L. M. Gilbreth - The Psychology of Management

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(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.

1. "The general function of the having of images."
2. "The particular one of having images which are not
consciously memories or the reproduction of the facts of
experience as they were originally presented to
consciousness."[39]

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT PROVIDES MATERIAL FOR IMAGES.--As was
shown under the discussion of the appeals of the various teaching
devices of Scientific Management,--provision is made for the four
classes of imagination of Calkins[40]--

1. visual,
2. auditory,
3. tactual, and
4. mixed.

IT ALSO REALIZES THE IMPORTANCE OF PRODUCTIVE
IMAGINATION.--Scientific Management realizes that one of the special
functions of teaching the trades is systematic exercising and
guiding of imaginations of apprentices and learners. As Professor
Ennis says,--"Any kind of planning ahead will result in some good,"
but to plan ahead most effectively it is necessary to have a
well-developed power of constructive imagination. This consists of
being able to construct new mental images from old memory images; of
being able to modify and group images of past experiences, or
thoughts, in combination with new images based on imagination, and
not on experience. The excellence of the image arrived at in the
complete work is dependent wholly upon the training in image forming
in the past. If there has not been a complete economic system of
forming standard habits of thought, the worker may have difficulty
in controlling the trend of associations of thought images, and
difficulty in adding entirely new images to the groups of
experienced images, and the problem to be thought out will suffer
from wandering of the mind. The result will be more like a dream
than a well balanced mental planning. It is well known that those
apprentices, and journeymen as well, are the quickest to learn, and
are better learners, who have the most vivid imagination. The best
method of teaching the trade, therefore, is the one that also
develops the power of imagination.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ASSISTS PRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.--
Scientific Management assists productive, or constructive,
imagination, not only by providing standard units, or images, from
which the results may, be synthesized, but also, through the
unity of the instruction card, allows of imagination of the outcome,
from the start.

For example,--in performing a prescribed cycle of motions, the
worker has his memory images grouped in such a figure, form, or
sequence,--often geometrical,--that each motion is a part of a
growing, clearly imagined whole.

The elements of the cycle may be utilized in other entirely new
cycles, and are, as provided for in the opportunities for invention
that are a part of Scientific Management.

JUDGMENT THE RESULT OF FAITHFUL ENDEAVOR.--Judgment, or the
"mental process which ends in an affirmation or negation of
something,"[41] comes as the result of experience, as is admirably
expressed by Prof. James,--"Let no youth have any anxiety about the
upshot of his education whatever the line of it may be. If he keeps
faithfully busy each hour of the working day, he may safely leave
the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on
waking up some fine morning, to find himself one of the competent
ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out.
Silently, between all the details of his business, the _power of
judging_ in all that class of matter will have built itself up
within him as a possession that will never pass away. Young people
should know this truth in advance.[42] The ignorance of it has
probably engendered more discouragement and faint-heartedness in
youths embarking on arduous careers than all other causes put
together."[43]

TEACHING SUPPLIES THIS JUDGMENT UNDER SCIENTIFIC
MANAGEMENT.--Under Scientific Management this judgment is the result
of teaching of standards that are recognized as such by the learner.
Thus, much time is eliminated, and the apprentice under Scientific
Management can work with all the assurance as to the value of his
methods that characterized the seasoned veterans of older types
of management.

TEACHING ALSO UTILIZES THE JUDGMENT.--The judgment that is
supplied by Scientific Management is also used as a spring toward
action.[44] Scientific Management appeals to the reason, and workers
perform work as they do because, through the Systems and otherwise,
they are persuaded that the method they employ is the best.

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION IS ALSO UTILIZED.[45]--The dynamic power
of ideas is recognized by Scientific Management, in that the
instruction card is put in the form of direct commands, which,
naturally, lead to immediate action. So, also, the teaching written,
oral and object, as such, can be directly imitated by the
learner.[46]

Imitation, which Dr. Stratton says "may well be counted a
special form of suggestion," will be discussed later in this chapter
at length.[47]

WORKER ALWAYS HAS OPPORTUNITY TO CRITICISE THE SUGGESTION.--The
worker is expected to follow the suggestion of Scientific Management
without delay, because he believes in the standardization on which
it is made, and in the management that makes it. But the Systems
afford him an opportunity of reviewing the reasonableness of the
suggestion at any time, and his constructive criticism is invited
and rewarded.

SUGGESTION MUST BE FOLLOWED AT THE TIME.--The suggestion must be
followed at the time it is given, or its value as a suggestion is
impaired. This is provided for by the underlying idea of cooeperation
on which Scientific Management rests, which molds the mental
attitude of the worker into that form where suggestions are quickest
grasped and followed.[48]

"NATIVE REACTIONS" ENUMERATED BY PROF. JAMES.--Prof. James
enumerates the "native reactions" as (1) fear, (2) love, (3)
curiosity, (4) imitation, (5) emulation, (6) ambition, (7)
pugnacity, (8) pride, (9) ownership, (10) constructiveness.[49]
These are all considered by Scientific Management. Such as might
have a harmful effect are supplanted, others are utilized.

FEAR UTILIZED BY ANCIENT MANAGERS.--The native reaction most
utilized by the first managers of armies and ancient works of
construction was that of fear. This is shown by the ancient rock
carvings, which portray what happened to those who disobeyed.[50]

FEAR STILL USED BY TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT.--Fear of personal
bodily injury is not usual under modern Traditional Management, but
fear of less progress, less promotion, less remuneration, or of
discharge, or of other penalties for inferior effort or efficiency
is still prevalent.

FEAR TRANSFORMED UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--Under Scientific
Management the worker may still fear that he will incur a penalty,
or fail to deserve a reward, but the honest, industrious worker
experiences no such horror as the old-time fear included. This is
removed by his knowledge

1. that his task is achievable.
2. that his work will not injure his health.
3. that he may be sure of advancement with age and
experience.
4. that he is sure of the "square deal."

Thus such fear as he has, has a good and not an evil effect upon
him. It is an incentive to cooeperate willingly. Its immediate and
ultimate effects are advantageous.

LOVE, OR LOYALTY, FOSTERED BY SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--The
worker's knowledge that the management plans to maintain such
conditions as will enable him to have the four assurances enumerated
above leads to love, or loyalty, between workers and employers.[51]

Far from Scientific Management abolishing the old personal and
sympathetic relations between employers and workers, it gives
opportunities for such relations as have not existed since the days
of the guilds, and the old apprenticeship.[52]

The cooeperation upon which Scientific Management rests does away
with the traditional "warfare" between employer and workers that
made permanent friendliness almost impossible. Cooeperation induces
friendliness and loyalty of each member in the organization to all
the others.

Mr. Wilfred Lewis says, in describing the installation of
Scientific Management in his plant, "We had, in effect, been
installing at great expense a new and wonderful means for increasing
the efficiency of labor, in the benefits of which the workman
himself shared, and we have today an organization second, I believe,
to none in its loyalty, efficiency and steadfastness of
purpose."[53] This same loyalty of the workers is plain in an
article in _Industrial Engineering_, on "Scientific Management as
Viewed from the Workman's Standpoint," where various men in a shop
having Scientific Management were interviewed.[54] After quoting
various workers' opinions of Scientific Management and their own
particular shop, the writer says: "Conversations with other men
brought out practically the same facts. They are all contented. They
took pride in their work, and seemed to be especially proud of the
fact that they were employed in the Link-Belt shops."[55]

TEACHING UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT DEVELOPS SUCH LOYALTY.--The
manner of teaching under Scientific Management fosters such loyalty.
Only through friendly aid can both teacher and taught prosper. Also,
the perfection of the actual workings of this plan of management
inspires regard as well as respect for the employer.

VALUE OF PERSONALITY NOT ELIMINATED.--It is a great mistake to
think that Scientific Management underestimates the value of
personality.[56] Rather, Scientific Management enhances the value of
an admirable personality. This is well exemplified in the Link-Belt
Co.,[57] and in the Tabor Manufacturing Co. of Philadelphia, as well
as on other work where Scientific Management has been installed a
period of several years.

CURIOSITY AROUSED BY SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--Scientific
Management arouses the curiosity of the worker, by showing, through
its teaching, glimpses of the possibilities that exist for further
scientific investigation. The insistence on standard methods of less
waste arouses a curiosity as to whether still less wasteful methods
cannot be found.

CURIOSITY UTILIZED BY SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.--This curiosity is
very useful as a trait of the learner, the planner and the
investigator. It can be well utilized by the teacher who recognizes
it in the learner, by an adaptation of methods of interpreting the
instruction card, that will allow of partially satisfying, and at
the same time further exciting, the curiosity.

In selecting men for higher positions, and for special work,
curiosity as to the work, with the interest that is its result, may
serve as an admirable indication of one sort of fitness. This
curiosity, or general interest, is usually associated with a
personal interest that makes it more intense, and more easy to
utilize.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT PLACES A HIGH VALUE ON IMITATION.--It was
a popular custom of the past to look down with scorn on the
individual or organization that imitated others. Scientific
Management believes that to imitate with great precision the best,
is a work of high intelligence and industrial efficiency.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT USES BOTH SPONTANEOUS AND DELIBERATE
IMITATION.--Teaching under Scientific Management induces both
spontaneous and deliberate imitation. The standardization prevalent,
and the conformity to standards exacted, provide that this imitation
shall follow directed lines.

SPONTANEOUS IMITATION UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT HAS VALUABLE
RESULTS.--Under Scientific Management, the worker will spontaneously
imitate the teacher, when the latter has been demonstrating. This
leads to desired results. So, also, the worker imitates, more or
less spontaneously, his own past methods of doing work. The right
habits early formed by Scientific Management insure that the results
of such imitation shall be profitable.

DELIBERATE IMITATION CONSTANTLY ENCOURAGED.--Deliberate
imitation is caused more than anything else by the fact that the man
knows, if he does the thing in the way directed, his pay will be
increased.

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 cooeperation 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 are[59]

"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.

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