The Psychology of Management - L. M. Gilbreth (read novel full TXT) 📗

Such imitation is also encouraged by the fact that the worker is made to believe that he is capable, and has the will to overcome obstacles. He knows that the management believes he can do the work, or the instruction card would not have been issued to him. Moreover, he sees that the teacher and demonstrator is a man promoted from his rank, and he is convinced, therefore, that what the teacher can do he also can do. 58

Scientific Management Provides Standards for Imitation. — It is of immense value in obtaining valuable results from imitation, that Scientific Management provides standards. Under Traditional Management, it was almost impossible for a worker to decide which man he should imitate. Even though he might come to determine, by constant observation, after a time, which man he desired to imitate, he would not know in how far he would do well to copy any particular method. Recording individually measured output under Transitory Management allows of determining the man of high score, and either using him as a model, or formulating his method into rules. Under Scientific Management, the instruction card furnishes a method which the worker knows that he can imitate exactly, with predetermined results.

Imitation Is Expected of All. — As standardization applies to the work of all, so imitation of standards is expected of all. This fact the teacher under Scientific Management can use to advantage, as an added incentive to imitation. Any dislike of imitation is further decreased, by making clear to every worker that those who are under him are expected to imitate him, — and that he must, himself, imitate his teachers, in order to set a worthy example.

Imitation Leads to Emulation. — Imitation, as provided for by teaching under Scientific Management, and admiration for the skillful teacher, or the standard imitated, naturally stimulate emulation. This emulation takes three forms:

1. Competition with the records of others.

2. Competition with one's own record.

3. Competition with the standard record.

No Hard Feeling Aroused. — In the first sort of competition only is there a possibility of hard feeling being aroused, but danger of this is practically eliminated by the fact that rewards are provided for all who are successful. In the second sort of competition, the worker, by matching himself against what he has done, measures his own increased efficiency. In the third sort of competition, there is the added stimulus of surprising the management by exceeding the task expected. The incentive in all three cases is not only more pay and a chance for promotion, but also the opportunity to win appreciation and publicity for successful performance.

Ambition Is Aroused. — The outcome of emulation is ambition. This ambition is stimulated by the fact that promotion is so rapid, and so outlined before the worker, that he sees the chance for advancement himself, and not only advancement that means more pay, but advancement also that means a chance to specialize on that work which he particularly likes.

Pugnacity Utilized. — Pugnacity can never be entirely absent where there is emulation. Under Scientific Management it is used to overcome not persons, but things. Pugnacity is a great driving force. It is a wonderful thing that under Scientific Management this force is aroused not against one's fellow-workers, but against one's work. The desire to win out, to fight it out, is aroused against a large task, which the man desires to put behind him. Moreover, there is nothing under Scientific Management which forbids an athletic contest. While the workers would not, under the ultimate form, be allowed to injure themselves by overspeeding, a friendly race with a demonstration of pugnacity which harms no one is not frowned upon.

Pride Is Stimulated. — Pride in one's work is aroused as soon as work is functionalized. The moment a man has something to do that he likes to do, and can do well, he takes pride in it. So, also, the fact that individuality, and personality, are recognized, and that his records are shown, makes pride serve as a stimulus. The outcome of the worker's pride in his work is pride in himself. He finds that he is part of a great whole, and he learns to take pride in the entire management, — in both himself and the managers, as well as in his own work.

Feeling of Ownership Provided For. — It may seem at first glance that the instinct of ownership is neglected, and becomes stunted, under Scientific Management, in that all tools become more or less standardized, and the man is discouraged from having tools peculiar in shape, or size, for whose use he has no warrant except long time of use.

Careful consideration shows that Scientific Management provides two opportunities for the worker to conserve his instinct for ownership, —

1. During working hours, where the recognition of his personality allows the worker to identify himself with his work, and where his coöperation with the management makes him identified with its activities.

2. Outside the work. He has, under Scientific Management, more hours away from work to enjoy ownership, and more money with which to acquire those things that he desires to own.

The teacher must make clear to him both these opportunities, as he readily can, since the instinct of ownership is conserved in him in an identical manner.

Constructiveness a Part of Scientific Management. — Every act that the worker performs is constructive, because waste has been eliminated, and everything that is done is upbuilding. Teaching makes this clear to the worker. Constructiveness is also utilized in that exercise of initiative is provided for. Thus the instinct, instead of being weakened, is strengthened and directed.

Progress in Utilizing Instincts Demands Psychological Study. — Teaching under Scientific Management can never hope fully to understand and utilize native reactions, until more assistance has been given by psychology. At the present time, Scientific Management labors under disadvantages that must, ultimately, be removed. Psychologists must, by experiments, determine more accurately the reactions and their controlability. More thorough study must be made of children that Scientific Management may understand more of the nature of the reactions of the young workers who come for industrial training. Psychology must give its help in this training. Then only, can teaching under Scientific Management become truly efficient.

Scientific Management Realizes the Importance of Training the Will. — The most necessary, and most complex and difficult part of Scientific Management, is the training of the will of all members of the organization. Prof. Read states in his "Psychology" five means of training or influencing the will. These are59

"1. The first important feature in training the will is the help furnished by supplying the mind with a useful body of ideas.

"2. The second great feature of the training of the will is the building up in the mind of the proper interests, and the habit of giving the attention to useful and worthy purposes.

"3. Another important feature of the training of the will is the establishing of a firm association between ideas and actions, or, in other words, the forming of a good set of habits.

"4. Another very important feature of the training of the will has reference to its strength of purpose or power of imitation.

"5. The matter of discipline."

Teaching under Scientific Management does supply these five functions, and thus provide for the strengthening and development of the will.

Variations in Teaching of Apprentices and Journeymen. — Scientific Management must not only be prepared to teach apprentices, as must all types of management, it must also teach journeymen who have not acquired standard methods.

Apprentices Are Easily Handled. — Teaching apprentices is a comparatively simple proposition, far simpler than under any other type of management. Standard methods enable the apprentice to become proficient long before his brother could, under the old type of teaching. The length of training required depends largely on how fingerwise the apprentice is.

Older Workers Must Be Handled with Tact. — With adult workers, the problem is not so simple. Old wrong habits, such as the use of ineffective motions, must be eliminated. Physically, it is difficult for the adult worker to alter his methods. Moreover, it may be most difficult to change his mental attitude, to convince him that the methods of Scientific Management are correct.

A successful worker under Traditional Management, who is proud of his work, will often be extremely sensitive to what he is prone to regard as the "criticism" of Scientific Management with regard to him.

Appreciation of Varying Viewpoints Necessary. — No management can consider itself adequate that does not try to enter into the mental attitude of its workers. Actual practice shows that, with time and tact, almost any worker can be convinced that all criticism of him is constructive, and that for him to conform to the new standards is a mark of added proficiency, not an acknowledgment of ill-preparedness. The "Systems" do much toward this work of reconciling the older workers to the new methods, but most of all can be done by such teachers as can demonstrate their own change from old to standard methods, and the consequent promotion and success. This is, again, an opportunity for the exercise of personality.

Scientific Management Provides Places for Such Teaching. — Under the methods of teaching employed by Scientific Management, — right motions first, next speed, with quality as a resultant product, — it is most necessary to provide a place where learners can work. The standard planning of quality provides such a place. The plus and minus signs automatically divide labor so that the worker can be taught by degrees, being set at first where great accuracy is not demanded by the work, and being shifted to work requiring more accuracy as he becomes more proficient. In this way even the most untrained worker becomes efficient, and is engaged in actual productive work.

Measurement of Teaching and Learning. — Under Scientific Management the results of teaching and learning become apparent automatically in records of output. The learner's record of output of proper prescribed quality determines what pay he shall receive, and also has a proportionate effect on the teacher's pay. Such a system of measurement may not be accurate as a report of the learner's gain, — for he doubtless gains mental results that cannot be seen in his output, — but it certainly does serve as an incentive to teaching and to learning.

Relation of Teaching in Scientific Management to Academic Training and Vocational Guidance. 60 — Teaching under Scientific Management can never be most efficient until the field of such teaching is restricted to training learners who are properly prepared to receive industrial training. 61 This preparedness implies fitting school and academic training, and Vocational Guidance.

Learner Should Be Manually Adept. — The learner should, before entering the industrial world, be taught to be manually adept, or fingerwise, to have such control over his trained muscles that they will respond quickly and accurately to orders. Such training should be started in infancy, 62 in the form of guided play, as, for example, whittling, sewing, knitting, handling mechanical toys and tools, and playing musical instruments, and continued up to, and into, the period of entering a trade.

Schools Should Provide Mental Preparedness. — The schools should render every student capable of filling some place worthily in the industries. The longer the student remains in school, the higher the position for which he should be prepared. The amount and nature of the training in the schools depends largely on the industrial work to be done, and will be possible of more accurate estimation constantly, as Scientific Management standardizes work and shows what the worker must be to be most efficient.

Vocational Guidance Must Provide Direction. — As made most clear in Mr. Meyer Bloomfield's book, "Vocational Guidance,"63 bureaus of competent directors stand ready to help the youth