Re: People vs psychology

["Anton O. Tolman, Ph.D." <ANTON@wsh.state.wy.us>]

Tony Rehak said:

> The classical psychology is tool of our present style of management
> which is " biggest producer of waste, causing huge losses whose
> magnitudes can not be evaluated." We need a new psychology which
> explains that lead-management is a management where people can satisfy
> their human basic needs and produce the quality.

Actually, the situation is a little more complex than this.  Like most
things, there has been an interaction over time with the field of psychology
and management.  Traditional, Tayloristic managers who have and who still
utilize the tenets of Scientific Management in its various "upgraded" forms,
saw the Behavioral advent in psychology as another tool or as another
mechanism to control workers and to get them to do what they (the managers)
wanted them to do.  This has lead to some of the practices that Deming is so
adamant about including rewards and incentives and yes punishments as a way
to shape the behavior of individuals.

To be truthful, psychology was also impacted and there are (I am ashamed to
say) still psychologists who consult with organizations using a behavioral
framework to teach managers how to reward and punish their employees to
increase "productive" behaviors.  In most cases I believe that these
individuals do not understand systems thinking at all.  I have also
frequently said that when I began to learn SPC it was like taking everything
I knew about statistics and rotating it 90 degrees!  So, there is not a
depth of understanding of variation naturally taught in graduate school.  So,
psychology was simultaneously a contributor to "traditional management"
practices, a recipient influenced by traditional management practices, and a
scientific validator of sorts for some of what traditional managers have done.

In referring here to the "behavioral advent" I mean specifically Thorndike,
Skinner and others who pioneered behavioral learning theory and understanding
of how specific events around us impact on human learning and behavior.  As
a general system of understanding at least one mode of human learning,
behaviorism still has value and we can learn a lot from it, especially the
social learning variant of it.  Behavioral principles were also, and still
are, applied individually in a context of treating certain specific
problematic behaviors.  For many of these situations, it is still a very
useful application of behavioral theory.  The problem comes when one makes
the leap from correcting a specific behavioral deficit, for example, to
trying to influence large numbers of people.  Skinner wrote a book called
"Walden Two" where he proposed behavioral principles as a societal means to
peace and prosperity.  I think most people today think that is bunk.

However, this is exactly what managers have tried to do.  While in certain
specific individual contexts, behavioral principles can and are useful to
help assist in learning new behaviors, they do *not* take into account larger
system effects.  This is why they do not usually work at all in larger
systems and with larger numbers of people.  They tend to be mechanistic
approaches, and and on the whole, they do not value the input or
cognitive/emotional aspects of individuals.

There *is* current and past psychological science which helps us to better
understand the reality of how people think, feel, and learn.  Much of this is
very valuable in helping managers better understand how to make teams
function better and how to address change problems in organizations.  The
field will continue to evolve as does everything else.

Anton Tolman, PhD, CPHQ, Psychological Services Manager &
Quality Management Coordinator, Wyoming State Hospital
P.O. Box 177, Evanston, WY  82931-0177
Anton@wsh.state.wy.us    (307) 789-3464
"All great things are done for their own sake."   -- Robert Frost
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