The Psychology of Management by Lillian Moller Gilbreth

THIS METHOD IS CONTRARY TO MOST OLD-TIME PRACTICE.--Under most old-time practice the quality of the work was the first consideration, the quantity of work the second, and the methods of achieving the results the third. RESULTS OF OLD-TIME PRACTICE.--As a result, the mechanical reactions, which were expected constantly to follow the improved habits of work, were constantly hindered by an involuntary impulse of the muscles to follow the old methods. Waste time and low output followed. SOME EARLY RECOGNITION OF "RIGHT MOTIONS FIRST."--The necessity of teaching the right motions first was early recognized by a few progressive spirits, as is shown in military tactics; for example, see pages 6 and 7, "Cavalry Tactics of U.S.A." 1879, D. Appleton, also page 51. Note also motions for grooming the horse, page 473. These directions not only teach the man how, but accustoms the horse to the sequence and location of motions that he may expect. BENEFITS OF TEACHING RIGHT MOTIONS FIRST.--Through teaching right motions first reactions to stimuli gain in speed. The right habit is formed at the outset. With the constant insistence on these right habits that result from right motions, will come, naturally, an increase in speed, which should be fostered until the desired ultimate speed is reached. ULTIMATELY, STANDARD QUALITY WILL RESULT.--The result of absolute insistence on right motions will be prescribed quality, because the standard motions prescribed were chosen because they best produced the desired result. UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT NO LOSS FROM QUALITY DURING LEARNING.--As will be shown later, Scientific Management provides that there shall be little or no loss from the quality of the work during the learning period. The delay in time before the learner can be said to produce such work as could a learner taught where quality was insisted upon first of all, is more than compensated for by the ultimate combination of speed and quality gained. RESULTS OF TEACHING THE RIGHT MOTIONS FIRST ARE FAR-REACHING.--There is no more important subject in this book on the Psychology of Management than this of teaching right motions first. The most important results of Scientific Management can all, in the last analysis, be formulated in terms of habits, even to the underlying spirit of coöperation which, as we shall show in "Welfare," is one of the most important ideas of Scientific Management. These right habits of Scientific Management are the cause, as well as the result, of progress, and the right habits, which have such a tremendous psychological importance, are the result of insisting that right motions be used from the very beginning of the first day. FROM RIGHT HABITS OF MOTION COMES SPEED OF MOTIONS.-- Concentrating the mind on the next motion causes speed of motion. Under Scientific Management, the underlying thought of sequence of motions is so presented that the worker can remember them, and make them in the shortest time possible. RESPONSE TO STANDARDS BECOMES ALMOST AUTOMATIC.--The standard methods, being associated from the start with right habits of motions only, cause an almost automatic response. There are no discarded habits to delay response. STEADY NERVES RESULT.--Oftentimes the power to refrain from action is quite as much a sign of education and training as the power to react quickly from a sensation. Such conduct is called, in some cases, "steady nerves." The forming of right habits is a great aid toward these steady nerves. The man who knows that he is taught the right way, is able almost automatically to resist any suggestions which come to him to carry out wrong ways. So the man who is absolutely sure of his method, for example, in laying brick, will not be tempted to make those extra motions which, after all, are merely an exhibition in his hand of the vacillation that is going on in his brain, as to whether he really is handling that brick in exactly the most efficient manner, or not. REASON AND WILL ARE EDUCATED.--"The education of hand and muscle implies a corresponding training of reasoning and will; and the coördination of movements accompanies the coördination of thoughts."[26] The standards of Scientific Management educate hand and muscle; the education of hand and muscle train the mind; the mind improves the standards. Thus we have a continuous cycle. JUDGMENT RESULTS WITH NO WASTE OF TIME.--Judgment is the outcome of learning the right way, and knowing that it is the right way. There is none of the lost time of "trying out" various methods that exists under Traditional Management. This power of judgment will not only enable the possessor to decide correctly as to the relative merits of different methods, but also somewhat as to the past history and possibilities of different workers. This, again, illustrates the wisdom of Scientific Management in promoting from the ranks, and thus providing that every member of the organization shall, ultimately, know from experience how to estimate and judge the work of others. HABITS OF ATTENTION FORMED BY SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--The good habits which result from teaching standard methods result in habits of attention. The standards aid the mind in holding a "selective attitude,"[27] by presenting events in an orderly sequence. The conditions under which the work is done, and the incentives for doing it, provide that the attention shall be "lively and prolonged." PRESCRIBED MOTIONS AFFORD RHYTHM AND ÆSTHETIC PLEASURE.--The prescribed motions that result from motion study and time study, and that are arranged in cycles, afford a rhythm that allows the attention to "glide over some beats and linger on others," as Prof. Stratton describes it, in a different connection.[28] So also the "perfectly controlled" movements, which fall under the direction of a guiding law, and which "obey the will absolutely,"[29] give an æsthetic pleasure and afford less of a tax upon the attention. INSTRUCTION CARD CREATES AND HOLDS ATTENTION.--As has been already said in describing the instruction card under Standardization, it was designed as a result of investigations as to what would best secure output,--to attract and hold the attention.[30] Providing, as it does, all directions that an experienced worker is likely to need, he can confine his attention solely to his work and his card; usually, after the card is once studied, to his work alone. The close relation of the elements of the instruction card affords a field for attention to lapse, and be recalled in the new elements that are constantly made apparent. ORAL INDIVIDUAL TEACHING FOSTERS CONCENTRATED ATTENTION.--The fact that under Scientific Management oral teaching is individual, not only directly concentrates the attention of the learner upon what he is being taught, but also indirectly prevents distraction from fear of ridicule of others over the question, or embarrassment in talking before a crowd. THE BULLETIN BOARD FURNISHES THE ELEMENT OF CHANGE.--In order that interest or attention may be held, there must be provision for allied subjects on which the mind is to wander. This, under Scientific Management, is constantly furnished by the collection of jobs ahead on the bulletin board. The tasks piled up ahead upon this bulletin board provide a needed and ready change for the subject of attention or interest, which conserves the economic value of concentrated attention of the worker upon his work. Such future tasks furnish sufficient range of subject for wandering attention to rest the mind from the wearying effect of overconcentration or forced attention. The assigned task of the future systematizes the "stream of attention," and an orderly scheme of habits of thought is installed. When the scheme is an orderly shifting of attention, the mind is doing its best work, for, while the standardized extreme subdivision of Taylor's plan, the comparison of the ultimate unit, and groupings of units of future tasks are often helps in achieving the present tasks, without such a definite orderly scheme for shifting the attention and interest, the attention will shift to useless subjects, and the result will be scattered. INCENTIVES MAINTAIN INTEREST.--The knowledge that a prompt reward will follow success stimulates interest. The knowledge that this reward is sure concentrates attention and thus maintains interest. In the same way, the assurance of promotion, and the fact that the worker sees those of his own trade promoted, and knows it is to the advantage of the management, as well as to his advantage, that he also be promoted,--this also maintains interest in the work. THIS INTEREST EXTENDS TO THE WORK OF OTHERS.--The interest is extended to the work of others, not only by the interrelated bonuses, but also by the fact that every man is expected to train up a man to take his place, before he is promoted. CLOSE RELATIONSHIP OF ALL PARTS OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT HOLDS INTEREST.--The attention of the entire organization, as well as of the individual worker, is held by Scientific Management and its teaching, because all parts of Scientific Management are related, and because Scientific Management provides for scientifically directed progression. Every member of the organization knows that the standards which are taught by Scientific Management contain the permanent elements of past successes, and provide for such development as will assure progress and success in the future. Every member of the organization realizes that upon his individual coöperation depends, in part, the stability of Scientific Management, because it is based on universal coöperation. This provides an intensity and a continuity of interest that would still hold, even though some particular element might lose its interest. THIS RELATIONSHIP ALSO PROVIDES FOR ASSOCIATIONS.--The close relationship of all parts of Scientific Management provides that all ideas are associated, and are so closely connected that they can act as a single group, or any selected number of elements can act as a group. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ESTABLISHES BRAIN GROUPS THAT HABITUALLY ACT IN UNISON.--Professor Read, in describing the general mental principle of association says, "When any number of brain cells have been in action together, they form a habit of acting in unison, so that when one of them is stimulated in a certain way, the others will also behave in the way established by the habit."[31] This working of the brain is recognized in grouping of motions, such as "playing for position."[32] Scientific Management provides the groups, the habit, and the stimulus, all according to standard methods, so that the result is largely predictable. METHOD OF ESTABLISHING SUCH GROUPS IN THE WORKER'S BRAIN.--The standard elements of Scientific Management afford units for such groups. Eventually, with the use of such elements in instruction cards, would be formed, in the minds of the worker, such groups of units as would aid in foreseeing results, just as the foreseeing of groups of moves aids the expert chess or checker player. The size and number of such groups would indicate the skill of the worker. That such skill may be gained quickest, Scientific Management synthesizes the units into definite groups, and teaches these to the workers as groups. TEACHING DONE BY MEANS OF MOTION CYCLES.--The best group is that which completes the simplest cycle of performance. This enables the worker to associate certain definite motions, to make these into a habit, and to concentrate his attention upon the cycle as a whole, and not upon the elementary motions of which it is composed. For example--The cycle of the pick and dip process of bricklaying is to pick up a brick and a trowel full of mortar simultaneously and deposit them on the wall simultaneously.[33] The string mortar method has two cycles, which are, first to pick a certain number of trowelfuls of mortar and deposit them on the wall, and then to pick up a corresponding number of bricks and deposit them on the wall.[34] Each cycle of these two methods consists of an association of units that can be remembered as a group. SUCH CYCLES INDUCE SPEED.--The worker who has been taught thus to associate the units of attention and action into definite rhythmic cycles, is the one who is most efficient, and least fatigued by a given output. The nerves acquire the habit, as does the brain, and the resulting swift response to stimulus characterizes the efficiency of the specialist.[35] SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT RESTRICTS ASSOCIATIONS.--By its teaching of standard methods, Scientific Management restricts association, and thus gains in the speed with which associated ideas arise.[36] Insistence on causal sequence is a great aid. This is rendered by the Systems, which give the reasons, and make the standard method easy to remember. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT PRESENTS SCIENTIFICALLY DERIVED KNOWLEDGE TO THE MEMORY.--Industrial memory is founded on experience, and that experience that is submitted by teaching under Scientific Management to the mind is in the form of scientifically derived standards. These furnish (a) data that is correct. (b) images that are an aid in acquiring new habits of forming efficient images. (c) standards of comparison, and constant demands for comparison. (d) such arrangement of elements that reasoning processes are stimulated. (e) conscious, efficient grouping. (f) logical association of ideas. PROVISION FOR REPETITION OF IMPORTANT IDEAS.--Professor Ebbinghaur says, "Associations that have equal reproductive power lapse the more slowly, the older they are, and the oftener they have been reviewed by renewed memorizing." Scientific Management provides for utilizing this law by teaching right motions first, and by so minutely dividing the elements of such motions that the smallest units discovered are found frequently, in similar and different operations. BEST PERIODS FOR MEMORIZING UTILIZED.--As for education of the memory, there is a wide difference of opinion among leading psychologists in regard to whether or not the memorizing faculty, as the whole, can be improved by training; but all agree that those things which are specially desired to be memorized can be learned more easily, and more quickly, under some conditions than under others: For example, there is a certain time of day, for each person, when the memory is more efficient than at other times. This is usually in the morning, but is not always so. The period when memorizing is easiest is taken advantage of, and, as far as possible, new methods and new instruction cards are passed out at that time when the worker is naturally best fitted to remember what is to be done. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES RESPECTED.--It is a question that varies with different conditions, whether the several instruction cards beyond the one he is working on shall be given to the worker ahead of time, that he may use his own judgment as to when is the best time to learn, or whether he shall have but one at a time, and concentrate on that. For certain dispositions, it is a great help to see a long line of work ahead. They enjoy getting the work done, and feeling that they are more or less ahead of record. Others become confused if they see too much ahead, and would rather attack but one problem at a time. This fundamental difference in types of mind should be taken advantage of when laying out material to be memorized. AID OF MNEMONIC SYMBOLS TO THE MEMORY.--The mnemonic classifications furnish a place where the worker who remembers but little of a method or process can go, and recover the full knowledge of that which he has forgotten. Better still, they furnish him the equivalent of memory of other experiences that he has never had, and that are in such form that he can connect this with his memory of his own personal experience. The ease with which a learner or skilled mechanic can associate new, scientifically derived data with his memory, because of the classifications of Scientific Management, is a most important cause of workers being taught quicker, and being more intelligent, under Scientific Management, than under any other type of management. PROPER LEARNING INSURES PROPER REMEMBERING.--Professor Read says, "Take care of the learning and the remembering will take care of itself."[37] Scientific Management both provides proper knowledge, and provides that this shall be utilized in such a manner that proper remembering will ensue. BETTER HABITS OF REMEMBERING RESULT.--The results of cultivating the memory under Scientific Management are cumulative. Ultimately, right habits of remembering result that aid the worker automatically so to arrange his memory material as to utilize it better.[38] "IMAGINATION" HAS TWO DEFINITIONS.--Professor Read gives definitions for two distinct means of Imagination.