Week 4: Relations and Resources
Mary Parker Follett was a pioneer in the Human Relations movement. She valued the creativity brought by every member of the team and began to see workers as individuals with their own skill sets. This was a radical opinion in the 1920s and 1930s when scientific management was the norm. She focused on empowering workers by sharing information with them rather than simply telling them exactly what they needed to do in their job. She emphasized teamwork in solving problems and using teams to accomplish tasks rather than employees having highly specific jobs. She believed that “power is not coersive control but coactive control” which broke the typical hierarchical norms (Eisenberg, Goodall, and Tretheway, 2013). Her radical views have changed how people view leadership and are commonplace today.
Elton Mayo believed that emotions influence people’s decisions and they do not act purely on logic. He saw that individuals are swayed by group norms and act in accordance to help themselves and the group which led him to value individual rationality and to see the importance of the social aspects of the workplace.
Chester Barnard saw the role of management as persuasive communication. He believed that a good leader was one which engaged all people in the common goal and helped them to have a personal connection to it.
These three leaders shaped the human relations movement. While formal hierarchies and task specialization still exist which oppose the true implication that each individual’s skills are equally valued, many aspects of this movement are commonplace today. People are social creatures so feeling a sense of community and seeing the value in their work tends to improve their job satisfaction. While the human relations movement sounds like a valuable and reasonable approach to management, there has been little research evidence supporting the tenets of it. For example, increased employee moral has not been found in research studies to increase productivity. However, using that as a metric for the movement’s success is shallow. Is it more important that the employees are satisfied and fulfilled or that the productivity is maximized? The marriage of those two facets will demonstrate true success in organization and communication.
The human relations approach was then expanded upon by the human resources approach. This perspective focused upon the total organizational climate while still encouraging individual growth and development in the organization.
Abraham Maslow considered the psychology of what motivates people. His hierarchy of needs explains that once basic physical needs are met individuals work towards social needs which lead to self-actualization and reaching one’s full potential. He believed that great organizational success can be reached when management is set up so that the goals of the organization align with the goals of the individual. Then their personal motivation of reaching their full potential leads them to be the best possible employee for that company.
Douglas McGregor defined historical management as Theory X in which employees dislike work and prefer to avoid responsibility. He developed an alternative view, Theory Y, in which he explained that people who feel commitment to the organization will be self-directed to work towards their success. He viewed employees as motivated and driven individuals who would work towards their goals and the goals of the company if given the appropriate support and guidance required for them to feel comfortable to act autonomously.
Rensis Likert held a similar belief that corporations should support individual growth. He expanded that concept to include an emphasis on supportive relationships and open communication. Likert divided organizations into four categories ranging from authoritative to participative. He favored general oversight for employees and advocated for supportive groups among peers.
The human resources approach emphasizes giving employees a voice in decision making; however, it does not outline how best to avoid the historical hierarchy in the workplace. While a hierarchy is not inherently bad, individuals of lower positions typically are hesitant to disagree with those of higher stature. Thus, creating a culture where open communication among all levels in an organization is an ideal goal, but is nearly impossible to achieve in practice.
