The latest in ‘Scientific Management’

It might still be about the ‘size of the shovel’, but employee awareness of what a good working environment should be like, means that scientific management today is vastly different in 2023 to the radical improvements achieved by Fred Taylor in the late 19th and early 20th century. ?Notable successes achieved by the late Frederick Winslow Taylor, famously included increases in productivity of 380% during his time as a management consultant. In the heat and smoke of a furnace environment he achieved this (at the time incredible) success through the application of a new set of principles. These principles were a granular approach to managing small details, such as the optimum size shovel for moving coal from one place to another, the recording of seemingly insignificant differences in worker achievements per hour at different times of the day, and the refinement of basic processes. They were some of the foundations of what came to be known as ‘scientific business management’. Hard factual improvements evidenced in businesses like ‘Bethlehem Steel’, saw a reduction in the loading of pig iron from 8 cents per tonne down to 4.8 cents. These savings were spectacular. Add to this the link between workers’ pay (up by 60%), and performance improvement profits, and the resultant euphoria caused him to be lauded by the workers as well as the business leadership and its shareholders. However, the mutually beneficial outcomes of his scientific approach didn’t last. By the time he died in 1915 there were public criticisms of his ‘time and motion’ studies, and doubts about the fairness of paying workers different rates for doing the same job. They were early indications that foretold the rise of employee awareness, feelings of unfair treatment, and distrust. Hindsight highlights a fork in the river of business leadership and productivity: In one direction lay the opportunity to engage with employees to jointly benefit from improvements in workplace effectiveness, with the other the path leading to inevitable worker dissent - where managers would seek to be the sole beneficiaries of productivity changes. It is of course a matter of record, that the latter was the chosen direction. The inequality of benefits from forced changes at work, and the rise of what became known as business fat cats, eventually led to the necessary introduction of human relations approaches via the upgrading of payroll sections to HR departments. However, it is important to note that this introduction was always a step behind the pace of scientific management improvements. There was no immediate embracing of ways and means to satisfy the needs of employees, but a grudging recognition that gouging out pennies from the business budget for the funding of ‘soft measures’, was less painful than the irritating alternatives of worker unrest. Despite the growth and yet more growth of employee focused activity, organisational, and occupational psychology, there persists the notion among the workplace throng that it is merely a fa?ade. The belief that behind a flimsy smokescreen of ‘company values’ - such as treating employees as partners, lies the scarcely hidden veracious desire to squeeze out every penny for the benefit of shareholders and business leadership.

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However, a scientific approach to rival Taylor’s scientific management has gradually been gaining traction. From ambitious beginnings as a cross over from successful sport to business, the coach, both personal and professional has grown into a useful, if often misunderstood means of enhancing employee motivation and satisfaction – contributing to the ever hungry desire for improved bottom lines. This brings us to today, and the emergence of the scientifically based, psychologically skilled, behavioural change coaches. The success of initiatives including ‘Manager as coach’, Leadership coaching’, ‘Internally accredited coaches’, and ‘Coaching skills development programmes’, in addition to attempts at achieving a ‘Coaching culture’, are now necessarily led by suitably qualified, highly experienced coach educators. For the first time in more than a century, workplace changes are as likely to happen because of scientifically based behavioural change facilitation from coaches, as they are the latter-day version of ‘Taylorism’ still delivered by management consultants. Some might say that “at last” there is a recognition by business leaders that changes in results for the better won’t happen, unless the behaviour of their employees changes first. It is no longer one or the other. Disingenuous, hypocritical, or insincere lip-service activity delegated to well-intentioned human resource people are no longer an option, nor are they now necessary. Professional behavioural-change skills, packaged under the banner of ‘coaching’ are the new addition to scientific business management. It may have taken a while, but it might just be that the euphoric balance achieved by Fred Taylor back in the early days can be achieved again.

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If your business will be more profitable when employees trust their peers and their leaders, your leaders trust their peers, their own leaders, and their subordinates, and everyone works together in ways that make changes for the better easy to implement, then we probably need to talk.

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Martin Goodyer

Business Psychologist & Executive Coach