From manual work to knowledge work

Taylorism

Frederick Winslow Taylor was an American inventor and engineer who lived between the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Initially a laborer, he proposed the rationalization of work through the application of science to management. His central proposal was to replace the execution of production work based only on practice and experience, as was done at that time, with formal and standardized techniques based on studies. These techniques, by determining the best way that workers should perform each task, would lead to an increase in productivity. Taylor, who defined himself on his business card as a “consultant to management”, possibly invented the terms “consultant”, “manager” and “management” in the context of labor (DRUCKER, 1999).

Because of his ideas, Taylor is considered the father of Scientific Management. His work had an enormous impact on developing the foundations of mass production. Along with the works of Max Weber (Bureaucracy Theory) and Henri Fayol (Administrative Management), his theories were decisive for the fifty-fold increase in industrial worker productivity during the 20th century.

The major purpose of Taylor’s theory was to increase the efficiency of repetitive manual work. In other words, its focus is on optimizing the performance of tasks to generate better results. With this goal, he proposed detailed time and motion studies of workers in the execution of their work on production lines. Based on those observations, it was possible to detect unnecessary movements and idleness to then reduce waste and consequently costs, in addition to simplifying, optimizing and, finally, defining optimal techniques and standards for the execution of each task (TAYLOR, 1911).

One of the premises of Taylor’s theory is functional specialization – that is, the worker performs one and only one stage of the production process, aiming to do it optimally.

Taylor also believed that workers do not naturally like their jobs and are primarily motivated by money. Hence, once properly trained, the worker should be rewarded directly for how much is produced, further reinforcing the specialization. Another consequence of this thinking is the notion that the worker should be closely supervised and controlled, in order to install discipline and ensure that the work is being executed as determined. Taylor thus established the role of the manager. This clear separation between the work of thinking (defining and planning) and manual work (executing) brings to the manager the responsibility of knowing more about the work than the worker himself.

Taylorism, as the application of these ideas is called, is still an important part of the mindset and functioning of most organizations, even those whose nature has nothing to do with repetitive manual work.

The productivity crisis

The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is (…) to increase the productivity of KNOWLEDGE WORK and the KNOWLEDGE WORKER (DRUCKER, 1999).

As a consequence of Taylor’s ideas and their implications, there was a spectacular increase in world productivity over the course of the 20th century. Nevertheless, despite the exponential emergence of new technologies, this growth began to drop sharply, decade after decade, starting in the 1980s. Moreover, this deceleration could mean that subsequent generations would lose quality of life compared to their parents (MORIEUX, 2015).

Yves Morieux, an executive at the Boston Consulting Group, explained in an interview that one of the main reasons for this drastic decrease in growth is the use of traditional management methods – in particular, Taylorism – for a context in which they no longer apply, leading to the generation of enormous waste (MORIEUX, 2017).

Complicated hierarchies and structures, bureaucratic processes, controls and the consequent metrics are simply incompatible with a type of work that is increasingly present today, which we call knowledge work.

Knowledge workers

It was in his 1959 book Landmarks of Tomorrow that Peter Drucker used the term “knowledge work” for the first time. Drucker, considered by many to be the father of Modern Management, considered the traditional management of people based on Frederick Taylor’s ideas as not only outdated, but also inappropriate for “knowledge workers,” since its principles, rules, practices and procedures were originally created for low or unskilled manual workers (DRUCKER, 1959).

In that same book, Drucker also criticized the organization of companies based on functional specialization, when areas or departments are separated according to the type of work they do. In criticizing this functional division, Drucker states that “we never attempted to organize people of different skills and different knowledge, making different contributions, in one joint effort” – that is, in cross-functional teams.

Who, then, are knowledge workers? Unlike manual workers, who produce goods, they use and create knowledge to do their work, which usually involves problem-solving and the use of creative thinking. They know more about their work than anyone else in their organization, including their bosses. Continuously innovating and learning is a fundamental part of their daily life, as is teaching.

Examples of knowledge workers include technology professionals in general, physicians, researchers, educators, lawyers, judges, architects, engineers, and diplomats, among many others.

Knowledge workers function much more like associates than subordinates, despite needing direction. Having this high degree of autonomy, they should not be managed, but led. They are also accountable for their own productivity, which is primarily a matter of quality and results as opposed to tasks performed or outputs produced. They own their means of production – their knowledge – and for that reason they can change jobs easily. As a result, they are seen as assets of an organization, rather than costs.

Above all, knowledge workers are motivated by challenges, the bigger goals they believe in and non-financial results (DRUCKER, 1999).

Scrum stands in opposition to the application of Taylor’s ideas and practices to knowledge work. The framework was therefore created for these 21st century workers: knowledge workers.