The Psychology of Management by L. M. Gilbreth (best large ebook reader .txt) 📕

Psychology a Final Appeal as to Permanent Value of Any Standard. — The standard under management, even under Scientific Management, can lay no claim to being perfect. It can never nearly approach perfection until the elements are so small that it is practicable to test them psychologically and physiologically. The time when this can be done in many lines, when the benefit that will directly accrue will justify the necessary expenditure, may seem far distant, but every analysis of operations, no matter how rudimentary, is hastening the day when the underlying, permanently valuable elements can be determined and their variations studied.

Coöperation Will Hasten the Day of Psychological and Physiological Study of Standards. — Coöperation in collecting and comparing the results of motion study and time study everywhere will do much to assist toward more ultimate determination of elements. At the present time the problems that management submits to psychology are too indefinite and cover too large a field to be attacked successfully. Coöperation between management standardizers would mean —

1. that all management data would be available to psychologists and physiologists.

2. that such data, being available also to all standardizers, would prevent reduplication of results.

3. that savings would result.

4. that, from a study and comparison of the collected data a trained synthetic mind could build up better standards than could be built from any set of individual data.

5. Savings would result from this.

6. Inventions would also result.

7. Savings would again result from these.

8. All of these various savings could be invested in more intensive study of elements.

9. These more valuable results would again be available to psychologists and physiologists.

This cycle would go on indefinitely. Meantime, all would benefit with little added cost to any. For the results of the psychological and physiological study would be available to all, and investigators in those lines have shown themselves ready and glad to undertake investigations.

Purpose of Standardization. — The purpose of standardizing is the same under all types of management; that is, it is the elimination of waste.

Standardization Frequently Attempted Under Traditional Management. — In much progressive Traditional Management there is an appreciation of the necessity of standardizing tools and equipment, that is to say, of having these on the "duplicate part system," that assembling may be done quickly, and repairs made without delay.

The manager notices some particularly successful man, or method, or arrangement of tools, equipment, or the surroundings, and decides to have a record made thereof that the success may be repeated. These records, if made in sufficient detail, are very valuable. The difficulty is that so often the man making the records does not observe all the variables. Hence the very elements which caused the success may be overlooked entirely.

Value of Standardization Not Appreciated Under Traditional Management. — It is surprising, under Traditional Management, to note, in many cases, the years that elapse before any need for standardization is felt. It is also surprising that, even when some standardization has been done, its importance is seldom realized. The new standard becomes a matter of course, and the management fails to be impressed enough with its benefits to apply the principle of standardization to other fields.

Under Transitory Management Standardization Becomes Constantly More Important. — Not until Motion Study and Time Study have been introduced can the full benefits of standardization be attained. But as soon as the Transitory Stage of Management appears, the importance of standardization is realized. This is brought about largely through the records of individual outputs, which constantly call attention to the necessity of making available to all the methods, tools and equipment of the most successful workers.

Records of Successes Become More Profitable. — The rules which embody successful practice become more profitable as the necessity for more detailed recording of all the variables becomes possible. An appreciation of what scientific motion study and time study will ultimately do affects the minds of the management until the workers are given directions as to methods to be used, and the incentive of extra pay for following directions.

"Systems" Show an Appreciation of Psychology. — The "Systems," standing orders or collections of written directions, that are evolved at this stage have a permanent value. This is especially true when the directions, often called "rules," contain the reason for the rule. There is a decided awakening to the importance of Psychology in this appeal to the reason of the worker. He is not affronted by being forced to follow directions for which he is given no reason and which he has no reason to believe have been scientifically derived. These rules, in a certain typical case, are stated in simple language, some in the form of commands, some in the form of suggestions, and are obviously so prepared as to be understood and obeyed by the workers with the least possible amount of effort, opposition and time. As ample opportunity is given for suggestions, the worker's attention and interest are held, and any craving he may have for self-expression is gratified.

Systems Permanently Useful. — These systems, collections of rules, directions or standing orders are useful even when Ultimate Management is completely installed —

1. for use as records of successful methods which may be scientifically studied for elements.

2. for use by the instruction card clerk in explaining to the men why the rules on the instruction card are given.

Relation of Systems to Standards Should Be Emphasized. — The worker is too often not made to understand the relation of Systems to Standards. The average worker does not object to Systems, because he realizes that the System is a collection of his best, least wasteful methods of doing work. When he can be convinced that standards are only efficient elements of his own methods scientifically studied and combined, any opposition to them will disappear.

The Personal Note of the "System" Should Be Preserved. — Perhaps one thing that makes the typical "Systems" so attractive is the personal note that they contain. Illustrated with pictures of successful work that the workers themselves have done, often containing pictures of the men themselves that illustrate successful methods, with mention of the names of men who have offered valuable suggestions or inventions, they make the worker feel his part in successful results. They conserve the old spirit of coöperation between the master and his apprentices.

The conditions of modern industry make it extremely difficult to conserve this feeling. Scientific Management is successful not only because it makes possible a more effective coöperation than has ever existed since the old "master-and-apprentice" relation died out, but also because it conserves in the Systems the interim channel for personal communication between the various members of the organization.

Systems a Valuable Assistance in Transition to Scientific Management. — One great problem which those introducing Scientific Management have to face is exactly how to make the worker understand the relation of the new type of management to the old. The usefulness of the written system in use in most places where it is planned to introduce Scientific Management as a means of making the worker understand the transition has, perhaps, not been appreciated.

The development of the standard from the system is easy to explain. This being done, all parts of Scientific Management are so closely related that their interrelation can be readily made apparent.

It is the worker's right as well as privilege to understand the management under which he works, and he only truly coöperates, with his will and judgment as well as with his hands, when he feels that his mind is a part of the directing mind.

Standardization Under Scientific Management Eliminates Waste Scientifically. — Under Scientific Management the elimination of waste by the use of standards becomes a science. Standards are no longer based on opinions, as under Traditional Management, but are based upon scientific investigation of the elements of experience.

As James says, in the "Psychology, Briefer Course," page 156, paragraph 4, — "It is obvious and palpable that our state of mind is never precisely the same. Every thought we have of a given fact is, strictly speaking, unique and only bears a resemblance of kind with our other thoughts of the same facts. When the identical fact recurs we must think of it in a fresh manner, see it under a somewhat different angle, apprehend it in different relations from those in which it last appeared."

The Standard the Result of Measurement. — It is obvious, therefore, that a scientifically derived standard can never be the outcome of an opinion. Whenever the opinion returns, the different thoughts with which it would be accompanied would so color it as to change it, and the standard with it. It is obvious, therefore, that a standard must be the result of definite mathematical and other measured proof, and not of an opinion, and that the standard must be in such physical shape that the subject-matter will always be clearly defined, otherwise the ultimate losses resulting from dependent sequences of the standard schedule and time-tables would be enormous.

Successful Standardization Demands Complete Conformity to Standards. — The laws for establishment of standards; the laws of achieving them; the laws for preventing deviations from those paths that will permit of their achievement; the dependent sequences absolutely necessary to perform the complete whole; these have been worked out and given to the world by Dr. Taylor, who recognized, as James has said, page 157, that, "a permanently existing 'Idea' which makes its appearance before the footlights of consciousness at periodic intervals, is as mythological an entity as the Jack of Spades." The entire organization from the highest to the lowest must conform to these standards. It is out of the question to permit the deviations resulting from individual initiative. Individual initiative is quite as objectionable in obtaining the best results, — that is, high wages and low production cost, — as service would be on a railroad if each locomotive engineer were his own train despatcher, determining at what time and to what place he would go.

Initiative Provided For. — There is a distinct place for initiative in Scientific Management, but that place is not outside of the planning department, until the planning department's method has been proved to be fully understood by achieving it. The standards must be made by the men to whom this work is assigned, and they must be followed absolutely by the worker. He is willing to follow them, under Scientific Management, because he realizes that a place for his suggestions is supplied, and that, if his suggestions are accepted, they will be incorporated into the new standards which must then be followed by all thereafter.

Standardization Applies to the Work of All. — It is important to note that standardizing is applied to the work of all. This, if understood by all, will do away with all question of discrimination or the lack of a "square deal." It will make the worker feel ready to follow his standard exactly, just as he knows the manager is following his. So, also, the worker should be made to realize that the very fact that there is a standardization means, under Scientific Management, that that applies to every man, and that there is no discrimination against him in any possible way.

Standardization Conserves and Develops Individuality. — Standardization conserves individual capacity by doing away with the wasteful process of trial and error of the individual workman. It develops individuality by allowing the worker to concentrate his initiative upon work that has not before been done, and by providing incentive and reward for inventions.

Waste Eliminated Is Eliminated Permanently. — Scientific Management not only eliminates waste, but provides that waste shall be eliminated for all time in the future.

The standard once written down, there can be no slipping back into the old methods based upon opinions of