EFFORT

EFFORT
BY
RUDOLF LABAN
AND
F. C. LAWRENCE

M ACDONALD & EVA N S

8 J ohn S treet , L ondon , W .C.i
*947
 First Published J 947
Reprinted 1955
Reprinted 1959
Reprinted February 1965
Reprinted D um ber 1967

Printed in Great Britain by Photoiitho

 CONTENTS
F oreword . vii

B iographical N ote viii

Preface . x

I. E conomy of H uman E fi ort i

II. T he A ppropriate U se of Movement 7

III. E ffort-T raining 18

IV. S election and E ffort-B alance . 35

V. T he O bservation and S pecification ofJ ob-E fforts 43
VI. Psychological A spects of E ffort C ontrol 54
VII. T hinking in T erms of E ffort . 68

Index 86
 FOREWORD
T his publication is an attempt to demonstrate the results of the
team work of two authors of widely differing experience in life,
one being an artist, and the other an industrialist.
The urge to collaborate arose from their common interest in
Human Effort, and the conviction that the study o f Effort is
to-day necessary to everyone in his own personal life, and in
every field o f activity in which he may engage.
The authors desire to express their thanks to A . Proctor
Burman, who has helped them indefatigably to sort the material
of research accumulated over many years from which the present
book is derived.
Burman, an engineer and Olympic skater, contributed to
many valuable discussions relevant to our theme and to the
exposition of our principles, both theoretical and practical.
We ought in justice to extend our thanks to many thousands
of people with whom we have worked and experimented, and
it is our hope that all our collaborators will find in this pub­
lication the best possible expression o f our gratitude.
Rudolf Laban
F. C.Lawrence
Manchester
July 15 th, 1947.
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
R u d o l f L a b a n was born in 1879 in Bratislava, Hungary, which is now
part o f Czechoslovakia. E ven in his earliest years he found a fascination
in observing people’ s m ovements. His desire to probe the secrets of
physical and mental effort led him on a long course o f study, experiment
and research. Architecture first attracted him, but did not satisfy. He
went to Paris, Berlin, Vienna and other centres o f learning to seek further
knowledge o f the arts and sciences essential to the student o f movement.
He was led from the academic to the practical in search o f indigenous
and cultivated activity— to the Am erican Indians, the natives o f Africa,
the peoples o f the N ear East, and the Chinese— in order to study at first
hand their peculiar habits and the manifestations o f their power.
Ballet naturally claimed his m ajor attention and in time he became
Director o f M ovement in the Berlin State Opera and one o f Europe’ s most
famous choreographers. Reacting against the artificiality o f the theatre,
however, he sought expression o f his art and philosophy amongst the
common people, and all over Europe centres were established in his name
for the artisans who came to seek advice on their own working problems
and on the strains and stresses involved in their various occupations. In
these centres they found the bodily awareness, understanding and relief
in the courses o f m ovement that were provided especially to meet their
needs.
Unable to w ork under the Nazi regime, which looked upon his teachings
o f harmony and fulfilment through re-educating the sense o f rhythm and
movement as a threat to its own discordant philosophy, Laban and some
o f his pupils sought sanctuary in Great Britain. Remarkable developments
followed in that country, where previously very little awareness existed o f
the common basis movement provides to both dance and work.
During the war Laban turned to industry and established the Laban-
Lawrcncc Industrial Rhythm, which comprised new approaches to
selection, training, placing, investigation o f w orking processes and asses­
sing job capacities based on his researches into the natural rhythm o f man’s
movement. This development was made in association with F. C.
Lawrence, who as management consultant included in his practice these
new methods, which offered a vital contribution to the solution o f the
difficult problem s that constantly arise in the management o f men and
women in industry.
Early in this century, at the beginning o f his career, Laban began to
develop a system o f movement notation for the purpose o f his investiga­
tions which he called “ Kinctography” (known as “ Labanotation” in the
U .S.A .) and published in 1928. This found world-wide recognition and
is now practised in connection with a variety o f human activities by
scientists and artists alike. In 1959 the International Council o f Kincto­
graphy Laban was founded by the leading experts from both western and
eastern countries.
viii
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ix
Important in Laban’s concepts and development o f movement principles
arc his examinations of spatial relationships occurring in static and
dynamic spacc^fmms. He prcscnCcd an introduction to this subject in his
book'CJjoreograpbie, which was published in 1926 in Germany but has been
out of print for many years. During his later years he greatly developed
this area of his studies, which he called “ Chorcutics,” and he left many
drawings, diagrams and manuscripts on the subject.
In connection with investigations o f human capacity in industry, during
the x940’s Laban evolved the effort graph explained 171 flits "book as a means
o f recording kinetic quality o f performance (as opposed to spatial form).
In the further development o f its use it has become an essential tool for
recognising personality traits through observation and analysis o f effort
phrases in a person’s movements.
In the field o f therapy the application o f his effort analysis has produced,
remarkable results. Through his study o f mind-body relationships and
the psychological effects o f certain movement patterns, he was able to
achieve improvements in many emotionally disturbed people as well as in
those with physical limitations.
Significant o f the fast-growing interest in Laban’s concepts was the
forming in 1942 o f the Laban Art o f Movement Guild, today a flourishing
association o f international repute.
After the war Laban devoted much o f his energy and time to dance as
an educational force. Inc 1046 Lisa Ullmann, who had been his close
associate for a number o f years, founded thc^Art o f Movement Studio in
Manchester, which became the training centre for movement study and
educational dance based on Laban’s concepts and findings. Laban
lectured regularly at the Studio, at the same time visiting various uni­
versities and educational establishments as guest lecturer. He was also
for many years co-director with Esme Church o f the Northern Theatre
School at Bradford and contributed to the training o f many people who
arc today well known and successful in the world o f drama.
1^ 19 5 3 Laban moved to Addlestone^ Surrey, to an estate in the Thames
V alley~tflierc there were facilities for housing not only his work and
archives but also the A rt o f Movement Studio. In 1954 th.e Laban Art
o f Movement Centre was formed as an educational trust to perpetuate his
worlc and to ptomoiTT and provide education in the art o f movement in
accordance with his theories and practice. Laban put his collection o f
materials at the disposal o f the Trust to make accessible to the public the
wealth o f charts, manuscripts and models which resulted from his explora­
tions and discoveries.
After the publication o f Effort in 1947, Laban wrote and published
Modern Educational Dance, The Mastery o f Movement and Principles o f Dance
and Movement Notation. Laban continued working at Addlestone until
his death in £958.
With the wide facilities at Addlestone, the practical application o f
Laban’s findings to the many fields o f human activity in which movement
plays an important part has been carried on extensively, and his principles
are today recognised as an important basis for the movement education
o f children and adults.
M acd o n a ld & E vans
November 1964.
 PREFACE
T he tremendous collective effort made by political and economic
associations, nations and the whole o f mankind is evident to-day
to everyone who reads the papers and listens to the radio. The
struggle for the technical mastery o f our environment fascinates
the spectator to such a degree, that the importance o f individual
effort is often forgotten. The success or failure o f our striving
to resolve the difficulties o f existence and to bring order and
prosperity out o f chaos depends primarily on the personal contri­
bution o f millions o f people to a common aim. Few people realise
that their contentment in work and their happiness in life, as well
as any personal or collective success, is conditioned by the perfect
development and use o f their individual efforts. We speak about
“ industrial effort,” “ war effort,” “ cultural effort,” without
realising that each collective action is built up from mental and
manual efforts o f individual people. W e forget that all our
striving to be reasonable and friendly and to combat our wrong
habits are so many instances o f individual effort. But what
effort really is and how this essential function o f man could be
assessed and adapted to the specific necessities o f life remains for
most people an unsolved problem.
Education, and to a certain extent industry, but in the greatest
degree the cruel devastation o f war, have each called attention
to the individual efforts o f children, o f adult workers, and men
in the Services.
Methods o f selection and training have been devised, but
individual effort has never been really investigated. What has
been taken so far as the basis o f examination and test was but
the surface indication o f effort, not the effort itself.
Here, from a new angle, an attempt is made to penetrate to
the core o f man’s effort, an attempt born in the joint authors’
lifelong occupation with movement in two different fields o f
human activity— namely, art and industry.
The pooling o f the two authors’ experience coincided with
 PREFACE xi
the Second World War, when the necessity to simplify and
condense the methods of assessment of human effort became
urgent. The resulting method o f effort control here intro­
duced has made it possible to achieve in io to 20 hours what
previously occupied 100 hours when observation, analysis, and
the working out by trial and error were the vogue. This new
method, however, proved to be more than a time-saving device.
Shedding a new light on the nature of effort, it revealed itself
as a method of instruction and training leading to increased
enjoyment o f work through the awareness and practice of its
rhythmic character.
Now that this method has been established in practice in a
number of factories, as well as in the realms o f art and educa­
tion, the details must be published, so that its extensive use may
contribute to the return of prosperity, and to the broadening
of human relationships in private and communal life.
In spite of the fact that all of us judge the efforts o f ^cher
people every day from the cradle to the grave, the source and
origin of such judgements was never seriously studied. We
assess our own efforts partially, and other people’s efforts
critically. A mass o f almost superstitious beliefs and routine
practices help us— or are thought to help us— in the endeavour
to know ourselves, and to select people for posts, or as team
members, or for executive positions. Everyone has found in life
a sufficient number of instances where the unjust and superficial
assessment of his own or of other people’s efforts has caused
trouble, misunderstanding and misery. Peaceful intercourse,
well-being and economic prosperity depend upon the right
assessment o f our own and our neighbours’ efforts.
A person’s efforts are visibly expressed in the rhythms o f his
bodily motion. It thus becomes necessary to study these
rhythms, and to extract from them those elements which will help
us to compile a systematic survey of the forms effort can take in
human action.
A rhythm may consist of strong, quick and direct movements.
People who are strong, quick and direct can easily be distinguished
from those with sensitive fine touch, sustained consideration and a
flexible approach to decisions and actions. Persons thus endowed
look and move differently from the strong, quick and direct
xii PREFACE
people. You will recognise them if you meet them, and you
may recognise «uch characteristics in yourself.
The lesson to be learnt from these distinctions is that human
effort is variable in its manifestation, and a compound o f several
elements mixed together in an almost infinite number o f com­
binations.
The deeper understanding o f the endless variations o f rhythm
movements demands, however, a complete technique. The
rudimentary knowledge o f a principle is not sufficient for the
assessment o f a person’s aptitude for special work or for guiding
him to the right choice o f a profession. It would be presump­
tuous to teach or to train a person for higher efficiency in work
and life on the basis o f such scanty knowledge.
Once rightly assessed, individual effort can be changed and
improved by training, for, in the end, all education is based
upon effort-training. The conscious penetration into our effort
life can be used, and, what is more, is needed for many pur­
poses. The recognition o f the nature o f effort is necessary for
that self-training o f our own efforts which is so painfully enforced
upon us in the hard school o f life.
We are striving to become the rulers o f ourselves, and though
we are still far from the achievement o f this aim, human society
has progressed some way towards the goal. N ow a more
efficient and more impartial control o f all the individual efforts
is demanded than was hitherto possible.
The control o f individual effort advocated in this book, and
the realisation that this control is based on the observation o f
rhythmic movement, is not a specific that will cure all evils.
Yet, it is a serviceable basis on which to make our selections
and examinations, our education and training, and finally also
some o f our most important social measures and economic
decisions, and that in a more humane and adequate way than
in the past.
Something should be said about the form o f research from
which the facts contained in this book arc derived.
To-day research becomes more and more a matter o f team
work. N o longer does the student retire from the world in
order to record his own visions and dreams. Knowledge, in
most fields, has become too complex to be mastered by any one
 PREFACE
man, and many branches o f knowledge have to contribute to
the elucidation o f special problems. The physicist and the
mathematician investigate motion, and the engineer bases his
practical activity on their researches. The anthropologist and
physician offer data to the teacher on which he can build up
his educational principles. The industrialist uses the know­
ledge gathered by the sociologist and economist who inves­
tigate motion again from a different angle. The artist cannot
do without the experiences o f the anatomist, and the circle is
closed by the philosopher, who tries to link ideals with realities.
Human effort plays thereby an increasingly appreciated role.
Motion, visible everywhere in the whole universe, permeates
all these sciences and practical fields o f application, thus to build
an almost inextricable network o f common interest in its study.
This branch o f knowledge and practice is in its contemporary
form not much older than half a century. Taylor, the pro­
tagonist of what he called “ scientific management,” first used
the expression “ motion study,” and he foresaw its application
particularly in the field of industry. Since his time, education
and art as well as many other pursuits have adopted the methods
of effort research, which is an essential part of motion study.
In this epoch of industrial revolution or evolution such research
is bound to find its first and greatest application in industry.
The pooling o f common experiences from all the fields con­
tributory to this subject has to-day become an imperious necesT
sity, and in this publication we make a modest attempt to show
the results o f team work— the pooling o f knowledge, experi­
ments, and practical application— drawn from at least two main
human activities, industry and art. From the training o f an
apprentice to the function of a manager the mastery of individual
effort is ultimately decisive for success.
Even the technical part o f industry dealing with the flow o f
material, and indirectly only with the rhythmic movement o f man,
has in the present civilisation— often called the machine age— the
greatest influence upon the development and deployment of
individual effort.
The other important source of inspiration for modern effort
study is the art o f movement on the playground and on the
stage.
xiv PREFACE
Rhythmic movement is the basis o f play and art, both pro­
minent factors in the education o f children and adults, in which
the development o f individual effort is the essential aim. The
actor on the stage shows in his rhythmic movements a great
variety o f efforts which are characteristic for almost all shades of
human personality. The actor studies the movements o f all kinds o f
people in real life and what he observes are exactly those elements
o f bodily motion which are o f vital interest to effort research.
The line o f approach the authors o f this book have taken in
dealing with their subject is in some respect similar to that of the
actor studying his models. In searching for the hidden effort
behind the rhythm o f movement and sound, it has been discovered
that practically everyone has the natural gift to discern rhythm.
Few people, however, realise that what they discern is in reality
effort. They hear the sound variations in a tune produced by the
efforts o f the musician. They can at the same time see these
efforts by observing the musician while he is playing; indeed, if
we see a musician playing on the screen, and the sound track
should fail, it is still possible to discern whether the tune is vivid
or languid, gay or sad. In watching dancing, our interest is
focused upon the visible efforts forming the rhythm expressed by
movement. In a similar way we can discern the rhythm in the
efforts o f any working person.
When the efforts o f the musician, dancer or workman are strong,
direct and quick, the impression upon us will be quite different
from what it is when the efforts are light, flexible and sustained.
This impression is based upon the fact that rhythm speaks
to us independently o f the task to which it is applied. We
can gather the meaning o f a movement and though it seems to
be difficult to express it in exact words, rhythm conveys some­
thing by which we are influenced : we may be excited, depressed,
or tranquilised.
The amalgamation o f the two impressions o f rhythmic move­
ment gained in industry and art offers the new approach to the
problems o f individual and collective effort.
Unconscious effort-reading is the explanation for our belief
that we can see the thoughts and feelings showm in facial expres­
sion, in body carriage, and in the almost imperceptible expressive
movements of hands, shoulders, and so on.
 PREFACE xv
The subtle effort rhythms appearing in the smaller everyday
movements are more difficult to decipher than the larger action
efforts in work and play.
The degrees of effort-expression as well as the ability to read
them are individually different. Some people might show in
their effort rhythms—small or large— an astonishing variety and
intensity, others might avoid any superfluous movement not
needed for a practical purpose.
To be a good observer of other persons’ effort-expressions,
one need not oneself have great bodily expressiveness. Good
movers may be poor observers, for they may see nothing in
small effort-rhythms, and may even be unable to notice the
evident rhythm in larger movements.
Our age and civilisation are definitely on the poor side, both
in effort-expression and effort-reading.
It is appalling to contemplate how the general intellectual
trend during the past two thousand years has brought the effort-
rhythm components of the human mind ever nearer to stagna­
tion. Effort-rhythm was the cohesive medium o f all living
styles of architecture, painting, sculpture and fashion in ancient
times. It was the basis, too, o f movement and behaviour in
everyday life, and of the working actions which resulted in the
creation of so much beauty. To-day all that remains o f this
former rhythmic vitality has been directed into mechanical
devices in which the living, driving force o f man has been
neglected and left without articulate expression. To-day it is
the audible rhythm of music which alone remains as a last con­
cession to man’s desire for a language o f effort. But music
alone cannot suffice to create harmonious and efficient action—
it is as if we were standing somehow detached from our rhythmi-
cality instead of it being an integral part o f our lives.
Seen in this light, the investigation into the nature of effort
takes on a new aspect, which, however, exceeds the scope of
the main theme o f this book on effort control in industry.
It is in the working actions o f man that efforts become most
clearly discernible. It is in industry that the control of effort
has become an urgent necessity. The results of the study of
working efforts are, however, of universal interest because man uses
the same efforts in all his activities and even inhis expressive gestures.
xvi PREFACE
Although the practical application o f the new knowledge of
human effort in industry differs from that in education, art and
other fields o f human activity, the fundamental principles remain
the same.
Investigations dealing with the different aspects o f effort
control in other domains are reserved for treatment in later
publications.
 CHAPTER £
ECONOMY OF HUMAN EFFORT
T he tendency o f our age to replace human-power by machine-
power represents one side only o f the problem o f the economy of
human effort.
The other side is the rational use o f human-power so far as it is
still employed in industry.
Two main considerations determine the construction of
machines. One is that the machine shall be able to do the work
hitherto done by men in a more efficient manner than men can do
it, and the other is that the handling o f machines by men shall be
made as easy as possible.
Yet there is another aspect, perhaps the most important aspect
of the economy o f human effort.
The efficient machine which can be easily operated is driven and
assisted by men who should be enabled to use their own bodilv
power in the right way.
The capacity to do so is unevenly distributed by nature. The
faulty ways in which the human body engine is used vary indivi­
dually, and a very small number o f people only have the innate
gift to apply their muscular power efficiently to whatever tasks
confront them. Some people have a natural vocation for certain
tasks. Put on work which is consonant with their gift, they will
show an admirable economy o f effort, and this is the first pre­
requisite o f skill. Confronted with tasks lying outside their
natural capacity they might be, however, as awkward as the
majority o f people who cannot adapt themselves easily to any
kind o f work.
The two necessary measures to further a general economy o f
human effort are selection and instruv *«on. Selection means the
putting o f the right man on the right job; instruction is the
teaching o f people how to use the bodily engine in the right way.
Efficient selection and instruction demand both a thorough
knowledge o f the nature and the display o f human effort. A man
 EFFORT
might show exceptional skill in certain operations, and to employ
him on tasks in which these operations occur is common sense.
Y e t it is quite possible that the man in question has more than
this one gift, and he might even be still more efficient in another
task than that given to him. It is a waste o f human effort to
employ a man on tasks for which he is less gifted and deny him
the opportunity to exercise his best faculties.
Without a thorough knowledge o f the nature and the display
o f human efforts, opportunities are often overlooked to the
employer’ s as well as the employee’s disadvantage. It is likewise
a waste o f human effort if a latent capacity, which could be easily
developed by adequate instruction, is left to remain undeveloped.
A further necessity o f instruction arises from the general lack of
skill as shown by the great majority o f people. Everybody knows
that a long experience enables one to do particular jobs with an
acceptable degree o f efficiency. Apprenticeship is based on this
fact. Adequate instruction can shorten apprenticeship, and this
is desirable because it is a waste o f human effort to leave a person
longer than necessary in an untrained state. During the instruc­
tion o f apprentices latent gifts might become evident. Many
who do not show any appreciable sign o f skill might have dor­
mant qualities which can be awakened and fostered. T o leave
latent qualities undeveloped is again contrary to a rational
economy o f human effort.
Knowledge o f the nature and the right display o f human
effort can be acquired in several ways. Personal experience in
apprenticeship training and selection remain forcedly restricted to
the type o f the economy o f effort most needed in the industry in
which the experience has been gained. A more general survey
can result from the collection o f the experiences made by several
people and in various fields o f human activity. A third source of
knowledge is the investigation o f the effort capacities displayed
in the functions o f man’s bodily engine, and o f the rules which
govern their economic and efficient application.
This third type o f investigation forms the main theme o f the
present treatise. The description o f the bodily engine and o f its
functions envisages a vast field o f research with which a whole
series o f sciences such as anatomy, physiology, biology, psycho­
logy and anthropology, including sociology, are linked.
 E C O N O M Y OF HUMAN E F F O R T 3
The description of a machine is, however, quite different from
the description of its practical handling, and so the description of
the human body engine differs from that of its practical use in any
kind of work.
Any handling of things, and the bodily functions engaged in it,
is an art demanding not only knowledge but also skill. The
rules of skill, which are in essence applied science, have been most
clearly developed in recreational activities such as sports, games,
gymnastics, the dance, music and the theatrical arts. The applica­
tion of the experience gained in these activities to industry is in its
initial stages only. The fact that not only industry but also
recreation—indeed any kind of activity— have profited from the
exchange of ideas concerning economy of human effort might
justify the publication of the new viewpoints arising from those
aspects of the problem common to both the art of management
and the art of the recreational trainer.
A simple example will make the difference between the
scientific and the practical approach to the problem of economy of
effort clear.
Suppose a man has to push a heavy object away. The practical
consideration will be to determine whether he is able to do this
efficiently or not. When he uses the right economy of effort,
he will perform the task efficiently. I f he is inefficient, one of the
first things discerned will be that he uses cither too much or too
little strength. This lack o f the control of strength might have
many causes of greater or lesser interest for his inst ructor. The
main thing, however, is to develop the man’s capacity to control
strength in the degree to which he is physically able to exert it.
In investigating such effort the different branches ot science
will dwell upon special causes which might or might not be
relevant in practice.
A knowledge of anatomy and physiology will inform the
instructor that the average man uses, in pushing things away,
such and such muscles, which receive their stimulus from such
and such parts of the nervous system, and that a certain alterna­
tion between exertion and relaxation must take place in order to
avoid over-fatigue. Biology will teach the instructor that the
weakness or coarseness of muscular action can be inherited or
acquired. Psychology will differentiate between a voluntary or
4 EFFORT
involuntary inhibition o f control, and seek its causes in some
remote or recent experiences o f the working person. Anthropo­
logy and sociology might discover a connection between the social
situation o f the man and his physiological and psychological
inhibitions. A ll this information could lead in the best case to the
removal o f all the causes o f failure, if such removal be possible.
The main practical problem is, however, to assist the man to
exert rightly controlled effort under all and even the worst
exterior conditions.
Practical analysis o f effort offers a more secure and immediate
help. It will be easy to determine whether the deficient action
is done with exaggerated or with too little strength, and it can also
be seen whether the effort errs by excess or defect. Witness o f
this is the progress o f the pushed object in Space and Time.
The man can push the thing along a straight line much farther
than intended, or he can reach his goal by a roundabout path,
which both constitute a waste o f effort. The movement can be
wrongly timed it can be too quick or too slow. The essential
point is how the control o f the Weight-moving force fits with the
control o f the progress in Space and Time. It is the sense for the
proportion between the degrees o f these motion factors which
determines the degree o f the economy o f effort used.
This criterion o f efficiency, the right proportionality o f Weight,
Space, Time and the control o f the Flow o f movement, is also the
peculiar aim o f observation from which all scientific analysis can
draw its conclusions. The deficiency or redundancy o f the effort
becomes visible in this proportionality only. Suspected causes of
anatomical and psychological character can be investigated by
circumstantial tests and questioning afterwards, but the decisive
first impression consists in nothing else than in the observable
co-ordination o f Weight-Space-Time control during the
movement.
As long as a man is only occasionally disturbed by outward
circumstances, it is o f no use to pay too much attention to them.
It is much more important to foster his sense o f proportion, so
that he will be able to maintain a perfect effort even in adverse
situations. When such disturbances prevail habitually the
development o f the sense of proportion becomes imperative, and
is then quite as important as the removal o f the extraneous
 ECONOMY OF HUMAN EFFORT 5
obstacles that hinder the full deployment o f his capacity for
effort.
The external arrangement of working conditions and personal
inhibitions lies outside the scope of this publication. The central
problem is, in our opinion, the development and safeguarding of
the sense o f the proportions of the factors o f Motion, Weight,
Space and Time, and their controlled Flow. The lack o f the
sense o f proportion is the main stumbling-block o f efficiency.
Man is conscious o f the efforts bridging the gulf between our
intentions and the realisation o f them by our movements and
actions. In these cases movements and actions are preceded by a
conscious decision to perform the definite task. Many move­
ments are, however, done involuntarily— that means, without the
investigation and guidance o f a conscious decision. In the auto­
matic repetitive movements used so frequently in industry, man
does not think o f the motive, or even the effect o f his move­
ments, he simply performs them in the right order after having
taken the initial decision to do the work.
Any voluntary or involuntary movement involves an effort.
The state in which no effort is made is rest. Rest is something
else than relaxation, as in rest all effort is absent, while in the
activity o f relaxing some effort is present. In relaxation the
degree of exertion contained in the effort might be reduced with­
out, however, abolishing it altogether. Examples o f this are the
relaxed movements which alternate with movements o f greater
exertion and create thereby the simplest form o f rhythm. Rests
inserted between exertions for the sake o f recovery from fatigue
represent the cessation or end o f a movement or o f a sequence of
movements. The length o f rests between operations must be
proportionate to the length and intensity o f exertion in order to
allow the muscles and nerves to recover from fatigue. The time
needed for recovery is that sufficient (a) for the elimination of
waste material accumulated during work in the muscle and nerve
tissues, parts o f which have been burned up in producing the
efforts, and (b) for the building up or feeding o f new muscle tissue
which can be used in the following exertions.
Such replacing o f waste material by new fuel can, however,
take place to a certain degree during the relaxed parts o f a well-
proportioned rhythm o f effort. Well-regulated rhythmic move­
6 EFFORT
ment is thus less fatiguing than those movements in which exer­
tions and relaxations are distributed regardless o f the repeated
recovery o f muscle tissue and nervous energy.
Rhythmic movement is pleasant, partly because its energy­
saving qualities are felt by the operator and partly because it gives
to the actions a certain perfection.
Distorted and cramped performance o f rhythmic exertions are,
however, resented not only as harmful but also because o f the
feeling o f frustration they engender.
The contentment accompanying the beauty o f well-rhythmised
and therefore skilled movements plays a great role in the economy
o f human effort.
 CHAPTER II
T H E A PPR O P R IA T E U SE OF M O V EM E N T
A ny inappropriate use o f movement is just a waste o f effort. The
only advantage is that the intelligent person using for a time the
inappropriate movement will, in time, learn by trial and error more
or less accurately the movements appropriate to the job.
This is, in fact, the case in all learning. An occasional chance
success will be noticed, and the learner will try to repeat the
advantageous combination o f motion factors. The inappropriate
forms o f effort will be discarded by degrees until the most appro­
priate form is almost automatically employed. This final stage
of perfection is called skill.
Skill is acquired through the gradual refinement o f the feel o f
the movement, and any training has indeed to promote this feel,
which, in its essence, is the awakening o f the sense for the pro­
portions o f motion factors. Some people will learn quicker than
others. The self learner, being restricted to the trial and error
method, will acquire skill in a longer or shorter time according
to his natural ability. The methodically trained learner has the
chance to advance more quickly, even if he is less gifted. The
best practical method consists o f a combination o f exercise and
the awakening o f the understanding o f the rules o f the propor­
tionality between motion factors.
It is obvious that a learner, who has been made aware o f the
fact that he exerts too much or too little effort in his operation,
will have the advantage o f another learner who must detect the
cause o f failure by prolonged trial. Few people realise in the
beginning o f their learning period that they may lack the necessary
capacity for exertion, and the finer distinctions in the display o f it.
The trainer who is able to develop the lacking capacity will
implicitly ponvey the finer shades o f exertion to his pupil. A
shortening o f the learning period will result in all cases, no matter
if the pupil is gifted or not.
Mental understanding, which contributes to the awakening o f
7
 EFFO RT
the sense for the proportionality between the elements o f effort,
is intimately connected w ith the capacity for control. This
understanding can be developed in a similar way to the capacity
for exertion. T he learner w ill not know in the beginning whether
he lacks control or if his efforts are too meticulously controlled.
The capacity fo r control increases with the awareness o f the
degrees o f control representing the finer shades between the con­
trasts o f fluent flow and bound flow in movement. Movements
perform ed w ith a high degree o f bound flow reveal the
readiness o f the m oving person to stop at any moment in order
to readjust the effort if it proves to be w rong, or endangers
success.
In movements done with, fluent flow., the utmost lack o f
control or abandon becomes visible, in which the possibility to
stop is considered as being unessential.
A s the relationship between exertion and control has never
before been exactly studied, there exists no terminology in which
these relations can be clearly and simply expressed by words.
The follow ing symbol is a simple device to record the possible
sources o f failures in the performance o f any action :

Exertion:
Light

Control: Fluent Bound

Strong

The branches o f this cross can be drawn separately or together,

each bearing the significance o f a shade o f the two factors :
Exertion and Control.
The representation o f the effort content o f a movement by
combination o f strokes or bars is called an effort graph.
 T H E AP P R O P R I A T E U SE OF M O V E M E N T 9
The four possible combinations o f the arms o f the cross
give the following effort graphs :

.____ Bound

* Strong

Flu en t------ -

Strong '

Each o f these combinations might be appropriate or in­

appropriate to definite jobs.

Exam ples.
It will lead to failure and the effort will be wasted, when
someone tries :

(a) to swing a heavy object with the j effort (light-bound)

or the r effort (strong-bound)

J
or t h e ____ effort (light-fluent).

The appropriate effort will be the j effort (strong-fluent).

IO EFFORT
(b) to put a light object cautiously into a definite position can

The most appropriate

The exertion dealing with Weight is, however, not the only one.
Any skilled movement is led along a definite path in space.
Deviations from this path hinder efficiency and make the effort
to a greater or lesser degree inappropriate to the task.
In the above examples, the swinging o f an object will describe
a definite curved path in space. The exaggeration o f the curved­
ness constitutes a waste o f effort and will diminish the effectiveness
o f performance. The same is the case when the curve o f the
path is too flat— that is, too near to a straight line.
In the other example o f putting an object cautiously down,
where an almost straight line movement might be required, the
action will become ineffective when the straightness is too
accentuated or the curve too round.
The appropriate exertion dealing with Space will have to be
learned together and in connection with the exertion dealing with
Weight in each new operation which an apprentice tries to perform.
The insecurity o f the movements in space is very obvious with
almost all learners. The cause o f the failure to do a job properly
is very often the use o f a wrong path in space. In order to
record such failures, space indications can be added to the cross
or to the effort graphs introduced above.
The small diagonal branching off from the middle o f the cross
connecting it with the space indication is used as the sign o f
effort.
flexible

direct

The straight direct exertions are inserted parallel to the branch

of bound exertion.
 THE APPROPRIATE USE OF MOVEMENT n
The waved or flexible exertions are inserted parallel to the
branch of light exertion.
The appropriate combination o f control plus exertion in the

swinging o f a heavy object | will be spoiled, when the

movement is too, direct. Waste o f effort and failure will result
from the use o f the inappropriate effort

“ f
The appropriate effort for this action would be

In the other example o f depositing a light object cautiously,

the most appropriate combination o f control plus exertion has

L_
been recorded as

It would be wrong to connect this well-controlled light

exertion with a wavy movement. The effort

iL
would be a wasted one and would be inefficient.
The appropriate effort is

L=r
where the exertion dealing with Space is direct.
The exertion in Time contains a further danger for the
appropriateness of the effort. A movement can be too quick
12 EFFORT
or too slow for the efficient proportionality o f all motion factors,
and therefore for the economic and efficient performance o f the
action.
The capacity to discern and to use shades o f time durations
rationally is well developed in people having a rhythmical sense.
This is a rather widespread gift. The greatest obstacle for its
practical application is the prejudice that high speed in work is
valuable in itself. Exaggerated quickness developing into haste
can be as detrimental to efficiency as the exaggerated use o f any
other motion factor. Many operations require sustained move­
ments, and even slight accelerations o f the effort might prove to be
wasteful and detrimental to success. The learner will waste much
time in discovering the right speed o f his movements needed for
the skilled performance o f his task. Exercise and the awakening
o f the sense o f proportion are as much needed in the exertions
dealing with Time as in the two other forms o f exertion. The
capacity o f controlling speed goes hand in hand with the control
o f the whole effort.
Time indications added to the cross will be added below the
horizontal branches o f control. Sustained exertion is repre­
sented by a line parallel to fluent flow, and quick exertion by a
line parallel to bound flow.
The cross, with space and time indications, reads as follows :

Flexible
Space Indications
Direct

X
Time Indications------------
Sustained Quick

It has been found that the discussion and understanding o f the

various combinations o f controlled or uncontrolled exertions and
their importance for the economy o f effort can be assisted by
 T H E A P P R O P R I A T E US E OF M O V E M E N T 13
the use o f effort graphs instead of, or in addition to, verbal
description.
Using the former examples for the demonstration o f appropriate
exertion dealing with Time, one will realise that the swinging o f a
heavy object cannot be done with too sustained a tempo. It
would be, therefore, a waste o f effort and would make this action
inefficient if it would be tried with the effort

The appropriate effort will be

In depositing a light object carefully, too quick a movement

would prove detrimental. It is obvious that the effort which was
appropriate for the swinging o f an object

would be wasteful and inefficient for the depositing o f an object.

But even if the Weight (W), Space (S) and Flow (F) efforts
are adequate, an additional quick Time (T) effort would spoil the
result. The effort
M EFFORT
will prove to be inappropriate to the action o f depositing an object
carefully.
The most appropriate effort for this action will be

J c r
It will not be always necessary to consider all four motion
factors. Indeed, a series o f basic actions which man uses in
work find their expression in the relationship o f the three exertions
dealing with W, S, T.
In omitting the flow element in the above examples o f most
appropriate efforts for swinging and careful depositing two com­
binations o f exertions will be found which contrast with one

u-
another, as they have no element in common :

J
Swinging a heavy Depositing a light
object consisting object carefully
of a consisting o f a
strong'i light"!
flexible >exertion direct ^exertion
quick-) sustained*)

The action character o f these two movements can be approxi­

mately expressed by words as :
throwing— slashing and smoothing— gliding

Operations consisting o f or containing mainly pressing move­

ments will contrast in a similar way with operations consisting
o f or containing mainly flicking movements. These two efforts
have also no elements in common.
The same is the case with the contrasts :
wringing and dabbing
punching and floating
 T H E A P P R O P R I A T E U SE OF M O V E M E N T 15
The eight basic combinations o f W, S, T exertions are :

slashing gliding

r pressing flicking

wringing u - dabbing

punching
IJ floating

When the action required in an operation is “ pressing,” it

would be, o f course, entirely inappropriate to use any one o f the
other basic actions in it. There exist, however, tasks which can
be done in different ways. When the purpose o f the swinging
o f a heavy object is to lift it to a certain height, this lifting can
occasionally be achieved as well by a direct pressing lifting.
There would then be two different movements and thus two
efforts which could, each at its time, be appropriate to the ta sk :

A person with great muscle power might prefer to press—lift

directly, and will, without waste of effort, do the job as efficiently
as a person o f small muscle power preferring to swing the object
i6 EFFORT
upwards. The effort will be in both cases appropriate to the task
as well as to the muscular power or bodily structure o f the working
person.
It is also possible that a person deposits a light object exactly
on the right place with a throwing— flicking effort instead o f
using a shoving— gliding effort. This would give again two
efforts appropriate to the same ta sk :

and

It is in this case not a difference o f muscular powers which

might make one or the other o f these two efforts desirable, the
weaker as well as the stronger person could use both o f these
efforts successfully. The difference between two persons, one
using gliding and the other flicking for the precise depositing o f a
light object, will consist in the personal ability to deal with Space-
Time exertions. The “ glider ” might be more skilled in
sustained and direct movements than in quick and flexible
movements. The “ flicker ” will perhaps by nature be more
gifted for quickness and flexibility than for sustainment and
directness. As both movements are appropriate to the task,
people are free to choose that effort which is appropriate to their
personality. It would be, however, inappropriate if the habitual
glider were to choose the flicking effort and vice versa.
Efforts can be thus appropriate or inappropriate either to the
task or to the person who produces it, or to both. Whether the
right or the wrong movement is used depends upon the instinc­
tive or conscious selection o f effort, which must not be confounded
with the control o f the movement during action.
All the actions mentioned can be performed with or without
control, and this fact can, o f course, add to the appropriateness or
inappropriateness o f the effort to the task.
In the following example :

uncontrolled
 T H E AP P R O P R IA T E U SE OF M O V E M E N T 17
the bound wringing effort will be applied to the twisting o f a
material into a precise shape, while the fluent wringing effort
can be applied, say, to the slinging together of ropes.
A person who is unable to control the flow of his movement
will never be able to bring material into a precise shape, while
people with too controlled a flow o f movements will fail in the
performance o f actions requiring fluent flow.

c
 CHAPTER III
E F F O R T -T R A IN IN G

People can best be trained to the performance o f specific tasks in

a manner most appropriate to the task and to their personal
capacities, when their understanding o f the relationship and
proportionality o f motion factors is awakened. Skill is gained
with less waste o f effort and in shorter time than by the slow
discovery through the usual trial and error method.
The understanding o f the material technicalities o f a task will
be eased when the instruction, say, o f handling a machine goes
hand-in-hand with the understanding o f the efforts needed in the
operation.
People trained in the performance o f the eight basic actions,
combined with bound and fluent flow, will be more able to choose
the appropriate movements for any tasks they face than those who
rely entirely upon their natural gifts or intuition. Gifts are
mostly lopsided and appropriate to a few tasks only. Moreover,
complicated tasks contain combined efforts, and the person facing
such tasks must be able to connect various movements and actions
in unexpected ways. The gift for the combination o f efforts is
still rarer than that for performing short single actions skilfully.
Effort-training must therefore comprehend exercises for such
combinations and for the understanding and practice of the
rhythm contained in them.
Training for a definite task will best be done on the
object during operation. Explanations concerning the relation­
ship and proportionality o f efforts given during work can be
completed in short sessions of special bodily exercises without
objects or tools, which should stand, however, in direct connection
with the task.
In general effort-training stress is laid on the awakening of the
bodily feel o f the co-ordination of motion factors in complex
efforts, and in sequences of them.
In producing one of the eight basic efforts without objects,
 EFFORT-TRAINING 19
the resistance given in an operation by external material must be
offered by the learner’s own body tensions.
Pressing against a heavy piano in order to push it away differs
from the producing of the feel of a pressure through a move­
ment o f the same form and same intensity without the object.
In the free movement without object, just so much counter­
tension is produced within the body, and especially within the
arm muscles, as is engendered by the feel of the strong, direct and
sustained effort o f pressing.
Exaggeration of the counter-tension will stop the movement,
which degenerates into a cramped vibration. When the strength
of the free movement of pressing is not intense enough, the feel
of the effort will change into that of gliding :

whereby one of the motion factors has decreased in intensity

while the other two remain the same. There exist operations
in which a transition from pressing to gliding efforts may be
needed, say, in ironing clothes. It is obvious that a person
who has learnt to distinguish the feel o f pressing and gliding
in all their shades o f intensity will be able to do the practical
tasks in which transitions between these two efforts are involved
incomparably better and easier than a person who has hitherto
never experienced such feel consciously.
It is in this way that the practice o f free movements containing
basic efforts and transitions between them can be a useful pre­
paration either for a definite job or for a general increase and
refinement of effort capacity.
Efficient effort-training presupposes that the trainer knows
about the rules governing the transitions between efforts. It is
not enough to produce the exact feel of each of the basic efforts
separately in inserting a relaxing pause after each exertion.
In systematic effort-training, exercises must be found in which
two or more efforts interconnected by transitions follow each
other. The most outstanding feature o f connected efforts is
ZO EFFORT
that tw o basic efforts following each other might differ in one,
two or all three o f their elements.
In the last example o f ironing, a pressing has been transformed
into a gliding through the change o f the strong exertion into a
light exertion, in other words, the Weight (W) o f the movement
has been altered. Taking the same pressing effort as the point
o f departure, it is obvious that the Space exertion o f directness
could be altered into flexibility o f the movement, while its
strength and sustainment remain the same. The result will be a
change o f effort into wringing :

into

These two consecutive efforts appear in operations in which a

heavy tool is first to be pressed into relatively resistant material,
and then turned or twisted. T o get the feel o f the uninterrupted
transition between these two efforts might be most important for
the avoidance o f damage which could be caused to the object or
tool through an all too brisk change from the direct to the twisting
movement. In opening a rusty lock, both lock and key can be
broken when the transition from the pressing o f the key into the
keyhole to the turn— wringing o f the key is badly performed.
The third possibility o f altering one element in pressing is to
change the sustainment o f pressing into quickness, while the other
two elements remain the sam e:

into

The second movement resulting from this change will be a

punch or thrust.
In pushing a heavy object away, a final thrust may be applied
after a pause separately. Then the accelerated pressure becomes a
thrust which will be for many practical purposes more appropriate
than the pressing alone. This second form o f applying separated
 EFFORT-TRAINING n
efforts must, o f course, also be trained, because both ways might
be found to be appropriate in different tasks.
Consecutively performed basic efforts can, however, also differ
in two or in all three o f their elements.
When two elements are changed, and therefore only one
remains the same, the feel o f the transition is quite different
from that in cases where one element only is altered.
To change a pressing into a slashing,

into

keeps the tension o f strength constant, yet the direct Space

exertion changes into a flexible one and the sustained Time
exertion changes into quickness. A break between the two
efforts seems to be almost unavoidable, yet it is a waste o f effort
when the strength is released in between them, and a full new
innervation is used in order to initiate the subsequent slashing
movement. Practically, it might or might not be necessary to
keep the strong tension alive during the whole action; this will
depend on the task. Yet the worker must be able to perform
both forms, and this is only possible if the exact feel o f the
difference between both has been practised, either in trial and
error or in preliminary effort-training exercises.
Suppose an operation requires the pressing o f a firmly gripped
tool to an object, from which parts shall be suddenly slashed
away, as, say, in some forms of shovelling or digging. The loss
of strength after the pressure will loosen the grip on the tool.
A new gripping must be inserted, during which some material
might roll off the shovel. Waste o f effort, time and efficiency
can only be avoided in keeping the Weight exertion o f the
movement alive during the transition o f directness into flexibility
and sustainment into quickness.
In other cases, the Weight plus Time exertions or the Weight
plus Space exertions might be altered, while the third one— in the
first case S, in the second case T — remains the same.
22 EFFORT
In the first case :

-r pressing
changes
into

dabbing

In the second case :

-r changes
into Ll
pressing floating

Dabbing is a light punching or thrusting. It might be applied

after pressing, to stabilise an object which has been pressed away,
say, to retard its rolling back.
Floating after pressing might be used to dissolve the pressure
cautiously and in a sustained form.
The transition from strong to light efforts in which simul­
taneously a second element is altered, requires great sensitivity
o f the feel o f exertion. Performances fail frequently because of
the inability o f the working person to produce the finer shades of
such transitions.
The alteration o f all three elements o f a basic effort results in
its contrast. Such contrasts have been shown in our table of
basic efforts.* Each basic effort has one contrasting basic effort
only.
Subsequent contrasting efforts can be performed cither with an
interruption between them or by inserting one or more inter­
mediary efforts leading over from the first one to the second one
by altering one element after the other.

Chapter II, page i j .

 EFFORT-TRAINING 23
The contrast of pressing is flicking :

Such movement might occur, say, in pressing a wet object

away, and in flicking afterwards the liquid from the wet hands.
To make a pause after pressing is in this case quite natural.
The pause might be very short and, therefore, almost imper­
ceptible. The character of the operation can make it, however,
necessary to perform the two movements in continuous flow
without interruption: in this case the intermediary movement
could consist of a slashing effort, in which the Space-Time
exertions of pressing are altered, while the Weight exertion of
strength is kept, being subsequently, of course, dissolved into the
lightness needed for flicking :

(intermediary movement)

Each of the other basic efforts can serve as an intermediary

movement between pressing and flicking, and might be appro­
priate to some special task, or to a special personal effort capacity,
or to both.
As pressing has been taken as the starting effort in all the above
examples, it must be mentioned that each o f the eight basic
efforts can be investigated in a similar way. In each case, one
will find three efforts which differ in one element from the
starting effort, while three others differ in two elements. The
contrast differs in all three elements.
Diagrams giving a systematic survey of the relationship between
basic efforts can help the trainer to recognise at once how many
and which elements have to be altered when two o f the efforts
follow one another in an action.
24 EFFORT
In the following diagram (A), each corner represents one basic
effort. Those being connected by lines have two elements in
common and differ, therefore, in one element only. The letters
W for Weight, S for Space and T for Time, inserted on the
connecting lines, indicate which exertion has to be altered between
tw o efforts.
In diagram (B) each corner represents one basic effort. Those

connected by lines have one element in common and differ there­

fore in two elements. The letters W, S, T inserted on the con­
necting lines indicate which two exertions have to be altered
between two efforts.
In diagram (C) contrasting basic efforts, having no element
in common, are connected by lines. All three elements W, S
and T have to be altered in the transition from a basic effort to its
contrast.
In actions where more than two basic efforts follow sub­
sequently, the alterations from each effort to the next one will
EFFORT-TRAINING *5

1
FL O A T N &

W RlN&INCr
z6 EFFORT
always belong to one o f the categories represented in the diagrams
A , B or C.
The awakening o f the understanding and feel o f these con­
nections is a fundamental task o f general effort-training.
The character o f a basic effort is slightly changed when one
o f its elements is stressed as the main element, the other two
elements being o f secondary importance.
Punching, for instance, can have a thrusting character, when
the Space exertion o f directness is especially stressed. This can
be expressed in the effort graph by adding a comma at the outer
end o f the stroke for directness :

punching thrusting punch

The unstressed secondary W and T exertions will show a

slight decrease o f intensity. The unstressed strength o f a thrust
is too light or not strong enough to make it a real punch. The
Time exertion o f the thrust is not quick enough, it is too sustained
to make it a real punch.
It must be mentioned that the names given to the slightly
altered characters o f basic efforts are approximations only,
because language cannot express those fine shades o f movement
which are quite apparent in the feel o f them. Effort-training,
having the aim to strengthen the feel and to increase the under­
standing o f the shades o f movements and their interconnections,
uses verbal terms for the approximate description o f effort
contents without being able to adhere strictly to their everyday
meaning.
A punch having a shoving character will show stressed strength,
while the quickness and directness o f the action diminishes :

In a poking or piercing punch quickness will be stressed while

strength and directness diminish, the two latter showing the
 EFFORT-TRAINING 27
tendency to become too light and too flexible— that is, not strong
and direct enough to produce a real punch :

The character of derivated basic efforts will be obvious in

movements dealing with objects.
It is clear that the direct, quick and strong effort produced in
order to thrust a fork into hay or to thrust a chisel under the lid
of a box will not be a punch in the proper meaning o f the word.
Directness is the element indispensable in thrusting with the
fork or the chisel, while the strength and quickness can vary.
Being, however, direct and quick and strong, the movement
belongs without doubt to the category o f the basic effort “ punch.”
Similarly, in the case o f forcing a shovel into dry sand or a
spade into clay, both actions are performed in a strong, direct and
quick manner, yet in both the strength is the most important o f
the three elements.
Although belonging to the category of the basic action “ punch­
ing,” .the movement used in driving a shovel or spade into material
must be differentiated as a shoving punch.
To poke a coal fire or to pierce leather with an awl might be
done with a quick, strong and direct movement, characterising
the basic action “ punching.” The differentiation shown in a
poking— piercing punch consists in the stress laid upon quick­
ness, while the directness can approach flexibility when the
movement is made with a slight twist, and the strength used can
approach occasionally almost lightness :

In general effort-training, the feel o f the shades o f effort

expression is achieved without the use of tools or objects. It is
essential that the trainee gets the bodily feel o f the difference
between punching, thrusting, shoving and poking— piercing, and
that he realises at the same time the common factors in them.
For this purpose the examples given here, or similar movements,
should be imagined and exercised without tools or objects.
28 EFFORT
Similar differentiations exist between the basic effort “ pressing ”
and its derivatives :
(a) crushing— pressing. Exercise: crush fruit with a crusher,
or granules with pestle in a mortar.

-r
(b) cutting— pressing. Exercise : cut leather with a sharp knife,
or wood with a carver’s knife.

-r
(c) squeezing— pressing. Exercise : squeeze a bulb or squirt
with the hand, or suitings with shears.

~r
The basic effort “ slashing ” has the derivatives :
(a) beating— slashing. Exercise: beat a carpet with beater, or
a nail with a hammer.

(b) throwing— slashing. Exercise: throw coal with a shovel,

or a package from hand to hand.
 EFFORT-TRAINING 29
(c) whipping—slashing. Exercise : whip an egg with whisk, or
the branches o f a hedge with a billhook.

The basic effort “ wringing ” has the derivatives :

(a) pulling— wringing. Exercise : pull a trolley with shafts, or
a cork with a corkscrew.

(b) plucking—wringing. Exercise: pluck feathers by hand, or

thin out seedlings by hand.

J
(<•) stretching—wringing, Exercise : stretch elastic or cloth by
hand.

The basic effort “ dabbing ” has the derivatives :

(a) patting—dabbing. Exercise : pat dough with hand, or level
index cards by hand.
30 EFFORT
(b) tapping— dabbing. Exercise : tap typewriter key, or morse
key with hand.

(1c) shaking— dabbing. Exercise : shake sand in sieve, or water

sprinkler by hand.

1/ —
The basic effort “ gliding ” has the derivatives :
(a) smoothing— gliding. Exercise : smooth cloth by hand, or
lace with iron.

(,b) smearing— gliding. Exercise : smear whitewash with brush,

or mortar with trowel.

1/ ’

(r) smudging— gliding. Exercise : smudge putty with thumb,

or oil paint with palette knife.

The basic effort “ flicking ” has the derivatives :

(a) flipping— flicking. Exercise : flip dry towel or wet towel
with hand.

U
 EFFO RT-TRAINING 31
(b) flapping— flicking. Exercise : flap coins, counting them, or
count notes in similar way.

(c) jerking— flicking.

iL
Exercise : jerk bottle rinsing it, or break

The basic effort “ floating ” has the derivatives :

(a) strewing— floating. Exercise: scatter seed by hand, or
powder on a surface.

jJ
(b) stirring— floating. Exercise: stir water by hand, or oil paint
with stick.

_|j
jJ
(c) stroking— floating. Exercise : stroke vessel, polishing it, or
brush clothes.

In a later stage of the training period the trainee should be

made aware that some of the derivatives of the basic efforts can
be more appropriately performed with fluent flow and others with
bound flow.
32 EFFORT
Thrusting a fork into hay as far as possible will require fluent
flow o f the movement, while thrusting a chisel under the lid o f a
box w ill require a bound flow, so that it does not enter too far.
For each derivative o f a basic effort two examples o f practical
action have been given. They are so arranged that the first
action always requires fluent flow, while the second requires bound
flow.
A special object o f effort-training is the study o f those bodily
exertions which demand a single exertion o f one element only,
while the two other elements o f the basic effort disappear entirely,
or are at least completely irrelevant.
This will best be understood in connection with the grips
supporting an object, whereby any movement in Space and Time
ceases, the only exertion being the tension o f strength needed for
the more or less prolonged grip or support o f the o bject:

f
Such exertions represent incomplete basic efforts in which two
elements are obliterated.
In touching an object with a light Weight exertion for a
prolonged time no matter how long this touch lasts, is another
example o f an incomplete effort:

1/
In intermediary movements, inserted between two subsequent
efforts which have one or no element in common, incomplete
efforts will sometimes be used.
In intermediary movements, in which either the Space or the
Time exertion alone is o f importance, the other two exertions will
be obliterated because they could not contribute to the efficiency
o f the task. In moving the hand from one switch o f a machine
to another, quickness might be o f sole importance :

/
 EFFORT-TRAINING 33
When an arm and a hand have to follow an indirect path, say, a

J
curve around some protruding part of the machine, the flexibility
o f the movement will be mainly or solely important:

In a similar way, directness only—

or sustainment only—
/

might be required for special movements. The first, say, in

measuring the lengths of an object, and the second in the cautious
approach to an object which could cause injury through heat,
sharpness, etc.
Incomplete efforts can be performed with fluent or bound flow
according to the character o f the task.
It might happen that two elements o f the action are important
for the task, while the third is negligible. When it is o f no
importance whether the movement is performed quickly or in a
sustained manner, the Time exertion is o f no importance. Both
the Space plus Weight exertions might be important, say, in the
action of bringing a fragile thread with fine touch precisely into a
definite position. Directness and lightness o f the movement will
be mainly needed, no matter whether the movement is quick or
sustained:

The feel of incomplete efforts containing either one or two

elements must be as carefully trained as basic efforts and their
connections.
It can happen that several intermediary movements o f basic or
incomplete effort character are inserted between the two sub­
sequent efforts of an action, and it might be advantageous to
make the trainee aware o f the subtle structure o f such combina­
tion because intermediary movements remain frequently un­
observed and are not felt as having a definite effort character.
D
34 EFFORT
This is the case when the movements are very quick, or very
small in extension.
Without exaggerating the importance o f the analysis o f the
subtle shades o f intermediary efforts in practical effort-training,
it can be said that the study o f incomplete efforts will be most
useful for the economy o f the Weight effort in the static exertions
o f gripping, holding and supporting, and in free locomotion when
no tools are handled or objects worked on.
Many free locomotions are interspersed between actions, say,
in walking, turning and reaching for things.
Their appropriate performance plays a substantial part in the
economy o f effort.
 CHAPTER IV
SELECTION AND EFFORT-BALANCE
Selection made on the basis of specialised skill only has fre­
quently proved a source o f disappointment. The cause is that
people have been chosen for jobs because o f their special gift for
certain efforts, in spite o f the fact that this specialisation results in
many cases in a serious disturbance o f their personal effort-balance.
Much time and energy are wasted in trying out people who seem
to be able to perform some definite tasks perfectly, but lack the
qualities to follow up their duties with the necessary constancy
and energy.
Tests and examinations which seem to predestinate people for a
certain kind o f work are recognised as being insufficient, because
after a while the people selected on the basis o f the tests turn out
to be complete failures.
In investigating the reliability of the usual tests, it has been
found that one feature into which enquiry has rarely been made
was the general effort-balance o f the aspirants.
The following example will show what is meant by effort-
balance. Two people have been found able to perform a job
with the same degree of skill and application, so that both have
been engaged. Although they are almost exactly similar in their
talents and knowledge of the job, in other respects they are
entirely dissimilar. One proves a success and the other a greater
failure than his less skilled co-workers. Investigation of the
individual effort make-up of the successful man showed that the
special quality o f fine touch required for the job was one of the
many efforts which he used in a balanced fashion. Expressed in
terms of effort-study, he possessed the lightness of the W (weight)
effort, but he was otherwise a strong man with liie necessary
capacity of resistance to adverse situations. While his effort-
capacity was rich and balanced, the other man was poor in
efforts other than fine touch, and showed especially an extra­
ordinary lack of strength. He was out of action ten times a day,
35
36 EFFORT
disturbed by any little adversity, and the slacking-off o f his
performance was only surpassed by his frequent absence without
real cause. H is over-developed fine touch was due to a complete
lopsidedness o f his effort-behaviour, and this was not only
observable in his lack o f strength but also in a complete lack of
other effort-elements requiring a certain intensity and energy.
He was never quick and rarely direct. The flow o f his move­
ments was mainly uncontrolled. It could also be observed that
his quality of, and even gift for, fine touch was overshadowed by
combinations o f effort-elements which made him entirely unable
to use his gift with constancy and thoroughness over a long
period.
The question is— how can the person selecting recognise and
disentangle the effort make-up o f an aspirant with such precision
as to gain a sure basis for selective judgment ?
Such precision can obviously be achieved only by an observer
whose penetration into the rules o f effort-balance has made him
immune against deception through lopsided gifts. These rules
will now be sketched in general outline.
The basic idea is that the missing or insufficiently developed
effort-capacities o f a person should be determined in any selection
with the same thoroughness as his possession o f the capacity to
perform the efforts needed for the job. The sum o f missing
capacities o f a man might have a detrimental influence upon the
capacities which are indispensable for the job and which he
actually has.
The reason for investigating a man’s effort-balance is that he
needs, apart from the capacity, skill and knowledge which
enables him to do the desired operation once or twice excellently,
other and frequently contrasting capacities in order to check and
control his special habits or inclinations.
Efforts which are mastered by a person must always be balanced
by somewhat contrasting effort-capacities which allow for auto­
matic compensation when the efforts in which his special gift lies
are overstrained or over-accentuated by the extent o f the work
or adverse situations and conditions.
This does not mean that a man with fine touch must possess
great strength. What matters is that he must be able to get out
of his habit and predilection o f making light movements and per-
 SELECTION AND EFFO RT-BA LAN CE 37
forming actions containing the effort-elements o f strength with
the same ease as those containing fine touch.
A person remaining continuously lopsided in his effort-
manifestation is like a limping man who gets more easily exhausted
than a man who uses both legs alternately.
Yet bodily exhaustion is only one side o f the picture. A
crippled person will be more irritable in action, due to the nervous
overstrain and to the exaggerated degree o f effort which he uses
in order to cope with his task. The same situation can be
observed with persons having a lopsided effort make-up.
The continuous use o f one effort-element in all the actions
performed results in the long run in an exaggeration o f the degree
o f this element, a fact which can be tabulated in a way under­
standable by everybody.

One-sided and exaggerated Strength results in time in

Crampedness :

r
One-sided and exaggerated Lightness results in time in
Sloppiness :

1/
One-sided and exaggerated D irectness results in time in
O bstinacy :

Flexibility

J
One-sided and exaggerated results in time in
Fussiness :
3» EFFORT
One-sided and exaggerated Sustainment results in time in
Laziness :
/

One-sided and exaggerated Q uickness results in time in

H astiness :
/

One-sided and exaggerated F ree Flow results in time in

F lightiness :

One-sided and exaggerated Bound Flow results in time in

Stickiness :
/ .

The combination o f two elements or incomplete efforts over­

stressed or lopsidedly used—that is, when not compensated by
their contrasts— produces the dangerous result of, say,

\ obstinate
I crampedness

Another similar combination o f exaggerated effort-elements is :

sloppy
obstinacy
and so on.

The habit o f using one basic effort too exclusively and with
exaggerated accentuation o f all its elements results in more
complicated disturbances o f normal functions.
A sloppy, fussy and hasty flicking is surely a disastrous habit,
and the person having an uncommonly fine touch might easily
be in danger o f developing this form of function when the
 SELECTION AND EFFO RT-BA LA N CE 39
compensating efforts, say, the ability to exert a solid pressure, are
totally absent in his general effort make-up :

(habitually (habitually
present) absent)

Such a person might use other efforts than flicking in which

lightness o f touch is contained— for instance, floating, dabbing,
gliding and their derivatives o f patting, tapping, shaking, smooth­
ing, smearing, smudging, flipping, flapping, jerking, strewing,
stirring and stroking. He might master these efforts with great
success. Yet none o f these efforts is a real compensation for his
favourite effort, flicking, and the danger of sloppiness, fussiness
and hastiness will never be sufficiently balanced by them.
All these efforts, and any other efforts in which a person
indulges, can be exactly determined and recorded. The missing
efforts can be scored, and thus give the person selecting a clear
picture of the possible dangers of the lopsidedness present in the
general effort make-up o f the observed person.
The person who has the above-described list of habitual efforts
will only exceptionally show the basic efforts of punching, press­
ing, slashing, wringing, and their derivatives of shoving, thrust­
ing, piercing, crushing, cutting, squeezing, beating, throwing,
whipping, pulling, plucking and stretching. I f he would show a
few o f these efforts, with approximately the same frequency as the
others, it would be his redemption from crippling unbalancedness
of effort, and he would be better qualified to use his fine touch
enduringly without degenerating into exaggeration. Lacking
these compensatory capacities, he will not be able to produce the
resistance needed when fatigue or other circumstances cause him
to exaggerate.
That the performance of a task would suffer by such lack o f
balance needs no explanation, but that the failures o f persons
selected carefully according to their skill are in ninety per cent, o f
cases due to unbalanced personal effort is a fact which could only
be discovered by effort research.
Nevertheless, this is one instance only in which the effort
assessment o f an aspirant can become useful in selection. The
40 EFFORT
determination o f the efforts needed for a job makes it possible to
seek persons with the capacity to produce the efforts; and this is
frequently much more important than a polished trial perform­
ance in which deeper lying incapacities are hidden behind the
bodily cleverness.
The ordinary person selecting is in general little interested in the
possibility o f developing the aspirant’s latent capacities. While
in effort-training assessments are made in order to discover what
is to be corrected or fostered,*the ordinary person selecting looks at
the present state o f the effort o f a man and judges whether
he is suitable for immediate employment.
The effort-trainer can aim at the restoration o f a disturbed
effort-balance through adequate exercises or instruction. The
selector has to accept or to reject what he finds. The knowledge
o f the damaging influence o f lopsided effort-habits is just as
important for the selector as for the trainer, but from the same
facts the selector will draw different conclusions than will the
trainer.
In selection, it has to be discovered what are the dangers to
thorough and smooth working :n a special job that may be
hidden beneath the aspirant’s effort behaviour.
It might even occur that a person would be better employed in a
job for which he seems to have no definite gift, because in that
job the danger o f exaggeration will be less for him than for
another. Such employment might even have an educative value
and teach the applicant to foster efforts which he has hitherto
neglected. In this respect, selection is certainly related to educa­
tion and training, which is a point that must not be left out o f
consideration in our survey.
The degree o f suitability or unsuitability o f an aspirant is surely
o f great importance in selection. The assessment o f effort-
capacities reveals an extraordinary manifold o f combinations,
which can be sorted out according to their importance for the
performance o f the job, and the man most similar in his efforts to
the job requirements can then be chosen and employed.
People are, o f course, rarely as lopsided in their capacities
o f exertion as the extreme examples given previously. The
person selecting will have to deal with much finer shades of
effort-contrasts, and these are just as important as the coarser ones.
 SELECTION AND EFFORT-BALANCE 41
The cumulative effect o f several inconsistencies in the effort
make-up might, even if they are minute, upset the working
capacity of a man to as great an extent as the almost pathological
forms of extreme lopsidedness of effort habits.
Another point is that everybody develops his skill during
consistent work. The gradual improvement of performance is
only possible for those who show a certain all-roundness of effort-
capacities from the very beginning. The man must possess a
richness of efforts from which to choose those most appropriate
to the job. Poorness of effort, coinciding frequently with over­
specialisation, is therefore a bar to possible improvement.
Important for the assessor o f the general effort make-up o f a
person is the fact that predilection for and habits o f efforts are
shown in all his everyday movements. Many o f the movements
seen during conversation, in leisure time, play and games, or even
in relative relaxation and rest, reveal much as to the general
effort make-up o f a man.
As all these movements consist o f the same exertions of
Strength as are displayed in Space and Time in any working action,
it will be most important for the selector to observe the everyday
behaviour o f aspirants as thoroughly as their skill in the per­
formance o f operations.
Any small twitch o f the face or hand might show habitual
efforts which if recognised and recorded might help to complete
the assessment of the aspirants’ effort make-up.
Basic efforts and their derivatives, as well as incomplete efforts
and their elements, appear in general behaviour with less intensity
but not with less clarity. The importance o f these— what one
might call private efforts— will be elucidated when one considers
that a man being free to move as he wants will show more o f his
personal habits and predilections than when using the more or
less prescribed movements of an operation.
Movement in industrial work is only one special case where
human effort and its balance become observable. The nervous
reactions in emotion and thinking produce many movements in
which the effort-habits o f a person are mirrored.
It would be wrong, however, to judge such reactions with the
outworn terms o f everyday psychology. Effort-assessment is an
exact method of establishing personal movement tensions accord­
42 EFFORT
ing to their Weight, Space and Time values. A s the job for which
the aspirant has to be selected also requires certain definite move­
ments and efforts, a comparison o f the results o f job-effort
assessment and the assessment o f the personal efforts stated in the
same terms o f Weight, Space, Time and Flow will offer a clear
basis for the right selection o f personnel. A n aspirant is not a
machine but a human being, therefore the special attribute o f
man, o f using and creating effort-balance within his movements,
must be taken into consideration.
Real skill consists o f the coincidence o f two factors, o f which
one, the sum o f the efforts needed for the job, is a single entity.
Y e t the efforts produced by the man are a compound, consisting
o f the ability to produce the efforts required for the job, and also
simultaneously, to call into play those balancing efforts which
make his operations enduringly efficient.
It is the aim o f the selector to state, apart from the adequacy
o f his skill for the job, whether and to what degree the pre­
conditions o f the enduring efficiency o f performance are present
in the aspirant.
Man’s body engine is constructed in such a manner that in
principle all imaginable effort-combinations can be performed
with relative ease and balance. Balance and ease can be lost
through long-lasting and therefore habitually lopsided use o f a
few o f all the possible effort-combinations while others are
neglected. Such loss is always regrettable but need not disqualify
a person for all jobs. I f in a job just those efforts are required
which an aspirant habitually masters, and if his general effort
make-up does not impede their efficient and constant use, he can
be considered as eligible for the job. The converse is self-evident.
The restoration o f a slightly unbalanced effort make-up can
be achieved by relatively simple instruction. The restoration of
the full effort-capacity o f a person with extremely lopsided effort-
habits requires a longer general effort-training, and this should
comprehend the conscious assimilation o f the essential rules of
balanced effort display.
 C H APTER V

TH E O BSE R V A T IO N A N D SPECIFICATIO N OF
JO B -EFFO R T S
T he gradual increase of perfection in the working methods of
those learning a new operation is of paramount importance for
the observer who wants to specify a job by studying its per­
formance by different operators.
The first step in learning a new job is to find out the method
of doing it in the simplest and least strenuous way. Having
become acquainted with the object of the job, the final result of
the working process is taken for granted, and the interest shifts
to the details of the performance of the actions required for the
task. The manual worker will try at this stage o f learning to
select those bodily actions which ensure efficiency.
The elements o f action upon which the operator is mainly
concentrated are not so much the single efforts or movements,
but rather the rhythms and shapes produced by a series of
movements and the transitions o f efforts one into another.
The rhythm and shape o f an effort-sequence build together a
unit which might be called the Time-Space pattern o f the job.
When the pattern most appropriate to the job is found— that is,
when a series of movements has proved to be the most suitable
to produce the desired effect without causing obvious waste o f
time and energy— the workman memorises the feel o f the pattern
during further repetitions o f the working action. Finally, the
performance o f the Time-Space pattern will become automatic
so that attention need not be paid to its details any longer. The
whole attention of the workman is then centred on maintaining
the rhythmic flow o f the action, envisaging, o f course, the
possibility o f accidental interruption through personal distractions
or mechanical failures of tools, machines or faulty material.
The first advantage of the thorough knowledge o f the methods
by which skill is acquired is that the observer is enabled to deter­
mine the stage o f skill reached by individual operators. Differences
43
44 EFFORT
in skill will be noticed in the fluency with which the Time-Space
pattern is performed. Even before the finished product can be
inspected, a- guarantee is given in the fluent performance o f the
Tim e-Space pattern that the worker has attained a certain inde­
pendence from the continuous worry about the next movement,
and that he will be therefore more able to complete his task in an
adequate manner.
The second advantage is that the observer, after having himself
become clear about the final aim o f the job, will be able to
concentrate upon the Tim e-Space pattern, the performance o f
which is the real job o f the workman. The observer will soon
recognise which operator’s pattern is the simplest and the most
adequate for the job, and where in other cases economy o f time
and energy could be effected.
Briefly stated, the flow o f actions o f which the job consists can
be studied successfully only when the progressive development o f
skill in work is fully understood.
The breaking up o f the operation into its subdivisions should
be done according to the articulation given to the Time-Space
pattern o f the job by the efficient workman. There is no need
to enumerate at this stage the steps by which the product
approaches its final form. This would be a purely academical
procedure which has no connection with the real performance o f
the job.
In the mind o f the skilled workman the gradual growth o f the
product is the natural outcome o f his rhythmised action and he
does not pay much attention to the single steps o f this develop­
ment, which he takes for granted. The skilled workman never
allows a stage o f production to interrupt his flow o f action, unless
such interruption coincides with a break in the natural flow o f his
performance. The observer has to follow the bodily mental line
o f the operator’s action and is greatly hampered in his task when
he applies preconceived academic or theoretical considerations in
subdividing or breaking up the job.
In observing the stops in the flow o f work, it must be realised
that stops will be more frequent, with the learner or the less
skilled man than with the skilled operator. The latter frequently
performs the whole set o f efforts required by the job in an
uninterrupted sweep o f an unbroken Time-Space pattern. Well
 T H E O B SE R V A T IO N OF JO B -E F F O R T S 45
discernible isolated efforts and actions occur very rarely. This is
one of the causes why the observation o f working actions is so
difficult and bewildering for the unskilled observer. It is almost
like the endeavour to follow the tricks o f a conjurer, in which
one movement melts indiscernibly into the next, so that the eye
and mind of the average spectator have no opportunity to reflect
upon what has happened.
The observer must therefore learn to grasp the structure o f the
Time-Space pattern which the operator uses, without thinking of
the steps of production— that is, he must look at the operation
with the same eye and mental attitude as the operator. The
discernment of the natural articulation o f the Time-Space pattern
soon becomes a matter of routine, which should, o f course, be
supported by an intimate knowledge o f the general rules of the
articulations which all chains or sequences of efforts follow.
Each effort in itself must be regarded as being mobile and
never as a stable, motionless entity. Even the effort o f holding
an object in a certain position is continuous. An enduring
pressure exerted by a hand, a knee, a foot is performed, and
though the position in space is not changed, a continuously
flowing time and strength effort is exerted. It is only in complete
relaxation, say, when an exhausted person lies motionless on the
floor, that a complete interruption o f the flow o f efforts takes
place. A ll other states o f relative immobility contain well
discernible efforts.
In the specification o f Time-Space patterns, the sense for the
uninterrupted flow o f actions is indispensable and must be early
acquired by the observer. The next step is to learn to discern
the articulation o f the Time-Space pattern performed by the
operator. The articulation consists in principle in the use o f two
kinds o f efforts, one kind being more essential for the performance
o f the task, while the rest o f the efforts used are less essential for
the achievement o f the final purpose. The essential efforts to
which the workman, and especially the learner, pays the more
attention constitute special exertions by which the rhythmic flow
o f action is marked but must not be broken. Such exertions
are distanced from one another by time intervals, and they form
a kind of rhythmical skeleton or articulation o f the Time-Space
pattern. The proportions o f the time intervals between several
 EFFORT
special exertions is only partly given by the time indication of
the efforts used in the special exertions. The intervals may some­
times be filled by less essential exertions which have no direct
impact upon the process o f manufacture but have their own
independent duration.
Both a sustained as well as a quick essential effort can be
followed either by a short or a long interval before the next
essential effort occurs.

."Exam ples .

(/)

f
Short interval o f indistinct character, between the sustained
efforts o f pressing and wringing, represented here by an
effort diagonal without indication o f distinct effort elements.

(///)

Long interval o f indistinct character, between the two quick

efforts o f dabbing and slashing, represented here by several
effort diagonals.

The intervals can, in both cases, be either long or short in

various degrees, which degrees coincide with the number and the
durations o f the intermediary less essential efforts.
The essential efforts o f a skilled worker always have an impact
upon the material o f work— that is, the effort is exerted in order
to touch, to grip or to move the object o f work or the tool used.
An object might be placed, cut, pierced, or parts o f it might
 T H E O B SE R V A T IO N OF JO B -E F F O R T S 47
be fitted together; these effects are achieved by essential efforts.
The object could be a part o f a machine, say, a switch, the
position o f which is changed in the action o f “ switching on.”
From the point of view o f the observer o f Time-Space patterns
it would be wrong, however, to state solely that the machine has
been “ switched on.” This action is effected with the help o f a
definite effort, and in considering the flow o f work it is important
to know if the movement used in “ switching on ” is primarily a
“ pressure ” or a “ twist,” or some other definite effort. The
space indication contained in the effort is as important as the time
and strength indication, and this leads to the observation of the
shape o f the operation as well as its rhythm.
The shape o f the less essential efforts is o f great interest to the
observer. Much time and energy are wasted through the insertion
o f complicated roundabout movements between essential efforts.
The skilled worker will reduce to the minimum the space dis­
tances between essential actions caused by roundabout movements.
This does not mean that the skilled worker will always move
directly. The working on mobile material— as, for instance,
textiles or liquids— frequently needs flexible movements, and the
easy flow of certain Time-Space patterns might also require the
insertion of flexible movements within the less essential efforts
of the operation. Much o f the stiffness and clumsiness o f
learners is caused by the lack o f flexible efforts in their Time-Space
patterns.
Basic efforts contain space elements which are decisive for the
shape of the pattern. A pattern consisting mainly o f gliding
movements will consist o f direct lines which might be orientated
into various directions. A pattern in which slashing or throwing
movements prevail will have more roundabout shapes than a
pattern consisting mainly o f gliding efforts. Patterns in which
objects are held in definite positions, which involve effort-
elements o f strength and time without space indication, show no
lines or waves, but the shape feature which appears is centred
upon a point in space. Certain actions consisting o f incomplete
efforts, say, the elementary effort o f weakness shown in the
relaxed falling of an arm, are carried into a direction o f space—
in the case o f the falling arm, downwards— without a controlled
guidance o f the space element.
48 EFFORT
Movements guided into definite directions are always accom­
panied by definite effort combinations. In moving the arm into
the diagonal direction outwards— backwards— high a combina­
tion o f a lifting (W) effort and a turning— opening (S and F)
effort is used simultaneously. It is also important in which parts
o f the body the simultaneous efforts appear. The above-
mentioned diagonal cannot be performed without efforts o f the
trunk muscles, whilst a diagonally forwards movement might
leave the trunk muscles motionless and therefore effortless.
The observation o f a combination o f simultaneous efforts and
their location in the various parts o f the body is usually sufficiently
indicated by mentioning the direction into which the part o f the
body moves. This simplification is exact enough for the ordinary
specification o f job efforts. When we say that “ the arm falls
downwards ” or “ the arm is brought backwards high,” the
simultaneous effort combinations and their location in arm,
shoulder and trunk will be clear to the skilled observer, and if he
wishes to analyse thoroughly all the efforts used in a pattern for
some special purpose, say, for corrective training, selection or
general time specifications, he can reconstruct out o f the direc­
tional indications the whole effort happening.
Directional indications can be represented by arrows instead
o f words. Indications concerning the parts o f the body used in
the operation will also best be represented by symbols which
make the specification graph easier to survey. For the same
reason it is advisable to use symbols and not words for the
representation o f the materials and tools used in the operation.
The essential point, however, is not so much the method of
recording but that the mental attitude o f the observer is adapted
to the process o f the job as conceived and performed by the
operator.
In the conception and action o f the workmen the concentra­
tion upon the Time-Space pattern is paramount because the
workman when performing his job lives in his efforts.
Within the Time-Space pattern the essential efforts arc of
predominant interest to the workman and the observer. The
intervals between the essential efforts are filled with intermediary
non-essential efforts, the analysis o f which is important in some
special cases only.
 T H E O B S E R V A T I O N OF J O B - E F F O R T S 49
Take, as a simple example, the operation o f a stoker. His
essential efforts will be :

a “ shoving punch ” with free flow,

when forcing his shovel into the heap
o f anthracite.

a “ throwing slash ” with free flow,

when throwing the load on his shovel
into the furnace.

He might perform this action in a skilled and, therefore,

efficient manner— or he could use less efficient efforts.
For instance, in replacing the first effort:

!_
a “ shoving punch ” , a “ hitting punch ”
with free flow ^ with bound flow

he will not penetrate sufficiently into the anthracite heap in order

to fill his shovel to the greatest capacity.
On the other hand, it might be found that it would be more
advantageous if he used in the second essential action:

_ b -

instead o f a “ throwing a “ skimming glide

slash ”

which latter causes less exertion and might fulfil the purpose just
as well.
JO EFFORT
Having been taught how to do the essential actions, further
consideration might be given to the rest o f his movement.
Between and after the two essential actions various inter­
mediary non-essential efforts can be inserted.
Six frequent transitions or non-essential efforts between the
“ throwing slash ” and the “ skimming glide ” observed with
different stokers can be mentioned here.

First Second
transitional effort transitional effort

1/

1/

3* . ------1 /

5 ✓ 5* ------- \ /

6. s
 T H E O B SE R V A T IO N OF JO B -E F F O R T S 51
The remarkable point is that in each of these six transitions a
gradual change from the “ throwing slash ” to the “ skimming
glide ” is effected through the successive change of the effort
elements one by one, whereby the structure of the next essential
effort is gradually approached and finally reached.

„„ „„ „„
In 1 the weight factor of the preceding effort is changed.
1 a „ space
z „ weight
za „ time
3
,„ „„
3
4
„ space
* „ weight , „ »
„>
„ space
4a „ time
5 ,„
„
„, „„
,„ „
„ time
5* „ weight
6 „ time
Ga „ space >,
, „
„„
Any of these six transitions consisting o f non-essential efforts
might be appropriate in cases where the operator has to adapt
himself to certain outer conditions influencing his performance.
The decreasing height of the pile o f coal, or the increasing filling
up o f the furnace, for instance, might demand a variation of his
movement.
Whatever the non-essential transitions the operator might
choose, they will rarely make the fulfilment of the task absolutely
impossible, which could, however, happen if he used impossible
essential actions.
A certain waste o f time and energy might result when the
stoker persistently uses such flexible transitions, as seen in z-za
and 5-5*, in letting drop thereby some of the load on the shovel.
Such awkward effort-habits should be noticed and corrected.
They would show a lack o f effort-balance, as mentioned in the
paragraph concerning selection, but at any rate some coal would be
stoked.
This would not be the case when the stoker used wrong essen­
tial efforts, say, a “ gliding ” for loading his shovel, whereby he
would get a few pieces o f coal only or none at all, and a “ wring­
5* EFFORT
ing ” for throwing the load into the furnace, whereby the few
lumps o f coal which he might have collected would fall on the
ground outside the furnace. Such absurd essential movements
do occur with unskilled learners.
Instead o f dismissing such childish attempts as hopeless, an
instructor who knows about the transformation o f efforts will be
able to transform the wrong movements in an astonishingly short
time into more suitable ones.
A ny transitional action consists o f at least tw o parts. The first
part o f it is a dissolution o f the preceding essential effort, while
the second part constitutes a preparation o f the following essential
effort.
A repeated operation, as, for instance, stoking, has also a
transition in the return from the final essential effort to the first
one; in the case o f the stoker after returning from the furnace
to the coal heap, or, expressed in terms o f effort, between the
“ skimming glide ” and the “ shoving punch.”
Between strenuous repeated actions rests might be inserted
which can be more cr less appropriate to the situation. A rest
in a cramped tension, holding the tool in hand, obviously does not

serve its purpose so well as a rest with a light effort in which

the tool is lowered to and its weight supported by the ground.
A rest pause which is initiated by an energetic throwing away o f
the tool later involves steps or a bending o f the body in collecting
it again. This constitutes a waste o f time and energy.
The specification o f the job-effort is completed when the
sequence o f the essential efforts contained in an operation is
determined and the rhythm and shape o f the Time-Space pattern
clearly defined. The specification will only be perfect when the
observer has learnt to grasp and to record the natural articulation
o f the worker’s movements instead o f concentrating solely upon
the details o f the objective results or the functions o f machinery.
Objective results—that is, the changes which are step by step
achieved in the productive process— take place in definite sections
o f the Time-Space pattern. It is o f advantage to establish the
 T H E O B S E R V A T I O N OF J O B - E F F O R T S 53
Time-Space pattern first and to discover afterwards where the
steps of the objective results really lie on it. The job o f the worker
is to perform his sequence, o f working movements, and if they
are well done subjectively in the right shape and with the right
rhythm, the resulting objective changes will also be satisfactory.
In following the Time-Space pattern of the workman’s action,
the job specification, condensed into a graph or into any other
form of adequate description, contains all the essential indications
for the sake of which it is made.
The flux of the operation, being represented in an actual picture
of all that happens during the performance o f the job, can be
studied at leisure and gives the answers to all the questions
concerning timing, costing, training, selection and the solving
of technical problems which may arise.
The reliable picture o f the real facts concerning the human
effort spent in an operation, or in any other working action, is
the best starting-point for all measures aiming at efficiency.
 CHAPTER VI
P SY C H O L O G IC A L A SP E C T S O F E F F O R T
CO NTRO L

T he contemporary addition of industrial psychology to time and

motion study arose from the recognition of the immense import­
ance of the human factor and the unaccountable behaviour of
individuals and groups within industrial concerns. Mechanical
planning has been spoiled by the uncoordinated efforts of people
who had to perform the various tasks.
Both the time- and motion-study specialist and the industrial
psychologist will be able to profit from modern effort research.
Our arguments dealing with the economy and control o f effort
have made this clear so far as manual operations are concerned.
A n additional new light has, however, to be shed upon the
psychological aspect o f efforts appearing in work other than
manual or muscular.
Observing more thoroughly the distribution or economy o f
effort used by our fellow-beings, we get the following picture.
People moving with easy effort seem to be freer than those
moving with obviously stressed effort. The latter seem to
struggle against something. Against what they struggle we are
unable to discover at once, though we can learn more if we
observe subjective movements— that is, those which do not deal
with objects and have therefore no outer cause for struggle.
But there is an obvious struggle visible in the sometimes even
painful deportment o f a person.
Only slowly may we distinguish that one o f the main charac­
teristics o f effort is the presence or absence o f rapidity. With
this we have a clue concerning the nature o f the fight. Is it
perhaps a fight against time ? Time, or shall we say speed, is
one o f the elements o f which the compound o f effort is built
up. This enables us to speak about an, attitude towards time
effort, efforts in which either the struggling against or the
indulging in time is prevailing.
54
 A S P E C T S OF E F F O R T C O NT RO L 55
Yet we may also distinguish another main characteristic of
effort, and this is the presence or lack of bodily force. Force is
another of the elements of which efforts are built up. It is the
degree of energy spent in overcoming one’s own body weight,
or that of an object, which expresses itself in the attitude towards
the weight effort.
People’s exaggerated effort may, therefore, be a struggle against
time or against weight, or against both, while an easy effort may
have its course in an almost complete neglect o f any consideration
of rapidity or o f bodily force. Easy effort will show no struggle
either against time or against weight, but rather indulgence in
one or both o f these elements.
The person with entire neglect o f speed takes a lot o f time.
He or she is, so to speak, bathing, swimming or even submerging
in a sea o f time. The person whose bodily energy is lacking seems
to enjoy his weightiness and to relax happily in being immersed
in the general gravity o f nature.
Now the strugglers against weight and the racers against
time are surely different characters; and so differ also those
continuously immersed into a lot o f time from those indulging in
the experience o f their own weight.and in the weight of their
surroundings.
This is, however, not all that we can detect about the different
attitude towards effort-elements. There are people who— with­
out necessarily belonging to the groups of either time-racers or
weight-forcers or their contrasts— appear, nevertheless, to move
with stressed or easy effort. Since they do not appear either to
swim in an ocean of time or to race against time, and as their
attitude towards weight is also rather indifferent, what other kind
of movement element are they stressing in their efforts ? Easy
movers might be observed to use a great deal of flexibility and
twists in their efforts. That means, they apparently swim,
circulate and twist most thoroughly through any possible region
o f space. Enjoying the space surrounding them makes them
happy dwellers o f a kingdom o f which they know every corner.
But there are those who deal most sparingly with their moving
space. Such people seem to take careful account o f the extension
and expansion o f their movements, which appear to be as direct as
possible.
 EFFORT
It is as i f they had an aversion against the manifold extension
o f space. This aversion does not manifest itself so much in a
tumultuous struggle, but rather in a kind o f restriction in the use
o f all too many space directions. The need o f an occasional
excursion into space causes them a clearly visible and highly-
stressed effort.
The above observations make it necessary to distinguish a
special attitude towards space effort.
The three effort-characters— time effort, weight effort, space
effort— do not, however, cover all the basic phenomena observ­
able. Persons do not move either suddenly or deliberately,
weakly or forcefully, flexibly or directly only. There exists
another element, flow, which can be observed in people’s move­
ments, which, together with the above-mentioned three elements,
might give us a basis for a full account o f effort phenomena.
We can distinguish the flow o f movement o f a person, which can
be free or bound, whatever velocity, space expansion or force the
movements might have. With this observation we have dis­
covered a fourth attitude towards the elements o f movement,
which, if prevailing in an effort, gives it the character o f either
a struggle against or an indulgence in the flow effort.
Some people seem to enjoy letting their movements flow,
whilst others show an obvious reluctance to do so. One can
see how the latter endeavour to withhold and almost to stop the
flow or process o f their movement at any moment o f their action.
They may make with this very large and even roundabout
movements. The reluctance is not directed against space, but
they carefully abstain from letting movements flow freely. Their
complicated movement-patterns are drawn in the air with a
meticulous guidance which need not, however, be either explicitly
slow or quick. Sometimes the shapes are traced with such with­
holding reticence that it reminds us o f a child’s first attempts
in writing and drawing. A real bound flow o f this kind need not,
however, be accompanied by any weight-accent— that is, a
cramped use o f force; it can be weak or entirely indifferent so
far as weight is concerned.
People who indulge in flow find pleasure in the unrestricted
freedom o f fluency, without necessarily giving much attention to
the various shades o f the time, the weight and the space develop-
 A S P E C T S OF E F F O R T C O N T R O L 57
ment of the movement. Movements with free flow cannot
easily be interrupted or suddenly stopped; it takes time until the
moving person gains the necessary control over the flow in order
to stop. Those persons who tend to bind their flow will be
able to stop their movements at any instant required.
Having now distinguished the typical kinds o f attitudes
towards time effort, weight effort, space effort and flow effort,
we can say that each o f these may be either “ struggled against
or “ indulged i n .” We have thus gained a vocabulary for the
basic impressions we can receive from the observation o f efforts.
Before penetrating into further investigations o f the more
complicated regions o f effort manifestations, it should be remem­
bered that the relative largeness o f a movement has nothing to do
with its effort-character. The tiniest, shortest movement o f a
muscle can show any o f the differentiations o f effort— that is,
it can be the expression o f a struggling against or an indulgence in
any of the four motion factors, as we might from now on call
time, weight, space and flow.
Even the tiniest jerks of muscles might show multiple combina­
tions of the use o f motion factors. It has already been said that
efforts are less easily observed in small and single movements
than in large and repeated movements. This is, however, not
caused by the absence o f effort-characteristics, but by the restricted
capacity o f the unskilled observer to see them.
Another thing can be mentioned in connection with the fact
that personal efforts and personal character-qualities might stand
in some connection. The existence o f four motion factors might
suggest that there could be a connection between the four motion
factors and the four fundamental types of human temperaments,
as they are usually classified in the oldest as well as in the most
recent psychological treatises.
There is, however, no cause to search for the possible kinship
between effort types and types o f temperament. Such search
would rather restrict than help the extension o f efforc investiga­
tion. There exist a few— as we submit, four— clearly distinguish­
able motion factors in which effort evolves, but no real person
exists who could be addicted to one motion factor exclusively.
On the other hand, any one o f the motion factors may be
predominant.
5« EFFORT
In observing children, adults, workers and dancers, one will
hardly find a normal individual who exclusively submerges or
indulges in time or in any other o f the four motion factors.
Neither will we find a person, healthy in body and mind, carrying
out throughout the whole o f his life a quixotic fight against space
or against flow or weight.
The richness o f people’s efforts consists just in the fact that their
effort characteristics are an incredibly subtle mixture or compound
o f many degrees o f attitudes towards several movement elements.
They may indulge in several elements simultaneously, one
equilibrating the other as well as possible. They often fight
against the whole bunch o f motion factors which nature has
placed at their disposal. That both this great and unified struggle
and its opposite, total surrender, are stimulated by experiences
and circumstances, is a secondary consideration with which
effort research has to deal.
The first thing, and what is, in fact, o f immediate interest in
effort study, is the truth that movements are bound to evolve in
space as well as in time— if one prefers to say so, in Space-Time—
and that in this evolution o f movement the weight o f our body is
brought into flow.
It has been found practical to use, in the description o f efforts
appearing in human motion, the previously introduced diagram­
matic signs, in which, roughly speaking, the “ fighting against ”
and the “ indulgence in ” single motion factors are shown by
easily understandable symbols. T w o such compound signs arc
o f paramount importance, namely—

indulgence in and fighting against

all motion factors

More as an example than as a preliminary explanation, it might

be considered what kind of worker and what kind o f personality
an individual would be, for which one o f these compound
symbols is characteristic.
 A S P E C T S OF E F F O R T C O N T R O L 59
As a worker—and one should include here all the people in
any activities from, say, labouring to dancing— a person indulging
in all motion factors will be able to deal with all tasks demanding
free flow of motion, fine touch, flexibility and sustainment, such
as delicate repair or assembly work.
Such a worker will find difficulty in dealing with tasks of the
opposite kind. The person habitually fighting against all the
four motion factors will best deal with work exacting controlled
or bound flow of motion, great strength, use o f the shortest and
most direct way in all his movements and an ability to function
with quick impulses, such as in lumbering, hand forging and
heavy repetitive w o rk; but the examples are legion.
I f the efforts are not observed in working movements but in
the small movements o f everyday behaviour, say, in the way a
person sits, stands, or the odd movements a person might show in
his or her facial expression during idleness or conversation, one
will find the same contrasts. One individual may fight against
and the other indulge in all the motion factors. The personality
thus expressed will be quite different in the two cases. The
person with free flowing, light, sustained and flexible muscle
movements will differ definitely from the other who shows
controlled flow o f motion together with strong, quick and
direct movements. To call one gentle and the other energetic
is a very poor rendering o f the real facts. It seems that the only
thing one can do is to renounce all psychological terms, especially
as there exist an almost infinite number o f combinations o f every
degree and shade. It will be understood why the compound
signs, which are variable to a very great extent, are used instead
of verbal descriptions, if one considers that some people are
struggling against one or several of the motion factors and enjoy­
ing at the same time the rest o f them; in other words, some of
the factors are neglected and others are preferred and in very
different degrees and shades of degree.
The personality value o f the characteristics shown in everyday
behaviour has, however, very real significance if we want to
assess the ability for intellectual work, say, such work which does
not consist in bodily but in mental exertion, as, for instance, in
administrative activities in business or artistic occupations.
The indulger in all the motion factors will have a greater
6o EFFORT
ability for delicate mental operations, while the fighter against al
the motion factors w ill be able to deal with mental work in which
quick decision and accuracy are demanded. Y et one must nevei
forget that these absolutely fundamental types do not exist in
reality; they are illustrations only o f the two basic compound
symbols. The complexity o f effort-habits will become clear to
those who have studied our arguments concerning selection and
effort-balance.
The psychological aspects o f effort-control applied to industry
lead to the following conclusions.
I f it is once recognised that there is no insuperable gap between
the efforts o f a workman and the efforts o f an administrator, the
co-operation between employees and employers will be greatly
eased. One o f the main causes o f the tension between these two
groups o f working people is that the efforts o f one o f them,
o f the workman on the bench, are easily discernible and visible,
while the visibility o f the effort o f the second group, the
administrators, seems to fade away more and more into idle
rest.
In investigating the effort life o f working activities which
bridge these extreme ends o f the ladder o f efforts we shall see that
workmen who have to operate after consulting complicated blue­
prints— as, for instance, the templet-makers in engineering work­
shops— make an entirely different use o f their efforts than has
been shown in the case o f the operators hitherto mainly dealt
with. Rhythmical dislocation o f strain and relaxation takes place
in the nervous system which is more strained than the muscular
system.
This dislocation increases in office activities where the visible
rhythm o f movement seems to disappear entirely. And yet the
office worker uses a working rhythm and consumes rhythmic
energy. His working rhythm is o f the highest importance within
the general rhythm o f a factory.
We shall get nearer to the problem if we consider the attention,
intention, decision and precision observable in the bodily attitude
o f the mental worker.
When incorporated into the effort rhythm o f the workshop
operator, attention becomes visible in the subtle form o f shadow
moves only. In felling trees, for instance, the kind o f grip o f the
 A S P E C T S OF E F F O R T CO N T R O L 61
hand'on the shaft o f the axe might indicate degrees o f attention
and o f the intention to be precise.
Such subtle movements are precursors or accompaniments of
exertions or relaxations; they are small additional efforts, but, as
with the grip on the axe-shaft, of the utmost importance for the
final outcome o f the action.
In office work, the observation of the subtle shadow moves
accompanying action, or a body tension within a rest, will gain
increased importance for the observer of effort.
We might exclude for the present all those office activities which
are manual work, as the repetitive efforts in sorting and filing, and
the free actions constituting routine work which can to a certain
degree be done with automatised movements, such as copying of
lists, letters and so on.
All these actions where sorting, ordering and mechanical
copying are largely included are similar to workshop activities.
The efforts used in these activities show enough rhythmical
traits to allow assessments similar to those o f other manual work.
Reflection and mental control, of course, make up a part o f any
industrial activity. It is only the question whether the mental
activity is connected with clearly discernible motoric efforts or
whether the mental activity seems to be separated from motoric
work— that is, whether it happens during a total or partial rest o f
the body.
In the first case, we shall always find that the observation of
the flow o f movement, when observed in its subtler details, gives
scope enough for the assessment o f effort as described earlier.
In the second case, work must be divided into an attentional
phase and an operational phase. Within both, work is done and
its effort-rhythm must be assessed.
Work in the operational phase can, o f course, be assessed in the
ordinary way, but the following must be considered.
In pure operational work the best speed will be genuinely
“ quick.” A certain alertness o f the operator will be an advan­
tage. In attentional work connected with operational work, or if
attentional work prevails during the task, alertness will no longer
have an absolutely positive value. The thoroughness needed for
any kind of control, calculations or other activity connected with
attention o f extended duration will make extreme alertness rather
6z EFFORT
a fault, which can easily lead to a superficial omission o f attention.
The best speed will be a relative sustainment in all movements
shown during attention.
Similar changes in the highest value o f the other motion
factors do not need further explanation.
We know that during intensive attention the body is usually
kept in almost perfect rest and stability. Effort-elements remain
visible, however, even in these apparent rests.
Attention can be connected with a very strong nervous or
muscular tension, or with an almost complete relaxation o f the
muscles whereby the strain is being withdrawn into the tissues
o f the nervous system and restricted therefore to a consumption
o f energy within these tissues only.
The fact that strong attention is very tiring shows that there is
a consumption o f energy which must be regenerated afterwards
in some kind o f rest or relaxation, just the same as with muscular
exertion. The difference between a cramped attention and a
relaxed attention is obvious enough; yet there exist other visible
distinctions o f the various kinds o f attention.
Without being able to exhaust the question within the frame­
work o f this study— a full-sized book would be needed for an
account o f the variability o f attention, intention, decision and their
visible signs or characteristics— some hints can be given about
the space values appearing in an attentional rest. They can be
summed up briefly into the two extremes o f a broad and open
position o f the body, for example, arms extended sideways, wide
open eyes in the attention o f an astonished, surprised, frightened
person; or a narrow, closed position o f the body, for example,
the mischievous observation through half-closed eyelids whereby
head and shoulders are lowered, hands closed tight.
Wide-spaced body carriages can be connected either with
strong muscle tension or can be accompanied by relaxation. So
also can closed positions. All these mixtures can have many
degrees and can progress or explode from or terminate in the
most varied forms o f movements or carriages, which give so
much to look at and to observe that nobody has ever had the
chance to become conscious o f all the possible combinations or
effort-rhythms o f attention.
It might seem surprising that we are speaking o f rhythms when
 A S P E C T S OF E F F O R T C O N T R O L 63
the time-element is seemingly eliminated. Time is, however,
present in the different durations of the rest of attention.
We can discern :
Sudden and short attention.
Intermittent jerks of attention which can be repetitive with
regular intervals' or non-repetitive— that is, varying in effort-
expression.
Long increasing or diminishing attention.
Constant and enduring attention, dissolving itself perhaps
occasionally into meaningless staring.
All these forms o f attention are full o f shades o f time durations
and can offer a basis for rhythmic control.
Essential is the fact that exertions are frequently dissolved by
a regenerating change o f position, which can be well imagined in
all the examples given above. A real effort-assessment should
not consist in a quasi-poetical description o f mime effects. What
the observer o f effort has to record might be seen in the following
examples :
Psychological interpretation. Movement observation.
Surprised attention. Usually, flicking shadow moves, up­
wards directed carriage, open exten­
sion, sudden, etc.
Suspicious attention. Usually, wringing shadow moves,
twisted closed carriages, increasing
intensity o f strain, etc.
Inquiring attention. Usually, gliding shadow moves, body
carriage orientated forwards, half-
closed, constant in tension, etc.
Frightened attention. Usually, dabbing shadow moves,
carriage leaning backwards, rather
closed, sudden, short duration soon
followed by definite movements, etc.
Sullen attention. Usually, pressing shadow moves,
carriage bent downwards, strong
muscle tension, often decreasing,
mixture o f open and closed positions
o f face muscles, arms, etc.
64 EFFORT
The shadow moves punching and slashing, being aggressive,
diminish attention, and the shadow moves o f floating show a
vague attention only.
The psychological interpretation is o f little direct value for
effort-assessment. Nothing can be expressed in psychological
terms until the attitude towards the motion factors Weight,
Space, Time and Flow has been determined.
It will be clear after this explanation that an assessment, very
like that o f a simple lifting or shifting action, can be given o f
persons submitted to any exertion and regenerative reaction, even
if these do not involve large motions like working actions.
It can truthfully be said that a man must be dead or fainting
i f no effort-assessment on a motoric basis can be made o f him.
Even in sleep there are motions, for in any living being there is
always breathing which is a continuously observable form o f
motion o f variable effort-content.
We see, therefore, that in attentional work the exertion will be
measured during relative rest, whereby the intermittent move­
ments— serving mostly as regenerative interludes— can offer
rhythmic data for the nearer evaluation o f the effort.
Emotionality might have a greater influence on the perform­
ance o f the office worker than on that o f the bench worker,
because with the former relief through muscular strain is lacking.
When the office worker has become used to the burning up o f
nervous tissue without the relief offered by bigger movements,
his performance will be less disturbed by the addition o f emotional
shadow moves. It is the same with a child who has become used
to sitting quietly at a desk.
Automatism can be achieved in mental work as well as in
manual work. The rhythmic energy used is the same in both.
Regeneration will take place along slightly different lines.
Muscular strain is relieved, as already stated, by direct relaxation,
mental strain is relieved through discharges o f accumulated
muscular energy in shadow moves.
It can be said conclusively that in an operator’s rhythm the
accentuated action moves are o f primary importance, while
shadow moves are o f secondary interest only. The administra­
tive worker’s observable effort-rhythm consists mainly o f shadow
moves, while his action moves are o f secondary importance.
 A S P E C T S OF E F F O R T CO N T RO L 65
Modern effort observation and investigation has made a series
o f discoveries which are not only able to serve the understanding
between man and man and thus improve human relationship,
but also to throw a new light on the most important factor o f our
existence— movement.
It is true that the tremendous motion which is shown in the
flow o f material in modern industry is a part o f this investigation,
but its main ideal value lies in the recognition that behind this
terrific flow there is always the bodily-mental effort o f individual
man. No mechanisation can eliminate human effort; the hand­
ling of the terrifying powers o f nature is entrusted to man’s tiny
and feeble hands. The responsibility involved in this fact must
be fully recognised and the education of children and workmen—
and who is not a workman if his life is not idle ?— must take into
consideration this responsibility very carefully.
Effort study is a very valuable means for the most important
practical issues. But there is something deeper behind it. Move­
ment in itself is a language in which man’s highest and most
fundamental inspirations are expressed. We have forgotten
not only how to speak this language but also how to listen to it.
Movement fills our whole working time, no matter in what kind
of work we are engaged. It seems a quite unimportant servant
if our work consists mainly o f thinking, writing, speaking, or
any other so-called mental activity. But dealing with servants
is quite a tricky business. They are apt to revolt if their drive
towards what may be called the flow inherent in nature is
frustrated.
The inhibition o f the freedom o f movement and its degrada­
tion to the role o f a means o f production only is a grave error
which results in ill health, mental and bodily discord and misery,
and thus also in a disturbance o f work.
Movement has a quality, and this is not its utilitarian or visible
aspect, but its feel. One must DO movements in order to be
able to appreciate their full power and their full meaning, but this
is carried out in our civilisation in a very scanty, very casual and
insufficient way.
Effort-rhythms— that is, sequences o f efforts showing a definite
form o f flow with alternating stresses and relaxations— become
automatised through frequent repetition. Repetitions originating
F
66 EFFORT
from the conscious endeavour to learn these rhythms create real
automatism which can be more easily checked than repetitions
appearing in involuntary effort-habits enforced upon man by
inheritance or acquired under the constant weight o f outer circum­
stances. Dim ly felt habits can be made conscious under one
condition only, namely, that the person subjected to such habits
learns to think in terms o f effort. This does not mean that a
thorough knowledge o f the scientifically determinable rules o f
effort-structure must be continuously present in his mind. Such
perpetually present knowledge would kill the spontaneity needed
for the performance o f efforts. It is fundamentally the awareness
that man can check and alter his effort-rhythms which is needed.
Together with the practical experience o f the contrasting elements
which have to be used in an operation, an effective effort-control
can be exerted either by the moving person himself or by a trainer
or supervisor guiding him in the regulation o f the application o f
efforts to a definite task.
Such control is especially needed in cases where effort-habits
get out o f hand. Repeated effort-rhythms have a tendency to
increase the intensity o f certain effort-elements. Frantic haste or
brutality, into which a relatively harmless effort rhythm can
degenerate, is often due to the automatic growth o f the intensity
o f habitually used effort-element combinations. The tendency to
irrational augmentation o f intensity is fostered when noise is
produced by the actions resulting from the efforts.
When several people work together in a noisy way, the excite­
ment caused by increasing effort-intensity can be transmitted from
one person to another and eventually to whole groups. Efforts,
and especially their exaggerated forms, can become contagious
without the incentive o f noise, probably because the urge o f man
to imitate others is very great. It does not matter in such cases
whether the example is good or bad— that is, advantageous or
disadvantageous for the imitating person or his surrounding.
Efforts can be transmitted more easily than thoughts. The lazy
or diligent atmosphere o f a workshop or class is an observable
reality and something to which a newcomer often succumbs in
spite o f his personal qualities which might be quite opposite to
the working mood prevailing in the place. Moods o f a crowd,
whether cheerful or sad, seem to originate frequently from
 A S P E C T S OF E F F O R T C O N T R O L 67
the transmission o f effort-tendencies and their uncontrolled
growth.
The investigation o f the psychological, biological and socio­
logical features o f effort-manifestations is in its infancy, but the
impression has been gained that the subject can be discussed most
effectively in terms o f effort, whereby the rules o f effort-mutation
have to be taken into consideration.
 CHAPTER VII
THINKING IN TERMS OF EFFORT
Most successful foremen, supervisors and managers think
involuntarily in terms o f effort. Many o f them, however, are
frequently distracted from this kind o f thinking because it is not
only involuntary but they are also entirely unconscious o f it.
Blinded by the ordinary conception o f the task which must be
somehow fulfilled, they do not much care for the “ how,” and
frequently use the most clumsy means because the work has
always been done in this or that way, or because they do not
wish to fight against outer circumstances. A person able to
visualise the rhythm o f the efforts used in a job is often confronted
by a grotesque spectacle.
During our early experimental investigations we once witnessed
in a sawmill the loading o f a van with small staves. The workers
employed on this job were a dozen heavily clad strong men whose
ordinary job was the transport o f heavy trees from the forest to
the gantry where they discharged their lorries, piling up the tree
trunks in gigantic heaps and balancing on them with remarkable
acrobatic skill.
Delegated to the loading o f the small staves, which were
piled up for drying under a shed, they formed a solid row from
the piles to the van and passed on to one another a voluminous
bundle o f staves, during which a good number o f sticks fell on
the ground. The two men in the van had great trouble in
heaping the irregular bundles o f staves inside the vehicle, with the
result that many o f the staves were broken and the loading space
could not be used to its full capacity.
Replacing the twelve men by five girls— o f whom three were
standing equally spaced between the stacks and the van, while
one collected the staves one at a time from the piles, and another
arranged them in the vehicle— the task was performed in half the
time by less than half the number o f workers, and the van was
 T H I N K I N G IN T E R M S OF E F F O R T 69
filled to its complete loading capacity without breakages. This
was a regular job twice a week or so.
The men disliked the work and grumbled each time they were
delegated to it, while the girls enjoyed the large swinging move­
ments by which the sticks were gathered, passed from hand to
hand, and restacked in good order in the van.
In this tale the accent is. to be laid upon the simple swinging
effort in contrast to the complicated and cramped efforts of
gathering and transmitting haphazardly formed bundles of staves.
The sight o f the overcrowded row o f men working with the
bound flow o f overcrowded effort generated in the mind of the
observers the contrasting vision o f a light and simple free flow
o f the material. The employment o f a lesser number o f more
flexible operators was the natural consequence o f the vision and
of an improved flow o f material, resulting in a more cheerful
attitude o f the operators content with their success.
This special operation was an ancillary sideline within a series
of activities. The aim o f the investigation was to determine
operations suitable for women.
In the whole concern of rural industry connected with agri­
culture and forestry only a dozen jobs had been estimated as
being suitable for women. The investigation showed that
180 operations can be easily done and done better by women.
The total number of women needed turned out to be much smaller
than the number of men employed formerly, and this was mainly
due to the new vision of the flow of efforts required for the jobs
in question. In some cases, however, the original estimate of
the suitability of jobs for women had to be revised. It had been
assumed that operating a machine for drilling holes into medium­
sized logs, involving little weight-lifting and simple handling of a
few clamps and switches, was a relatively easy job, and could
therefore be quickly learnt by a girl. What had been left out of
consideration was that the job is very straightforward, requiring
direct and angular movements. The space effort to be used
thereby does not correspond with the natural nimbleness and
flexibility of feminine effort. Our argument was that unless a girl
could be found who had a masculine flow of movement, the job
had better be left to a man or a boy. The foreman, disregarding
our advice as a too subtle speculation, delegated to the job a
70 EFFORT
girl who compensated the straightness o f the efforts needed
by dance-like evolutions connected with many unnecessary steps.
Her insufficient output and profound unhappiness were attributed
to personal stubbornness and unreliability, until we found her a
suitable job in the orchard, where she did very well.
The w ork in the orchard gives the opportunity o f mentioning
another unsuspected application o f the vision o f flow. Com­
plaints o f customers called attention to the fact that the lower
layers o f cherries collected in baskets were ripe, while the upper
layers were unripe. Carelessness on the part o f the Land Arm y
girls who did this job was assumed to be the cause. Observation
o f the flow o f their operational movements showed, however,
that these movements, which were at the beginning quite deter­
mined and relatively regular, became afterwards erratic and
undecided. It turned out that after a time they could no longer
discern the red colour o f the ripe cherries from the yellow colour
o f the unripe ones, which made them run uncertainly from one
tree to another. This increasing hesitation and restless way o f
working were obviously caused by eyestrain. In staring at the
small spots o f colour among the green foliage fluttering in the
wind, the operators soon lost the faculty to discern the colour
o f the cherries. Red and green are complementary colours which
are confused by naturally colour-blind people. The remedy for
the temporary colour-blindness o f the operators consisted in short
relaxations o f the eyes at regular intervals; after collecting each
layer o f cherries they were instructed to look at some spot o f
neutral colour or to shut the eyes for a moment. The result was
not only baskets full o f ripe cherries but also a much quicker filling
o f the baskets. The cause o f the disturbing irregularity was de­
tected by the observation o f the changes o f efforts which resulted
finally in movements characteristic o f blind people. Whenthegirls
had become used to relaxing their eye muscles at regular intervals,
the foreman had no further cause or opportunity to admonish
the girls for carelessness, and as the job was now done more
cheerfully, the whole atmosphere o f work was changed from
restless discontent into peace.
Thinking in terms o f effort seems to govern certain labour
regulations, as, for instance, the stipulation concerning the limits
o f weight-lifting for age groups and sexes, or the payment o f
 T H IN K IN G IN T ER M S OF E F F O R T 71
overtime, and so on. The consideration o f the weight and
time efforts contained in these regulations, however, is not
based upon real effort-thinking. Very few operations consist of
a simple weight effort only, and questions o f timing and speed
can never be solved independently o f the other efforts involved in
a job.
There is a great difference when a heavy object is simply lifted
from the ground on to a bench and’when the object lifted is
carried over a long distance, as, say, in a foundry when a mould
filled with sand is carried to the bed. There is again a difference
between the shouldering o f a sack o f potatoes and the lifting o f a
heavy object on to a high shelf. The efforts used in each of these
operations are quite different. To say that a boy or a woman
can lift so much and a man can lift a certain number o f pounds
more is an over-simplification.
In the early stages o f our experimental investigation we
visited a factory where motor-car tyres were subjected to certain
manufacturing processes. The small tyres, the weight o f which
represented approximately the official lifting limit allowed for
women, had disappeared together with private cars because o f war
conditions. A t the same time, and for the same cause, female
labour was introduced. One o f the activities involving a certain
weight effort was to hang the tyres on pegs at above shoulder
height. Our investigations proved that the prescribed limits for
handling weights are based on prejudice. The action of hanging
the tyres on the pegs contained, if well performed, almost no
lifting effort, so that the women could easily handle tyres of almost
double the weight of those quoted in the official scales. It was,
of course, necessary to instruct the operators not to lift but to
give the tyre a swing, by which it is carried by its own momentum
to the desired height. It was also necessary to train the operators
to support the tyre at the right instant before it had exhausted
its momentum, which action requires little strength but involves
the faculty of suddenly changing the sustained free-flowing
effort used during the swinging into a bound flow in order to stop
the movement. The presumed lifting operation thus vanished
into a rhythmic alteration of the contrasts o f flow effort and time
effort. The observation of two women painfully pushing the tyre
to the desired height engendered the vision o f the freely flowing
72 EFFORT
material which needed only a small addition o f human energy
exerted by one woman.
The Tim e-W eight mistakes resulting from the inability to
think in terms o f effort are legion. One o f the favourite time-
honoured tests o f apprentice efficiency in engineering activities is
the filing o f metal.
It is worth while considering these tests in detail, because they
so well reveal the present deficiency o f effort-thinking.
The attempt was made to assess efficiency in this job through
the measuring o f the number o f the filing strokes and the amount
or weight o f the filings produced.
Everybody knows that one does not file metal in order to pro­
duce filings, but to give the piece o f metal some desired shape.
In other words, filing is a form-giving activity.
In spite o f this, the amount o f filings produced in a certain
time has been taken in the investigation o f filing metal as the
measurable result o f the action. It was a great surprise to the
investigators that the amount o f filings produced does not increase
at the same ratio as the speed o f movement— that is, the number
o f filing strokes during a time unit.
In doing appreciably more than ninety filing strokes in a
minute, a limit o f speed is soon reached beyond which filing
ceases to be effective.
Between the output in filings there is, however, no appreciable
difference if either ninety strokes or seventy strokes are made in
one minute. The twenty strokes over the seventy, therefore,
constitute a pure waste o f effort.
What can be learnt from this experiment is that speediness
does not always increase efficiency.
But this is not all. It was discovered that the output does not
change regularly with the speed. Slow filing with from thirty-
three to thirty-five filing strokes in one minute produces 20 to
26-5 grams o f filings in an hour, while double the amount o f filing
strokes, namely, from sixty-six to seventy strokes in one minute,
does not produce, as might be expected, double the amount o f
filings, namely, 40 to 53 grams in an hour, but produces in fact
triple the amount, namely, 68 to 81 grams o f filings in an
hour.
From this it will be seen that for the simple purpose o f removing
 T H I N K I N G IN T E R M S OF E F F O R T 73
material through filing there is an optimum speed. All these
calculations concerning speed, however, become meaningless
when a shape is to be created. Mental efforts come into the pic­
ture and are bound to influence the rate o f output. The addition
o f mental elements necessarily demands a modification o f the
traditional outlook on effort research.
Apprentices twenty years ago spent seven years filing and
chipping in order to become fitters. To-day dilutee labour is
taught to do these things in six months, purely through the efforts
having been studied and performed correctly.
Yet still there is an idolisation o f speed, against which the
modern student o f effort-rhythm has constantly to fight. It
must be realised that speed cannot be increased indefinitely, or
rather up to the utmost capacity o f an individual, without
endangering the quality o f the action and thus also the quantity of
output. ,
Exaggerated speed kills reflection; too speedy action is wrong,
as it leads to thoughtlessness. Returning to the example of
filing, the real aim is to shape the piece o f metal by exerting a
sustained cutting pressure upon it. This cannot be done purely
mechanically— time must be left for the. intelligent observation
of the shape. This factor has been forgotten in the tests described
above.
The lack o f care for the shape can be clearly seen in the
ineffective hasty rubbing which characterises speedy filing.
Visual attention is a mental effort, and the degree o f its presence
or absence can be seen in the performance of the filing movement.
The worker is unable to control the effect of hasty strokes.
There is also a technical point which has escaped the attention
of early investigators, and that is the fact that actions are trans­
muted into other actions by increasing or decreasing their speed.
The new actions have quite a different effect. For instance, the
sustained pressure of good filing cannot remain a pressure if too
quickly done. A pressure is always relatively slow. Anybody
can try this out by pressing slowly and then by increasing the
speed. He will notice that the action is transmuted into a kind of
thrusting punch. Thrusts cannot be used effectively in good
filing.
Modern effort research has led to the discovery of the gradual
74 EFFORT
transmutation o f actions through the changes o f single elements
o f effort, as, for instance, speed. But motion has more elements
than one, and the harmonious interplay o f all o f them must be
taken into consideration if the aim is to determine how far an
operation has been performed efficiently.
The faculty o f man to get the conscious sensation (colloquially
“ to get the feel ” ) o f such mutations and o f any other changes in
rhythm and effort is something which is an essential addition to
effort-thinking.
Many prejudices concerning human effort are artificially
inculcated into the mind and effort-habits o f the unfortunate
industrial apprentice. The learners are no better off when
entering a factory where the same thoughtless insistence upon
the phantoms o f speed and mass continues to impair their
working efficiency and happiness.
Thinking in terms o f effort should, however, precede the
probable failures resulting from the usual trial and error methods,
instead o f being applied in cases o f emergency and after accidents or
debacles only. Many operations o f our highly mechanised epoch
require effort-combinations which are not at all natural and do
not correspond to the ordinary movement habits o f man. Mind
and body must be sometimes trained upwards to the machines
as their structure and rhythm become more and more exacting.
The functional purpose o f the machine may produce such
increases o f temperature, speed, noise and so on, that man can
hardly endure it.
This is again a new view o f future effort-thinking, that in
effort-training a simple device is offered by which man can be
provided with a higher degree o f endurance. There are, of
course, cases where additional mechanical devices are the only
resource; but looking at these devices one will see that although
they do not require an increase o f physical strength they doubtless
ask for highly increased attentional efforts and other forms of
mental strain.
Many new inventions demand new movements and combina­
tions of efforts for which the human body engine does not seem
to be adapted. Take, for instance, parachute-jumping from an
aeroplane. Although this is not exactly an industrial operation
in the narrower sense, it shows clearly man’s adaptation to the
 T H I N K I N G IN T E R M S OF E F F O R T 75
use of machines, and is most characteristic for the new effort-
combinations arising in our present form of civilisation.
The main and first experience of a parachutist is the falling into
the void. It is connected with a feeling of passivity and sudden
relaxation o f all muscles, frequently followed by a complete
cramping of the body, which both stand in great contrast to the
efforts needed for a successful descent. The parachutist has to
release the canopy—if this is not done mechanically as with
modern military parachutes. He has to look up to see if ‘the
canopy ropes are twisted; if they are twisted he must try to
untwist them by kicking his feet or by methodical swinging. He
must release air from the canopy, providing thus for a direct
descent. He can do this by grasping the forward or the rear
webs on which he hangs. Sometimes he must grasp diagonally
and pull either one or two webs to release air. He must occasion­
ally turn round to see the ground beneath him, which move­
ment is effected by crossing his arms and pulling the webs
simultaneously.
In preparing the landing, he must either grasp the front webs,
bend his head down, press his feet together, toes up, knees bent,
if he wants to land by rolling on his back; or grasp the rear webs,
head down, feet together, toes up, knees bent and turned slightly
sideways, if he wants to land forward.
Landing sideways or diagonally requires slightly different
positions and actions all aiming at the preservation o f ankles,
knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, head, from a too vehement
impact with the ground.
None of these combinations o f positions and efforts is natural
to man, but he can be trained to get the feel o f them and even to
automatise their most salient features.
The greatest danger is to carry the head high—the traditional
gesture o f heroic man— which leads infallibly to concussion or
even to a broken neck.
To-day these movements have all been thoroughly studied—
but after how many tragic and fatal trials and errors ! Thinking
in terms o f effort at the outset of the first parachuting experiments,
and of many other new and unusual exertions, would have saved
the lives and health o f many thousands.
The difference between such outstanding examples o f new forms
76 EFFORT
o f human efforts and the modern complication in ordinary
industrial life is not so great as might be surmised. The drivers
o f all the numerous vehicles which man has invented need clear
effort-thinking, but the basic preconditions o f this kind o f thinking
are still in the dark.
The possibility o f discovering the sources o f individual effort-
failures and o f improving results by effort-training must be
extended to group w ork and team work.
A s an example the following experimental investigation may
be mentioned.
The cause o f an atmosphere o f discontent and general mistrust
in a factory, or in one o f its departments, is usually ascribed to
unhappiness in work. Such a statement, however, offers no
solution to the problem. Searching for the root o f such detri­
mental moods in a special case, it became obvious that it could be
neither the excessive heaviness o f the work, because the job was
not heavy, nor could it be any other outer condition, such as
irregularities in the flow o f material or in insufficient payment or
bad treatment, because the outer conditions were excellent.
Common negative criticisms o f administration measures were
rather the result than the cause o f the mood, because these
criticisms were without serious foundations.
Only two men seemed to stand apart or be free from the
common brooding in this department, and these two were people
who performed the operations with the relatively light efforts
which were really needed for the specific task. All the others
overstrained themselves without necessity.
Following up this cue, the individual performance o f the rest—
some twenty people working separately on the same job— was
investigated in all its details. The astonishing fact was that they
all showed the same divergence from the natural effort-sequence
applied by the two men who alone did not adopt the negative
attitude o f the others.
The exaggerated efforts used by the majority can be briefly
described as a kind o f cramped weight effort, due perhaps to the
fact that they had never received any essential movement instruc­
tion in the performance o f the relatively light job; accordingly,
they devised their own method o f dealing with it. This method
consisted mainly o f regularly recurring violent contractions o f the
 T H I N K I N G IN T E R M S OF E F F O R T 77
muscles o f hands and arms; similar efforts are the expression of
anger, impatience and even fury. In this special case the con­
tinuous repetition o f these efforts seemed to engender or at least
to promote the mood of anger and impatience without any root or
cause in outer circumstances.
The increasing excitement was brought to a standstill, the
mood gradually disappeared and the self-inflicted overstrain
gradually ceased when the men were induced to use the calm
effort-sequences of the two peaceful men.
The only obstacle to a complete cure was the manager, who was
himself a man with spasmodic hand and arm muscle contractions.
He was not able to think in terms of effort and was strongly
opposed to a systematic effort-training. His conversion would
have required the training o f himself.
Much good can be done when the logic o f effort is grasped and
assimilated by the logic o f the brain. In heavy engineering team
piecework is unavoidable. Equally unavoidable is the conflict
within the team, o f which fifty per cent, do the real work while
the other half of the team shares the payment without greatly
contributing to the output. We met such a case during one o f
our early experimental investigations. The great variety and
changing character o f the work in heavy engineering, where
teams are needed for the production o f a single piece o f work,
say, o f boilers, does not allow for any o f the usual yardsticks o f
the value o f work.
Templet-makers, grinders, hand burners, smiths, drillers,
platers and many other helpers who co-operate in the production
o f one article, all need different amounts o f time for each special
job. The time needed by a templet-maker might vary from fifty
hours for a complicated job to a few minutes for a simple one.
The templet-maker must reflect more than other members o f the
team.
Some jobs can be done in a speedy way— others require sus­
tained work. A fast plater is usually crude, but there is a
difference between a sustained plater who does his work
thoroughly and a slow plater who uses awkward methods o f
procedure.
Some jobs require great strength while others must be done
with fine touch. Although few o f the jobs occurring in this
7» EFFORT
team-effort were really repetitive, there were some jobs which
had to be done in series, such as the adjusting o f pipes by the
fitters. The foreman estimates the duration o f the w ork on a
certain item containing a series o f pipe settings, say, a hundred,
and i f there is any slowing down, which would tend to retard
subsequent jobs, the operators are “ pushed on ” by the foreman.
Some jobs are neither repetitive nor serial, but consist o f entirely
free operations adapted to the requirements o f the moment.
Minute operations alternate with w ork requiring much space or
with that demanding great flexibility within a relatively small
space. Some o f the workers may sit and w ork leisurely, while
others, as, for instance, those operating inside the boiler, have to
adopt strange contortions. The flow o f w ork is in each job
different; continuous flow can be seen besides irregularly
interrupted sudden actions.
A job-effort graph showing the rhythm o f these various opera­
tions looks like a score o f orchestral music, because there is not
one line o f efforts only but several which are performed simul­
taneously by different persons.
Such an effort-graph, however, offers the solution o f the
problem o f how to measure the value o f the individual contribu­
tion to the team effort. Each individual’s performance does or
does not fit into the common rhythm, and this determines the
positive or negative value o f his contribution to the team-
effort. Degrees o f fitting into the team-effort become discernible.
One man never falls out o f the common rhythm, another some­
times fails in the right joining in, and a third might continuously
hamper or obstruct the common action— not to speak o f those
who carefully avoid joining in at all, leaving the work as far as
possible to the others.
A relatively high degree o f effort-thinking is required for the
establishment or specification o f such complex forms o f job
rhythm. When the latter has once been established it is easy for
any intelligent foreman to control the personal performances
efficiently. The result will then be “ payment according to
performance,” and such form o f bonus payment up to a certain
percentage o f basic wages has indeed been tried out in some
places following our recommendation. The method has been
found satisfactory enough to be kept going for years without the
 T H I N K I N G IN T E R M S OF E F F O R T 79
troublesome complaints to which team piecework was hitherto
subjected.
The assessment o f the individual performances within a team
cannot be done without thinking in terms o f effort. It has been
found, however, that the foremen instructed for this purpose
have assimilated this kind o f thinking very readily in a few weeks.
Another important point is that the office routine, by which the
assessments o f the foremen are translated into money value, must
also be guided by effort-thinking. The administrative personnel
facing this task responded excellently and thus contributed to
the happy solution o f the problem.
The not entirely unexpected but not directly intended result of
this kind o f effort-control was that it gave an incentive to better
and happier work and to higher output. This becomes under­
standable if one considers the effect o f work control based upon
effort-thinking in all the simpler cases mentioned previously.
In such cases the managing staff and administrative personnel
are directly involved in the effort-control o f production. This,
however, does not yet mean that the administrative activities
themselves have been measured according to the principles o f
effort. Steps towards this aim can be seen in some o f our
experimental investigations, chiefly in those concerned with the
selection o f higher executives. In order to exemplify the salient
features o f procedure, one o f these cases might be sketched in its
general outline.
Confronted with several applicants for the post o f an executive,
it was decided to complete the information gained at the usual
interviews by observing the personal movement efforts o f the
applicants while being interviewed. The bodily efforts with
which they entered the room, sat down, reacted to questions,
presented documents, took leave and left the room were recorded
in terms o f effort without any psychological annotation. Two
main points turned out to be o f interest. First, those common
traits which obviously arose in connection with the kind o f job
for which they had applied became obvious. Second, the
personal differences giving an insight into the personal effort-
balance o f each applicant could be stated.
The efforts contained in the common traits were with a few
applicants very, clear and intensive, in one case even over­
8o EFFORT
intensive. T o a person knowing the job in question it became
quite obvious which o f the applicants was the most suitable, or,
in the special case, when two o f them had the necessary array o f
efforts which could make them successful. It was even possible
to set up a kind o f job-effort graph in which all the desirable
efforts were included.
The personal efforts extracted from the records gave a quite
different picture. Effort-habits could be noticed which were
either poor, consisting o f few and lopsided efforts, while others
were rich, consisting o f a certain number o f contrasting efforts.
Poor as well as rich efforts were o f different intensity. Con­
centrating on the two applicants who seemed to be most suitable
in their job-efforts, it was found that one o f them belonged to the
group with rich personal effort, while the other was decidedly
lopsided.
This case was an experimental investigation and no decisive
role was given to the effort-assessment; the only practical success
was that one o f the applicants who was interested in the procedure
took up the study o f thinking in terms o f effort, and according to
him he derived great benefit from our findings in trying to correct
some o f the incongruities o f his personal effort-graph made on
this occasion.
In cases investigated later, the executives observed were
informed o f the results o f the investigation, which frequently
showed that the person observed had qualities quite different from
those which he himself imagined he possessed.
A production manager, who changed successfully to salesman­
ship after consultation with the observers o f his efforts, is well
remembered, because he was at first extremely distrustful and
doubtful, fearing that his position might be impaired through the
investigation. However, he obtained a better position in which
he is much happier than in the former one and he knows now
something about his effort-habits and their connection with
earlier failures.
An enlightened industrialist who is an excellent man at all
kinds o f business meetings was anxious to know our impressions
o f his personal efforts during such meetings. Responding
eagerly to his invitation, for such an opportunity to investigate
the efforts o f leading industrialists is quite rare, we found our-
 T H I N K I N G IN T E R M S OF E F F O R T
selves at a round table in illustrious company. Our attention
was concentrated upon the Chairman, who had invited us, and
his main antagonist. What we were able to record was a kind
o f effort-dialogue in which certain small movements appeared,
which, though entirely independent of the object of speech and
bargain, gave an interesting picture of the kind and intensity of
intentions with which the controversy was conducted.
The whole line o f this effort dialogue can best be summarised as
follows :

Antagonist : attacked vigorously with intensive cutting and

hitting shadow moves.
Chairman : answered with quiet smoothing gliding efforts and
occasional sharp dabbing gestures.
Antagonist : lost the intensity and reverted to twisting pressing
efforts.
Chairman : took to hitting and piercing moves, attenuated
finally by a light flicking.
Antagonist : reintensified his efforts with several heavy thrust­
ing efforts.
Chairman : applied a whole battery o f gliding, thrusting,
floating, flicking and slashing efforts,
Antagonist : became slightly floating, and afterwards lost any
clear effort-expression.

It was clear at this moment that the Chairman possessed a much

richer scale o f intentional effort and great agility in changing
them, while his antagonist was less balanced, much more exag­
gerated in intensity and almost poor or, at least, lopsided in his
effort-manifestations.
The dialogue, interrupted frequently by other persons who
stimulated the antagonist as well as the Chairman in their specific
effort utterances, ended thus :

A ntagonist : continuous pressing effort with a sudden explosion

into a mighty thrust.
Chairman : light flicking, short dabbing, some pressure soon
relieved by floating.
G
82 EFFORT
A ntagonist : motionless— short wringing— his mental effort
was knocked out.
Chairman : quiet smoothing gliding and a final dab as a kind
o f relaxation.

The demonstrations in this and other meetings were first

considered as great fun, yet not without the charm o f a certain
eccentricity and originality. Later on it led to more serious
applications and opened the door for the investigation o f
the rhythm o f whole enterprises including production and
administration.
One point is o f interest in this connection, namely, the com­
pounding o f machine efforts with human efforts. The inventor
and builder o f a machine or mechanical device obviously intends
to replace and to enlarge at the same time some specific human
effort. Machines hit, press, lift, carry, smooth, flick, dab, wring,
and so on, like a man, but machines can mostly exert one effort-
action only, though in an intensified way. Man can exert several
or all efforts, but their intensity remains very restricted when
compared with those o f the machine. The rules o f the co­
ordination o f the machine effort with the human effort became
clear to us in so many experimental investigations that they
cannot even be enumerated here.
What is to be gained by the application o f effort-thinking to the
functions and tasks o f machines might perhaps be seen best from
an example o f unloading goods from vehicles and storing them in a
shed. In olden times, such operations were done by men who
climbed into the vehicle, shouldered the goods and carried them
into the shed where the wares were stacked, either by the carriers
or by their helpers To-day cranes and trucks are installed which
can collect and lift several sacks, boxes or bales in one grip and
transport them easily and speedily to any distance and height
desired. Human effort is only used in preparing, hooking and
unhooking the load and in driving the cranes and trucks.
Many people say that man has become the servant or slave of
the machine, which is, however, equally as nonsensical as the
idea that man is the master o f the machine. The effort o f the
machine is in reality an artificial extension o f man’ s effort. When
some part o f the effort— no matter whether its mechanical or
 T H I N K I N G IN T E R M S OF E F F O R T 83
living half—runs wild, the effort is not mastered, that is to say,
it is wastefully applied, to the damage o f those who use it.
The sanest way to look at the combination o f mechanical
devices and human energy is to consider them as a complex unit,
like the teamwork o f several people, and not as the work o f two
separate entities. The whole rhythm o f the operation can thus
be gathered within one effort-graph which resembles to a certain
extent again a score o f orchestral music, in which several lines o f
effort develop simultaneously. While one crane stacks the goods
just lifted from the truck which brought them fropi the train into
the shed, another crane outside lifts simultaneously a new load
from the train on to another truck which is ready to carry the
new load to the crane inside the shed. Everybody will
agree that it is more difficult to understand a verbal description
than a graphical representation o f this simple coming and going.
It is a part o f the thinking in terms o f effort that such simul­
taneities are quickly grasped and the importance o f their uninter­
rupted flow rightly understood.
Breakdowns within this continuous flow are almost always
caused by the deficient function o f one or several o f the men
loading or driving cranes and trucks. There might be some
exerting physical human effort in preparing the load or in
pushing the goods into their final position on the stacks. On the
whole it is an attentional effort o f each of the workmen connected
with their rhythmic feel of the flow o f the operation which
guarantees flawless success.
This is an entirely new aspect which demands the developing of
the rhythmic feel o f the workmen. Hitherto little has been done
to satisfy this need o f modern production, and it is only by
thinking in terms of efforts that the problem of the co-ordination
o f human and machine effort can be brought nearer to its solution.
The real benefit o f the increasing mechanisation cannot otherwise
be achieved.
It is obvious that executives and managers have to understand
and to consider this new viewpoint, because the best functioning
rhythmic feel o f the workman is powerless when the whole job is
planned without more profound knowledge of what has been
called the logic o f efforts.
It must be mentioned that our experiments have not been
84 EFFORT
restricted to industry. Any o f the 18,000 different occupations
in which modern man endeavours to earn his living is full o f the
most interesting effort-manifestations.
A great number o f them have been investigated, with a special
bias for the profession o f the teacher. This is quite natural,
because effort instruction is a new branch o f teaching, and the
job-effort specification o f teaching lies, therefore, within the orbit
o f our research. The impressions gained in schools do not differ
essentially from those encountered in factories. It is as important
to know and to study the efforts o f specific groups o f children
gathered in a class as it is the efforts o f the employees in a depart­
ment o f a factory.
Teachers could easily learn all they should know about effort
in industrial enterprises. They could be selected and instructed
in a similar way to industrialists or workmen. They could apply
the same methods o f assessment in studying the effort habits o f
the children for whom they have to care.
The training o f the efforts o f children is, however, slightly a
different matter. The main problem is without doubt the keeping
alive o f the natural effort-richness which most healthy children
possess. The cure o f effort-deficiencies is a secondary task, like
that o f the education o f the so-called backward children. Experi­
ments have shown that the main problem, and possibly also the
secondary ones, can be solved within the art education in school,
and there mainly by an appropriate kind o f dancing.* In dance
the working efforts o f man are sublimated and used for a recrea­
tional purpose. This fact points to a means by which the
problem o f effort-training in schools should be tackled.
Apart from those engaged in industrial work and the teaching
profession, there are very many others who can benefit by thinking
in terms o f effort. The professional artist is the man who mirrors
the efforts o f other people, and he is able to do that through
thinking in terms o f effort. And we must not forget that
management is an art and the manager must think in terms of
the efforts o f his workers. The doctor must study the efforts o f
his patients, the author the efforts o f those to whom his works are
addressed.
Effort-training for children, for artists, for industrial workers
•See R. Laban. Modern Educational Dance, Second Edition, published by
Macdonald & Evans, 1963
 T H I N K I N G IN T E R M S OF E F F O R T 8j
and for members o f the professions differs in detail, but the
basic need o f thinking in terms o f effort remains the same for all
people o f the present and future generations. And, after all—
and we hope our readers will agree with us— thinking in terms
o f effort can be a most interesting subject and an entirely new
accessory to the mastery o f work and life.
 IN D E X
A Crushing, 28
A d m in is t r a t iv e activities, 59 Cutting, 28
Alertness, 61
Anatomy, 2 D
Anger, 77 Dabbing, 14
Anthropology, 2 Dance, 3
Apprenticeship, 2, 75 Decision, 60
Appropriate efforts, 14 Derivations of the basic efforts,
Artistic occupations, 59 Diagrams A, B and C, 24
Assessment, 61 Differentiation of effort, 37
Attention, 60 Direct, 10
Attentions] effort, 83 Discharges of energy, 64
phase, 61 Dissolution, 32
Automatic compensation, 36 Disturbed effort balance, 40
repetitive movements, j Doctor, 84
Automatism, 64
E
Easy effort, 34
B Economy of effort, 1,3 4
Backward children, 84 of time, 44
Balanced effort display, 42 Education of children, 63
Basic actions, 14 Effort assessment, 39, 64
combination, 13 balance, 33
efforts, 19 behaviour, 36
Beating, 28 capacities, 36, 40
Biology, 2 characteristics, 38
Bodily exhaustion, 37 content, 64
Body tension, 19 contrasts, 40
Bound flow, 8 deficiencies, 84
Business, 39 diagonal, a6
failures, 76
C graph, 8, 9, 10, 13
Capacity for control, 8 habits, 31
for exertion, 7 intensity, 66
Character qualities, 37 life, 60
Combination of efforts, 18 make-up, 36, 40
Compensating capacities, 39 manifestation, 37, 37
efforts, 39 mutation, 67
Compensation by contrasts, 38 observation, 63
Complex efforts, 18 phenomena, 36
Compound of effort, 34 research, 39, 34
Conscious sensation, 74 rhythm, 60
Contrast, 22, 23 richness, 84
Contrasting capacities, 36 sequence, 43, 76
efforts, 22 tendencies, 67
elements, 66 thinking, 71, 78
Control, 3 training, 18, 26, 42
Controlled effort, 4 Efforts of children, 84
Costing, 33 Elements of effort, 8
Crampedness, 37 Employees, 60
Cramped vibration, 19 Employers, 60
 INDEX
Emotionality, 64 Intermediary, non-essential efforts, 48
Emotional shadow moves, 64 Involuntary movements, 3
Essential effort, 46
Evaluation of effort, 64
Everyday behaviour, 41 erking, 31
Exaggerated effort, 55 ob effort assessment, 42, 43
Exertion, 3 effort graph, 78
effort specification, 84
F specification, 53
Facial expression, 59
Fatigue, j, 39 L
Feel, 65 Ladder of efforts, 60
Female labour, 71 Latent capacity, gift, quality, 2, 40
Fight against time, 34 Laziness, 38
Fine touch, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 Less essential efforts, 47
Flapping, 31 Lightness, 8
Flexible, 10 Logic of efforts, 77, 83
Flicking, 14 Lopsided, 18
Flightiness, 38 effort, 80
Flipping, 30 effort habits, 40
Floating, 14
Flow, 4 M
of material, 69 Manager, 68
Fluent flow, 8 Mental activity, 61
Foreman, 68 control, 61
Form-giving activity, 72 exertion, 59
Frightened attention, 63 Mime effects, 63
Fury, 77 Missing efforts, 39
Fussiness, 37 Motion factor, 4
Motoric basis, 64
G efforts, 61
Games, 3 Movement instructions, 76
Get the feel, 74 Muscle, 3, 5, 6, 15, 16, 19
Gliding, 14 tissue, 6
Gymnastics, 3 Music, 3
Mutations, 74
Habits, 26 N
Habitual efforts, 39 Nervous energy, 6
Haste, 12 overstrain, 37
Hastiness, 38 system 3
Higher output, 79 Noise, 66
Human effort, 6j Non-essential transition, 51
factor, J4
relationship, 6j O
Objective results, 52
Obstinacy, 37
Impatience, 77 Office activities, 60
Inappropriate use of movement, 7 work, 61
Inclination, 36 Operational phase, 61
Incomplete efforts, 38, 41 Operations suitable for women, 69
Inconsistencies, 41 Over-specialisation, 41
Indulging in time, 54
Industrial psychology, 54 P
Inhibition, 65 Parachute jumping, 74
Inquiring attention, 63 Patting, 29
Instruction, 1 Personal effort graph, 80
Intellectual work, 59 habits, 41
Intention, 60 movement tensions, 41
88 INDEX
Personality, 39 Sociology, 2
Physiology, 2 Space, 4
Plucking, 29 Spontaneity, 66
Precision, 60 Sports, 3
Predilections, 41 Squeezing, 28
Preparation, 52 Stickiness, 38
Pressing, 14 Stirring, 31
Proportionality, 4 Stressed effort, 34
between motion factors, 7 Stretching, 29
Psychology, 2 Strewing, 31
Psychological terms, 59 Stroking, 31
interpretation, 64 Strong, 8
Pulling, 29 Struggle against, 34
Punching, 14 Subjective, 33, 34
Pushing, 20 Sullen, 63
Supervisors, 68

Quick, 11
Q Surprised attention, 63
Suspicious attention, 63
Sustained, 12

Recreational trainer, 3
Reflection, 61
Regenerating, 63
Relaxation, 3, 5, 19 piecework, 77
Reliability test, 3 5 Temperament, 37
Resistance to adverse situations, 3$ Tensions, 19
Rest, 5 Theatrical arts, 3
Rhythm, j Thinking in terms of effort, 70
of effort, 3 Thoroughness, 61
Rhythmic energy, 60 Throwing, 14, 28
exertions, 6 Thrust, 20
feel, 83 Time, 4
flow, 43 and motion study, 34
Rhythmical control, 63 Transformation of efforts, 32
dislocation, 60 Transition, 19, 70
sense, 12 Transitional action, 32
traits, 61 Transmuted, 73
action, 44 Trial and Error method, 18, 74
Richness of efforts, 38
S Unbalanced personal effort, 39
Scale of intentional efforts, 81 Unco-ordinated efforts, 34
Selection, 1, 33 Unstressed secondary, 26
of higher executives, 79
Sequence of efforts, 43
of working movements, 3 3
Shadow moves, 60, 64 Vision of flow, 70
Shaking, 30 Voluntary movements, 3
Shoving, 16
Sign of effort, 10
Skill, 1 Weight, 4
Slashing, 14 Weight-Time-Space control, 4
Sloppiness, 37 Whipping, 29
Smearing, 30 Work control, 79
Smoothing, 14, 30 Working rhythm, 60
Smudging, 30 Wringing, 14