Don't Be a Cog

Businesses large and small usually labor under 19th century technology and ideas. The technology has been upgraded several times and is much more efficient now, but it's still the same basic technology.

No, I'm not talking about the telephone. Though that's another one of my pet peeves, I'll rant about the telephone another time.

I'm talking about the hierarchical structure of our organizations -- the dehumanizing of work and creation of a "thinking class."

OK, hierarchical organizations weren't invented in the 19th century. They go way back, to the armies of the Roman Empire and even before that, but let's pick it up in the 1890s. Railroads were expanding across North America and Europe. Steam ships plied the seas. America was giving birth to the Industrial Revolution.

And, in the eyes of Frederick Winslow Taylor, things were remarkably inefficient. Forgoing the chance to go to Harvard, Taylor started on the shop floor as an apprentice, rising rapidly to become the chief engineer at Midvale Steel Works.

It didn't take long for Taylor to see that the workers were woefully inefficient. When he was a shop foreman, he studied the efficiency of the workers, developing what he called "scientific management" to drive productivity improvements.

All About Efficiency

Taylor went on to get his degree in mechanical engineering from a correspondence school and opened a consultancy to advance the science of industrial production, developed patents in machine processes, and eventually ended up as a professor at Dartmouth College.

Taylor's methods were a big hit. Worker selection and training became standardized. Managers designed the workflows and enforced compliance. Workers became robots. Factory output doubled, tripled, and quadrupled. Taylor's methods spread from machine shop floors and steel mills to engineering journals and universities.

Scientific management became a foundation of the Industrial Revolution. Automobiles, refrigerators, light bulbs started rolling off of assembly lines. As farms became mechanized, productivity skyrocketed.

The Taylor Society, formed to advance his ideas, was eventually merged with the Society of Industrial Engineers and today is known as the Society for Advancement of Management.

Taylor's theories of scientific management gave rise to an industrial economy like the world had never seen. It supplied material for two world wars, put a car in every driveway and a refrigerator in every kitchen. It put a man on the moon and ultimately won the Cold War.

Winslow became a hero. But is he still?

Winslow's principles of scientific management were so successful because they took complex processes, reduced them down to their most efficient steps, and assigned workers to those discrete steps.

Will the Robots Overtake Society?

Winslow's methods, in effect, turned men into robots. The work was simplified so anyone could do it. Now that robots are being developed that can do these simplified tasks, robots have been replacing workers on assembly lines.

Work was deconstructed, and now it's automated.

Now, in the 21st century, there is a rift in the western world. One might describe that rift in several ways: Trumpists vs. Clintonians, conservative vs. liberal, or college-educated vs. not.

I see the rift along the lines of those who have chosen occupations that can be automated and those who haven't.

What jobs can be automated? Any that follow instructions: cooks, assembly line workers, clerks, drivers, auctioneers, cashiers, carpenters, plumbers, baristas, librarians. The list goes on.

We're already seeing self-driving cars and trucks in the news. Other jobs are sure to follow.

What!? Plumbers can be automated?

Yes, but the technology isn't quite there, yet. Right now, homes and buildings are designed to be assembled by people: carpenters, iron workers, plumbers, and electricians. But how long will it be until building components are assembled into modules at a factory, shipped to the building site in an self-driving truck, hoisted into place, and snapped together like giant Lego blocks? The only people involved might be the job foreman and crane operator. (Crane operations are a little difficult to automate. And the job foreman will mostly be pushing buttons and flipping switches.)

"But I've heard that experienced people in building trades are in short supply. Doesn't that ensure that those occupations aren't going away?" you say.

No. It will actually accelerate their demise. Once architects and engineers realize that there are alternatives to building structures the old fashioned way, and the old fashioned ways aren't viable because of skilled labor shortages, it won't take long at all for factory-built modules to hit the market, even modules for skyscrapers.

What Can You Do?

Get creative. Literally.

Robots aren't very creative. Chose an occupation that requires more creativity and less manual labor. Or specialize in areas that are too obscure to automate.

What does all this have to do with Frederick Winslow Taylor?

When you go to bed tonight and consider why your father or uncle was ranting about the economy, you'll know who to thank.

Workers Unite?

As I read over this blog post before I click "Publish", I see that I sound like a socialist. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that deconstructing work into simple tasks and automating it is bad. I'm not a Luddite. Let robots do what robots can do well. But I call for people to rise above the robots.

Legend tells us that mankind was made in God's image, and what work did God do? He created. That is mankind's destiny. To create. Robots have a hard time with that.

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Can your job be automated? What makes you so sure? Am I a Luddite? A socialist?

I'd love to hear your thoughts: bkh@briankhaney.com.

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