"The MGMT Solution," Vocabulary from Chapter 2

Although we can find the seeds of many of today’s management ideas throughout history, not until the last two centuries did systematic changes in the nature of work and organizations create a compelling need for managers.

A task as enormous as building the great pyramids in Egypt was bound to present practical problems that would lead to the development of management ideas.

Egyptians recognized the need for planning, organizing, and controlling; for submitting written requests; and for consulting staff for advice before making decisions.

Whereas artisans made entire goods by themselves by hand, this new production system was based on a division of labor: Each worker, interacting with machines, performed separate, highly specialized tasks that were but a small part of all the steps required to make manufactured goods.

While workers focused on their singular tasks, managers were needed to coordinate the different parts of the production system and optimize its overall performance.

Second, instead of being performed in fields, homes, or small shops, jobs occurred in large, formal organizations where hundreds, if not thousands, of people worked under one roof.

Because the number of people working in manufacturing quintupled from 1860 to 1890, and individual factories employed so many workers under one roof, companies now had a strong need for disciplinary rules to impose order and structure.

Taylor, who once described scientific management as “seventy-five percent science and twenty-five percent common sense,” emphasized that the goal of scientific management was to use systematic study to find the “one best way” of doing each task.

The first principle was to “develop a science” for each element of work. Study it. Analyze it. Determine the “one best way” to do the work.

Second, managers had to scientifically select, train, teach, and develop workers to help them reach their full potential.

In order to have any hope of obtaining the initiative of his workmen the manager must give some special incentive to his men beyond that which is given to the average of the trade. This incentive can be given in several different ways, as, for example, the hope of rapid promotion or advancement; higher wages, either in the form of generous piecework prices or of a premium or bonus of some kind for good and rapid work; shorter hours of labor; better surroundings and working conditions

The third principle instructed managers to cooperate with employees to ensure that the scientific principles were actually implemented.

Scientific management, on the contrary, has for its very foundation the firm conviction that the true interests of the two are one and the same; that prosperity for the employer cannot exist through a long term of years unless it is accompanied by prosperity for the employee and vice versa; and that it is possible to give the workman what he most wants—high wages—and the employer what he wants—a low labor cost for his manufactures.

The fourth principle of scientific management was to divide the work and the responsibility equally between management and workers.

As a result of his experience with bricklaying, Gilbreth and his wife, Lillian, developed a long-term interest in using motion study to simplify work, improve productivity, and reduce the level of effort required to safely perform a job.

Motion study broke each task or job into separate motions and then eliminated those that were unnecessary or repetitive.

Taylor developed time study to put an end to soldiering and to determine what could be considered a fair day’s work.

The use of Gantt charts is so widespread today that nearly all project management software and computer spreadsheets have the capability to create charts that track and visually display the progress being made on a project.

Likewise, promotion to prominent positions of authority in monarchies and patriarchies was based on who you knew (politics), who you were (heredity), or ancient rules and traditions.

Rather than ruling by virtue of favoritism or personal or family connections, people in a bureaucracy would lead by virtue of their rational-legal authority—in other words, their knowledge, expertise, or experience.

Unlike in many monarchies or patriarchies, however, those lower in the chain of command are protected by a grievance procedure that gives them the right to appeal the decisions of those in higher positions.

If you move to a different job in a bureaucracy, your authority increases or decreases commensurate with the responsibilities of that job.

In bureaucracies, managers are supposed to influence employee behavior by fairly rewarding or punishing employees for compliance or noncompliance with organizational policies, rules, and procedures.

Low turnover, meaning a stable workforce with high tenure, benefits an organization by improving performance, lowering costs, and giving employees, especially managers, time to learn their jobs.

Because it is a "great source of strength for business," managers should encourage the development of initiative, or the ability to develop and implement a plan, in others.

Develop a strong sense of morale and unity among workers that encourages coordination of efforts.

So, rather than one side dominating the other or both sides compromising, the point of integrative conflict resolution is to have both parties indicate their preferences and then work together to find an alternative that meets the needs of both.

The Hawthorne Effect cannot be understood without giving equal importance to the social units, which became intensely cohesive groups.

In fact, he defines an organization as a “system of consciously coordinated activities or forces of two or more persons.”

In general, people will be indifferent to managerial directives or orders if they (1) are understood, (2) are consistent with the purpose of the organization, (3) are compatible with the people’s personal interests, and (4) can actually be carried out by those people.

Today, because of Whitney’s ideas, most products, from cars to toasters to space shuttles, are manufactured using standardized, interchangeable parts.

For the first time, precise drawings permitted manufacturers to make standardized, interchangeable parts without first examining a prototype.

Once standardized, interchangeable parts became the norm, and once parts could be made from design drawings alone, manufacturers ran into a costly problem that they had never faced before: too much inventory.

For most of recorded history, information has been costly, difficult to obtain, and slow to spread.

This need for timely information also led companies to quickly adopt the telegraph in the 1860s, the telephone in the 1880s, and, of course, Internet technologies in the last two decades.

One way to deal with organizational and environmental complexity is to take a systems view of organizations. The systems approach is derived from theoretical models in biology and social psychology developed in the 1950s and 1960s. A system is a set of interrelated elements or parts that function as a whole.

Subsystems and their connections matter in systems theory because of the possibility for managers to create synergy. Synergy occurs when two or more subsystems working together can produce more than they can working apart. In other words, synergy occurs when 1 + 1 = 3.

Third, because of the complexity and difficulty of trying to achieve synergies among different parts of the organization, the systems view encourages managers to focus on better communication and cooperation within the organization.

The contingency approach to management clearly states that there are no universal management theories and that the most effective management theory or idea depends on the kinds of problems or situations that managers or organizations are facing at a particular time.

A second implication of the contingency approach is that managers need to look for key contingencies that differentiate today’s situation or problems from yesterday’s situation or problems.