Schmidt (worker)
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Schmidt (worker) is a character in Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick Winslow Taylor. His true identity was Henry Noll.[1]
In the volume, Taylor described how between 1898-1901 at Midvale Steel he had motivated Schmidt to increase his workload from carrying 12 tons of pig iron per day to 47 tons. He had done so by promising Schmidt a higher rate of pay for a level of output determined by management.[2] Taylor's example of Schmidt is still taught widely in business and management education.[3]
Evidence of Taylor's view of workers
In his Prison Notebooks, Antonio Gramsci attacked Taylor's characterisation of Schmidt's work as so devoid of intellectual content that it could be performed by an 'intelligent gorilla'.[4] Harry Braverman subsequently attacked Taylor on the same point in Labor and Monopoly Capital.[5]
Schmidt is sometimes cited as providing the evidence that Taylor viewed workers as solely motivated by money; one author has referred to Taylor's view of Schmidt as a 'greedy robot'.[6]
Schmidt's true identity
For decades it was unclear whether Schmidt had ever actually been a real person, or whether the experiments had succeeded as Taylor recalled.
In 1974 researchers revealed that Schmidt had indeed existed; his real name was Henry Noll or Henry Nolle.[1] This research also revealed that Taylor had unreasonably extrapolated generalised conclusions from his experimental data.[1][7]
Comparisons with Schmidt
The most frequently made comparison with Schmidt is Alexey Stakhanov, who also massively increased his industrial output when suitably motivated. Some authors build a comparison between the two into a critique of the authority of workplace management under both capitalism and Soviet communism.[8]
In his Business of Genocide, historian Michael Thad Allen compared the sadistic way in which concentration camp guards treated camp laborers lifting steel girders with the way Taylor had treated Schmidt at Midvale.[9]
Influence of Taylor's Schmidt story
Some authors have since argued that it does not necessarily matter whether Taylor's 'pig-tail' about Schmidt was entirely true. More importantly, it shows that stories about workplace change can be used to affect change elsewhere.[10] Indeed, Taylor became very good at honing and refining his lectures and audiences remembered them many years later.[11][12]
Further reading
- Copley, Frank Barkley, Frederick W. Taylor, Father of Scientific Management (Harper and Brothers, 1923) 2 vols. online at Archive.org
- Kanigel, Robert (1997). The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency. New York: Viking. ISBN 0-670-86402-1.
- Daniel Nelson, "Taylorism and the Workers at Bethlehem Steel, 1898-1901." The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 101.4 (1977): 487-505. PDF online here.
- Charles D. Wrege and Regina Greenwood, 'Frederick's "Pig Iron Loading Observations" at Bethlehem, March 10, 1899-May 31, 1899; The Real Story' Canal History and Technology Proceedings 17 (1998), 159-201.
- Charles D. Wrege and Ronald G. Greenwood, Frederick W. Taylor, the Father of Scientific Management: Myth & Reality (Homewood: Business One Irwin, 1991).
- Charles D. Wrege, and Amedeo G. Perroni. "Taylor's pig-tale: A historical analysis of Frederick W. Taylor's pig-iron experiments." Academy of Management Journal 17.1 (1974): 6-27.
References
- ^ a b c Wrege, Charles D., and Amedeo G. Perroni. "Taylor's pig-tale: A historical analysis of Frederick W. Taylor's pig-iron experiments." Academy of Management Journal 17.1 (1974): 6-27. online here
- ^ F.W. Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management (1911) online at archive.org
- ^ Locke, Edwin A. 'The ideas of Frederick W. Taylor: an evaluation.' Academy of Management Review 7.1 (1982): 14-24. online here
- ^ Antonio Gramsci Prison Notebooks here
- ^ Braverman, Harry (January 1998). Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 0-85345-940-1.
- ^ Michael Rose, Industrial behaviour: theoretical development since Taylor (1978)
- ^ Charles D. Wrege and Regina Greenwood, 'Frederick's "Pig Iron Loading Observations" at Bethlehem, March 10, 1899-May 31, 1899; The Real Story' Canal History and Technology Proceedings 17 (1998), 159-201.
- ^ Mark R. Beissinger, Scientific Management, Socialist Discipline, and Soviet Power (Harvard, 1988)
- ^ Michael Thad Allen, The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps (2002)
- ^ Jill R. Hough, and Margaret A. White. "Using stories to create change: The object lesson of Frederick Taylor’s “pig-tale”." Journal of Management 27.5 (2001): 585-601.PDF online here.
- ^ Peter F. Drucker, The Practice of Management (London: Heinemann, 1955)
- ^ C.D. Wrege, "F.W. Taylor's lecture on management, June 4, 1907: an introduction." Journal of Management History 14.3 (2008): 209-213.