of getting leisure for something more attractive, but settles down to it with a feeling that here is the best that life has to offer, a chance for activity. This does not mean that she does not look forward to and appreciate leisure and fill her leisure with the most worth while thing she can plan for. She knows that without it her life will be poorly balanced and her work itself not nearly so worth while, but she plans for it as a relaxation from work done and a preparation for work to follow, and values it most as sending her back to work rested and adequate.

If she has this feeling toward work, then it is worth planning carefully and performing efficiently. She can get interest and satisfaction out of applying all the technique for personal efficiency that would otherwise seem a deadening undertaking. None of the findings that the engineer is increasingly putting at the disposal of any one will seem discouraging or oppressive. She will be glad to learn that all activities are in many ways fundamentally alike and that her personal programme, in industry or business or teaching or the home, may all be regulated by certain rules which simplify work methods and bring better results for every expenditure and effort. Of course if you hate work and rush through it efficiently only to enjoy leisure, any one who attempts to standardize your work methods and tell you how to do the things you only do under protest anyhow, is a bore if not a menace. But if you love work, then simplified methods which help you to get more done with less effort simply free you from making unimportant decisions over and over again and teach

you, when the precious time comes that is free to devote to the really creative work, how to give most of yourself to it with the greatest effectiveness.

In the second place, those who succeed have learned not only to love work but to revel in the economic contributions which they are able to make through it. They have come to feel the thrill of being producers. That makes one satisfied, no matter what activity she happens to be engaged at, if she is simply having a chance to be one of the group that is adding in some way to the world's assets. Just the type of satisfaction she will take in what she contributes depends of course partly on her and partly on the kind of work she finds available. For work as it is set up everywhere may give such a variety of satisfactions. It may mean output that heaps up in quantity, where the worker has a chance to see what she has done assume increasing proportions. It may be a stack of machine parts, or a pile of manuscript, or a basket of darned stockings, or anything else that one can hold to long enough to enjoy for quantity, before it is taken away to be used. Industry and home alike must be careful not to do away with this satisfaction by ingenious devices designed to prevent clutter and crowding or too eager users. Both of these may mean that a possible satisfaction is taken away or is never even known to exist.

Another type of satisfaction comes from quality work, from having a part in the creation or perfection of something fine and perhaps beautiful. This is found in many types of work everywhere, but is something the careless or untrained onlooker often fails to realize. It is at times even something that the person who gets the satisfaction fails to note herself unless it is called to her attention. Then she realizes that her job means what it does to her just because it gives her a chance to give that finish to what she does that makes it what it really is. For everything that we work on we create to that extent and its degree of perfection reflects something in us.

Just as quantity and quality give us a chance to extend our personality, so do tools and instruments and equipment and machinery and power. We hear so much of the restrictions of this machine age and of the deadening effect of power, yet we

forget that it has not only freed the horse but the man and woman as well. Like everything else power can be turned to bad use and one can become its slave, but there are millions today whom it has made to some extent masters and who feel themselves develop as they learn to handle new tools and new machines. This is one of the real lures of the automobile and the speed boat and the aeroplane. The same thing holds true in a more modest way of machine tools and even of hand tools, be they used in the shop, the office or the home. It is a factor of success to realize this, to keep one's equipment effective and one's skill active. A trained observer can pick out those who do this anywhere. There is something about the satisfied skilled worker at the punch press, the adding machine, the typewriter, the sewing machine, that spells adequacy and usually spells success also. If it does not, it is because there is some known or unknown hindrance or resistance that needs to be overcome. This is the job benevolent thinkers should be busy about, rather than trying to find inherent causes for dissatisfaction in the results of engineering progress.

Some jobs give a chance for working by oneself, others for group activity. Some jobs give a chance for working inconspicuously, others for appearing in the limelight. Some jobs mean competing only with one's own record, others mean strenuous competition with other people's records or with those people themselves. The satisfactions differ very widely. Some jobs mean working with things, other jobs mean working with people. Some take us outdoors and others in, some take us away from home and some keep us at home. Some are repetitive and others never twice alike. Some mean little responsibility and others much. These all have their own peculiar satisfaction. They may be jobs for men or for women or for both. They may be jobs in industry or in the home or both. They are primarily jobs set up in a certain way and bringing with that setup certain results and satisfactions.

It may ultimately be the task of the person looking for success to study jobs, to find out who ought to be doing them and whether there is something fundamentally about them that indicates that they belong to a certain sex or a certain place or a certain time or have other such limitations. It is certainly her task to find out

exactly what their requirements are under the setup of today and exactly what satisfactions may be expected of them. Then she will know what to expect of them, provided of course she is of the type that is willing to accept present day usage and get the most out of things as they are. If she is a pioneer or a fighter or an adventurer, she may try to change things or to undertake something which is unusual, knowing that she will get some pleasure out of the attempt, no matter what the outcome may be. If she is wise she will provide against surprises and shocks unless she really likes these, and give the job what it asks, if she expects it to give her what it offers.

The successful person must know jobs. She must also know herself. Just as she will accomplish most if she is sure what she can expect from the job, so she will if she is equally sure what she can expect from herself. She may get this information by having some one rate her, or even by rating herself, if she has courage enough to do this. The introvert-extrovert tests of Dr. Laird, of Colgate, the many other rating scales which the industries and the schools offer, will help her here, or she may simply ask herself "What things can I do? What things do I like to do? Why?" If the "why" is true and is explicit enough, it will help her to locate the similar things in other fields which she could do and enjoy doing, and the other things which she could not do or would hate to do if she could.

Let her not for a moment delude herself by thinking that an activity which she cannot do in one place would through some miracle be possible or easy in another. Let her not think that if she hates doing it in one place, she would, after the new wore off, like doing it in another. If she is irritated by the children in the home, she would be equally irritated by the childlike minds to be found everywhere in industry and business. If she hates detailed work in the office, she would find it equally unattractive in the research job. If she despises repetitive work in industry, she would find it equally unalluring in the home. Novelty of surroundings, possibility of new contacts, other accompanying features, might make a job attractive for a while, or bearable permanently, but the fundamental things one does poorly or unwillingly remain identical, and their dissatisfactions remain iden