Communication and Theatre 310: Organizational Communication

Human Relations and Human Resources

Leadership = process of exerting influence toward the attainment of organizational goals

Frederick Winslow Taylor

•mechanical engineer

•uneducated immigrant labor

W. Edwards Deming the promoter of “TQM” based his ideas of “continuous improvement” upon Taylor’s Theory.

This year at MSU-Billings we are engaged in “CQI”. . .

Influences on Taylor:

1. Evolution

2. Psychoanalysis

We are children in big bodies.

3. Mechanism

Approach to leadership is the classic authoritarian manager who holds all the power, gives order, acts superior, demands obedience.

W. R. Hearst

Henri Fayol: classical management (administrative science)

•Planning

•Organizing

•Commanding (goal setting)

•Coordinating

•Controlling

Mayo and the Hawthorne studies at Western Electric

What do you make of this?

Mary Parker Follett: a democratic pragmatist who believed that “only cooperation among people working together in grous under visionary leadership produced excellence in the workplace (p. 71).”

• Kurt Lewin = human relations, WWII

• National Training Laboratories 1948

• Abraham Maslow, 1954

The basis for the human relations approach is “that if you treat people well, they will do good work.”

Critique this notion . . .

False openness; abuse of trust; happiness = productivity . . .

Ohio State Studies isolated two leadership factors:

• Consideration

• Initiating structure

• employee orientation

• productivity orientation

Similarly the Michigan research claimed a continuum of:

How relevant are Herbert Simon’s notions today?

“. . . people lack knowledge not only of the consequences of their actions, but also of the alternative courses of action and of the criteria on which to judge the choices available.”

Douglas McGregor The Human Side of Enterprise, 1961 (d. 1964)

• internal rewards

• self-actualization

• holism

Likert - 4 managerial systems based upon level of trust in workers to make decisions

level 1 = no trust

level 2 = master slave

level 3 = substantial trust

level 4 = complete trust

Tannenbaum - seven point continuum of leadership based upon amount of subordinate participation in decision-making. 1= no participation; 7=democracy.

Managerial Grid

task

people

1,1impoverished

9,1task master

1,9country club

5,5compromise

9,9team

The “new” Managerial Grid

task

people

1,1indifferent

9,1controlling

1,9

accommodating

5,5status quo

9,9sound

The “new” Managerial Grid

task

people

1,9

9,1

paternalistic

The “new” Managerial Grid

task

people

1,9

9,1

opportunistic 5,5

1,1

9,9

Recap

work people ` F. Taylor

Theory X Theory Y

Managerial Grid

9,1 5,5 1,9

M. Follette