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

Importance of the Incentive. — The part that the incentive plays in the doing of all work is enormous. This is true in learning, and also in the performance of work which is the result of this learning: manual work and mental work as well. The business man finishing his work early that he may go to the baseball game; the boy at school rushing through his arithmetic that he may not be kept after school; the piece-worker, the amount of whose day's pay depends upon the quantity and quality he can produce; the student of a foreign language preparing for a trip abroad, — these all illustrate the importance of the incentive as an element in the amount which is to be accomplished.

Two Kinds of Incentives. — The incentive may be of two kinds: it may be first of all, a return, definite or indefinite, which is to be received when a certain portion of the work is done, or it may be an incentive due to the working conditions themselves. The latter case is exemplified where two people are engaged in the same sort of work and start in to race one another to see who can accomplish the most, who can finish the fixed amount in the shortest space of time, or who can produce the best quality. The incentive may be in the form of some definite aim or goal which is understood by the worker himself, or it may be in some natural instinct which is roused by the work, either consciously to the worker, or consciously to the man who is assigning the work, or consciously to both, or consciously to neither one. In any of these cases it is a natural instinct that is being appealed to and that induces the man to do more work, whether he sees any material reward for that work or not.

Definitions of Two Types. — We may call the incentive which utilizes the natural instinct, "direct incentive," and the incentive which utilizes these secondarily, through some set reward or punishment, "indirect incentive." This, at first sight, may seem a contradictory use of terms — it may seem that the reward would be the most direct of incentives; yet a moment's thought will cause one to realize that all the reward can possibly do is to arouse in the individual a natural instinct which will lead him to increase his work.

Indirect Incentives Include Two Classes. — We will discuss the indirect incentives first as, contrary to the usual use of the word "indirect," they are most easy to estimate and to describe. They divide themselves into two classes, reward and punishment.

Definition of Reward. — Reward is defined by the Century Dictionary as — "return, recompense, the fruit of one's labor or works; profit," with synonyms, "pay, compensation, remuneration, requital and retribution." Note particularly the word "retribution," for it is this aspect of reward, that is, the just outcome of one's act, that makes the reward justly include punishment. The word "reward" exactly expresses what management would wish to be understood by the incentive that it gives its men to increase their work.

Definition of Punishment. — The word "punishment" is defined as — "pain, suffering, loss, confinement, or other penalty inflicted on a person for a crime or offense by the authority to which the offender is subject," with synonyms, "chastisement, correction, discipline."

The word punishment, as will be noted later, is most unfortunate when applied to what Scientific Management would mean by a penalty, though this word also is unfortunate; but, in the first place, there is no better word to cover the general meaning; and in the second place, the idea of pain and suffering, which Scientific Management aims to and does eliminate, is present in some of the older forms of management Therefore the word punishment must stand.

Rewards and Punishments Result in Action. — There can be no doubt that a reward is an incentive. There may well be doubt as to whether a punishment is an incentive to action or not. This, however, is only at first glance, and the whole thing rests on the meaning of the word "action." To be active is certainly the opposite of being at rest. This being true, punishment is just as surely an incentive to action as is reward. The man who is punished in every case will be led to some sort of action. Whether this really results in an increase of output or not simply determines whether the punishment is a scientifically prescribed punishment or not. If the punishment is of such a nature that the output ceases because of it, or that it incites the man punished against the general good, then it does not in any wise cease to be an active thing, but it is simply a wrong, and unscientifically assigned punishment, that acts in a detrimental way.

Soldiering Alone Cuts Down Activity. — It is interesting to note that the greatest cause for cutting down output is related more closely to a reward than a punishment. Under such managements as provide no adequate reward for all, and no adequate assurance that all can receive extra rewards permanently without a cut in the rate, it may be advisable, for the worker's best interests, to limit output in order to keep the wages, or reward, up, and soldiering results. The evils of soldiering will be discussed more at length under the "Systems of Pay." It is plain, however, here that soldiering is the result of a cutting down of action, and it is self-evident that anything which cuts down action is harmful, not only to the individual himself, but to society at large.

Nature of Rewards and Punishments. — Under all types of management, the principal rewards consist of promotion and pay, pay being a broad word used here to include regular wages, a bonus, shorter hours, other forms of remuneration or recompense; anything which can be given to the man who does the work to benefit him and increase his desire to continue doing the work. Punishments may be negative, that is, they may simply take the form of no reward; or they may be positive, that is, they may include fines, discharge, assignment to less remunerative or less desirable work, or any other thing which can be given to the man to show him that he has not done what is expected of him and, in theory at least, to lead him to do better.

Nature of Direct Incentives. — Direct incentives will be such native reaction as ambition, pride and pugnacity; will be love of racing, love of play; love of personal recognition; will be the outcome of self-confidence and interest, and so on.

The Reward Under Traditional Management Unstandardized. — As with all other discussions of any part or form of Traditional Management, the discussion of the incentive under Traditional Management is vague from the very nature of the subject. "Traditional" stands for vagueness and for variation, for the lack of standardization, for the lack of definiteness in knowledge, in process, in results. The rewards under Traditional Management, as under all types of management, are promotion and pay. It must be an almost unthinkably poor system of management, even under Traditional Management, which did not attempt to provide for some sort of promotion of the man who did the most and best work; but the lack of standardization of conditions, of instructions, of the work itself, and of reward, makes it almost impossible not only to give the reward, but even to determine who deserves the reward. Under Traditional Management, the reward need not be positive, that is, it might simply consist in the negation of some previously existing disadvantage. It need not be predetermined. It might be nothing definite. It might not be so set ahead that the man might look forward to it. In other words it might simply be the outcome of the good, and in no wise the incentive for the good. It need not necessarily be personal. It could be shared with a group, or gang, and lose all feeling of personality. It need not be a fixed reward or a fixed performance; in fact, if the management were Traditional it would be almost impossible that it would be a fixed reward. It might not be an assured reward, and in most cases it was not a prompt reward. These fixed adjectives describe the reward of Scientific Management — positive, predetermined, personal, fixed, assured and prompt. A few of these might apply, or none might apply to the reward under Traditional Management.

Reward a Prize Won by One Only. — If this reward, whether promotion or pay, was given to someone under Traditional Management, this usually meant that others thereby lost it; it was in the nature of a prize which one only could attain, and which the others, therefore, would lose, and such a lost prize is, to the average man, for the time at least, a dampener on action. The rewarding of the winner, to the loss of all of the losers, has been met by the workmen getting together secretly, and selecting the winners for a week or more ahead, thus getting the same reward out of the employer without the extra effort.

Punishment Under Traditional Management Wrong in Theory. — The punishment, under Traditional Management, was usually much more than negative punishment; that is to say, the man who was punished usually received much more than simply the negative return of getting no reward. The days of bodily punishment have long passed, yet the account of the beatings given to the galley slaves and to other workers in the past are too vividly described in authentic accounts to be lost from memory. To-day, under Traditional Management, punishment consists of

1. fines, which are usually simply a cutting down of wages, the part deducted remaining with the company,

2. discharge, or

3. assignment to less pleasant or less desirable work.

This assignment is done on an unscientific basis, the man being simply put at something which he dislikes, with no regard as to whether his efficiency at that particular work will be high or not.

Results Are Unfortunate. — The punishment, under Traditional Management, is usually meted out by the foreman, simply as one of his many duties. He is apt to be so personally interested, and perhaps involved, in the case that his punishment will satisfy some wrong notions, impulse of anger, hate, or envy in him, and will arouse a feeling of shame or wounded pride, or unappreciation, in the man to whom punishment is awarded.

Direct Incentives Not Scientifically Utilized. — As for what we have called direct incentive, the love of racing was often used under Traditional Management through Athletic Contests, the faults in these being that the men were not properly studied, so that they could be properly assigned and grouped; care was not always exercised that hate should not be the result of the contest; the contest was not always conducted according to the rules of clean sport; the men slighted quality in hastening the work, and the results of the athletic contests were not so written down as to be thereafter utilized. Love of play may have been developed unconsciously, but was certainly not often studied, Love of personal recognition was probably often utilized, but in no scientific way. Neither was there anything in Traditional Management to develop self-confidence, or to arouse and maintain interest in any set fashion. Naturally, if the man were in a work which he particularly liked, which under Traditional Management was a matter of luck, he would be more or less interested in it, but there was no scientific way of arousing or holding his interest. Under Traditional Management, a man might take pride in his work, as did