The Psychology of Management by Lillian Moller Gilbreth

the standard. THE STANDARD IS PROGRESSIVE.--A standard remains fixed only until a more perfect standard displaces it. The data from which the standard was derived may be reviewed because of some error, because a further subdivision of the elements studied may prove possible, or because improvements in some factor of the work, i.e., the worker, material, tools, equipment, etc., may make a new standard desirable. The fact that a standard is recognized as not being an ultimate standard in no wise detracts from its working value. As Captain Metcalfe has said: "Whatever be the standard of measurement, it suffices for comparison if it be generally accepted, if it be impartially applied, and if the results be fully recorded."[3] CHANGE IN THE STANDARD DEMANDS CHANGE IN THE TASK AND IN THE INCENTIVE.--Necessarily, with the change in the standard comes a change in the task and in the reward. All parts of Scientific Management are so closely related that it is impossible to make a successful progressive step in one branch without simultaneously making all the related progressions in other branches that go with it. For example,--if the material upon which a standard was based caused more care or effort, a smaller task must be set, and wages must be proportionately lowered. _Proportionately_, note, for determining that change would necessitate a review and a redistribution of the cost involved. In the same way, if an improvement in equipment necessitated a new method, as does the packet in laying brick, a new task would become imperative, and a reconsideration of the wage. The wage might remain the same, it might go down, it might go up. In actual practice, in the case of bricklayers, it has gone up. But the point is, it _must_ be restudied. This provides effectually against cutting the rate or increasing the task in any unjust manner. SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE STANDARD AND THE "JUDGMENT" OF PSYCHOLOGY.--There are many points of similarity between the "Standard," of management, and the "judgment" of psychology. Sully says, in speaking of the judgment,[4]--"This process of judging illustrates the two fundamental elements in thought activity, viz., analysis and synthesis." "To judge is clearly to discern and to mark off as a special object of thought some connecting relation." "To begin with, before we can judge we must have the requisite materials for forming a judgment." "In the second place, to judge is to carry out a process of reflection on given material." "In addition to clearness and accuracy, our judgments may have other perfections. So far as our statements accord with known facts, they should be adhered to,--at least, till new evidence proves them untrue." PSYCHOLOGY A FINAL APPEAL AS TO PERMANENT VALUE OF ANY STANDARD.--The standard under management, even under Scientific Management, can lay no claim to being perfect. It can never nearly approach perfection until the elements are so small that it is practicable to test them psychologically and physiologically. The time when this can be done in many lines, when the benefit that will directly accrue will justify the necessary expenditure, may seem far distant, but every analysis of operations, no matter how rudimentary, is hastening the day when the underlying, permanently valuable elements can be determined and their variations studied. COÖPERATION WILL HASTEN THE DAY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL STUDY OF STANDARDS.--Coöperation in collecting and comparing the results of motion study and time study everywhere will do much to assist toward more ultimate determination of elements. At the present time the problems that management submits to psychology are too indefinite and cover too large a field to be attacked successfully. Coöperation between management standardizers would mean--