As a result of this,
our efficiency rose from 60 per cent to 80 per cent in less than
four weeks, and it has remained at 80 per cent ever since--(ever
since being over two years)--enabling us to get a moisture of over
56 per cent."[A]
[Footnote A: Bulletin of the Taylor Society--March, 1917.]
This was accomplished, Mr. Wolf told them, without resorting to piece
work or bonus or any of the special methods of payments, their
men being hired by the day throughout the entire plant. Mr. Wolf
accomplished the result by giving meaning to a meaningless task,
by letting the men see for themselves how they arrived at results,
letting them see the different processes of getting results and
knowing on their own account which were the most valuable.
There may be other managers who appreciate the value of letting men
in on the experimental effort of getting results but it is not the
practice to do so and it is opposed to the idea of transferring
the responsibility from the workshop to the manager's office or
laboratory. Because of this practice the educational value of
establishing standards of workmanship is lost so far as the workers
are concerned. Mr. Wolf's criticism of orthodox scientific management
and his conclusions are illuminating; they are indeed revolutionary
in nature as they come from a manager of a successful industrial
enterprise:
"Our efforts, ever since we began to realize the workman's point
of view, have been not to take responsibility from him.
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