Management history: an umbrella model
Nell Tabor Hartley
The Authors
Nell Tabor Hartley, Robert Morris University, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract
Purpose – To assist colleagues in tying current ideas to previously established practices. To generate discussion of the current relevance of students' understanding management history.
Design/methodology/approach – A review of representative classic theorists with an eye toward matching their behavior to that of current newsmakers. This is presented in a model to insure that like areas are compared.
Findings – The past is in the present. Although we may live in the day of “enlightened” “collaborative” management; there are still successful people who operate differently.
Practical implications – Readers of the paper will be able to make immediate application of the model.
Originality/value – Even presentation of the obvious has value. The model format is a dynamic document that others can use and improve upon.
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Article Type: General review
Keyword(s): Management history; Management theory.
Journal of Management History
Volume 12 Number 3 2006 pp. 278-292
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited ISSN 1355-252X
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Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Whatever the intended interpretation, this well-known phrase communicates the idea that the past serves as an accurate prologue and interpreter for the present as well as the future. Plutarch, centuries ago, observed:
To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.
Within the context of business, it could be theorized, that the essence of this statement might hold the much-needed perspective to explain many of our contemporary corporate lapses and breakdowns. As such, one might expect that historical grounding would be found in the curriculum of business schools. This belief presupposes that a student would be well served to given an increased exposure to the diversity of past ideas, approaches, and models that have been reduced to merely a few paragraphs in most textbooks. Some scholars suggest that one reason organizations are losing their battles to become more efficient is that they do not understand the forces that historically shaped them, are currently shaping them, and will shape them in the future (Roth, 1993). Further to this point, noted scholar Moss-Kanter (1983) observes, “conceiving of a different future, change masters have to be historians as well.”
While academicians may concur with the idea that we must study the past to illuminate the present most of us are not doing this in our classrooms. A review of syllabi indicates that we offer only a smattering of history as segues to current theories. A review of several PhD programs in organizational behavior and other business disciplines did not indicate a single curriculum that offered a management history course. Is that a cause or effect? It certainly suggests a need for research and proactive response by those of us who consider historical platforms important. The textbooks that we devote few, if any, pages to history. By way of example, the ninth edition of Organizational Behavior by Schermerhorn et al. (2005) no longer appends the separate history module that earlier editions provided. Recognizable and well-known names, such as Peter Drucker and Elton Mayo, are absent from the text, and Chester Barnard is mentioned only in a passing connection with an explanation of “Zone of Indifference” and “Acceptance View of Authority” concepts. Thus, without an explanation of the philosophy behind Barnard's views, students are less likely to see the relevance of understanding either the “zone” or the “view.” Likewise, the third edition of the McShane and Von Gilnow's Organizational Behavior text uses the term Machiavellian with only a one-sentence identification of the man whose name became the adjective. Academic institutions have largely followed suit. Only a handful of universities, such as Harvard, still offer management history as a separate area of study. Interestingly Harvard reports that one of its more popular elective courses in the School of Business is “Business in its Historical Environment” (Martin, n.d.).
This apparent neglect of history seems contradictory, damaging even, in a current business environment that is being buffeted with struggles to foster organizational creativity and collaborative management. Couple these with trends toward flat organizations and radical downsizing, which have to have a negative impact on employee morale, and the lessons learned at Western Electric seem surprisingly current (Gabor, 2004).
The constant then, in all this flux, is human nature and it is spawning behavioral characteristics. Human nature is basic and any changes that may be encountered are generally superficial and culturally driven (Burud and Tumulo, 2003). Many who look at behavior insist that throughout history there is a basic foundation of human behavior. In their book, Driven: How Human Nature Shapes our Choices, Harvard-based Researchers, Lawrence and Nohria (2002) state that all humans behave out of basic needs to acquire, bond, learn, and defend.
This paper is the result of this professor's desire to help students recognize and apply the fundamentals of human behavior. The result is a management theories/styles chart (Appendix) of historical management icons that she gives to students in an effort to better capture and categorize these basic tendencies. First built by Jack Duncan in the late 1960s for his Houghton-Mifflin textbook (Duncan, 1981), this chart has been expanded by the paper's author to include additional models and more recent theories in an effort to more fully describe the management styles of today's leading chief executive officers (CEOs).
While most contemporary CEOs are too complex in their management styles to be assigned one specific category, their behaviors do suggest an adherence to the philosophical underpinning found in one or more of the earlier models. Once again, the student, upon entering an organizational culture, might better be served by understanding the historical gamut of philosophies, theories, and styles that might be present, rather than naively anticipating that all to whom they report to will adhere to the management philosophies touted in the “Ivory Tower” of their university learning. Students courting an MBA typically discredit courses with a routine “But that's not the way it is done in the real world” mantra. Such commentary may indeed find credence. However, if historical perspectives are brought to bear, perhaps one can find that while managers may not respond with the best of “current wisdom” their actions can be understood through theorists from other times. The cycle of values has been shown to impact organizational life. (Schlesinger, 1986) This paper is an effort to provide an overview of representative perspectives of the nature of work life. The assumptions that a person brings into the workplace can impact:
person's desire to stay with the organization;
person's use of discretionary effort; and
person's approach to conflict resolution where differing values are held (Boyatzis and Skelly, 1995).
As previously suggested, a review of management and organizational behavior textbooks and sample syllabi suggests an inadequate response to the need to incorporate the historical underpinnings of current theory. Yet, reflecting upon past experiences may be seen as a prerequisite to taking future action (Santayana, 1905). Historian Daniel Wren expresses concern that while organizational behavior and management curriculums benefit from the wisdom of many disciplines, students are typically left with a fragmented picture of management. The reason for this, according to Wren (1994), is that students lack the ability to integrate and apply a variety of seemingly disparate ideas. Thus, the imperative is to learn from the rich history that is ripe and available. Since, the beginning of time, people have organized themselves in order to work together towards planned goals, and they have sought to coordinate and control the outcomes of such labor. Without such awareness, one finds oneself as an active participant in re-creating the proverbial wheel. As one historically important theorist, Mary Parker Follett poignantly commented:
I do wish that when a principle has been worked out, say in ethics, it didn't have to be discovered all over again in psychology, in economics, in government, in business, in biology, and in sociology. It's such a waste of time (Metcalf and Urwick, 1941).
The format of this paper provides an umbrella model for a parallel comparison of representative styles of management. This journey takes students through the classical management theories, the behavioral approaches, and the quantitative methods to suggest a model of comparison, understanding, and application. Woven through the model is the idea that indeed the more things change the more they stay the same, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
The categories of comparison for each frame are:
the founder;
the source of information;
the basis of the model;
a synopsis of the mode;
the manager's assumptions about human nature;
management's expectations of employee response;
management's focus;
sustaining value of the frame; and
contemporary manager whose style reflects aspects of the model.
Modern management practices have roots which pre-date by a wide margin the sixteenth century theorist Niccolo Machiavelli. However, for the purpose of this model, Machiavelli, who was one of the earliest to conceptualize management/human nature in his most well known work The Prince, becomes the point of origination upon which other views are established. Other theorists/theories in the model include:
Puritan.
Henri Fayol.
Max Weber.
Frederick Taylor.
Chester Barnard.
Elton Mayo.
David McClelland.
Robert Greenleaf.
The arch over the conceptual model is one of the ideas of Douglas McGregor. He created the Theories X and Y, which state that managers view their subordinates through two distinctly different mindsets. McGregor labels as Theory X the common practices and assumptions of management that people work only under conditions of “external coercion and control” (McGregor, 1960). As such, Theory X contains the more Machiavellian flavor that workers are not to be trusted. On the other end of the spectrum, Theory Y represents the more positive behaviorist view that workers instinctively want to contribute. In calling attention to these distinctions, McGregor hoped that contemporary management would realize its underestimation of the potential for its human resources. Thus, having accepted the knowledge given by the social science researchers and displayed in Theory Y assumptions, management would then be able to invest time, money, and effort in developing improved applications of the theory. This author's proposed model builds upon McGregor's hope in so far as it reflects the idea that management theory seems to have evolved from a “Theory X” lens of Machiavelli to the “Theory Y” lenses of Mayo and Greenleaf.
Machiavelli then serves as our Theory X embodiment. Even though his writings and managerial influences date from sixteenth century Italy, it is certain his ideas did not die with him. Machiavellian philosophies appear frequently in 2004 with dedicated web sites, articles and books such as The Princessa, and Management According to Machiavelli. The Machiavellian outcroppings of the behavior of Ed Artz, a former CEO of Procter & Gamble, earned him the ignominious nickname of “the Prince of Darkness.” Furthermore, Machiavelli's influence seems quite pervasive, reaching into even the most unsuspecting of industries. For example, Hospital Topics, an industry publication, recently featured an article entitled “Machiavelli's advice to the hospital chief executive officer” that encouraged current hospital leaders to learn from Machiavelli. The justification being that:
Modern-day chief executive officers (CEOs) are akin to medieval rulers of small principalities whose success or failure, according to Machiavelli, depends on their origin of recruitment, ability to establish control, generosity and meanness, incitement of fear and love, ability to gain in reputation, flexibility, and obtainment of a competent and able inner circle (Marco and Papadimos, 2004).
Current headlines and legislation also bear witness to the pervasiveness of Machiavellian thought. The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Fortune have chronicled contemporary leaders such as Fannie Mae's Franklin Raines, Marsh and McLennan's Jeffrey Greenberg, and Enron's Jeffrey Skilling and their Machiavellian “ends justifies the means” philosophy. As such, the natural by-product of such perilous, Machiavellian decision-making activities culminated in the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which directly impacts corporate governance.
This is not to say that everything characterized as Machiavellian is, or has been, detrimentally destructive. A recent example of a successful Machiavellian move “take no prisoners” might be the action of Ed Breen who, in one of his first actions as the newly appointed CEO of Tyco, fired the Board of Directors. He quickly built a reputation for making the right decisions quickly and with a no-nonsense stance. In his success, he was credited with maintaining a personal and professional integrity that was “unassailable”. An example of a CEO who did not follow that particular Machiavellian advice at the top of the principality (organizational chart) is e-Bay's Margaret Whitman. Before signing on as CEO, she made certain that e-Bay's founder, Pierre Omidyar, would remain as part of the team. She did, however, create a management “Merry-go-round” (Lashinsky, 2004) by moving around the other major players. This author knows of a retired university president who believed that fear was the best motivator and was very successful in attaining his ambitious goals for the university.
These examples of Machiavellian leaders pale in comparison, however, with some of the adverse Machiavellian manifestations that are currently prevalent such as David Moylan's manipulation in his ascent into the top slot in city government in South Perth, Western Australia (Kelly, 2000), or even Microsoft's Steve Ballmer in his consistent execution of a “take no prisoners” philosophy (Schlender, 2004). World Com's ex-CEO Bernard Ebers is also an example of this Machiavellian disconnect between espoused and enacted values. Ebers, who would start corporate meetings with prayer and was a frequent academic lecturer on corporate ethics, was accused by the federal government of “knowingly and consistently” manipulating financial results at World Com (SEC Charges Scott D. Sullivan, World Com's Former Chief Financial Officer, with Engaging in Multi-Billion Dollar Financial Fraud, available at: www.sec.gov/news/press/2004-25.htm).
Following Machiavelli, the next approach to leadership is best represented by the nineteenth and twentieth century Puritan mantra that the earthly life is supposed to be hard and the price one pays as a prelude to the real reward in heaven. The historical roots of this works-based theory go back to the times of struggle for protestant reformation between Martin Luther and the Catholic Church. Calvinism brought further consolidation to this principle and with it the virtues of thrift, frugality, and the honorable acquisition of wealth. This derivation from the grace origins of Christian thought that has led to a works based or a deeds-based concept of faith has not been unique to Christianity. For example, Islam also is a religion of salvation by works because it combines man's works with Allah's acceptance. In terms of employee worth, the Puritan theory represents an evolution of thought from the idea that the worker has no value to the notion that his inherent sinfulness will cause him to work hard in hopes of achieving redemption. It was this very anticipation of redemption and eternal security through hard work that managers exploited. The slave trade provides compelling evidence and understanding to this point. Slaves who owned this eternal world view maintained sanity by focusing on their expected cross over into the proverbial “Promised Land” and by crafting such hope into rhythm of song. Other work crews have employed work songs to develop a sense of hope within difficult circumstances, thereby enabling productivity. The oversight of such situations, whether by past plantation owners or contemporary line managers, is rife for exploitation. This frame provides the basis needed to understand management styles, and successes, of persons such as Sunbeam's Al “chainsaw” Dunlap. Dunlap observed in an interview that:
… business is not a social experiment. Business is a very serious undertaking if you're running a business; you should do it with every fabric and fiber of your body (Smith, n.d.).
And in such manner, he dismantled both Sunbeam and Scott Paper, jettisoning costs in the form of employees, for the sake of quarterly earnings. Thus, Dunlap earned both his nickname and a perpetual spotlight in management textbooks while also receiving a permanent exile from the activities of corporate America. In stark contrast to the philosophy that allows this exploitation of workers, is the philosophy held by Cheryl Broetje and her husband, Ralph. They are the owners of Broetje Orchards, a 4,000-acre orchard operation located near Prescott, Washington. The employees of the Broetjes are uneducated immigrant Hispanic farm hands. The Broetjes, who strive to empower their employees, are described later in the paper as servant leaders.
In recognition of global history, the model next draws upon two European leaders, Henri Fayol and Max Weber. Fayol in 1925 provided the French people (and the rest of the world) with his ideas about how to organize people and provide them with guiding rules and principles. Years later, an American Sam Walton defined his three principles of success and his ten rules of business. Students know Fayol as the architect of management principles because of his identification of the functions of management. Fayol considered his advice to be universally applicable, unimpeded by country or industry boundaries. Contemporary examples of the application of Fayolian principles may be Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Dell's own Michael Dell, due to their focus on organization strategies and, specifically, to Michael Dell's willingness to sacrifice his own interests for the good of the organization. Ballmer, the first business manager that the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates hired, understood the day-to-day needs of the growing company and was able to use economies of scale in much the same way that Fayol did in growing Comambault. Another similarity among Fayol, Dell and Balmer is that each man knew that he had to separate managerial ability from technical knowledge.
Capturing an appreciation of Fayol's functional approach, students are then better equipped to understand how people make seemingly smooth, yet major, career transitions from one industry to an entirely different industry. Current examples from the contemporary landscape are John Henry Long (financier turned athletic team owner), Bruce Lakefield (investment specialist to airline CEO), and Margaret Whitman (Disney to eBay). Margaret (Meg) Whitman was so tuned into Fayolian principles of order and structure that her one dictatorial habit was telling people where they must sit when they gathered for meetings around conference tables. Michael Dell's success is often attributed to “reaching for the heights of perfection while burrowing down into every last data point” (Burrows and Park, 2003).
The next theorist, Max Weber, did not view workers as being evil, or in need of control; rather he saw them as being too emotional and irrational to be successful. He was a benevolent autocratic in his view that having positions of authority was in the best interest of the populous. He believed that he was doing what was best for them. The organization of the Roman Catholic Church is a current example of bureaucratic structure. Critics of Eisner point to the low wages and tight control prevalent at the Disney parks. Eisner maintains that they take good care of their employees by providing a clean, inclusive environment and benefits (Jackson, 2005).
Durk Jager tried to establish an organizational structure that was a product structure and alleviate a militaristic management style at the conservative Procter & Gamble. His attempts to radically change the culture, with much the same force that Weber advocated were unsuccessful. He lasted only 18 months as Chairman of the company.
Weber's solution for getting work accomplished, in a time in which there were no established, universal organizational tools, was to create a structural and procedural map. One suspects that Weber was much the micromanager in ways that Michael Eisner has been. Both men seem to emphasize rules rather than people and competence rather than favoritism. The German word for bureaucracy suggests it is the position, rather than the person that is to be respected as management. Weber's approach took the human guess-work out of the equation. The resulting bureaucratic model, while helpful at the time, has become much maligned, and it is viewed as a major impediment in getting work accomplished. Weber believed that his model could remove the ambiguity, inefficiencies, and nepotism that characterized most organizations at that time. Some of the desired advantages of the bureaucracy included:
The division of labor, authority and responsibility are clearly defined.
Positions are arranged in a hierarch of authority (our organization charts).
Employees are selected on the basis of their ability and education. In some instances, formal entrance exams are provided (our G classifications of federal government employees).
There are strict rules and procedures for accomplishing business. They are impersonal and apply to everyone (college students must follow procedures to register for classes).
The bureaucratic insistence on accountability was reflected in the 1982 actions of Jim Burke, CEO of Johnson & Johnson. In response to a death caused by a bottle of Tylenol that had been tampered with after production, Burke pulled all of the Tylenol from store shelves. If one bottle could be opened and the contents poisoned, other bottles could be similarly contaminated. It is the taking of the positives to extremes of enforcement that has given “bureaucracy” a negative connotation in most circles. However, there are contemporary managers who pride themselves on being bureaucratic regardless of the negative stigma associated with such a label. Patricia Quinn, the Director of the Arts Council (Ireland), told an audience at the University of Chicago that she was successful because she is a “professional bureaucrat” (Quinn, 1988).
While most associate the term “bureaucracy” with government, it does hold corporate applicability. The provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 are a notable example in its similarity to the type of checks and balances that Weber established. Within the bounds of the boardroom, detractors of Michael Eisner cite some “bureaucratic tendencies in his propensity to micromanage” that make his management style “an utter mismatch for the internet age” (Gunther, 1999).
Frederick Taylor, the Father of scientific management is representative of people who take a more quantitative approach to motivating people and managing business. A mechanical engineer with a Quaker background, Taylor was appalled at the inefficiency of workers. The terms of “working smarter” rather than “working harder” are Taylor's (Drucker, 1963). Taylor set out to correct the situation by applying the scientific method to jobs on the shop floor. Using quantitative measures and scientific procedures, he believed that he was able to define the one best way to do each job. Textbook authors, if they explain his work at all, typically do so within the framework of the shovel experiments (Taylor, in his studies of employees at work in the mines, noted that different sized shovels were used to do the same job). Taylor believed that once the best way to do something was ascertained it could then be coupled with the selection of the right people and the right tools to provide the most direct path to efficiency and productivity. Taylor, however, was not the first to view specialization as a good thing. Plato, the early Greek philosopher, recognized the value of the division of labor when he wrote in his treatise entitled the Republic, “A man whose work is confined to such limited task must necessarily excel at it.”
Taylor favored incentive wage plans as a means to motivate employees because, after all, the purpose of work was remuneration! He also stated that the role of managers is to plan and control, and the role of the workers are to perform as instructed. Contemporary examples of success, based on these principles, abound such as the management of Nucor Steel.
At Nucor Steel, most employees in blue collar positions or directly involved in manufacturing are paid very large (80-150 percent of the base wage) weekly bonuses based on the production of their work groups. This plan creates peer pressure for everyone to pull his/her weight (Nucor, 2005).
A focus on remuneration when carried to the extremes can result in white-collar crime. “… money is the hugest intoxicant” (Toffler, 2005). Each day the newspaper substantiates the currentness of this train of thought.
The tenants of the total quality movement are similar to those put forward by Taylor's scientific approach to management examples of Taylor's emphasis on standardization abound in franchise operations. Joe Lee, retiring CEO of Darden Restaurants, utilizes principles of standardization while being sensitive to the need for adaptability. Because of the standardization of the chain restaurant operation, Darden locks in wholesale seafood prices for its restaurants way in advance of the actual delivery schedule. As a result, the damage to business from Hurricane Katrina was blunted (Hamburg, 2004; Darden Restaurants, 2003).
Another current example of an executive who insists on standardization is Peg Witte, CEO of a gold mining company, Royal Oak Mines. Because she fears that her employees are lazy or wasteful, she examines every purchase order and insists on top-down sign offs on all expenditures. And, the focus on robotics suggests the embodiment of Taylor's wildest dreams: robot workers are programmed to go through their paces without any variation. Peter Drucker confirms the idea that the true heirs of Taylor's ideas are the more radical proponents of artificial intelligence (Drucker, 1963).
One of the most liberating theorists of the mid-twentieth century was Chester Barnard. In functions of the executive, he was adamant that authority was not something to be held over employees, but rather something that employees could choose to accept or reject. Carelton Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard concurs:
The only way people change is because they choose to … You cannot force change onto people, not lasting change, and not real change (Trincina, 2000).
One of the attributes of the Southwest success story is that employees live the acceptance view of authority. As observers of the airline comment: their boss, Herb Kelleher, does not want mindless obedience (Harri, 1996). He wants originality and proactiveness from his employees. Barnard urged managers to understand the concept of personal autonomy. He sought to enlarge the “zone of indifference” with subordinates' routines. The value for the executive was in understanding that the most powerful relationships were among those who were in direct contact with one another. He believed that “comradeship is more powerful than patriotism” and that purposeful cooperation led to rational action (Barnard Brownlow Commission Excerpts David Wiles, available at: www.albany.edu/ ∼ dkw42/barnard.html).
Barnard's concept of partnership is personified in Jet Blue's David Neelean. If you fly this airline, the aproned person serving you a beverage may be Neelean. He flies about once a month for the purpose of talking with customers and employees to learn from them their needs. Furthermore, Barnard believed that management's authority rests in its ability to persuade rather than to command and that its challenge is to reconcile and balance the inherent tension between the needs of individual employees with the goals of the organization (Gabor, 2004). His “Acceptance View of Authority” may provide a helpful frame for students debating the extent of the guilt of some of the Arthur Andersen and Chevron lieutenants. Framed in this perspective, Barnard suggests that people did have a choice to accept or reject the commands of their superiors. A live example would be Arthur Andersen's Scott D. Sullivan when he accepted, and acted on, directions to enter fraudulent data. This, framed in Barnard's perspective, Sullivan understood the directive, had the ability to carry it out, and believed it to be in the company's and his best personal interest to do so. Furthermore, Sullivan instructed his subordinates to record certain fraudulent adjustments. Matters came to a head when one person in his chain of command did not, by Barnard's theory, think such suspect accounting practices were in the firm's or her best personal interest. Thus, Barnard wrote of such an anomie when “conflicting obligations create a paralysis of social action” and when acted upon may bring fraud to light.
George Elton Mayo, a Harvard University Scholar, is the next theorist. With a team of researchers, he conducted experiments at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago between 1924 and 1932. While the conclusions of his research did not validate Western Electric's belief that improved lighting led to an increase in productivity, they did serve as an impetus for what we now refer to as the Human Relations Movement. It was his belief that the need for recognition, security, and sense of belonging is more important in determining workers' morale and productivity than the physical condition under which he works. The worker is a person whose attitudes and effectiveness are conditioned by social demands from both inside and outside the work plant. Group collaboration does not occur by accident; it must be planned and developed. If group collaboration is achieved, then the workers in the plant may reach a cohesion which resists the disrupting effects of external pressures. Further research and study later propagated by Schacter (1951) on cohesiveness tie in closely with Mayo's theory. More contemporary examples of this theory may be found in places such The Container Store, as profiled in the video accompaniment to the McShane and Von Glinow, 2005 textbook, which adheres to the principle of “1 great person = 3 good people.” Currently, there are number of individuals who have impacted their countries (South Africa's Nelson Mandela) and turned their businesses (Synovis Life Technologies' Karen Giles Larson) around through Mayo's concepts of collaboration and cooperation (Larson, 2002). In Management by Inspiration, a recently released video textbook companion, John Yokoyama of the Pike Place Fish Market attributed the success of his world-famous business to the cohesiveness and cooperative spirit of the employees. In sharp contrast to this positive response to employee empowerment is the philosophy of Al Dunlap who is quoted as saying: “To hell with harmony” (Smith, n.d.).
Furthermore, the philosophy expressed by Mayo transcends even national boundaries to tap the heart of humanity. The term unbuntu in the African culture describes a collection of values that are centered on human dignity. This term suggests that the humanity of each of us is caught up, and bound up, with the humanity of the others with whom we live and work. Roth (1993) suggests that in viewing the quality movement from an historical perspective, it is merely a fleshed out version of the wisdom of pioneers like Mayo.
David McClelland is included in the matrix as a representative of the theorists who focused on the need to understand individual motivation. He recognized that all workers do have different needs and that they are motivated to achieve in different arenas. In his 1961 book, The Achieving Society, he proposed that humans are motivated by three needs: achievement, and/or power, and/or affiliation. It is in the achievement need, the desire or drive to excel and to do things better to meet self-set standards, that helps to explain the rise of many successful chief executives. So, too, is the power need. A poignant example of this is Fannie Mae's Franklin Raines whose need for power (defined as the desire or drive to influence, and to acquire prestige and/or control over others) led him to utilize an ends-justifies-the-means approach regardless of the means he employed (Farmer, 1999; Gilmartin, 2005). Contrary examples to Raines' extreme might be the successful A.G. Lafley of Proctor & Gamble or Margaret Whitman of eBay. Lafley is explicit in his understanding that “power is not about control” (Sellers, 2004) while Meg Whitman's skills as head of eBay reflect more of a combination of the affiliation motive (defined as the drive to form and maintain meaningful relationships with others) and achievement motive. Remember the previously reported story that her colleagues note her insistence on having assigned seating for people around the board table… much as you would for a dinner party!
The most positive philosophy about the worker is that put forth by Robert Greenleaf and named “The Servant Leader.” It is interesting that some textbooks may use the term “servant leader” without ever acknowledging the background or the name of the man who coined the phrase. The theory represents human nature at its best and might be explained by McGregor's Theory Y. Servant-leadership is a practical philosophy that some can relate to the “Good Soldier Syndrome.” It is a philosophy that supports people who choose to serve first, and who are then available to lead others. Servant-leadership encourages collaboration, trust, foresight, listening, and the ethical use of power and empowerment as a way of improving the life of the individuals and/or the organizations.
One contemporary writer states that as far as Jet Blue is concerned: “The credo for Management is Servant Leadership, helping others do their job better” (Hatton, 2004). The Container stores founder and CEO, Garrett Boone and Kip Tindell, respectively, are current day “servant leaders.” Their philosophy, as revealed via the video accompaniment to the McShane and Von Glinow, 2005 textbook, that “if you care about the customer, there are no limits to what you will do for them” pervades their stores. The company's organizing principle for human resources is to convert their best customers into their best sales people. Current employees receive handsome bonuses when a person they recruit accepts a position at the Container Store. John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard Financial Services, and Jack Lowe Jr, of TD Industries, are others who have recently been cited for their application of the principles of servant leadership (www.greenleaf.org). A quote from the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey, seems especially apropos as he commented on Lowe:
He epitomizes the philosophy of leader as servant. His unusual leadership style and unorthodox approach to management have successfully inspired employees to work hard, rise to the best within them, and become leaders in their own right. This has translated into sustained business and profit growth for the company (Covey, 2000).
Also recognized for their impact as servant leaders are Cheryl and Ralph Broetje who, as previously noted, are owners of Broetje Orchards, a 4,000 acre orchard located near Prescott, Washington. The Broetjes have:
… taken the lead in creating a community/family environment for its largely-Hispanic workforce. Employment, affordable housing, daycare services and education facilities on-site help employees grow personally and raise their families in a healthy environment (Servant-Leadership Blossoms at Broetje Orchard, available at: www.greenleaf.org/leadership/read-about-it/Servant-Leadership-Articles- Book-Reviews.html).
Conclusion
This paper traces the evolution of thought, one theory building upon another, which has transcended management texts for decades. Conventional wisdom tells us that this evolution has been complete, that man and the manager have developed from its origins of worker distrust and control to a place of empowerment, autonomy, and value. This, however, leaves the traditional student at odds with the reality of the workplace. Increasingly current compilers of business literature try to close the gap by providing classic articles along with those describing more recent theories. They recognize that in order to understand the values that are currently expressed in the workplace and to recognize the emerging trends, it is important to have an historical foundation (Kolb et al., 1995). Management Historian Chuck Wrege further insists that our students learn management history as a means of developing more critical attitudes about what they are reading (Wrege, 2002). The Arthur Schlesingers, junior and senior, suggest the hypothesis that the cycle of intent (value orientation) appear to be 12 to 16 years in duration. Therefore, it makes sense that management's view of the needs of the workforce would be repetitive and that at any one point in time there would be a diversity of views.
It is the hope of this author that academics will request and support a return to the basics of management history in our textbooks and supplementary material. McGraw-Hill provides a brief video segment on the evolution of management to accompany a basic management textbook. Daniel Wren's The Evolution Thought is available in a fifth edition. There are affordable individual DVDs in the oral history project. Each DVD is a separate interview with a senior management theorist, e.g. Fred Fiedler, Victor Vroom, Lymon Porter, etc. This project is undertaken by the Management History Division of the Academy of Management. It is anticipated that as students learn more about management history, they can expand on this paper's historical model. Then as they read the daily news stories of corporate events, students can see with clarity that truly “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” CEOs from all industries tend, over time, to exhibit a strong sense of one of the model's frames, bending to his or her most basic human traits. An historical framework, that canvasses humanity from Machiavelli to Greenleaf, affords the contemporary student and worker a better footing upon which to engage the realities of the day.
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About the author
Nell Tabor Hartley got his degrees from Agnes Scott, University of Illinois and Vanderbilt University. He is presently the Professor of Management at Robert Morris University. Nell Tabor Hartley can be contacted at: hartley@rmu.edu
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