14. The Adjustment of Technical to Psychical Conditions
"Technical conditions" is meant to consider the customary manner (technique) in which work is done, which pertains to the physical environment, the equipment and materials used, and the motions made by the worker.
Most of the technical elements are physical and can be witnessed and measured by stopwatch, which "has become the symbol of this new economic period." The engineers of scientific measurement deal with physical efficiency - the most trivial movements of the arm or hand can be exactly measured, different motions that accomplish the same end compared, and the most efficient technique defined with scientific accuracy.
But the psychology of the worker is pointedly ignored, as the worker is merely a human machine capable of performing motions, with little to no consideration of mental capabilities and capacities. It is presumed that a motion that takes three seconds can be performed 20 times in a minute, 1,200 times in an hour, 28,800 times in a day, with the same accuracy and speed, regardless of the worker who is performing that action, and regardless of the fatigue of any given worker.
Munsterberg also considers the use of technology - in his time, industrial machines - to make technique more efficient. The machine extends the ability of a man, but all machines depend on human operators, and must be designed to accommodate the capacities of the human being: the nerve and muscle systems primarily, but also the limits of perception, attention, memory, tenacity, and emotion.
But even in terms of human action, an activity must be designed to require the least amount of effort: less motion, fewer and smaller muscles. If a task that requires the "robust muscles" of the shoulder can be done with the movement of a hand, then efficiency is improved. We see that in human progress, the hunter toils more than the herdsman, the farmer more than the factory worker. Where work can be done by weaker members of society, particularly women, then the society becomes more productive. In the author's time of industrialization, processes are identified and implemented because they make work more efficient - because the simpler the process, the more efficient it is in terms of time and cost.
Munsterberg mentions Frank Gilbreth's work with masons: the movements of builders and the tools they used were examined. The trowel was reshaped, the height of the scaffolding adjusted, the carrying of brocks and mortar was made more precise, and so on. The new arrangement permitted a better organization of the necessary bodily movements, fatigue was diminished, the accessory movements were better fructified, fewer inhibitions were necessary, and activities were better orchestrated. As a result, 30 masons completed a task that would have taken 100 to do, which cut costs in half "in spite of the steady increase in the wages of the laborers. (EN: Another problem of the modern age is that the economy of work is not returned to the workers, but kept by the employer, hence the lack of enthusiasm for change.)
Another consequence of industrialization is repetitive work. The smith who fashions a pin performs numerous tasks, and it is found that dividing the work among several individuals who each does a small part is much more productive - but what was not accounted for is that each specialist does the same limited task, over and over, which becomes an onerous monotony to which the human mind does not easily adapt.
Many of the changes made by scientific managers seem negligible: changing the shape of a workman's trowel or shovel, altering the number of bricks carried to a mason, improving the lighting conditions, increasing the height of a chair, moving two tables closer to one another, and so on. But because these simple motions are performed hundreds or thousands of times per day, a small improvement can have enormous consequences in aggregate.
He mentions the necessity of the laboratory environment as a means to isolate and closely observe work. (EN: Presumably because there is the argument that the laboratory is an "artificial" environment that is different to that of the actual working environment, and this difference in conditions may mean that the lab results are not reproduced in reality - which psychology in particular readily admits.)
The beginnings of "the machine period" consisted of devices that imitated the monotonous movements of work - and the implementation of such a machine reduces rather than increases the monotony inflicted upon the worker. But while physical monotony has been reduced, psychological monotony has increased greatly by the use of machines - and likely should be given greater consideration, as a man's mental capacities are just as limited as his physical ones.
He gives a rather extended account of various experiments involving typewriters. The various designs of typewriters did not differ greatly in terms of large physical motions, and what makes one typist faster than another is little to do with their manual dexterity: speed and accuracy are largely do to the memory of the layout of the keyboard and routinizing the sequence of motions to type a given letter or word.
He admits that there are certain observations that are not entirely understood. For example, it has been found that the strength of a man's grip will fluctuate if there are difference colors in his visual field, or different noises in his environment. Theoretical explanations for this are unsatisfactory, but laboratory experimentations offer proof that it is so.
Neither can the accounts of workmen be counted upon. Most workers will suggest that they do not notice chances in their environment - but paint the walls a different color, alter the notice, change the intensity or direction of lighting, or make some other seemingly inconsequential change and there will be corresponding changes in performance.
Not all actions are voluntary and not all stimuli are consciously perceived - and while psychologists attempt to apply observation and reasoning, they often fail to correctly and measurably identify the phenomena that give rise to the outcome of an experiment.
(EN: I see two common problems here. First, that there is a great deal of hubris among applied psychologists, who promulgate a great number of deeply bizarre theories instead of simply stating "I do not know why it is so." Second, the inability to precisely identify a cause-and-effect relationship for a witnessed phenomenon very often leads experimenters to abandon logic and experiment wildly, having no sense of what works or what should be tried. Neither is particularly helpful, but likely gratifies the ego of the experiment designers.)
It has been mentioned that the simplicity of physical actions may be deceptive in their importance (the way a worker holds a shovel) and the same is true of psychological ones. The ability to count or perceive the number of things, the ability to remember, the ability to focus and maintain attention, and the ability to assess the passage of time are all critical to successful performance.
One of the greatest failures of process engineering is in recognizing and adapting work to the psychological capabilities and capacities of men. Engineers readily acknowledge that machines have a given operating speed, and will malfunction if they are pushed beyond their capacities, and managers readily witness physical fatigue - but the psychological skills and stamina of man are seldom considered. (EN: OR when they are, the conclusion is quickly "bad worker" rather than "bad process" or "bad manager.")
A passing mention is made to the work of the housewife, which is often overlooked because it yields no economic profit. But there is great drudgery in the work of maintaining a home, and a high degree of effort and tedium in the myriad of thankless tasks that are performed dozens to hundreds of times in a given year. (EN: This is particularly interesting to customer experience, as there are many tasks that people must perform outside of the workplace that can be tiresome or difficult, and there is great profit to be made in alleviating the effort and tedium.)
During the author's time, there was a "profusion of small attractive devices" that propose to perform the labor of the household and "disburden" human beings of many tedious tasks. But there remained a great deal of work to be done in addressing the psychological conditions. The development of household appliances is focused on the decrease or simplification of efforts, yet does little to give satisfaction.
Munsterberg mentions his work on sewing machines, which in his day was a device used in both the industrial and residential setting. His own approach is still largely physical - the angle and position of the arms, the tasks done with each hand the physical position of operator and machine, the length of thread, the speed of the equipment, etc. But as in many things the work remains focused on efficiency and economy of motion.
"We are still too much at the beginning [of scientific management]," he avers, and there is much progress that can be made on the simple and physical aspects of work - but this ignores the psychological conditions of work, which are more subtle and difficult to perceive, but which are equally and in some instances more significant than the physical ones.