Text 3 for questions number 71-73.

    To maximize profits, an employer should control his or her environment in a factory, shop, or office and make sure that examples of energy and efficiency are numerous enough to catch employee attention and establish an atmosphere of industry. In the workplace, there are instances in which it would be in the mutual interest of the employer and the employees to increase the speed of work, but conditions may limit or forbid the use of pacesetters. In construction work and in some of the industries, where there are minute subdivisions of operations and continuity of processes, this method of increasing efficiency is very commonly applied with the use of time cards and software. In many factories, however, such an effort to "speed up" production might stir resentment, even among the workers paid at a fixed rate for each unit produced or action performed, and have an effect exactly opposite to that desired. The alternative, of course, is for the employer to secure unconscious pace-setting by providing incentives for the· naturally ambitious men and women in the way of a premium or bonus system or other reward for above-average efficiency.

    Accordingly, to take advantage of the benefits of conscious or voluntary imitation, workers must be provided with examples that appeal to them as admirable and inspire the wish to emulate them. A common application of this principle is seen in the choice of department heads, foremen, and other bosses. Invariably these people win promotion by industry, skill, and efficiency greater than that displayed by their direct peers, or by mastery of their skills that enable them to show their less efficient peers how any and all operations should be conducted. This focusing of attention upon individuals worthy of imitation has been carried much farther by various companies. Some create weekly or monthly papers published primarily for circulation within the organization to record every incident reflecting unusual skill, initiative, or personal power in an individual member of the organization. A big order closed, a difficult contract secured, a complex or delicate operation performed in less than the usual time, a new personal record in production, the invention of an unproved method or machine-whatever the achievement, it is described and glorified, its perpetrator praised and held up for emulation. This, indeed, is one of the methods by which the larger sales organizations have obtained remarkable results.

Which of the following best illustrates an instance of successful unconscious pace-setting?