Apologies if you're a football tragic because this story doesn't have much to do with sport, but it does say something important about teams.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
During the 1920s, the Western Electric company wanted to improve productivity by tapping into the emerging field of "scientific management".
Earlier approaches came from people such as Frank Gilbreth who introduced the "therblig". In a 1915 article he described the basic motions required by a worker to build a product, thus inventing time and motion studies.
While that may be useful, it can reduce a person to the status of a machine, where each arm and leg movement is a unit of production. Of course people are not machines, and a worker who wants to improve output will usually find ways to do it themselves without being told.
The key phrase here is "wants to", which points to the fact that people have motivations and complex psychologies. People are then part of a social network along with all the intricacies that entails.
At its Hawthorne Plant in Illinois, the Western Electric company attempted a series of experiments to see what happened when they changed working conditions.
In one group, when they increased the level of lighting, productivity went up. When they turned the lighting back down again and productivity still went up, they knew something strange was going on.
The researchers concluded that increasing attention from supervisors could improve job performance.
In another study between 1927 and 1932, six women were moved to a special experiment room where they assembled telephone relays. Here they discussed various changes to their work with a supervisor. The result? It seemed no matter what they did, productivity increased.
Eventually the lead researcher, Elton Mayo, realised that by separating the women from other workers, they'd created a "special" group who soon developed their own team spirit.
A variation occurred when 14 men, who assembled telephone switching equipment, were placed in a room along with a full-time observer. The workers were paid for their individual productivity.
This time, however, productivity fell!
MORE ASK FUZZY:
It seemed the men become suspicious that increasing their productivity would lead the company to lower wages or some being fired.
Then the researchers noticed that cliques had developed within the group. These cliques had their own rules for conduct and ways to enforce them. Workers were likely to be influenced more by their peer groups than by their superiors.
The Hawthorne studies have assumed legendary status in social sciences and even spawned the term "Hawthorne Effect".
However subsequent re-evaluation has cast doubt on the conclusions drawn from the studies.
The whole thing was such a mess it's hard to know exactly what to make of it other than that anything involving people is really complicated.
The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is on 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@Zoho.com; Podcast: FuzzyLogicOn2xx.Podbean.com
