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

Result to the Work. — Under Traditional Management, where standards are not established, the worker is constantly delayed by the necessity for decision of choice, by the lack of knowing what should be chosen, and by a dearth of standard equipment, materials and tools from which to choose.

Under Transitory Management, with the introduction of standards, the elimination of delays and the provision for standard surroundings and supplies of all kinds, comes increased output of the desired quality.

Under Scientific Management, not only is output increased and quality assured, but results of work can be predicted. 13

Results to the Worker. — Results from standardization to the worker under Traditional and Transitory Management are the same as, and are included in, results under Scientific Management.

State of Worker's Feelings Improved. — Under Scientific Management the state of the employé's feelings is improved by the standardization. It is a recognized fact that mental disturbance from such causes as fear of losing his job will sometimes have the same ill effect upon a workman as does overwork, or insufficient rest for overcoming fatigue. It will occasionally wear upon the nervous system and the digestive organs. Now Scientific Management by standardization removes from the workman this fear of losing his job, for the worker knows that if he conforms to the standard instructions he certainly will not lose his position unless the business as a whole is unsuccessful.

On the other hand, feelings, such as happiness and contentment, and even hearing rhythmic sounds, music, etc., are an aid toward increasing output. For the best results, therefore, under Scientific Management the worker is furnished with standard conditions; his train of ideas is held upon the work in hand without interruption, and the working conditions are such that the managers furnish the worker with inducements to conform to the standard conditions happily.

Worker's Retentive Power Increased. — We note in the second place, the increased retentive power of anyone who is working with standards. There is great difference between different people of the same degree of intelligence as to their ability to memorize certain things, especially such as sequences of the elements of a process. This lack of retentive power is illustrated particularly well in the cases often found where the student has difficulty in learning to spell. It is here that the standard instruction card comes into play to good effect. Its great detail remedies the defect in memorizing of certain otherwise brilliant workers, and its standard form and repetition of standard phrases aid the retentive power of the man who has a good memory.

Standard Elements Serve as Memory Drills. — This use of standardized elements makes the time elapsing between repetitions shorter, for, while it may be a long time before the worker again encounters the identical work or method, still, the fact that elements are standard means that he will have occasion to repeat elements frequently, and that his memory will each time be further drilled by these repetitions.

Gang Instruction Card an Aid to Memory. — The gang instruction card has been used with good effect at the beginning of unfamiliar repetitive cycles of work to train the memory of whole gangs of men at once, and to cut down the elapsed time from the time when one man's operation is sufficiently completed to permit the next man to commence his. It has been found, in the case of setting timbers in mill construction for example, that to have one man call out the next act in the sequence as fast as the preceding one is finished, until all have committed the sequence to memory, will materially decrease the time necessary for the entire sequence of elements in a cycle of work.

Individual Instruction Card an Inanimate Memory. — The instruction card supplies a most accurate memory in inanimate form, that neither blurs nor distorts with age.

The ranter against this standard memory is no more sensible than a man who would advocate the worker's forgetting the result of his best experience, that his mind might be periodically exercised by rediscovering the method of least waste anew with each problem.

Other things being equal, that worker has the longest number of years of earning power who remembers the largest number of right methods; or at least remembers where to find them described in detail; and, conversely, those who have no memory, and know not where to look for or to lay their hand on the method of least waste, remain at the beginning of their industrial education. "Experience," from an earning standpoint, does not exist when the mind does not retain a memory of the method. The instruction card, then, acts as a form of transferable memory — it conserves memory. Once it is made, it furnishes the earning power without the necessity of the former experience having been had more than once.

Plans, details, free-hand sketches, and two-dimension photographs surpass the highest form of mental imagery, and such cultivated imagery is undoubtedly a high achievement. There is no kind of memory, visualization, nor constructive imagination that can equal the stereoscopic or three-dimension photographs that may accompany the instruction card for enabling the worker to "see the completed work before it is begun." Probably the greatest hindrance to development of lower forms of animal life is their inability to picture past experiences, and the reason for the intellectual strides made by the worker under Scientific Management is the development of this faculty.

A Conserver of Individual Memories. — Many people believe that the memory of a person ceases at his death. Whether this is so or not, the loss to the world, and particularly the industrial world, of not having the instruction card for the passing on of the worker's experience to the workers who follow is stupendous and incalculable, and this loss, like so many other losses, can be eliminated by the process of making written standards.

Motor Memory Improved by Standardization. — Not only are the retentive powers of the brain improved, but also the brain centers, and the muscles, etc., become trained through standardization. With standardization a long sequence of muscular motions or operations can be noted at a glance, and can be remembered without difficulty.

Standards Prevent Men from Becoming Machines. — Those who object to the worker taking advantage of these scientifically derived standards which aid the memory, can only be compared to such people as desire the workers to turn into unthinking animals. Psychologists believe that some of the lower animals have no memory. Turning the workers into machines which do not in any way utilize thought-saving devices is simply putting them but little above the class of these lower, memory-less, animals.

Through Standards the Worker's Attention Is Gained at the Start. — The general act of attention plays an important part in Scientific Management. The insistence upon standardized performance requires the utmost attention at the beginning of learning a new method of performance. This extra output of mental activity, which is always required for accomplishing new methods of work, could not be continuously maintained, but after the new method has once been learned, its repetition requires less attention, consequently less fatigue. The attention of the worker is, therefore, strongly demanded at the beginning and when, later, it is not needed except for new and unfamiliar work, an opportunity arises for invention and mental advancement.

Attention Allowed to Lapse and Then Recalled. — Standardization shifts the objects of attention and eliminates the need for constant concentration. The standardization of processes relieves the worker to a marked extent from the extremely fatiguing mental effort of unproductive fixed, valueless, and unnecessary attention on the stream of consciousness. The repeated elements which form a part of all standards reconcentrates the attention if it is allowed to lapse.

Standardization Eliminates the Shifting Viewpoint. — Under old-time Traditional Management the way that the man happened to feel at the particular time made a great difference, not only in his work, but in his relations with other men. The standardization not only of the relationship between the men, but of the relationships between the foreman, the manager, and the worker, the fact that the disciplining is put in the hands of a man who is not biased by his personal feelings in his dealings with the men; — all of these things mean that the viewpoint of the men as to their work and their relationship remains fixed. This standardizing of the viewpoint is an enormous help toward increasing output.

The Common Viewpoint Is an Impetus. — There are those who believe that the concerted standard process of thought of the many minds assists the operation of any one mind. However this may be, there is no doubt that the fact that the standard thought is present in all minds at one time at least eliminates some cause for discussion and leads to unity and consequent success in the work.

Invention Is Stimulated. — Chances for invention and construction are provided by standardization. 14 By having a scientifically derived standard method as a starter, the worker can exert much of his mental power toward improvement from that point upward, instead of being occupied with methods below it and in wasting, perhaps, a lifetime in striving to get up to it,15 this in distinction to the old plan, where a worker knew only what he could personally remember of what had been handed down by tradition, tradition being the memory of society. Under Scientific Management a worker has many repetitions of experience, some of which he does not always recognize as such. When he does recognize them, he has the power and daring for rapid construction that come to those only who "know that they know."

Standardization of ultimate subdivisions, as such, brings that power to the worker sooner. The conscious knowledge of familiarity of process is an essential for attaining the complete benefits of experience.

Far from making machines out of the men, standardization causes a mental state that leads to invention, for the reason that the worker's brain is in most intimate contact with the work, and yet has not been unnecessarily fatigued by the work itself. No more monotonous work could be cited than that of that boy whose sole duty was to operate by hand the valve to the engine, yet he invented the automatic control of the slide valve used throughout the world to-day.

Standardization Prevents Accidents. — The results of standardization so far given, concern changes in the worker's mental capacity, or attitude. Such changes, and other changes, will be discussed from a different viewpoint under "Teaching." As for results to the worker's body, one of the most important is the elimination of causes for accidents.

The rigid inspection, testing, and repairing provided for by Scientific Management provides against accidents from defects in equipment, tools, or material. The fact that instructions are written, provides against wrong methods of handling work. 16 The concentrated attention caused by standardization, is a safeguard against accidents that occur from the worker's carelessness.17 The proper allowance of rest for overcoming fatigue, insures that the worker's mind is fresh enough to enable him to comply with standards, and, finally, the spirit of coöperation that underlies Scientific Management is an added check against accidents, in that everyone is guarding his fellows as well as himself.

Progress of Standardization Assured. — As Scientific Management becomes older, progress will be faster, because up to this time there has been a hindrance standing in the way of rapid advancement of the best standards. This hindrance has been the tendency of habits of thought coinciding with former practice. For example, the design of concrete building for years followed the habit of thinking in terms of brick, or wood, or steel, and then attempting to design and construct in reinforced concrete. Again, in the case of the motor car,