By Bob Emiliani
This article is from the Superfactory Archives, an archive of content from the Superfactory website that existed from 1997 to 2012.
This article is a chapter from Bob Emiliani's new book Real Lean: Understanding the Lean Management System, Volume 2. Volume 1 was published in February 2007.
Lean management advocates have recently begun concerted efforts to push Lean out of the tool age and help people understand Lean as a management system. This article examines what happened when the advocates of an earlier system of management, Scientific Management, sought to change the widely-held view that it was nothing more than a set of tools to improve efficiency. Knowledge of their efforts might help us succeed, provided Lean has not already suffered too much damage.
Scientific Management was the hot new industrial management practice starting in the late 1890s through the 1940s. But soon after the principles and practices of this new management system were codified in 1911 [1], most managers and observers started to interpret it as nothing more than a set of tools to improve efficiency. Other people saw it as a ruthless way to benefit corporations and their shareholders at the expense of workers. They also failed to acknowledge its long evolution in thinking and practice which corrected many of its deficiencies.
Almost immediately the advocates and foremost practitioners of Scientific Management were put on the defensive. It was so controversial that its principal architect, Frederick Winslow Taylor, was called to testify before a House Committee in 1912. Taylor had to explain to members of the committee that the management system he and others created was not evil, and went to great lengths to set the record straight over four days of testimony. He said [2]:
“Scientific management is not any efficiency device, not a device of any kind for securing efficiency; nor is it any bunch or group of efficiency devices. It is not a new system of figuring costs; it is not a new scheme of paying men; it is not a piecework system; it is not a bonus system; it is not a premium system; it is no scheme for paying men; it is not holding a stopwatch on a man and writing things down about him; it is not time study; it is not motion study nor an analysis of the movements of men; it is not the printing and ruling and unloading of a ton or two of blanks [office forms] on a set of men and saying, ‘Here’s your system go use it.’ It is not divided foremanship or functional foremanship; it is not any of these devices which the average man calls to mind when scientific management is spoken of… what I am emphasizing is that these devices in whole or in part are not scientific management; they are useful adjuncts to scientific management, so are they also useful adjuncts of other systems of management.”
In other words, do not mistake the tools and methods used for improvement as constituting the underlying philosophy of the Scientific Management system. Mr. Taylor goes on to say:
“Now, in its essence, scientific management involves a complete mental revolution on the part of the workingman… as to their duties towards their work, towards their fellow men, and toward their employers. And it involves the equally complete mental revolution on the part of those on the management’s side… as to their duties toward their fellow workers in the management, toward their workmen, and toward all of their daily problems. And without this complete mental revolution [of cooperation] on both sides scientific management does not exist…. [this] constitutes the first step towards scientific management. …
[it is] their duty to cooperate in producing the largest possible surplus [of profits to share] and as to the necessity of substituting exact scientific knowledge for opinions or the old rule-of-thumb or individual knowledge. If the use of the system does not make both sides happier, then it is no good… Scientific management cannot exist in establishments with lions at the head of them… It ceases to be scientific management the moment it is used for bad.”
Taylor is simply saying that zero-sum relations between laborers, between managers, and between labor and management are wasteful and will hinder industrial, economic, and human progress. Conventional management is zero-sum, while scientific management is not [3]. The mental revolution is the counterintuitive realization that non-zero-sum, mutually beneficial relations will yield better outcomes for everyone. If managers use Scientific Management to advance their own selfish zero-sum interests, then what they are doing can no longer be called Scientific Management. The tools won’t be effective if zero-sum conditions exist. Just as we have seen with Lean, the tools are ineffective and lead to backslide if zero-sum conditions exist; for example, if the “Respect for People” principle is not in existence [4]. Likewise, we should say: “It ceases to be Lean management the moment it is used for bad.” Lean will not exit the tool age if zero-sum conditions persist, which by its very nature demonstrates disrespect for people.
Taylor’s testimony illustrates the depth of misunderstanding faced by the advocates and premier industrial practitioners of Scientific Management. They had the overwhelming task of convincing anyone who would listen that Scientific Management was a management system and not a set of tools to improve efficiency. By the late 1920s, Scientific Management had been around for about 25 years. So its practitioners and advocates started writing retrospective papers that discussed successes and failures. Harlow S. Person, (1875-1955) was a prominent advocate of Scientific Management since before 1910. He served as a managing director and later as president of The Taylor Society from the mid-1920s to the late 1940s, and thus had a unique perspective on the challenges that the movement faced over a four-decade period.
In 1929 Mr. Person contributed a paper titled “The Origin and Nature of Scientific Management” to the book Scientific Management in American Industry [5]. This paper contains valuable insights, both current to 1929 and in retrospect, with regards to where and how Scientific Management stumbled. Hopefully we can learn something from this to help Lean successfully emerge from the tool age, which Scientific Management was unable to do.
Mr. Person has many interesting observations including:
“…[scientific management] must be based on a harmony of desires and understandings within the group. That is one reason why there are so few complete developments of scientific management, even though American industry generally has been profoundly influenced by its spirit and has come to utilize practically all of its mechanisms. In the first place, managers are reluctant, except under the compulsion of circumstances, to undertake revolutionary improvement; in the second place, because of natural basic conditions of prosperity in America, there has not been general compulsion toward ideals and methods marking a radical departure from opportunism. The urge for a consistent and well-rounded development of scientific management, as distinguished from unconscious influence of its spirit and conscious appropriation of some of its waste-saving mechanisms, has been felt chiefly by those rare leaders who are naturally responsive to ideals of perfection in technical accomplishment and human relations.” (p. 11)
The great majority of executives are more interested in micro-evolutionary department-specific improvement, rather than revolutionary improvement across the enterprise. And when business conditions are good, why bother doing anything new? Therefore, the use of efficiency improvement tools, which often reflects opportunism on the part of managers to secure short-term gains (i.e. “quick hits”), are what executives favor.
“Another reason is that generally the American executive does not take to doctrines, theories, or systems. He has lived in a period of opportunism, has been concerned chiefly with dynamic problems of frontier industry, and has been engaged in going things rather than in reading and thinking about things. Doctrines and systems do not excite his interests; in fact, a new doctrine or system is likely at first to invite rejection without serious consideration.” (p. 11-12)
In general, tools excite executives, not management systems. This is what most Lean consultants have quickly figured out. There is gainful employment in teaching the tools, and mostly frustration and poor sales if one tries to teach the system. In addition, most executives are not fond of reading and thinking, but instead like to focus their attention on doing their daily routine. This places a major handicap on any new system of management.
Person continues:
“In time, however, it is almost certain to have great influence if it has integrity and vigor, for the detailed beliefs or practices expressing a doctrine may be held or practiced by individuals who do not hold or are not informed concerning the doctrine as a whole.” (p. 12)
Mr. Person thought that over time the Scientific Management system would diffuse and someday make up the fabric of executive thinking and management practice. He was wrong, at least so far.
“A large number of plants dominated by tradition [of management practice] and imitation has naturally appropriated some of the mechanisms of scientific management, and although the net result has been a gradual rising of the level of management in such plants, this result has not been achieved in all cases. Very serious damage in individual instances to managerial effectiveness and harmonious relations with workers, and to the good repute of scientific management, has resulted from the failure to adopt ideals and spirit along with mechanisms. It is in this class of plants that the superficial ‘efficiency engineer’ has found his clientele, and he has not hesitated to seek the advantage of proclaiming himself a representative of scientific management, the harm he has been able to bring temporarily to the repute of scientific management has been considerable.” (p. 13)
In this passage Person is particularly critical of the “efficiency engineer” whose specialty is the tools, but who represents himself as a disciple of Scientific Management without full knowledge of the system. The equivalent of this today would be the kaizen consultant or Lean trainer, for example, whose specialty is the tools, but who represents himself as a disciple of Lean management without full knowledge of the system. In other words, they are experts at “Continuous Improvement,” but lack deep knowledge of the “Respect for People” principle; and especially how the two principles function together [6,7].
“The concern of scientific management for harmonious industrial relations, and workers’ prosperity and good-will, has always been deep, for one of the first discoveries of research in management is that good-will is a productive power independent of the efficiency of equipment and methods, and adds to the efficiency of equipment and methods. But scientific management considers workers’ welfare and good-will, not as something detached which can be generated effectively as a thing apart from the spirit and methods of management, but as something which is a consequence of and integral with these. Good management and workers’ welfare are the two terms of an equation; it matters little which term is put first. Scientific management aims… to eliminate factors of the environment which are irritating and the cause of frictions, and to promote common understandings, tolerances and the spirit of team work.” (pp. 16-17)
Unfortunately, there are too many executives who ignore obvious cause-and-effect relationships when it comes to improvement and the workers. Kaizen that leads to layoffs creates ill-will and friction, undercuts teamwork, and destroys worker’s desire to participate in future improvement activities. Kaizen threatens their welfare; the cause-and-effect is clear. But many executives choose to deny this reality, indicating that they do not want responsibility for the workers. If that’s the case, then should they be an executive? By these actions, executives are doing all they can to make sure Lean never exits the tool age.
Scientific Management ended its run a few years after World War II, in large part because executives failed to understand it as a system and did not comprehend its true meaning; a non-zero-sum management system.
Significant efforts were made over a four decade period to help Scientific Management exit the tool age. The primary change in tactic, which was initiated in the late 1920s, was to view this as a leadership problem. The Scientific Management community eagerly looked to social psychology, industrial psychology, and the emerging field of leadership studies for answers that could help them. But none came. What does this foretell for Lean?
Some of the ideas and many tools of Scientific Management were picked up by Lean management, either directly or discovered separately. If Lean continues to be seen as a bunch of tools, then it is likely that its tools will be subsumed into the next big thing. Who knows what that will be or when it will come along, but one thing is certain: it will be a big waste because there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Lean management. It is a greatly improved non-zero-sum management system that explicitly incorporates the human dimension through the “Respect for People” principle – a feature that Scientific Management struggled with.
The Lean community helped create the problem of another management system becoming widely viewed as a set of tools. We should want to recover from this repeat error. The question is: How do we do it?
Taylor and Person identified three executive characteristics that they thought stood in the way of understanding Scientific Management as a management system:
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Zero-sum mindset
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Focused principally on doing things
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Satisfaction with the current state
These are three tough nuts to crack! They surely support Taylor’s and Person’s view that it was rare to find leaders who want to achieve something great, both technically and in human relations. The three nut problem also limits us today, and should be among the key areas that the Lean community focuses on in its presentation of Lean as a management system.
Finally, it won’t do much good for Lean to exit the tool age if the current generation of managers understands Lean as a management system but is unwilling or unable to pass that knowledge and practice on to future generations of managers. We need to think about how to do that as well.
Notes:
[1] F.W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management , Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, NY, 1911. In a nutshell, Scientific Management can be described as a system of production management that, if done correctly, resulted in a much more efficient batch-and-queue (push) production system; 2-3 times more efficient than basic batch-and-queue production. Its application was later extended to non-production activities and to non-manufacturing industries. Its main foci were “betterment” of the work and “cooperation.” Some of its principles, methods, and tools are the same or similar to that found in Lean management.
[2] Scientific Management: Comprising Shop Management, Principles of Scientific Management, Testimony Before the House Committee , F.W. Taylor, with foreword by Harlow S. Person, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, NY, 1947, pp. 26-27, 30-31, 152, and 191
[3] Scientific Management was an early attempt to create a non-zero-sum management system. Technically, however, it retains zero-sum features because it is still a batch-and-queue (push) system. However, Scientific Management is much less zero-sum compared to simple batch-and-queue management thinking and practice. The rationale for improved human relations and the work analysis methods developed by the leaders of Scientific Management (or separately by others) were major advances in management thinking and practice.
[4] "The Toyota Way 2001," Toyota Motor Corporation, internal document, Toyota City, Japan, April 2001
[5] Harlow S. Person in Scientific Management in American Industry , Harlow S. Person, editor, The Taylor Society, Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York, NY, 1929, chapter 1, pp. 1-22
[6] B. Emiliani, REAL LEAN: Understanding the Lean Management System , Volume One, The CLBM, LLC, Kensington, Conn., 2007
[7] B. Emiliani, with D. Stec, L. Grasso, and J. Stodder, Better Thinking, Better Results: Case Study and Analysis of an Enterprise-Wide Lean Transformation , second edition, The CLBM, LLC, Kensington, Conn., 2007