The Psychology of Management by L. M. Gilbreth (latest books to read txt) 📖

special talent or talents, individuality or special fitness is much more likely, under Scientific Management, to obtain and retain the place that he is fitted for than he ever could have been under Traditional Management, for, while many fairly efficient men can be found who can fill a general position, a man with the marked desirable trait necessary to fill a distinct position requiring that trait, will be one of few, and will have his place waiting for him.

One-Talent Men Utilized — .With Functionalization, men who lack qualifications for the position which they may, at the start, endeavor to fill, may be transferred to other positions, where the qualities they lack are not required. If a man has one talent, Scientific Management provides a place where that can be utilized.

For example: —

Men who cannot produce the prescribed output constantly, are placed on other work. The slow, unskilled worker who has difficulty to learn, may be put upon work requiring less skill, or where speed is not required so much as watchfulness and faithfulness. The worker who is slow, but exceptionally skilled, has the opportunity to rise to the position of the functional foreman, especially in the planning department, where knowledge, experience and resourcefulness, and especially ability to teach, are much more desired than speed and endurance. Thus there are places provided, below and above, that can utilize all kinds of abilities.

"All Round" Men Are Utilized. — The exceptional man who possesses executive ability in all lines, and balance between them all, is the ideal man for a manager, and his special "all round" ability would be wasted in any position below that of a manager.

Stability Provided For. — Every man is maintained in his place by his interresponsibility with other men. If he is a worker, every man's work is held to standard quality by the inspector, while the requirements and rewards of his function are kept before him by the instruction card man, rate fixer and the disciplinarian.

Promotion and Development Provided For. — Functionalization provides for promotion by showing every man not only the clearly circumscribed place where he is to work, but also by showing him the definite place above him to which he may be promoted and its path, and by teaching him how he can fill it. This allows him to develop the possibilities of his best self by using and specially training those talents which are most marked in him.

Functional Foremanship allows many more people, to become foremen, and to develop the will and judgment which foremanship implies.

Men in the Organization Preferred to Outsiders. — Men in the organization are preferable to outsiders as functional foremen and for promotion. Not only does a worker's knowledge of his work help him to become more efficient when he is promoted to the position of foreman, — but his efficiency as a teacher is also increased by the fact that he knows and understands the workers whom he is there to teach.

All Men Are Pushed Up. — Scientific Management raises every man as high as he is capable of being raised. It does not speed him up, but pushes him up to the highest notch which he can fill. Actual practice has shown that there is a greater demand for efficient men in the planning department than there is supply; also, that men in the planning department who fit themselves for higher work can be readily promoted to positions of greater responsibility, either inside or outside the organization.

Years of Productivity Prolonged. — Under Functionalization the number of years of productivity of all, workers and foremen alike, are increased. The specialty to which the man is assigned is his natural specialty, thus his possible and profitable working years are prolonged, because he is at that work for which he is naturally fitted.

Moreover, the work of teaching is one at which the teacher becomes more clever and more valuable as time goes on, the functional foreman has that much more chance to become valuable as years go by.

Change in the Worker's Mental Attitude. — The work under functionalization is such as to arouse the worker's attention and to hold his interest. 21 But the most important and valuable change in the worker's feelings is the change in his attitude towards the foremen and the employer. From "natural enemies" as sometimes considered under typical Traditional Management, these all now become friends, with the common aim, coöperation, for the purpose of increasing output and wages, and lowering costs. This change of feeling results in an appreciation of the value of teaching, and also in promoting industrial peace.

 1. Mary Whiton Calkins, A First Book in Psychology, p. 273.

 2. Sully, The Teacher's Handbook of Psychology, p. 1.

 3. Ibid., p. 54.

 4. Hugo Münsterberg, American Problems, p. 35.

 5. Gillette and Dana, Cost Keeping and Management Engineering, p. 1.

 6. F.W. Taylor, Shop Management, para. 221. Harper Ed., p. 96.

 7. F.W. Taylor, Shop Management, para. 221-231. Harper Ed., pp. 96-98.

 8. Compare H.L. Gantt, No. 1002, A.S.M.E., para. 9.

 9. Compare H.P. Gillette, Cost Analysis Engineering, pp. 1-2.

10. F.W. Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management, p. 37.

11. F.W. Taylor, Shop Management, para. 245. Harper Ed., p. 104.

12. For excellent example of special routing see: Charles Day, Industrial Plants, chap. VII.

13. C. Babbage, Economy of Manufacturers. p. 172. "The constant repetition of the same process necessarily produces in the workman a degree of excellence and rapidity in his particular department, which is never possessed by a person who is obliged to execute many different processes."

14. F.W. Taylor, On the Art of Cutting Metals, Paper No. 1119, A.S.M.E.

15. C.G. Barth, Slide Rules for Machine Shops and Taylor System. Paper No. 1010, A.S.M.E.

16. H.L. Gantt, Work, Wages and Profits, p. 19.

17. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, p. 2. "The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labor, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labor." Also p. 4.

18. H.K. Hathaway, The Value of "Non-Producers" in Manufacturing Plants. Machinery, Nov., 1906, p. 134.

19. Gillette and Dana, Cost Keeping and Management Engineering, p. 11.

20. Morris Llewellyn Cooke, Bulletin No. 5, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, p. 15.

21. H.L. Gantt, Work, Wages and Profits, p. 120.

CHAPTER IV MEASUREMENT

Definition of Measurement. — "Measurement," according to the Century Dictionary, — "is the act of measuring," and to measure is — "to ascertain the length, extent, dimensions, quantity or capacity of, by comparison with a standard; ascertain or determine a quantity by exact observation," or, again, "to estimate or determine the relative extent, greatness or value of, appraise by comparison with something else."

Measurement Important in Psychology. — Measurement has always been of importance in psychology; but it is only with the development of experimental psychology and its special apparatus, that methods of accurate measurements are available which make possible the measurement of extremely short periods of time, or measurements "quick as thought," These enable us to measure the variations of different workers as to their abilities and their mental and physical fatigue; 1 to study mental processes at different stages of mental and physical growth; to compare different people under the same conditions, and the same person under different conditions; to determine the personal coefficient of different workers, specialists and foremen, and to formulate resultant standards. As in all other branches of science, the progress comes with the development of measurement.

Methods of Measurement in Psychology. — No student of management, and of measurement in the field of management, can afford not to study, carefully and at length, methods of measurement under psychology. This, for at least two most important reasons, which will actually improve him as a measurer, i.e. —

1. The student will discover, in the books on experimental psychology and in the "Psychological Review," a marvelous array of results of scientific laboratory experiments in psychology, which will be of immediate use to him in his work.

2. He will receive priceless instruction in methods of measuring. No where better than in the field of psychology, can one learn to realize the importance of measurements, the necessity for determination of elements for study, and the necessity for accurate apparatus and accuracy in observation.

Prof. George M. Stratton, in his book "Experimental Psychology and Culture," — says "In mental measurements, therefore, there is no pretense of taking the mind's measure as a whole, nor is there usually any immediate intention of testing even some special faculty or capacity of the individual. What is aimed at is the measurement of a limited event in consciousness, such as a particular perception or feeling. The experiments are addressed, of course, not to the weight or size of such phenomena, but usually to their duration and intensity."2

The emphasis laid on a study of elements is further shown in the same book by the following, — "The actual laboratory work in time-measurement, however, has been narrowed down to determining, not the time in general that is occupied by some mental action, but rather the shortest possible time in which a particular operation, like discrimination or choice or association or recognition, can be performed under the simplest and most favorable circumstances.3 The experimental results here are something like speed or racing records, made under the best conditions of track and training. A delicate chronograph or chronoscope is used, which marks the time in thousandths of a second."

Measurement in Psychology Related to Measurement in Management. — Measurement in psychology is of importance to measurement in management not only as a source of information and instruction, but also as a justification and support. Scientific Management has suffered from being called absurd, impractical, impossible, over-exact, because of the emphasis which it lays on measurement. Yet, to the psychologist, all present measurement in Scientific Management must appear coarse, inaccurate and of immediate and passing value only. With the knowledge that psychologists endorse accurate measurement, and will coöperate in discovering elements for study, instruments of precision and methods of investigation, the investigator in industrial fields must persist in his work with a new interest and confidence. 4

Scientific Management cannot hope to furnish psychology with either data or methods of measurement. It can and does, however, open a new field for study to experimental psychology, and shows itself willing to furnish the actual working difficulties or problems, to do the preliminary investigation, and to utilize results as fast as they can be obtained.

Psychologists Appreciate Scientific Management. — The appreciation which psychologists have shown of work done by Scientific Management must be not only a matter of gratification, but of inspiration to all workers in Scientific Management.

So, also, must the new divisions of the Index to the Psychological Review relating to Activity and Fatigue, and the work being so extensively done in these lines by French, German, Italian and other nations, as well as by English and American psychologists.

Measurement Important in Management. — The study of individuality and of functionalization have made plain the necessity of measurement for successful management. Measurement furnishes the means for obtaining that accurate knowledge upon which the science of management rests, as do all sciences — exact and inexact.5 Through measurement, methods of less waste are determined, standards are made possible, and management becomes a science, as it derives standards, and progressively makes and improves them, and the comparisons from them, accurate.

Problem of Measurement in Management — One of the important problems of measurement in management is determining how many hours should constitute the working day in each different kind of work and at