Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

.

I have dated this post back at the time I was at university, despite the fact that I was thinking along these lines before that time, and have continued to do so through until the present day. As a business owner, it’s probably one of my most important roles.

One particular experience, at uni, really brought home to me the two different paradigms.

Background

“Deming -vs- Taylor” is really a synopsis about 2 distinctly different views of what management should do within a company - particularly (but not limited to) a company with some production process.

The following is my own (radically simplified) views of how the two different approaches worked, but I have included Wikipedia references so you can check out the full story.  I do apologise to both people for radically simplifying their life’s work for the purpose of this contrast.

1)  On the one hand was an approach advocated by people like Frederick Taylor in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

(a)  Taylor basically believed (as did Henry Ford, and others) that production processes could be made more if they could be broken down into small tasks, with individual people trained to specialise on just a single (or a small number) of tasks.

(b)  Keep in mind that any production line at the time (e.g. the first Ford production lines) were staffed by a large number of workers, and work was much more manual then it is today.

(d)  Key to these types of approaches are such concepts as compartmentalisation, specialisation, rigid enforcement of detailed processes, etc…

(c)  These approaches, when implemented, DID deliver massive improvements in the production efficiencies at the time.

2)  On the other hand was an approach by people like Edwards Deming in the early 1950s.

(a)  The common wisdom is that the USA did not want Deming and he left and was welcomed in post-war Japan with open arms, hence being a major contributor to their industrial renaissance.  Of course, the reality is more complex than that.

(b)  It’s often noted that Deming’s principle contribution to the Japanese economy revolved around the concept that improved quality of work could lead to reduced wastage and greater productivity.

(c)  Whilst that’s of interest to me, what is of more interest is the corollary that, to improve quality, you need to have the whole person engaged in the production process.  Therein lay the distinct conflict with Taylor’s model.

In shorthand, by meticulously stipulating everything about how an employee should produce their particular widget, the body became very fast at doing this one task, but the brain disengaged and quality dropped.

What’s more, opportunities for continuous improvement were missed that could otherwise have been noted by the worker, and acted upon.

(d)  In a nutshell (and again, apologies for the simplification) that’s how the Toyota success story (and that of numerous other Japanese firms) came about.

.

A university experience to remember

During my Mech Eng degree, one particular lecturer had the misfortune to have me as a student.

What I mean to say is that many lecturers had the misfortune to have me in their class – but this particular one seemed to hold a perspective that was incompatible with my own personal philosophy

This guy taught manufacturing (which, in Mech Eng terms, conjures up images of assembly lines of motor vehicles and the like).

In simple terms, this guy seemed (to me) to be a Taylor-disciple-on-steroids.

For instance, my recollection (and again, this might have been influenced by too many afternoons spent at the bar, and not in his classes) was that he once related to us his experience in following his wife around the kitchen one night with a ball of string, mapping out her movements – with the point being that he could show his wife later that night how much more efficient she could have been.

Whilst I had probably not heard of Deming at the time, it certainly seemed to me that there must be more to life (for anyone) than sitting on a production line doing the same task, day-in-day-out.

.

The Message

I relate this story above, not to point out a weird and wacky experience from uni (for surely we have all had some of those) but moreso to make the point that there are still companies today that treat their employees the same way.

I know for sure which culture I would rather work in!

.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 1991 at 10:27 pm and is filed under 01 - Leadership & Management, 02 - People & Culture, CEO's Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.