MANAGEMENT PERSONALITIES

courtesy of DANNY J. PIANO

Here's a compilation of management personalities that I am sure you will find useful. I will not be able to cover every Juan and Pedro of the management world but hopefully, I will be able to give you the more famous (or infamous) ones. I think that it will be helpful also if I will categorize as to what management movement each particular personality belongs to.

This web page is a work in progress so come back often. To those students preparing for the Compre Exam and freshmen taking Theories & Practices of Management, let me hear a scream of jubilation!

If you find this page or our website useful, why don't you, out of the goodness of your heart, donate an unused book, or cash :), for the library. It will be very much appreciated (and I'll have your name posted in this website, too).

Okay, 'nuff talk, here it is:

CLASSICAL MANAGEMENT MOVEMENT

The classical management movement consists of two different viewpoints. The first is the Scientific Management which is mostly concerned in improving the performance of individual workers (efficiency). This movement grew out of the labor shortage during the industrial revolution at the beginning of the twentieth century. The second is General Administrative Management which tries to focus on managing the organization as a whole instead of managing the individuals.

The classical management movement undoubtedly laid the foundation for later management developments. Its other contributions include advancing the concept of the basic management functions, classifying management processes, and focusing attention towards management as a legitimate topic worthy of scientific inquiry.

The major limitations of the classical management movement are that it assumes that each worker is an economic man and will, therefore, work harder in order to make more money; employees are usually regarded as tools to be used to achieve organizational goals rather than as valuable resources; it prescribed universal procedures that are not appropriate in some settings; and it misses out on the relationship between an organization and its environment.

Acknowledgment: Many of the information found following are from publicly available Internet versions of Organizational Change Through Time by John E. Perkins, III and History of Mgt. by Wolfgang Pindur, Sandra Rogers, and Pan Suk Kim. All photos used are also publicly available but sources, nevertheless, cited as appropriate.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

James Watt & Matthew Boulton

1736 – 1819,          1728 – 1809

The Soho Engineering Foundry in Great Britain was founded in 1796 by the inventors and developers of the steam engine, James Watt and Matthew Boulton (pictured here). The management of the foundry was turned over to the sons, James Watt Jr. and Matthew Robinson Boulton, who systematically implemented several management techniques including market research and forecasting; planned machine layout and work-flow requirements; planned site location; production planning; production process standards; and standardization of product components.

In accounting and cost analysis, James Jr. and Matthew R., developed and maintained detailed statistical records and advanced control systems with which they were able to calculate cost and profits for each machine manufactured for each department. For their personnel, they formed worker and executive training and development programmes, work-study programmes leading to payment by results based on work studies, and certain welfare programmes such as a sickness benefit programme executed by a committee of elected employees.*

Ref: *Pollard, H.R., Developments in Management Thought, William Heinemann, London, 1974.
Photos: http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blwattsfirm.htm

Robert Owen

1771 – 1858

Frequently referred to as the father of modern personnel management. He experimented with improving working conditions in the factories and raising the minimum age for working children. He successfully used his experiments to get national legislation passed, limiting the abuse of child labor. He provided meals at the factories for on-duty employees and set up company stores to sell necessities at cost, and sought to improve the community by building houses and streets and making the community and factory attractive.*

During his time period, the realisation had dawned on employers in the new large industries, that if their employees were better treated, educated and happier with their lot then, they would work harder as a result. Robert Owen of New Lanark, Scotland, took a keen interest in discovering how the mining companies at Wanlockhead and Leadhills, looked after their miners and families and some of what he learned here, was applied to his mills in the Clyde Valley.**

Refs: *Ivancevich, J.M., Lorenzi, P. and Skinner, S.J., Management: Quality and Competitiveness, Richard D. Irwin, Boston, MA, 1994, pp. 40-67. **http://www.leadminingmuseum.co.uk
Photo: New Lanark Conservation Trust

Charles Babbage

1792 – 1871

Best remembered for his book, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacturers, published in 1832, where he contended that mutual interests could exist between workers and owners of factories. Babbage strongly argued for a profit-sharing system whereby workers could profit from their productivity.*

He showed that reducing the tasks of manufacturing to their simplest activities increases the numbers of people who can do them and, thus, reduces the average wage which needs to be paid. This is one of the earliest examples of operations research and it lays the theoretical groundwork for Taylorism and Henry Ford's assembly lines.

Babbage also designed the Difference Engine, a powerful automatic mechanical calculator with its own formatting printer; and the Analytical Engine, an automatic, programmable calculator.

Ref: *Higgins, J.M., The Mgt. Challenge: An Introduction to Mgt., Macmillan, New York, NY, 1991, pp. 33-61.
Photo: Australian Computer Museum Society

Henry Varnum Poor

1812 – 1904

Editor of the American Railroad Journal, concluded that what the railroads needed was effective management. Poor developed a managerial system with a clearly established organizational structure so that individuals could be held accountable. The system would also incorporate a top down report communications system throughout the organization.*

Poor's financial legacy is still revered on Wall Street. His publishing firm has prospered over the years. He is the Poor in the well-known financial rating company Standard & Poor's.

Ref: *Daft, R.L., Management, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, NY, 1988, pp. 32-63.
Photo: http://andovermaine.tripod.com/ezekielmerrill.html

Frederick Winslow Taylor

1856 – 1915

The beginning of the twentieth century brought new concerns about productivity. Businesses were expanding and money was available. However, labour was in short supply. Management began looking at methods to improve efficiency. Frederick W. Taylor of the Midvale Steel Company recognized, in the early 1880s, the need for labor and management cooperation, cost controlling and work methods analysis.

He understood the principle of greater output achieved through worker participation which he called “systematic soldiering”. Essentially, he enlisted the management at Midvale to study what constituted a “good day’s work”. His differential piecework plan followed the conclusions of his time studies and called for high wage rates for performance deemed above standard and low rates for work which fell below the mark as established by the company. There was absolutely no promise of basic wage rates or, as we now know it, minimum wages, until Taylor’s later programs.

Taylor’s entire theory was predicated on the assumption that the primary interest of management and the worker was one and the same. If management’s goal was lower labor costs, then the workers’ goal of higher wages could be easily met because their work was considered measurable. It was also Taylor’s assumption that, once the workers understood the great advantages of scientific management, they would immediately develop a better mental attitude towards management and one another, thus eliminating the need for constructive criticism and complaints.*

Ref: *Taylor, F.W., Principles of Scientific Management, Harper and Brothers, New York, NY, 1911.
Photo: http://www.lib.uwo.ca/business/taybio.html

Henry L. Gantt

1861 – 1919

Another colleague of Taylor’s at Bethlehem Steel Works, Henry Gantt implemented a wage incentive programme considered far superior to Taylor’s. Gantt’s incentive system provided bonuses for workers who completed their jobs in less time than the allowed standard. He also initiated a bonus plan for supervisors. Though he made many contributions to the field of management, Gantt is best known for an offshoot of his task and bonus system. The main thrust of his system was centred on the completion of a given amount of work in a given time. He developed planning and control techniques using a simple graphic bar chart, the Gantt Chart, to display relationships between planned and completed work on one axis and elapsed time on the other.*

Ref: *Higgins, J.M., The Mgt. Challenge: An Introduction to Mgt., Macmillan, New York, NY, 1991, pp. 33-61.
Photo: none found

Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

1868 – 1924, 1878 – 1972

Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, also followers of Taylor, are known for contributions in production and operation management. They are best known for their time and motion studies. From these studies, the Gilbreths developed the “laws of motion economy”, which involved 22 principles dealing with: the use of the human body; the workplace arrangement; and tools and equipment design.*

Frank Gilbreth's early work in motion study consisted of re-organizing the typical work flow for bricklaying, and focused on eliminating unneeded movements. His solutions were simple but revolutionary to a trade that had changed little over 4,000 years; he brought the bricks closer to the mason, helped reduce the amount of bending and lifting required to lay and brick, and used a moveable scaffold to allow steady progress on the construction of brick buildings. Most manufacturers were interested in increasing profits while also keeping their workers happy, and the Gilbreths' system was designed to do both things.**

Ref: *Gilbreth, F.B. and Gilbreth, L.M., Applied Motion Study, Sturgis and Walton, New York, NY, 1917. **http://www.telelavoro.rassegna.it/fad/socorg03/l2/Frank%20and%20Lillian%20Gilbreth.htm
Photos: http://gilbrethnetwork.tripod.com/bio.html

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT

Whereas scientific management focused on employees as individuals and their tasks, general administrative management theory dealt with total management organization. General management theory was an attempt to develop a much broader theory concerned with administrative management functions and is considered the forerunner of modern organization theory. As with scientific management, there were many contributors to general management theory.

Henri Fayol

1841 – 1925

Around the turn of the century, a Frenchman named Henri Fayol introduced the management world to “systematic management theory”. An executive and mining engineer, Fayol played an important role in the field of management from 1888 until the time of his death in 1925. InIndustrial and General Administration, he presented his 14 principles of management and the 5 functions all managers perform. The 14 principles include:

1. Division of work
2. Authority and responsibility
3. Discipline
4. Unity of command
5. Unity of direction
6. Subordination of individual interest to the general interest
7. Remuneration
8. Centralization
9. Scalar chain (line of authority with peer-level communication)
10. Order
11. Equity
12. Stability of tenure of personnel
13. Initiative
14. Esprit de corps (union is strength)

The Five Functions of Management was the most important of Fayol's six industrial activities (technical, commercial, financial, security, accounting, managerial) and included:

1. Planning - examining the future and drawing up plans of actions
2. Organizing - building up the structure (labor and material) of the undertaking
3. Commanding - maintaining activity among the personnel
4. Coordinating - unifying and harmonizing activities and efforts
5. Controlling - seeing that everything occurs in conformity with policies and pratices

Fayol carried the management process beyond the basic hierarchical model developed by Taylor. Under Fayol’s system, the command function continued to operate efficiently and effectively through a series of co-ordination and control methods. He recommended regular meetings of department heads and liaison officers to improve co-ordination of organizational operations.* He presented his thinking in his work to serve as a model for the educational program he espoused. His work was largely ignored in the U.S. until it was republished in 1949.

Ref: Fayol, H., General and Industrial Management, Pitman and Sons, London, 1949.
Photo: http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/teaching/503/fayol_links.html

Max Weber

1864 – 1920

Max Weber, the father of bureaucratic management, developed a system in which the individual was granted a series of primary occupations and responsibilities within an office. Each lower office was accountable to the next higher one following a systematic division of labour which pursued organizational goals and objectives. People working in each office were chosen for their position based on their qualifications. Their sole responsibilities were the primary occupations or classifications assigned to them when they were hired. Promotions were designed to reward seniority, achievement or both. According to Weber’s plan, promotions were not affected by political manuvering. Workers were also expected to separate personal business from official responsibilities.*

He published The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber stood Karl Marx on his head by arguing that it was not underlying economic forces that created cultural products like religion and ideology but rather culture that produced certain forms of economic behavior.**

Refs: *Weber, M., The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. by A.M. Henderson and T. Parsons, Free Press, New York, NY, 1947. **Fukuyama 1995: 43-44
Photo: http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/teaching/503/weber_links.html

Chester I. Barnard

1886 – 1961

Former President of New Jersey Bell Telephone and the Rockefeller Foundation who, although strictly speaking, not an 'academic', did write a few books including The Functions of the Executive. He is considered an important transitional figure who attempted to connect scientific management and human relations. Barnard defined an organization as a system of discerning co-ordinated individual activities or forces. Barnard introduced a theory concerning the acceptance of authority based on free will and outside forces. The acceptance theory of authority maintained that employees considered the validity of a superior’s orders and then decided consciously whether to accept them or not. A directive was accepted by the employee if he understood it, was able to follow it, and he believed it appropriate as it related to his understanding of organizational goals.*

Along with any formal organization, an informal organization always appeared. An informal organization dealt with communication and relationships that the formal structure was not equipped to handle. Informal groups were considered essential because they established attitudes, customs and standards. According to Barnard, the characteristics of the informal contacts or interactions were that they occurred repeatedly without any specific unified purpose.* This is a distinct difference from modern theory, which maintains that a major function of informal organizations is to achieve intergroup goals which are not met by formal organizations.

Ref: *Barnard, C., The Functions of the Executive, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1938.
Photo: http://www.lib.uwo.ca/business/barnard.html

Luther Gulick

1892 – 1992

Luther Gulick was among those who expanded on the works of Henri Fayol to build a foundation for management theory. He viewed management functions as universal. His seven-activities acronym, POSDCORB, is a familiar word throughout management practice. POSDCORB stands for planning, organizing, staffing, directing, co-ordinating, reporting and budgeting. He wanted to revise administrative practices by the establishment of general rules.

He agreed with Frederick Taylor in that he believed that certain characteristics of organizations provided administrators with the means to manage effectively. He was in accord with Max Weber in that organizations were hierarchical. Gulick added the concept of span of control, which addressed the factors limiting the number of people a manager could supervise. He also recommended unity of command because he felt that people should know to whom they were responsible. His homogeneity of work centred on the fact that an organization should not combine dissimilar activities in single agencies. This was the basis of Gulick’s major contribution in the area of departmentalization.*

Ref: *Gulick, L., “Notes on the theory of organization” (1937), in Shafritz, J.M. and Ott, J.S. (Eds), Classics of Organization Theory, 3rd ed., Brooks/Cole, Pacific Grove, CA, 1992.
Photo: http://www.igs.berkeley.edu/publications/catalog/american.html

Lyndall Urwick

1891 – 1983

Lyndall Urwick synthesized and consolidated previous writings and research concerning the structure of management and the function of the executive. Additionally, Urwick’s contributions included fostering modern thought about the management functions of planning, organizing, controlling, and developing general managerial guidelines. Like Fayol, he generated a list of ten general principles for improving managerial effectiveness.*

Ref: *Urwick, L.F., The Elements of Administration, Harper & Row, New York, NY, 1943.
Photo: none found