Organization in Business Management (RLE: Organizations)

A Guide for Managers and Potential Managers

Walter Puckey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135961015
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book is written primarily for junior management and discusses some key issues including:

• the increasing role of technology in business and management
• individual and group dynamics
• communication

1

The Management Scene

HOW old is management? If we assume that it involves responsibility for the actions of more than one person (i.e. yourself) it was obviously practised by Adam (or Eve). It must have been an essential ingredient of millions of groups, including that basic group the family.

But the word management is relatively new, and a widely based study of it is even newer. Students will no doubt have studied the contributions made by management pioneers, and admirably documented by Urwick, Brech and others. My purpose will be served by confining myself to a relatively few significant points of progress which, if linked together, may allow us more accurately to extrapolate them into a managerial future.

The Trend of Management

Why is it that ‘scientific management’ has failed to make greater progress? Urwick and Brech, in Volume I of their admirable series The Making of Scientific Management, writing¹ twelve years after first publication, said: ‘We are still trying to meet the results of scientific enquiry with “political” modes of thought. We are merely another decade nearer the catastrophe which is inevitable if we do so.’ These are strong words, and one wonders why, if catastrophe is looming larger, we, as managers, have neither the sense nor the skill to avert it.

Surveying the pioneering work in management one is impressed by the contributions made by those who would, one feels, like to be described as ‘practical people’. In their selected list of management pioneers Urwick and Brech showed us that the majority of them not only brought new thinking to their subjects but were, generally, successful in applying this thinking to practical ends. They were people who ‘walked with ideas but did not lose the common touch’.

Is this a special feature of management development, and is it good or bad? In the fields of science and technology we find that large-scale utilization of basic knowledge took place only after a sufficiently large theoretical pressure had generated. For instance, the First Industrial Revolution, while conditioned by other forces, was made possible largely by an earlier scientific revolution, where men like Descartes, Hooke, Newton and Boyle provided the sparks of genius which lit many practical fires. (Some of these earlier scientists were very ‘practical’ also, but their great contribution to knowledge was in the field of research, and the formulation of laws or principles.) Similarly, the Second Industrial Revolution, which we have now entered, was made possible by an organized, widely dispersed research programme, which was itself created largely by the pressure of two world wars.

What is scientific management? To quote again from The Making of Scientific Management: ‘Scientific Management means thinking scientifically instead of traditionally or customarily about the processes involved in the control of social groups who co-operate in production and distribution.’

Urwick and Brech suggest that industry is more likely to produce ‘a higher proportion of administrators equipped and intellectually disposed to think scientifically about problems of management, than other professions. Industrialists also are in constant contact with machines—themselves the product of applied science, and machinery in itself is apt to encourage an objective attitude of mind. No other attitude is very much use. Neither passion nor persuasion will make an ill-adjusted machine work effectively; it is necessary to understand and to apply mechanical principles. No doubt a man with concern for machinery will be more successful than one who has no such interest, but the most ham-handed creature instinctively grasps that being subjective about it does not get him anywhere. Machinery imposes a mental discipline—a discipline in favour of thinking in facts and quantities, rather than in fancies and theories—in short, a discipline favourable to scientific thinking.’

As an industrialist I am gratified by these remarks, but they must, I believe, be taken with caution. It is true that industry has taken a growing interest in management, and is currently spending at least moderate sums in helping to support and provide facilities and students for management courses in a variety of universities, colleges and centres. It is true also that machines ‘impose a mental discipline’, which seems an essential requirement for those who wish to think scientifically about management.

But neither of these industrial qualities has, so far, enabled us to provide an adequate scientific foundation for better management. Research into management on a scale anything like research into ‘things’ has so far removed only the top layers of scientific excavation, and it is my view that management, like other wide-spread and important developments, must have a deeply dug scientific foundation before a better structure rises into common vision and use. As Professor Weiss Kofp¹ said ‘every Society that wanted to be in the forefront of practical technology must be vigorously engaged in basic science’.

Let us consider the traditional sequence of research, development and production. Why (I again ask) has the term ‘scientific management’ failed to capture the imagination, or even the interest, of so many influential people? In recent years we have seen organized research emerge on a large scale, covering many subjects and specialisms. Yet management, which has an overwhelming claim to be the superior controlling and co-ordinating function among many specialisms, still lags seriously behind as a subject thought fit for large-scale research.

There are, I believe, many reasons, ranging from the traditional to the personal. We in Britain are quite happy to talk of ‘leadership’, but still consider management rather a non-U occupation. We have long accepted the concept and status of professionalism in medicine, law and teaching, for instance, but we are a long way from accepting management as a ‘professional’ occupation, or even one which requires professional standards of competence and integrity.

In Britain we are quite happy also to preserve the traditional concept of a university as a place which exists primarily to encourage students to think objectively and analytically about any subject, but (perish the thought) not too much about any one subject; it is considered an insult to suggest to some universities that they already provide ‘Vocational’ education. As ‘management education’ is regarded by most universities as a vocational subject it is hardly surprising that it has taken so long to break through the crust of educational tradition.

Even in business, or in management circles, the term ‘manager’ is insecurely fixed in the job spectrum. When so many subordinates say ‘We will see the management about it’ they are denigrating the term ‘manager’, which should be personalized at every opportunity. The depth of the management team in most businesses is not a precise dimension, and the statement I have just quoted is often made by a subordinate because he is not sure whether he is in the management team. He may have been told that as, say, a foreman, he is a manager, but circumstances compel him to disbelieve it. The tradition of management as an upper-level activity is still too strong.

Another traditional barrier to managerial status has, if anything, become more rather than less difficult to break through in recent years. The Institute of Directors was formed in 1903 but only in the last two decades has it, under dynamic leadership, made significant progress. In a period of ten years it rose from a membership of 6,000 to 40,000 and provided itself with lush surroundings, an attractive journal and wide publicity.

To become a director has been, and is increasingly today, the ambition of many managers, but paradoxically its status may be hollow in terms of professional competence. A director of a company may be (I repeat, may be) incompetent, and may hold his position solely on grounds of nepotism, or for other nonprofessional reasons. His may be the most unskilled of all titles, but his position is secure. The Institute of Directors has sponsored research into the duties and responsibilities of directors, and its decision to support management research at Balliol¹ confirmed, I presume, the view that a link existed between ‘director’ and ‘manager’ tasks. It has the means, and I believe the desire, to do much more. My purpose here is, however, to draw attention to what seems to be a status gap near the top end of the promotion ladder which managers are expected (and hope) to climb. ‘Why/so many people ask, ‘is it necessary to introduce higher professional standards into management when the next step upwards is into a realm where professional standards are too often regarded as a disadvantage, or at least have not, so far, been an essential qualification?’

Perhaps as good an answer as any is that the higher the professional status of managers generally, the higher the status of directors will become, which seems a good thing for all.

At the moment I am not optimistic about the greater acceptance of scientific management among a sufficiently large body of senior people. But we are living in a world which more than ever before requires better management, and I am convinced that there are many young managers able and willing to catch the mood and break down the barriers if they are given reasonable guidance and opportunity.

Rapid progress in most fields is made when substantial research produces a foundation of laws or principles, or a widely accepted ‘body of knowledge’. Research has long been regarded as a vital, important component of university life, and some (including myself) believe that universities must enlarge greatly their management research work. What are the chances? Not particularly good when we compare management’s chances against so many other claims. The University Grants Committee faces many demands, not only for a considerable expansion of existing facilities, but for the creation of many entirely new universities, but I understand that substantial additional provision for management research is unlikely unless it can be financed from other sources, presumably largely industrial.¹

So much for a few of the traditional barriers to ‘scientific management’, or, putting it another way, higher professional management status. I suggested earlier that there were ‘personal’ reasons also why scientific management had failed to make adequate progress.

These reasons vary greatly but it is regrettably true that some of the supporters of scientific management have inadvertently erected their own barriers while ostensibly working to demolish them. In many spheres progress has been slowed down because the prophets have not themselves been accepted, which, in turn, reduces the acceptability of their message. In management circles there are just not enough people of influence at present to spread the gospel although I see signs of a ‘revival’ movement.

If enough money is found, how then will vice-chancellors or principals set up facilities and find the right staff for this form of research? The present situation is patchy, and not particularly illuminating; for instance, one university includes management within its social-studies department, another within its economic department, yet another in its engineering department. Perhaps this is relatively unimportant in the early stages of research, when even the ‘sponsoring’ departments may not immediately be able to define the new subject. Even today one definition of economics is ‘the study of the optimum allocation of scarce resources’, and, as a critic has said, ‘that might also fit psychiatry!’ Management is, however, far behind economics in clarity of definition and in university activity. It is right, I believe, that varying approaches to its study should be made at this experimental stage, but it must be borne in mind that if the subject continues to be secondary, and not primary, it will not make full progress. Management is a subject of vital primary interest to the well-being of our country, and if it is to be treated scientifically on such a high level of importance it must become a primary subject at a number of British universities, and not only at Business Schools.

The Supply of Potential Managers

What sort of young men, and how many of them will become available for managerial development? Let us discuss one significant group. Much of my spare time was taken up some years ago in helping to establish the Diploma in Technology, and many thousands of students, or ‘undergraduates’, followed courses which lead to the award of this diploma, which although now changed in name, continues in form.

A special feature of this relatively new honours standard technological award was its insistence on the integration of theory and practice, which means that every successful candidate should at the end of his combined college/company course be able to apply more rapidly his chosen technological studies to practical ends.

Those following this sandwich form of university training are more likely to be candidates for an industrial management career, and will bring to it a background of honours standard theory which should, logically, be applied at all stages of their subsequent careers. Will these graduates later on approach the management job with the theoretical confidence developed in their technological work, or will they, when setting foot on the managerial ladder, put theory behind them on the assumption that they are now entering more fully into the realm of people who are not, so they have been told, susceptible to any theoretical analysis?

It is fascinating to an older manager such as I am to conject upon the impact on management of many thousands of young men educated and trained generally to a consistently higher technological order than their predecessors. Will this mean a much more intensive application of theory to management, and if so will the pendulum swing so far in that direction that we had better begin right away to plan counter action against this potentially heavy dose of ‘scientific management’?

But there we might pause and reflect upon another feature which, as far as possible, was built in to the new courses. This was an insistence upon a reasonable amount of formal (and more opportunity for informal) guidance in liberal pursuits and attitudes. This part of the total course was found, in practice, to be most difficult to design, provide and assess, but it aims at creating a reasonable balance between technical specialism and social satisfaction, between the narrowing theories of science and the broadening requirements of life.

In what special manner will these young potential managers justify themselves? They will, we hope, carry forward into their working lives the two features which were, as far as possible, built into their education. First, an ability to understand theory and an opportunity to apply it more skilfully to practice; second, a realization that all technical progress reacts upon, and should ultimately be for the benefit of, social progress and individual satisfactions.

These abilities should be most valuable to budding managers. They will face in the next few decades a flood of technological development waiting urgently to be applied, yet never before were there so many people wanting to be assured that these things are for the benefit of social and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Table of Contents
• Foreword to Second Edition
• A Personal Introduction
• 1 The Management Scene
• 2 Organization. Focal Point of Scientific Management
• 3 The Individuals
• 4 The Relationships between Individuals and Groups
• 5 The Structure of Groups: I Size, Shape and Internal Structure
• 6 The Structure of Groups: II Communications and Cohesion
• 7 The Structure of Groups: III Group Direction and Leadership
• 8 Some Organization Principles
• 9 Group Dynamics—An Overall View
• Appendix
• Index