Ways of Working Nudge

New blog post (number 12 in a series): in this post we look at Specialisation, Centralisation and Data as three key evolutions in Ways of Working as part of Systematic Management (1870 to 1900).

🛠️ Specialisation: roles became increasingly narrow and repetitive, with workers following detailed instruction cards, with an order-giver, order-taker behavioural norm and work passing. According to Taylor "all possible brain work should be removed from the shop floor and centred in the planning department"

🛠️ Centralisation: to manage growing scale, there was a rise in centralised 'staff' functions. However, this was the pendulum swinging from one end to another. Very few people were entrusted with a greater number of more complex decisions. There were very few people who had an end-to-end view of value. Superiors made the decisions, while subordinates did the doing, with the separation of thinking and doing.

🛠️ Data: a major theme of Systematic Management was data, data, data. This enabled cost accounting, production control and wage incentive schemes. Data-enabled transparency, efficiency, comparison and improvement. This is a lesson we need to relearn from the past. Too few organisations today are measuring their system of work in the Age of Digital.

Read the blog here.

LinkedIn post here, Bluesky here

Regards, Jon