The Psychology of Management Part 11

3. study the variables, or elements, one at a time.

4. furnish resulting timed elements to the synthesizer of methods of least waste.

ACCURATE MEASURING DEVICES PREVENT BREAKDOWNS AND ACCIDENTS.--The accurate measuring devices which accomplish measurement under Scientific Management prevent breakdowns and accidents to life and limb.

For example.--

1. The maintained tension on a belt bears a close relation to its delay periods.

2. The speed of a buzz planer determines its liability to shoot out pieces of wood to the injury of its operator, or to injure bystanders.

Scientific Management, by determining and standardizing methods and equipment both, provides for uninterrupted output.

EFFECT ON THE WORKER.--Under Traditional Management there is not enough accurate measurement done to make its effect on the worker of much value.

Under Transitory Management, as soon as individual outputs are measured, the worker takes more interest in his work, and endeavors to increase his output.

Under Scientific Management measurement of the worker tells

1. what the workers are capable of doing.

2. what function it will be best to a.s.sign them to and to cultivate in them.

WASTE ELIMINATED BY ACCURATE MEASUREMENT.--This accurate measurement increases the worker's efficiency in that it enables him to eliminate waste. "Cut and try" methods are eliminated. There is no need to test a dozen methods, a dozen men, a dozen systems of routing, or various kinds of equipment more than once,--that one time when they are scientifically tried out and measured. This accurate measurement also eliminates disputes between manager and worker as to what the latter's efficiency is.

EFFICIENCY MEASURED BY TIME AND MOTION STUDY.--Time and Motion Study.

(a) measure the man by his work; that is, by the results of his activities; (b) measure him by his methods; (c) measure him by his capacity to learn; (d) measure him by his capacity to teach.

Now measurement by result alone is very stimulating to increasing activities, especially when it shows, as it does under Scientific Management, the relative results of various people doing the same kind of work. But it does not, itself, show the worker _how_ to obtain greater results without putting on more speed or using up more activities. But when the worker's methods are measured, he begins to see, for himself, exactly why and where he has failed.

Scientific Management provides for him to be taught, and the fact that he sees through the measurements exactly what he needs to be taught will make him glad to have the teacher come and show him how to do better. Through this teaching, its results, and the speed with which the results come, the workers and the managers can see how fast the worker is capable of learning, and, at the same time, the worker, the teacher and the managers can see in how far the foreman is capable of instructing.

FINAL OUTCOME BENEFICIAL TO MANAGERS AND MEN.--Through measurement in Scientific Management, managers acquire--

1. ability to select men, methods, equipment, etc.; 2. ability to a.s.sign men to the work which they should do, to prescribe the method which they shall use, and to reward them for their output suitably; 3. ability to predict. On this ability to predict rests the possibility of making calendars, chronological charts and schedules, and of planning determining sequence of events, etc., which will be discussed at length later.

Ability to predict allows the managers to state "premature truths," which the records show to be truths when the work has been done.

It must not be forgotten that the managers are enabled not only to predict what the men, equipment, machinery, etc., will do, but what they can do themselves.

THE EFFECT ON THE MEN IS THAT THE WORKER CO-OPERATES.--1. The worker's interest is held. The men know that the methods they are using are the best. The exact measurements of efficiency of the learner,--and under Scientific Management a man never ceases to be a learner,--give him a continued interest in his work. It is impossible to hold the attention of the intelligent worker to a method or process that he does not believe to> be the most efficient and least wasteful.

Motion study and time study are the most efficient measuring device of the relative qualities of differing methods. They furnish definite and exact proof to the worker as to the excellence of the method that he is told to use. When he is convinced, lack of interest due to his doubts and dissatisfaction is removed.

2. The worker's judgment is appealed to. The method that he uses is the outcome of cooperation between him and the management. His own judgment a.s.sures him that it is the best, up to that time, that they, working together, have been able to discover.

3. The worker's reasoning powers are developed. Continuous judging of records of efficiency develops high cla.s.s, well developed reasoning powers.

4. The worker fits his task, therefore there is no need of adjustment, and his att.i.tude toward his work is right.

5. There is elimination of soldiering, both natural and systematic.[20]

ALL KNOWLEDGE BECOMES THE KNOWLEDGE OF ALL.--Two outcomes may be confidently expected in the future, as they are already becoming apparent where-ever Scientific Management is being introduced:

1. The worker will become more and more willing to impart his knowledge to others. When the worker realizes that pa.s.sing on his trade secrets will not cause him to lose his position or, by raising up a crowd of compet.i.tors, lower his wages, but will, on the contrary, increase his wages and chances of promotion, he is ready and willing to have his excellent methods standardized.

Desire to keep one's own secret, or one's own method a secret is a very natural one. It stimulates interest, it stimulates pride. It is only when, as in Scientific Management, the possessor of such a secret may receive just compensation, recognition and honor for his skill, and receive a position where he can become an appreciated teacher of others that he is, or should be, willing to give up this secret. Scientific Management, however, provides this opportunity for him to teach, provides that he receives credit for what he has done, and receive that publicity and fame which is his due, and which will give him the same stimulus to work which the knowledge that he had a secret skill gave him in the past.

One method of securing this publicity is by naming the device or method after its inventor. This has been found to be successful not only in satisfying the inventor, but in stimulating others to invent.

MEASUREMENT OF INDIVIDUAL EFFICIENCY WILL BE ENDORSED BY ALL.--2. The worker will, ultimately, realize that it is for the good of all, as well as for himself, that individual efficiency be measured and rewarded.

It has been advanced as an argument against measurement that it discriminates against the "weaker brother," who should have a right to obtain the same pay as the stronger, for the reason that he has equal needs for this pay to maintain life and for the support of his family.

Putting aside at the moment the emotional side of this argument, which is undoubtedly a strong side and a side worthy of consideration, with much truth in it, and looking solely at the logical side,--it cannot do the "weaker" brother any good in the long run, and it does the world much harm, to have his work overestimated. The day is coming, when the world will demand that the quant.i.ty of the day's work shall be measured as accurately where one sells labor, as where one sells sugar or flour. Then, pretending that one's output is greater than it really is will be cla.s.sed with "divers weights and divers measures," with their false standards.

The day will come when the public will insist that the "weaker brother's" output be measured to determine just how weak he is, and whether it is weakness, unfitness for that particular job, or laziness that is the cause of his output being low. When he reaches a certain degree of weakness, he will be a.s.sisted with a definite measured quant.i.ty of a.s.sistance. Thus the "weaker brother" may be readily distinguished from the lazy, strong brother, and the brother who is working at the wrong job. Measurement should certainly be insisted on, in order to determine whether these strong brothers are doing their full share, or whether they are causing the weaker brothers to over-exert themselves.

No one who has investigated the subject properly can doubt that it will be better for the world in general to have each man's output, weak and strong, properly measured and estimated regardless of whether the weak and strong are or are not paid the same wages.

The reason why the unions have had to insist that the work shall not be measured and that the weaker brother's weakness shall not be realized is, that in the industrial world the only brotherhood that was recognized was the brotherhood between the workers, there being a distinct antagonism between the worker and the manager and little or no brotherhood of the public at large. When Scientific Management does away, as it surely will, with this antagonism, by reason of the cooperation which is its fundamental idea, then the workers will show themselves glad to be measured.

As for the "weaker" brother idea, it is a natural result of such ill treatment. It has become such a far-reaching emotion that even Scientific Management, with its remedy for many ills, cannot expect in a moment, or in a few years, to alter the emotional bias of the mult.i.tudes of people who have held it for good and sufficient reasons for generations.

THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD CONSERVE MEASUREMENT DATA.--The one thing which can permanently alter this feeling forms the natural conclusion to this chapter. That is, measurements in general and motion study and time study in particular must become a matter of government investigation. When the government has taken over the investigation and established a bureau where such data as Scientific Management discovers is collected and kept on file for all who will to use, then the possessor of the secret will feel that it can safely place the welfare of its "weaker brothers" in the hands of a body which is founded and operates on the idea of the "square deal."

APPRECIATION OF TIME STUDY BY WORKERS THE FIRST STEP.--The first step of the workers in this direction must be the appreciation of time study, for on time study hangs the entire subject of Scientific Management. It is this great discovery by Dr. Taylor that makes the elimination of waste possible. It has come to stay. Many labor leaders are opposed to it, but the wise thing for them to do is to study, foster and cultivate it. They cannot stop its progress. There is no thing that can stop it. The modern managers will obtain it, and the only way to prevent it from being used by unscrupulous managers is for the workman also to learn the facts of time study.

It is of the utmost importance to the workers of the country, for their own protection, that they be as familiar with time study data as the managers are. Time study is the foundation and frame work of rate setting and fixing, and certainly the subject of rate fixing is the most important subject there is to the workmen, whether they are working on day work, piece work, premium, differential rate piece, task with bonus, or three-rate system.

Dr. Taylor has proved by time study that many of the customary working days are too long, that the same amount of output can be achieved in fewer hours per day. Time study affords the means for the only scientific proof that many trades fatigue the workers beyond their endurance and strength. Time study is the one means by which the workers can prove the real facts of their unfortunate condition under the Traditional plan of management.

The workers of the country should be the very ones that should insist upon the government taking the matter in hand for scientific investigation. Knowledge is power,--a rule with no exception, and the knowledge of scientific time study would prepare the workers of any trade, and would provide their intelligent leaders with data for accurate decisions for legislation and other steps for their best interests. The national bodies should hire experts to represent them and to cooperate with the government bureau in applying science to their life work.

The day is fast approaching when makers of machinery will have the best method of operating their machines micro-motion studied and cyclegraphed and description of methods of operation in accordance with such records will be everywhere considered as a part of the "makers' directions for using."

Furthermore a.s.sociations of manufacturers will establish laboratories for determining methods of least waste by means of motion study, time study and micro-motion study, and the findings of such laboratories will be put in standardized shape for use by all its members. The trend today shows that soon there will be hundreds of books of time study tables. The government must sooner or later save the waste resulting from this useless duplication of efforts.

CHAPTER IV FOOTNOTES: ==============================================

1. Hugo Munsterberg, _American Problems,_ p. 34.

2. G.M. Stratton, _Experimental Psychology and Its Bearing upon Culture_, p. 37.

3. _Ibid_., p. 38.

4. For apparatus for psychological experiment see Stratton, p. 38, p. 171, p. 265.

5. H.L. Gantt, _Work, Wages and Profits,_ p. 15.

6. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, Bulletin No. 5, _The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching,_ p. 7.

7. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management,_ para. 29. Harper Ed., p. 25.

8. H.L. Gantt, Paper No. 928, A.S.M.E., para. 6.

9. F.B. Gilbreth, _Cost Reducing System_.

10. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management_, para. 61. Harper Ed., p. 33.

11. _Industrial Engineering_, Jan., 1913.

12. F.W. Taylor, _Shop Management_, pp. 398-391. Harper Ed., p. 179.

Compare, U.S. Bulletin of Agriculture No. 208. _The Influence of Muscular and Mental Work on Metabolism_.