馃攳
Classical Management Theory - YouTube
Channel: Organizational Communication Channel
[0]
classical management theory is like the
[2]
great grandparent of organizational
[5]
studies we're gonna look at the context
[8]
at the time it emerged the three primary
[10]
theories that generally make it up and
[12]
talk about whether or not it's still
[14]
relevant today so first let's look at
[22]
the context at the time this came about
[24]
as a reaction to the Industrial
[26]
Revolution which is the late 1700s to
[29]
late 1800s industry equals work
[32]
revolution equals rapid change big
[35]
changes in the way people worked the
[36]
rapid explosion of big factories that's
[39]
what was happening at the time people
[41]
were moving from farms to factories from
[44]
small shops to large companies one of
[47]
the main sparks or ingredients of the
[49]
Industrial Revolution was power steam
[51]
power and hydro power specifically the
[54]
machines used to manufacture in these
[56]
new large factories were run powered not
[59]
by hand it's like the difference between
[61]
a bicycle and a motorcycle this sped up
[64]
worked dramatically and helped factories
[66]
grow very quickly
[68]
there are also some machinery
[69]
innovations inside of these factories
[71]
for example in 1873 Eli Whitney invented
[74]
the cotton gin gin is just short for
[76]
engine it was a little apparatus that
[79]
separated the seed from the cotton much
[81]
more quickly than could be done by hand
[83]
and inventions and innovations like the
[85]
cotton gin another machine sped up work
[87]
even further transportation was also
[90]
booming at the time that's another key
[92]
ingredient of the Industrial Revolution
[93]
like the railroads they connected most
[95]
cities in the u.s. by the mid-1800s
[98]
steamboats started to catch on around
[100]
1800 as well and the roads were
[103]
improving in general this rapidly
[105]
changing context created a great in need
[108]
the three ingredients power machinery
[111]
and transportation came together to
[113]
spark the Industrial Revolution there
[116]
were a lot of emerging issues at the
[118]
time that people needed to grapple with
[120]
they were new large groups of people
[122]
working together people working
[123]
alongside machinery the pace of industry
[126]
was speeding up very quickly and
[128]
companies were looking for more
[129]
effective ways to handle their new
[131]
challenges these issues prompted
[133]
a lot of new questions for example how
[135]
are we going to organize all this how
[137]
are we going to maximize productivity
[139]
with all these changes and how are we
[141]
going to manage all of these people
[143]
working together and we're going to look
[144]
at three people that answered these
[146]
questions pretty effectively at the time
[148]
Max Weber
[149]
Frederick Taylor and Henry fail in
[152]
general when we talk about these three
[154]
guys we're talking about the founding
[156]
fathers of the classical management
[158]
theory and these are the three names
[159]
you're going to see in most textbooks on
[161]
the topic so let's start with Max Weber
[164]
he's most known for the term bureaucracy
[167]
which to him meant the organization's
[169]
should look like an extension of
[170]
government and the legal system he
[173]
wanted a legal rational approach to
[175]
organizing that meant that he didn't
[177]
want to follow the traditional family
[180]
type system where the head of the family
[182]
was in charge or perhaps you had a
[183]
charismatic type of leader he thought
[186]
these were not the right way to run
[188]
large organizations and he wanted a
[189]
legal rational approach where he saw
[192]
each person's authority and should be
[194]
tied to his or her official position in
[196]
the organizational hierarchy in other
[198]
words if you're in a job your
[200]
responsibilities are tied to that
[202]
position and if you leave that job you
[204]
don't keep all that influence and power
[206]
whoever the new person is is responsible
[208]
so this was his way of balancing power
[210]
and keeping things rational and
[212]
organized he wanted clear rules that
[214]
governed performance and standardized
[216]
guidelines for hiring and firing so he
[219]
was really concerned about issues of
[220]
favoritism or what he called particular
[222]
ism and he wanted to hire the best
[224]
people to work in organizations and
[227]
organize them in a logical sensible way
[230]
Max Weber was a big-picture type of
[232]
thinker compared to the two others we'll
[234]
look at today and that big-picture term
[236]
is bureaucracy Frederick Taylor also
[239]
entered the discussion and unlike Max
[241]
Weber who was very big picture Frederick
[243]
Taylor is much more micro in his focus
[246]
he used the term scientific management
[248]
for his approach to him this meant
[250]
applying science to work specifically he
[253]
thought that the customized approach was
[256]
very inefficient he saw a lot of
[257]
factories and people basically all doing
[259]
things their own way however they wanted
[261]
to do their particular job in that
[263]
organization they could and he thought
[265]
this was not efficient this was not the
[266]
best way
[267]
to do jobs so he said let's do time in
[270]
motion studies to study how much time
[273]
every single little task should take and
[275]
how many motions every single little
[277]
task should take and we can speed things
[279]
up and come up with the one right way so
[282]
each task is broken down into very small
[285]
steps and standardized to the one right
[289]
way and so he would go into an
[290]
organization look at all the
[292]
inefficiencies and figure out the one
[293]
right way to do every single job and as
[295]
the results were actually pretty
[297]
impressive for example when he went into
[299]
a Bricklin organization they were laying
[302]
brick down and they were bending over to
[303]
pick them up and he thought it was all
[305]
very inefficient so he came up with a
[307]
system where the bricks were all right
[309]
at hand level and they were up on a
[311]
shelf and people didn't have to bend
[313]
over to pick them up and he made some
[314]
other changes to their time and the way
[317]
they used their motions then he sped it
[319]
up about three hundred percent so now
[321]
one brick layer could put down as many
[323]
bricks as it took three to do in the
[325]
past so his work was pretty dramatic and
[327]
successful in some ways so Max Weber
[330]
took a big-picture bureaucratic approach
[332]
Frederick Taylor took a micro-level
[334]
approach to looking at the specific
[336]
tasks and Henry fail or honoree and the
[339]
French fail took a mid level approach he
[342]
was looking at the management side of
[345]
things how shall we manage people that
[347]
was the big question that he wondered
[349]
about he put forward a theory of
[351]
management called administrative science
[352]
or sometimes just called classical
[354]
management and he believed that managers
[357]
needed to be trained in a much more
[359]
systematic approach he didn't really see
[361]
any good theories out there for how we
[363]
should train managers and so he wanted
[365]
to contribute to that discussion in fact
[368]
he wrote it is a case of setting it
[370]
going
[370]
starting general discussion that is what
[373]
I am trying to do by publishing this
[375]
survey and I hope a management theory
[378]
will emanate from it so he wrote a book
[380]
that then became popular in the late
[383]
1940s in a section of that book he
[386]
talked about the management activities
[388]
that managers should be pretty competent
[390]
at and this is a list that you'll see in
[392]
many textbooks on the topic he thought
[394]
we needed good planning that managers
[396]
should look ahead and
[398]
a course for the organization he also
[400]
thought that organization was a key
[402]
management activity they need to select
[405]
and arrange people in an orderly and
[407]
efficient fashion he wanted the manager
[410]
to be in command in other words to
[411]
oversee to lead and to drive the process
[415]
but to stay out of the details that was
[416]
up for the regular workers manager
[418]
should also be good at coordination
[420]
needed to harmonize and facilitate the
[423]
general activities of different
[424]
departments and groups in the overall
[426]
organization and lastly control the
[428]
manager needed to ensure compliance on
[430]
everything from accounting finance the
[432]
technical side quality control and other
[435]
areas like I said this is a list you're
[437]
going to see in a lot of classical
[438]
management sections of books when they
[440]
talk about henry fail in addition to the
[443]
details we talked about for a weber
[445]
taylor and fail they're also some common
[448]
elements that they really all wrote
[449]
about in one way or another that bring
[451]
them together they all wanted a clear
[454]
hierarchy in an organization that chain
[455]
of command they all wanted some form of
[457]
division of labor they wanted a
[459]
standardized approach to work they
[462]
wanted the centralization of authority
[464]
largely in the managers hands they
[467]
wanted the separation of personal life
[469]
from organizational they all really
[471]
wanted the best people in the right jobs
[474]
and that was one of the reasons why they
[475]
wanted to separate personal life from
[477]
organizational so people didn't pay
[478]
favorites in other words they wanted to
[480]
select the best employees based upon
[483]
qualifications and performance and they
[485]
also by the way wanted people paid
[488]
fairly at least in theory frederick
[491]
taylor and henry fayol talked
[493]
specifically about paying good employees
[495]
your best people more so you can attract
[498]
and keep your best and most talented
[500]
people and rafail even talked about
[502]
profit sharing which was pretty
[503]
innovative at the time and i say at
[505]
least in theory because not a lot of
[506]
organizations necessarily took this
[508]
advice but these researchers did write
[510]
about that
[511]
so weber taylor and fail all come
[513]
together to form a foundation of what we
[516]
call classical management theory and
[519]
this is an approach you're going to see
[521]
in a lot of textbooks because it really
[523]
has become the great-grandparent of
[525]
organizational studies almost everything
[528]
that comes after the classical
[530]
management era
[531]
is a reaction against it so if you see
[534]
human resources or human relations or
[537]
Systems Theory or a team approach these
[539]
are all responses to or reaction against
[543]
classical management and it's difficult
[545]
to imagine an organization that's not
[547]
influenced by this approach in one way
[549]
or another even today so is it still
[551]
relevant today well absolutely you see
[554]
it in a lot of places especially in
[555]
manufacturing and even though we might
[558]
not think that manufacturing is still
[559]
happening as much in the United States
[562]
it's absolutely still having the United
[563]
States and all over the world we have
[565]
more than 7 billion people on the planet
[567]
we're still making a lot of things and
[568]
you still see this approach and a lot of
[570]
manufacturing companies you see in
[571]
warehouses and delivery services like
[574]
Amazon you see it certainly in
[576]
foodservice if you've ever worked in
[578]
foodservice like fast food then
[580]
everything is really like a production
[581]
line same thing with farming and food
[584]
production it's really gone almost to
[586]
look just like a manufacturing process
[588]
and so a lot of ways not only is it's
[591]
still relevant it's still more common
[593]
than ever now of course it is still only
[595]
one way to do things and some of the new
[598]
knowledge-based expertise based
[600]
information based companies don't
[602]
necessarily take this approach so Google
[605]
Facebook and other kinds of companies
[607]
like that are not generally
[609]
manufacturing tangible goods and so they
[612]
do not take this classical management
[614]
approach as much although they are still
[616]
very aware of it and just like the
[618]
theories we mentioned like Systems
[620]
Theory human relations human resources
[621]
they are in many ways reacting against
[625]
the classical management way of doing
[627]
things so it's absolutely still
[629]
irrelevant in many of our workplaces and
[631]
when it's not directly touching us we
[633]
are certainly indirectly influenced by
[635]
it so that's a little bit about the
[636]
context at the time we've three primary
[639]
theories that generally make up
[641]
classical management theory and we
[643]
looked a little bit and whether or not
[644]
it's still relevant today and I believe
[646]
it certainly is
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage