- Gilbreth’s premise is that management already is psychology, whether or not it is studied as such: “The Psychology of Management, as here used, means,—the effect of the mind that is directing work upon that work which is directed, and the effect of this undirected and directed work upon the mind of the worker” [1].
- She sorts management into three types — Traditional (the “Driver,” rule-of-thumb, authority held personally), Transitory, and Scientific (measured, standardized, taught) — and argues only the last treats the worker as an individual mind rather than an interchangeable pair of hands [2].
- The book is organised around the psychological dimensions of a managed system, a chapter each: Individuality, Functionalization, Measurement, Analysis and Synthesis, Standardization, Records and Programmes, Teaching, Incentives, and Welfare [3].
- Its through-line is that “least waste” is reached by fitting the work to the mind — selecting for individuality, teaching deliberately, and using incentives and records that the worker understands — not by driving harder [3].
The Psychology of Management: The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and Installing Methods of Least Waste
Lillian Moller Gilbreth's 1914 study of the mind at work under scientific management — the first book to treat management itself as a subject for psychology, and the doctoral work that helped establish the field. It runs the psychology of the worker through the elements a manager controls — individuality, functionalization, measurement, standardization, records, teaching, incentives, and welfare — arguing that the human factor is what decides whether a system of least waste actually works.
- Author
- Lillian Moller Gilbreth
- Published
- 1914
- Edition cited
- Sturgis & Walton first edition, 1914
- You want the origin of the “human factor” argument in management. Written inside the scientific-management movement rather than against it, the book is the earliest sustained case that measurement and standardization only pay off when the worker’s mind is engaged — the counterweight, from within, to the caricature of Taylorism as pure mechanism.
- You are designing how people are taught, measured, or rewarded at work. Gilbreth’s chapters on Teaching, Measurement, and Incentives are early, careful statements of problems every manager still has: how to make a standard learnable, how to measure without distorting, and how to reward in a way the worker experiences as fair rather than as charity.
1
Lillian Moller Gilbreth, The Psychology of Management, Sturgis & Walton Company, 1914, ch. 1.
https://www.managementcraft.co/sources/psychology-of-management/original
https://www.managementcraft.co/sources/psychology-of-management/original