Redesigning Human Systems

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Redesigning Human Systems

Enid Mumford Information Science Publishing

Redesigning Human Systems Enid Mumford Manchester University, UK

Information Science Publishing Hershey • London • Melbourne • Singapore • Beijing

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Published in the United States of America by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of Idea Group Inc.) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200 Hershey PA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.idea-group.com and in the United Kingdom by Information Science Publishing (an imprint of Idea Group Inc.) 3 Henrietta Street Covent Garden London WC2E 8LU Tel: 44 20 7240 0856 Fax: 44 20 7379 3313 Web site: http://www.eurospan.co.uk Copyright © 2003 by Idea Group Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Redesigning human systems / Enid Mumford. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-59140-118-6 (hard cover) — ISBN 1-59140-119-4 (ebook) 1. Organizational change. I. Title. HD58.8 .M85 2003 658.4’06—dc21 2002153249 eISBN British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Redesigning Human Systems Table of Contents Preface ..................................................................................................... vi PART ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIO-TECHNICAL DESIGN Chapter 1 The Problems of Managing Change ........................................................... 1 Chapter 2 Socio-Technical Design: Its Early History ................................................ 12 Chapter 3 Participation in Practice ........................................................................... 33 PART TWO: DESIGNING FOR MANUAL WORKERS Chapter 4 Analysing Problem Situations: The Dock Workers of Liverpool ............... 52 Chapter 5 Work Design in the Coal Industry ........................................................... 70 Chapter 6 Considering Structure: Different Organizational Solutions in Automobiles .. 89 PART THREE: DESIGNING FOR OFFICE WORKERS Chapter 7 New Problems in Banking ..................................................................... 108

Chapter 8 Involving Employees in Design: Rolls Royce .......................................... 129 Chapter 9 Designing an Expert System .................................................................. 147 PART FOUR: DESIGNING FOR COMPANIES Chapter 10 Senior Management, Decision Making and Design ................................. 170 Chapter 11 Company-Wide Participation in Air Products ........................................ 193 Chapter 12 Quality and Environmental Issues in Shell International ........................... 209 PART FIVE: DESIGNING FOR THE FUTURE Chapter 13 Designing for Problem Prevention .......................................................... 233 Chapter 14 Designing for an Uncertain Future .......................................................... 248 Appendix: Methods and Tools .............................................................. 264 About the Author .................................................................................. 284 Index ................................................................................................... 285

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Preface

This book is about managing change, one of the most difficult, and sometimes dangerous, activities that most of us have to handle occasionally and some of us most of the time. The objective of the book is twofold. First, to try to provide all readers with an understanding of the complexity of the change process and second to provide some practical guidance to those who are trying to mould change so that it can offer a route to a better quality of life. In order to do this, the book will draw on the experiences of the past and the present and see how these can provide lessons for the future. It will examine and describe what has been called the socio-technical philosophy of always taking account of the needs of people when new work systems are being introduced. It will use as guiding case studies some of the firms with which I have personally been involved over the years. These will describe and discuss participative and humanistic change projects in different companies and industries in the UK, Scandinavia and the Netherlands. Most of these have had the introduction of new technology as part of the change process. I believe that the methods and approaches that assisted their implementation and use will be even more relevant to industry in the years ahead. I hope that this book will be read and found useful by many different groups of readers. A first, and very important group, is those who are responsible for introducing change and seeing that it is used effectively and has beneficial consequences. These will be the managers and specialists who design and introduce it. Just as important will be the groups who are affected by the change and have to alter their normal practices to cope. We need to find out if the change has brought them major advantages both in their personal lives and in the environment in which they live and work. If this is not the case what are the reasons for failing to do so. Two other important groups will be those who wish to learn about change and its management although they do not yet have the responsibility to practice this knowledge. These include students taking technical and management courses at universities and colleges. The general public is also very interested in change as most people are on its receiving end, although often without the power and influence to affect its consequences.

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For many people change that involves technological and economic developments will be most acceptable when it is seen to have a firm, and generally supported, ethical base. One important aspect of this ethical base may be the ability to influence the change consequences. We are reluctant to become the slaves of developments we have no influence over, even though we may see many of these as nonthreatening. We strive to be in a position to regulate important aspects of our own lives and to be able to mould our own futures and destinies. The democratic principles and approaches that are described in this book can provide guidelines for increasing our personal control of the future. A second important need for both individuals and organizations is that of efficiency—the need to create innovation that produces the intended and desired results. Things must work well if we are to enjoy using them. Yet recent history is dogged by example after example of vastly expensive large-scale projects either failing to be introduced at all or not working successfully once they are installed. Here, I shall argue that the democratic involvement of future users in the design and implementation of new systems can help these kinds of problems to be avoided. It must be stressed that although some of the technical applications described in the pages that follow may seem dated in today’s fast-moving world, the participative processes used to introduce them have not aged in any way. In fact they are more relevant now than in the past as the consequences of poorly managed change become ever more expensive with whole industries, even countries, likely to be affected by unsuccessful projects. Also, we have now moved out of the macho nineties with their focus on financial success at any price, even if this required the drastic reduction of staff numbers as a means to raise a company’s share price. Today, especially after the September 11 disaster, we are in a situation where cooperative personal relationships and mutual support are seen by very many people as necessary and important. We also seek more opportunities for self-development and creativity and an absence of work stress. All of these are assisted by some personal control over what happens in our work and life situations. This book will describe an approach for assisting the achievement of these things. It also seems that many large companies are now thinking carefully about how they want the world to see them in ethical and human terms. As a result they are publicising carefully thought-out strategies for taking care of social, organizational and environmental problems. They have perhaps been shocked into doing this by the criticism industry has received for its concentration on short-term financial gains and its reluctance to take account of human costs such as atmospheric pollution and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Nevertheless the result is a welcome new focus on issues other than those of the balance sheet. This means that approaches and methods for improving the quality of life for employees, customers and society as a whole are likely to be welcomed and adopted.

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The chapters that follow will provide a practical approach for handling change effectively, ethically and participatively. The case studies will attempt to show how participative strategies for meeting human needs at work can achieve higher morale, more job satisfaction, greater efficiency and an improved quality of life, even though there may be difficulties along the route to success. Each chapter will describe a problem associated with the management of change. This will be described by an employee who was a part of the change process. My role will be to describe the methods and tools that helped the realisation of the change objectives. The early case studies are related to work in blue-collar environments and show some of the attempts to solve the problems associated with this. Computers were not involved as few existed at the time. The later ones all incorporate the introduction of new technology into different white-collar environments. The last two examine current change as a company-wide or environmental problem. Chapter 1 looks at the past, the present and the future and argues that in the future quality of working life issues will be even more important than in the past. Chapter 2 looks at the history of socio-technical design and describes its popularity and use in many different countries in the seventies and eighties. Chapter 3 describes different ways of organizing participation and discusses roles and relationships in participative design groups. Chapter 4 stresses the importance of understanding the “big picture”—the total problem situation—when introducing change into complex industries. Chapter 5 shows how good organizational design is a critical factor in success. Chapter 6 looks at alternative designs and weighs up their advantages and disadvantages. The book next considers computer technology and information systems— how these impact on white-collar work and how employees can play a major role in good systems design by deciding on efficient yet people-friendly forms of work organization to associate with them. Chapter 7 describes the impact of early computer systems on banks. Chapter 8 shows how a group of employees can create an efficient, multiskilled work system for an office environment. Chapter 9 moves from small to large projects and describes an important participative project to assist the sales force of a large corporation in the United States. Chapter 10 covers the nineties and shows how the humanisation of work took a step backwards through a corrupted form of business process reengineering and the introduction of call centres. At this time my own area of interest changed from shop floor, clerical and sales groups to managers and I became associated with a Dutch software company developing management information systems. The objective of the research now became how to help managers gain a thorough understanding of their own roles and responsibilities as a preliminary to specifying their information needs.

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We now come to the present and in Chapter 11 describe the large-groupintervention programmes of an American multinational that in 2000 received an award for Excellence in Practice from the American Society for Training and Development. Chapter 12 examines how Shell, one of the pioneers of participative design, is applying the same ideas both to its internal management and to environmental issues. Chapters 13 and 14 discuss how effective problem solving and design must today take account of negative as well as positive environmental factors. Chapter 14 brings the book to a close by examining the advantages and challenges of managing change participatively. My conclusion is that we now live in a very uncertain and dangerous world, which greatly complicates problem solving and which makes forecasts about the future both difficult and suspect. Projections from the present may be nothing better then doubtful hypotheses or overoptimistic best-case scenarios. Nevertheless change goes on and has to be encouraged. The Appendix shows some of the tools I and others have developed to assist problem solving and the management of change process. The key question the book asks and tries to answer is, Can greater employee participation and humanisation of work help make industry more efficient, more people-friendly and better able to deal with the challenges of the future?

Acknowledgments The author would like to offer her grateful thanks to the many people who have helped with the creation of this book. In particular to Ian Newsome of the West Yorkshire Police, to George Gates, managing director of the Core-R.O.I. consultancy, and to Chris Gillies, Jane Hansell and Murray Jones of Shell International. She would also like to thank the many companies in Europe and the United States who participated enthusiastically in the research on participative design. There were a great number of these although only a few are provided as case studies here.

PART ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIO-TECHNICAL DESIGN

The Problems of Managing Change 1

Chapter 1

The Problems of Managing Change The world changes and technology comes and goes but human problems remain the same.

MANAGING CHANGE AS PROBLEM SOLVING Managing change of any kind requires effective problem solving. This is especially the case when the change involves designing and implementing new work systems or rethinking current organizational structures. We know that problem solving is a difficult and complex process, yet too often it seems to be limited to a fast decision to do something followed by a series of actions which intuition suggests will achieve the desired result. This is very similar to shooting in the dark. There is no way of knowing that the proposed actions will lead to a solution or even that the problem can be solved. The alternative, whenever possible, is to create a well thought-out, logical path to a desired result. Effective problem solving requires the control of “entropy.” Entropy is a term used by physicists to describe energy that exists but is unavailable for productive use. When applied to problem solving it can be described as energy that is time-wasting because it is not being used to good effect. The word covers Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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inappropriate strategies and actions that make little or no contribution to solving the problem. Energy of this kind can lead to chaos. The problem becomes increasingly confused and insoluble and ideas on how to deal with it become more and more clouded and uncertain (Mumford, 1999). The first message of this book is that effective problem solving requires an avoidance of inappropriate or redundant activity and its replacement by efficient and ethical strategies so that appropriate goals are both set and met (Mumford, 1999).

COMPLEX PROBLEM SOLVING Problem solving with difficult and complex problems requires recognition of the interaction that is taking place between psychological, economic, technical, cultural and political factors. Questions that need to be asked and answered are, Who wants to solve this problem? Who will pay the costs of a solution? Can technology assist a solution? What kinds of solutions will be culturally, socially and politically acceptable? (Forrester, 1969). Another feature of complex problems is that they are rarely stable but tend to alter over time. Changes in the environment, particularly in its economic context, may cause problems to be rethought and redefined. Where technical change is concerned innovative new developments can also affect the nature of the problems that have to be solved. Very complex problem solving is often a balancing act with problems being partially solved then returning in new forms, some of which may be as difficult or more difficult to solve than the original dilemma. Many solutions that are politically attractive because they are cheap and acceptable to industry and government can lead in the wrong direction. The early responses to mad cow disease provide many examples. Symptoms but not causes were being addressed. The answer is in understanding the social dynamics of the problem and identifying the pressure points where improvement can be secured. Designing a problem-solving programme or strategy is communicating an ethical position, a set of values, and a series of practical operations designed to achieve a desired result. This communication stretches from those designing and implementing the programme to those benefiting from its results. If time is available, a safe strategy is to proceed in stages so that each part of a programme can be tested out before the next is implemented. It can then be reversed if it has proved to be a mistake. Another useful strategy is looking for “amplification,” an amplifier being a device that, if given a small amount of something, will emit much more. Dedicated users can be human amplifiers.

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Appropriate first problem-solving steps at an early stage can lead to a continuation of good ideas throughout the project.

Managing Complexity Many very complex problems seem to have similar characteristics. They are pervasive, spreading unhindered into regions, countries and economic activities that seem powerless to resist the invasion. International criminal activities are an example. They are difficult, if not impossible, to control without major changes in human behaviour and government priorities, and those which serve illegal consumer markets are very big money earners. Some receive tremendous attention and there is a strong public pressure to remove or reduce them. This is true of health problems, particularly those caused by contaminated food where almost anyone in a community can be at risk. Some initially lack clarity as to their causes and effects and there is uncertainty on how to approach them. These would include most environmental threats. Others are almost invisible except to specialist groups. Cyber crime would come into this category as did the millennium computer bug that was wrongly seen as likely to cause systems to crash if software was not redesigned to prevent this. Many new problems are extremely complex and poorly understood. This is true of global warming. It will take time to discover its consequences. A lack of knowledge makes the first steps in the problem-solving process, those of clarification and description, very difficult. There can be uncertainty over what kind of a problem has occurred, what has caused it, who is affected by it and who is best qualified to address it. Many routes to a solution can be blocked because of lack of knowledge or through political, security or financial constraints. With food contamination problems the solution is known to be better hygiene right along the food chain, yet despite a proliferation of regulations, remedies are extremely difficult to apply. The changing structure of work is an example of a day-to-day activity with a potential for new and serious problems. The end of secure jobs for many groups that have become accustomed to them and the absence of jobs for young unskilled men could lead to greatly increased crime and social disturbance together with a major growth in the size of what today is called the “socially excluded” class. The global market, although hailed as a great opportunity, is unlikely to be a source of continuing social stability. Alliances between firms, industries and countries will lead to successes for some, but disasters for others. There will be both winners and losers. Also, because the global production system is now so interlinked, a problem in one national area


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may easily spread to others. The 1997 over-investment problems in the Far East and their consequences for European industry illustrate this fact.

Recognising and Describing Problems An important skill for individuals responsible for problem solving as well as a necessary capability for their employing organizations is the ability to recognise when a problem exists and to understand its nature. Many problems, such as those concerned with health issues, are immediately evident while others, like certain kinds of cyber crime or money laundering, have to be sought out. In either of these situations there is a need to obtain as complete a picture as possible of the problem’s nature, extent and consequences. This is known as taking a “holistic” approach, and it differs greatly from traditional science approaches of dividing large problems into small sections and giving each part to a different group for solution. A holistic approach enables the causes of the problem, its spread and its consequences for different situations and groups to be seen as an interlinked whole. Although very complex problems are too large and intractable to be treated as single entities for problem solving, they still need to be understood as linked systems with the likelihood that addressing one will affect some or all of the others. Much thought, analysis and discussion is required to agree the nature of many of today’s complex problems, the kinds of solutions that are feasible and the best means for achieving these. There must also be a correct assessment of the likely consequences of any chosen strategy, as its implementation may result in a raft of new problems being released. Some of these may be as serious and difficult as those already successfully tackled. All decisions have consequences. For example, if an important industry decides to move a factory from the United States to a less-developed country to reduce costs, many thousands of US workers are going to lose their jobs. Sometimes problems lead to crises that have to be tackled immediately. There may be no time to proceed through a sequence of problem-solving steps and stages; quick, immediate action has to be taken. The techniques of “pattern recognition” used by physicians and surgeons may now be the best way forward. When a patient first arrives in the consulting room the doctor asks questions but also looks for presenting physical signs and symptoms. These are then compared mentally with similar cases the doctor has encountered in the past. This approach can often provide a quick route to a diagnosis. The same technique can be used with other kinds of problems in situations where fast action is required. The problem solver will ask the question, Have I experienced a similar problem before or do I know of anyone who has? If the answer Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


is yes, he or she will proceed by taking the actions that produced a solution in that situation. This approach is now being used by emergency teams such as the Fire Service. But to be successful it requires problem solvers with considerable experience in crisis situations (Watt & Tissington, 1998). Obtaining a complete picture of a new major problem is often not possible in the early stages of addressing it. This understanding may only arrive after a great deal of time and research. Nevertheless, at the beginning of any project if the situation is not a crisis one requiring immediate action, as full a picture as possible should be obtained, mapped out and discussed with all individuals and groups affected by it and likely to contribute to its solution.

Skills that Aid Problem Solving In order to assist the understanding of the problem-solving process and how it is practiced, a simple analytical framework can be helpful. Here is one. Organizations or groups employing problem solvers are seen as needing certain capabilities, often of a resource nature, to enable them to work efficiently; for example, information, time, and equipment. “Capability” is having the power, capacity and knowledge to achieve desired objectives (Kay, 1996). This concept can be applied to the organizations introducing major change and to their ability to provide the necessary and appropriate knowledge and support both for those using the new system and for the groups who are responsible for its design and implementation (Mumford, 1999). The approach used in this book is called socio-technical design and will be described in the next chapter. If this philosophy is part of a change programme then an important capability will be to give both internal and external users an improvement in those aspects of their lives that they regard as important in work or in the home and local community. John Kay suggests that capabilities can be viewed as essential assets. It is important for them to be identified and their relationship to successful strategy formulation or problem solving recognised. A report published by the British Government House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee in 1999 described how the failure of many government computer systems is, in the committee’s view, due to managerial incompetence. The report described how the implementation of more than 25 public sector IT systems resulted in “delay, confusions, and inconvenience to the citizen” and “poor value for money” (PASC, 1999). The problem solvers themselves will require certain competencies or skills which help them to understand the problem and to make effective choices on how it can be solved. These will include an ability to appreciate the total Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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picture of the problem and its environment and also an ability to map a route to a successful solution, to develop a broad overall strategy with clear ethical components, to prioritise subproblems, and to work with colleagues to achieve an agreed solution. Finally, they must be able to implement the system with care, caution and an absence of victims and to monitor its operation and evaluate its success. Certain psychological attributes are also seen as assisting problem solving. These are commitment to achieve a solution and, in high-risk situations, considerable courage. Competence has been defined by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle as “knowing how” (Ryle, 1949). He argues that in everyday life we are much more concerned with people’s competencies than with their intellectual brilliance or with their beliefs. What people can do is often more important than what they know, for knowledge is only useful if it is applied. Competence implies that a person presented with a problem can think things through logically and get results. Socio-technical competence requires knowledge of how to achieve social and organizational as well as technical goals. “Coordination” is the third important socio-technical concept in problem solving and is particularly relevant to the design and implementation of information technology where designers and users must collaborate closely if systems are to succeed. By coordination is meant the ability to work closely, democratically and creatively with other groups. This is an important sociotechnical value and is seen by some management gurus as the one most related to organizational success in today’s complex world (Castells, 1996). It is interesting that many of today’s commentators do not see technology as a major driving force for change or even as a major source of future problems. Their view is that technology acts as a facilitator by increasing output, reducing the number of employees required and assisting the movement of capital across the world, but it is not the primary influence. This is the pursuit of money and the development of a system that increases the possibility of a group of people making money in large quantities. For many, this is the ideology that drives today’s definition of progress. It leaves many intractable problems for those concerned with the welfare of citizens and the more equitable distribution of wealth.

ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEMS There are also major organizational changes within industries that bring with them new and unfamiliar problems. Many companies are moving away from hierarchies to networks (Castells, 1996) and from centralised to Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


decentralised structures in which parts of a company are run as semiautonomous units. These changes are not necessarily new. When Ken Olsen created the Digital Equipment Corporation in Boston in the 1950s his original format was a decentralised network structure, each part responsible for its own management, products and profits. As the firm grew this was changed to a more conventional hierarchical structure. The network approach was found to lead to duplication of resources and dysfunctional competition between the different units (Mumford & McDonald, 1989). Again, vast numbers of businesses are now trading on-line. This means that there is a need to create a global environment in which people and businesses can seize the opportunities created by economic and technical change, construct a market framework for economic success and help people make sense of the economic and social transformations taking place. It is suggested by many commentators that the future depends on “groupwork.” Both the small entrepreneurial company and the large multinational will depend for their success on the collaboration of coalitions of small groups; employees, customers and suppliers are three examples. The optimistic belief is that all of these will be working together positively and democratically to further the interests of their employing company. Jeff Papows (1998) maintains that all companies in the future will have flatter organization structures, communication that is more horizontal than vertical and the removal of barriers from between functions such as sales, marketing and customer service. He sees the structure of tomorrow’s companies as fluid and based on different levels of information. First, and at an early stage in these new developments, there will be the necessary exchange of information between groups responsible for basic activities. This may be physical or virtual, formal or informal. Information will now progress to team members who make use of each other’s private expertise through on-line discussion groups, which lead to mutual discovery and innovation. Next the company will develop and nurture its collective intelligence—broad databases which are accessible to the enterprise as a whole. Finally the groupware concept will reach maturity and most decisions will be made by groups working in collaborative networks. These are likely to take the form of federations of companies and also trade unions, which come together for a variety of mutual interest purposes. Worldwide competitive pressures appear to be encouraging these developments. But their social and organizational consequences are largely unknown. There is clearly a problem in managing these new organizational forms that we do not yet fully understand. For example, who is responsible for major decisions and how is performance evaluated? (Dicken,1999). Yet, the theory Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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behind network structures is very appealing. There is a belief that complexity can be managed through freedom, that cooperation is economically efficient and that knowledge comes from attitude and opportunity (Halal, 1999). As yet there are few examples of these principles influencing the operation of large multinational companies but we can learn from the Scandinavian countries that for many years have managed to combine efficiency with democracy. Proponents of a more democratic approach and new organizational structures argue that the present industrial situation is becoming less and less tenable. There is resistance to change, poor economic gains and alienated staff. It seems many organizations are pulling in conflicting directions. Managing the problems of complexity requires flexibility and diversity while profit generation requires efficiency and control. These two sets of needs are difficult to combine. Also, networks and democracy run counter to the ideology of capitalism, where the principal objective of industry is profit for the shareholders. In recent years there has been a move from manufacturing to service jobs and from blue- collar to white-collar occupations. There has also been a growth in highly skilled knowledge- based jobs and in part-time employment, particularly for women (DTI, 1999). These developments have removed some of the early change problems but have replaced these with new, often psychological ones, such as an increase in the stress of work.

NEW PROBLEMS WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY The success of today’s and tomorrow’s enterprises appears to depend, even more than in the past, on the establishment and continuation of mutually beneficial relationships. If the employee-employer relationship is viewed as a contract then employers will want employees who are loyal, skilful and dedicated to the interests of the company. In return employees will want employers who provide them with acceptable remuneration, job satisfaction, a good quality of working life and the degree of job security that each individual regards as necessary to personal comfort. Negative visions of the future suggest that there is a great deal of conflict and social unrest ahead with many new problems that have to be addressed and solved. Global competition provides employment for many but it also results in unemployment for those who do not have the skills to participate in the world of the future. If firms continually move to those parts of the world where labour is cheapest, there will be growing inequality in income and wealth with, possibly, the disappearance of the middle class. Thore (1999) suggests that the Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


only occupations that can resist being shifted to cheap labour areas are those where physical contact is an essential element, as in the professions and the service sector. Another negative factor in the work situation of tomorrow is that the quality of work is unlikely to improve for all groups. For many years those associated with the socio-technical movement strove to persuade industry that interesting and challenging work at all levels would lead to more satisfied and productive employees. Many middle-level employees now experience this through the introduction of enhanced responsibility, discretion and teamwork, but this is often accompanied by considerable overwork and increased stress. Change has also caused problems for some groups. An example is teleworking, particularly that associated with selling and answering services. This has brought with it new and unpleasant forms of routine work. The socio-technical pioneers challenged the value of routine work consisting of simple manual activities repeated constantly during the working day. These were monotonous, did not allow for personal development and subordinated the worker to the machine, but they were not usually antisocial. I have worked on many assembly lines where routine mechanical tasks were accompanied by pleasant social chitchat between adjoining workers. The advent of computers introduced a new, more constrained form of routine work which required data to be inputted manually so that it could be processed electronically. This needed concentration and accuracy and talking on the job was not possible. Today, with teleworking, we have the problem of a new even more onerous form of routine work which requires employees in call centres to constantly answer or make telephone calls to potential customers. Often the number of calls handled is electronically monitored and the kind of responses the operator makes is listened to by a supervisor. Even worse it is now thought that constant use of the telephone can affect an operator’s hearing, leading to deafness.

WHAT KIND OF PROBLEMS WILL HAVE TO BE SOLVED IN THE FUTURE? These we can guess at but we do not really know and will have to wait and see. Whatever they are, an important question for the future to answer will be, How can we develop more generally accepted humanistic values? Many of us seek a freer society, one in which people are released from unnecessarily burdensome work, from exploitation and from major differences in access to


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resources and rewards. But the achievement of this requires shared values and mutual understanding. It also requires good problem solving and excellent communication so that values are discussed, agreed and become part of culture. One of the hardest challenges for today’s and tomorrow’s companies will be building and retaining teams with the vision, competence and loyalty to navigate an organization through uncharted waters with no guaranteed safe haven on the far side. Without a trusted team, including a “family” of regular contractors and strategic partners, the organization will not have much of a future. Critical skills will be the ability to inspire loyalty, trust, motivation and vision, the ability to see where the organization is going and a knowledge of the best route to take it there. Problem solving in industry requires both knowledge and a vision of the future. Problem solvers must understand the needs of the larger system of which they are a part. They must also understand the needs of the different interest groups, both inside and outside the company. And they also need to understand their own needs and how these can be achieved while contributing to the needs and objectives of their colleagues. People must be involved in change and prepared to be involved. In the right environment, most people welcome and enjoy this. They like the sense of having responsibility and of learning and interacting successfully and positively with other members of a group. The big question is, How can we substitute a freer, more people-friendly environment for the control, coercion and even fear which still dominate many organizations? Helping liberate others requires that we also liberate ourselves. Selfdevelopment involves the creation of new abilities and the enrichment of existing ones; in other words, a general enhancement of the quality of individual, group and organizational life. This, in turn, requires some generally agreed values; for example, an acceptance of a work ethic which requires personal independence to be associated with the desire to do a job well, and a restriction on untrammelled self-indulgence so that the needs of the group are in harmony with the needs of the individual.

REFERENCES Castells, M. (1996). The rise of the network society. London: Blackwell. Department of Trade and Industry. (1999). Work in the knowledge-driven economy. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Dicken, P. (1999). Globalization: An economic-geographical perspective. In



W. E. Halal & K. B. Taylor (Eds.), 21st Century Economics. London: Macmillan, pp. 31-51. Forrester, J. (1969). Planning under the dynamic influences of complex social systems. In E. Jantsch (Ed.), Perspectives of Planning (pp. 237-256). Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Halal, W. E. (1999). The infinite resource: Mastering the boundless power of knowledge. In W. E. Halal & K. B. Taylor (Eds.), 21st Century Economics. London: Macmillan, pp. 53-75. Kay, J. (1996). The business of economics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mumford, E. (1999). Dangerous decisions: Problem solving in tomorrow’s world. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Mumford, E., & McDonald, B. (1989). XSEL’S progress. London: Wiley. Papows, J. (1998). Enterprise.Com. Reading, MA: Perseus Books. Public Accounts Committee. (1999). Improving the delivery of government IT projects. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Ryle, G. (1949). The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson. Thore, S. E. (1999). Enterprise in the information age. In W. E. Halal & K. B. Taylor (Eds.), 21st Century Economics. London: Macmillan, pp. 131153. Watt, F., & Tissington, P. (1998 ). Making decisions in emergencies. Intersec, 8(1), 13-15.


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Chapter 2

Socio-Technical Design: Its Early History Life is understood backwards but must be lived forwards. Soren Kierkegaard

INTRODUCTION In order to understand the present and predict the future we need to learn from the past. A major part of this book will examine how ideas derived from an approach called socio-technical design can be used to improve the quality of working life for people at every level and in almost any kind of work situation.

HISTORY MATTERS Socio-technical design, as its name implies, gives as much weight to the needs of people as to economics or production. It is now more than 50 years old. It started when a group of therapists, researchers and consultants decided to use their skills in the postwar world. They had acquired these skills while assisting war-damaged soldiers to regain their psychological health and return


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to civilian life. This group, most of whom had been associated with the London Tavistock Clinic before the war and some of whom were medically qualified, believed that the therapeutic tools and techniques they had developed could usefully be applied to the organization of work in industry. They saw this as restricting and degrading many lower rank employees, who were forced to spend their days carrying out simple, routine tasks with no possibility of personal development or job satisfaction The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations was founded by this group in London in 1946 with the aid of a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. It was set up to bring together the psychological and social sciences in a way that benefited society. In 1948, when the Tavistock Clinic became part of the Health Service, the institute became a separate organization (Trist & Murray, 1993). Because many of the original members were psychiatrists, all early members of staff were required to undergo psychoanalysis. There was a belief that they had to understand themselves before they could assist with the problems of others. Both the clinic and the institute focused on group rather than individual treatment. This was partly because of a shortage of staff but also because group therapy was a recognised and successful method of helping with problems. This therapeutic background meant that the staff was interested in results as well as theories. This led them in the direction of “action research,” in which analysis and theory is associated with remedial change. The institute believed that there should be “no therapy without research and no research without therapy.” Today this could be restated as “no theory without practice, no practice without research.” In 1947 a publishing company, Tavistock Publications, was founded and a new journal, Human Relations, was created in association with a research group led by Kurt Lewin and located at the Centre for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan. In 1972 the socio-technical movement was formally internationalised by the creation of a Council for the Quality of Working Life, which I was invited to join. This council had members, usually academics, from many countries throughout the world. A number of academic groups became actively interested in socio-technical research. These included the Work Research Institute, Oslo, and groups at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, York University in Toronto, Canada, and the Centre for Continuing Education in Canberra, Australia. Kurt Lewin at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor also had a considerable influence on thinking and action. Socio-technical systems design throughout most of its history has had two important components. One, which came first, was the need to humanise work Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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through the redesign of jobs. Work must be made intellectually stimulating and fulfilling. The second, which arrived later, was democracy at work. Employees should be able to influence the design of their own jobs and of the workplace The objective of socio-technical design has always been “the joint optimisation of the social and technical systems.” Human needs must not be forgotten when technical systems are introduced. They should, whenever possible, be given equal weight. Over the years this objective has been interpreted in many different ways but it is still an important design principle. Here is a brief history of how socio-technical design has developed.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES In Europe in the 1950s and 1960s industry was weak and was being rebuilt. The strength and productivity of the United States were greatly envied and believed to be a product of better management. European industry was seen as centralised and authoritarian, while American industry was becoming more democratic through the influence of the human relations movement (Heller, Pusic, Strauss, & Wilpert, 1998). In 1960 Fred Emery, who was on sabbatical from the Tavistock Institute at Stanford University, was influenced by US thinking and began some pioneering projects in Norway with Einar Thorsrud of the Norwegian Institute for Industrial Social Research. These spread to other parts of Scandinavia. The approaches in the Scandinavian countries had marked similarities. Norway, Sweden and Denmark, although using different methods and emphasising different aspects of work, all had a common set of values on what they hoped to achieve (Cooper & Mumford, 1979). These values were made explicit in legislation, and management and trade unions were required to cooperate in achieving improvements in the work situation. Different groups were interested in these European experiments for different reasons. Industry was expanding and many firms had labour difficulties. They had problems in obtaining staff and were scared of losing those they had. At the same time technologists and engineers were presented with new design options and many were becoming interested in developing more flexible and friendly production systems than those currently in use. Professor Howard Rosenbrock at Manchester University, England, was a notable pioneer here. Ergonomists interested in man-machine interaction also wanted to understand the socio-technical approach, while many more academics were becoming concerned with research in industry. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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In academic circles, there was a great deal of optimism. Geert Hofstede, a Dutch expert, believed the humanisation of work could become the third industrial revolution. He saw the first as the move from muscle power to machinery in the nineteenth century, the second as the arrival of information technology and the third as these new approaches to work (Hofstede, 1979). Let us now examine the experiences of a number of these countries in more detail.

Norway Norway was a major pioneer in the humanisation of work. In 1962 a group of Norwegian researchers, headed by Einar Thorsrud assisted by Fred Emery then at the Tavistock Institute, initiated what was called the Norwegian Industrial Democracy Programme. This was a three-phase programme focusing on, first, creating improved representative systems of joint consultation. These involved the creation of worker directors. Next the programme progressed to workplace democracy with employees gaining the authority, power and resources to change their own work organization, when and where this was appropriate. This led to four major experiments in work restructuring in Norwegian industry. A national strategy for the humanisation of work was a product of these initiatives. This incorporated a Norwegian law on working conditions which gave workers the right to demand jobs conforming to socio-technical principles of good work practice—variety, learning opportunity, own decision power, organizational support, social recognition and a desirable future. Following on and responding to this came a programme for increasing trade union knowledge about technology and, as a result, union bargaining power. This programme was led by a group at the Norwegian Computing Centre headed by Christen Nygaard (Eldon, 1979). The industrial democracy project was stimulated by the fact that in the seventies much of Norwegian industry was being taken over by multinationals and the environment had become very turbulent. Although the work design experiments were generally successful, Norway experienced two kinds of resistance to the democratisation of work. There was a general belief on the part of workers that any management-inspired change must be for the worse, while engineers and technologists saw some of the changes as threatening to their positions and status. These problems have dogged many other change programmes (Emery, 1978).

Sweden Sweden was in the same situation as Norway and copied its example. By 1973 between 500 and 1,000 work improvement projects were taking place Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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in Swedish industry. Sweden had made its first efforts towards the democratisation of working life through the establishment of joint industrial councils in 1946. In the 1970s the Swedish government took this further by introducing the Joint Regulation of Working Life Act. This was implemented in 1977. Both management and unions now needed some guidance on how to proceed in the new areas of codetermination. These were wide-ranging, covering the interests of employees, with an emphasis on self-managing groups. They also included better personnel management, better strategic planning and increased productivity (Apslund & Otter, 1979). A programme was agreed that encouraged unions and management to broaden the activities of joint councils so that these could develop new strategies for organizational redesign and business improvement. It was also agreed that unions did not have to rely on the goodwill of management. If management did not make sufficient progress with implementation then the unions could apply pressure. A major breakthrough was a move from job design to organizational design. It was in the later seventies that Per Gyllenhammer created his new “dock assembly” work system at Volvo’s Kalmar Plant, described in Chapter 6. This removed the traditional flow-line system of car production and substituted groupworking, with a single group assembling an entire car (Lindholm & Norstedt, 1975). The project also developed the idea of worker directors, which the Swedish government required in state enterprises. An important piece of knowledge acquired during this project was that self-managing groups separated by space and time have more difficulty in coordinating and controlling their activities than those organized bureaucratically. They require excellent information systems to assist their self-management. These groups must also be able to set clear production objectives that are acceptable to management. Another problem is how to manage the interface between the workers and the technical systems when there are no foremen, production planners or quality controllers. The group has to manage all these activities itself. Negotiation now has to replace orders as the primary tool of management and this in itself is very difficult to manage. Success with these new work systems requires the enthusiasm of both management and unions.

Denmark Formal management-worker cooperation on job content and job design began in Danish companies after the Second World War. An agreement in 1947 led to consultative committees with equal numbers of employer and employee representatives being set up in a number of large companies (Larsen, 1979). In 1970 a new agreement was made between the Danish Employers’ Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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Confederation and the Danish Federation of Trade Unions. This required a focus on both production and job satisfaction. It also gave employees the opportunity to become decision partners in the design of their own work situations. A number of factors influenced this move towards work humanisation. They included increased interest from management and unions, who both saw advantages in a more contented workforce. Stable conditions of employment also played their part. The results, although encouraging, indicated that work humanisation could not be achieved without overcoming a number of difficulties. Not all groups of employees had the same interests and wanted the same solutions. A lack of support from senior management or from the trade unions could also slow down progress, as could changes in a company’s marketing or economic situation. Danish experience suggested that certain conditions were required for success. These included company stability and financial health. Change was extremely difficult if workers were being laid off. As in Sweden, good relationships and a history of cooperation together with an enthusiastic top management and positive union officials were also necessary. Technology must not act as a design constraint and there must be a wage payment system that reinforced group working. Employees should also have a good level of education.

France In the seventies France too was interested in the humanisation of work. A survey of 18 companies in 1975 and 1976 showed that a great many jobs had now been enlarged, enriched or rotated (Trepo, 1979). The principal reasons for this effort were a search for production gains together with recognition of the need to reduce labour problems, which included absenteeism, industrial conflict and poor quality work. In an attempt to overcome these the French government introduced legislation requiring employers to demonstrate how they had improved working conditions and how they proposed to improve these further. But the French trade unions were suspicious of these job design efforts, seeing them as yet another possible means to exploit workers.

Italy Italy was a rather different situation from France. In Italy the existing rigidly structured and tightly controlled form of work organization, often called Taylorism, was seen as a product of Fascism. The Italian unions, in contrast to unions in other countries, were prepared to fight against this and were determined to secure control over the organization of work (Rollier, 1979). The initiative for change therefore came from the unions with management as Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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reluctant partners. The union became a major force pressing for change and also the focal point for the promotion and spread of organizational research. Agreements in the early seventies with companies such as Olivetti and Fiat paved the way for experiments similar to those at Volvo with “production islands” and flexible work cycles. As might be expected there was resistance from employers although Olivetti was an exception. The company was converting from engineering to electronics and needed new forms of work organization. All large Italian companies were afraid of the trade unions and most produced suggestions for work changes, but there was little conviction that the new work system would lead to increases in production. In 1974 Italy had a major economic crisis. Management became frightened of the economic situation and started reshaping their production systems with the aim of breaking the unions. This meant restoring the old Taylorist model and abandoning the proposed changes.

Germany Strategies to improve the humanisation of work in West Germany began in the early seventies. These were strengthened, in 1973, by a major strike in AG Metall over the humanisation of work and worker participation. The result of this was that works councils now had a say in corporate developments and that these subjects became a part of collective bargaining. They also led to discussions between parliament, government and the trade unions (Leminsky, 1975). It was increasingly recognised that work was of central importance to a satisfactory life and that rewarding work must contain opportunities for autonomy, freedom and choice. This meant that the content of work had to be changed. There must be better training, job enrichment and the organization of work around groups. Production, repairs and control would now all be carried out by these groups. These reforms were implemented through new laws and by making works councils responsible for their introduction and for monitoring their effectiveness. A programme for the humanisation of work was introduced by the Federal Ministries of Labour and of Science and Technology in May 1974. This programme had three components: first, the development of standards and minimum requirements for machines and workplaces; second, the development of technologies to meet human requirements (this included computers); and third, case studies and models for the organization of work based on the sociotechnical analysis used in Britain and in Norway. Firms which were willing to introduce new forms of group work that included more job variety would receive subsidies to meet part of the cost of these experiments. These changes were facilitated by new legislation that formalised and ratified workers’ rights. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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Works councils were the principal change agents and any plans for reorganization made by the employer had to be agreed by the works council. This meant that the trade unions had to train their works council members in the management of change and in how to influence policy. The unions also succeeded in gaining Mitbestimmung—the equal representation of labour on supervisory boards and labour directors on executive boards. These became the new worker directors. This humanisation of work programme continued successfully for some years but was criticised by socio-technical consultants in other countries for excluding the worker on the shop floor from discussions. Everything was left to the trade unions.

Netherlands A major European pioneer in socio-technical design in the sixties and seventies was Philips in Eindhoven. The company had many programmes that incorporated what the firm called work restructuring and work consultation (Mumford & Beekman, 1994). Today we might call these work design and participation. These programmes were the responsibility of a special department called Technical Efficiency and Organization. The commitment of this department to technical change began in the sixties when the company first noted signs of unrest amongst blue-collar workers who were doing boring and monotonous jobs. Management and in particular the director of TEO were determined to overcome this. Philips believed strongly in the socio-technical principle that the social must have the same importance as the technical and they also understood the relevance of the social sciences to good management. In the seventies and eighties most manufacturing companies defined industrial engineering as a form of work study. Philips adopted a quite different approach. Management saw the behavioural sciences as providing a supporting and humanising underpinning for industrial engineering. Philips hoped that as a result of this philosophy all kinds of new organizational forms would emerge and be tried out. The result of this development and experimentation would then be a flexible and organizationally advanced company. Philips recognised that work restructuring and participation required major change in attitude from both management and workers. This new perspective was achieved through meetings, discussions and lectures, all of which included the works council and the trade unions. Although in the eighties many of these high hopes for the spread of job enrichment and employee participation diminished for harsh economic reasons, in the seventies Philips was providing an inspiring example of socio-technical design. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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United States In the sixties and seventies the notions of organizational development and the human relations model were extremely popular in the United States, but as the business environment changed these became less relevant. In 1972 interest in the socio-technical approach was awakened. A decline in productivity was associated with unhappy employees who were alienated from their work. At the same time competition from Japan and West Germany was increasing. Socio-technical projects in the United States were usually initiated by management without union or worker participation and were directed at increasing organizational effectiveness as well as the quality of working life. Most unions viewed these new policies with suspicion, seeing them as an attempt to undermine their interests or to increase productivity to the disadvantage of the worker (Davis & Cherns, 1975). But there were exceptions. The United Automobile Workers’ Union negotiated contracts with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler in which clauses were included establishing joint managementunion committees to improve the quality of working life and to encourage and monitor experiments in job redesign. These projects continued for a number of years. In the 1980s an influential group of American researchers, managers and consultants formed themselves into the Socio-technical Round Table. This group was originally sponsored by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and managers from both the Digital Equipment Corporation and General Motors played a major part in its early activities. Socio-technical researchers and practitioners from other countries were invited to join. It played an important role in communicating the socio-technical message to American industry. This group is still active today.

India Socio-technical projects were not restricted to Europe and the United States; India was one of the pioneers in work redesign. An early project was carried out in a cotton mill in Ahmedabad. Here a group of workers became responsible for a group of looms, work was reorganized, and an increase in productivity occurred (Rice, 1958). These new methods did not last and a follow-up visit to the firm by Tavistock researcher A. K. Rice in 1963 found that the old methods had returned. A new management was reluctant to give up power. However socio-technical initiatives continued, led by an Indian supporter of the Tavistock approach, Professor Nitish De (De, 1984). In the sixties, despite the setbacks experienced by socio-technical supporters in the different countries there was considerable optimism that the Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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principles and values of the approach would continue and become more relevant. The industrial environment was seen as becoming increasingly complex and turbulent, and the belief was that, as a result, it would need great flexibility and highly committed workers (Davis & Taylor, 1972).

United Kingdom In 1949 the Tavistock Institute in London pioneered two action research projects. One was a study of joint consultation at the Glacier Metal Company; the other was an investigation of the organization of work in the newly nationalised Coal Board (Jacques, 1951). The chief researcher in the first project was Elliott Jacques and in the second, Ken Bamforth, who had worked as a miner and found many ideas for the redesign of work in his mining experiences (Trist & Murray, 1993). These projects were both successes and failures. New patterns of consultation worked successfully at Glacier but were restricted by the authoritarian attitudes of senior management. Jacques eventually left the Tavistock as he came to believe that the authority structure of British industry, supported by a legal framework, made any fundamental employee democracy difficult if not impossible. The coalmine research had a mixed reception, which will be described in more detail later. In Britain in 1965, a large-scale socio-technical project took place in Shell with the assistance of the Tavistock. This is described in more detail in Chapter 12. Shell UK was interested in a new management philosophy which incorporated the idea that “the resources of a company are also the resources of society” (Hill, 1971). The company set out to redefine its objectives in terms of this philosophy. It was decided that these social and business objectives could best be achieved through the use of socio-technical concepts. An important factor here was the need to rethink the operation of the plant and its production equipment prior to further automation (Davis & Cherns, 1975). Management had become concerned that its employees were both alienated and performing badly, yet it needed to have a totally committed workforce if it was to automate its refineries. It was decided that there must be changes in the attitudes of management and workers, a participative management philosophy and style must be introduced, and proposals must be drawn up for target setting and performance review. The primary objective was to maximise Shell UK’s contribution to the group’s long-term profitability through the efficient use of resources. A policy and objectives achievement programme was drawn up to be the focal point of the development programme. The Tavistock principle of seeking to achieve the joint optimisation of technical and human Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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factors was to guide implementation of the programme. This project lasted for four years in the UK and the experiments then continued in Shell plants in Austria, Holland and Canada. They are still taking place. By the end of the seventies there was evidence that socio-technical ideas were becoming accepted. Projects were spreading from manufacturing to service industries and it appeared that workers were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the old methods of production. The socio-technical supporters believed that “quality of working life” was an emergent value and that human development could be fostered through work. In their view, the technical imperative would eventually fade away, and labour and management would not continue to operate in an adversarial mode. They must and could collaborate. This was happening in Scandinavia, and Germany had many examples of codetermination. But the socio-technical group was overoptimistic. Progress was not as great as its members believed. It was true that many projects were taking place but these were usually on a laissez-faire basis. Innovative managers were allowed to go ahead but without organizational support. Initiatives usually came from individuals at the top of a company anxious to achieve stability and harmony and, even more important, to reduce labour shortages. These initiatives would become fewer once the labour market changed and many were seeking work. A major difficulty during this period was that few trade unions embraced the socio-technical concept. Many saw this as a threat to their power and influence. Socio-technical systems design in the seventies had many of the characteristics of a new social movement. Social movements have usually been examined in political terms but they can also be described as knowledge producers and looked at from three angles—as worldwide influences and as technological and organizational innovators. Movements of this kind are fertile environments for the development and propagation of new policies and values as well as providing contexts in which ideas can be shaped or constructed. The Quality of Working Life Council acted as an effective communicator and facilitator for socio-technical design at this time. The international group was drawn from many different European countries as well as India, North America and Australia. It was chaired by Einar Thorsrud, a leading Norwegian academic, and spread the quality of work message throughout the world through meetings, training sessions, books and articles. Its members worked with many different companies, initially helping them to introduce sociotechnical projects onto their shop floors and later into offices. Einar Thorsrud had work design projects in Norwegian schools and in the Norwegian shipping industry. Group relationships were nourished and sustained by Dr. Tommy Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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Wilson, one of the founders of the Tavistock Institute who later became social science adviser to Unilever. This group was very influential. It had a common purpose and a strong network of relationships. The members acted as information conduits in their respective countries and through attendance at international conferences.

SOCIO-TECHNICAL THEORY Socio-technical researchers have always used their research projects to test and develop theory. One of their first important concepts was the notion of “open systems.” This recognised that every socio-technical system is embedded in an environment that affects the way it behaves. If this environment is the department of a firm, it will include the other surrounding departments and all other activities that enable the company to run effectively. It will also include the environment external to the firm. This notion of an “open system” was greatly influenced by the work of an Austrian biologist called von Bertalanffy (1950). The open system concept, as formulated at this time, accepted the theory of “homeostasis.” This suggests that systems evolve and become increasingly complex but eventually settle for a steady state in which they can accommodate change without disruption (Davis & Taylor, 1972). The notion of homeostasis is questioned today. It is now argued that stability is not inevitable. Systems can become increasingly chaotic as they progress from one state to another. The open systems concept considered technical structures and work roles as two systems which were both part of one inclusive system. The researcher or consultant must always consider them together. Relationships between the two systems, and between them and the outside environment, must also be carefully analysed. This approach led to the development of a complex method for analysing work systems, which went through a number of stages. Unit operations, or groups of tasks which fitted logically together into a discrete work activity, were first identified. Each of these unit operations was made the responsibility of a work group. Next variances, problem areas where what did happen deviated from what should happen, were noted as areas for improved control by the work group. Supporting activities such as maintenance and the acquisition of supplies were also brought into the analysis. All of these were to become the responsibility of the work group. Key executive functions such as coordination and control of the wider system were left as the prerogatives of management. Some, but not a great deal, of attention was paid to personal relationships although workers were asked to describe how they saw their Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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roles. The underlying theory here was that alienation and job dissatisfaction were a result of a lack of personal control. These design principles were constantly added to as research and action progressed. Many were due to the creative thinking of Fred Emery, an early member of the Tavistock who later moved to Australia (Emery, 1978). He produced the notion of “redundancy of functions,” or multiskilling. Groups and individuals should have the ability to carry out a number of different tasks even though they do not always need to use these. The greater the redundancy, the more reliable the system, as it can now cope with unexpected occurrences. Redundancy also means that if one part of a system fails it can be replaced by another. This provides greater security. Errors can be accepted without disaster. However redundancy requires control mechanisms to be present so failure can be noted and substitute parts activated. Emery believed that turbulent environments require redundancy as this enables them to be adaptive, and that redundancy is easier to achieve in self-managing groups than in individual work activities. These ideas led to a principle of “adaptive strategic planning.” Planning now had to fit the values and goals of the organization. It required the identification of shared values. Another new concept was that of “minimal critical specifications.” This was developed by David Herbst (1974), who maintained that over-specified work designs were obsolete. Workers should be told what to do but not how to do it. Deciding this should be left to their initiative. He also produced an alternative to work hierarchies that is still in favour today. This involved primary work groups, matrices and networks. Primary groups are when all the members can learn all the tasks; matrices are when some tasks are done by everyone but others require specialists; and networks are when people do not know each other and may be physically distant, yet they are still able to collaborate (Davis & Taylor, 1972). These principles were used and developed in the 1962 Norwegian Industrial Democracy Project. Albert Cherns, an associate of the Tavistock Institute, brought all of these principles together in an article in Human Relations (Cherns, 1976). These were now listed as: Principle 1. Compatibility. The process of design must be compatible with its objectives. Principle 2. Minimal Critical Specification. No more should be specified than is absolutely essential. But the essential must be specified. Principle 3. The Socio-technical Criterion. Variances, if they cannot be eliminated, must be controlled as close to their point of origin as possible. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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Principle 4. The Multifunctionality Principle. Work needs a redundancy of functions for adaptability and learning. Principle 5. Boundary Location. Boundaries should facilitate the sharing of knowledge and experience. They should occur where there is a natural discontinuity—time, technology change, etc. Principle 6. Information must go, in the first place, to the place where it is needed for action. Principle 7. Support Congruence. Systems of social support must be designed to reinforce the desired social behaviour. Principle 8. Design and Human Values. High quality work requires: • jobs to be reasonably demanding; • opportunity to learn; • an area of decision-making; • social support; • the opportunity to relate work to social life; and • a job that leads to a desirable future. Principle 9. Incompletion. The recognition that design is an iterative process. William Pasmore, writing in Human Relations (1985), gives a very positive assessment of what the socio-technical approach has achieved over the years. He describes the key insights provided by the early researchers as: 1. The work system should be seen as a set of activities contributing to an integrated whole and not as a set of individual jobs. 2. The work group is more important than individual job holders. 3. The work system should be regulated by its members, not by external supervisors. 4. The design philosophy of the work system should be that of redundancy. Its members should have more skills than the system normally requires. (This is multiskilling.) 5. The members should have as many discretionary tasks to perform as prescribed tasks. 6. The individual member is seen as complementary to any machine, not subordinate to it. 7. The design of work should lead to an increasing amount of variety for the individual and group so that learning can take place. At a later date Fred Emery added to these insights by stating that each member of the work group should have: Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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1. An optimal level of variety 2. Learning opportunities 3. Scope for making decisions 4. Organizational support—training, good supervision, etc. 5. A job recognised as important by the outside world 6. The potential for making progress in the future The technical system covered technology and associated work structure. The social system was seen as including the grouping of individuals in different roles into teams, coordination, control, boundary management, and also the delegation of responsibility to the work group and a reliance on its judgment for many operational decisions. A distinction was made between semiautonomous groups and self-managing groups. The former are given authority for decision -making but may lack the means to achieve this, for example, an effective information system. The latter have both authority and the necessary knowledge to control their own activities.

PROMISES AND POSSIBILITIES But socio-technical design has not always lived up to expectations. When it was first developed after the Second World War, it was seen by its creators as a means for optimising the intelligence and skills of human beings and associating these with new technologies which would revolutionise the way we live and work. This did happen for a while in the 1970s when many industries tried to implement socio-technical methods of working. But initiatives gradually faded away so that today, when we are in the twenty-first century, we have many people working on jobs that are routine and tightly controlled and provide few opportunities for personal development. What are the reasons for this unwillingness to grasp an opportunity that appeared to offer so much? Are they economic, cultural or social? We need to understand why the use of sociotechnical approaches has ebbed and flowed over the years. Here are some suggestions. All businesses are surrounded by powerful economic climates that greatly affect the way they operate. They also have strong cultures that have developed over time and are difficult to change. There has been a belief that the efficient production of goods and services requires the clear specification of goals, prescribed ways of doing things to achieve these, and controls to ensure that deviations do not occur. Although visionary groups have suggested that goals



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can be achieved in different ways, much of industry has believed that there is “one best way” which is based on an adherence to bureaucracy. This has often meant that social risks and problems were neglected or not seen. When the labour market was tight there was an unspoken belief that they, the workers, will put up with almost anything provided that jobs are available. The socio-technical school has always wanted to change these perceptions. Its members believe in flexibility and intellectual growth, that individuals and groups can reorganize and redevelop to meet new challenges in changing environments, and that this change process need not be too demanding and difficult. Many companies have accepted this message and tried to restructure their procedures and change their cultures to meet new kinds of objectives, both human and technical. But in the recent past, few of these endeavours have had any long-term success. The attraction and validity of bureaucracy were seen as stronger and safer and the new humanistic approaches as over-risky. However we are now in a new industrial era with new objectives and horizons and a new, more people-friendly technology. It is time for a new socio-technical resurrection.

WHAT CAN SOCIO-TECHNICAL DESIGN CONTRIBUTE? The most important thing it can contribute is its value system. This tells us that although technology and organizational structures may change, the rights and needs of the employee must be given as high a priority as those of the nonhuman parts of the system. This principle must also be applied to those who are not privileged to have paid employment and rely on the state for security. The predictions of the sixties and seventies that technology would bring many of us an idyllic life of leisure and wealth in the future appear to have little validity. A second fundamental socio-technical value is that of democracy. Employees should be allowed and encouraged to participate in, and influence, decisions that concern them. In the seventies and eighties these decisions were seen as primarily concerned with work organization. Today, they would have a much wider area of application and be concerned with health and comfort issues as well as the present and future environment. Other socio-technical design principles need applying more generally. The importance of creating and developing knowledge and the advantage of working in teams, all important aspects of socio-technical design, are now accepted for elite groups but are not yet a general policy to be applied to


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everyone. This needs to happen. At present, for many groups, the employeremployee work contract has greatly deteriorated from the employee’s point of view and this could lead to severe industrial conflict in the future if a balance is not restored. But how can we make this socio-technical revival come about? It is important to do so, for we are now in a period of major change and change is always difficult. If mishandled, major change can be so difficult that it leads to social breakdown rather than an easy route to success. Can industrial companies handle revolutionary change without motivated workers and inspired leadership? Do today’s managers have the knowledge to create bottom-up, entrepreneurial organizations (Bruyn, 1999)? Perhaps a socio-technical revival can help them do so. There are a number of models of how change can be managed without excessive trauma. Socio-technical supporters have always argued that the means are as important as the ends. If the desired end product is to be a humanised, efficient and innovative workplace then humanistic strategies must accompany the change process. Yet it will not be easy to achieve these. A publication by the British Demos Group describes some of the problems of implementing major change (Murray, 1999). First, there is the problem of inflexibility; many companies find it difficult to change. This may not be true of small, creative organizations but change will not be easy for those in the global market category. Organizational change is often stimulated and reinforced by companies that take the lead and are prepared to take risks. Where do we find these firms? Government commitment to change is also a major factor, and governments are not always knowledgeable on what are appropriate strategies at particular moments of time when faced with unforeseen circumstances. Change is also stimulated by the thinking and writing of consultants and academics and by the behaviour of competitors. But this kind of change can be just the latest fad of a powerful communicator, one who has little understanding of the consequences of what he or she is recommending. There are also the very difficult problems of personal relationships. The socio-technical approach recommends the participation of lower-level groups in decision making, yet the reality of power structures is that innovation is often halted when it is successful enough to threaten existing authority structures. Most challenging is that all change involves risk, and this is something most large companies try to avoid. It is critical that all companies in the future, whether part of the “wired world” or “built to last,” spend time and effort building the competencies that are required to handle change without excessive stress, trauma and failure. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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The world of socio-technical design is democratic and humanistic and provides both freedom and knowledge to those who are part of it. These concepts are not new; many others support them. Etzioni (1999) describes an approach that he calls “voluntary simplicity.” Voluntary simplicity describes a set of values that is prepared to limit expenditure on consumer goods while emphasising the importance of quality of life, self-expression and participation. It is a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich (Elgin, 1981). This is not very different from some of the concepts in the Christian Bible. Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount says: Do not store up treasure for yourself on earth where moths and wood worm destroy them and thieves can break in and steal. … You cannot be the slave of both God and money.… Think of the flowers in the fields, they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these. (Matthew 6: 19-29) Another approach to humanistic values is called “associative democracy.” This aims to change the relationship between the state and its citizens by creating a participative welfare society (Pestoff, 1999). It does this by giving citizens a more powerful voice in decisions on publicly financed social services. This is possible in a community-oriented economy which transfers power from big government to civic groups and from big corporations to self-governing local organizations (Bruyn, 1999). Pestoff, commenting on the Swedish experience, maintains that democracy rests on a moral base that grows when used but dwindles when ignored. For it to work, citizens must participate in real-world situations where, sometimes, they are forced to make hard choices (Pestoff, 1999). Profit sharing and co-ownership can make industrial and commercial enterprises more democratic. The best-known European example here is the Mondragon Corporation. First set up in 1956 as a worker cooperative, today Mondragon is one of Spain’s leading companies. Cooperatives of this kind have strong links to their local communities and this influences the strategic decisions that they take. They are not primarily concerned with shareholder value (Whyte & Whyte, 1992). These examples, together with the socio-technical approach, would all fit into a humanistic value system that placed great importance on democracy, the equitable distribution of assets, and a concern for personal development and happiness. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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The models are there. How likely are we to adopt them in the twenty-first century? Can we, as with socio-technical design in the seventies, find enlightened firms and communities anxious to accept democratic value systems of this kind? Will they be the opinion leaders or models for the majority? How can we persuade companies to place as much or more importance on their employees and customers as on their profit and loss accounts and the price of their shares? Major human relations change often comes from a shift of values resulting from a severe problem of some kind. Democracy and humanism may happen on an increasing scale in the future, but this will not be solely for ethical reasons but because, as in the seventies, valuable, highly skilled labour needed to be attracted to the company and retained once it was there. However the sociotechnical approach is always tightly wedded to its ethical base. Its guiding principles are an improved quality of life, especially in the work situation, and the opportunity to participate in decisions that affect this (Trist & Murray, 1993).

REFERENCES Apslund, C., & Otter, C. V. (1979). Codetermination through collective effort. In C. L. Cooper & E. Mumford (Eds.), The Quality of Working Life in Western and Eastern Europe. London: Associated Business Press, pp. 258-279. Bertalanffy, L. von. (1950). The theory of open systems in physics and biology. Science, 3, 23-29. Bruyn, S.T. (1999). A community-oriented economy. In W. E. Halal & K. B. Taylor (Eds.), 21st Century Economics. London: Macmillan, 369-392. Cherns, A. (1976). Principles of socio-technical design. Human Relations, 2(9), 783-792. Cooper, C. L., & Mumford, E. (1979). Introduction. In C. L. Cooper & E. Mumford (Eds.), The Quality of Working Life in Western and Eastern Europe. London: Associated Business Press, pp. xv-xviii. Davis, L. (1971). Job satisfaction research: The Post Industrial view. Industrial Relations, 10: 176-93 Davis, L., & Cherns, A. (1975). Quality of Working Life (Vol. 2). New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Davis, L., & Taylor, J. (1972). Design of jobs. Penguin Books. De, N. R. (1984). Alternative designs of human organizations. New Delhi, India: Sage. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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Eldon, M. (1979). Three generations of work democracy experiments in Norway: Beyond classical socio-technical system design. In C. L. Cooper & E. Mumford (Eds.), The Quality of Working Life in Western and Eastern Europe (chap. 11). London: Associated Business Press, pp. 226-257. Elgin, D. (1981). Voluntary simplicity: Towards a way of life that is outwardly simple, inwardly rich. New York: William Morrow. Emery, F. (1978). The emergence of a new paradigm of work. Canberra: Australian National University. Etzioni, A. (1999). The third way to a good society. London: Demos. Heller, F., Pusic, E., Strauss, G., & Wilpert, B. (1998). Organizational participation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Herbst, P. G. (1974). Designing with minimal critical specifications. In P. G. Herbst (Ed.), Socio-technical Design: Strategies in Multidisciplinary Research. London: Tavistock, pp. 294-302. Hill, P. (1971). Towards a new philosophy of management. London: Gower Press. Hofstede, G. (1979). Humanization of work: The role of Values in a third industrial revolution. In C. L. Cooper & E. Mumford (Eds.), The Quality of Working Life in Western and Eastern Europe (chap. 2). London: Associated Business Press, pp. 18-37. Jacques, E. (1951). The changing culture of a factory. London: Tavistock. Larsen, H. H. (1979). Humanisation of the work environment in Denmark. In C. L. Cooper & E. Mumford (Eds.), The Quality of Working Life in Western and Eastern Europe (chap. 7). London: Associated Business Press, pp. 124-158. Leminsky, G. (1975). Trade union strategies for the humanisation of work in the FRG. In E. Mumford & H. Sackman (Eds.), Human Choice and Computers. Amsterdam: North-Holland, pp. 157-167. Lindholm, R., & Norstedt, J. P. (1975). The Volvo report. Stockholm: Swedish Employers’ Confederation. Mumford, E., & Beekman, G. J. (1994). Tools for change and progress. Amsterdam: CSG. Murray, R. (1999). Creating wealth from waste. London: Demos. Pasmore, W. A. (1985). Social science transformer: The socio-technical perspective. Human Relations, 48(1), 1-22. Pestoff, V. A. (1999). Social enterprises and civil democracy in Sweden: Developing a participatory welfare society in the twenty-first century. In W. E. Halal & K. B. Taylor (Eds.), 21st Century Economics. London: Macmillan, pp. 301-326. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Rice, A. K. (1958). Productivity and Social Organisation: The Ahmedabad Experiment. London: Tavistock Publications. Rollier, M. (1979). Taylorism and the Italian unions. In C. L. Cooper & E. Mumford (Eds.), The Quality of Working Life in Western and Eastern Europe. London: Associated Business Press, pp.214-225. Trepo, G. (1979). Improvement of working conditions and job design in France. In C. L. Cooper & E. Mumford (Eds.), The Quality of Working Life in Western and Eastern Europe. London: Associated Business Press. Trist, E., & Murray, H. (1993). The social engagement of social science: Vol. 2. The socio-technical perspective. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Whyte, W. F., & Whyte, K. K. (1992). Making Mondragon: The growth and dynamics of the worker cooperative complex. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.


Participation in Practice 33

Chapter 3

Participation in Practice

INTRODUCTION As the case studies in the chapters that follow are all examples of participative organizational and systems design, I will now describe the processes of participation and how these can differ according to the group and company using them and the situation in which they are used.

What is Participation? The one certain thing about participation is that it is not a new concept, although it may sometimes have been given other names such as democracy, involvement, sharing, co-operation, etc. The Greeks used it to describe a certain kind of decision taking. For them a decision was participatively taken if the answer to the question “Who takes it?” was “more or less everybody.” This kind of democratic decision taking contrasted with meritocratic, in which


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decisions were taken by an elite, and with autocratic, in which they were taken by one person. Later writers on participation have been of a very different kind from the early philosophers. Many were contributors to the human relations movement in industry and they include such famous names from the United States as Elton Mayo, Douglas McGregor and Rensis Likert. The Tavistock Institute in England had a major influence on organizational participation from the 1950s onwards as did Norwegian social scientists such as Einer Thorsrud and P. G. Herbst. These influential academics were interested in questions of authority, motivation and job satisfaction at work. They all believed that quality of working life could be increased through greater employee participation in decisions that concerned the work environment. Mayo’s (1969) very broad definition of participation is that it takes many forms. It cannot be represented in an organizational chart or engineering blueprint. A democratic system has no fixed concentration of authority at the top. On the contrary, the focus of authority moves from place to place according to the demands of the situation. McGregor’s (1960) more conservative model is that participation creates opportunities under suitable conditions for people to influence decisions which affect them, while Likert (1967) describes his model of participation as all subordinates in a work group who are affected by a decision are involved in it (a work group is defined as a superior and all the subordinates who report to him). A simple definition that fits user involvement in organizational design defines participation as a process in which two or more parties influence each other in making plans, policies or decisions. It is restricted to decisions that have future effects on all those making them or on those represented by the decision takers. All definitions recognise that participation involves more than one set of interests and that it is concerned with decision taking. There is, however, little discussion of the nature of the different interests involved or of the subjects with which the decision taking is or should be concerned. I found that before I could use a participative approach it was necessary to consider carefully the kind of participation that could best be associated with the introduction and management of change in the firms I was working with.

Why have Participation? The arguments of the classical theorists were based on a vision of a “common good” and on how universal involvement in decision taking could help secure this. The nation state was seen as committed to ideas of justice and freedom; its problem was how to realise these. Parallel notions were concerned Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


with the rights of the individual and the importance of personal autonomy, which could only be secured if men could decide for themselves what they wanted to do (Heller, Pusic, Strauss & Wilpert, 1998). The arguments for participation today tend to be rather different and participation is supported for many different reasons. Management may decide to try a participative approach because they agree with the early philosophers that participation is morally right—people should be able to determine their own destinies. Or they may see participation as helping to produce a workforce committed to change and therefore furthering the avoidance of employee resistance. They may believe that participation is a valuable educational experience and provides understanding and knowledge that can assist an organization to more effectively realise its objectives or, alternatively, that such knowledge will enable any negotiating that takes place to do so with all interest groups operating from an informed position. These are all positive reasons for participation. It is clear, however, that some managements favour participation for what could be regarded as negative reasons. They see it as a way of persuading their employees to accept changes that otherwise might be rejected. Participation then becomes a manipulative tool and is carried out without any serious attempt to make it truly democratic. Trade union arguments for participation can be equally varied. Unions may encourage participation because they see it as a lever for increasing shop-floor control over the work situation. They may also support it because they believe it will contribute to industrial democracy and the more equitable sharing of power. But, in the past, some unions have rejected participation, stating that it is their responsibility and right to represent the interests of their members and that they can do this effectively without involving these members. Employees are usually interested in participation for different reasons. They see it as a protective device that will enable them to prevent things that they believe to be undesirable from happening. They want to avoid being made redundant, or deskilled. They also hope to have more interesting jobs, more discretion at work, better opportunities for promotion, and an improved quality of working life. They believe participation may assist them to achieve these. Outside industry politicians and community leaders can have another set of objectives for participation. They may believe that active participation leads people to accept responsibility, enhances group harmony, develops a sense of cooperation and of community, and produces a willingness to accept group decisions. They also believe that participation can produce valuable information, hence, the recent use of focus groups. Other arguments for participation are related less to the achievement of specific objectives and more to subjective Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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individual feelings, for example, that it enables people to feel free and to be their own masters and in control of their own destinies. Again educationalists might be interested in the arguments for the character-building aspects of participation—that it assists people to develop active, non-servile characters and democratic personality structures and also enables them to broaden their horizons and appreciate the viewpoints and perspectives of others. Participation then can have different meanings for every individual or group concerned with it. Each interest group is likely to define the word in a different way and to use participation for very different objectives. The challenge for any organization that decides to try participation as a strategy is to create the kinds of structures and processes that will assist all the different stakeholders to obtain some gains from using this approach. These gains will not necessarily be all of the same kind but they should enable each group to say with conviction, “Participation has clear benefits for us.”

Participation Structure, Content and Process The discussion so far highlights the difficulty of trying to arrive at precise definitions of participation. Equal difficulty is likely to be experienced when considering how participation can be applied. What should it be used for and how can it best be used? The traditional answer is that participation is concerned with decision taking and with the representation of different interests and points of view. The theory here is that a decision publicly arrived at is better understood and therefore likely to be better carried out. But this says nothing about who implements these decisions once they are taken. Participation is seen as an expression of consent to something being done. It says nothing about how it is done or who does it. Yet these are important decisions that companies have to take. Any practical discussion of participation to be used in problem solving situations such as organizational design needs to cover the structure of participation, the content of participation and the process of participation. The structure of participation is concerned with how people are organized to enable participation to take place. Different models include consultative, representative or consensus forms of participation. There can be “consultative” participation in which the participants give evidence to the decision makers, this evidence being taken into account when decisions are taken. Representative participation is when influence is exerted through intermediaries such as a design group. If a representative group is chosen as the vehicle for decision making, then attention has to be paid to such matters as ensuring that all interests are in fact represented and deciding how the members of the group are selected Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


or elected and whether a number of groups at different organizational levels is required. Consensus participation is when everyone with an interest in a problem can exert influence on decision taking. Here agreement has now to be reached on how far the decision process extends. Consensus participation can allow all participants to have an equal voice in agreeing decision strategy but they do not actually take the final decision. In contrast participants can be given full authority for evaluating options and taking a final decision unconstrained by any laid-down procedures or taboo subjects. Groups such as senior doctors and police are likely to have this degree of freedom. A variety of consensus participation, sometimes called the conference model, is very popular with major American companies at present. This is used primarily for obtaining ideas and sanctions for new organizational strategies (Axelrod, 1992). I have used a number of different participative structures in the firms in which I acted as a change facilitator. These were not always my decisions but also depended very much on the wishes and interests of the company. A choice has to be made on whether to use consultative, representative or consensus approaches, with some companies handling complex change using all three at the same time. This is true of the final case studies in the book, Air Products, the British police force and Shell International. They would bring together large numbers of their employees from all levels and departments, together with key customers and suppliers, so that a “company” view could be obtained which would help the development of change strategy (Axelrod,1992). These options of “consultative,” “representative” and “consensus” participation can also be used at different organizational levels in the company. The content of participation is the nature of the issues discussed and about which decisions are taken. It also involves a consideration of decision boundaries; that is, what subjects can be considered participatively and what subjects are outside the jurisdiction of the participative group and are seen as executive decisions which are not taken democratically. The process of participation involves the ongoing acquisition of knowledge so that decisions are taken from an informed position. It involves learning, the development of effective working relationships over time, the setting and achieving of goals, and the implementation of solutions. It is also concerned with power, and in true participation all the parties will have equal power. If power within a participative group is not equal then the interests of a faction can unduly influence decisions. Where power is equal but there are conflicts of interest, the outcome will be negotiated and is likely to be a compromise. Occasionally a meta-solution may be striven for and achieved. By meta-solution is meant a solution that is so effective that it succeeds in meeting the objectives of all the stakeholders. Occasionally a Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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group may find it is impossible to arrive at any solution and the outcome then is a product of default, not intention.

Participation as a Contribution to Effective Organizational Change If one ceases to consider participation as a blanket activity applied to all decision taking and considers it in relation to a specific set of needs and problems, then it becomes easier to discuss it with clarity. I have been particularly concerned with using participation to assist the design of new work systems involving the use of new technology. This task is very appropriate for a participative approach for the following reasons. It involves a number of interest groups (management, systems designers, clerical or shop-floor users, trade unions, customers, etc.). It requires knowledge and this knowledge is likely to be spread throughout the different interest groups and not be located solely in one. Any design task is complex and takes time. Participation enables a shared learning process to take place in which each of the interest groups can contribute to the problem solving process. The various interest groups are likely to have different values, needs and objectives, and these can be brought out into the open, discussed and attempts made to reconcile them. Participation used for design tasks therefore involves discussions over time and not merely the giving of an opinion at one moment in time. This kind of participation requires a high commitment from those involved, who may be concerned with all aspects of organizational change including analysis, design, construction, implementation and evaluation. Irrespective of whether a consultative, representative or consensus approach is adopted, experience has shown that agreement on a system solution does not always emerge easily and conflicts which result from different interests within a department may have to be resolved first. One objective of a participative approach to organizational design is that few must suffer and as many as possible must gain from the change. When new systems are being introduced there is frequently a potential for reducing the numbers of staff, and agreed strategies must be developed to safeguard the interests of those who have to move on. A participative approach has also to be acceptable to top and departmental management, who must be convinced that it will lead to both efficiency gains and to the creation of a more desirable work environment that will help attract and keep staff. In the companies I worked with I found that, as well as a design group, it was always desirable to create a project steering group from those for whom the proposed change was of particular importance. The steering group acted Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


as a direct link between the senior management of the organization and the team responsible for the detailed design. It set the basic organizational objectives and constraints under which the new system was to be developed and could have as its members one or two senior managers, the managers of affected departments, official representatives of trade unions, and any other major interests affected by the new system. But it was the design team that was responsible for the design and implementation of the new system and this consisted of members of those departments where the new system was to be introduced. This team agreed the scope of the local problem, scanned the environment for new opportunities or changing constraints, analysed deficiencies in current systems, defined development goals in consultation with other groups likely to be affected, provided decision makers with assessments of the likely impacts of alternative strategies on these goals, and finally created the work organization and task structures associated with it. I found that in unionised situations both representative and consensus participation need to have trade union support and involvement if design groups are to succeed.

SOME PROBLEMS OF USING A PARTICIPATIVE DESIGN APPROACH A participative approach, while producing great benefits and easing the acceptance and efficient use of a new work system, like any other innovation is not free from problems. Here are some of them, derived from my own experience. First, it must not be assumed that because a group of employees agree to be involved in participative design that this means that they are convinced of management’s good intentions. In Rolls Royce, an engineering firm, suspicion of management’s motives in permitting this unusual degree of democracy lasted for some time. It required many assurances from management that it had no evil intent for trust to be established. Second, while I strongly believe that if consensus or representative design is used then the design group should be democratically elected, this is not always possible. In the engineering firm, managers were worried that an election would lead to the recruitment of the most militant rather than the most effective members of staff. They therefore preferred to select the members of the group themselves. Although this produced an admirable representation of the different interests in the department, for some time the design group members were seen as management favourites, or “blue eyes,” and this affected their relationships with their colleagues. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Third, in most change situations there will inevitably be some conflicts of interest. It cannot be assumed that the members of any group will all have the same objectives or favour the same design solutions. With any of the participative design approaches these conflicts of interest will quickly surface and will have to be discussed and negotiated. This is not an easy task for a new design group. Fourth, a design group formed from clerical or shop-floor workers has “no place to hide.” Whereas a professional group of technical specialists can return to their own department and “close the door” when relationships become difficult, the members of a participative design group must continue to work side by side with their colleagues throughout the design process. As this inevitably has its conflict periods, they are likely to experience interpersonal stress from time to time and this is something they may not be used to. Fifth, in order to reduce conflicts of interest and problems of stress, design groups need to have or develop some skills in communication and consultation. In my experience it is more difficult to transfer such skills to a design group than it is to give them design expertise. Sixth, the role of the professional experts in the situation will change. Instead of being “designers” in the traditional sense they become consultants to the design group. Some may regard this change of role as a threat to their authority and status. Finally, the role of departmental or middle mangers may temporarily become more difficult. Ideally these should have close contact with the work of a design group but without being full-time members. Some departmental managers may decide not to become permanent members of a design group because they believe that their presence will have an inhibiting effect on discussion. If this is the case then they must always be kept in touch with what is taking place. An effective strategy is for them to join the group for part of each meeting or for a full meeting at regular intervals. They must also approve the solution that is eventually chosen by their departmental staff.

THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR An important role in participative design is that of group “facilitator.” The facilitator can be an external consultant or an internal employee of the company, although if this last is the case then, ideally, he or she should not be from any of the future user departments or from the group immediately responsible for technical design. The facilitator needs to have a neutral status and preferably to come from a part of the firm, such as personnel or management services, which Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


crosses many departmental boundaries in its activities. The facilitator’s role is to help the design group to choose and implement an appropriate problemsolving methodology, to keep the members interested and motivated towards the design task, to help them resolve any conflicts, and to make sure that important design factors are not forgotten or overlooked. The facilitator must in no circumstances take decisions for the design group or persuade them that certain things should be done or not done. The facilitator’s role is to help the design group systematically to analyse their own problems and needs and arrive at an organizational solution that solves the problems and meets the needs. Here I must make my own role clear. I was a facilitator in most of the projects described in this book but I always saw my principal role as that of researcher, trying through action research to obtain a better understanding of the dynamic of problem solving when new systems are being introduced. This means that I did not receive any personal fees but the firms could, and often did, make contributions to my university, and as director of a university research unit I was also able to receive grants from national and international funding bodies. However in the case studies that follow I have kept my own role in the background and in each case have asked an employee of the case study company to provide comments on what took place from their point of view. The facilitator can help a group in many different ways. At the start of a project, new design groups are usually confused about the nature of the task upon which they are embarking and uncertain of their ability to tackle it. The facilitator can assist them to overcome these doubts. One useful way of doing this is to show how a group in another company has approached a similar design problem. Also, when organizational alternatives are being considered for the new system, it can help the learning process for the facilitator to arrange for the group to visit other companies and see how they have solved similar problems. The facilitator can also invite experts to talk to the group about different aspects of the design task and the possible organizational and technical options that they might wish to consider. The facilitator has a very important role in keeping the design group’s morale high. Participative design groups seem to go through four distinct psychological stages during a project. At the start there is anxiety and uncertainty about their ability to take on the task. Then, as data collecting proves interesting, enjoyable and relatively easy, the group gains confidence and morale is high. However, about halfway through most projects there is a slump in morale. This demoralisation can be caused by a number of different factors. It may be stimulated by the reaction of other groups who become aware of the project after it has started and question its legitimacy. It may be Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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due to the fact that some of the information the design group needs is hard to obtain, or there may be relationship problems within the design group or between the design group and the steering group. Once these are overcome and the group moves on from the problem analysis into the design phase of the project, high morale usually returns and lasts until the end of the project. However, whereas usually there are no serious difficulties in assisting a design group to acquire the skills necessary to design their own work situation in association with an established technology or known form of work organization, difficulties increase when technology is developing very rapidly and pioneering projects appear which few people in the company understand. A great deal of learning and expert advice is now necessary. The facilitator will need a number of social skills, including flexibility and tact. All groups are different and the individual members may take time to learn each other’s perspectives and objectives. They may have to be helped to communicate easily and accurately with each other. New groups often go through four psychological stages before they become mature problem solvers. At the start there can be uncertainty and anxiety as each group member wonders if he or she can handle the design task and if they are going to be able to work with each other. Once this is overcome, morale can be high as addressing the problem gets underway but may slump as the complexity and difficulty of the task become increasingly apparent. This can later improve again as decisions are taken to initially focus on those aspects of the problem where the group believes faster progress can be made. Each of these stages can be helped by a leader who is a good facilitator. An effective facilitator will make certain that the group has access to any external information it requires and will ensure that its discussions and decisions are communicated to other interested groups and to the steering group. The facilitator should also help the group to achieve the following: • • • • • • • •

Ensure that all relevant issues are raised and discussed Arrive at an agreed definition of the aspect of the problem they wish to tackle at a particular moment in time Understand what is involved in focusing on this issue Agree short- and long-term objectives Accept disagreement and tolerate conflict Value reasoned debate on all relevant issues Strive for equality of contribution Resist external pressures to conform to particular prejudices or beliefs



Facilitators also require good social skills. They must get on well with people, have easy and pleasant social manners, and be able to run a meeting democratically and ensure that relationships within the group stay friendly and constructive. Acting as a facilitator is not easy. It requires patience, control, enthusiasm and the ability to create and maintain positive attitudes. The most difficult task is likely to be helping to resolve conflicts of ideas and perceptions in a group representing different interests. These will have to be reconciled if a consensus on subsequent action is to be arrived at. Most group processes involve a degree of negotiation. Conflicts of ideas and interests need to be recognised, brought out into the open and discussed, and solutions must be arrived at which meet with the approval of all members. A good facilitator will ensure that the group works as a team and will help the members to acquire relevant knowledge about the problem they are addressing. He or she will also assist it to use its resources efficiently and to address effectively the issues it regards as most important. Information on progress will also need to be disseminated regularly to other interested groups and to the company as a whole. A choice may have to be made between focusing on short- or long-term objectives or trying to achieve both at the same time. Most important these leaders should, ideally, have a personal ethical position and a vision that they can share with the group, together with a clear sense of purpose. This description of the desired attributes of a facilitator may seem idealistic and such a person hard to find. Surprisingly there are many such people around and I have met many of them in industry and in universities, but they have to be sought out and persuaded to take on a difficult but very worthwhile role.

UNDERSTANDING THE CHANGE ENVIRONMENT Successful problem solving for change and changing needs the ability to understand the situation into which change is being introduced and to recognise the factors in it that will either help or hinder success. This is the focus of the case study in the next chapter. It requires both a knowledge of the present and an ability to foresee the future. Many of today’s work situations are both complex and dynamic—employees come and go with some rapidity, and competitors appear and disappear—yet the successful assimilation of change usually requires a degree of stability.


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A good understanding of the environment in which the problem is located will assist the choice of strategies and methods that can lead to a solution. Any new work system should be acceptable to employees, efficient in fulfilling its functions and able to provide satisfying tasks for those who have to use it. Meeting these objectives requires a good assessment of all environmental factors that will affect the new system’s acceptance and use, together with an estimate of their relevance to successful change. This diagnosis will include an appreciation of the stability or volatility of the situation into which the new system is to be introduced. Are the employees there used to change and unlikely to reject it or will they greet it with suspicion or antagonism? And the reasons for change, are these positive or negative? Is the company one with a long, stable history and a secure future that is accepting change to make itself even more successful? Or is the change a response to increased competition that the company is having difficulty in responding to and which may threaten its future survival? Here innovation may be a symptom of fear rather than confidence and employee attitudes may reflect this.

The Nature of the Change— Why is Change Being Introduced? The reason for the change will greatly affect its nature. Is it a product of past success leading to a desire for more growth and diversity? Is it a result of new and more advanced technical developments that must be taken advantage of and introduced? Or is it for negative reasons such as economic or efficiency problems that require the company to rethink its activities and options? Change can also take many different forms. It may need to be sustainable so that it lasts a long time or temporary to solve a short-term problem. It may be badly wanted or seen as unnecessary. Its size will also be a major factor. Is it small and bounded such as a new computer system for a particular function or department? Or is it a revolutionary change that is going to affect everywhere and everyone? Companies which attempt to change their work cultures to make themselves more responsive to external demands or increased competition often fall into this category. Until recently, with some exceptions, most change was not all-embracing. It was more likely to be limited in its impact. Today, large companies are increasingly trying to introduce change that is large-scale and pervasive. Shell International, under pressure to become more environmentally friendly, is an example here. Change is also more likely to be difficult than easy. In recent years many countries, including Britain, have experienced serious problems with new computer systems that were introduced to improve public services yet did not Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


fulfil the promises that were made when they were ordered. These failures greatly raised costs, alienated both staff and the public, and gave the national authority a reputation for incompetence. The change process was chaotic rather than controlled. It is clear that right from the start of any change programme there are two difficult and associated influences that are likely to affect its success. These are the nature of the change that is to take place and the positive or negative success factors operating in the environment it will enter. Those responsible for implementation are already facing a complex and uncertain change situation.

The Groups Affected— How Will They React to Change? There is still more uncertainty to come. An important factor will be the reactions of the group, or groups, that will be affected by the change. Change is disturbing for most people, whether it is viewed as positive or negative. It moves the individual or group into unfamiliar situations which they may see as challenging or threatening. It disturbs existing social relationships and it requires coping mechanisms which not all people will have. This means it greatly increases the complexity of the employment world and can cause much stress and anxiety. Employees are not all the same. They vary greatly in terms of their personalities, needs, competencies and interests. Professions such as teaching and medicine have been fortunate, in the past, to attract or develop individuals who can be described as “dedicated.” They are prepared to work night and day for their employing organization; they are totally immersed in its activities and highly supportive of its objectives. Both have the same values and goals. Unfortunately this seems to be a scarce and diminishing group as the environment of hospitals, schools and similar institutions becomes increasingly unattractive and the psychological rewards diminish. The group now turns into one that feels increasingly exploited. The rewards of the job no longer match the dedication and effort that is required. California’s Silicon Valley and similar fast-moving environments are made up of highly entrepreneurial individuals. We sometimes call them portfolio workers. They are fast thinkers, very mobile and constantly seeking new opportunities. They are looking for both mental stimulation and good financial rewards. They may prefer short-term contract work to long-term secure employment, and they are risk takers. They are also usually young, clever, and with few family responsibilities. In contrast, a very different group is those working for large companies but coming increasingly to dislike their job. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Surveys have shown that this is now true of many managers. This group will be older, with families, and its members will value job security. Other stressed groups are women with small children who may be single parents and who are often overcome with exhaustion as they try to manage both work and family. Finally there is the large and increasing group of low-level workers employed by telephone or computer call centres and other service industries. These frequently have both boring work and low pay. They are little different from the workers tied to the moving assembly line of 20 years ago. Each of these groups will have their own anxieties, problems and needs when faced with a change in their work situation. With the exception of the portfolio group, most are unlikely to welcome this. An extremely important and immediate question for most employees faced with major change is: Will we lose our jobs? Will there be redundancy as a result of the change in the work situation? If the answer is yes, the result is likely to be great anxiety and a drop in morale. The socially responsible firm will try to offer ways of countering this negative response through schemes such as voluntary redundancy, the opportunity to transfer to another job in the company, or appropriate financial compensation. It will also recognise that those that stay may suffer from feelings of guilt because their old colleagues have been removed. This can cause drops in morale and antagonism towards the new system. Some groups, particularly if they are unionised, will want to fight new circumstances which are seen as having a negative effect. Some may go out on strike. Others will leave the situation and look for new jobs, in this way making the change difficult for management to introduce. Or there may be mixed reactions, individuals and groups who are prepared to wait and see what happens and others determined not to cooperate with something they do not understand. These adverse reactions will not just come from employees. Customers may also react with hostility as may suppliers. A critical factor in attitudes to change will be relations between the different groups, especially workers and management. Here the popular but trite words “trust” and “communication” are likely to be significant. Change will be accepted more readily if the reasons for it are understood and believed even if the change itself is not welcomed. This requires management to provide honest and open communication which is recognised as such by those who receive it. But how many managers are prepared to do this? Even though good communication is generally seen by management as essential it may not always occur. Some managers may assume, usually



wrongly, that there will be fewer problems if employees are not told everything. They explain that they operate a “need to know” policy. Alternatively, they may want to keep the fact of change secret from the press or their competitors. Or they may simply be naive, have few communication skills and can not understand the need to talk with staff, to explain and reassure. Some may even still hold to the old autocratic attitude of “We tell our employees what to do and they do it.” Today, we know a great deal about how to communicate. Even so, when large, complex, unfamiliar changes are being made, effective communication may not be easy. It will require skill, knowledge, conviction and perseverance, attributes that are often in short supply.

Change Skills To match the variety of attitudes to change they may encounter, those involved with its design and management will need certain skills. These will include an ability to think creatively and to approach new problems without prejudice and from different angles; the breadth of vision to provide a range of possible scenarios relevant to the change situation; a good understanding of the different factors likely to affect attitudes to the change problem; and the ability to perceive what will work well and be generally acceptable. Those following the principles of socio-technical design required skills which include management, technical, organizational, social and possibly economic knowledge. Social skills will include the ability to understand, motivate and encourage those groups involved in, or affected by, the change process. Effective change agents also require the willingness and ability to continually learn from experience, to apply this new knowledge and to monitor the results. In situations where few of these skills exist we may have a badly chosen new system being placed in an environment that is unsuitable and into which it does not fit easily. Even worse, those managing the change are unable to persuade the staff involved that change is in their interests. Can this worst-case scenario be prevented or ameliorated? One answer is to ensure there is a good match between the skills of the change agents and the complexity of the situation. A successful change programme always requires the ability to get individuals and groups working cooperatively together. This, in turn, requires an understanding of social processes—people’s visions, interests, intentions, attitudes and emotions. These are much more difficult to handle than new work structures but just as important. They will influence whether the new system is received with enthusiasm or gloom and dismay. Positive attitudes are a result


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of involvement, communication, motivation and good timing. They are the means for making things happen, the “levers” which enable change to be successfully introduced. A major influence on how change is handled and received will be the values of those in influential positions. Powerful senior managers can try to ensure that all staff operate on the basis of a set of beliefs regarding what is right and wrong for the company. Some, and Shell International is an example, publicise these as a set of business principles so that staff, customers and any other group that has a relationship with the firm know exactly what to expect in terms of company behaviour. Although there have always been companies operating with a strong social, if paternalist, ethic and the Quaker-owned firms in Britain provide examples, there have not been many of these. In the past a command and control management philosophy often based on work study meant that those at the bottom of the employee hierarchy were undervalued. The human being was not seen as an individual requiring caring and support. Rather he or she was viewed as an operating unit that could be adjusted through training and incentives to meet the needs of the organization. These needs were usually related to costs and economic efficiency.

CONCLUSIONS ON PARTICIPATION Today the reality of most change situations is one of negotiation, not instruction or persuasion. There is a recognition of different interests, and a more equal distribution of knowledge and power within organizations means that groups which previously would have passively submitted to a major alteration in their work situation may now question and even fight a change which they think is against their interests. Some managements may resent protracted negotiations which they see as due to the new “cussedness” of the labour force and which they would have preferred to avoid. But other, more enlightened managements will recognise that successful change requires the identification and resolution of conflicts of interest and may also perceive that such conflicts of interest are not solely between management and subordinates but can occur between members of different specialisms, grades or functions who perceive a change in relationships as jeopardising their interests versus those of another group. It can therefore be argued that participative methods for introducing change which assist the identification of different interests and the resolution of these through joint discussion and negotiation will assist the production of a form of change which most people in the situation will either welcome or not wish to oppose actively. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


The participative approach described in this book is one way of bringing about such an acceptable change process, although it is not free from problems and the very fact of bringing differences and conflicts of interest into the open may produce a series of stressful relationships, which management may believe a more traditional approach would have avoided. The counterargument is that the stress will be both temporary and functional as its existence implies that conflicts of interest are out in the open and, given goodwill by all parties, can be resolved. The arguments for a participative approach therefore run as follows. All change involves some conflicts of interest. To be resolved, these conflicts need to be recognised, brought out into the open, and negotiated, and a solution needs to be arrived at which largely meets the interests of all parties in the situation. Differences of interest will not be confined to management and subordinates but will occur between employees at different hierarchical levels and in different functions. Therefore successful change strategies require institutional mechanisms that enable all of these interests to be represented. Participation provides these. Arguments against participation put forward by managements who have not tried it are that it will be slow and expensive. In the author’s experience it will require longer elapsed time at the design stage than conventional approaches, but implementation will be faster and easier. There is no reason why higher costs should be incurred. Today, participation is viewed both pragmatically and ideologically by companies which use it as something that helps efficiency, satisfaction and progress but which is also morally right. Participation can take many forms, but at the lower levels of a company it is increasingly concerned with the relationship between individuals and their work environment. It must be stressed, however, that if employees are to be able to exercise some control over this then they need opportunity, confidence and competence, and methods for achieving the two last need careful thought. One prerequisite for a participatory community is that it shall be generally desired and accepted, and this requires the development of some shared values and objectives concerning participation. Political parties have these in their manifestos; it is important for industry to adopt them also.

REFERENCES Axelrod, D. (1992). Getting everyone involved: How one organization involved its employees, supervisors and managers in redesigning the organization. Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, 28(4), 499-509. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Heller, F., Pusic, E., Strauss, G., & Wilpert, B. (1998). Organizational participation. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Likert, R. (1967). The human organization. New York: McGraw-Hill. Mayo, E. (1969). The social problems of an industrial organization. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. McGregor, D. (1960). The human side of enterprise. New York: McGrawHill.



PART TWO: DESIGNING FOR MANUAL WORKERS


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Chapter 4

Analysing Problem Situations: The Dock Workers of Liverpool Where shall wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding? Book of Job

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM The book now introduces some case studies on organizational design and asks you to think what you would do if you were a manager, researcher or consultant in the same situation. As we have seen, change and its environment are often complex and difficult to understand. The change initiators, frequently management, may know what they are trying to achieve but may have little understanding of the problems involved in the introduction of a new system or of the uncertain reception it may be given. Wise change agents will start by obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the situation that will receive the change and of the problems that may accompany its early use. This information, if wisely applied, will assist the creation of well thought-out strategies that lead to effective application. Successful change depends on comprehensive knowledge. Without this, decisions will be taken in the dark and lead to consequences


Analysing Problem Situations

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which are undesirable and little understood. Metaphors may be helpful here. Gaining an understanding of a problem situation can be seen as similar to a rock climber working out the route for a future climb or an army commander making a battle plan before moving into action. What I am proposing is the creation of a “management map” before any implementation action is taken. I would also like to stress the importance of knowledge and experience of the kind of problem in which many variables may affect the outcome. This could be especially useful for those implementing technical systems such as information technology. Technical problem solvers frequently see technology as the dominant variable and give it exclusive attention. The consequence is that a neglect of other interacting variables, especially those relating to people, can lead to system failure.

THE LIVERPOOL DOCKS AND THE DOCKERS WHO WORKED THERE The case study I will use as an example of how to gain an understanding of a complex change problem is the port of Liverpool and the loading and unloading of ships there in the 1950s. This university-based research gave me my first real understanding of the complexity of introducing change and of the need to understand the change situation (Simey, 1954). It can appear a dated case study but it is interesting and useful to look at unfamiliar situations. Also, it may turn out to have great relevance to change in the future. Ulrich Beck, the well-known German sociologist, in his new book The Brave New World of Work suggests that the full employment society will soon vanish (Beck, 2000). He believes that life is becoming increasingly insecure and that those factors that used to complement and reinforce each other—full employment, guaranteed pensions and high tax revenue—are now being threatened. In the future, he claims, we will all experience considerable insecurity and risk in our working lives. He sees this threat as a result of unregulated global capitalism which, in Europe, is breaking the historical bonds between capitalism, the welfare state and democracy. He believes that a likely scenario for the future is a return to uncertain and volatile situations similar to that of the Liverpool docks in this case study. In his opinion, technology will provide no solution to an improvement in the quality of working life as technology raises productivity while reducing the value of man. We now have the capacity to increase productivity without work. Everyone, like the dockers, is looking for the next job.


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At the time of the research, the Liverpool docks, which are located along the river Mersey, had a volatile employment situation in which morale was low, strikes were frequent and relations between the different groups employed there were often hostile. My role was to try and gain an in-depth understanding of the problems of dock work for those who made it their living as a preliminary to advising management and the trade union how the situation might be improved. At the same time some of my research colleagues were carrying out a conventional attitude survey on a sample of dockers. In order to get close to life on the docks it seemed essential for me to work there, but there were only two female roles. One was a boat cleaner and involved scrubbing out the interior of boats that were in dock unloading their cargo. This was a very arduous job usually carried out by elderly women. It had little appeal and also the serious disadvantage of not bringing the worker into contact with dockers. They were on the quay and on the deck while she was in the interior of the boat. A better job for establishing contact was that of canteen assistant. The six miles of the Liverpool docks had a string of canteens along their length so that the dockers could eat between shifts. These were run, not by the employing Dock Labour Board, but by local catering organizations. Some, such as the Women’s Temperance Organization, had higher motives than just providing food.

WORK AS A CANTEEN ASSISTANT I decided to work in three of these. First at one in the north end of the docks where the large merchant carriers were moored, a second in the south end where smaller ships brought in grain and cargoes such as bananas, and one on the other side of the river where the docks were close to a large shipyard. I soon discovered that the most important talent required of Liverpool canteen assistants was not skill in serving meals, but skill in repartee. When a docker made a provocative or flirty remark, as many did, it was essential to make a fast, pithy yet humorous put-down, reducing him to shuffling embarrassment. It took me a long time to acquire this skill. By the time I’d thought of a smart reply the docker had usually long gone and was back at his ship. I came to realise that this talent, which all the canteen girls had, was one of the reasons Liverpool has produced so many world-class comedians. I found that, at the time the research took place, the Port of Liverpool had 18,000 registered dockers, all of whom could be employed anywhere along the six miles of docks. The docks were divided into four distinct sections according



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to the ships and cargoes that docked there. These were the north end, the south end, a small dock for banana boats and a large dock on the other side of the river. Each had its own traditions and particular ways of doing things. In order to maintain the independence of the research it was funded by an independent research organization, the Nuffield Foundation, rather than by the Dock Labour Board, the trade unions or the shipping companies. It was the need to make the best use of available labour during the 1939– 1945 war that gave a final push to the decasualisation of dock labour. During the war, work on Merseyside was regulated by means of schemes entered into voluntarily by the dock workers and their shipping company employers and administered by the Ministry of War Transport. All these schemes included registers of employers and workers, a guaranteed weekly wage for dockers and arrangements to ensure the mobility of labour between one port and another. These schemes were to act as the foundation for a new permanent structure for eliminating casual labour that was introduced after the war. In 1947 the National Dock Labour Scheme came into operation based on a number of local boards which were responsible for keeping the registers of dockers and employers and for allocating dock workers to employers at particular ports. They also had responsibility for paying wages, national insurance, etc., and for breaches of discipline. Local boards consisted of an equal number of persons representing employers and workers in each port. Wage rates were agreed by a National Joint Council and local negotiating committees. The National Dock Labour Scheme was the latest of several earlier efforts to try and organize dock work so that it was not entirely carried out by casual labour. The idea was to provide some regularity and order in a situation which was essentially irregular and uncertain yet on which the British ports depended for their economic efficiency and success. Problems were caused by the fact that the movement of ships was dependent on weather and tide and also on the nature and volume of the cargo carried as well as the economic circumstances of the vendor and purchaser countries. Despite greatly varying conditions, ships must be turned round in the fastest possible time and there must always be sufficient labour available to enable this to happen. Shipping companies wanted skilled and reliable men to be available at all times although the labour requirements of the port varied according to the number of ships in dock. The idea was to improve the management of an unwieldy and unregulated labour force through the registration of dockers as “official dock workers” while at the same time giving them greater security of employment. The


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National Dock Labour Scheme provided for a national board, together with a number of local boards made up of equal numbers representing employers and dock workers. The local boards acted as agents of the employers by paying out the dockers’ earnings, They also had welfare and training responsibilities. But they were not responsible for rates of pay or conditions of work. These were negotiated by the National Joint Council and local joint negotiating committees. In Liverpool the National Dock Labour Scheme was an attempt to meet the demand and need for decasualisation without impairing the economic efficiency of the port. But it was complex and reduced the authority and independence of the port employers. It was also difficult for the dockers to understand. The old clear-cut distinctions between management and men no longer existed. There was a great deal of conflict. Strike action was the traditional method employed by the dock workers to handle their grievances, although the trade unions discouraged irresponsible strikes. Unfortunately relations between the dockers and their principal union— the Transport and General Workers—were not always good. The T and GW looked after many different groups from many different industries, and the dockers felt that the union did not take enough account of their particular interests. As a result, despite its good intentions, the scheme encountered many problems and did little to improve the uneasy relations between men and management and between the men and their union.

THE O’KEEFE FAMILY Let us now look at the dock situation through the eyes of two of the dockers who worked there. Their opinions are typical of most dockers. I met Michael and Suan through my job as a canteen assistant in one of the dock canteens and got to know them well. The O’Keefe family had left Ballymena in Northern Ireland in 1930 seeking a better life in England. They were lucky enough to find a small house to rent near the docks in Liverpool, and Michael, the father, soon found casual work at the north end of the docks, where the large merchant boats were unloaded and loaded. Marie, the mother, got parttime evening work at a local factory, J. Bibby and Sons, which made cattle food. Their two sons, Suan and John, who were 10 and 12, enrolled at the local school. Life for the family proved hard but manageable for, although earnings were low, they were still considerably better than those offered in Ballymena. The O’Keefes found that their neighbours were mostly dock workers and many lived in a part of Liverpool called Bootle, within a mile of the north end Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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dock gates. Their street, like other streets near the docks, was lined by small terraced houses of a two rooms up, two down variety. In the past, because of religious divisions, it had been known as a protestant street but the separation of local residents into Protestant and Catholic areas was becoming less significant, although Liverpool still had its celebration of King Billy and the Irish Battle of the Boyne once a year. The dockers were a well-knit social group within the wider community. This social integration had been reinforced by the fact that the Liverpool docks were bombed extensively by the Germans in the early 1940s and many people in the area had been killed and injured. Mutual support during this period brought people together and this closeness endured. The area contained the local informal leaders for any disputes at work and also for matters of concern to the local community. These men were unusual in that they were regular attenders at trade union and open-air mass meetings. But there were few formal leaders in the group. Trade union officials lived outside the dock area and had other occupational groups to look after as well as the dockers. Dock foremen also lived further away in a somewhat vain attempt to bolster their loss of authority. The new scheme meant that they were now neither bosses nor dock workers. They had lost their traditional role and were unsure about their new one. Most dockers were family men and in close touch with their families. Because of the irregular patterns of work, they were in and out of their homes at different times of the day. Most wives did not work full time but followed the routine of their husbands. The children also saw a lot of their father and became interested and knowledgeable about the comings and goings of different ships. Many became office boys or messengers on the dock estate when they left school and before they acquired the much sought after registration as an official dock worker. Sons followed fathers onto the docks with the intention of becoming registered dock workers. This was not difficult as they were given employment priority. Dockers also tried hard to raise the status of their children. There was pressure on them to do well and get to the local high school. When they did achieve this, most wives had to go out to work full time to pay for uniforms and other school expenses. The O’Keefes found that their neighbours were pleasant and intelligent and bore little resemblance to the dock workers described by the writer William Mayhew in 1861 as “a striking instance of mere brute force with brute appetite, as unskilled as the force of the hurricane.” They also found that the docks had their own strong culture and that this was very different from the small Northern Irish town they had recently left. On the docks loyalty to the men and to the gang was stronger than loyalty to the church. The families of strike leaders were Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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given high status, were treated with respect and often became leaders of the local community. But the family of the “black leg,” who remained at work when others were on strike, was subject to abuse and ignominy, as was the man himself. Most of the older men had become dock workers because the work was available and convenient, because they had family or friends who worked on the docks and because the wages were good, providing overtime was available. Family and friends had the strongest influence. Dock work had become attractive when a minimum weekly wage and a regular week’s work became available. This happened in 1947 when the National Dock Labour Scheme was started.

Suan’s First Day Soon after his 18th birthday in 1948 Suan received a letter telling him that he was now a registered dock worker and must report to his nearest manning point the following Monday. The manning point was a brick building near the north end dock gate and it was here that the foremen selected the men who were to work in their gangs. This process took place twice a day, in the morning and afternoon. Suan was lucky in that his father was able to accompany him on his first day and they arrived early so that he could settle his nerves by having a cup of tea in an adjoining dock canteen. The canteens opened at 6:30 in the morning. Dockers arrived at work around 7:30 a.m. The system required men seeking work go to the manning centre while men in the middle of a job went straight to the quay side or to the ship and clocked on at a time station . Suan was apprehensive about his first visit to the manning point. He knew that it was much disliked by the dockers. They called it “the pen” and compared their experience there to cattle being sold in a cattle market. On entering he found it as unpleasant and intimidating as he had expected. The building was small, drab and depressing. It was also smoke-laden. In shape it was an oblong shed containing two elevated gangways that ran down the length of each side. The men stood in the centre of the pen, while the foremen stood on each gangway. Suan’s father told him that one was for ship cargo foremen, and the other for shed and warehouse work. He also told him that most men had to report to the manning point once or twice a week for assignment to a new job. Loading or discharge operations might take anything from one to 12 days to complete. Suan was greatly shocked by this intimidating situation and showed this. The men standing beside him sympathised. One said, “People squabble like a lot of monkeys here to do themselves a bit of good.” Another complained, “Men hate being chased like sheep around the pen; a better system could be found. It is a terrible place.” Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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All the foremen starting a new job and wanting to recruit workers were in the manning stand. Each foreman already knew where he would be working, the kind of cargoes he would be handling, and the number and size of the gangs he would require. As the selection process got under way each foreman gave a chosen docker a metal tally in exchange for his record book and told him where to report for work. Suan wondered, with some anxiety, what would happen to him? As a newcomer would he be given any work? He was to learn later that the foremen tended to specialise—some worked on ships, others in sheds. Some were expert on loading, others on unloading, and some were skilled with special cargoes. The dockers also had a very good knowledge of what kind of work was available and needed. Suan knew, from many previous visits to the docks, that a blackboard was displayed in the dock office window indicating the arrival of ships and their ports of origin. The likely berth for the ship and the cargo being carried could be deduced from this information. This knowledge was important to the dockers because not all jobs were equally acceptable. They could vary greatly in terms of what they paid and the conditions of work. Carbon black was an especially disliked cargo because of the dirt and the likelihood that many of the bags holding it would burst open, but it paid good rates. Also some ships had more overtime and night rates than others and there was competition for these. Both the foremen and men in the call centre knew the relative advantages and disadvantages of the different jobs although choice was restricted by the calling on procedure. Suan found that this had three stages. First, each foreman accepted the books of the men he was particularly anxious to employ, ignoring other books. These were his permanent followers, his “top six.” They were a group of six to 12 dock workers who worked with him almost continuously, following him from job to job. Suan saw that this group were all waiting for their foreman near what appeared to be his regular spot on the gang way. There were also some semipermanent men there whom he recruited when extra help was needed. The dockers still seeking work after the permanent followers had been allocated jobs now knew what was on offer. Each foreman was supposed to accept any books offered to him but he could still discriminate in favour of men known to be good workers. But at this point, to Suan’s dismay, the relatively orderly selection process broke down and mayhem broke out. Men rushed forward, pushing others out of the way, in their efforts to get their books accepted by foremen known to still have good jobs on offer. The dockers left without jobs, of which Suan was one, would get the remaining least desirable jobs. The Dock Labour Board official, who had been Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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present throughout the selection process, collected the books of the men who remained and handed them to foremen who still required labour. Suan was fortunate enough to be one of these. The books of the few men who did not get jobs at all were collected so that they could obtain attendance money. Suan found that his first job would be stowing cargo in one of the dock sheds. This would not pay well but at least it would be a start until he got to know some of the dock foremen better. When he arrived at the shed, which was both cold and windy, the foreman set Suan and the other men to work stowing a cargo of railway sleepers which had arrived from France. He organized them into gangs and allocated them particular tasks, following manning scales agreed by the company and the local branch of the trade union. Suan was to find later that any attempts to change the manning scales met with strong resistance from the dockers and serious disputes involving stoppage of work could arise over these. Suan also found that the work was hard, tiring and unsafe as cargo frequently slipped off the cranes and forklift trucks used to move it. Many dockers had lost fingers and toes as a result of these accidents. As the weeks passed and he became familiar with the manning point procedure Suan realised that the men were divided into three different groups. First, there was the prestigious group of men who had been able to attach themselves to a particular foreman and had established good relations with him and with the other members of his gang. Next there were the men who preferred to move around and were called “floaters.” They had the advantage that, because they were not tied to a foreman, they could actively seek the best jobs. But they lost the advantage of the stable relationships which came through working with the same foreman and gang. Suan, at least for the time being, was in this group. Third, there was a group known as “drifters.” These were men with poor reputations who could not get themselves accepted as permanent members of any gang. This was an unhappy group who had few regular relationships at work and tended to see themselves as rejects. As Suan became used to the manning procedure he began to recognise its defects. A major problem was that it caused excessive competition between the men, and this stressful struggle for jobs was worsened by the conditions in which it took place. There was a belief that favouritism was rife and that a foreman’s permanent gang, who were called “blue eyes,” got this position through visiting the right pubs and generally toadying to particular foremen. But Suan recognised that there were few examples of actual corruption. Being a member of a permanent gang gave a dock worker a degree of security and



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protected him from the hazards of the call centre procedure. He hoped one day to achieve this position himself. He became convinced that the scheme was too rigid. It recognised only three categories of dock worker—labourers, cranedrivers and checkers—and assumed that all men registered as dock labourers were interchangeable. In fact this was not the case. Some were particularly skilled at stowing cargoes; some were better at work in the sheds. Some made a speciality of handling timber; others of gear storage and servicing. Although the complex work of the Port of Liverpool required many skills, the scheme flattened out all port workers to one undifferentiated mass. It was the same with personal relationships. Many men liked working with a particular foreman, following him loyally through the good and the bad cargoes. These regular “gangs” had both the highest morale and were the most efficient. But port organization meant that they had to be unofficial and were liable to be broken up by a few days’ sickness or some other unavoidable absence. It seemed to Suan that the disruption of a gang in this way had several unfortunate consequences, of which the worst was the creation of a group of dissatisfied men. He felt that the Dock Labour Scheme was in principal a good one, particularly its objective of removing casual labour. Its failure came from the methods used to apply it. Suan had obtained a limited amount of job security through the scheme. But he still saw himself as a casual worker. The docker’s prewar struggle to get a job of any kind had been replaced by a scarcely less bitter struggle to get a job that was well paid and attractive. The creation of the Dock Labour Board made it very difficult to establish normal working relations between the employer and the docker; the employer before the introduction of the scheme being the shipping company. Suan, like many dockers, was for a while uncertain whom he was employed by. Was it the Dock Labour Board, the trade union or the ship owner? Yet his earnings were quite good because his overtime rates were high. Overtime rates made up 29% of the port’s total wage bill and piecework bonuses made up 11%. A mate told Suan, “You practically have to sleep here to get a good wage.” Suan soon discovered that the docks had their own unofficial work culture. For example many dockers did not work nonstop all day long. A practice called “welting” was quite common. Welting involved working an hour and then resting an hour. This was organized informally on a gang basis with half the gang at work and the other half at rest, perhaps having a cup of tea in the nearest dock canteen. The practice of welting had come about because of ships with refrigerated cargo. It was only possible for the dockers to work for short


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periods in the extreme cold of the holds, and the practice of working for an hour and then resting for the next hour became common. The Liverpool dockers, not being slow to take advantage of a good idea, adopted the practice for all ships in the port and apparently managed to maintain it without too many objections from foremen or shipping companies. Summer days on the Liverpool docks often looked like the beach at the neighbouring resort of New Brighton, with large numbers of dockers sunning themselves on the quay side. Another aspect of the culture that surprised Suan was the prevalence of the “wild cat” strike. Dockers did not accept problems, particularly problems over wages, quietly and stoically. They protested by immediately removing their labour and the cry “all out” was often heard at the dock gates. Most of these strikes were associated with particular gangs or cargoes and settled without much difficulty by the local Dock Labour Board. But there was the occasional major strike. One of these occurred in 1951 and lasted six weeks. It came about because of dissatisfaction with a wage increase agreed by the National Docks Delegate Conference on the recommendation of the trade union. The men were bitterly disappointed with this and indignant with the trade union for accepting it. The Merseyside Port Workers’ Committee brought all the Merseyside dockers out on strike and all work stopped in the port.

WHAT DID I MAKE OF THE LIVERPOOL DOCKS SITUATION? It is important to note here that while I did this analysis it could have been done equally well, if not better, by a participative design group of dockers. However, this first project was not a participative one. My objective in the research was to obtain a good understanding of the factors influencing attitudes and behaviour on the dock estate and later to suggest change that could improve morale and cooperation and reduce the number of strikes. This first stage of getting a comprehensive understanding of the dock situation and the attitudes of those who worked there would greatly assist the next stage of identifying appropriate strategies which might contribute to a solution. This chapter deals only with stage one.

About the Work Environment An early understanding of the change area will assist the later choice of strategies and methods that can lead to a solution. The Liverpool docks environment was difficult, hard and unfriendly, especially in winter. The men



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were out in all weathers and chest complaints were common. Accidents were also common and usually occurred through cargo falling off slings or proving difficult to handle. Many dockers had missing fingers and toes, although this was not a major source of complaint. The men accepted these risks as part of the job (Simey, 1954).

About Management Objectives The objectives of the Dock Labour Board in Liverpool were, first, to restore some order and control to a chaotic work situation and at the same time to increase economic returns for the shipping companies and the port; second, to improve the quality of working life for an underprivileged group, the dockers, through removing casual labour and providing better job security (this was a social objective); and third, to facilitate cooperation between management and trade unions through their joint administration of the Dock Labour Scheme, an industrial relations objective. How successful was the port in achieving these? It was certainly partially successful. The loading and unloading of ships were facilitated by the new ability to provide the necessary number of dockers at the times when these were required. And the dockers now had a degree of job security that was not present in the past. If work was not available they were still kept on the register of dockers and paid an attendance allowance, providing they reported to the manning centre. Also the Dock Labour Board management and the trade union representatives, on the whole, worked amicably together running the scheme while the ship owners had the convenience of paying money owed direct to a single body, the Dock Labour Board. But there were still many problems. One was the ambiguity of the scheme. The dockers were unsure who employed them. Was it the Dock Labour Board or the trade union or was it, perhaps, the shipping companies? The situation was never clarified. A second was the stress of daily uncertainty about work. Dock labourers never knew whether they would be given a job at the manning centre or whether they would be sent away empty-handed.

About Conditions of Work The men complained bitterly about the degrading and, in their view, unfair organization of the manning process which led to competition for jobs often resulting in violence. The bitter dislike of the manning point and its procedures led to antagonism towards both Dock Labour Board personnel and the trade union. A further serious problem was the fact that although completely casual Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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work had now been removed, the men still regarded the new situation as unpredictable and very unsatisfactory. They never knew whether work would be available or whether they would be sent back home. This caused a great deal of stress as the attendance allowance was low and most men relied on overtime to achieve wages they regarded as reasonable. Married men with young children were especially anxious about this degree of uncertainty.

About Technology There was a great deal of technology on the docks but it was not computerbased and a great deal of it was dangerous. It mostly consisted of cranes and conveyor belts used to move cargo from the ships to the docks and then into warehouses or lorries. The aim of management was to increase the use of containers on ships as this would greatly reduce the number of dockers required. Like Beck’s evaluation of present-day technology this was a development which would both reduce costs and reduce work. It would benefit the management and ship owners but not the dockers (Beck, 2000).

About Social Relations Between the Dockers Although few men had the stability of being a member of a regular gang, there was a great deal of social cohesiveness among the dockers. It only required one man to run to one of the dock gates and shout “all out” for all the men in that area to cease work and proceed to the dock gates or the canteen. They were now on unofficial strike. With the exception of a few privileged dockers who were in permanent gangs, dockers were constantly being moved from one gang to another according to the manning centre hiring process on a particular day. This meant that they never knew who they were working with and could not develop close working relationships. This was a factor of some importance in a work situation that was always dangerous. It was interesting to find that the survey of docker opinion carried out by my research colleagues, although it produced impressive statistics, had the defect that it was designed as a random sample and in consequence missed out on how the dockers’ gangs related to each other. A statistical sample based on gangs would have identified this.

About Relations with the Trade Union Relations between the dockers and the Transport and General Workers’ Union were never very good. The dockers felt the union neglected them as it had other occupational groups to look after. There were moves by the men to



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try and establish a union solely for dockers. The divided control between the board and the union also made consultation between men and management difficult and it hampered communication. A source of many difficulties and misunderstandings was the fact that most of the time the men just did not know what was happening. The poor communication was made worse by the dockers’ reluctance to attend trade union meetings or to vote on important issues. The union was seen as unsympathetic and remote. At this point it is suggested that you, the reader, do your own analysis of the problem situation and make a personal management map as a preliminary guide to developing a viable strategy for change. How do you see the change problems and their causes?

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM What can anyone who wishes to introduce change on the docks, or anywhere else, learn from this scenario? One important lesson is that change is not going to be easy. The most desirable change from management’s point of view would be an increase in containerisation, a reduction in strikes and a better motivated labour force This would mean that more cargo would be handled and also packed in large wooden crates instead of fragile bags and other soft containers. But this change would reduce the number of men required and would be bitterly opposed. From the men’s point of view, better working conditions would come from improvements in the manning centres, in more regular work and in membership of permanent gangs. When the National Dock Labour Scheme was introduced, government intentions were good, particularly the need to remove the old casual labour system. The solution offered with joint administration by a local Dock Labour Board and trade union officials was also, in theory, good. Nonetheless the new system was not warmly welcomed by the dockers and was often bitterly criticised. One problem that emerged was that while the scheme was directed at improving economic security for dock workers, it did not take much, if any, account of social needs. A second lesson is that major change is complex and often poorly understood. A comprehensive knowledge of the change situation will at least make anyone wishing to improve it aware of the problems he or she is likely to meet. These may prove difficult, even impossible, to solve but they at least be will be known. The message from this chapter is that before commencing any change project it is essential to get as much information as possible on the


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situation into which the change is to be introduced. An excellent way of doing this is to spend time working in the situation and getting close to those who are there every day.

TAKING THE NEXT STEP Once the problem and its environment are understood the next step is to consider strategy. A decision has to be taken on where to start the problem-solving process, what aspects to make priorities, what action to take and who to involve. The answers to these questions will reflect the knowledge of the situation that has now been acquired. The next chapter on coal mining will address an aspect of strategy.

THE THEORY BEHIND THE APPROACH Trying to understand problems as complex sets of variables, each interacting on the others, has an interesting theoretical basis derived from cybernetics and developed originally by two distinguished academics, Stafford Beer and Ross Ashby. Professor Stafford Beer (1975) argues that a problem in all current change processes is the management of complexity. He believes that this is the major problem of our age and maintains that one way of handling complexity is through the recognition of requisite variety. The notion, or law, of requisite variety was first developed in the 1950s by Professor Ross Ashby (1956), a cybernetician who argued that variety can only be controlled by variety. By this he meant that the solution to a complex problem requires the problem solvers to be able to understand and influence all the variables contained in the problem. This, in turn, requires both perception and organization—the ability to recognise, describe and manipulate the different components of the problem. Finding a solution is greatly assisted by what Beer calls “adaptive feedback.” This, put simply, is the ability to learn from experience and to use this learning to rethink and adjust further action. Beer also provides us with the notion of a viable system. This is a system which contains its own problem-solving capacity because it has the capacity to adapt. It can maintain stability by responding effectively to unexpected disturbances (Espejo & Harnden,1989). This capacity for adjustment makes it capable of a degree of self-regulation (see the Appendix). Once a problem is recognised and a decision taken to reduce or remove it, an understanding of its complexity will assist the choice of strategies and Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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methods that can lead to a solution. At this stage there are always two options. One is to reduce the variety of the problem by simplifying it. This, at the same time, reduces the variety of knowledge required of the problem solver. The other is to accept that the problem cannot be simplified and to ensure that the variety it contains is recognised and matched in the knowledge of the problem solver. This choice will be influenced by the values and skills of the problem solver and by the attitudes and interests of those affected by the solution. The danger arises when a complex problem is seen as simpler than it really is. Here is a version of the viable system concept which may assist the simplification of the problem if you wish to do this (see also the Appendix).

A VIABLE SYSTEM Stafford Beer’s notion of a viable system can be a useful tool for reducing the size of the problem for explanation purposes, as it enables clear, simple and logical descriptions of work activities to be made. A firm, department or work process is now described as a hierarchy of five levels of activity. Good systems design will requires each of these levels to be recognised, designed and managed, and each must interact smoothly with the others if the change process is to proceed at a high level of performance. The diagram below shows the five levels in the model. A Viable System Level 5: CONTROL Meeting targets and standards ......................................... Level 4: DEVELOPMENT New thinking ............................................ Level 3: OPTIMISATION Adding value ............................................ Level 2: ANTI-OSCILLATION Preventing and solving problems ..................................................... Level 1: OPERATIONAL Day-to-day tasks


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The viable system model can be used both to help define the necessary components of the eventual system and the requirements of the problemsolving process. The five levels of a viable system to assist problem solving on the dock estate could be the following: 1. Identifying the basic, often routine tasks that have to be identified to understand the change problem. These are moving cargo, hiring dockers and providing land transport. 2. Thinking through the likely difficulties that may occur and inhibit the successful completion of these tasks, for example, accidents, poor working conditions and demotivated employees. These must be prevented. 3. Identifying the critical success factors that provide guidance on those aspects of the problem that must be given priority or maximum attention. These include regular employment, membership of permanent gangs, and safety provisions. 4. Understanding the nature of the information that needs to be collected and disseminated as the design process progresses, for example, how other ports tackle these problems. Manchester, 50 miles away, has better morale and better working conditions. It is a much smaller port. 5. Creating methods for evaluating success. These are monitoring checks and measures that can show if progress is being made and goals are being achieved, for example, a reduction in the number of strikes, less absenteeism and fewer accidents (Espejo & Harnden,1989).

CONCLUSIONS: THE DOCK INDUSTRY AND THE SOCIO-TECHNICAL APPROACH For many years supporters of the socio-technical approach have claimed that problem solving must take account of human as well as technical needs. Efforts must be made to improve the quality of working life through a humanistic organization of work and of the way technology is designed and used. This approach was, and is, seen as both contributing to efficiency and to job satisfaction. Today, the design boundaries are being extended through the notion of sustainability. A sustainable society has been defined as one that can endure by adjusting itself to cope with the future. It contains the means of its own adaptation (Torchtermann, 2001). A sustainable society requires a broad mix of characteristics that enable it to survive and flourish in its environment and



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contribute to its major goal of creating a sustainable world (Beer, 1975). Gaining a good understanding of the problem and its environment as the first stage in problem solving can enable the complexity of the problem to be recognised before strategies for its solution begin to be identified. It is critical that this should be done.

REFERENCES Ashby, W. R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. London: Chapman & Hall. Beck, U. (2000). The brave new world of work. London: Polity Press. Beer, S. (1975). Platform for change. London: Wiley. Espejo, R., & Harnden, R. (1989). The viable system model. London: Wiley. Simey, T. (1954). The dockworker. Liverpool, England: Liverpool University Press. Torchtermann, K. (2001). Greening the super highway: Practical steps to sustainability in the information society. Foresight, 3(2), 113-121.


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Chapter 5

Work Design in the Coal Industry Technical change provides opportunities for social change. Eric Trist

WHAT IS STRATEGY? Once you have obtained a reasonably good understanding of the problem to be tackled, the next step is to decide what to do and how to do it. This requires developing a strategy for action. Ideally strategies should be simple rather than complex and should be capable of being implemented without too much difficulty and stress. They should also fit with the culture of an organization as well as with its problems. Participative design can play a useful part here, both by getting ideas from groups with different roles and responsibilities and by ensuring that there is general agreement on what is to be changed before this change takes place. This will enable the change to take place in a favourable environment. However with major decisions that affect the running of a company, it is usually desirable that top management makes the final decision. Strategy also needs to be continually reviewed as it can easily lose its relevance if the environment changes or if a closer acquaintance with the Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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problem leads to greater understanding of the problem situation. Increasing knowledge will help identify those factors in the change situation which will be easiest to reform and those which are likely to prove more difficult (Markides, 2001). It must also be recognised that while change is desirable it is also disruptive. This fact will influence the “how” factor. How can this change be introduced without impeding normal production activities and without disturbances that lower morale? Strategy should also take account of the future as well as the present. What kinds of circumstances are like to alter and may require a total rethink of strategy. Once again, I suggest that this case study is very relevant for students and practitioners working in areas such as information technology where human factors are sometimes neglected by those responsible for change. As this book is focusing on organizational problems, many of which arrive through the introduction of new technology, it is often wise to start the learning process by considering solutions that have already been tried and proved successful in similar situations. One of these might work again in the new situation, although it must be recognised that every change environment is different, modifications will almost certainly be needed and failure is always a possibility. The next case study incorporates a review of previous strategies. Looking at the past will also bring a recognition that the new situation differs in important aspects from the old and that a different approach is required. This, in itself, is an important lesson.

EARLY SOCIO-TECHNICAL DESIGN The early socio-technical work on organizational design and the management of change was carried out in the British coal industry by members of the Tavistock Institute soon after the end of the Second World War. In the late 1940s the new British National Coal Board approached the London-based institute and asked the researchers there to undertake some research into the health of coal miners. Poor health was causing absenteeism and this, in turn, was affecting output at a time when coal was very important. A number of articles describing these health problems had appeared in the British Medical Journal, and these motivated the National Coal Board to try and solve them. They asked the Tavistock for help. The Tavistock team diagnosed much of this sickness as psychological in origin and related to the organization of work underground. They had a theory that health at work was adversely affected by the miners’ belief that new technology had caused them to have little control over their work or work situation (Trist, Higgin, Murray, & Pollock, 1963). Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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In the early days of coal mining, men had worked in small groups, often family groups, using simple tools such as picks and shovels to move the coal from the face into tubs that were then pulled to the pit bottom by horses or women and children. Each of these groups was responsible for a certain section of the coal face and they were usually very protective of the men who made up their team. They had close relationships with each other and were often members of the same family or close friends. The pit owners paid a weekly wage for the output of coal and this was distributed by the gaffer, or group leader. Each of these teams had a section of the coal face to manage, and the work was principally cutting the coal with pickaxes, loading it into tubs with shovels, erecting new pit props to hold the roof up, and removing the old ones to let the roof of the worked face fall in (Scott, Mumford, McGivering, & Kirkby, 1963). The mining industry, like dock work, was regarded by the postwar British government as a problem industry with very poor industrial relations. It was nationalised in 1947 and a public body called the National Coal Board took over. This was a change that, at first, many miners overoptimistically saw as “giving the pits to the workers.” In reality, from the miners’ point of view, little changed. The industry was important, complex, difficult and dangerous, and the only men who had the knowledge to run it on a day-to-day basis were the existing colliery managers—the men who had managed the pits for the previous private coal owners. And so they remained as unloved and unwanted managers in the new nationalised industry. An important improvement was that nationalisation created an official system of joint consultation. The miners also now had the advantage of belonging to a single trade union, the National Union of Mineworkers. This was formed in 1944 from the Mineworkers Federation of Great Britain, a federation of virtually independent district unions.

WORK ORGANIZATION The arrival of moving conveyor belts in factories and their adoption underground also changed the work situation and caused new and unanticipated problems. British coal mines now adopted a three-shift system called the long-wall method of mining, which was seen as dramatically increasing coal production. This system required a different activity to be carried out on each shift. On the first, early morning shift, a group of skilled men called shot firers went along the coal face drilling holes and placing an explosive in each of these. This explosive was then detonated so that the coal broke up into small pieces. The loose coal was then shovelled onto the new conveyor belts by miners called “fillers” because they filled the moving conveyor belts with the loose coal. These Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


men were strung out along the coal face at nine-yard intervals. Given the dark, cramped nature and noisiness of the underground situation, this meant that communication between one man and another was extremely difficult. The men were isolated and stressed. Work underground was also still as dangerous and unhealthy as it had ever been. There were many accidents and most miners suffered from diseases of the lungs through constantly breathing in coal dust. After the fillers had finished their job, another group of men appeared on the afternoon shift. They were known as conveyor movers. Because the removal of loose coal in the morning had led to the coal face “advancing” forward by a number of feet, the conveyor belt now needed to be taken apart and reassembled along the new face. This took another shift to accomplish. Finally, on the night shift, a group of young men called packers arrived, pulled out the pit props from the worked face, and let the roof fall in. As this process could lead to subsidence on the surface and damage to buildings located overhead, packs of stone were built along the worked face so that the roof could fall in a controlled manner. A final operation was carried out by a skilled man who operated a cutting machine. This cut a slice along the bottom of the new face so that when the coal was shot-fired in the morning there would be a gap for it to fall into. And so the production of coal moved from a small-group multiskilled activity to an unsociable series of specialist activities which allowed little opportunity for interpersonal interaction. The Tavistock group believed that this new long-wall work system was the cause of the health problems. It had removed most of the social aspects of coal getting, including all the benefits of working as a member of a small, close-knit group. The question they wanted to answer was, Could a close-knit, supportive group situation with a satisfying mix of work activities be restored? This kind of solution would fit closely with the Tavistock values of concern for people. They decided to create small, multiskilled teams of miners who could handle all three underground tasks of “filling,” “conveyor moving” and “packing.” Each of these teams would be given a length of face, probably around nine yards, for which they were totally responsible. All would receive the same pay, whereas with the normal long-wall system, fillers, conveyor movers and packers were all on different rates. And they would have responsibility for managing their section of face on all three shifts. For example, if on a particular day they knew it was going to be difficult to work because of bands of stone in the coal face or belowground water, they could bring more of their team in on each shift and use the extra manpower to solve the problems. New teams on a number of trial faces were therefore made multiskilled, all the members were given the same rates of pay, and the numbers required to work their section of face could be adjusted on each shift to meet particular face Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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conditions. There were now opportunities for work flexibility, control, learning, the use of several skills, and positive social interaction. Later, as it became known, this kind of group became accepted by many industries in Europe, India, Australia and the United States. It was seen as a beneficial work structure for many kinds of jobs. Whereas the moving assembly line both under and above ground had effectively controlled the worker and turned him or her into a servant of the machine, the Tavistock group structure restored much of the positive benefits which lead to a good quality of working life.

UNION REJECTION Surprisingly the one industry that did not readily accept these improvements was coal. The Tavistock used the multiskilled team approach successfully on a number of experimental faces, although my own knowledge of work underground suggests that these must have been very short ones. It would have been difficult to coordinate these groups on long faces while using a three-shift system. However, it was the miners’ own union that brought the experiments to a halt. The new groups, because of their flexibility, were able to handle more coal than single coal miners and so could work larger stints than the normal nineyard length of coal face. This meant that they earned more money. The National Union of Mineworkers refused to accept this pay differentiation, believing that all men doing the same job should get the same pay however the work was organized. Management did not want to have conflict with the trade union so soon after nationalisation, and the men themselves were not very enthusiastic. They preferred the current system in which they could get promoted from packer to filler to conveyor mover with pay raises for each move. And so the system was quietly dropped in the mines. Soon after, new technology that automatically cut the face and loaded coal onto belts made the three-shift work system redundant. Socio-technical design now moved to Scandinavia. Here was a strategy that failed because it did not fit with the culture and objectives of a critical group. The original definition of the problem had not taken account of the likely reactions of the trade union, and in fact, it had not been consulted.

MAYPOLE COLLIERY Towards the end of the 1950s the board asked the Tavistock group for a second study. This was to be a continuation of the first one but focused on management-worker relationships and the reasons why the coal industry had



such an appalling strike record. The Tavistock researchers decided not to accept this invitation. Because they wanted their research to be neutral and independent they were reluctant to do work funded by management. Their first study had been funded independently by the British Medical Research Council and by a general grant to the Institute from the Rockefeller Foundation. The coal board now approached a research group at Liverpool University, of which I was a member. We accepted the project. The problem this time was defined by the coal board as attitudes and behaviour rather than health. The board wanted to discover why certain pits were extremely strike-prone, while other similar pits in the same area were relatively free of strikes. Strikes greatly reduced the ability of a colliery to produce coal. This resulted in myself and two colleagues spending three years working in the North West coal field. Two pits near Wigan were selected for study. One, called Chanters, was seen by the board as the “virtuous” pit, as it had relatively few strikes. The other, Maypole, was regarded as the “wicked” pit, as it had frequent strikes. I was given Maypole to look after, and my two male colleagues went to Chanters. This led to one of the most interesting, enjoyable and intellectually rewarding research experiences of my career. It also led to my spending almost a year underground and becoming intimate with the long-wall method of coal mining.

Problems for the Researcher It immediately became clear to me that it was pointless interviewing miners on the surface. There would be no way of getting an understanding of the nature of their lives underground. I therefore asked to see each miner chosen for interview at their underground place of work. This immediately created some interesting challenges. My pit, Maypole, was old and it was necessary to walk for about a mile before the working coal faces were reached. This was not easy, as a low roof meant that one walked bent double on the roadways that took the coal from the coal faces to the pit bottom. Many of the faces were so low that it was necessary to crawl along them, and many miners had to be interviewed with the interviewer and the interviewee lying on their backs side by side and in the dark, except for the lamp we each had in our helmets. The pit was also dangerous one. There were many accidents and 50 years earlier there had been a bad explosion, due to methane gas becoming ignited, in which almost all the workers had been killed. So Maypole had a bad reputation and many miners tried to avoid working there (Scott et al., 1963). The miners were at first startled and then intrigued to have a woman underground, but all were very pleasant and friendly. However, some of the Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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problems of being an action researcher now began to surface, especially those of easy acceptance into a new group. The first was language, both understanding this and its nature. It took me about three months to became familiar with the local dialect and with some of the local words and phrases. The miners constantly referred to “playing” and it was some time before I realised that this meant being absent from work. They also all used very colourful, and unprintable, words when dealing with awkward machinery. However, some years ago, if not today, this was masculine language and not to be used when women were around. This presented them with a problem. What were they to do if a woman was underground? For a while all bad language stopped, a situation that was unsustainable. Then the underground telephone system was used as a means of relaying a warning, “Watch out she is coming this way.” At this point I decided I had to do something about the situation myself. The result was an effective socio-technical solution. Miners, to stay alive underground, have to have air, and most collieries have complex circulation systems in which air is blown into the pit down one air shaft, travels round the different underground workings and emerges through a second air shaft. Anyone travelling underground moves with the air, and so smell is very strong and penetrating. My strategy was to cover myself with Chanel No 9 perfume before going underground. This meant that the miners were forewarned of my presence through a sharp blast of perfume. I followed behind the perfume. My next problem was an ethical one and not so easily solved. Miners work on three shifts, day, evening and night, and I had to interview a number of miners on each shift. The night shift was very different from the day. It was manned mainly by relatively young boys on their first underground job. The coal face moved forward as coal was cut, placed first on a moving assembly line, then in bogies and taken to the pit bottom, where it was transported up to the surface. As this advance took place, the old worked face had to be packed with loose rubble and stones and the pit props removed so that the roof could fall in. This packing process prevented subsidence, which would have damaged buildings on the ground above. Apart from the young lads, there were few men underground and little supervision. This meant that men could, from time to time, have a short sleep unnoticed before resuming their work. One night when I was walking along the exit roadways with one of the miners I asked why there were so few men around. His startling and frightening reply was that some would be asleep, others would be having a smoke. This in a pit that was full of gas and had blown up in the past killing everyone underground. I wondered, first, if he was joking and next what I should do about this information.



Given the bad relations between men and management, passing the information on to supervision would be seen as a betrayal of confidence and could lead to the termination of the research. I thought long and hard and decided that I must tell management; there was too great a risk of a very bad accident. And so the next morning I went to see the pit underground manager and told him that I believed some of the men were smoking on the night shift. He did not treat the information as a joke but said he had had suspicions about this for some time. I explained that my telling him of the problem would jeopardise my personal relations with the men and asked if he could keep me out of the situation. He responded, very cleverly, by sending himself an anonymous note saying, “Men are smoking at the coal face, you must do something.” After this episode, very careful searches were carried out on all the men before they went underground. In this project, as in the docks, research data were fed back to, and discussed with, management and the trade unions, but the miners as a group did not contribute to the solution of underground production and industrial relations problems. These early examples of participant observation research on the docks and in a coal mine were very valuable learning experiences for me and greatly helped my subsequent action research on information systems. They taught me that in-depth research is unlikely to be free from ethical, political and practical problems, all of which must be handled with skill if the researcher wants to remain in the research situation. They also taught me that this kind of research is extremely tiring. The researcher not only has to collect the research data for later analysis, she has to write it up in the evening after work so that she maintains an accurate record of events. But I also learned what a valuable experience it was in providing the researcher with a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the activities, attitudes and emotions of the group that is being studied. The researcher learns what is important and meaningful to the group she is studying.

THE MINERS’ VIEWPOINT Let us now look at the Maypole situation through the eyes of one of the men who worked there and also consider if the Tavistock strategy of creating sociotechnical, multiskilled-group forms of organization could have been used there or if other solutions were required.


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John Crawley John Crawley, like the O’Keefes, had also moved from Northern Ireland to England and taken a job on the docks in the smaller port of Manchester, 30 miles from Liverpool. But he didn’t like the cold, and after a while, he found the harsh, windy, often icy conditions of the dock estate hard to tolerate. In 1957, aged 28 he decided to try to find a warmer occupation. He moved to a small Lancashire village called Abram, which was close to the town of Wigan, where he got a job in a local pit. Mining was also a very tough occupation but at least working underground was always warm. The miners had very difficult conditions to contend with, but wind and cold were not a part of these. John’s pit, Maypole, was an old, deep coal mine with poor, unstable underground conditions. Work was made very difficult by the volatility and complexity of the underground environment. Conditions could change in minutes from stability and safety to extreme danger. The pit also had a bad history, as in 1915 it had had a major gas explosion and all men working underground had been killed, with the exception of two who managed to crawl through some old, discarded workings into an adjoining pit. The Maypole disaster was part of local history and many miners avoided working there, regarding it as an unlucky pit (Mumford, 1997). Most of the miners working at Maypole lived in Abram. There was little local industry here other than the colliery, usually called the “pit,” and despite the claims of many fathers that, “No son of mine shall go down the pit,” many sons did in fact do this. In addition to the difficult day-to-day physical hazards, the men, like all underground workers, were susceptible to lung disease through the long-term effects of breathing in coal-dust-contaminated air. Most ended up as invalids in their old age. A friend of John had little difficulty in introducing him to the local trade union and to the colliery management and getting him accepted as an underground worker. John’s first day underground was an eye-opener. He was used to the wide-open spaces of the Manchester docks, and the experience of getting in a small cage and being dropped half a mile underground was a totally new and frightening experience. His first sensation at the pit bottom was that of a strange odour. Maypole had a graveyard smell of damp earth and decaying vegetation. It was also very dark. The main roadways leading from the pit bottom and the winding cage did have some lights but they were few, dull and scattered. On the coal faces the only light came from the lamp that each miner wore in his pit helmet, lit by a battery attached to his waist belt. John had been told that he could not become a legitimate underground worker until he had completed his face training. This consisted of working with Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


an experienced miner on a training face until he had the knowledge and confidence to do the job. An understanding of underground hazards would come later. Danger underground was principally signalled through noise, and experienced miners were always listening for overhead creaks, which might suggest a fall of roof was imminent, or for muffled thuds, which could indicate a gas explosion. Deputies, the underground foremen of the mining industry, always carried lamps that would turn blue if gas was present. There was also a group of canaries in a cage on the surface. Canaries cannot tolerate methane gas and their sudden death when brought underground would indicate a serious problem. Right from his first week in the pit John realised that, like the docks, mining was a dangerous industry in which it was easier to have an accident than to avoid one.

Difficult Conditions John also soon learned that Maypole was a difficult pit to work. Although called “the pit” it was, in fact, two pits, or two underground workings, and in both, seams of coal were narrow and contaminated with bands of stone. It was also an old pit, having been opened soon after the turn of the century. Because it was old it had narrow and low roadways, which required a crouching position when walking. John learned that a problem with all coal mines is that the forces of nature exert continual pressure on the roof and floor, causing the roof to dip and the floor to rise. The total collapse of roadways is only prevented by the insertion of large, curved metal bands which hold the roof up and the floor down. The easiest roadways to walk along are those in pits that have, or had, ponies underground. Ponies have to be provided with adequate walking space, while this is not so necessary for humans. John soon realised, with some dismay, that work at the coal face had to be carried out either bent double or kneeling down. This was because of the low height of the seams of coal. Maypole coal faces could be of any length from 50 to over 300 yards. They varied in height from three to five feet and it was impossible to stand upright in any of them.

The Long-Wall Method John learned that the system of mining practiced at Maypole, as in all local pits, was called the long-wall method. This was the same three-shift system that the Tavistock researchers had experienced. There were three underground shifts: six in the morning until two in the afternoon, two until 10 at night, and 10 until six in the morning. The fillers on the six to 10 early morning shift shovelled loose coal onto moving belts, which took the coal to the pit bottom, where it Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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was transferred into metal tubs. These were then rolled into the “cage,” which acted as a lift and took the coal up to the surface. John, when his face training was completed, would become a filler. It was a job that required considerable physical strength. He had this as a result of his earlier work on the Manchester docks. John found the start of the shift shot-firing activity frightening and disturbing. The use of explosives in a narrow, confined space underground was noisy and sometimes unpredictable. It could precipitate an uncontrolled fall of roof, something that miners were scared of as men could be badly injured. Once shot firing was completed, each man had to move his nine-yard stint of loose coal. Most days it was possible to achieve this, but if face conditions deteriorated, then the men could not finish the job before the end of the shift and coal would be left on the face for the conveyor movers to deal with. This infuriated the conveyor movers. The fillers also had to ensure that the newly exposed roof was made stable by placing pit props under it as the face moved forward. Metal pit props were now starting to replace the wooden ones that had been used in the past, although Maypole still used many wooden props. Nothing resembling the dockers’ gang existed. The men worked in isolation from each other and only cooperated as a group if there was an accident or underground conditions suddenly became dangerous. As Maypole was such an old pit, considerable walking was required before the coal faces were reached, and as the pit did not have any man-riding facilities, this meant walking in a stooped position for up to an hour, both going to the face and returning from it. The result was that the actual working time underground was about six hours, with a break for a sandwich and a drink, which the men brought with them. Eating this was called “snap” time. John soon learned about all these things as he gradually became a miner. When the fillers completed their work at around 1 o’clock, they would start walking back to the pit bottom, passing on the way a long line of dark figures coming in the opposite direction. These were the next shift of conveyor movers. Their job was to move the conveyors, which carried the coal away from the faces, forward several yards. The packers arrived at 10 p.m. These were usually young men in their late teens and early twenties who were on their first underground job. Their task was to remove the pit props furthest away from the worked face and allow the roof to fall in. There were two other groups of men working underground. One was a highly skilled group of men with tunnelling experience called rippers, who were responsible for driving the new roadways necessary to enable the face workers to travel forward with the advancing face. These worked in small, tightly knit Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


teams. The second was a group of men who looked after the haulage and ensured that all the conveyor belts and tubs taking the coal from the faces to the pit bottom were kept moving. These were usually older men who could no longer meet the heavy demands of face work or youngsters in their first job after joining the colliery. In addition there were maintenance groups of electricians, fitters, etc., who, strangely, were located on the surface until they were needed underground. When a breakdown of underground equipment occurred, hours could be wasted moving the maintenance men from the surface to where they were required underground. Lastly, there were a group of winders, who were responsible for winding the cage up and down. Underground supervision was an undermanager responsible for the running of the pit; two overmen, who were assistants to the undermanager; and a group of deputies, acting as foremen. These had the very difficult task of ensuring high coal output and a safe working environment—two objectives that were usually incompatible.

Work Problems When John finished his face training and took his place on the morning shift as a filler, he found that the practice of mining was very different from the theory. The reality of the old Maypole coal seams was that they were very difficult to handle. The group of men working with him on the face constantly had to deal with unexpected problems such as water; dirt, which was the miners’ word for unwanted substances such as bands of stone; loose stones; and difficult roof conditions. He quickly learned that the overhead roof made strange creaking and groaning sounds. Some, which experienced miners were quick to recognise, meant, “Get out—There is likely to be a roof fall.” Problems such as these caused the coal-mining work cycles to get out of phase. Quite often John and his mates could not finish shovelling the coal onto the belts before the end of the shift. This could be due to unavoidable natural causes, but sometimes a belt stoppage was engineered by the miners themselves when they wanted a rest. They could achieve this by placing extra large lumps of coal on the belt, causing it to break. An engineering fitter then had to leave the surface, descend in the cage and travel to the problem area. Everyone stopped work until he arrived. The conveyor movers would often arrive to deal with the belts only to find that they had to complete the fillers’ shovelling task before they could start their job. This meant their work too could not be completed, and some belts would be left unassembled when they departed at the end of their shift. The packers then arrived and found, to their great annoyance, that they had to complete belt Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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assembly before they could start their packing job. The transfer of work from one group to another would continue until the weekend when the cycle would be restored to normal. This constant overlapping of work caused great fury between the different face working groups, who regarded each other as lazy, stupid and incompetent. Here was the principal source of the industrial relations problems at Maypole.

Relationships All of these difficulties affected the social relations between the different groups and between the men and the management. The frequent need to push work from one group onto another caused immense anger because each occupational group received a different level of earnings. All were on piecework, with the rate for a particular face being agreed between the management, the men and the trade union when the new face was first opened. The fillers received the highest rate of pay of the face workers. The conveyor movers got more than the packers, and the packers got the lowest rate of all because of their status of young men on their first face work job. Each group made frequent attempts to cause trouble for the others. It was not unknown for the conveyor movers to deliberately leave some of the bolts on the belt undone when they finished the shift. This meant that the belts would fall apart when the fillers shovelled coal onto them the next morning. This hostility was worsened by the fact that these different groups of men never met face-to-face in the work situation and did not know each other. Each regarded the other as “the enemy.” Because they all worked on permanent shifts, there was no personal contact. The only meeting places would be outside the colliery if they were neighbours or if they went to the Miners’ Social Club on a Saturday night. John found this situation strange and uncomfortable. Although there had been some hostility between men and foremen on the docks, relations between the dockers were generally supportive and good. Their common enemy, when it was an enemy, was the National Dock Labour Board and, on occasion, the trade union. John was surprised to find that the miners also regarded management as “the enemy” and were even more hostile to colliery management than the dockers were to the Dock Labour Board. This was because many of the managers had worked for the old, hated coal owners and also because they constantly pressured the men for higher output. Whereas the dockers had been reluctantly forced to take days off when there was an absence of work, many miners had a low degree of commitment to the job and stayed away from work on Fridays. Thursday was the day on which they were paid. Many were also Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


absent on a Monday, as the faces were difficult to work after the weekend break. Similarly, as on the docks, the trade union did not get a great deal of support. This was because the local NUM hierarchy tended to respond to the grievances of the most powerful underground groups but to ignore the problems of those with less power and less pay. John also found that another great similarity between miners and dockers was the use of the unofficial “wild cat” strike as a bargaining tactic. Again the major source of trouble was pay. Just as the dockers’ earnings had varied according to the kind of cargo they were loading, so the miners’ earnings varied according to the difficulties they experienced when working a particular face. If bad conditions made it impossible to earn the agreed piece rate, then management could add a sum of money to make up for the discrepancy. The amount offered was always a matter of great dispute, and whereas unhappy dockers walked out of the ship or shed, the miners downed tools, walked to the pit bottom and then took the cage up to the surface. John was surprised to find that strike behaviour was related to the power of the group. His own mates, the fillers, were very strike-prone as their earnings were the most affected by difficult face conditions. Rippers, who created the new roadways as the faces advanced, had few strikes as management could not afford for them to stop working and tended to put right their grievances immediately. Haulage men also had few, if any, strikes although for a very different reason. They were lowpaid, weekly wage employees and could not afford to go on strike. The research challenge for myself and the other members of the research team was, first, to gain an understanding of why underground relationships were so bad and, second, to suggest ways for ensuring improvement. Most problems were caused by the way work was organized and by the fluidity of the work situation that continually caused this to be disturbed. The result was antagonistic and warring relationships between management and men and between one occupational group and another.

COULD THE TAVISTOCK SOLUTION HAVE WORKED IN MAYPOLE? Yes, theoretically it could have improved the situation in some respects. The face workers could have been trained to become multiskilled and been organized into small groups, each responsible for a section of the coal face and all receiving the same rates of pay. This would have removed many of the factors causing disputes over earnings, and a degree of flexibility would have


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been introduced into managing underground work. But this kind of change would have been difficult to implement at Maypole as the coal faces were long and required good horizontal organization along their length. Independent small groups could have made this difficult to achieve. It also would have been too revolutionary for management and the trade union to accept. Both would have opposed this kind of change. A simpler, more conservative and more acceptable solution to the industrial relations problems at Maypole was not a major reorganization of work but a rethink of the wage payment system. Earnings could have been made more consistent through a compensation system of which the men understood and approved. This would operate when poor face conditions impeded normal working. Unfortunately a lack of consultation, few incentives to change and the poor relationships meant that no one was prepared to alter the present system. The union was used to the weekly payment battles and felt these gave it a role. Management had difficulty in changing anything without the approval of the regional officials of the coal board. The result was that pay system was not improved, problems were never solved and the colliery eventually closed.

DOCK WORK VERSUS COAL MINING John often wondered if his move from the docks to the mines had been of any advantage to him. He felt that there were both pluses and minuses. Although working underground was cramped, difficult and often dangerous, it had the advantage of always being warm. He had found the continual exposure to the elements on the Liverpool docks very hard to take. He missed the camaraderie of the dockers’ gang, even though the membership of this could change as jobs changed. He found the strung out and individual work of the coal face less social, cohesive and friendly. But the coal board offered good training opportunities. Young men who expressed a wish to move into management could have a day a week off to attend a mining course at the local technical college. John was interested in taking advantage of this some time in the future. Industrial relations behaviour in the two situations was similar. Both dockers and miners had many wildcat strikes and seemed to enjoy the stimulus and excitement of waging a continual war game with management. Both also had the occasional trade-union-supported major strike, which affected all workers. Social life outside the workplace was less good in the mining area than on the docks. Manchester and Liverpool had far more to offer in terms of entertainment than Abram and Wigan. Also there was little work for women in the Wigan area and John’s wife would have liked to have had a job. Few Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


miners’ wives did work. John soon had two young children himself and he too made the traditional miner’s promise, “No son of mine shall go down the pit.” The technical and human problems of the cyclical method of mining were eventually lessened. However, this was not by a socio-technical strategy but by new technology. The cutting machine that sliced away at the bottom of the face to provide a space for the loose coal to drop into after the face had been drilled and shot-fired became obsolete. It was replaced by a sophisticated machine called a power loader, or a cutter loader. This swept along the coal face cutting the coal and then loading it onto the moving belts. The old wooden pit props were replaced by sophisticated metal ones that moved themselves forward automatically as the face advanced. There was no longer any need to complete different operations on each shift. The cutting/loading operation could take place on all three shifts while the jobs of filler and conveyor mover were no longer necessary. A team of men could follow behind the new machine, checking that everything worked smoothly. The belief in the eighties, expressed by the then British National Coal Board chairman, Lord Robens, was that the coal industry would eventually become totally automated with few men required underground. In fact this never happened; cheap coal from overseas, together with the general use of other forms of energy, led to the death of the industry. The cry of miners that “No son of mine shall work underground” soon became a fact, as there were very few mines offering work. Many proud miners, including John, eventually found that the only employment available was a packing job in the local supermarket.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? What can we learn from John’s experiences? One is that a socio-technical approach used as a strategy for improving efficiency and working conditions may not be possible and appropriate everywhere. It requires the kind of work environment in which small, multiskilled groups can work effectively and in a relatively autonomous way. This had been the case in the early “hand got” mining days. It was less possible with the long-wall method of mining, where a large number of individuals had to carry out the same activities at the same time. It became more feasible with the next semiautomated stage of mechanisation, but by then the mines were being closed down. The government was supporting other forms of energy generation. Another important lesson is that a socio-technical strategy, which requires both goodwill and active collaboration, may not be possible in situations where Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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waging a war with management is seen as an attractive and stimulating activity. This is especially true when the work itself has little to offer in terms of day-today interest or skill. Ill thought-out payment systems and their deficiencies are almost always a source of dispute and can cause discontented workers and major long-term industrial relations problems. This was the case in Maypole, where a better strategy would have been rethinking the structure of the wage payment system. Other grievances were relatively unimportant compared with wages, although wage issues seemed to be symptoms of other underlying problems, especially poor relations with management. If one group designates another as “the enemy,” then there is likely to be a continual search for issues which can disturb, even rout, this enemy. It is also unlikely that the trade union would have accepted a sociotechnical approach. The common payment system, with all men in a group receiving the same pay, would have conflicted with wage negotiations which were based on graded work structures. Nor would the coal board have been enthusiastic. It did not want more industrial relations trouble with the unions or to try out a system of work with which it was unfamiliar. A major cause of the Tavistock project failure was because the union had not been adequately consulted. Union officials would not accept a system of work that gave some groups of men the opportunity of earning more than others. This was a problem that was to frustrate many later socio-technical projects. Groups not involved in work redesign often become jealous and antagonistic toward those who are involved and are seen as getting preferential treatment. The final lesson is that in difficult, hard to control, work situations an understanding, quick-reacting and employee-focused management is essential if good relations are to be created and sustained. But, despite all these problems, most of the men at Maypole were proud to be miners and felt that they were making an important contribution to the quality of British life. Unfortunately, Maypole closed for economic reasons in 1963. It was losing money on every ton of coal it produced. John lost his job but secured temporary employment as a warehouse man in the newly opened Heinz factory in Wigan. This was a total change from the pit and he did not enjoy the new environment. The reasons Chanters, the pit adjoining Maypole and researched by my colleagues, had so few strikes were because it was a much easier pit to work. Underground conditions were more stable and, as a result, earnings did not fluctuate as they did at Maypole. This meant that there was less industrial unrest. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


Although the Scandinavians soon after embraced the socio-technical approach with enthusiasm in many industries, later experiments in coal mining in the United States in the seventies encountered similar problems to those in the first socio-technical project. Successful experiments had to be discontinued because the trade union objected to the experimental groups getting higher pay than the regular workers (Mumford, 1997). The message here is that changes in working practice in difficult situations require careful discussion, negotiation and general acceptance before they can be introduced. In both the docks and the coal mine the research team spent some time interviewing a sample of the workers to see how they saw their quality of working life. Their views were mixed but mainly negative. Both groups were frequent absentees from work. In the coal mine this was called “playing” and regarded as a normal part of the work situation. There was little management could do about it. Fillers were most critical of management as they were the group most likely to lose pay if face conditions deteriorated. But few of the men wanted to move to other industries. The Liverpool docks and Maypole are both examples of very intractable problem situations. It is argued here that time spent in gaining an understanding of the complexity of the total situation, as recommended in both the last chapter and this one, is of great help to management, men and researchers in establishing at an early stage what is possible in difficult situations requiring change. It is also useful for companies and industries experiencing very difficult problems to see how other organizations have solved similar problems and to consider if these would be appropriate in a different situation. An important lesson from these case studies is that every situation is different. Strategies for change that work well in one situation may have no chance of success in another, although it is important to know about their experience. Strategies, to be successful, need to be supported by an appropriate organizational environment and receptive culture. Firms need to create these first. This would have been difficult, if not impossible, in both the dock and the coal mine environments with their cultures of aggressive warfare against management and their very difficult and dangerous work environments.

REFERENCES Markides, C. (2001). What is strategy and how do you know if you have one? In S. Crainer & D. Dearlove (Eds.), The Financial Times Handbook of Management. London: Prentice Hall, pp. 230-242. Mumford, E. (1997). Assisting work restructuring in complex and volatile Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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situations. In J. Neumann, K. Kellner, & A. Dawson-Shepherd (Eds,), Developing Organizational Consultancy. London: Routledge, pp. 228249. Scott, W. H., Mumford, E., McGivering, I., & Kirkby, J. (1963). Coal and Conflict. Liverpool, England: Liverpool University Press. Trist, E., Higgin, G. W., Murray, H., & Pollock, A. B. (1963). Organization Choice. London: Tavistock.


Considering Structure

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Chapter 6

Considering Structure: Different Organizational Solutions in Automobiles Work cooperatively, look 20 years ahead, pay particular attention to social development. Volvo management directive

INTRODUCTION The last two case studies showed the importance of understanding a problem before embarking on its solution and the need to develop an appropriate strategy before making any change. Here it was suggested that it was good policy to take account of two things. These were relevant strategic thinking, such as that developed by the Tavistock Institute, and how to use this for particular problems and appropriate industries. The next step in problem solving for change is structure. Choosing an appropriate organizational structure to accompany and accommodate change is always difficult. There will be many constraints, including the skills and availability of labour, the requirements of technology and the knowledge of management. Despite these problems, there will usually be a number of different options available. The excellent manager will have the ability to distinguish good organizational design from bad.


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Sometimes this has to be a result of trial and error, but as the last chapter suggested, a useful first strategy is to investigate what other companies have done and evaluate the different organizational options they have used.

THE CAR INDUSTRY My introduction to the car industry came in the late seventies when I was at the Manchester Business School. Research provided an opportunity to compare the traditional, technology-based organization of plants in the industry with the new socio-technical approach used by plants in Scandinavia. The opportunity for this research came as a result of my association with the Vienna Centre, an international body set up by UNESCO after the Second World War to encourage collaborative research on social science issues between East and West. The Vienna Centre was interested in the increasing but little understood effects of automation on industry. It gathered together a group of around 15 academics, trade unionists and industrialists representing different countries in East and West Europe, together with delegates from the United States and Japan, and asked them to agree a subject for joint research. After much discussion it was decided that a suitable subject should be the development of automation in the automobile industry. This subject was chosen, not because the automobile industry was seen as advanced in automation (in fact at that time it was rather backward), but because almost every country taking part in the research had that industry. Some were now embarking on collaborative ventures between East and West, for example, Polski-Fiat in Poland and a similar initiative with another Western manufacturer in Russia. The technology initially selected for study was called numerically controlled transfer technology, or NC machine tools. NC machines were of two basic types. First, there were machines for forming engine blocks, heads, gear boxes and other castings. These machines consisted of a long line of singlepurpose machine tools that milled, drilled, broached, bored, reamed, tapped and honed the components going through (Christensen, 1968). Machines of this type when installed in automobile manufacturers could perform more than 20 separate operations on one component, and one operation could involve drilling all the holes for the head studs simultaneously. The other type of transfer machine used by the motor industry worked on a “merry-go-round” principle. The machining stations were arranged so that the engine blocks could move around a central hub. Transfer lines replaced a large number of different singleand multipurpose machine tools, drills, milling machines, boring machines, etc.



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These new automated machines were introduced into British car plants in the 1950s but, because of their cost, only into large factories employing several thousand workers. Firms in other countries soon followed suit and by the late seventies they were in common use everywhere. The international research project had as its principal objective a study of how this kind of automation had affected work in the different countries. Had some workers, moved from operating single-purpose machines to automated lines, lost their skills without replacing them with new ones? Had automation of this kind also caused a reduction in available jobs? The earlier automobile production system had consisted of single-purpose machines operated by a semiskilled worker; these skills were no longer required. Our research was to show that the principal effect of transfer lines was on maintenance electricians and fitters, who now had to deal with more complex machines and often with integrated electromechanical control systems. But this change presented few dilemmas. The critical organizational problem in the car industry was not automated transfer lines but the continuing use of the Henry Ford moving assembly line. A later question was, What could be done about these? The first part of the research involved visiting motor manufacturers in East and West Europe and in the United States. We found that most manufacturers in both East and West had the same machine-paced organization of assembly work throughout their plants. But there were exceptions. Volvo in Sweden was now trying to replace parts of the line with teams of workers who assembled whole cars instead of single components. At the same time the Japanese were developing a “speed up” production process later called lean manufacturing (Walker & Guest, 1952). The research group decided to jointly develop a questionnaire on work organization and the quality of working life. Car workers in all countries would be asked the same questions. Each researcher now had to find a motor manufacturer in his or her own country who would agree to the study. The British group was offered cooperation by British Leyland at its Longbridge plant near Birmingham. Leyland, at this time, was experiencing serious industrial relations difficulties. Management and the trade unions were in a permanent state of confrontation. The senior trade union convener, Derek Robinson, had just been fired and strikes were a common event. At the same time, a new managing director, Michael Edwardes, was reducing staff numbers and some unprofitable plants, such as Speke outside Liverpool, were being closed. Because management and workers were at loggerheads with each other, I was told by management that I would have to get agreement from the trade unions myself. Fortunately I was


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able to meet the Shop Stewards Committee with an ace in my hand. I explained to those present that their Russian comrades would also be taking part in the research and that they would be asked exactly the same questions as the British Leyland workers. This information was received with interest and approval. The Shop Stewards Committee immediately gave the research a go-ahead but insisted that separate reports on the results should be written for both the management and the unions. While the British were negotiating with Leyland, the Swedish representative in the international group persuaded Volvo to take part in the project. Volvo was, at this time, experimenting with its new production approach based on the socio-technical principles of teamwork, multiskilling and worker autonomy. This enabled useful comparisons to be made between the traditional production system, based on a moving conveyor line and paced work, and the more flexible and user-friendly structures of the Swedish company. Here is an account of one worker’s experience at British Leyland, Longbridge, in 1978 together with descriptions of socio-technical work structures at Volvo.

Jim Bentley Jim Bentley was a local man who was in his early twenties when he joined the Longbridge plant of British Leyland in 1978. He was attracted by the good pay that the company offered, even though he knew that working conditions and management-worker relations were regarded locally as unsatisfactory. He was given a job on the main body assembly line, where he found a work situation in serious disarray. British Leyland was having difficulty selling its cars. The company was bankrupt and in the throes of being nationalised. Even worse, there was a new managing director who had a reputation for toughness and who was threatening to make some workers redundant. Jim found that industrial relations were even worse than he had imagined. A well-liked works convener known as “Red Robbo” had recently been fired and the trade unions, of which there were 17, were determined to make things as difficult as possible for the management. As a result, strikes were a frequent event. Jim also found that work on the assembly line was extremely boring, exacting and stressful. Each man was responsible for a single assembly activity, usually involving around five tasks. These were easily and quickly learned but had to be repeated over and over as each car passed. The men worked under continual pressure as they tried to keep up with the speed of the moving line. The line never stopped and a relief worker had to be found if a man needed to leave it for any reason. Surprisingly and illogically, as production was entirely controlled by the speed of the line, the men were paid on piecework. Jim found Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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that this led to undesirable work practices. The men tried to beat the line by manually pushing cars further along it so that more bodies could be dealt with and wages would be higher. This, in turn, led to poor standards of work. There was a vehicle called a “Friday car,” which was produced when the men struggled to achieve the necessary output and, at the same time, to stop the line early for the weekend. The Friday car was an example both of fast and sloppy work and of poor inspection at the end of the line. Jim also found to his dismay that the body shop was not a social environment. Like the fillers on the coal face, the men were strung out along the line at distances too great for them to talk to each other. They had to spend most of the working day alone with their own thoughts. Jim noticed that all the men on the line were young, usually in their twenties. Some had given up skilled or semiskilled work, attracted by the higher earnings at Leyland. They were prepared to give up a greater degree of personal freedom and less stress elsewhere in order to earn more money. He found that no one liked the moving belt and most felt exhausted at the end of the day. His own assembly task was routine but involved a great deal of heavy lifting. The only man with some job variety on the line was the relief worker. He had to be multiskilled in order to cover all the different assembly tasks. He also had the double advantage of both job and social variety as he moved around to fill in for men who needed to leave the line. At break time on his first day Jim was warned of the stresses of the job. He was told, “It’s rush, rush, rush all day long, and this is even worse than the monotony,” and “You don’t dare stop. If you get behind you have a hard time catching up.” Unlike the miners, the car workers were not able to give themselves a rest by placing a heavy piece of coal on the belt and causing it to break. Stopping the assembly line belt was strictly forbidden unless carried out by a supervisor. However, the boredom of work was alleviated for many by the opportunity to take part in both official and unofficial worker-management disputes. British Leyland had many strikes and the workers believed that management was not always too worried about these. A strike was useful when model sales were poor. It meant that the company did not have to pay the men’s wages. For most of the time the hostile relationships between management and men were very dysfunctional as they prevented attempts to jointly solve the many shop-floor problems. His coworkers told Jim that many organizational problems could easily be solved if the management consulted the workers and if the workers were prepared to share their ideas with management. But neither side spoke to each other in anything other than a confrontational manner. The Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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British Labour Government, in office at the time, despaired at what it regarded as the trade unions’ irresponsibility. The result was that by 1975 British Leyland was under government control (Sampson, 1982). Unfortunately the firm did not inspire enough confidence in either the government or private investors to qualify for more than the minimal amount of assistance required to keep it going. Nor could the government tackle its fundamental problem—an outdated and dysfunctional mass production system that could no longer compete in the world market. The recently installed new management had instructions to make the firm efficient or close it down (Womack, Jones, & Roos, 1990). Jim was a very intelligent young man and he wondered if the harsh, machine-dominated assembly process used at Leyland was the only way of organizing a car factory. He had heard that things were different in Sweden and he decided to find out. He did this by using the library of his local technical college, attending classes there and asking Swedish friends if they could find out more about the organization of Volvo, the foremost Swedish car company. He learned that Volvo had started to manufacture cars in 1927 and that the men they employed at that time were skilled craftsmen. They were coach makers, who had previously built horse-drawn carriages in small workshops and forges. These men had joined Volvo with a great deal of experience and a strong professional identity, all based on their tradition of craftsmanship. At this early stage of car production, the coach makers worked in teams of between five and eight people and they built their vehicles onto stationary bodies. Jim discovered that it was not until the early thirties that Volvo followed the American model developed by Henry Ford and adopted the production line principle. But the company soon became dissatisfied with this. Absenteeism was high and it was difficult to recruit labour. Ideas for a new work system were discussed with employees at Volvo’s original Torslanda car assembly plant in Gothenburg, which had come into operation in 1964. These discussions involved industrial engineers, supervisors and trade union representatives. At that time Torslanda was a modern and efficient plant but it was organized around a traditional production line with short and simple tasks. Everyone felt there must be a better way, and there were external pressures that reinforced this belief. Many Swedish firms in the mid-seventies had very serious personnel problems often caused by disaffected and alienated labour forces. There was relatively full employment, yet at the same time serious industrial relations problems. There was also a strengthening movement for more industrial democracy in industry. Volvo management believed that if work could be reorganized so as to increase job satisfaction this might reduce absenteeism, improve quality, reduce labour turnover and improve the overall industrial relations climate. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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Jim learned that in the early seventies Volvo had started to plan for a new assembly plant in Kalmar with a new production system. This plant, which went into operation in 1974, had many new features that made it different from the traditional moving assembly line, although it was still based on the assembly line principle. A more flexible and efficient method of building cars was created with teamwork and longer work cycles. Pehr Gyllenhammar, president of Kalmar, told his employees: At Kalmar, the objective is to organize automobile production in such a way that employees can find meaning and satisfaction in their work. This is a factory that, without any sacrifice of efficiency or financial results, will give employees the opportunity to work in groups, to communicate freely, to move among work assignments, to vary their pace, to identify themselves with the product, to be conscious of responsibility for quality, and to influence their own work environment. Gyllenhammar believed that when a product is manufactured by workers who find their work meaningful, it will inevitably be a product of high quality. These words expressed all the socio-technical values and principles. Jim, who was now on the works committee, suggested that British Leyland should send a group over to Sweden to look at the Volvo Kalmar assembly process. This was immediately rejected by management who could see no benefits in changing the present system. In any case they had no money to do so. In 1985 Jim decided to go and see for himself what was happening in Sweden. His next holiday included a visit to Kalmar. He found a powerful set of unusual management values there. A senior manager gave him a description of the plant that mirrored the words of the president. However, Jim also learned that because Kalmar still had many of the problems of a conventional car plant, its management and workers were planning a more revolutionary approach. Jim found that Volvo was designing a new plant in Uddevalla and that the workers, union representatives and management were all involved in the planning process. Assembly line thinking had now been abandoned and it was intended that production should be carried out by autonomous teams consisting of “car builders.” These would receive 16 months of training. The intention was to create a plant that would be producing 40,000 cars a year by 1993. Assembly at Uddevalla was to be divided into six different sections known as product plants. These would be grouped together in two buildings, with each plant manned by eight assembly teams of eight to 10 people. Assembly would Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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be on stationary bodies with parts laid out on a special system of racks. Automatic carriers moved along magnetic tracks to deliver these to the appropriate team in the production plant. The time of the work cycle now became three hours. Before leaving Sweden Jim asked a trade union official to tell him more about the Uddevalla plant. He found that the fundamental principle at Uddevalla was to carry out assembly on stationary bodies. This meant that the work cycle for an individual worker was three hours instead of minutes as in the traditional car assembly plant. And it was the team as a whole which bore the prime responsibility for solving problems as they arose. The team was also responsible for achieving established quality and productivity goals. Each team had a spokesperson in contact with the plant manager and other officials. This position rotated amongst the team workers. Jim was told that not everyone liked the system. It required the worker to take considerable responsibility and not everyone wanted this. Those that didn’t like the situation left. He was also told that the trade unions had played a very important part in the development process for the new plant. Jim returned to British Leyland at Longbridge full of enthusiasm for the Volvo approach but received little interest from either his colleagues on the line or the trade unions. However British Leyland was not able to completely ignore the Swedish production system. In the late eighties Volvo acquired Leyland’s bus and truck division and a British plant was refitted to make Volvo chassis. Volvo introduced there the same concept of long-cycle stationary assembly in small teams that it used in Sweden. It had two objectives in doing this. First, it wanted to spread the system of dock assembly to the production of British buses and improve their quality. Second, it wanted to achieve symmetry between its manufacturing systems. As time passed Jim discovered that this flexible, multiskilled type production scheme had its own problems. These were mainly to do with achieving quality standards and with training workers to be multiskilled. As the market tightened for Volvo and output figures became a priority, the company reluctantly reverted to the old moving line production process (Berggren, 1992; Lindholm & Norstedt, 1975). Reports were now appearing in the press describing the success of Japanese car plants in producing the same number of cars as European plants with very much less effort. The best Japanese plant required 16 hours to assemble a car, the best European 23 hours. Japanese performance was greatly influenced by the fact that plants were using what was called a lean/ flexible production system. This integrated both technological and organizaCopyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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tional capabilities. It was “lean” in its avoidance of problem-hiding buffers and, it was claimed, flexible in its willingness to rely on a skilled and motivated workforce for problem solving and continuous improvement. In contrast British Leyland, like other European and American manufacturers, had attempted to protect the production process from variations in effort or skill through the use of buffer stocks, narrowly defined jobs, inflexible work organization and close supervision. However, given its problems, there seemed little chance of British Leyland changing its car production system in the near future. British Leyland did eventually follow the Japanese lean production model. It removed its buffer stocks and required suppliers to provide parts on demand. This speeded up production and increased profits but put an increased strain on Longbridge workers, who now had even less work flexibility than before. After spending eight years in the car industry, Jim decided that he had had enough. He bought his own business, selling and repairing bicycles.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THIS PROJECT? The most important message from this project is that very different organizational structures can be associated with the manufacture of the same product, although this may require a change in the technology that is used. British Leyland used the traditional moving line developed initially by Henry Ford. The most important technology for Volvo was a system that transported different sections of the car to the group assembly point. An important consequence of this difference in technology was who or what was in control. With the Leyland system the speed of the belt controlled production and the human workers had no say. This was a source of low job satisfaction in all car plants that used the moving line. In Volvo, in contrast, the workers controlled the speed of production through their assembly efficiency. This was popular with the workers but could cause management output problems if the work group was slow to complete the task. The solution eventually arrived at by Volvo was to use the team solution for expensive cars but not for popular models where speed of output was essential. The international project showed that car production was not very different throughout the world, and although companies were at different stages of technical development, most, with the exception of Volvo, used the same flow-line organizational arrangements.


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The British research group was fascinated to find that many of the machines in the Russian car plant had been made in Brighton, England. Employees in most countries had the same complaints about machine-paced routine work. The exception here was Russia, where the workers appeared to have much more job satisfaction. The international research team wondered if these results could be taken at their face value. The research showed that the change over from semiskilled work on individual machines to an automated assembly line process in the engine shop had not caused problems. The workers liked the higher pay and there was little nostalgia for the lost skills. In this part of the production process, the carmanufacturing world had moved forward and its employees had moved forward with it. However, this was true only of the engine shop. In the body assembly areas, all the workers complained of how they were treated. Some attention was paid to conditions of work and the prevention of accidents but no more than was required by the law and the trade unions. Even Volvo’s progressive human relations policy was not entirely altruistic. A major factor in Pehr Gyllenhammar’s policy was the need to attract workers in a tight labour market. Nevertheless the Volvo organizational design approach was an excellent example of socio-technical thinking and it was greatly influenced by the earlier socio-technical experiments in coal mining. Another lesson is that even production systems that are poor in human terms can be improved. In the 1970s the American car industry, in particular General Motors, tried to do this through a collaboration between management and the trade union, the United Auto Workers of America. The union claimed that the initiative for what was called a Quality of Working Life Programme came from them, rather than from management. The vice president of the union told a conference in 1980: We’re going to give workers more freedom, a little bit more say, and some input into the decision making process—a brand-new world for workers. They never had those rights before. When I was hired, a worker in our plants was told to do everything by management. The philosophy was to break the job down into its smallest parts, tell them what to do and make sure they do it. Workers don’t need any brains. (Horner, 1980) Saab also used the same concept of enriched jobs as Volvo but took a more conservative approach to the organization of work. The Italian and Japanese car plants were also interested, although the Japanese introduced Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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more automation than the other countries. Two things were happening in car plants throughout the world at this time. There was growing appreciation of the importance of good work organization, and responsibility for this was transferred from middle management to top management. There was also a growing appreciation of the importance of enriching the jobs of men working on the line so as to reduce absenteeism and increase worker motivation.

WORK ORGANIZATION TODAY Thinking about work organization and its impact on people is even more important today when new technology is constantly being introduced and firms are changing their shape to meet new environmental conditions and customer demands. In order to improve the organization of work and make this more people-friendly, managers and unions need to understand what their particular group of workers regard as good working conditions and an effective organization of work. The imperatives of task and technology will always constrain the design of organizational structures but other aspects of work are more flexible. When considering structure, here are some questions that a management, participative design group or others concerned with change can usefully ask of their colleagues when new work systems are being designed and implemented. The answers to these will influence the decisions on work structure that are then taken. Most people have knowledge needs. They want to learn, either through training or experience, and become better at what they are doing. This is as true of the young man selling drugs on the street as of the MBA graduate starting his or her new job. Any group likely to use or be affected by a new system should be asked to specify the kinds of opportunities its members would like to have to learn, to become more skilled and to move on to better jobs and how the new system could help provide this. This requires both designers and users to be aware of the possibilities and constraints that it has to offer. Perhaps surprisingly, in the case studies that have been described it was the coal industry that offered the best training possibilities. Any young man who wished to get formal qualifications was allowed to take one day a week off work to attend the local technical college and get a mining diploma. This would enable him eventually to move up the mining hierarchy to supervisory status. Most people also have effectiveness needs—the ability to perform well through having the right tools, good training, supervisory or colleague assistance when needed, and a well-designed job that they are competent to carry out. Again a company needs to know, or find out, how its staff defines these Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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things. This is what Volvo and the other car firms did before introducing their new assembly structures. The achievement of economic needs is, of course, also of great importance to everyone. We need enough money to live on, to provide for our families and to enable us to save for our old age. For some an ever-increasing salary is an important end in itself. For others the interest and social value of a job may compensate for its low rewards. Important decisions have to be taken on the nature and structure of financial rewards. There are also environmental needs, for example, a need for good conditions in the workplace and a concern for any external environmental effects the new system may have. The definition of what these are may vary greatly from one group to another. Some may regard being safe from accident as the most important criterion; others may want comfort, cleanliness and attractive surroundings. Customers and other members of the public may feel strongly about the external environment. Also, and most important, there are ethical needs. We want to be treated in what we regard as the “right way” by our colleagues and our bosses. We want to be communicated with, and consulted and treated with respect and dignity. How do the staff who will be affected by the new system see these things? What are their priorities? My own research has indicated that in many situations this is an extremely important, perhaps the most important, need. Low pay and bad working conditions can often be tolerated, providing we are treated as valued human beings. And, lastly, we have psychological needs, although these too may differ greatly from one person to another. Most of us, although not all, still want a degree of security so that we can plan the future. We would also prefer a pleasant, friendly work environment to one where dispute and argument are the norm. Many today also want freedom from psychological stress and overwork. Appropriately the first letter of all these needs spells KEEEEP, reminding us that in order to “keep” valued, and possibly scarce, labour each employee will require an employer to meet their definition of the required need cluster and their emphasis on some needs more than others (see the section on job satisfaction in the Appendix). If a participative design group is used for the change and the company is following the socio-technical approach of concern for people in parallel with concern for new technology, then it will be its responsibility to obtain information on the priorities of employees and how these can best be met. Let us see how our tough dock, mine and car plant situations measured up in these terms.



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Knowledge Needs Like a great deal of production work, none of the three industries offered the ordinary worker much in the way of training, although the docks and the coal mine did offer some learning through experience. Dock work required an ability to handle heavy cargo without spills or accidents, while the most important learning experience for miners was getting to grips with the dangers of working underground. A man’s life could depend on understanding the creaks made by the roof of the coal face or recognising that when a deputy’s lamp turned blue it meant, “Get out quick—Gas is present.” Many collieries had canaries underground as these birds were sensitive to methane gas and would keel over unconscious when it was present. Probably the worst situation from a learning point of view was the body assembly line of the car industry. Here the men were like robots, dominated by the pace of the line and able to perform only a limited number of specified operations before the car body moved on to the next man. Subsequent technical developments did not greatly increase the opportunity for learning. In the docks, containerisation took over from bags and loose material, simplifying the loading process but also making it heavier to handle. In the mines, power loading increasingly mechanised face work and gave the miner a wider range of tasks to look after. In the British car industry, lean production was adopted but not usually with the teamworking and increased skills of the Japanese car worker. The basic tasks on lean lines did not require problem solving but the execution of standardised tasks at an intense tempo (Berggren, 1992). The great exception here was Volvo, where attitude surveys were carried out in both the Kalmar and the Uddevalla plants. These showed that enhanced job responsibilities and teamworking were seen by Swedish workers as providing good opportunities for learning new skills. But Volvo experienced some criticisms. Its management was accused of confusing “participative management” with “democratic management.” Participative management calls for consultation of subordinates during the decisionmaking process, but not for the abdication of the management decision-making responsibility, which would be the result of democratic management. It was pointed out that both systems can work simultaneously but it was essential that everyone involved knew which types of decisions were to be made participatively and which democratically. In Volvo this did not always happen. All three industries—docks, mining and cars—in their traditional form did not offer what today’s employees, whether shop floor or clerical, would regard as opportunities for learning and personal development. The docks offered just


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a job; the coal mines too offered a job but one which also gave the men the pride of doing something the rest of the world thought was difficult and dangerous. The car industry in Britain offered little other than superior earnings to what many other industries could provide. Volvo, the exception, was able to offer its workers much more than this.

Economic Needs For many people earning money is the only reason for working. There is no way of achieving other benefits such as an increase in knowledge, and they have little desire to do so. This may be because the nature of their work situation forces them to have low expectations and aspirations, they can expect nothing better. Or it may be that they have other more important outside interests and are happy with the present situation. However, although some groups would not want the nature and content of their work to change, most would like an increase in pay. Pay is usually linked to status, irrespective of the nature of the job. The more you are paid, the more you are respected, perhaps even valued. For many managements it is also linked to output and is seen as the principal motivator for higher production. All three work situations, the docks, the coal mine and the British car factory, had incentive-based wage systems, even though the moving assembly line in the car factory was the major determinant of output. In many jobs, however, incentives of this kind often have the disadvantage of reducing quality, and tight quality inspection schemes have to be in place to ensure that poor work does not slip through to the customer. In all three situations, earnings were negotiated between the trade unions and the management and were a major source of conflict. Most wild cat and official strikes had pay as an important component. Disputes raged over differentials between one group and another, unplanned for changes in conditions of work, and agreements for particular cargoes, faces or production targets. Sometimes these disputes added a degree of interest and excitement to a normally dull and boring work situation. They provided mental stimulus and welcome opportunities for confrontation and aggression that both management and men seemed to enjoy. War games were much more interesting than routine work. Deciding on appropriate wage payment schemes for the shop floor has always been a headache for management, and incentive schemes have varied from those based entirely on the worker’s output to those in which employees are paid a flat rate but there is an incentive element. This can be quite large or quite small. In recent years it has been common to offer group incentives based Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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on the work of the team as a whole. These would often form part of a sociotechnical approach. But they too can have disadvantages. While they can motivate groups to produce more, they may also lead to individual workers being victimised by their mates because they cannot meet the output of the rest of the group. Clerical workers, in contrast, have usually been paid a straight weekly wage. Their jobs vary so much in content that it is difficult, if not impossible, to measure the amount of work they produce. A wage system much favoured by practitioners of the socio-technical school is “payment for knowledge.” Pay is now related to what you know rather than to what you do. Increases come through training, vocational courses, university degrees and valued experience. Pay is seen by some commentators as being a source of problems and contention in the future (Beck, 2001). For many groups it is seen as dropping rather than rising as advancing technology increasingly replaces human workers. The short-term job contract seems also to be one of today’s innovations. This can bring freedom for some but it can also lead to fear, insecurity and uncertainty for others.

Effectiveness Needs Although dockers, miners and car workers were not averse to a fight with management (in fact many welcomed these), all of them had a degree of pride in their work. The dockers and miners thought, rightly, that their work was important to the commercial success of the country and were proud of the fact that they worked in tough environments that other workers would be unable to tolerate. The British Leyland Longbridge workers were proud of the cars they were producing and wanted these to sell well and have high status in the market. All three groups required certain things from management to enable them to work effectively and became very frustrated when these were not provided. Among these were supervisory assistants, a knowledgeable deputy or foreman who could provide help when problems occurred, and the necessary tools for the job. The miners required essential face equipment such as pit props, the dockers needed pallets and cranes, and the British Leyland workers wanted assembly lines that did not continually break down and stop production. Effectiveness would also have been increased by good working conditions, a benefit that none of these groups enjoyed. The dockers and miners could also suffer from serious medical problems because of poor working conditions. Some dockers had pulmonary conditions through constant working in the cold; others had accidents from mishandled cargo and could lose fingers and toes because of these. The miners, because Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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of constantly breathing in dust underground, were all prone to the dreaded pneumococcus, which could cripple and possibly kill them in old age. An additional hazard was that Maypole colliery had the worst accident record of mines in the area. The British Leyland workers were less prone to physical risks but many suffered from tiredness and mental stress because of continually having to work at the pace of the moving line. Effectiveness needs cover training which provides the competences to do the job safely and efficiently. Training for safety was mixed and mostly came from experience of doing the job. The dockers had to avoid accidents, such as falling cargo, that caused personal injury, while the colliery offered a very unsafe environment and did little to change this. Visits to Maypole colliery by the Mine Safety Inspection group produced damning reports of unsafe working conditions and of the action that needed to be taken to improve safety. Mostly, the colliery ignored these. The phenomenon, often found in dangerous industries, of pretending that danger does not exist or that macho men are not concerned with it was frequently to be found.

Environmental Needs Environmental issues were principally concerned with physical conditions of work. Here, all three industries had serious problems. Dock work involved exposure to the elements and the need to work in cold, wet and windy conditions on an exposed dock estate. Work underground in the pit was cramped, uncomfortable, dangerous and badly lit with the ever-present, shortterm threat of serious accident and the longer-term threat of lung disease. The British car industry created the severe mental stress of having to work at the speed demanded by a never-stopping moving assembly line. The working environments of all three industries left a lot to be desired.

Ethical Needs Ethical needs are essentially to do with relationships—the belief by workers that their management is honest with them, keeps them in the picture and is prepared to communicate and discuss problems before and when these arise. At the time the research was carried out, both the docks and the coal mines were nationalised industries and so had formal joint consultation systems. These usually worked quite well but participation was restricted to management, trade union officials and elected representatives. The ordinary worker was not involved and he was much more influenced by good day-today communication with first-line supervision. In British Leyland the only communication between management and workers tended to be minimal and confronCopyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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tational. But Volvo was completely different. Both the Kalmar and the Uddevalla plants had been designed and built after much discussion with workers, the trade unions, specialist staff and management. A job satisfaction survey showed that 86% thought they could influence events through discussion groups, works council meetings and the trade union.

Psychological Needs This is the set of needs most often discussed in the personnel management literature and its fulfilment will depend on what the workers in a particular industry or group regard as important to their psychological health. In the three industries we have examined, this was primarily getting on well with one’s mates, being able to cope with the demands of the job, avoiding accidents and having reasonable job security. Aspirations were not high. Interestingly, they are much higher today but seem to be becoming less attainable because, for many, job security is now poor and stress is very high. These deficiencies seem particularly to affect individuals with families who have responsibilities both at work and at home. This chapter attempts to show that designing the organizational structure is equally as important as introducing appropriate technology. It requires good thinking and planning and the means to bring plans to fruition. But this is not easy. Stafford Beer points out that large systems, working over a long timescale, are very short of information—about themselves, about their environments, about what is going to happen, and about when the crunch will come. So any decision taken now about “what it is best to do” is incompetent, and it could always be more competently taken tomorrow. Yet this recipe for procrastination invites the abdication of management, which must accept responsibility for decision-making under uncertainty (Beer, 1968). To be effective, managers must be able to distinguish good organizational strategy and work structures from bad and be able to determine what are improved designs for social systems. This requires good information on what both the social and the technical parts of the system require to be effective and a comprehensive understanding of the problem that is being tackled. Wherever possible it is beneficial to ascertain what organizational design options other firms are using and to test these out in your own environment.

REFERENCES Beck, U. (2001). The brave new world of work. London: Polity Press. Beer, S. (1968). The aborting corporate plan. In E. Jantsch (Ed.), PerspecCopyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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tives of planning. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Berggren, C. (1992). The Volvo experience. London: Macmillan. Christensen, E. (1968). Automation and the workers. Stockholm: Labour Research Department. Horner, W. (1980). A union perspective on the quality of working life. In Perspectives of the Quality of Working Life. Lindholm, R. & Norstedt, J. P. (1975). The Volvo report. Stockholm: Swedish Employers’ Confederation. Sampson, A. (1982). The changing anatomy of Britain. London: Coronet Books. Womack, J., Jones, D. T., & Roos, D. (1990). The machine that changed the world. New York: Rawson Associates.



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PART THREE: DESIGNING FOR OFFICE WORKERS


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Chapter 7

New Problems in Banking The times they are a-changin’. Bob Dylan

NEW KINDS OF PROBLEMS In the last three case studies there has been a logical progression through the management of change, considering first the definition of the problem; second, the development of a strategy for handling it; and third, the creation of an appropriate organizational structure. But, in today’s fast-moving world, there are many situations in which it is difficult to carry out this systematic approach. For example what do we do if change involves a technological jump, bringing with it new problems and challenges which have not been experienced before and which are poorly understood? This happened to white-collar work in the next case study. It has also happened many times in the past and is likely to happen many times in the future.


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HOW HAS WORK CHANGED? The nature of office work has been in a process of change for a long time. The most pervasive piece of technology until recently, the typewriter, came into offices in the 1870s. At this time office work was predominantly a male occupation. By 1900 this had changed and in a US clerical work force of one million, one in four clerks were now women. In the 1920s machines pervaded every part of the office and some hundred new ones made their appearance each year. These included adding and calculating machines, duplicating and dictating machines, and machines for handling a variety of accounting activities. By the 1930s women outnumbered men and this growth of machines and feminization of the office continued until today (Baker, 1964). Major changes in the office work situation have been brought about through the development and use of computer technology. Computers had been in active military use during the Second World War but their penetration into offices took longer. In the United States, the Bureau of Census installed the first UNIVAC machine in 1951, and in the same year the Bank of America introduced a specially designed machine called ERMA to handle the daily operations for 550,000 customer accounts. By 1959 around 2,000 computers of all sizes were in use for a variety of business, scientific and engineering purposes. In England, in 1947, the board of a catering firm, J. Lyons and Company Ltd., took a momentous decision to develop a “machine that will be able to cope, at almost incredible speed, with almost any variation of clerical procedure.” This machine called LEO, standing for Lyon’s Electronic Office, was the first British attempt to move computers out of the laboratory and into the office (Bird, 1994). In England, as in America, the same feminization of office work took place, with women occupying around 75% of all clerical posts. Computers moved into offices there also, and my first piece of research into the impact of computers on people took place at the beginning of the sixties. At this time an international study of the consequences of these new machines was organized by the European Productivity Association. A number of countries took part, and in England I was able to study the first faltering steps towards using the new technology taken by a northern bank and a cattle food manufacturer (Mumford & Banks, 1967). This new technology was perceived as bringing with it both problems and opportunities. In the sixties no one knew what the impact of computer technology on offices would be and the great fear was that it would cause unemployment. There was a belief, fostered by the media, that the speed and efficiency of these new machines would be so great that large numbers of women, and some men, Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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would lose their jobs. In fact, it was a considerable time before this prophecy came true. The early machines were so unreliable and so difficult to program that many business organizations found they were employing more rather than less staff, as programmers and operators were added to their labour force. But some new and unpleasant female jobs did now appear on the scene. One was punch operating. Large numbers of women were required to punch the cards or paper tape that provided input to the new computers. This job, while extremely boring, required considerable accuracy and so provided a new manifestation of a job hardly fit for intelligent humans. While most shop-floor assembly jobs had always been dull and demanding, at least the women doing them had been able to talk to each other across the moving line. The new computer work was both monotonous and required concentration. To add insult to injury, as the technology developed, women found that the speed at which they worked was being recorded by their own machines. Too slow a pace meant loss of pay or even dismissal. Generally then, for women if not for men, these early computer jobs were not a step forward into a more advantageous future. Work that in its manual form had a degree of interest and required some problem solving and decision taking became routinised and also segmented. Instead of being responsible for a sequence of activities, women were limited to preparing input for the computer or correcting errors in output. The fear of redundancy also became stronger in offices employing large numbers of female staff. And in time, computers did increasingly displace clerks, although for a while in both America and Europe growing economies meant that new jobs would replace old. Two factors led to the routinisation and segmentation of clerical jobs. First, the primitive nature of the early computer systems encouraged technical designers to focus on the needs of the computer and ignore the needs of people. An information specialist, Harold Sackman, explained the ideology of the technical systems analysts of the time (Otway & Peltu, 1983). Early computers were virtually one of a kind, very expensive to build and operate. Computer time was far more expensive than human time. Under these constraints it was essential that computer efficiency came first, with people last. … Technical matters turned computer professionals on; human matters turned them off. Users were troublesome petitioners somewhere at the end of the line who had to be satisfied with what they got. (Sackman, 1967)



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While the new computer specialists were not concerned about people, the influence of Taylorism continued to be found in work study and organization and methods departments. Here the philosophy was still the one of breaking work down into a series of simple and repetitive tasks, each task being undertaken by a different individual. The logic behind this was that it increased production and saved money. Clerks on routine clerical jobs received low pay and were easily replaceable if they left the firm. Computers provided a new vehicle for this philosophy by their ability to handle complex numerical transactions, leaving the human being with the simple, routine tasks. The projects that follow leave blue-collar industry and chart the introduction and development of computers in the office environment. The early stages of office computerisation can be called automated accounting. This lasted through the 1960s until the mid-70s. It was characterised by the deployment of mainframe and minicomputers to automate a wide range of back-office functions, including customer accounts, payroll accounts, and rudimentary database management (Mumford & Banks, 1967).

THE RESEARCH PROJECTS At a meeting of the European group held in Paris in 1957 it was decided that research into the effects of automation on white-collar workers would be of value in view of the speed with which technological developments were now affecting offices. At the time I was a researcher in the Social Science Department of Liverpool University and we decided to study a branch of Martins Bank in the centre of Liverpool. The bank was just investing in its first computer system. This project was a fact-finding enterprise to establish the likely impact of computers on white-collar staff. There was no socio-technical design associated with it. But it was one of the first UK studies to show that introducing technical change into offices is not an easy process. Here is how a bank employee experienced the change.

The Threat of Technical Change The bank clerks’ experiences with this first venture into computing are described by Mary Shaw, the daughter of a Liverpool docker who joined the bank as a junior clerk soon after leaving school. Computers were still relatively scarce in England at this time. A survey made at the end of 1958 showed that the five major manufacturers had delivered only 100 machines up to that date. The banks were also unused to major change and had few managers that were experienced in introducing it. They had little idea of what lay ahead. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Mary had done well at her local school and had obtained good exam results. At 17 she moved on to the neighbourhood college and took a secretarial course. This was a good decision. Many of her contemporaries who had left formal education at 16 had ended up on the shop floor of local factories. Mary was determined to do better than this and to find a white-collar job which had good conditions of work and some promotion possibilities. In 1959 she contacted Martins Bank, which was growing in size and looking for new female members of staff. They were happy to employ her. Mary found a somewhat confused and uncertain situation when she arrived at Martins. The firm was introducing its first computer system and there was a lot of anxiety. Staff wanted to know, What do these new computers mean for bank clerks? Are they being introduced to cut staff numbers? These fears were worsened by predictions made in the newspapers and on television. They showed offices empty of clerks and run entirely by machines. The marketing strategies of some of the early computer manufacturers also did not help. One had a promotion film which in part one had an office full of busy clerks all working very hard. The second part of the film featured the same office, but empty except for a large computer. The message was, “Buy one of our machines and you can get rid of all your staff.” These kinds of communication did not reassure the clerks at Martins Bank. Mary had hoped for a cashier’s job on the counter, helping customers to handle their day-to-day financial affairs of paying in and drawing out money. Instead, she found that most of her work in the branch was as a machine operator punching tape for the computer. This was not seen as an attractive job by most of the bank’s female staff. Some of her colleagues had previously been accounting-machine operators and did not welcome their transformation into punched-tape machinists. They believed the new job to be less skilled and more monotonous than their previous one. They also complained of a lowering of job status and compared themselves with some bitterness to factory hands. At the same time they suffered the disruption and stress of a computer that frequently broke down and punched tape that was defective and could not be read by the computer. Mary also found that this fear and dislike of the new technology were not just a problem for the clerks but occurred at every level in the bank. Middle managers did not understand the new system and saw their status and autonomy threatened. Junior management resented the rise of the new specialist computer personnel that the bank now required. Clerks were anxious about their jobs, their security and the nature of their new work. Morale was at an all-time low.



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A major reason for this anxiety and antagonism was the fact that bank management had no understanding of computer technology and was unaware of the social consequences of the changes they were making. Martins Bank managers made efforts to tell their staff what was happening but had little skill or experience in doing this. Also, as still happens today, the change was associated with a set of unrealistic expectations. Deadlines were impossible to meet and frequent computer breakdown caused plans to fall behind schedule. This led to a backlog of work that made life very stressful for the punch-tape operators. Although Mary was fortunate to be working in one of the bank’s branch offices, she found that many of her colleagues had a much less attractive environment. They were situated in a room close to the new computer and were responsible for transferring into the machine the data on punched tape sent over from the branches. Their work was boring and stressful. They also suffered from faulty tape that had to be replaced and an unreliable computer that frequently broke down. Mary, who was interested in the new computer technology, became friendly with one of the young male members of staff, Brian, who had very recently been transformed from a bank clerk into a computer programmer. She learned from him that the bank had installed a basic computer, together with two tape readers, two tape punches (one fast and one slow), a magnetic tape consul and four magnetic tape units. Brian told her with some pride, although she had no idea what he meant, that the computer used a binary number system and could store 8,960 words. Data input was read at 300 characters a second on the fast punch and 60 characters a second on the slow. Data punched on tape was converted into print at the rate of 10 characters a second. This sounded like a big technical step forward for a conservative organization. The bank, and Brian, optimistically believed that with a computer and an operating staff of five people per shift, accounts could be updated at the rate of 6,000 an hour, and the computer would be capable of handling the accounts of approximately 30,000 customers. The precomputer system had required the use of 80 business machines and a staff of 100 to keep the records of this number of accounts. The computer manufacturer had told them that the new machine’s bookkeeping programme would take care of 11 main accounting procedures and two subsidiary ones. Among the banking operations to be performed would be the entry of normal credits and debits, the alteration of basic account information, the addition of new accounts, the deletion of closed accounts, the accumulation of statistics for management and the daily printing


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of the current balance of every account. Statements would be printed out when required. Brian told Mary that these new possibilities had led to a major reorganization in the bank. Although the computer would take over only routine clerical operations, this involved the centralisation of the accounts of a number of branches and the transfer of these accounts to a new computer centre. An important challenge for the bank was to maintain the accuracy of the old system by means of a series of checks. The new system must also keep to the same timetable as before. This emphasis on a system giving a high degree of accuracy was already starting to cause problems as it necessitated a more complex, and also a slower, procedure than would otherwise have been required. Complaints from customers were also starting to arrive as the new computer system could not issue statements on demand. Twenty-four hours notice was now required. Even worse the bank had now decided to abandon narrative statements for customers. The names of payees and payers were no longer listed and were replaced by cheque numbers alone. Customers now associated what they considered a deterioration in service with the advent of the new computer. Morale was dropping rapidly. Mary was unhappy with her boring and stressful paper-tape-punching job in the branch and Brian was experiencing anxiety and strain in the computer centre. He had to spend long periods of time in the branches obtaining and documenting basic data for the computer while at the same time dealing with continual computer breakdowns. “Getting away early,” a concession much valued by bank staff, became an impossibility. He found he was working increasingly long hours. Sometimes it was necessary to stay until the early hours of the morning to complete a particular day’s work. Weekend work was also often required. Gradually, however, things got sorted out and experience brought knowledge. By 1963 the computer was processing the work of three branches. The programmers, including Brian, were now able to concern themselves less with the day-to-day operation of the computer and devote more of their time to programming and development work. The programmers now began to enjoy their new role and to see themselves as computer experts rather than bank professionals. This showed in their behaviour and dress; it was common for men to work in their shirtsleeves instead of formal jackets and there was a free and easy social atmosphere. Mary greatly enjoyed the metamorphosis of her now boyfriend from stuffy bank clerk to exotic computer professional. Brian began to think that if a suitable job came up in industry he would leave the bank and take it. The bank would have been most disturbed if they had been aware of his intention. It did not appreciate



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the importance of its programmers and assumed they would follow the traditional pattern of the male bank clerk and stay with the bank for life. An ongoing problem now for Brian was maintaining good relations with the staff of the branches. Computer demands and problems led to a considerable increase in work, and like Brian, branch staff found that they frequently had to stay late in the evening to cope with data preparation. Martins Bank was, of course, suffering from having entered the computer world at such an early stage. Commercial computers were comparatively new in 1961 and manufacturers did not appreciate the requirements of business organizations. However, unlike Mary and her friends, the male staff in the branches became quite positive about the computer. One optimist suggested, “Routine work will be eliminated. There will be more specialised work for men.” Mary and her colleagues saw themselves as losers with much less opportunity for personal contact with customers. A friend told Mary, “We are becoming like factory workers, just watching machines and feeding them.” And all staff, including management, were nervous about customer reaction. There were comments such as, “The old friendliness will go; the customers won’t like it.” The general opinion was that work now needed more accuracy, planning, judgment and skill. There was also more of it . But women also saw it as less interesting and varied, with the individual having less control over the pace of her work. Mary’s female colleagues complained that, “The computer has no advantages for us; it has made our work more difficult and more boring. The machine has taken away a lot of our work interest.”

NEW KINDS OF PROBLEMS Innovation problems are becoming more rather then less frequent as technical change progresses at an ever faster rate. An important question now is, Can firms avoid these kinds of problems when new technology is being introduced, especially if staff at all levels have little knowledge of its likely consequences either for themselves or for their customers? Is an appropriate and helpful strategy available? A major difficulty here is that, at this early stage in an innovation programme, it may not be possible to define the problems with any accuracy as no one knows what they are. There is no experience to provide guidance. The bank is at what has been called a “strategic change point” (Storey, 2001). This is where a company must alter what it does and the way it does things or it will go into decline. What Martins Bank needs to do at this point is to collect information. For example, it could form a collaborative group


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with other banks and jointly collect and share information. This is an excellent proposal but could be difficult for banks to implement, as they are usually very competitive and unwilling to exchange ideas with their perceived rivals. It might be easier and more useful to collaborate with companies in other industries which are not competitors. A close, cooperative relationship with the hardware suppliers might also be helpful at this point, as they will have a great deal of useful technical information. Such a relationship must, however, be open and trusting, as some technical companies are renowned for making their products look good while concealing flaws. They may also have little understanding of psychology and of relationships within the client company. However, all potential sources of information should be investigated. Keeping in close touch with customers and seeking their help and advice can also be very useful at this time. Many of Martins Bank’s customers saw the new system as a nuisance rather than a benefit. Again, if other banks, either at home or overseas, are further ahead in using similar systems, then visits to these will be well worthwhile. Experience has shown that if these visits are made, it is important to talk to the staff actually doing the job and not just to management. It is the former who will understand the new system best and know both its advantages and defects. It must also be recognised that change does not take place in isolation. One apparently unrelated change can affect the change programme, causing a chain reaction and greatly enhancing the complexity of the situation. This means that a comparatively minor problem can easily become a major one.

REACTIONS TO CHANGE Participation and democracy can be of great assistance at these times of critical change. Also openness and an effective distribution of power will help ensure that any undesirable human consequences of the new system are not hidden. Trade unions can often play a useful role here, providing that they do not use this power negatively to block necessary change. They must become active and positive participants in the change process. But it has to be recognised that people respond to change in very different ways. Some may welcome it with enthusiasm, others with doubt and dismay. These different responses will be a product both of the nature of the change, how it is managed and the personalities of the people on the receiving end. At this time it is important for all concerned with a major change to be sensitive to how different individuals and groups may react to it. This depends very much on what people are seeking from the situations in which they work. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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In the past it was generally thought that most people ideally wanted the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Stability—over time and security. Freedom—to develop new interests, try out new activities. Rewards—both financial and those which derive from good relations. Happiness and approval—the success of self and of group. Unity and order—harmony, cooperation and coordination. Acceptable structures—in work, in the family and in the community. Discretion—being able to make judgements. (Burnard, 1982)

If work provides most of these and then change removes some or all of them, negative attitudes and alienation are likely occur. People may now feel powerless, believing that there is no way that they can alter an undesirable situation. They may now try mentally to remove themselves from the bad situation and seek compensatory activities outside work. In other words “to turn off.” This seems often to have happened with groups experiencing unwelcome change in the past. But will it be the same in the future or will attitudes today and tomorrow be very different? This we do not know. It does appear that many of today’s workers respond well to the stimulation and excitement of change. They welcome a set of new and challenging problems and the opportunities that come with this. It also seems likely that many people, perhaps older and with family responsibilities, will still seek the security and stability which they can derive from pleasant personal relationships and from the structure and challenges of a well-designed and humanistic work situation. When change causes people to feel anxious and uncertain, the first thing they do is to seek information, especially about the future. They ask, What is this going to be like? and How will I be affected by it? Knowing what is going to happen helps them to feel more in control and that they can embark on the change with some confidence. When the proposed change is surrounded by ambiguity and vagueness, their ability to predict will be difficult and anxiety is likely to increase. This was the case in Martins, where no one in the bank could see the future with any clarity. All they knew was that a new technology had arrived and this seemed to be acting as a controlling force on bank affairs. The clerks desperately sought information and either did not get it or received information that was incorrect and worsened the situation. Many became anxious and disillusioned and a common response was either “Management, we cannot trust them,” or “They do not know what they are talking about.”


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In times of major change, stability can be greatly assisted both through receiving accurate information and by being able to give others this information. It is useful to remember that an efficient means of passing on information is from person to person and from company to company. Every effort must be made to facilitate the “grapevine.” The old “need to know” policies, which restricted information and directed it to some people but not others, are a route to disaster. A general and positive sharing of knowledge can do a great deal to remove the fear of change. At this time there is also always a danger of role ambiguity, which increases uncertainty and alienation. People are unsure what they should or will be doing or what their colleagues and managers should or will be doing. Knowledge about how jobs will change now becomes critical. People need to know and understand their new duties and responsibilities. Even better is when they are in a position to contribute to the design of these. Participative leadership and employee involvement can be important means for reducing insecurity and alienation in times of change. They will give employees some influence over future events and most will welcome this. Freedom can also be an issue at this time. There is freedom from and freedom to. Most of us want freedom from insecurity, poor wages and unpleasant supervision and to replace this with a freedom that helps us to achieve our personal needs. For most people, freedom in work means having some power and control over the work situation, yet as happened in Martins Bank, new technology can take this away and replace it with a highly undesirable machine monitoring of people at work. But technology can also increase freedom by removing routine tasks and leaving the human being with responsibility for higher level tasks such as decision taking and innovation. It can cause us to regress or to advance. We have to make a choice. A major problem is that people seek different things and have different values (Mumford, 1981). Some may seek a comfortable life, others an exciting life. This will depend on age, personal circumstances and personality. There seems to be a general need for “a sense of achievement,” whether this comes from doing routine tasks well or difficult tasks with ease and confidence. Also, although we encounter the occasional lone genius, most people, whatever they are doing, welcome being members of successful groups which provide friendship and support. Employees also welcome employer consistency. Knowing that in times of change they can rely on their management to give honest, accurate and timely information. There will no “overemphasis of benefits and concealment of likely problems.” One of the most important factors in successful change is the creation of a climate in which people welcome change as improvement because they know they can have an influence on the Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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form it takes and that their managers will treat them as equals in the decision making process.

Lloyds Bank International: A Socio-Technical Approach Which Helped to Solve Early Problems This was probably one of the earliest attempts to apply socio-technical design to white-collar work, as the approach had previously been largely confined to shop-floor activities. Calvin Pava, a professor at the Harvard Business School, had also pioneered the socio-technical approach in the US in a computer systems firm (Pava, 1983). The reason this bank decided to use a participative approach was because the new system had to be very carefully and circumspectly introduced. It would affect the dealers, a group responsible for a large part of the bank’s profits. A description of events in the bank is provided by Brian, now a systems analyst. Brian, now married to Mary, did not look for a job in industry but in 1974 he took the unusual step of moving to another bank. This was unusual, for at that time male bank clerks tended to stay with the same bank for the whole of their working lives. The bank was Lloyds Bank International in Liverpool and it was about to change its Foreign Exchange Department from a batch to an on-line system. This was an aspect of banking that was totally new to Brian and he found it fascinating. Instead of handling the accounts of local customers, he was in a new and exotic world that resembled nothing more than a high-class gambling saloon. Brian discovered quickly that the Foreign Exchange Department of Lloyds Bank International formed part of the Exchange and Money Market Division. This division consisted of the chief manager’s office, the dealing room and the exchange department. The main activity of the dealing room was buying and selling foreign currency by means of telephone communication to and from agents all over the world. The bank did this for itself and for its customers. These customers were all foreign as, at that time, exchange regulations meant that British nationals were not allowed to trade in the currency market. Currency was also accepted on deposit from other banks and private customers and lent to banks and institutions. He also soon found out about his work colleagues. The dealing room was staffed by dealers and position clerks. Dealing was organized by currency rather than transactions, and the dealers were split up into dollar, Swiss franc, deutschmark, sterling and other currency sections. Dealers were very different from the conventional and conventionally attired male branch staff at Martins. They were risk takers, prepared to buy and sell large amounts of currency at Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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the blink of an eye. Their job did not involve being deferential to customers, organizing their work meticulously and being friendly at the counter. They were much closer to today’s share trader—rapid thinkers with an eye for a quick profit and able to persuade their clients when to sell and when to buy. Currency was bought and sold by means of telephone communication with agents all over the world and with customers. The bank made a large profit from these transactions. The position clerks kept a record of funds going in and out (the position) and knew the value date of deals. The dealing room backup group was the exchange department, which was entirely female, except for the manager, and processed all the deals entered into by the dealing room. The exchange department staff consisted of 68 clerks, of whom 25 were part-timers. Jobs were split into managers and supervisors, checkers, coders, typists and filing clerks. The work was essentially handling paper transactions but there was an element of customer contact, which the staff liked. The main strengths of the department were the staff’s ability to cope with heavy workloads under considerable pressure. Their principal weakness was a lack of all-round banking knowledge. Many were relatively inexperienced but all felt that their talents were underutilised. Brian found that the processing of deals was completely computerised with a batch computer system that had been in use since 1971. A copy of the deal ticket was used as the input document. This document was used to post all entries, the only manual operation being the movement of funds by telex, cable or mail transfer. The batch computer system had been introduced to help the bank undertake high-volume routine processing in the foreign exchange field. The foreign exchange business was rapidly expanding and bank management had become worried that in the future it would not be possible to attract enough staff to carry out the work manually. But the present system involved a great deal of routine coding work and had not proved the ideal application. The computer was slow and there were long delays before information could be received. Brian realised that the present batch system had been something of a disaster. Clerical staff did not like it and the junior staff did not understand it. The general opinion was that it had caused work to be less interesting, although from the bank’s point of view it had also made work more accurate. The departmental manager’s view was that the system produced too many lengthy reports and it was difficult for the staff to take an interest in these. Brian discovered that it was not the Foreign Exchange Department’s first computer system. A system with similar functions had been introduced in 1964. This was replaced because the machine was becoming obsolete, and the advent of Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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decimilisation meant that certain radical changes would have to be made to the programme. It was therefore an opportune moment to change the machine once again. The same kinds of problems were recurring with the present computer. The exchange department was now split up into different groups, each responsible for a different function related to the processing of deals. This form of work organization created considerable work segmentation. Also the introduction of the batch computer system had, as in Martins Bank, brought with it a number of boring and routine tasks, for example, the coding of input vouchers. It had also virtually eliminated ledger work, which had been a source of job satisfaction to many of the bank staff. When Brian arrived, the bank had decided to review the use it was making of computers for foreign exchange and to introduce a new on-line system. It also wanted to encourage the development of a new method of organizing work in the exchange department that would provide staff with more job satisfaction. Management gave this high priority. It was to become a project with clear socio-technical objectives. Brian discovered that there were a number of operational problems in the department which needed to be considered both in terms of the use of a computer and in terms of the reorganization of work. These were: Volume problems. Dollars were the dominant currency and these overwhelmed the rest of the work. Work peaking. Some dealers had two peaks in the day, 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and late afternoon. These affected the work of the exchange department. The proposed new on-line computer system presented many problems for Brian and his new group of systems analysts. First, and most important, the work of the dealing room and of individual dealers must not be disturbed by the introduction of the new system. There must be a smooth, hardly noticed transition from one system to another. Also, the system must be able to provide for the tight controls that banking required. This could present a human problem as it would not be easy to associate a tight control system with staff opportunities for independence of mind and creative thinking. Nevertheless organizational improvements must be made in the exchange department. The farsighted manager who ran this did not want to lose an opportunity for improving the work environment and the job satisfaction of the staff who worked there. He persuaded the bank to make an increase in job satisfaction a specific system Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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objective. He also believed in democracy at work and he proposed to give the banks’ clerks themselves the responsibility for designing a friendly form of work organization into which the computer system could be fitted. These ideas were all new and interesting to Brian, who now realised that many of the problems Martins Bank had experienced were due to the challenge of bringing in a new computer system, together with a lack of awareness of staff needs during a time of traumatic change. Brian now became part of a Job Satisfaction Working Party, which included six representatives of the Foreign Exchange Department clerks and one member from the dealing room. The clerical representatives were elected by their fellow clerks and not chosen by management. Their task was to make an analysis of their efficiency and job satisfaction needs and to develop a new work structure that would meet these needs. It was agreed that the group should focus primarily on the needs of the exchange department, as this had many more routine activities than the dealing room. The dealers were essentially entrepreneurs who used considerable skill and flair in buying and selling currency and might experience stress but not boredom. In contrast the work of the exchange department was the routine of controlling paperwork. Management believed that the existing functional organization of work was not making the best use of the talents of the female staff. The Job Satisfaction Working Party was soon underway with its task of designing a new work system. One member was given responsibility for liaising with Brian and the other systems analysts who were not formal members of the working party. Their role was to implement the new technical system and assist with the implementation of the new organization of work. The first task of the working party was to gather information which could be used to make an accurate analysis of efficiency and job satisfaction problems. The information required was of four kinds. First, they needed a detailed description of the present work organization of the department to enable the problems that were impairing efficiency to be clearly identified. Second, a clarification of the exchange department’s mission was required. Why did it exist? What was it there to achieve? Third, they needed an understanding of the critical success factors that related to the successful achievement of this mission. It was agreed that the mission was to provide an excellent administrative back-up to the dealing room so that dealers and customers received accurate information on the state of customer accounts as soon as possible. Fourth, information on job satisfaction needs and problems had to be collected and a judgment made of the extent to which the existing system met Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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or did not meet these needs. This information was acquired by means of a questionnaire, completed by all exchange department staff. The data were analysed by two of the clerks and one of the systems analysts. Brian was chosen for this task. The analysis of the data was then fed back to the staff and discussed in small groups. The questionnaire answers reinforced the belief that the clerical work was too routine. The clerks wanted more challenge and the opportunity to obtain a greater sense of achievement from work. They also said that their work should provide them with better opportunities to develop their skills and knowledge and that they should be given more personal responsibility. And they wanted more opportunity to develop their own work methods, to take decisions and to have a degree of personal autonomy. This last need would, they suggested, be assisted through each clerk having the opportunity to see a piece of work through from start to finish without having to pass it on to a colleague. Finally they requested more information from the systems analysts on how the new on-line system could be developed so as to improve both efficiency and job satisfaction. The working party considered all this information with great care and began to examine a number of alternative ways of reorganizing the department that would improve efficiency and increase job satisfaction. Two alternatives seemed worth considering. These were (1) eliminating functional divisions and organizing the department around the flow of work and (2) dividing up the department into groups based on currencies. The first alternative would increase efficiency by producing a smoother flow of work, but it would be difficult to control and could lead to staff dissatisfaction, as there would be no groups with which individual clerks could identify. The second alternative, division by currency, was the one chosen. The dealing room was already organized into currency blocks and it was logical to organize the exchange department in the same way. This would give work variety to staff, since within each currency block all types of transactions would be processed. It would also give a sense of group identity to the members of each currency section. Also the supervision and control of such a system would be relatively easy. Once they had made their choice, the design group next had to set out the detail of this new form of organization. It was decided that a multiskilled group structure would be the best, with each member trained to handle all the tasks of the group, from input through to the final check before documents were dispatched. This would increase the interest of work and also enable each clerk Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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to start a deal and take responsibility for all the tasks associated with its passage through the system. The approach would also increase the clerk’s knowledge, experience and responsibility. The design group also made recommendations about the environment of the department and about training and implementation procedures. Brian helped the working party as much as he could to realise their ideas for a new work organization. He was also able to reassure them that their proposals would fit with the technical requirements of the new system. Once implemented, senior management was delighted with the new arrangement of work. The head of the Foreign Exchange Department said that the reorganization of work into currency groups had achieved the dual aims of increasing efficiency and enriching the work of the clerks. Many could now be upgraded because of their increased responsibilities. Brian saw the whole exercise as an excellent learning experience for his role as a systems analyst. If the Lloyds Bank International clerks could rethink their methods of working and increase both their efficiency and job satisfaction, couldn’t other bank clerks do the same? He was determined to encourage other systems analysts and clerks to try the same approach.

HOW WAS WORK CHANGED? In this book we are particularly interested in establishing how work changed as a result of changes in technology. The Martins Bank experience shows that the early computer systems had mixed consequences for staff. On the whole, male staff gained from the new opportunities they presented, and the large redundancies they had feared did not materialise until many years later. Female staff were not so lucky. They were given the new punch operating jobs that created tape or cards for the new computers. This led to a considerable degradation of their work situation. They were now tied to machines that required their full attention and prevented them from talking to their neighbours. The work was boring, monotonous and prone to errors, either made by the operators or by faulty machines. They felt that instead of being customerfriendly bank clerks doing a professional job, they had become machinists, similar to those found on many factory shop-floors. The Lloyds Bank International experience was rather different. Here the introduction of a new computer system was used positively and intelligently as a means for improving both the efficiency and the job satisfaction of the exchange department clerks. The work situation was enhanced by the introduction of the new on-line system, which was recognised by management as providing an excellent opportunity for a socio-technical approach. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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LESSONS TO BE LEARNED What can we learn from Mary’s experience with Martins Bank’s new computer system and from Brian’s experience as a systems analyst with Lloyds Bank International? There are a number of simple and, with hindsight, obvious lessons to be drawn from the negative experience of the Martins clerks. These are that new technology often causes anxiety and is seen by staff as threatening rather than friendly. New machines are vulnerable to breakdown, while promised delivery and operational dates are frequently not met by suppliers. Staff morale suffers through anxiety made worse by a lack of information from management on what is going to happen and how they will personally be affected. Good communication is essential and if it does not exist it will be replaced by rumour. In Martins, information was not provided because management did not have it themselves and did not know where to find it. In other situations, information is often not provided for different reasons. Management may want to keep a new strategy secret because they do not wish their competitors to know what they are doing or to scare their staff unnecessarily. Also they may have been on the receiving end of powerful marketing talk from the vendors and have a quite unrealistic expectation of what the system can do and how easy it will be to operate. To avoid these problems, managements installing new systems are advised first to find out the facts for themselves; second, to pass these on to their staff as soon as possible; and third, to create situations where they can be openly and honestly discussed. The first question most staff ask when hearing that a new computer system is to be introduced is, How will it affect me and my job? As a general rule the promises of computer vendors should be received with skepticism and attempts made to find other banks or firms which are using the same system and have had it installed for some time. These are the groups from whom useful and honest information can be obtained. Unfortunately, new users are often reluctant to ask more experienced users for their advice. There is a “we can manage and don’t need help” attitude in many firms. There can also be a lack of awareness of staff anxiety or even a disregard for this. The erroneous belief is that all will be solved by the new technology. While Martins Bank was an example of the problems experienced by a new computer user with recently developed technology, Lloyds Bank International was an example of how to handle change in a systematic, democratic and effective way. Many banks later followed its example and introduced new systems using a similar people-friendly approach. Lloyds Bank International provides the following guidelines for managers wishing to create systems that are good in both technical and human terms. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Organization and Technology Objective To achieve an improved, flexible work organization and technology. This will be a product of a systems design which caters for efficiency, user interests and needs, and the ability to assimilate future change. Policies An acceptance by senior management that flexibility and a socio-technical approach are worthwhile objectives, the benefits of which will outweigh any costs. The communication of these policies to the rest of the firm. Strategies The achievement of the principal objective is itself a systems design problem and needs appropriate social and technical strategies at the design stage. Resources The design of a system that caters for technical and human needs must require more thought and analysis than the design of a purely technical system. Systems analysts who have some knowledge of human needs in work will be better able to cope with such an approach. Reactions Management should be aware that efforts to introduce major change are often met with anxiety and hostility. The people concerned may feel very threatened. They may not wish to have to give up established ways of behaving and valued relationships. Change is always a journey into the unknown. It implies a commitment to future events that are not entirely predictable and to their consequences. These are likely to cause considerable anxiety and stress, especially at the time the change is taking place (Menzies Lyth, 1960). Constraints The design of a socio-technical system is more complex and therefore takes longer. The purely technically trained systems analyst may find this approach very difficult. Senior management must accept a socio-technical approach as a worthwhile endeavour. Two other important positive lessons came from the project. The first was that a socio-technical approach can as easily be applied to clerical as to shopCopyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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floor work. The early socio-technical experiments had all been in industrial situations and even the socio-technical pioneers were unsure if it could be applied to the work of white-collar staff. The second was that the introduction of new office technology can provide a splendid opportunity for improving the administration of a department and the job satisfaction of the staff who worked there. The other European countries that participated in the research had results similar to those of Martins and Lloyds Bank International. The Scandinavian banks adopted a participative strategy similar to that of Lloyds Bank with considerable success; the others used the more conventional approach of leaving change to the systems analysts. This was usually less successful. The French, for example, found that while most of their bank staff were proud to work in the banking sector, very few enjoyed their jobs. The early fears of clerical redundancy proved groundless everywhere, and as banking was expanding in all countries, staff displacement by technology was unusual. If any occurred these staff were easily absorbed elsewhere in the bank. This project had a considerable spin-off as it encouraged banks in all the participating countries to continue with research into the job satisfaction and quality of working life of their staff.

METHODS FOR THE FUTURE I also realised that there was a need for a simple methodology to help clerks and other design group members to analyse their own work and job satisfaction needs and come up with some appropriate and viable solutions. I decided to develop this and to call the method ETHICS, standing for effective, technical and human implementation of computer-based systems. ETHICS was seen as an appropriate name as I believed involving users in the design of their own work systems was an ethical approach and also an important part of the socio-technical philosophy. (ETHICS is described in detail in the Appendix to this book.)

REFERENCES Baker, E. F. (1964). Technology and woman’s work. New York: Columbia. Bird, P. J. (1994). Leo: The first business computer. Guilford, UK: Hasler. Burnard, G. (1982). Via focal problems. London: Leadership Ltd. Menzies Lyth, I. (1960). Social systems in defense against anxiety. Human Relations, 13, 95-121. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Mumford, E. (1981). Values, technology and work. London: Martinus Nijhoff. Mumford, E., & Banks, O. (1967). The computer and the clerk. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Otway, H. J., & Peltu, M. (1983). New office technology: Human and organizational aspects. London: Pinter. Pava, C. H. (1983). Managing new office technology: An organizational strategy. New York: Collier Macmillan. Sackman, H. (1967). Computers Systems Science and Evolving Society. New York: Wiley. Storey, J. (2001). Managing innovation. In S. Crainer & D. Dearlove (Eds.), Financial Times Handbook of Management. London: Prentice Hall, pp. 616-626.


Involving Employees in Design: Rolls Royce 129

Chapter 8

Involving Employees in Design: Rolls Royce O brave new world, that has such people in’t! Shakespeare, The Tempest

INTRODUCTION This chapter moves away from a concentration on the “what” to do and focuses on the “how” to do it. An important strategic decision at the start of any change project is how it is to be managed. The options here range from letting the technical suppliers assume a management role. This is often done with software venders when the purchasers have a poor understanding of the new technology, but it can be a high-risk strategy. Another option is to let specialist groups or management take responsibility for bringing in the new system. This can often result in a system that works well for management but less well for other groups. The approach I recommend is the democratic one of giving a large degree of responsibility for the organizational design and implementation of the new system to the future users. The case studies which come next will show how this can be done.


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PARTICIPATIVE DESIGN— THE USERS TAKE OVER An early project that confirmed my belief in democratic design took place in a firm that made building products called TAC. Consultative participation was used here, leaving the final decisions on how a new work system should be designed and jobs restructured with the traditional systems design group, but ensuring that there was a great deal of consultation and discussion with staff at every level in the user department. In TAC the work of a department dealing with customer orders was being changed from a batch computer system to a real-time application, and this was seen by the systems design team, who were computer technologists, as providing an opportunity for increasing both efficiency and job satisfaction through the redesign of work. At the start of the TAC project, there was a considerable amount of informal consultation, and primarily as a result of the systems analysts’ own ideas of what would constitute an efficient form of work organization, it was decided to split the department into two groups, with one group responsible for data preparation and the other for handling customers’ orders. But, before this decision was made, at the request of the systems group I asked all the department staff to complete a questionnaire on how job satisfaction could be improved. I handed this out to each clerk myself and at the same time casually suggested that they should think about ways in which work and morale could be improved. The systems analysts next called a meeting to describe their proposed new departmental structure, which they believed would work well, but I, and they, now had a surprising and, for me, very defining experience. When the proposal of a dual structure department was put to the clerks by the systems team it was immediately rejected. A spokesperson for the clerks told the meeting that the informal discussions that had taken place, together with the questionnaire, had led them to do a great deal of thinking about the nature of their work problems and their own job satisfaction needs. As a result of this, they had recognised that an aspect of work that led to inefficiency and mental stress was the constant bombardment of demands and complaints from customers. They had therefore worked out their own solution and wanted to tell the meeting about this. They argued that the proposal put forward by the systems analysts would not alleviate this problem while, at the same time, it would create a data preparation group whose work was extremely routine and dull. Their alternative suggestion was the formation of a number of small, multiskilled groups in which all the clerks shared the data preparation and customer service tasks.



The systems designers, recognising that it was their own consultation initiative that had stimulated this response, were delighted to agree to the clerks’ request, and an autonomous group structure was created which worked very successfully with the new computer system. This clerical initiative made a great impression on me. The clerks had decided to solve the change problem themselves. They had been given the opportunity to analyse their own problems and through doing this they had thought through their own difficulties and needs. As a result, they were able to produce an improved form of organization for their own work and for the work of the department as a whole. The form of work organization eventually selected was that decided by the clerks themselves. It was based on an autonomous group structure, with small groups of five or six clerks responsible for all tasks associated with handling a customer’s order and dealing with customer problems. This early project had a very powerful influence on my subsequent thinking. I learned that almost any intelligent group can contribute to the design of their own work situation and can often do this better than an expert group.

ROLLS ROYCE AERO ENGINE DIVISION AND PARTICIPATIVE DESIGN After TAC I was privileged to be able to assist Rolls Royce, Britain’s largest manufacturer of aircraft engines. Rolls Royce Aero Engine Division was one of my early participative design projects. I had been invited several times to give talks to the systems design group on involving users in design, and in 1976 I was invited to assist with the introduction of a new computer system into the Purchase Invoice Department. This department handled invoices from all Rolls Royce suppliers. The purpose of this case study is to show some of the processes of participative design as seen by one of the clerks who was a member of the design group. The approach used in Rolls Royce included both representative and consensus design, both already described in Chapter 3. Representative design requires a design group to be elected or selected which is representative of all staff likely to be affected. If a new computer system is being introduced, this will also include the systems analysts. The departmental manager may or may not be a member of the design team, depending on his or her own wishes, and external experts may be consulted as advisers. Technical change such as the introduction of a new computer system, can, as we have seen, be used as an opportunity to improve efficiency and job satisfaction Representative participation has the advantage that clerks and systems analysts work together on Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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equal terms as part of the design team. It has the disadvantage that it assumes representatives really do represent the interests of their constituents and this may not always be the case. Consensus design takes the democratic approach further by attempting to involve all staff in the user areas continuously throughout the systems design process. The role of the design group using a consensus approach is twofold: it will have to work on the creation of a new form of work organization while continually receiving and giving ideas from and to departmental colleagues. It will also have to allow the final decisions to be taken by all members of the user departments, not just the design group. It is these two approaches which will be described in the case study that follows. A description of what happened during the project is provided by a clerical member of the design group, Hilary Jones (Mumford, 1990; Mumford & Henshall, 1979).

HILARY JONES’ STORY Hilary Jones gave me her version of the project in some detail from the point of view of a member of the design group. She explained: I had been working in an office in Manchester but had acquired a boyfriend in Derby. I decided to move closer to him and to try and find a job in the Rolls Royce Aero Engine plant located there. I was very pleased to be offered one in the firm’s Purchase Invoice Department. This was a department that cleared invoices for payment to suppliers who supported the Rolls Royce factories in the vicinity of Derby. These invoices covered anything from engine parts to bills for window cleaning. It was closely associated with the Rolls Royce Treasurer’s Department, which held the bought ledger and paid the accounts of the whole of the Derby Engine Group. The work of the two departments was closely related but they were under separate management because of the different scope of their responsibilities and for audit security reasons. Although I was happy to be near my boyfriend, I did not like my new job very much. I was the youngest person in a department of 50 elderly clerks, many of whom were fed up with work and anxious to move into retirement. This group was called the Commercial and Experimental Invoice Section and had a section leader and 12 clerks. My job was to check that the suppliers’ invoices handled by my section conformed to the purchase order and that the goods and services had actually been received. This was boring and routine. It was made worse through each section being organized into four grades of clerk, with the bottom grade, of which I was one, carrying out very simple tasks associated with a certain kind of invoice. Because of the routine nature of the work and Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


the elderly workforce, the Purchase Invoice Department had difficulty in recruiting clerks, and young people like myself were reluctant to go there. Job satisfaction was very low, a fact that the departmental manager was unhappy about, although most staff were proud to tell the outside world that Rolls Royce was their employer. I found that the department had a computer system to handle the accounts function and was proposing to introduce a more advanced on-line system to speed up the work process. I was told that this new system would control the bought ledger and mechandise the cheque issue and remittance routines. Its on-line nature meant that it could help the Purchase Invoice Department to answer queries and trace documents more rapidly than with the existing system.

Learning About a New Approach I found these proposed changes frightening and confusing. Although my brother Robert was at university doing a computer science degree, I knew nothing about computers and was not particularly interested in becoming involved with them. I certainly didn’t want to become one of the new data preparation clerks, a job that seemed both tiring and boring. But I did not yet know that Rolls Royce was about to embark on a new approach to the design and implementation of computer systems. I was soon to find out. I discovered that the systems Design Group at Rolls Royce had been interested for some time in broadening their approach to the design of new systems so as to take more account of the efficiency and job satisfaction needs of the staff using these systems. The proposed purchase invoice system provided an opportunity to try out these ideas in practice. The systems manager, Don Henshall, had decided that this was the way he wanted to proceed. He recognised that his first step must be to create a design group from the staff in the Purchase Invoice Department and a steering group from senior management and the trade union. The steering group would oversee and guide the project. I was told that Don Henshall and Roy Williams, the two systems managers who were responsible for introducing the new work system, had decided that all staff in the department should play a role in its design. The clerks would be asked for their opinions and to suggest how the work system could be improved. Their first step had been to get top management and trade union approval for this democratic approach. This had been willingly given and a number of senior managers, together with the company medical officer and the trade union official, who worked full time on trade union affairs and had his salary paid by the company, agreed to form the steering group for the project. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Becoming a Member of the Design Group I now became a part of the project because I was selected to act as a member of the design group. I was told that this was to consist of representatives from each work section, from each job grade, from each age group, and from men and women. In its final form it would contain six clerical representatives. Four from the purchase invoice clerks, one from the data preparation section in the Purchase Invoice Department, and one from the Treasurer’s Department. Two systems analysts from the Accounting Systems Department would have responsibility for the design of the computer-based part of the new work system. Don Henshall, the systems manager, accounting, would act as an internal consultant. The role of the new group was to design a new system of work around the new computer system. At first I did not understand what was going on. What was this new committee for and why had I been made a member of it? It was all very puzzling and rather disturbing. The other members of the group were equally confused and no better informed. How could we design a new system of work? We had no experience of doing this or of operating a new computer system. Was this a cunning plot by Rolls Royce management to persuade us to accept without protest new work practices that would make work harder and more demanding, not easier? Our suspicions grew. They were only partly removed by a meeting organized by Don Henshall to explain what the project was all about. He said that management hoped that the new system would improve efficiency, job satisfaction and morale and that they also believed that this could best be achieved by involving the staff of the Purchase Invoice Department in the design task. He told us that the design group would be asked to make a diagnosis of efficiency and job satisfaction needs, set clear efficiency and job satisfaction goals for the new system, and consider a number of alternative approaches for achieving these. The role of the steering group would be to provide encouragement and advice to the design group. Unfortunately, our mistrust of management intentions was not removed by this explanation, and puzzlement and nervousness increased. How were we going to do any of these things? And, did we want to do them anyway? Why should we do management’s work for them?

Gaining Confidence Despite Suspicion Don Henshall suggested that we should move into the new task gradually by spending two days on a training course which would help us see how work requirements could be analysed and new, alternative ways of organizing the department examined. This exercise proved interesting and enjoyable, and I Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


began to think that we were being asked to undertake something that was both possible and useful. After the training course, the design group meetings began in earnest. Don Henshall chaired the first two but soon handed over the chairmanship of the group to one of our members who represented senior clerks. However things were by no means entirely straightforward. Although I was starting to enjoy my new “design” role, I found that I was being viewed with suspicion by some of my department colleagues. They asked, “Why have you been chosen and not others?” There was even an unpleasant suggestion that it might be because I and the other members of the design group were more likely to be “yes” men than their colleagues. Although I and the other clerks gradually became increasingly interested and enthusiastic about our new role, all the problems did not go away. Three were causing particular difficulty. First, the suspicions of the other members of the department were still there. The systems manager now brought all the members of the department together in small groups and carefully explained to them the reason for the project and how it was to be carried out. But the purchase invoice staff could not believe that management was really permitting them to design their own new system of work. This had never happened in the company before; why should it happen now? I, as a member of the design group, had great difficulty in providing a reassuring explanation. Second, the members of the group had been selected by management and not elected by the department as a whole. This meant that for some time we continued to be seen as “management favourites.” Third, the design group initially decided to meet for an hour each morning. Such short meetings meant that the group had difficulty in making headway with the design task. It had to be changed to meeting for an entire morning once a week.

Involving all Clerks in the Project I realised that my new role was causing problems when one of the other members of the design group had a birthday. In the past, whenever her birthday arrived, her departmental colleagues had given her a birthday cake. This year no cake was given. She was in tears. This seemed to be a sign of the Purchase Invoice’s unhappiness with the project. As a group, they were not being sufficiently involved. The design group decided to do something about this. I and the other members each agreed to take responsibility for involving a group of clerks more fundamentally in the design process. We wanted to find out two things: the kinds of problems that staff saw as reducing the efficiency of the department and the good and bad aspects of work that were providing or impeding job satisfaction. I asked the clerks I was responsible for if they would Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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be willing to complete two questionnaires, one on efficiency and one on job satisfaction. I told them that the results of these would then be discussed with them in small groups to see if they could suggest where improvements could be made. The design group now spent some time agreeing the questions that should be asked, designing the questionnaires and handing them out to the different groups of clerks. I found that my group had a lot of problems. These included invoice mistakes made by the supplier and mistakes made by other Rolls Royce departments such as Stores. There were also problems internal to the department such as irregular output from the data preparation section which caused work delays in other sections. The job satisfaction questionnaire showed clearly that job satisfaction in the department was poor. Work was seen as too narrow and routine, while many of the existing work procedures caused a great deal of frustration. When I discussed the questionnaire results with my group of clerks, I found that they had strong views on how job satisfaction could be improved. These included more opportunities to use their skills and knowledge, wider responsibilities, and the opportunity to handle difficult problems themselves instead of passing them on to supervision. The majority of clerks wanted more challenging work, although in the small group discussion it became apparent that there was a small group in the department who liked simple, routine work and did not want the stress of more responsible jobs.

Enjoyment Turns to Anxiety I was now greatly enjoying being a member of the design group. It was giving me a new insight into work and how it could be organized and new skills in helping others to discuss problems and look for solutions. I felt that I was learning a great deal. Unfortunately my good feelings did not last. Shortly after the discussions with the clerks, the morale of the design group suddenly slumped. We all became confused and unsure of what to do next. We had found that not all clerks wanted their jobs improved and most clerks liked some aspects of their work. Also, some of the clerks still showed hostility to the design group and, because of this, two of its members resigned. I also became anxious and uncertain. Fortunately Don Henshall, the systems manager, now came to the rescue and gave us some help on how to analyse the questionnaire data and sort out the more relevant information from the less relevant. He also suggested that the design group send out another, very short questionnaire to all the clerks. This asked two questions. First, “Do you want us to go ahead with the job design exercise? Yes or No?” Second, “If yes, please state why.” A Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


majority of the clerks said that they wanted the project to continue. Their reasons were that they hoped it would lead to more interesting jobs and to more opportunities for moving up the job grades. The purchase invoice supervisor also had a talk with us and encouraged us to continue with the project. His intervention, together with the positive questionnaire responses, raised my morale and that of the design group and encouraged us to continue with our work.

Development Stages in the Project It seemed to me that the design group had now passed through a number of different stages in its development role. These were surprise at being asked to contribute, interest in the proposed project, uncertainty about what we could and should do, a loss of confidence, then, finally, a restoration of confidence and a determination to succeed. Over the same period my purchase invoice colleagues had moved from suspicion of management’s intentions to interest in what was taking place and a desire for it to continue. We, the design group, were now considering two alternative ways of proceeding. One was to think about an “ideal” system; the best way, in theory, of organizing the department so as to achieve high efficiency and high job satisfaction. This ideal would be modified as real-world constraints were identified. These constraints would probably relate to the conflicting needs of other Rolls Royce departments and of the suppliers who sent the invoices. An alternative was a “building bricks” approach. This would involve our examining problems and needs in turn, seeing how these could be overcome or met, and gradually evolving an improved form of work organization. We decided to adopt the “ideal” approach as it was thought this would assist more radical thinking. The “building bricks” approach had the danger of merely “polishing up” the existing departmental organization and methods of work. However we all realised that there was a challenging and difficult task ahead. During this early information-gathering period, the technical staff assisting the design group were evaluating the technical structure of the new computer system to ensure that it really would contribute to improved efficiency. They told us that it needed to be able to do the following: Make documents such as purchase invoices and goods received more accessible because they were now on the system and not located in filing cabinets. Remove “boundary” problems between Purchase Invoice and the Treasurer’s Department and give feedback on targets and how well they were being achieved. The system should also help all clerks develop new clerical skills through the introduction of a more complex work system. The need to learn new skills should also give the clerks a feeling Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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of increased status. In addition, from management’s point of view, departmental overheads would be reduced, the service to suppliers would be improved, there would be better management control, and easier access to information meant that a better job would be done. The systems analysts saw their role as to help us, the design group, cope with the diagnostic information and develop diagnostic and design skills. But we would take all the major decisions for the new system. I, once again, began to enjoy being a member of the design group and looked forward to each weekly meeting. Considerable progress was now being made. After examining all the tasks performed by purchase invoice clerks, we agreed on three possible ways of reorganizing the department.

Design Alternatives Alternative 1 was to split the Purchase Invoice Department into a number of autonomous groups. Each group would take responsibility for all the activities associated with handling the accounts and problems of a group of suppliers. A group would consist of six clerks, each of whom would be able to perform all the tasks for which the group was responsible. The existing grading structure of the department would be removed and all clerks would eventually become the same grade. Grading would be based on job knowledge, and everyone who wished to do so would be able to acquire this knowledge. With this proposal, group members would become multiskilled and Grade 4, the highest clerical grade. They were now responsible, as a group, for handling all the problems associated with servicing a group of suppliers. The design group documented this idea, circulated it to all the clerks in the department and asked for their reaction. It was not very favourably received. The purchase invoice clerks felt that too much training was involved in the “everyone doing everything” approach. They also thought the fact that all staff would end up as Grade 4 would not be acceptable to Rolls Royce. The wage bill would go up. But the most serious objections came from the senior clerks who saw the proposal as threatening their interests. They did not want their own jobs altered and did not approve of new, relatively inexperienced clerks such as me moving into 4 Grade jobs. We went back and tried again. Alternative 2 was a modification of the existing work system with the department organized in the same functional way but with an enrichment of the jobs of the lower-grade clerks. This was the group with the least job satisfaction. I was one of these. The Grade 2 “marking off” job of checking invoices against goods-received notes would be improved Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


through adding a number of additional tasks. These included handling queries from suppliers and Goods Received, making discrepancy reports when there was a difference between invoices and goods received, and a number of other tasks. This arrangement would give Grade 2 clerks Grade 3 status. But this arrangement was objected to because it did not improve much on the existing situation. We tried once again. I now realised that the design group members were becoming quite expert in analysing work and suggesting alternative forms of organization. This was no longer difficult and threatening. They were confident in what they were doing and believed they knew how to redesign work systems. Alternative 3 was a compromise between alternatives 1 and 2. We decided to spend some time on this and to work it out in detail before presenting it to all the clerks. Alternative 3 combined alternatives 1 and 2. The majority of staff would be organized in self-managing groups as in 1. In addition there would be a service group responsible for handling mail and for other activities common to all groups. The work of the service group would be routine, but we were now well aware that a small number of staff did not want the responsibility of more complex tasks. Some variety could be introduced into their work through job rotation. There would also be a small specialist group of high-grade clerks who would look after specialist suppliers and activities. This would meet the needs of a group of senior clerks who were extremely reluctant to change their present role and responsibilities.

Choosing a Solution We now arranged a meeting between the design group and the steering group at which the three options would be described. I was delighted to be asked to be one of the presenters at this. For the first time ever, I would both meet and communicate with a group of senior managers. For their part, the steering group was greatly impressed by the presentation and somewhat amazed that a group of clerks could evolve such a sophisticated solution to the reorganization problem and present their arguments for it so clearly. The reaction of the steering group was that both design options 1 and 3 were an improvement of the present work situation and they were willing to leave the choice to the purchase invoice clerks. The following week we presented the three alternatives to our own departmental colleagues, with a recommendation that Alternative 3 should be accepted. The systems manager and the chairman of the trade union branch were both present at this meeting. A vote was taken and Alternative 3 was Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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selected by a majority of around 40, with four clerks voting against and a number abstaining.

Looking Back I later discussed the design exercise with Alan Swift, the clerk who had been made chairman of the design group. I told him I had found some aspects of the project stressful; had it been a happy and fulfilling experience for him? He told me, “I felt it was like learning to drive a car. The first few lessons were exciting and I looked forward to them with anticipation, but after a while it became hard work and a feeling of dread used to come over me before each session. However, once I had mastered the techniques involved, it all came together and it became easy. It was just the same during the development of our new system, anticipation, dread, then understanding and ease. The reason for my dread was the occasional bad atmosphere in the department, which was due to several causes. The first problem arose when the management selected the team, although it would have been difficult to elect people because of the need to have a representative group that contains the right mix of people. This was followed by another problem, and that was that we, the design group, became a separate group from the department. This caused a great deal of hostility towards us, although I experienced none of it personally. The two people who left the design group in the early stages of the project left because they could not take the hostility, not because they had no interest in the project.” “Another major cause of anxiety was the conflict between the older people who had worked a number of years in the department and the younger people, some of whom had only worked a few months in the job. The older people thought that the young people would be able to dictate to them through the suggested new work system. They could not grasp that each work group would be a mix of people.” I agreed with him about the problems, pointing out that as well as the hostile atmosphere, we had other difficulties to cope with. At first we did not understand that we had the knowledge to reorganize our own work, and we were frustrated because we were not getting any help from the analysts. We expected them to tell us about the computer system and we did not appreciate that it could be fitted into the form of work structure we chose. We might have avoided some conflict by having less feedback to the department in the early stages. Perhaps we could have got out three alternatives quite quickly and then let people modify these. We found that feeding back information from the start was restrictive because we were always taking possible objections into account. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


I too did not like the conflict and dreaded Friday mornings when we were halfway through the project, but I got used to it and when we made the two presentations I was completely confident. However, if one forgets the hostility, I very much enjoyed the design exercise and learned a lot from it. I shall certainly be able to look at a new system critically in the future and identify organizational and job satisfaction problems.

THE VIEWS OF DON HENSHALL, THE SYSTEMS MANAGER Don Henshall now joined in the discussion, saying, “I felt that the participative approach to systems design was not without its ups and downs. There were problems in passing over skills to non-system-trained people, problems with relationships between the design team and the remainder of their colleagues, and problems with the systems analysts changing their role from leaders to listeners. However, apart from the ongoing debate on whether it is right for one group to design work systems for another, there are sound economic reasons for pursuing a participative approach. The people with the greatest knowledge of the existing formal work system, and the people also with the most knowledge of the informal system, are the people best able to understand, design and operate that system.” And so, here we have three views of the project from a member of the design group; the chairman of the group, who was a senior clerk; and the systems manager. Here are my views as a facilitator and interested observer.

Unexpected Consequences The new system went in and was popular with management and with the clerks, and it was clear that both departmental efficiency and job satisfaction had increased. Many purchase invoice clerks were enjoying the opportunity to learn the new skills required by their more responsible roles. But the project had unexpected consequences. When I returned to Rolls Royce some 12 months later, I found that the departmental manager was not completely happy . He had now started losing some of his best staff. It turned out that this was because other departments in Rolls Royce were trying to attract them away from Purchase Invoice. Their new skills made them valuable assets. The only solution was for the manager to give them higher grades in order to retain them. He regarded this as a price well worth paying.


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What Can We Learn from Rolls Royce? One important lesson is that not all groups want job enrichment. This was forcefully brought to the design group’s attention when a group of clerks approached them and said they definitely did not want to participate in any change. On the contrary they wanted their jobs to stay exactly as they were, easy and undemanding. Further discussion provided an explanation for this strange request. The group was in fact part-time actors and they needed all their energy conserved for their evening stage performance. It was not to be squandered on the interests of Rolls Royce. From their point of view Rolls Royce was merely a means for earning some money to assist their extramural interests. Other groups in Rolls Royce had a different point of view for avoiding change. Many said that they didn’t want their work enhanced because they would find more difficult work stressful, not rewarding. They were content with what they were doing and saw anything different as frightening and threatening. Another lesson is that participative change of this kind, to be successful, requires certain capabilities and competencies. These were described briefly in the first chapter and will be discussed again here.

Capabilities were Defined as Providing the Right Environment for Successful Change to Take Place The capabilities related to successful system design at Rolls Royce included the following: Knowledge Capability The ability of internal user groups, particularly at senior management level, to understand the complexities of modern systems design and to encourage future users to play a part in this. Rolls Royce was an advanced engineering firm. Its senior managers were very familiar with systems principles as they applied to engineering. They were keen to encourage their employees to apply similar principles to organization design. And they were enthusiastic about the purchase invoice project and prepared to give time to ensuring its success. This was in contrast to some other firms where the steering group tolerated participative design but did not provide any active assistance. Resource Capability An understanding of the management skills required to create effective strategies for IT, organizational design and implementation, and good project control. Following Ross Ashby’s law of requisite variety, these skills must include technical, economic, organizational and social factors. As skills were Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


diffused within Rolls Royce this required a mix of managers to be members of the steering group. In the event, the steering group contained the purchase invoice and account managers, the personnel manager and company doctor, and the full-time trade union official. All contributed their knowledge to the project when asked to do so by the design group. Psychological Capability An ability to provide the necessary internal leadership, teamwork and good social relationships to ensure success. One manifestation of this was that a member of the steering group made himself available when the design group met in case there were queries that required a top-management viewpoint. But they did not attend the design group meetings. Organizational Capability An ability to plan and think strategically in what may be a new area, to set objectives, to deploy resources effectively, and to manage complex situations. These skills were of course very familiar to Rolls Royce. Ethical Capability An ability to create and maintain a set of ethical values regarding working practices and relations with other groups. An important socio-technical goal would be an improvement in the quality of working life for groups who will use, or be affected by, the new system. The steering group was a strong supporter of the socio-technical ethical position. They were keen to ensure that their employees had opportunities to increase their skills and responsibilities and take a more significant position in the company. These capabilities needed to be translated into the individual competencies of the design group in the following way: Knowledge Competence The ability of design group members to learn from experience and, as a result, to continually add to personal knowledge in the design area. Learning of this kind was not easy for some of the design group, and one or two found it stressful. Different members of the group showed different aptitudes. Some were good at identifying the problems in the existing system; others were excellent at the more difficult task of deciding what should go in its place. By the end of the project, all felt that they had new skills in the management of change. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Resource Competence An understanding of the kinds of personal skills that were required as a member of the design group. These included management, organizational and social skills. Social skills proved more difficult to acquire than management or organizational. Two members of the design group resigned at an early stage as they believed their fellow clerks in the Purchase Invoice Department were becoming hostile to them and to their work. Also the entire group moved through stages of considerable anxiety before the project ended on a note of considerable success. Psychological Competence An ability to work with, motivate and encourage the other members of the group, to maintain personal morale in demanding and stressful situations and to persevere with difficult problems. Clearly some of the group were better at doing this than others. I, myself, acting as a facilitator also had responsibility for keeping morale high. Organizational Competence To plan and think strategically about what each could contribute and how this fitted with the needs of the total systems design situation. Members of the group had to be aware of what they could best contribute to the analysis of work needs and the identification of new work arrangements. Innovative Competence An ability to think creatively and to approach new problems without prejudice and from different angles. Ethical Competence An understanding of, and willingness to communicate, personal ethical values where these were relevant to the needs of the project and to those concerned with it. One of the most important of these values was the recognition that people could get good results through working together as a group to improve the quality of working life for all. Good communication and a sharing of information on a fast and continuing basis with all interested participants were essential. There was no satisfactory substitute for face-to-face contact, however, and meetings to discuss policy and progress had to be regular events. This is true of all design groups today. They must be able to operate in complex and volatile environments which Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


contain many different interest groups. They have to be good at facilitating cooperation. Strategies likely to be effective, whether technical, organizational or social, will require networks of partners and contacts.

Other Useful Attributes The right capabilities, competencies and coordination facilities are essential requirements for today’s and tomorrow’s innovation, but other skills are required for successful systems design. Teamwork is also very important. With large, complex systems, good teamwork is necessary. Knowledge will need to be shared, strategies agreed and individual competencies used effectively. Lastly, motivation for both the group and the individual is essential. The systems designers and users must actively want to understand and solve the design problems and make a contribution to an effective and workable system. Effective problem solving also requires feedback and this is another concept of value to a socio-technical design team. Events must be monitored so that their impact is noted and understood. Effective feedback will provide the information to facilitate a constant adjustment of plans and actions. This adjustment will require creative responses in order to cope with new and unanticipated situations. All the projects described so far, together with many others that there is not space to include in this book, have led to an increase in knowledge for those who have participated. One important lesson is that new technology is not usually the dominant problem. More important is the need to manage change successfully to secure desired improvements. Successful change, in turn, requires confidence that solutions can be found and a belief that they are more likely to be found if the problem solvers are connected to a collection of networks which can provide many different knowledge inputs. Both Professors Ross Ashby and Stafford Beer are supporters of the notion of requisite variety. It will be remembered that they argue that “only variety can control variety” and that problem solvers must have access to the range and type of knowledge required to solve the problem. Technologists will not be able to solve social and behavioural problems without a knowledge of social and behavioural issues. The Rolls Royce project helps illustrate the fact that many countries are moving to a knowledge economy and that this is causing a change in organizational structures. There is a shift from methods that control people to democratic methods which enable people to share knowledge resources and to learn from each other. Complexity requires democracy and not control for its management. This is the lesson for the future. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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REFERENCES Mumford, E. (1990). Designing human systems. Manchester, England: Manchester Business School. Mumford, E., & Henshall, D. (1979). A participative approach to computer systems design. London: Associated Business Press.


Designing an Expert System 147

Chapter 9

Designing an Expert System Ring out the old, ring in the new. Tennyson

INTRODUCTION This chapter and case study address two important design problems. The first is the challenge presented by the task of developing systems that affect a major part of company activities—either by covering a widely dispersed function or a number of different functions. The second is the role of the group facilitator or project manager in relation to large systems design.

THE EIGHTIES Strategies which work well at one time may not be successful at another. Both culture and the business climate can change. Many researchers saw the eighties as a disappointing time for organizational innovation. Industry came under pressure to cut costs and socio-technical approaches were increasingly


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seen as expensive and risky. Computer-assisted clerical and production systems were becoming very popular and an era of what has been described as “computer-aided neo-Taylorism” arrived (Moldaschl & Weber, 1998). The work of many clerks was routinised as computers moved into offices. The office world was now changing rapidly. Front-office computing and knowledge workers came with the advent of the personal computer in the 1980s. A large number of clerical white-collar tasks were now automated, and local area networks (LANs) facilitated internal company communication. Applications directed at the new knowledge workers, who were the modern successors of the old white-collar workers, tended to concentrate on personal productivity enhancement aids such as word processing, spreadsheets, desktop publishing and graphics presentation. Unfortunately the International Quality of Working Life Council broke up at the beginning of the eighties. The original members did this with the best of intentions, believing that a new, younger group should take over and carry on developing the message. But they had paid little attention to nurturing their succession, and when they resigned, there was no younger group to take over. At the same time, interest from industry weakened as recession set in and labour shortages became a thing of the past. Both of these factors put a brake on future progress. The socio-technical initiative now became dispersed and centred on smaller groups in different countries. The Tavistock retained its influential role, projects in Scandinavia continued, Eric Trist was in the United States and Fred Emery in Australia, the American Socio-technical Round Table was created, and Federico Buttero set up a consultancy in Italy. But the international impact was now greatly reduced. No one was seriously pushing an integrated message internationally. The other influential group, the companies which had supported and implemented socio-technical ideas and structures on their shop floors, was affected in different ways. The collapse of the Quality of Working Life Council meant that little proselytising was taking place, socio-technical systems now had a lower profile, and organizational change became, for senior managers, a question of assessing alternative risks. In the seventies, risk avoidance for many companies was obtaining enough skilled labour to run their production facilities and preventing expensive industrial disputes. In the eighties and nineties it became cutting costs to compete in increasingly challenging international markets and maintaining or raising the price of their shares. Reducing costs through reducing staff numbers was one way of doing this and sociotechnical approaches to improve the quality of working life were seen as having little to offer (Mumford, 1996). Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


Although there were few socio-technical initiatives during this period, I and other researchers successfully carried out projects in North America and Europe to assist the introduction of new clerical computer systems. All of mine were participative. The future users played a major role in analysing organizational problems and rethinking the design of jobs and work processes for the departments where the new systems were to be installed. For most of these, a socio-technical model was used for managing the change. It favoured teamwork, multiskilling and a degree of self-management. My own sociotechnical-derived methodology, now called ETHICS (an acronym for effective, technical and human implementation of computer-based systems), was used for many of the projects, and a variety of different firms and users were involved (Mumford, 1995). These included large companies such as ICI, a number of major banks in Europe, and the Digital Equipment Corporation in the United States. The socio-technical approach applied to information technology, in contrast to work systems in general, was acceptable to some farsighted companies at this time, as few managers had much experience of the design of computer systems. They were prepared to hand a major part of the design task over to their subordinates. Also a number of these firms, for example, Shell International, had been keen users of socio-technical approaches in the seventies and understood what was involved. A further facilitating factor was that the technical part of a new system was invariably designed in-house. Organizational design and programming could take place side by side, with users and programmers assisting each other. Today’s practice of buying off-the-shelf technical systems would make this more difficult.

PIONEERING DESIGN AT DIGITAL Some companies operating at the frontier of technical development were now seeing the future of computing as taking over many tasks requiring sophisticated levels of knowledge. Expert systems were one of these, and the Digital Equipment Corporation in Boston, US, was a pioneer in a process which was optimistically seen as substituting the computer’s decision-taking ability for the knowledge of the human brain. One of my largest and most significant projects was the participative design of XSEL, one of Digital’s first expert systems. This was developed to assist the sales force to configure Digital’s Vax computers and was designed for worldwide implementation (Mumford & MacDonald, 1989).


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Digital, assisted by Carnegie Mellon University, which developed the prototype, jumped into this new field of knowledge engineering with both feet. Instead of commencing with one or two small projects as a learning experience, they decided to tackle straight away one of their most serious and difficult problems. This was configuring. In 1981 I was invited to give a number of seminars on participative design at the Digital Equipment Corporation in Boston, US. Digital was now moving rapidly into expert systems, and XCON, a tool to assist the accurate configuring of VAX computers in Digital’s manufacturing plants, was in the process of being built. Configuring is the process of ensuring that when a computer system is being assembled all the necessary components are present and in the correct relationship to each other. This is a demanding and complex process and before XCON existed many errors were made in the Digital sales offices. These caused a deterioration in customer relations, which sometimes led to lawsuits. Before sending a customer’s order to a manufacturing plant the salesperson has to configure the application. All the required items of equipment must be stated so that the manufacturing plant is informed of what is required and the customer is given a correct price for the system. The role of XCON was to check that the specification sent in by a salesperson was accurate before manufacturing built the system. XCON was proving so successful that Digital decided to build a similar system called XSEL (expert selling) to assist the sales staff to configure accurately.

PARTICIPATIVE DESIGN OF SOFTWARE Bruce MacDonald The newly appointed project manager for the development of XSEL was present at one of these seminars. This was Bruce MacDonald, who until he recently joined Digital was the headmaster of a Boston school. Digital had appointed him because the engineering department thought his management experience would be valuable. They were reluctant to give the development of a dramatic new product such as an expert system to their computer department, which was regarded as having got caught in a rut. Bruce was already convinced that he wanted XSEL to be designed participatively. He believed the sales force would not accept it unless it was. Unlike the engineers in the manufacturing plants, most salespeople had little technical knowledge. In recent years



Digital had hired them for their sales and business knowledge. Bruce was looking for a method that would help him to convince them of the value of an expert system. He decided that the ETHICS methodology was the one to use (see the Appendix). This meant that participative design was now being used for the technical process of developing software rather than for organizational improvements. His first step was to set up a formal participation structure and create a design group from the XSEL technical project team, who were located in Digital’s Intelligent Systems Group (IStG), and from the future users of the system, who were sales staff located in the many sales offices through out the United States. Clearly all of these could not attend design meetings and so a representative group would have to be created. He sent a letter to all the sales offices describing the participative philosophy that was to be associated with the building of XSEL. He explained that the role of the user design group would be to integrate organizational, human, technical and task-related factors into the design process in a formal and organized manner. He also explained his own role as project manager and facilitator. He would assist the group to define agenda items, keep focused on its task, ask critical questions, mediate conflict and ensure that systems objectives and time targets were met. His intention was to keep the user design group small, but he found that at the first meeting he had 24 people present, 16 from the sales offices and eight from IStG.

The Digital Philosophy In 1975, when Bruce took up his post at Digital, his immediate need was to get an understanding of Digital’s culture and work practices. His first impressions were very positive. Digital staff seemed to be extremely active. There was a great deal of rushing round—of identifying problems, coming up with solutions and then implementing these. Everyone seemed enthusiastic and dedicated to the interests of the company. He found that Digital wanted leaders and innovators, and the kind of employees that could learn and go on learning. He appreciated that Digital respected its employees and that their views were both sought and acted upon. The company also approved of, and nurtured, its “insubordinate minority,” an awkward group that continually questioned and challenged what it was doing. Bruce, as a newcomer to the firm, was given a booklet called “Representing Digital.” This described the kind of company Digital was striving to be in terms of honesty, profit, quality, responsibility and


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management. It was a stirring document. On “honesty” it said, “When we make a commitment to our customers or to employees, we feel an obligation to see it happens.” On “quality”: “Our goal is to be a quality organization and do a quality job, which means we will be proud of our product and of our work for years to come.” On “management”: “Meeting financial targets is only one measure of a plan; other measures are satisfied customers, development of people, meeting long-range needs of the corporation, development of new products, opening new markets, and meeting commitments made to others in the company.” These ideas were very much the values and objectives of Ken Olsen, who had started the company with his brother in 1956. In 1982 he told a meeting of the Newcomen Society in Boston: Computers are making work more interesting, making it more fun, making it more satisfying. That’s the business we’re in— we’re having more fun at it than ever before, and there is no end in sight. An important part of Bruce’s project management role, as he saw it, was to assist the sales force to make a contribution to the development of the new system. In order to do this, they must be involved in the design processes. Bruce wanted to make them responsible for specifying what they required from the new system. The knowledge engineering group, who was responsible for technical design, would then translate these needs into a working system. XSEL needed to be both accurate and helpful, and only the future users of the system could define what they meant by helpful. It must also be easy to learn because a busy salesperson was not going to have the time to read a long manual on how to use it. Bruce’s first step when he joined Digital was to visit a number of the sales offices to see if the sales force was prepared to become involved in the design of XSEL. He found that they were. He sent a letter to all the sales offices explaining: The plan for XSEL is that the product will be built with the fullest possible involvement of the users in the design of the program. This is being implemented in the United States through the User Design Group, made up of salespersons and members of the XSEL staff. Our intention in establishing such a group is to utilise the skills and knowledge of the sales force. We are doing this to



show our commitment to meeting the real needs of the users of the XSEL programme, to provide the design team with knowledge of the salesperson’s job satisfaction needs and to build up a sense of ownership of XSEL within the sales force. In the letter he gave a description of the proposed composition of the user design group. This would have the following members. •

• •

A Convenor/Facilitator. I will fill this role and act in a manner similar to that of an outside consultant. I will help define agenda items, keep the group focused on its task, ask critical questions, mediate conflict, and ensure that the group meets its work objectives and time targets. Representatives of the sales community. These will form a majority of the group and should come from the sales offices chosen to test the prototype XSEL programme. Technical designers. These will include representatives from the development group at Carnegie Mellon and from the configuration group at Tewksbury.

Bruce said that at the same time as writing this letter, he had also sent a letter to interested groups in Europe, telling them about XSEL and asking for their future help and cooperation. He had hoped to keep the size of the user design group small, perhaps not more than eight members. But he found this impossible to achieve. Far more people wanted to attend.

The User Design Group Meets The first meeting of the user design group was to be held on 31 November 1981. The day before, Bruce talked to me about his anxieties. He said: I feel very uncertain about the meeting tomorrow. Quite confused and as if I am in a state of unreality. I hardly know what XSEL is, yet I am supposed to be the project manager, and this sounds important. I have just been crawling around the conference room on my hands and knees with a screwdriver installing jacks for the phones. This has made me wonder how acting as an electrician and porter fits in with my grand purpose of meeting the users and helping them to create a major new piece of software. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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The next day he was still anxious and went into the meeting with a number of major concerns. He was worried that the sales force would reject the idea of XSEL altogether, seeing it as irrelevant to their main concern of “selling.” He also thought they might reject the approach of building XSEL as a front end for XCON—a tool to solve a manufacturing problem. And he was afraid they would see XSEL as potentially threatening since it might automate the whole task of selecting and configuring a computer system. Bruce felt XSEL could rob the technically oriented salesperson of the pleasure of configuring systems. In 1981 many of Digital’s salespeople had technical degrees or had done engineering work before moving into sales. Also, he knew that many of Digital’s customers were very technically oriented, and that many salespeople enjoyed talking “bits and bytes,” as well as cables, x slots, vectors and addresses. Bruce had other anxieties. The XSEL development process was already underway, for the IStG team had commenced work six months earlier. Would the sales force resent not being asked to participate at the very beginning of the project? He was also concerned about the use of the ETHICS methodology (see the Appendix). He knew that it had been successfully applied in the UK. He also knew that it had been used in a different context, one in which clerical workers had designed the elements of a work system, into which a new application would be embedded, but had not designed the new technical application itself. He thought the user design group members might find the approach too complicated. He imagined them saying, “Forget all this job satisfaction stuff, and let’s just get on with building a system.” He told me of his anxieties before the meeting, saying, “Because I have come from an educational environment I may be taking too academic approach in using an analytical methodology. I wonder if it would be better to be more results-oriented, more focused on hard returns?” Bruce confided that, although he had previously talked with each of the members of the design group, in some cases at great length, he felt as nervous standing in front of them that first morning as he had in front of his first class as a teacher. All his anxieties raced through his mind as the meeting began. He had made overheads of all the questions in ETHICS, with each question on a separate set. He proposed to show each foil, restate the question, ask for responses and write each one down. He began the meeting with the first question from ETHICS, What is the problem? To his surprise there was an immediate explosion of comments from the floor. “It takes us months to get the right information.” “I get killed by my Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


customer because I always have to go back with a change in the configuration.” “It takes me forever to do a configuration and then I always get it wrong because we don’t have the latest rules.” “The systems are getting so complicated now I can’t keep up with them.” There were so many comments that Bruce had difficulty in capturing and recording them. The discussion became more and more excited. Question 2 from ETHICS was Why change the present methods? Bruce said, “I think I can guess your views but let me have them anyway.” This produced another avalanche of comment. “The manual methods are too slow.” “The documentation is wrong.” “I don’t have time.” “I need to go and sell, not read volumes of configuration data.” The most dramatic moment of the morning came when an energetic young member of the Boston-office sales force responded to the question of how XSEL could help meet the job satisfaction needs of the salesperson. He spoke for everyone present when he said, “Bruce we get no satisfaction out of the present process. It’s full of pain for us. Give us some help.” His colleagues responded with murmurs of approval, a waving of arms, and exhortations to “Go for it,” and “You’ve heard us; let’s get moving.” It was now clear to Bruce that configuration was a serious problem for the sales force and that he was receiving an early vote of confidence from a wide variety of people drawn from all over the US. Bruce did not know at this time that many of his early anxieties were valid. They would surface in future meetings and cause problems that had to be resolved. As so often happens with large projects, early optimism was to prove ill-founded and premature. Political and economic problems were to affect XSEL’s progress in the US. When Bruce looked back at the project later he realised that much of the confidence displayed in 1981 was premature and based on unrealistic assumptions about the speed at which XSEL could be developed.

Further Meetings Bruce found the next few meetings of the user design group very positive. The salespeople who attended turned out to be both motivated and energetic. They had now had the opportunity to test out an early version of XSEL and were keen to make fast progress towards the final product. Digital’s electronic mail system proved an important facilitator. Discussions and decisions at user design meetings were immediately sent to all the sales offices at the end of each meeting. If certain issues remained unresolved, the sales offices were asked for Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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their opinion. Many suggestions for improvement were made at the meetings but there was also some criticism. XSEL was a rule-based system that would eventually contain all the information necessary to do accurate configuring, but both building it and running it were slow processes and the user design group often became impatient. “Why does it take so long?” they asked. A Houston salesman was particularly critical at one meeting: “You will not make it in the sales environment with the performance of the system as it is. It just takes too many cpu (central processing unit) cycles to get to the bottom line.” The salespeople in the design group also became increasingly critical of the work of the development team. But problems were compensated for by successes, and at the end of February 1982, there was a major technical breakthrough when the use of a new high-level language enabled XSEL to run more efficiently. Also the need for XSEL as a configuring aid was increasingly being recognised in Digital. There was no reduction in the number of order errors arriving in the manufacturing plants. In the United States 25% of orders had these errors. In Europe the error figure was 35%.

XSEL is Almost Ready for Release By the end of 1982 Bruce believed that XSEL would soon be ready for release to all the US sales offices. He now produced a draft implementation plan for discussion by the user design group. This covered the resources and procedures that would be used, XSEL’s training requirements, and future changes in the system. The plan covered implementation in both the US and Europe. It listed four crucial factors on which implementation depended. These were: • • • •

the provision of VAX machines to support XSEL in the sales offices. the commitment of area management to install XSEL on these machines. the willingness of management to budget for hardware purchases and operating expense. the development of planned software links between XSEL and other systems.

In June 1982, Bruce produced a draft XSEL implementation plan for the sales offices and made preparations for the next user design group meeting. This was a substantial document which covered the resources and procedures that would be used, XSEL’s training procedures, and future changes in the system.



Bruce recognised that all was not yet cut and dried. Many technical, economic and administrative uncertainties would have to be quickly resolved if the proposed implementation schedule was to work. One problem was that hardware availability could not be guaranteed. His team experienced great difficulty in getting the sales offices to buy VAXs to support XSEL. An even more serious problem was that senior sales management did not seem to have an active interest in XSEL. They were more interested in good sales figures than helpful technology. Bruce was finding that one of the most difficult aspects of using a participative approach was setting the tasks for the user design group and meeting their expectations. The members were all very busy, highly pressurised salespeople who were not usually involved in the design stage of software development. He had to stress, and repeat many times, the nature of their commitment as members of a design team. Their previous experience as users of software designed by others had conditioned them to reject systems which they did not regard as useful. They had never before been in a situation where it was their responsibility to design software. As user design members their role was now very different from their normal selling role. It was to help uncover problems in the design and coding of the program itself. Bruce had to constantly remind them of this point. They must avoid rapid reactions, and change to an approach involving thought, the weighing of alternatives, and the suspension of judgment. Hopefully the result would be an expert system designed by them and for them which would exactly meet their needs. The next user design group meeting was attended by 44 members of staff. Fourteen were from sales and 20 from the XSEL development team. The remainder were from other interested groups. Bruce told the group: There is now a great deal of expert systems activity taking place in Digital. This reflects an increased awareness that artificial intelligence and expert systems can help us solve a number of problems that we have previously seen as intractable. XCON and XSEL are receiving increased attention both within the company and in the outside world. He continued: At this meeting we want to work on a production version of XSEL that can be tested in the sales offices. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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This led to an animated discussion. One salesperson expressed anxiety about whether expert systems could remove human skills. He asked: Will it make us less technically efficient? Does it mean that the “intelligence” needed to do the task is built into the system and we need never learn to configure on our own? This was a difficult question and Bruce had to make a diplomatic reply. He said what he believed to be true—that everything could not be put into the system. An informed sales force was still necessary. The meeting focused on how XSEL could best be moved from its development status to a production tool and discussed the problems that had to be overcome before this could be achieved. Although there was general enthusiasm for the new system, Bruce felt it wise to end the meeting on a note of caution. He said: There is philosophical agreement that XSEL is a good thing. Our goal is for the first three sales offices to have XSEL this quarter and for all sales offices to be using it this fiscal year. It will work well but only providing that things proceed as scheduled. But the scenario could be upset by unforeseen problems with software or with machine availability. This meeting, held in October 1982, was followed by a period of testing and refinement as XSEL was turned into a viable product. However progress was slowed as a result of the development group’s lack of knowledge of the technical problems that would be encountered and the time it would take to solve these. A shortage of terminals and VAX machines in the sales offices also held back implementation plans. Surprisingly, the most difficult human problems were relations with senior sales management. These were caused by their lack of involvement in the project, a situation which led to enthusiasm without knowledge and acceptance without action. Throughout the project, Bruce had had difficulty in finding a sponsor for XSEL at the top of the sales hierarchy. Unfortunately the vice president eventually found was enthusiastic about XSEL but had far too high expectations of its progress. There were also problems, although of a different kind, with senior field-sales management. This group was driven by short-term sales figures and was not greatly interested in long-term solutions. They had not been involved in XSEL’s development, did not understand it and were reluctant to provide the machine resource necessary for its successful implementation. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


Bruce found that the complexity of the design task increased as XSEL grew. One of his major tasks was the protection of the design group from external turbulence. Most of this arose from possible changes in Digital’s management and production strategies. At one point during XSEL’s development, the company embarked on a major reorganization. At another it considered whether to alter its production strategy. This would involve a change from a policy of providing customers with systems tailor-made to their needs to an IBM-type policy of offering all customers the same standardised product. This last option would have rendered configuring almost unnecessary. Fortunately for Bruce it never happened. He also had the day-to-day task of ensuring that XSEL was efficiently built and met the needs of the sales force users. Fortunately, there were no problems here. Due to the positive influence of the user design group, the sales force was enthusiastic about XSEL and keen to have it implemented. In 1984, almost four years after the start of the development process, XSEL was finally implemented and Bruce felt that a good, usable tool had been created. This had been tested in the sales offices and found helpful and acceptable. It had increased the efficiency of the sales staff and, from a financial point of view, had paid off well. Early estimates were that it was saving the company around $25 million a year.

After Implementation The sales forces members of the user design group now adopted a new role. They became ambassadors for XSEL throughout the company. Their identification with XSEL and recognition of its value carried great weight with other sales staff because, as one said, “They are part of us and we are part of them.” Everything seemed to have ended happily and successfully. But the story did not end there. Early promise was to turn to later disappointment. XSEL never did go into Europe. The European management of Digital was not keen to have solutions handed to them by the Americans and also saw XSEL as expensive to run. The system needed regular updating as Digital’s prices and product specifications were changed. As a result they came up with their own solution. This was to have a human configuring expert in each sales office to advise the local sales force on how to configure accurately and avoid problems. Also, despite the enthusiasm of the US sales force for its development and introduction, the use of XSEL gradually faded away in the United States. The salespeople found it slow and unwieldy as it ploughed through its 15,000 rules. It proved easier to do a “quick and dirty” configuration in their own heads and Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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from their own experience and then to sort out any problems once the customer had bought the system. Quick sales were more important to them than technical accuracy.

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED Bruce learned an important lesson from this experience, namely, the importance of having a senior manager as sponsor of a major project. This executive, and his staff, must identify with the project, understand what was involved in time and resources, and take responsibility for it. Bruce had always intended to create a top-management steering committee to guide the user design group and ensure that top management was part of the project. But this had never happened. As a result there was never a senior management group to take ownership, help steer the project, and address the inevitable topmanagement issues that arose during a large project such as XSEL. Bruce realised that this was one of the problems of participative design: how to involve management effectively in the discussions that are taking place. Another positive lesson that can be learned from the XSEL experience is the unsurprising one that difficult, innovative endeavours are more likely to be brought to a successful conclusion if the problem they are addressing is seen as both critical and expensive. Small projects, embarked on to gain experience, may provide some technical knowledge and learning, but they are unlikely to produce very useful results. Nor are they likely to generate much enthusiasm and interest. Many companies would have balked at embarking on a high-risk project such as XSEL. The fact that Digital did not was due to its pioneering culture and to the need to be constantly ahead of the market in a highly competitive industry. Both of these factors meant that the company was very good at producing new technical developments and, perhaps even more important, at introducing major change into its own organization. It knew how to handle change because this was an essential and continuing part of its successful commercial existence. An important social lesson that comes from the XSEL project is that user participation does not solve all problems. Participation certainly made the Digital sales force enthusiastic for the new system and excited about its implementation. Unfortunately, using it caused them problems which only showed up over time. The sales force salary levels were related to sales figures, but not to selling systems that provided high performance immediately when they were installed. The fact that XSEL could enable them to do this, albeit slowly and with some difficulty, was not a great bonus. To get XSEL accepted Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


on a long-term, day-to-day basis, it would have had to be speeded up. Also part of the salespeople’s financial rewards would have needed to be related to selling systems that worked perfectly at the point when the customer received them. What the sales force really wanted was not an expert system to assist configuring but an expert system to assist accurate costing. This would enable the salesperson to give a customer an accurate estimate as soon as he became interested. A system of this kind called ASQ (automated quote system) was eventually created. Nevertheless, the design of XSEL was a great learning opportunity for Digital and its employees. It led to the development of a coherent and well thought-out programme for future systems design. This covered the following. 1. The need for careful analysis, specification and broad-based multidisciplinary understanding of the business problem that is to be tackled. The experience of designing XSEL and its subsequent fall into disuse demonstrated how important human issues are to successful systems design. The sales force had cooperated enthusiastically in the design of XSEL and regarded the end product as excellent. But they soon got tired of using it. XSEL was slow and complex and kept the salespeople away from what they regarded as their most important activity—“selling.” Selling VAX computers was what earned them their salaries. Selling VAX computers that actually worked and met customer specifications was of lower priority, and of much lower priority if it interfered with their selling ability. It would have been difficult to identify this unexpected problem at the design stage, but perhaps a broader definition of the problem area should have included “likely salespeople’s reactions to XSEL once it is in use.” The use of XSEL should have been rewarded in some positive way rather than becoming an inhibiting factor in the salesperson’s ability to earn money. It is interesting that very broad-based problem definition is now a feature of what is called heterogeneous engineering. Oversimple definitions of presenting problems are seen as leading to systems that fail to work. 2. The careful choice of a project leader or group facilitator. The XSEL experience showed that project leaders need excellent administrative and social skills. These may be more important than technical skills. If the design task is to involve user participation then the project leader must believe in this and know how to organize and assist participative groups. Not everyone will have these skills or these beliefs. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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3. The need to prototype any selected solution to check its viability. Digital certainly did this with XSEL, as each version of the prototype was given to a number of sales offices to check its viability as a configuring aid. However, testing prototypes, although very useful, is not the same as using the system in the real world. 4. The creation of a project team. This would consist of a mix of experts and users. After XSEL, Digital increasingly made these teams interdisciplinary so that they would include social scientists, economists and other nontechnical experts as well as engineers and computer scientists. This fits in with the concept of heterogeneous engineering and also with the notion of requisite variety. 5. The creation of a steering committee. This is very important if the new system is to meet company-wide as well as local needs. It needs to include representatives from top management and from the public if they are to be system users. Top management also often has information on organizational change that can affect the future of the system. This was very true of Digital when the company changed its organizational structure halfway through the system design process. Not having a steering committee was a major cause of Bruce’s difficulty in interesting top management in the project. 6. The development of a project plan. This must be subject to continual review so that changes can be made as the design environment changes. For most large systems, it should be incremental rather than revolutionary so that mistakes can be corrected and revisions made as the project progresses. And it should contain contingency plans in case the design process does not proceed as planned. 7. The training of project team members. This training also needs to be multidisciplinary. Project team members must understand the technology involved, the nature and complexity of the problem area, the social issues involved, and the different approaches and solutions that are available. 8. The creation of an initial design. A number of these may be necessary before there is a good fit between the problem and a possible solution. 9. The testing of this in the user environment. XSEL was built incrementally with each stage given to a sales office for testing and comment before going further. To aid this process, XSEL had a built-in comments facility so that the sales staff testing the new system could communicate quickly with the designers. 10. Installing the system in the user environment. Ideally the users would take responsibility for installation. It is their system. Training should be Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


carried out by sympathetic and knowledgeable trainers who are careful to ensure all users are competent before the system goes “live.” 11. Modifying and enhancing the system. Even the best-designed system will need some changes once it is implemented. User comments and criticisms should now be listened to with care. Also the system will not stand still. Almost as soon as it is implemented, new needs will be identified and these have to be catered for if the system is to retain its credibility. 12. Adapting the system to changing business needs. In these days of rapid change, the business activities that the system has been designed to assist will also change. This means that design becomes an iterative process. It does not stop. In Digital the design group met regularly for several years after the system was first installed to discuss adaptation and modification. Digital was also keen that the design of all systems should incorporate three critical perspectives. These were: The Business Strategic Perspective This covers the identification of the business issues or problem, not underestimating its complexity, the analysis of risks, costs and benefits, and the writing of business plans to obtain commitment and funding. The Technical Perspective This ensures that the system is using appropriate technology and that all of the technical aspects of systems design are identified and planned. The People/Organization Perspective This ensures that the system is designed, built and implemented taking account of socio-technical values. These will assist its successful transfer from the design to the operational stage and will enable it to be smoothly introduced and acceptable to users. It involves the identification of all users, whether direct or indirect; decisions on how to involve them in the design processes; and an assessment of the potential impact of the system on them. To achieve these, Digital believed that the project teams concerned with the design of all systems, but especially large ones, must be interdisciplinary and contain a mix of skills.


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All of these would seem to be extremely important in today’s and tomorrow’s world. When major change is being introduced, good social skills are required in both technical and managerial roles. Good systems design requires good relationships and these do not happen of their own accord. Design groups require encouragement, nurturing, knowledge transfer and good administration. Conflicts have to be recognised and resolved. Effective management is all-important. This management must encompass an understanding of the nature and complexity of the problem that has to be solved and of the likely problems that will be encountered in moving towards its solution. There must be effective, accurate and timely communication to all with an interest in the new system. Also, first-class technical expertise and a knowledge of appropriate and acceptable organizational options must be available. Most important, there must be recognition that parts of the design process will encounter difficulties, even fail, and good contingency plans need to be in place to deal with these crises.

PEOPLE FACTORS It is interesting to note how the Digital sales force differed from previous user design groups in their attitudes to being involved in the design process. Clerical workers had welcomed being part of the design task, as it made use of their expert knowledge of how their departments did, and should, work and gave them a useful understanding of computer technology and its uses. Participation also empowered them as individuals and as a group. For the first time their opinions were being listened to and acted upon. This was important as it recognised the contribution they were making to their employers. The actual process of discussion and decision taking was also enjoyable. For most of the time, although not always, it reinforced their relationships and gave them feelings of a common purpose. The Digital sales force was quite different. They normally worked as individuals and their expertise was in selling. Although designing XSEL was interesting and worthwhile and they wanted to understand the new technology, it was not central to their principal role in the company. Also, they were a powerful group already, and designing XSEL did not add to their empowerment. Their power and status came from what they sold. This was true even though customers were not always satisfied with what they had bought. XSEL’s history demonstrates that the route to successful change in a new area of innovation is not an easy one. It requires knowledge, skill, endurance Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


and motivation. There must be a good understanding of the difficulty of the task that is being undertaken and an excellent knowledge of the environment where the innovation will be located. Clear human and organizational objectives are required from the start of the design process, together with effective plans to ensure these objectives are achieved. Plans will need to be constantly reviewed and revised as circumstances alter and unexpected problems affect the development process. Managing this kind of complexity requires political and social skills of the highest order and a recognition that social processes are critical to survival. Groups with very different interests and objectives must be involved, motivated and held together in a common task.

THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR This leads us to a consideration of the role of the facilitator. As this is a role that I have personally held in many projects, I will discuss my own experiences here. This means that I will be describing events, challenges and responses that have been influenced by the fact that I have always been an outside consultant, invited by a group in the company to provide guidance in an area, participative design, where they had little experience. I was to be a helper and not in any executive capacity such as designer or manager. Other facilitators would be in different positions. Bruce MacDonald, for example, had decided to be project manager and facilitator, a difficult dual role to handle and one requiring great skill. Sometimes a company would ask a neutral person, such as a member of the personnel department, to act as facilitator, or the member of the design group who was elected chairperson might gradually move into the facilitator role. I always assume that I will assist a company for one project only and see an important part of my own task as passing the facilitator skills on to someone within the company. I believe that an important part of the participative design approach is to make a company’s employees more expert at handling their own change. They should only have to invite an outsider once. I also believe that the best way to learn facilitation skills is to use them. This means that students assisting in participation projects should try and acquire the skills through practicing them. Experience is likely to be the best teacher. Most facilitators will have similar long-term objectives in that they are trying to help their design group achieve the objectives it has set for itself and arrive at a successful design conclusion. Their first important decision will be how best to achieve this. No groups are the same; they will all have different needs and problems and the facilitator’s first task will be to identify what these Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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needs are and how he or she can best assist the group. Just as the first stage of the project for all the participants is acquiring an understanding of its breadth and complexity, an early challenge for a facilitator is arriving at an understanding of his or her role in relation to the design group. I have always found that an important first step is deciding who my principal client is. Given that there are likely to be conflicts of interest from time to time in most projects, whose interests should I prefer if I had to make a choice? This is always a difficult question to answer. In early projects I found that in general I answered it in terms of who needed me most. This was usually the group with the least power and influence and the one most inexperienced in taking on a participative role. As participative design moved up the company hierarchy and was taken on board by specialist groups and managers, the problem became one of assisting a number of powerful groups to come to an agreement on their common interests. This usually involved helping them to communicate more effectively with each other. Design groups also have to be helped to acquire appropriate technical knowledge to help their decision taking. They may want to see the proposed, new technical system in operation, and visits to firms already using it can be arranged or independent technical experts brought in as advisers. Relying solely on information provided by the system vendor is usually not a good idea as overenthusiastic or biased marketing often leads to disappointed expectations at a later date. Design groups also have to be shown that although some technical systems are deterministic and restrict the organizational options that can be used, this is not generally the case. Most, like the Volvo car plant, will have available a variety of work design structures so that users can choose the amount of decision taking they wish to take responsibility for. Here again, the work structure suggested by the technology vendor is not always the most appropriate for a particular group of workers or their company. Once the technical and organizational systems have been evaluated and selected, then strategies must be developed for implementing them in the most effective way. These need to be discussed with the steering group before a final choice is made. In the Rolls Royce case study, the design group tended at first to be overconservative in its organizational design suggestions, believing that management would not welcome revolutionary change. In fact, the steering group was hoping for a more creative approach to new work structures and was able to make this clear to the design group. The process of deciding on technical and organizational options or modifications was very much a learning process for both the design and the steering groups and helped to give them an Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


excellent and comprehensive understanding of the system they would eventually use. All design projects will be to some extent unique, in that they are going into different environments. Digital, for example, was very different from Rolls Royce and the role of the facilitator was also very different. In Rolls Royce the system was only directly affecting a few departments, and the result would be training and upgrades for those staff who wanted these. In Digital the automated configuring system would affect all sales departments, the engineering plants and all customers. It would also be a completely new and untried system. The risks would be high and design choices would have to be accompanied by the education of the rest of the firm in the selected new developments. Bruce, as facilitator, therefore had a very complex and demanding task which involved considerable learning for him personally. He found that his facilitator role had two important components. The first was protecting his design group from external disturbance which could affect its morale and ability to complete the task. These disturbances were usually related to internal organizational change within Digital that had little to do with XSEL but could influence its development and use. The second was keeping other interested groups, especially those at senior management level and in the sales offices, continually in the picture as to what was taking place and the development stage that XSEL had arrived at. The company’s electronic mail system acted as an excellent communicator for the sales offices, and they were also given prototypes of the new system to test out. Senior management had to be personally communicated with by Bruce, and for some time he had the difficult challenge of finding a senior sales manager who would actively sponsor the new system. Unfortunately, most were more interested in “selling” than in developing technology. User design groups go through a number of different emotional states en route to the successful building of their own system, and the facilitator has to act as helper and guide throughout these. There is often uncertainty and confusion when the design task starts; enthusiasm as it gets underway and the advantages of participation become apparent; and frustration and conflict as unexpected difficulties are encountered and progress is slowed or hurdles have to be surmounted. When, helped by the facilitator, these are overcome and the last stage of system building is reached, excitement and enthusiasm return as the group prepares to launch its new product. I have found that an important responsibility for the facilitator is to keep the group moving forward. Setbacks must be addressed when they occur and not allowed to slow down or to stop the group’s activities. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Participation does not prevent problems occurring, but it does enable them to be brought out into the open and rationally discussed, and it is the facilitator’s responsibility to ensure that this happens. The facilitator must always be aware that participative design is, and must be, a learning process. Although the immediate output should be an efficient and user-friendly system, the long-term advantage is that the facilitator, the design group, the users and other interested groups will all become increasingly expert in the management of change.

REFERENCES Moldaschl, M., & Weber, W. G. (1998) The three waves of industrial group work: Historical reflections on current research on group work. Human Relations, 51(3), 347-388. Mumford, E. (1995). Effective systems design and requirements analysis: The ETHICS Approach. London: Macmillan. Mumford, E. (1996). Systems design: Ethical tools for ethical change. London: Macmillan. Mumford, E., & MacDonald, B. (1989). XSEL’s progress: The continuing journey of an expert system. London: Wiley.



PART FOUR: DESIGNING FOR COMPANIES


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Chapter 10

Senior Management, Decision Making and Design Managers are the integrators, they fit the pieces of society together. Alvin Toffler

INTRODUCTION One very important group we have not discussed in detail before is senior management. It is they who take the important company decisions on what to do, how to do it, and what they intend the consequences of their decisions to be. Their role is critical to successful change. It is their definition of business objectives that will shape the change programme, and it is they who will have the final say in how to manage this. Decisions on whether to take a participative approach will depend on their personal values and on whether they believe the democratic involvement of their staff will increase the likelihood of success. This does not mean that they will necessarily be the initiators of participative design. In my experience, this initiative often came from senior members of the systems group who saw it as leading to more successful systems design with a higher level of acceptance. But they always had to give their approval to this approach and ideally some would become part of the project steering group. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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The companies I worked with all had senior managers who were willing to involve their staff in design, but they often defined “involvement” in different ways. The Swedish automobile company Volvo redesigned its work structures to make production work more multiskilled and more satisfying for employees, and this decision came initially from the most senior management, although agreement to the approach was sought from everyone in the company. Senior management also approved the approach in the bank and in Rolls Royce, where an excellent and very helpful steering group was formed. Surprisingly the one firm where there were problems was Digital. Digital from its inception was very democratic as this was the personal philosophy of Ken Olsen, its founder. However, it did not succeed in getting senior sales management involved in the XSEL project. The reasons for this were interesting. Although the operational members of the sales force were a very powerful group and enthusiastic about their new role in design, senior sales managers were not a part of the XSEL design process. They had little technical knowledge and did not really understand what was taking place, and their primary interest was always an increase in sales figures. This was especially true of the sales directors, and Bruce strove for a long time to get a senior sales sponsor for the project. When he eventually did so, he found that this individual had little understanding of what was taking place and unrealistically asked for immediate results in a software design process that required a considerable amount of time to complete. This was an example of senior management that never fully understood the nature of the problems that their subordinates were trying to solve. The IT developments of the nineties brought with them many new decisions and difficulties for senior management, some of which were quite new. This knowledge gap led to many unanticipated consequences of change, and these could easily become risks. A group particularly affected by risk was, of course, senior management itself, who had to protect the firm from the results of what were often earlier errors of judgment. Ulrich Beck (1992), the German sociologist, tells us that we are now living in a risk society. We must be aware of this and able to respond effectively to it. Another very serious problem for Digital senior sales management was the eventual rejection of the XSEL expert system by the Digital sales force because it was too complex and time-consuming. This meant that the large financial savings that had originally been forecast were never achieved. However this was not a total loss as the company had learned a great deal about the participative design of large systems, and this now became company policy for all major projects.


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A lesson here is that no matter how carefully new systems are designed, most will have some unexpected spin-offs or produce some human consequences which take everyone by surprise. Although an accurate and comprehensive definition of the change problem at the start helps avoid these shocks, a lack of knowledge at this early stage may make this difficult. Also complex interactions between different variables, which perhaps were not seen as related to each other, can cause disturbing effects. For example, the financial reward system in Digital by which salespeople were paid for the number of systems they sold made them prefer quick and inaccurate configuring systems to long-winded and accurate ones such as XSEL. When problems of this sort occur, both senior managers and those involved in systems design must be able to recognise and correct them quickly, or major expense, even systems failure, can take place. These kinds of problems can be very common with new and untried systems. In the late nineties a number of very large and expensive British government IT systems for public use were found to have failed because they were poorly defined, largely ignored user needs and were seen as technical rather than as management projects (British House of Commons, 1999). The British government placed the blame squarely on top management.

THE NINETIES The nineties produced the dominance of the market and brought with it a major shift in business values. Managing markets was seen by opinion leaders and senior management as the way to business success. Market needs must be given priority; human needs were of secondary importance. This proved very frustrating for the exponents of socio-technical design (Frank, 2001). The heads of companies recognised the need for change and were motivated to make changes. But they chose untried methods, such as lean production and business process reengineering, that were convincingly marketed but took little account of employee needs and did not produce good human results. However, despite difficult economic circumstances, managers in companies in the United States, Europe and Australia still continued with socio-technical projects, often remodelling these to fit changing economic and social conditions. The emphasis in Australia was on participative design, Scandinavia favoured a democratic dialogue between management and workers, and the expert group of sociotechnical consultants belonging to the Socio-technical Round Table assisted American companies to innovate. Many US projects were based on the development of high-commitment and high-performance work groups based



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on the cooperative sharing of ideas and influence between workers and management. The Dutch tried to move the subject further on by developing an approach called modern socio-technical theory, which focused on production structures as the main determinant of any socio-technical programme. The theory behind this approach was that most production systems are overcomplex and cannot be easily controlled; they need to be simplified. Dutch researchers began projects by analysing the existing production structure and redesigning and simplifying this. They next redesigned the control structure to make it congruent with the production structures. The new structure then became a number of parallel subflows, each of which was looked after by a “task group.” This approach is similar to business process reengineering but gives it a more human face. It also encompasses many of the original Tavistock work design principles (Eijnatten & Zwaan, 1998). Swedish managers were also developing the socio-technical concept by bringing their company’s business environment into the redesign task. Volvo now used the phrase “delivery, quality and economic results” (DQE) to describe its objectives which were primarily related to cost control. Results were achieved through establishing direct contact between work groups and groups in the external market, such as customers and suppliers. Business goals were carefully formulated and group competences were developed and increased. The next step was to create socio-technical systems for business. Projects of this kind were encouraged by a Swedish Work Environment Fund, and many firms continued to combine successful business development with an improvement in the employees’ personal environment. Adler and Docherty (1998) suggest that the dominant socio-technical research tradition has shifted over time from a social dimension in the 1970s to a technical dimension in the 1980s, greatly influenced by the Dutch, and a business dimension in the 1990s, developed by research groups in Scandinavia. But these endeavours were exceptions.

BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING— A HIGH RISK STRATEGY This was a new approach to business success of great interest to senior managers who were under great pressure to reduce costs. Most senior managers were now focussing their energy on achieving this by reducing staff in the hope, often a vain one, that this would increase their company’s share


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price and make it more popular with investors. The socio-technical philosophy had assisted firms to recruit staff when labour was scarce, while at the same time providing an ethical philosophy which made managers feel good. Now a new approach called business process reengineering (BPR) was seized on by the senior managers of many firms as a means for increasing efficiency while at the same time reducing the size of the labour force. This was developed by three American consultants, Michael Hammer, James Champy and Tom Davenport, and had many of the organizational change characteristics of socio-technical design although it did not have an improvement in the quality of working life as one of its principal goals (Hammer & Champy, 1995). Nor would many managers have been interested in this objective at this time. Business process reengineering was a prime example of the unintended consequences of an attractive “fad” leading to new risks. These were increased by the short-term willingness of American industry to be persuaded to try this (Mumford, 1996; Mumford & Hendricks, 1996). The supporters of BPR, of which for a time there were many, argued that the old ways of doing business were obsolete and no longer guaranteed success. The business world was changing, becoming more complex, with customers that were increasingly demanding—wanting more variety, better quality and service, and prompt delivery dates. This meant that traditional ways of organizing business with functional groups, vertical hierarchies and clearly defined tasks must be abandoned and replaced with a focus on “process.” By process was meant what happens as things travel across factory, department or office, passing through and over organizational boundaries on the route from first input to final output. First input may be a customer order while the final output is the handing over of the product or service to the customer. Reengineering, like the socio-technical proponents, viewed companies as a series of horizontal processes through which information moves at speed, instead of a series of building blocks with barriers between each unit and layer. A socio-technical approach would not be very different. This too would favour a systems approach with multiskilled teams handling each part of the route and with great attention paid to “boundary management,” where the product or service passed from one group to another. The great difference between the two approaches was in the importance placed on human needs and human development. The early socio-technical experts would have been reluctant to reduce staff numbers and none of the projects described so far in this book necessitated this. Also their democratic philosophy of change meant that any work reorganization would be discussed with staff and approved by them before implementation. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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BPR was much more ruthless. In 1993 Michael Hammer wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review challengingly called, “Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate.” His argument here was that the need for major change was so great that existing structures and methods should be removed altogether and new systems based on an analysis of work processes substituted. This change would be facilitated by the introduction of sophisticated, new information systems which also crossed the old boundaries. Many companies in the United States interpreted this message as, “Ruthlessness is OK. Let’s see how many staff we can get rid of.” The writer of an article in Fortune, also in 1993, declared in macho terms: Business process reengineering is the hottest trend in management. Done well it delivers extraordinary gains in speed, productivity and profitability. But it is strong medicine and almost always accompanied by pain.

Senior Managers are Enthusiastic Senior managers in United States companies made intensive efforts to become part of this new game. They believed that reengineering was the route to future commercial success in a new, highly competitive market environment, one in which product cost and high quality would be major factors in success or failure. So powerful was this message that reengineering was not confined to the United States but taken up and introduced throughout Europe (Mumford, 1996). This early enthusiasm was documented in a 71-page report produced by the Boston Consulting Group in 1993. This report also offered some words of caution. It said: Don’t reengineer simply to reduce costs: solutions that only restructure, consolidate or obliterate tend to optimise processes from an internal perspective. Excessive cost cutting can destroy value. Even when reengineering is primarily aimed at major cost reduction, it should be made to work in the service of the customer. The report described three of the key components of business process reengineering as: 1. A shift to competing on processes: a reorientation from functions to flows and from vertical to horizontal in the ways companies do business. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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2. A rethinking of strategy: the opening of new avenues to growth by layering strategies of process performance and continuous change over strategies of position. 3. Redefinition of what it means to be a manager: a transformation from command and control top-down management to leadership based on building internal capabilities and linking them to customer needs. The socio-technical group would have agreed with all of these statements and regarded them as their own, even though Hammer and Champy never made any reference to socio-technical thinking. But they would not have agreed with the Boston Consulting Group’s final statement. This said: There is no alternative. Companies that are business process reengineering are growing and increasing in profitability. Companies that reengineer later than their competitors must find better ways to compete and create unique value. What is required is “aggressive process management,” companies must constantly evolve to stay ahead. The concealed message here was, “Go ahead, there are few risks involved.” “Aggressive process management” would certainly not have fitted with the socio-technical group’s belief that democratic processes should always be a part of major change in order to establish credibility and consent. Nor did the Boston Consulting Group or Hammer and Champy make any reference to employees and the responsibility of employers to look after their interests. But in the early nineties, few senior managers were making the interests of their employees a priority. The major effort was to reduce costs and increase the share price. The fastest way to do this was to use BPR as a means of reducing staff numbers. Clerical employees and junior management were to be the principle victims. Large numbers of managers became enthusiastic supporters and users of BPR. But, very soon doubts and uncertainties began to be expressed. In 1993 the Harvard Business Review produced an article on “How to Make Reengineering Really Work” (Hall, Rosenthal, & Wade, 1993). This article was based on an examination of reengineering projects in over 100 companies. Its conclusion was that in many of these, reengineering had been both a great success and a great failure. Dramatic positive results in individual processes



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were accompanied by a decline in overall results. This study included an analysis of 20 projects, and these showed how difficult redesign was to plan and implement and how often it failed to produce real business results.

Managers Now Have Doubts Doubts over the usefulness of BPR continued to increase, and in November 1994, the US Economist journal asked Michael Hammer what had gone wrong. He replied that many firms had seen reengineering only as a means of downsizing and cost reduction. In his view it should be about rethinking work, not eliminating jobs. Many managers that tried it also reported bad results. Over a three-year period those firms making redundancies frequently ended up with lower profit margins, a poorer return on assets and a reduced share price. In addition many also had a demoralised labour force. In December 1995 the coup de grace was provided by Tom Davenport himself. He wrote an article in the journal Fast Company called “Why Reengineering Failed: The Fad That Forgot People.” He began the article in the following way: Reengineering didn’t start out as a code for mindless bloodshed. It wasn’t supposed to be the last gasp of Industrial Age management. … The rock that reengineering foundered on is simple: people. Reengineering treated people inside companies as if they were just so many bits and bytes, interchangeable parts to be reengineered. He concluded: As is always the case with any fad, there was a kernel of truth to reengineering. Over time that truth got lost. But that doesn’t make it any less true. The most profound lesson of business process reengineering was never reengineering but business processes. Processes are how we work. Any company that ignores its business processes or fails to improve them risks its future. That said, companies can use many different approaches to process improvement without ever embarking on a high risk reengineering project. … When the Next Big Thing in management hits, try to remember the lessons of reengineering. Don’t drop all your ongoing processes in favour of the handsome newcomer.


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In the United States, despite its flat hierarchies, multiskilling and teamwork, all good socio-technical work design principles, reengineering now became an idea that had failed. The emphasis of BPR was firmly on efficiency and the streamlining and tightening of the production process. The result was unhappy staff who lost their jobs and more stressful work for those that remained. Here was an example of an idea that was extremely well marketed but failed to achieve its promises because a vital factor was ignored. This was the effect of major changes on people. These consequences were not understood, or perhaps even thought about, by managers. They were focused on trying to solve a probably short-term economic problem.

Why Did It Go Wrong? Business process reengineering was a massive disappointment to many senior managers who had relied on it to smooth their business and increase their profits. Why did it happen? One reason is certainly the excellent marketing of a well-regarded consultant group that thought it could improve business success while reducing costs. There was also a strong copycat element of ‘If they have it, we must have it too,’ with little understanding by each group of managers of their company’s unique needs and problems. And there was no comprehension of the consequences of suddenly and adversely changing social climates and expectations. Employees who thought that they had stable and secure jobs suddenly found that their jobs were at risk through a new form of work organization and that some of their colleagues had already lost their jobs. The message given out by their employers was, “We don’t place any value on you and on what you do. Getting our share price up is more important.” Whether staff stayed or went, a positive relationship was changed to one of fear or hostility, or both. Business process reengineering was offered to senior managers by its developers as a solution to new, challenging market situations. It turned out to have high risks associated with it. Risks which managers only discovered when they tried to introduce it into their companies. They had little or no previous experience of the approach which might have suggested that these risks existed. Could they have been avoided? Perhaps, but it would have taken a very cautious, questioning and thinking management to have done so. Managers are now increasingly faced with the problem of assessing alternative risks, many of which can lead to unforeseen consequences. When these unforeseen consequences can cause the loss of a business or the serious misuse or nonuse of a new system, they need to be understood and remedied as quickly as possible.



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Business process reengineering provided an excellent lesson for those interested in applying socio-technical principles. This is that when innovating, the “socio” must never be forgotten. If it is, no amount of good systems thinking will create beneficial results for a company. The interests of people must be taken into account; otherwise, good ideas will be abandoned or rejected. This greatly increases the risk of failure in a highly competitive world. The simple message to senior managers here is “think, investigate, evaluate” before you act. Industry lost interest in socio-technical design in the nineties. Managers focused instead on solutions such as business process reengineering and total quality management, which, as we have seen, were heavily sold by consultants. These were often misapplied so that social objectives were ignored and replaced by harsh economic objectives associated with reducing costs.

THE GLOBAL MARKET PLACE AND CALL CENTRES—A MODERN DILEMMA The rise and global spread on the Internet and the World Wide Web began in 1994 and launched the third wave of the IT revolution—the virtual office wave. That led to a quantum leap in the evolutionary pace of organizational change, and many predictions about the technical wonders of the revolution that was about to take place. Some wise commentators suggested that many of these suggestions should be treated with caution. Jeff Papows, Lotus chief executive, was one of these. He cautioned: I’ve been around this business long enough to know that our industry has often forecast far-reaching changes and advances that have never materialised. Expert systems, artificial intelligence, open computing, social interfaces, the Apple Newton and other projects all either totally or substantially failed, despite great promotion and enthusiasm. (Papows, 1998) One major new development at this time, which had adverse consequences that might have been anticipated but frequently weren’t, was the rapid growth of call centres. These have been described as the “satanic mills” of the computer age and their workers as “telephone fodder.” The worst offer work situations far inferior to those of the shop-floor assembly line that many women were tied to, and some still are, before automation moved onto the shop floor. The moving assembly line was boring, stultifying and required only manual


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dexterity, but it did provide good opportunities for social interaction. Workers chatted happily to each other as their hands moved at speed and they waited for the release of the bell at the end of the shift. Well-meaning attempts to make work more interesting through job rotation often failed because women did not want to leave the social groups they valued and knew well. Many of today’s call centres offer far worse conditions. Staff have limited work responsibilities, perhaps only taking telephone orders. They may be required to work at a certain speed, their responses to customers may be monitored, and their hours long and unsocial. The call centre may also be understaffed and the work situation one of intense pressure and stress. There are no opportunities, while working, for casual conversation. The result can be dramatically high labour turnover. Yet the senior managers of many reputable companies want to retain call centres because they recognise that their customers do not like the impersonality of interacting only with a machine. They understand the undesirability of the work situation and try to improve it. This means providing pleasant surroundings, reasonable breaks and, most important, opportunities for training which can provide a route to pleasanter and more satisfying jobs. Unfortunately, little can be done about the basic problem of the call centre. Much of the work is tiring, unfulfilling and routinised. Staff have little personal control and are required to spend a long time interacting in a limited way with a machine and with the distant voice of a customer. The early belief that call centres would eventually die out and be replaced by direct customer interaction with a computer has proved to have little foundation. Call centre numbers are increasing, not decreasing and today’s requirement for a 24-hour customer service is making matters worse. Here are a set of adverse circumstances for staff that are difficult to remedy if they are not understood and carefully planned for. Here also is a challenge for senior managers. Can they develop a system that both meets the needs of customers and of their own staff? Another example of low grade, low skill and sometimes dangerous work is provided by the computer industry itself. Often adverse consequences are avoided by subcontracting the work to someone else. Salil Tripathi, an immigrant, has described his personal experience working on assembly lines in Silicon Valley, California. He tells us, “High-tech companies outsource their necessary manual tasks to other firms in an effort to reduce the number of staff they need to employ and to cut their costs. These subcontractors offer souldestroying work for very low pay but they are still able to attract unemployed immigrant workers like myself. Even worse, some of this work may have to be done in my own home with children and animals coming into contact with chemicals, and dangerous activities such as soldering taking place. Horrifically, Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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the most advanced state-of-the-art electronics industry has created its own sweatshops” (“On the Dark Side,” 2001). These are not so much unanticipated consequences as hard to avoid consequences unless there are major changes in the work situation and a set of management attitudes and values that regards these kinds of situations as not acceptable. Even the most imaginative socio-technical approach can not easily improve these situations. Many 21st century employees, like their nineteenthand twentieth-century colleagues, have once again become the slave of the machine. Can this situation be changed? The factor most likely to alter it is a shortage of labour as men and women refuse to do these kinds of jobs. But this may not eliminate work such as the call centre and the sweatshop; it may only change its location, possibly to countries such as India, where workers are less able to protest against poor working conditions. Many companies have already moved into this available and profitable labour market.

MANAGING STATE-OF-THE-ART ENTREPRENEURS I was fortunate to be able to continue working with companies on sociotechnical issues in the nineties. One of these was a new software company called 4C, based in Rotterdam. The creators were two entrepreneurial young men, Ronald and Albert, who had recently completed MBAs at Erasmus University, where I had first met them at a conference. We found we had a common interest in the human aspects of information technology, which they felt had not been given enough importance on their university course. They both came from wealthy Dutch families and so were in a position to start their own company as they would have little difficulty in attracting venture capital. The purpose of their new company was to be software development for management information systems based on object-oriented programming. This had been around since the 1970s and was becoming increasingly popular. Unfortunately it is not easy to describe either to the nonexpert, or by a nonexpert, but here is an attempt. Objectoriented programming enables programmers to write applications in chunks of code called ‘objects’. An object is a black box which sends and receives messages. By black box is meant something that is there and useful to you, but you do not know, or need to know, what is in it. All you need to know is how to use it. This black box contains code (sequences of computer instructions) and data (information which the instructions operate on). In traditional pro-


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gramming, code and data are kept apart. In 0-0 (object-oriented programming), code and data are merged into a single indivisible thing—an object. This saves time and space and can speed up the programming function. Objects are individual examples of a class. For example, you may create an object called tiger from a class called cat. The cat class defines what it is to be a cat object, and all the cat-related messages a cat object can act upon. All object-oriented languages have some means, often called a factory, to create object instances from a class definition. The Dutch innovators were proposing to use 0-0 programming to develop new, comprehensive and flexible management information systems. They believed that with these they could offer managers information that was tailormade to their specific needs.

Creating an Ethical Climate The new company, called 4C (foresee) soon had 30 staff, 12 of whom were highly skilled systems developers. Although Ronald and Albert had little practical management experience, they were very idealistic and determined to build and run a company that was both creative and friendly, one in which all staff worked enthusiastically while at the same time gaining considerable personal satisfaction from doing so. And so, from the start, they tried to create a work situation based on strong ethical values on how people should behave to each other and to the outside world. This could be seen as an enlightened socio-technical position. As well as becoming successful entrepreneurs, they were also attempting to be ethical leaders also. An example of this was that, at an early stage, they called a meeting of all staff to jointly create a statement of company values. This was what they and their employees agreed and set out as a formal statement. With this document Ronald and Albert were trying to describe and legitimate the creation of an ethical climate within 4C. They saw this as

4C Values A Statement of Guiding Principles for Relations With Colleagues and Clients These guiding principles have been derived from the suggestions made by 4C staff on how they would like to relate to each other in the work situation and to the external clients they service. continued on next page



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RELATIONS WITH COLLEAGUES ESTABLISHING AND MAINTAINING GOOD RELATIONS Shared Values 4C aims to create a set of values which all staff share, follow and develop. These values include an acceptance of the company’s mission and objectives and an appreciation of the dedication of others. Commitment 4C will try to create a high-quality organization with challenging jobs which provide job satisfaction. This will assist staff to be fully professional in all that they do. Trust Our aim will be to develop mutual trust, confidence and friendship between colleagues, managers and clients. Cooperation A high priority will be placed on cooperation. Strategies and procedures will be introduced to help it to flourish. Cooperation should assist the achievement of personal, group and company goals. Communication Staff will be provided with as much information as possible about 4C’s present and future business opportunities, intentions and plans. Staff will be encouraged to communicate their views on all relevant subjects to management and their other colleagues. Creativity All members of the organization will be encouraged to provide and be receptive to new ideas and to constructive criticism. These will be actively sought and implemented. Fun Whenever possible work should be fun. STAFF DEVELOPMENT Recruitment 4C will strive to hire, develop and retain the best people available irrespective of race, gender, age, etc. Personal Development Every effort will be made to provide opportunities for personal development and

the achievement of professional goals. Initiative Personal and professional initiative will be encouraged. continued on next page


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WORK ENVIRONMENT Work Organization Every attempt will be made to provide a flexible, well-organized, environment that fosters quality and innovation.

RELATIONSHIPS WITH CLIENTS ESTABLISHING AND MAINTAINING GOOD RELATIONS WITH CLIENTS Client Needs Client needs will be the principal driving force behind 4C’s activities. Every effort will be made to develop and maintain 4C’s strong client orientation. ENSURING 4C’S PROFITABILITY Strategy There will be a continual search for new ways to improve productivity. Efforts will be made to increase product and process innovation, product diversification, the extension of market areas and other means to improve our “competitive” edge. Structure 4C will aim to have an organization structure that promotes and sustains growth, flexibility and high performance.

encouraging members of the group to be impartial, refraining from taking sides in arguments, and trying hard to achieve general agreement on acceptable behaviour while at the same time recognising that situations change and what is seen as appropriate behaviour at one moment of time may be viewed as quite inappropriate at another (Rawls, 1971). Their intention was that this ethical statement, created as a result of discussion between staff who were all equal business partners, should be translated into everyday behaviour. This might not be easy to achieve. Philosophers of management tell us that strategies to encourage an ethical approach of this kind require clarification, impartiality, consistency and empathy (Burnand, 1982). Clarification is making clear the ethical principles which the group is trying to apply. Robert and Albert had tried to try to do this through the value statements listed above, together with an agreement on the Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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kind of behaviour they wanted and expected from colleagues. Impartiality requires an avoidance of taking sides when the inevitable disputes occur. Consistency is maintaining principles over time. Too often good ideas gradually fade away or the reasons they were once considered important become forgotten. They wanted to avoid this happening. Empathy is an individual rather than a group characteristic. It is an ability to put ourselves in another person’s shoes and to understand rather than judge. Everyone at 4C was filled with enthusiasm for what had been agreed. Could it be put into practice on a long-term basis? They tried hard to do this. For example, social events were seen as very important and every Friday after work staff were encouraged to socialise together over a convivial drink.

Helping Clients Express Their Needs 4C was developing an executive information system called Quercus. This was flexible and versatile and so, its developers claimed, could provide managers with exactly the kind of information they required. The practical problem for 4C was how to find out what they did require. Did they all want much the same thing or were their information needs very different? Even more important, did they themselves know what they wanted? Here was yet another example of the need to get a good understanding of a problem before embarking on its solution. But this time it was the customer’s problem. I realised that my ETHICS method could make a useful contribution to helping client managers work through their information needs. However it needed some careful rethinking. Major systems for large companies could take weeks, months or, as in Digital, even years for the design teams to analyse their needs and problems and develop some viable organizational solutions. Even so, the agreed organizational design was invariably ready before the technical part of the system was completed. But no group of managers would be willing to give up more than a few days to identify their information needs. There was now a need for a greatly shortened version of ETHICS, one that could be completed in 2 or 3 days. I decided to call this QUICKethics, standing for quality information from considered knowledge (see the Appendix for QUICKethics).

Helping Managers Specify Their Information Needs The first Dutch managers to try QUICKethics were a group of senior managers from KLM. They were interested in a computer-based management information system that would provide them with faster and more relevant information about their performance as executives running a major airline. Each had a different role in the company. A few days after completing a questionnaire Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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designed to help systematize their ideas, these managers met together for two days, with Albert acting as group facilitator. The meeting began by each manager describing the most important aspects of his job to the rest of the group. It soon became apparent that the KLM managers had a clear understanding of their own jobs but had an imprecise, even incorrect, understanding of what their colleagues did. This led to an interesting question and answer session and subsequent debate as members of the group challenged each other’s job descriptions and expressed surprise at what they were told. It also led to some shocked reactions from senior managers as they heard their deputies give personal work descriptions that bore little relation to what their bosses thought they should be doing. Each manager then wrote down his three most important quantitative and qualitative information needs on cards and placed these cards in order of priority on a magnetic board. It turned out that a number of the managers had the same or similar priority information needs and that some needs were more critical than others. The next step, which involved considerable discussion, was for the group to decide and agree on a priority set of information needs that would be of value to them all. Quercus would offer these as a first step on the route to a more comprehensive information system. The theory here was that a good information system is best developed by starting small, testing this core system out to check its usefulness, accuracy and performance, and then later building up the system from the core to meet the other information needs of individual managers. The detailed information on information needs provided by the questionnaires could prove helpful in the later expansion of the system. This first attempt at developing a participative approach to requirements analysis proved very successful and the KLM managers were pleased with what they had achieved.

The Conclusion Unfortunately, unanticipated events struck 4C and it did not last long as a viable company. Like many new software development companies it incurred heavy expenses before it started earning an income. At first this was not a problem as Dutch venture capitalists were happy to support it. Then one major investor pulled out and, overnight, threw the company into bankruptcy. This was the end of 4C. However other Dutch companies were interested in trying a similar participative design process. As small entrepreneurial companies of this kind, staffed by knowledge workers, are seen as becoming a major part of industry in the future, it is useful Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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to have a brief look at their likely management problems. There will be many as these organizations are not easy to manage because they have to cope with both complexity and uncertainty. First, as with 4C, they are often started by young people with very good ideas but little or no management experience. This has to be acquired over time but there is little time available. Second, they are dedicated to developing a new product and getting it into what may be a new market. Here are two very different activities which may prove difficult to synchronise. There are likely to be products without customers and customers without products, not a good situation for commercial success. Third, although their business, in theory, depends on happy, committed and motivated staff working together cooperatively, this is not easy to achieve. Employees are often stressed, difficult to control and unpleasant to work with. They may see themselves as individual experts not as members of teams. Lastly they have little job security and considerable employment uncertainty. A potentially blue skies future can suddenly turn into a commercial disaster. The responsibility of senior managers to deal with these concerns is considerable and often rests of the shoulders of one or two individuals. These have to have a high tolerance for uncertainty and be excellent problem solvers. Solving problems will require good anticipation of risk so that they are able to prevent new problems occurring, old problems recurring and any continuing difficulties from getting worse. They should also have a long-term vision so that present problems are seen as blips in what is, hopefully, a continuing future. More than anything they need to understand and cherish their employees. They must encourage participation and collaboration and be able to generate continuing support from their staff. They must also have credibility so that all in the company have a sense of purpose and of future success. Most important of all they must be strong personalities, able both to influence others and be receptive to others’ ideas. All of these things require tremendous energy and a strong belief that they can succeed.

SKIL Another challenging project took place at SKIL, a Dutch firm manufacturing power tools in a highly competitive market. Senior management was proposing to introduce a new computer system to assist shop-floor material and machine capacity planning. They asked for help. It was clear that this project would involve a considerable amount of risk. While the failure of a clerical information system could cause problems for a company, it would not usually lead to a disaster. But the failure of a production planning system could Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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bring a factory to an immediate halt and cause serious financial and customerrelated difficulties. This system must not fail. The proposal was to abandon an old and unsatisfactory computer-based material planning system and to substitute more advanced software that would run on a new IBM AS 400 machine that had recently been acquired. Nine managers were involved in the project: two planning managers, three factory production managers, the finance manager, a quality manager and two managers from R&D. Each manager was asked to complete the QUICKethics questionnaire (see the Appendix). This had a threefold purpose: first, to enable the manager to think clearly and systematically about his role and responsibilities before considering his information needs; second, to enable him to obtain a clear picture of his information needs before meeting his colleagues in a group situation; And third, to arouse interest and a sense of ownership in the proposed new system. One week after the individual completion of the questionnaire, the managers met as a group. As nine is quite a large number for fast decision-making, they were split into four groups: planning, production, quality and R&D. Each member of these groups was asked to think back to their answers the week before and to now, jointly, agree and prioritise a set of essential information needs. Any new software would be evaluated to check that it could meet these requirements. Each list was described and explained by one of the subgroup which had produced it and was discussed by the group as a whole. During the meeting a board-level manager stated what the company wanted from the new system. This included software that did not require more than 15% customising; that could be implemented safely and without risk (there must be no possibility of plant stoppages); and that was supporting rather than controlling users. An important final task for the group was to agree on a core information system that could act as a starting point for implementation. This required considerable discussion and some important decisions. Here a new, young manager who had recently joined SKIL offered to chair the meeting and did this very competently. Everyone present agreed that in the first instance the new system should cover three items. The first was bills of material. These specified in detail the materials and production steps associated with each product. Second, material planning and machine capacity planning should have next priority. These were two critical activities that were essential to the running of the production system. Finally, it was agreed that the managers, reduced to six in number, should become the user design group for the project.



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A comprehensive report was produced which detailed the core system, the essential information needs of planning, production, quality and R&D, and the detailed needs of each manager. This last would act as a development guide to be implemented over time, once the system became operational. SKIL later discussed these recommendations with the company producing the software, and an acceptable and workable system was produced which was implemented successfully. This was an example of a participative approach by senior managers which was aimed at reducing future risk by ensuring that all were agreed on what they required from the system before it was purchased. This approach was used to prevent possible future problems from arising by clarifying some of the important features required in the new system. It would also provide a useful tool for future evaluation of the system. Could it supply all that had been specified? What are the lessons here for management?

Scenarios—Protection from Unexpected Events A most important lesson is that new projects of the kind described for 4C and SKIL are particularly prone to the risk of unanticipated consequences. Some of these could have disastrous results, as was the case with the withdrawal of venture capital from 4C. Can anything be done to avoid them? Clearly, a good initial understanding of the nature of the problem and of the variables in the situation likely to affect results is a safeguard. But, unfortunately, unanticipated consequences, as their name implies, often occur almost at random. A good safeguard used by major companies such as Shell is the building of scenarios for the development and implementation stages of the project. These can range from the most optimistic to the most pessimistic. Ged Davis of Shell International provides the arguments for scenarios (Davis, 1998). He tells us that one of the most difficult aspects of managing change is forecasting unexpected events likely to occur in the future. Most predictions about the future are pessimistic or optimistic predictions from the present. These can be wrong and misleading. Scenarios, in contrast, attempt to identify discontinuity in the future, in this way preparing companies for “surprising change.” This helps firms prepare for a wider range of eventualities, including some which could be described as serious crises. In this way they act as reducers of risk. The purpose of scenarios is to help users to identify different hypothetical futures. This means they can be aware of possible future risks before rather than after they happen.


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Scenario builders construct alternate ways of thinking about the future. They must identify possible negative and positive events, communicate these to others and think about how to handle them if they occur. Most scenarios address matters of corporate strategy and vulnerability rather then day-to-day operational concerns. They are there to help manage the future, to prevent threatening or disastrous events from causing disaster. Scenario building will start by identifying things that really matter because they can affect the viability of the company. Many of these will have been identified in the initial definition of the change problem and its environment, which we considered in Chapter 3. The next step is to identify and try to understand the forces that are likely to influence the environment of the company or the change area in the future. A wide-ranging viewpoint is necessary here to include both the likely and the improbable. Who, for example, would have predicted that in 2001 many important US government departments would have been shut down because of suspected anthrax poisoning? A set of different story lines is now constructed. These must cover what is seen as likely to happen, how this will link into other activities, what are the possible consequences and how could these be addressed. Ged Davis suggests that scenarios need to meet a number of requirements: • • • • •

They should be built from the present and be recognisable as possibilities. They should not be easily dismissed as impossible. Plausibility is in the eye of the beholder and many of the terrible events of 2001 would have been dismissed as fantasy in 2000. Good scenarios must be built on systematic analysis so far as this is possible. Scenarios that really challenge existing mental maps will provide the best possibilities of learning. For scenarios to be of real use they must affect the users’ decisions.

Once prepared, scenarios need to be communicated. A good way to do this is through customised workshops in which the audience members are active participants. These should be open to any interested person who wishes to attend. It can be suggested that the problems resulting from the misapplication of business process reengineering would have been fewer and shorter if the message “We are having problems” had been disseminated earlier and more forcibly. Instead, influenced by very persuasive external marketing, many



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companies both thought they were achieving excellent and beneficial results and boasted to their rivals that this was the case. Scenarios are helpful in describing alternative futures and if they are correct should offer companies and industries strategic advantages. They can more accurately foresee the future and are less likely to be caught at a disadvantage, or even eliminated altogether, by events that they had never dreamed were possible. They will be discussed again in later chapters.

CONCLUSIONS ON THE NINETIES The nineties were disappointing in that they were a step backward rather than a step forward in improving the quality of working life for people working in industry. Nevertheless the job situation gradually improved through the efforts of many dedicated managers, commentators and consultants who continued with their efforts to make work more fulfilling for people at every level. They still believed strongly in the need to develop “technology with a human face” and with the tools, methods and values provided by the sociotechnical school. These are similar to the ideas of Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (1974) in his groundbreaking book Small is Beautiful. Schumacher believed strongly in the Buddhist approach to work. This defined work as having a threefold function: first, to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; second, to enable him to overcome his egocentredness by joining with other people in a common tasks; and third, to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. He also believed in democracy, and in his book quotes Mao Tse-tung’s recommendation to “go to the practical people and learn from them: then synthesise their experience into principles and theories; and then return to the practical people and call upon them to put these principles and methods into practice so as to solve their problems and achieve freedom and happiness.” These are similar to the principles embodied in sociotechnical theory.

REFERENCES Adler, N., & Docherty, P. (1998). Brining business into socio-technical theory. Human Relations, 57(3), 319-345. Beck, U. (1992). Risk dociety. London: Sage. British House of Commons. (1999). Improving the delivery of government IT projects. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.


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Burnard, G. (1982). Via Focal Problems. London: Leadership Ltd. Davis, G. (1998). Bringing sustainable development down to earth. Paper presented at Shell International Conference on Corporate Environmental, Health and Safety Excellence, New York. Eijnatten, F. M. van, & Zwaan, A. H. van der. (1998). The Dutch approach to organizational design: An alternative approach to business process reengineering. Human Relations, 51(3), 289-318. Frank, T. (2001). One market under God: Extreme capitalism, market populism and the end of economic democracy. New York: Secker & Warburg. Hall, E. A., Rosenthal, J., & Wade, J. (1993). How to make reengineering really work. Harvard Business Review, 71(6), 119-131. Hammer, M., & Champy, J. (1995). Reengineering the corporation: A manifesto for business revolution. New York: Harper Business. Mumford, E. (1996). Risky ideas in the risk society. Journal of Information Technology, 11, 321-331. Mumford, E., & Hendricks, R. (1996, May 2). Business process reengineering RIP. People Management, 22-26. On the dark side of the valley. (2001, August 1). New Statesman, 24-25. Papows, J. (1998). Enterprise.Com. Reading, MA: Perseus Books. Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press Schumacher, E. F. (1974). Small is beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered. London: Abacus.


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Chapter 11

Company-Wide Participation in Air Products The advancement of knowledge and human happiness requires the greatest possible human freedom. John Stuart Mill

INTRODUCTION Most socio-technical system design has been used to create participative, high quality, people-friendly systems for specific projects or parts of the work environment. This was true of the early coal mine experiments when a number of experimental working faces were redesigned for multiskilled groups. It was also true of the redesign of the car-assembly shop floor in Sweden and of most of my own socio-technical design efforts. Even the Digital Equipment XSEL project, which affected the entire US company, was restricted to the configuring activity of members of the sales force. Frank Heller tells us that this narrow focus was never intended by the socio-technical pioneers. They had a much wider vision. Eric Trist, the originator of the approach, envisaged a top-down model which looked at the environment in which an organization operated, then at the design of the organization as a whole, and only then considered the primary work system (Emery & Trist, 1965). Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Some of the early exponents of the approach were able to put this broad philosophy into practice. Einer Thorsrud, the Norwegian chairman of the International Quality of Working Life Group, made one of his research interests the Norwegian shipping industry. Professor Lou Davis, director of the Quality of Working Life Program at the Graduate School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles, and a visiting fellow at the Tavistock Institute in London, had as one of his early projects the socio-technical design of a greenfield site for a new US company, and at a later date, the Digital Equipment Corporation in Boston used a similar philosophy for one of its new plants (Davis, 1971). Socio-technical design has also always rested on two essential premises. The first is that in all organizations there are multiple combined social and technical systems in operation. Men, and women, have to relate with each other and carry out sets of tasks within an organized work situation that usually contains some kind of technology. In most of industry, the social cannot work without the technical and vice versa. Technical is defined here as sets of tasks as well as machines. The second premise is that every socio-technical system is embedded in an environment. This environment is greatly influenced by culture and values and provides both constraints and opportunities. To understand a work system or an organization or a technology, one must also understand the environmental forces that operate on it (Davis, 1971). The earlier researchers saw the environment as acting on and constraining the lower-level systems—the company and the workplace. It was not seen as something that socio-technical principles could influence (Heller, 1997). But socio-technical design has never stood still. While its boom period was the seventies and early eighties, with economic pressures causing its decline in the early nineties, it is now back and accelerating forward on two fronts. The first is the involvement of large numbers of employees in helping to create a total organization redesign. This is usually directed at large systems change that has to be introduced quickly. This kind of approach to change goes under a number of different names, for example, high-performance work systems, sustainable production, shared purpose organizations, the conference model and many others. The second is ensuring that any environment affected by technology is both people-friendly and capable of performing the functions desired of it. This does not yet have a name. Frank Heller (1997) suggests socio-technology to cover the required characteristics of joint optimisation, socio-technology and oecology (ecology).



Our three final case studies, Air Products, the West Yorkshire Police and, in Chapter 12, Shell International, provide examples of these two new approaches to socio-technical design. The two companies are very large multinationals. Both of these have received awards for excellence in achieving social as well as business goals. The police establishment, the West Yorkshire Police, is a large police authority in the North of England. All three organizations have extended the socio-technical approach into new areas and methods. Americans would say that they have all pushed the envelope forward. At the same time, much of the industry and community life that surrounds them is undergoing dramatic change. Globalisation is changing community expectations and the location and trading practices of many companies, new technology is altering how they carry out their social and business activities, and the nature and pattern of the careers and career structures of those who are at work are also in a state of flux. Nonetheless, despite the benefits of new technology both in the home and in industry and the pace of change, people and their talents are required more than ever, and their needs, hopes and fears are still of critical importance to government and industrial strategy. Michel Godot points out that ultimately there is no wealth other than intellect, i.e., educated citizens, and when there are no more people, there is no future (Godot, 2000).

LARGE-SCALE SYSTEMS Another major change that has taken place in the socio-technical design environment is related to the scale and speed of projects. Whereas in the past most projects were usually quite small and applied to specific groups of people, many change programmes are now very large and affect everyone working in a community or company. Today’s shorter business and product cycles require them to be introduced at speed to meet rapidly changing situations and demands. This has led to the development of change programmes which enable large numbers of citizens and employees to come together to gather ideas and agree on strategies for change. Most of these approaches originated in the United States and were developed by followers of the socio-technical school of thought. They all keep to the classic socio-technical principle of viewing an organization as two systems, a technical system of work processes and associated technology and a social system made up of the people as individuals, as groups and as members of a complex structure (Lytle, 1998). They are therefore an elaboration of the earlier ideas and techniques described in this


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book. But they are much larger change initiatives. Yet, although large in scale they do not ignore the contribution that small groups can make. Most strategies are a product of large and small group interventions with final decisions being taken by the larger group while smaller groups identify and discuss specific problems that need to be tackled along the route to major change. This comprehensive approach is often called “transformational change” because it is an attempt to alter the whole organization at once. It enables a critical mass of people to participate in understanding the need for change, to consider the present situation and identify what should change, to generate ideas on how to manage this change, and to implement and support the change and ensure that it works.

AIR PRODUCTS AND CHEMICALS INC. Air Products is a multinational company that was started by an entrepreneur with a “good idea.” In 1940, Leonard Pool, a young physician who lived in Detroit, Michigan, and was interested in mortuary science, recognised that the existing method of selling industrial gases was clumsy and dysfunctional. Oxygen, for example, was sold as a highly compressed gas in cylinders that weighed five times more than the gas product. Dr. Pool believed that a better method would be to produce oxygen, and other gases, on site. This would mean building oxygen-gas-generating facilities adjacent to large-volume gas users, thereby reducing distribution costs. This idea proved both technically feasible and commercially sound. It led to the creation of a major company that was to sell its products all over the world. Today, Air Products has annual sales of $5 billion and provides industrial gas products and chemicals to a diverse group of customers in the manufacturing, process and service industries. The company has more than 17,000 employees and has operations in 30 companies. Its US corporate headquarters are no longer in Michigan but located in eastern Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, near Allentown. It also has European and Asian headquarters in London and Singapore. During World War 2 the company concentrated on producing oxygen for the military for use in high-altitude flights. After the war it reverted to commercial markets, its business expanded rapidly, and it began to diversify its products and move into chemicals and plastics. By the 1980s it was expanding its existing plants, acquiring new businesses and exploring new products such as environmental and energy systems. In the 1990s it continued to expand and invest globally. Now, into the new century, Air Products has expanded to reach Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


almost every continent in the world. Its products and services have important applications in industrial, consumer and agricultural markets, and it is reaching out to assimilate new ideas emerging from the frontiers of science and technology. Air Products has called its redesign activity TIP, standing for total involvement process. TIP is a large-scale, carefully thought-out redesign process that has as its aim building an employee culture of high involvement and commitment together with a more efficient and effective organization. It has been developed by a US consultant firm, Core-R.O.I., Inc., whose president, George Gates, is a member of the US Socio-technical Round Table and has been a long-term supporter and facilitator of socio-technical ideas. It is through his kindness and help that I am able to describe this important case study. The Air Products project began in 1982 under the leadership of Hermann Ortega, at that time vice president of manufacturing within the Chemicals Group. He strongly believed that a significant increase in employee involvement was crucial to sustaining manufacturing excellence and business success. He commissioned a small team of internal and external consultants to develop a world-class, involvement-based organization. The process was first piloted at two plants, then given to the internal consultants for wider application. Air Products saw its implementation as enabling an already excellent company to operate even more effectively. The function of TIP is to achieve organizational redesign and culture change that fits with the company’s vision and values. This is achieved by customising the process to fit an assessment of each site’s current state and needs, including the level of employee involvement. TIP was selected as one of the five 1999 winners of an Excellence in Practice Award given by the American Society for Training and Development (ACTED). It is currently being implemented within the manufacturing organization of the Company’s Chemical Group division. This division has over 2,800 employees and makes 31% of total company sales. About 1,700 employees work within the plants that either have or will be implementing TIP. TIP is designed to focus on three areas of organizational improvement: leadership development, work environment and organizational redesign. The focus on leadership development is to help the leaders in the organization shift from the traditional command-oriented management approach to a more participative management style. At the same time, attempts are made to change the employee culture so that staff are prepared for, and receptive to, the new management style and to increased teamwork and involvement in decisions that affect their jobs. Organization redesign then builds an organization that supports the ongoing leadership development and the new culture in the organizaCopyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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tion. The redesign uses a “whole systems” approach that ensures there are improvements in the social aspects of the work organization as well as in the work processes. Quality of working life is always an important objective. Management believes that TIP has already had a significant impact on the parts of the company where it is being implemented. There have been important changes in culture and behaviour and the style of leadership has significantly altered. Greater employee involvement in workplace decision taking has resulted in more efficient and effective organization. The company believes that the new ways of working have considerably increased the firm’s profits. The total involvement process as used by Air Products is an example of what is called fast impact process design. It is a “big bang” approach that offers to complete a redesign task in a very short time compared with traditional approaches. These, in my experience, can take from several months to several years, as they involve a design group taking responsibility for a project from problem analysis to design and implementation. Most of my earlier projects had the design group members meeting at one- or two-week intervals. This gave them time for research and thought. There was also no great urgency, as all the later ones involved the introduction of new technology and time was required for this to be selected, modified and tested out. Digital, which was developing an expert system for worldwide use with a design group drawn from sales groups throughout the United States, had its design group meetings at intervals of several months. XSEL, Digital’s expert system, took two years to build. The size of the TIP groups can vary from 20 to 200. Whereas my earlier redesign projects had a design group representative of all user interests but, with the exception of Digital, restricted numbers to under 20, many of the TIP projects involved all stakeholders in all decision processes. However, it is interesting to note that many of the organizational arrangements of the projects were the same whether a slow or a fast method of redesign was being used. All first established a steering group of interested senior managers and, in British companies such as Rolls Royce, trade union representatives. The role of the steering group was to set the parameters for the redesign process and provide overall direction to the work. It was not in the interests of the company or the stakeholders to have discussions ranging too widely in an unfocused way or to take design routes that would be incompatible with company strategy. Once a steering group was in place, the reasons for the redesign effort must be communicated to all employees, also the nature of the methodology that would be used. Lastly, a design team would be created to assist the successful operation of the structured conference meetings. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


This process is similar to that used in all the design projects discussed in this book. The difference is that after discussing problems and strategies TIP moved into a set of structured conference meetings attended by all stakeholders. In my projects it was the design group that worked on a series of design alternatives and then presented these to the relevant user departments for discussion and a final choice of solution. The Air Products design conference strategy is to examine four critical areas: customer requirements, a desired future, work system analysis and redesign. At the first conference, the discussion will focus on needs and problems. What do the various external stakeholders—customers, suppliers, union officials, regulators—want from Air Products? The second conference will examine the history of the organization, key environmental trends and forces, and the success measures the company must meet. It will conclude with a shared vision of the future of the organization. The third conference focuses on work systems analysis in order to identify and specify possible changes in the work process and work environment. Participants will examine technology, layout, people-related issues, communications, teamwork and decision making for improvement. The final conference integrates all the ideas from the previous conferences and creates a new organization design, including a comprehensive definition of the new core work processes. The product of the conference includes action plans, milestones, possible problems and the measurement of progress. Common outcomes of this process are seen as flatter structures; management roles that emphasise support and coordination rather than direction and control; multiskilled, self-managing employee teams; the integration of support and production functions; an emphasis on continual improvement and how to achieve this; direct employee-customer contact and feedback; effective communication systems; and accountability and power located at the point of work. It is clear that large-scale employee involvement of this kind can have excellent results. However, it is not easy to manage, especially for companies that have no history of employee participation. The assistance of good change consultants is probably essential. My own experience with smaller projects is that they require a basis of good relations and mutual trust between management and employees which can be built on. Where there is a history of industrial relations problems or where there is a past experience, or future threat, of redundancy, they are unlikely to succeed. They will be viewed as the latest, and perhaps cleverest, management strategy to undermine the workers. Many employees may refuse to take part.


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There may also be cultural differences. Despite the long European experience with joint consultation and participation, large-scale interventions seem to be a United States innovation of a fairly recent kind. Since joint consultation faded away in the nineties, the practice in many European companies has been to test employee opinion through regular attitude surveys and make changes on the basis of these. There has been no serious continuing employee involvement. In fact it seems that participation has been decreasing rather than increasing in Europe. Frank Heller’s book Organizational Participation (Heller, Pusic, Strauss, & Wilpert, 1998) describes and deplores this fact. Fortunately, my own experience of bringing together groups of employees to assist the design of specific projects involving new technology has generally been successful. It has helped the introduction and design of new systems through giving users both design knowledge and greater control over a specific work area.

Some Problems of Large-Scale Participation George Gates, president of the Core-R.O.I. consultancy group that assisted Air Products, provides some valuable information on the criteria needed to create success and avoid failure when large-scale interventions are underway. He tells us: A traditional method for implementing change is socio-technical redesign, but a nontraditional approach—fast-impact work process—takes less time. That is a crucial advantage because timeliness is so important in the current competitive market. However all socio-technical approaches require four preconditions: clarity, champions, readiness and vision. Clarity Everyone in the company must be clear about the reasons for the redesign. The expected gains must outweigh the projected costs in both financial and human terms. Champions People who have some power in the organizational hierarchy need to persuade others to accept the costs and stress that go with radically disrupting current structures and practices. These champions must be tough enough to plough through people’s resistance and skilful enough to lead them towards a vision.



Readiness The company should not proceed in the redesign until it is prepared to accept untraditional practices. Managers should be ready to relinquish their roles as controllers and directors. And employees must be willing to accept changes in their job requirements and responsibilities. Vision The organization’s leaders must articulate a vision that encourages people to move beyond such past constraints as concern for the status quo, hierarchical control, centralised authority, segmentation of activities, and ignorance of the larger business environment. People must be able to envision a compelling picture of alternatives before they will try to move toward it. One way leaders can demonstrate support for the vision is to commit to some operating principles that are consistent with the redesign values. The leaders should be working to help everyone in the company understand and use the principles. But, at the same time, there are problems and challenges. George describes some of these: The first major problem in large American firms such as Air Products is getting the notion of participative design and teamworking accepted. I believe our work culture does not easily accept cooperation. Although our early agrarian economy required cooperation for survival, our industrial economy of the last hundred years has encouraged the opposite. It feeds on harnessing, controlling and rewarding individual effort. Our economic engine runs on the ability to focus this individual effort and aim at filling individual needs which are continually created and reinforced. The result is our consumer economy. We have all learned to move on our own separate paths even when it is not in our own best interest to do so. Teams can also be seen as un-American. American heroes and heroines are usually brilliant individualists—think of Daniel Boone, Calamity Jane, Paul Bunyon, Charles Lindbergh and many others. They were all rugged individualists. Teamwork clashes with the myth. It’s the Lone Ranger and his silver bullet we admire, not the committee to save the streets of Laredo.


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Also teams are frequently misused, confused and abused in the organizations where they are attempted. They are started for the wrong reasons, done poorly and supported inadequately. There are many ways to ruin workplace teams. Here are some of them: Restrict what they can do and when they can do it. The boss tells them, “Worker participation is on Monday and Wednesday, you ignorant twit! Today is Tuesday.” Make it all very complicated. Give it a high-sounding name, such as world-class, highperformance excellence work team process, and a set of complex associates—supporters, facilitators, mediators, coordinators, for example—together with a tight bureaucratic structure. Assume they are going to solve all your problems, that they are the latest green magic pill. Tell them to get going but make few suggestions on what they should do and leave them to get on with it without any assistance. Leave them also with their normal jobs to look after but with no time to do these. Use them as a way of abdicating management responsibility: “Its up to the team to solve this one.” George continues: Let me follow this catastrophic litany with a positive premise, “Teams are simple, but not necessarily easy, and the two are not the same.” Teams are all about involving the optimum number of people at all levels in the organization in planning, problem solving, goal setting and decision making—and giving them the tools and resources they need to do that. Workplace teams are neither social experiment nor “soft” management tool; they are a means to an end and the end is managing organization change effectively. Teams require training. They have to learn to talk and listen and to solve problems. Management must provide them with the tools and time that enable them to do this. The prospect of people doing their best work together, and enjoying this into the bargain, makes it all worth it. You can’t “do teams to” people, but with them you can create effective workplace teams that are well worth the effort.



George provides us with an example of appropriate operating principles used in a US firm in its redesign effort. This firm tells us that their employees are committed to: • • • • •

open and respectful communication participative and facilitative leadership working together to pursue common goals that are mutually beneficial to employees, the union and the business the continuous improvement of performance to ensure long-term security for the business and workforce increasing employee knowledge and commitment to satisfy internal and external customers He stresses: Organizations that have completed successful socio-technical design projects are flatter and are populated by multiskilled, selfmanaging teams. Managers support and coordinate rather then direct and control. The overall emphasis in socio-technical redesigned work environments is on continuous improvement supported by ongoing training in technical, business and employee skills.

THE BRITISH POLICE There are few examples of large-scale intervention processes of this kind in Europe. However, there are some and, perhaps surprisingly, the British police force provides an excellent case study. The police too have very large redesign challenges which affect many of their staff and need to be introduced quickly. In the UK an enthusiastic supporter of this approach has been the West Yorkshire Police. West Yorkshire is the fourth largest force in England and Wales. It has always prided itself on using the latest management ideas and tools to assist its service to the community. Ian Newsome, the corporate project coordinator and head of the West Yorkshire Police Management Support Department, tells us how and why large-scale projects were first adopted. He explains:


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Although the West Yorkshire Police has always had a policy of involving its officers and civilian staff in discussions about future change, there has been a problem of ensuring that all viewpoints were represented at these discussions. When this did not happen it sometimes led to implementation being less successful than it could have been. Management Support heard about the success of large group work in the United States and thought we should try it. Our first major projects were in crime management and intelligence improvement, both of great importance to effective policing. Following the US pattern, we organized a series of conferences to enable all staff to make a contribution to discussions on what we needed to change, what changes would lead to improvement and how these changes could be successfully implemented. These conferences were attended by a wide spectrum of officers and support staff ranging from senior commanders to police constables and clerical workers. There could be from 30 to 80 people present. Each was managed by a small team of facilitators trained in the conference approach. Those present usually worked part of the time in small task groups and had their ideas recorded on flip charts so that they could be seen by everyone in the room. At intervals everyone would meet together to make strategic choices and take strategic decisions. Since our first attempt at large group intervention, the West Yorkshire police has tended to focus on one-off events and to address specific problems. Projects are usually run as a series, with the ideas from the first turned into practice by a project team, who then feed the results from this into the next project. We in the police are now continuing enthusiastically with this approach. We are trying to broaden the subjects for discussion and to organize events with other agencies with whom we work in partnership. Ian describes how the approach has been tried by larger groups than just the West Yorkshire Force. He continues: Another example of the conference approach is one organized by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). This was to discuss the future use of information technology by the police Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


service and arrive at an agreed and viable strategy. These discussions involved around 40 senior policemen from different local and national agencies who met for two to three days to explore past and present experiences with IT and to jointly identify a desirable technical future. Again, specially trained facilitators assisted this process. Their role was to ensure that every meeting had a clear purpose; that all stakeholders, or a representative cross section, were involved in discussions and decisions; that everyone’s input was equally valued; and that the process finished with the identification and description of a desired future. While this particular conference was dedicated to the definition of future IT strategy, other similar conferences have been held by individual police authorities and have focused on different issues. For example, agreeing plans for specific organizational change and deciding how these might be implemented. The police have found these large group conferences helpful in creating useful ideas for change, establishing commitment to change and involving the local community in discussions on change. Ian tells us: In today’s world the police must learn how to change rapidly in order to survive in new and turbulent environments. They, like managers in other industries, are recognising that change of this kind, to be successful, requires the acceptance and commitment of all staff. Also, like many commercial and industrial companies, they are trying to shift from traditional hierarchical structures to more flexible and participative networking styles. This means that they need a decision-making process that will involve and motivate everyone. The new large group approach, while still following the socio-technical tradition, broadens the discussion structure from small groups on single issues to large-group decision taking for multidisciplinary problems and strategies for major change. An important objective of the approach is to gain general approval and commitment to implementing change successfully.


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Advantages and Problems It seems the large-scale intervention approach has many advantages if it is successful. Commitment comes from trust, and trust is greatly helped by openness, good communication and personal involvement that embraces everyone likely to be affected by the change. However, as both the Air Products and the British police experience have shown, this is not always easy to achieve without assistance. It requires considerable organizational skill to bring large numbers of people together at the same time and to create a productive and logical discussion. Experienced facilitators are required to encourage participation and ensure decisions are carefully recorded. There is also a danger that the approach can be used subversively, as a method for putting forward and reinforcing management ideas, rather than as a genuinely democratic approach. And there can be a gap between gaining commitment to change and its implementation. The two are very different activities and the second is often much more difficult than the first. Large-scale intervention to assist change now has many satisfied customers in the United States. As other countries are often keen to follow when America leads the way, European companies may soon be following in the footsteps of Air Products and the British police. It is worth pointing out here that large group discussions of this kind are not new; in fact, they are very old indeed. The Romans were quite accustomed to discussions and debate before new strategies were accepted and implemented. We have the example of Kettles Augustus, a Roman citizen, leaving his house at the fourth hour of the day on the 26 Febuaris 550 B.C. He was on his way to a comitia plebis, or public meeting, to discuss and vote on matters of interest to the community. These meetings were held regularly. Sometimes they were for all citizens; sometimes they were restricted to particular groups or communities. Today there are even more incentives to encourage this kind of large group discussion. The challenge of global competition is forcing organizations to become more competitive, and in today’s world this means that they must learn how to change rapidly in order to survive in new and turbulent environments. Managers are recognising that change of this kind, to be successful, requires the acceptance and commitment of all staff. Also, many organizations are moving from traditional hierarchical structures to more flexible and participative teambased networking styles. This means they need a decision-making process that will both involve and motivate. The conference approach enables discussion to move from small groups on single issues to large-group decision taking on multidisciplinary problems and strategies for major change.



STRATEGY AND CHANGE Most large-scale intervention projects are used to assist decisions on strategy and so it is appropriate to consider what these involve. Here are some ideas.

What is Strategy? Strategy can be broadly defined as an integrated set of plans and actions aimed positively at increasing the long-term well being and strength of an organization or part of one relative to its environment and goals or, negatively, at reducing or removing a difficult problem that is impeding this. Strategy has to be applied. It has to be associated with a plan of action. Strategy Formulation Requires a Knowledge of the Present and a Vision of the Future There has to be an excellent agreed knowledge of the current situation— present objectives, goals, budgets and plans, and the needs and aspirations of those who work for the organization or are affected by it. The required vision of the future needs, ideally, to have creative and entrepreneurial insight into what can be changed and what should be changed. A Strategy Climate and Culture Must be Created Effective strategy formulation requires that everyone involved should be interested in “positive” change and willing to work towards a desired future. This is likely to involve the reconciliation of many different interests and a balancing act between what is desired and what can realistically be achieved. It also requires an excellent knowledge of both the internal and external environments. All Groups Should be Involved in Vision Creation Each interest group should be encouraged to create its own vision so that the common elements in these can be brought together as a set of long-term goals. This has to go hand in hand with a learning process that will assist successful implementation. Strategy is an Emergent Process Examining the present and creating a vision of the future are the start of the strategic planning process but are by no means the end. It is important to be aware of the concept of negative feedback. Each step forward that is taken can


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provide new information that causes part of the strategy to be revised. This may continue until the desired change is accomplished (Beer, 1968). Strategy Must be Flexible Because environments are constantly changing, strategy too must change and be flexible. A strategy developed at time A and implemented at time B is almost certainly flawed, as circumstances will have altered (Beer, 1968). Major Change Requires Learning Effective learning requires goals and feedback and is usually an incremental process. Proceeding one step at a time at the implementation stage is usually a safer strategy than a “big bang” approach.

REFERENCES Beer, S. (1968). The aborting corporate plan. In E. Jantsch (Ed.), Perspectives of Planning. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Davis, L. E. (1971). The coming crisis for production management: Technology and organization. International Journal of Production Research, 9, 65-82. Emery, F. M., & Trist, E. L. (1965). The causal texture of organizational environments. Human Relations, 18, 21-33. Godot, M. (2000). Bottom line in the new economy. Foresight, 2(6), 549558. Heller, F. (1997). Sociotechnology and the environment. Human Relations, 50(5), 605-624. Heller, F., Pusic, E., Strauss, G., & Wilpert, B. (1998). Organizational participation. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Lytle, W. O. (1998). Designing a high performance organization. NJ: Block Petrella Weisbord.


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Chapter 12

Quality and Environmental Issues in Shell International The world of the future requires homeostasis to create stability, and an element of chaos to encourage creativity. Ulrich Beck

INTRODUCTION Shell provides an excellent example of an international group that for many years has used socio-technical values and approaches to help the introduction of major change into both its internal structures and its external projects. Shell was one of the first of the multinationals. It has an Anglo-Dutch ownership and is one of the very few companies which divides effective control between two or more different nationalities. Its size and the fact that its products are vital to society mean that it has been able to exert considerable influence on governments (Molitor, 2001). However, today, its future in terms of products and markets is uncertain. Oil industry experts predict that petrol reserves will run dry around 2050. Shell itself has forecast that more than 50% of energy will be from renewable sources by this date, while OPEC foresees supplies lasting until 2080. Other forecasts calculate a 42- to 50-year remaining supply. These estimates may not be correct but it is undeniable that fossil fuel supplies are finite Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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and world supplies are steadily diminishing, although new sources of oil are being discovered. It seems certain that petroleum and natural gas supplies will soon no longer be burned as fuel. This makes companies such as Shell International fascinating subjects for study. We need to ask What are their plans for the future? A recent chairman of Shell has said, “The only sure thing about the future of the energy industry is that it will be very different from today.” Leading oil corporations like Shell have now declared themselves to be “poly-energetic.” They have major investment plans in alternative sources of energy such as sun, wind and hydrogen (Bracho, 2000). This means that they must be more expert than most international companies in managing major change. Shell today is certainly not standing still. It recognises that the oil era may be coming to an end and that it now needs to be very aware of alternate sources of energy. Shell’s future investment plans include gas, sun, wind and hydrogen. This is not only because of exhaustion of the oil fields but because the countries of the world are demanding alternative renewable and cleaner forms of energy (Bracho, 2000). Shell management says that its businesses exist to meet the energy needs of society in ways that are economically, socially and environmentally viable. It maintains, “All of our businesses are united by common goals: to make the most of our existing business, to gain new business and to break new ground.” For many years and in different ways it has also sought to be an efficient and ethical employer and supplier. This has meant that it must be continually aware of what society expects and needs from it. To achieve this in recent times, throughout the late nineties Shell International held conversations with many different groups to try and discover both today’s expectations of multinational companies and how the general public in different countries saw Shell and its activities. This, called Shell’s Transformation, involved 7,500 members of the general public in 10 countries and 1,300 opinion leaders in 25 countries. Six hundred Shell employees in 55 different countries were also interviewed. The picture that emerged was both good and bad. Half of the general public and opinion leaders had a favourable view of Shell, while 40% were neutral and 10% unfavourable This last group saw Shell as negligent in its care of the environment and human rights (The Shell Report, 1998). Shell decided that it must again make it clear to the world and to its customers that, while its primary responsibility was the economic one of running a successful company, it fully accepted a responsibility to ensure that it ran its businesses in a way that was ethically acceptable to the rest of the world. In 1976 it had produced a Statement of General Business Principles to provide Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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an ethical code of conduct which would take account of changes in society and in worldviews. In 1997 there was major revision of these, involving both internal and external consultation. Shell now had nine principles which would influence all its activities and relationships. There were key new commitments to human rights and to a contribution to sustainable development and a stronger “no bribes” clause. These business principles are shown in full at the end of this chapter. Both the 1976 original and the 1997 revised statements were firmly based on sets of values that would influence the way Shell behaved to its staff, its customers, and groups affected by its activities. But it must be stressed here that the 1976 statement of objectives and philosophy had not fallen into abeyance in the intervening period; in fact, it had been frequently updated. However it was now felt that the world had changed so much that a totally new look was required to meet the needs of the next century. Shell would soon be a very different kind of company and would be running many different kinds of businesses. Oil might only play a minor part in these. Rethinking and restating its values in the late nineties made Shell recognise that there were many dilemmas ahead. These included human rights, climate change, globalisation and the role of multinational companies operating in politically sensitive regions. External forces and conflicts of interest could make some of Shell’s objectives with regard to these difficult to achieve and this must be accepted. Globalisation was one important example. Shell’s belief was that this could bring many benefits, including the alleviation of poverty, in developing countries, providing multinationals recognised their responsibilities. These were to give equal weight to economic progress, environmental protection and social responsibility. In Shell’s view, two things were necessary to achieve these benefits, a recognition of the importance of private enterprise and the establishment of global standards. Private enterprise was seen as a means of stimulating competition, but it must have incentives to innovate and to adopt best practice. Shell believed that large companies could boost trade, create jobs and alleviate poverty if they were motivated to do this. But they could also do the opposite. Here was an example of a major dilemma for major companies. By the end of the nineties the oil industry was suffering from a profits squeeze as a result of a decline in the price of oil. Shell decided something more had to be done. It was necessary to change the company from one that pushed products onto the market to one which could react rapidly to changes in demand and seek out new opportunities. One way to understand this new challenge was to carry out rigorous benchmarking of performance. This Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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required a comparison of Shell’s performance with those of comparable firms in the same industry, together with the identification of best practice. The first attempts at benchmarking had taken place in 1986 with the help of an oil industry consultancy group called Solomon Associates. A continuation of this programme enabled Shell refineries to compare themselves with other refineries throughout the world on manpower, costs, energy and loss.

EARLY SOCIO-TECHNICAL DESIGN IN SHELL UK Shell (UK) became interested in socio-technical design in 1965, a period when it was introducing new technology. It collaborated with the London Tavistock Institute on the development of a new management philosophy to guide the redesign of work associated with the introduction of this technology (Trist, 1981). Senior management believed it was critical to secure commitment both from the workforce and from management. In order to achieve this kind of change, it organized with the Tavistock a series of two and a halfday, off-site, residential conferences to discuss how change could best be introduced and managed and to create a new philosophy of changing. These conferences involved all levels of the company from the board to the shop floor. They also included local trade union officials and the shop stewards from five refineries. An important output from this programme was a statement of Shell UK’s change philosophy and change objectives (Hill, 1971). Shell UK saw its primary objective as establishing and increasing its longterm profitability through the most efficient use of resources. Resources, in this instance, were seen primarily as “social” resources, defined as resources belonging to the community. These must be protected and developed. The Group should seek to improve its profitability in ways which would also benefit society. It was decided to use the Tavistock principle of the joint optimisation of social and technical systems to guide the change activities. This meant achieving the best possible match between the needs and skills of the people in any unit, the ways their jobs were organized and the use of the physical equipment and material resources. It was believed that this approach would, in turn, create responsibility and commitment in all employees. The two conditions seen as especially important to the development of these were good terms and conditions of employment and the creation of jobs which enabled employees to satisfy the basic needs of human beings at work. These basic needs were defined as the following:



1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

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The need for the content of work to be reasonably demanding of the individual and for it to provide some variety. The need for an individual to know what his job is and how he is performing it. The need to be able to learn on the job and go on learning. The need for some area of decision making where the individual can exercise his discretion. The need for some degree of social support and recognition within the organization. The need for an individual to be able to relate what he does and what he produces to the objectives of the company and to his life in the community. The need to feel that the job leads to some sort of desirable future which does not necessarily imply promotion.

These quality of working life needs were very similar to those identified as important by the Tavistock researchers. It was recognised that these basic needs could not be achieved simply by redesigning individual jobs. The importance of the group and of group relationships must be recognised. The validity of these principles was tested out at a conference for Shell UK’s senior management, the general managers of the refineries and their deputies. This was held at the Selsdon Park Hotel near London in October 1965. Here the principles were generally accepted as valid guidelines.

Stanlow Oil and Chemical Complex This was one of the Shell UK sites participating in the new programme. Once the change philosophy and objectives were agreed, the general manager at Stanlow and his deputy were keen to get their own programme started. They were the first to launch a company conference to discuss the new approach. Here local management strongly endorsed a programme to improve motivation and performance. Stanlow had four of these conference meetings, the later ones directed at creating a strategy for turning ideas into practice. It was recognised that too much attention had been paid to technical issues in the past and that other aspects of change and innovation had been neglected. The challenge now was how to implement a new socio-technical philosophy. Between April and September 1966, Stanlow ran a series of 27 residential conferences for mixed groups of staff including foremen and supervisors. After the series ended, departmental discussion groups of junior staff and hourly paid employees carried on the debate. Stanlow management was now Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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keen to get the union officials and shop stewards involved in the programme so that a start could be made on setting up pilot programmes and establishing joint working parties. It was agreed that further progress could best be made in the work situation in people’s own departments, rather than in mixed discussion groups in a conference situation. The next stage was the implementation of a number of pilot projects. Planning meetings at Stanlow were held during May 1966 to decide which of a number of suggested sites for a project would be most appropriate and how the projects should be set up and manned. Three sites were eventually chosen. These were the distillation unit; the lub-oil installation – a department responsible for blending and packaging lubricating oils; and engineering maintenance. Guarantees were given that no employee would be made redundant as a result of any changes made, although it might be necessary for individuals to move to a different job, and that no employee would lose money as a result of the project. Representative committees were set up in all three situations and the Tavistock experts worked with these. All three projects experienced unanticipated problems as a result of their taking place in volatile work environments but they also produced valuable results. The distillation unit proved the most successful with agreed changes leading to more efficiency and more satisfying jobs. However, moving from strategy to action proved more time-consuming than had been expected because of a change in departmental managers. Lub-oil installation had a similar experience, also suffering a similar gap between strategy and action. But, at the same time, changes to plant operating procedures led to greater efficiency and more job satisfaction. The engineering maintenance programme was eventually discontinued because of greatly increased pressure of work in activities other than maintenance. This project produced some interesting ideas but nothing of practical value. The experience of these three projects demonstrated to Shell that socio-technical analysis and design are valuable tools for improving the motivation and performance of employees. The positive effects of these conferences lasted for around four years and this early work greatly influenced a long-term development programme for Shell International that is flourishing today and moving from the internal running of the Group into the environment. The early values developed with the Tavistock are today becoming stronger rather than weaker as Shell realises that to succeed with change it has to cater for the fears, hopes and motivations of those on the receiving end and of those with responsibility for introducing and managing it.



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After the Sixties in Shell UK After the sixties the socio-technical philosophy of Shell UK suffered a setback. The trade unions were very strong, and change was not easy to introduce. There was now a different generation of managers working in different circumstances. The refineries had difficulties in achieving productivity targets, and in the 1970s there was an energy crisis in which the price of oil went up. This frightened Ted Heath, the then Conservative prime minister, and he introduced a three-day working week, which caused considerable unrest. In 1972, after an overtime ban, the miners came out on strike. Two years later, after a second strike, the prime minister was forced to call an election, and in 1979 the Conservative government was replaced by a Labour government. The oil industry was now affected by three separate developments: the discovery of oil in the North Sea, the energy crisis and the evasion of oil sanctions against Rhodesia. Harold Wilson, the Labour prime minister, had introduced sanctions against the white rebels in Rhodesia in 1965 but the oil companies refused to accept these. Shell argued that, as a matter of principle, the company was engaged in a multinational trade and had to look after all its customers on an equal basis (Sampson,1982). In 1983 Margaret Thatcher became Conservative prime minister, and many companies began rethinking and toughening their industrial relations strategies. Influenced by the miners’ strike, in 1993 the company derecognised all trade unions at Shell’s Shellhaven refinery and all but the Transport and General Workers’ Union at Stanlow. This caused great employee unrest, and management became nervous about future relationships. Another cause for concern was the growing influence of the Green lobby in many countries. The supporters of this identified the oil companies as major environmental polluters who must be made to change their ways. Shell recognised that it must respond to this pressure group. From the mid-eighties to the early nineties, the Stanlow site underwent a great deal of change, especially in working practices. Seminars on changing Stanlow were held for all staff, and these paved the way and helped start the process of getting employees to think about change and how they could contribute to this.

The Stanlow Complex in the Nineties Today, the Stanlow oil and chemicals complex is large. In 1992 it had 1,800 employees. Redundancies reduced this by 477 so that when the new


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general manager, Chris Gillies, arrived in 1994 it had 1,400. There were now few trade unions and extreme internal pressure for higher productivity. The new manager and his staff realised that the company had to change. The number of employees had been reduced to save costs but there were two quite different businesses requiring funding—chemicals and oil. Chris Gillies realised that the plant had few targets and no clear vision for the future. He began a process of rethinking company values and strategies using an approach similar to that introduced by the Tavistock group in the 1960s but on a much wider scale. He was assisted in this by an international human relations consultancy called Coverdale. This specialised on issues concerned with communication, leadership, effective teamwork, management development, performance improvement and change management. He tells us: I decided to use many of the tools and techniques that had originated with the Tavistock team. For example, I proposed to involve all staff in identifying problem areas and suggesting solutions. I also wanted to consider again the socio-technical approach of giving workers more autonomy and responsibility. But, I and the other managers knew that we had a number of difficult problems to overcome. These included some resistance to change which was a result of the earlier redundancies, also a degree of overmanning with too many managers, and maintenance costs were too high. Also I was worried that the rigid departmental structure of the company could lead to rivalry rather than cooperation. Coverdale’s values were close to those of the early Tavistock group. They included the following. Purpose: Everyone seeks and has the right to meaning in their lives. Learning: It is important to have continuous learning and development at the personal and organizational level. Others: We practice empathy and build relationships. Work in partnerships and networks. Keep balance between family and work life. Creativity: We value and enable this. Integrity: We are results/performance focused. Teamwork: Cooperating to mutual benefit.



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Coverdale was in the business of achieving sustainable change. Its approach was to identify necessary improvements and then decide how to make these stick. Part of this process was identifying the pressures for change and the possibility of achieving change. Coverdale believed that if these were not present then change would not happen. Chris Gillies chose Coverdale as consultant because he had used it earlier to address problems which were a consequence of the low morale created by union derecognition. It had proved helpful in doing this. In 1994, a senior engineering manager, John Millet, was asked to act as an internal consultant and to prepare a scenario depicting Stanlow as it should be in 1999. He spent 18 months producing this and it was adopted by management as the starting point for a programme for future action. Management agreed that Stanlow should become “Europe’s pacesetter.” This meant that it should be in the top 25% of refineries in Europe in terms of operating costs, energy utilisation, manpower, maintenance costs and profitability. Many ideas for improvement were volunteered by staff and all were responded to. In addition, in 1995, the senior management team produced a booklet setting out the Shell vision and proposing targets for successful change. A copy was given to each employee. Teams were now set up to take responsibility for different aspects of the change programme. Open conferences were held every month on the issues raised and how improvement goals could be achieved. Videos of the proceedings were made for shift operatives who were unable to attend. The objective was to gradually increase involvement in, and commitment to, the proposed change. A major part of the change initiative was looking at grass roots procedures, “the way we do things,” with groups such as shift teams. Their ideas were sought and implemented. One of the messages Shell Stanlow wanted to get across to employees was that “The customer is the most important person. He is not dependent on us, we are dependent on him.” The challenge was how to achieve the pacesetter goals by 1999. Part of the Coverdale input to this was to take everyone away for three days of training. Twelve internal facilitators were created to assist the required attitude change. These initiatives helped produce a common language, new skills and increased understanding of the change goals. They were intended to educate employees in how the vision, mission, etc. all fitted together and could be achieved. This process was not without its problems. An important question for management was could Stanlow achieve these changes, which involved reductions in staff numbers, without forced redundancy. This did happen but job security became a major problem. However by using a cross-sectional problem-solving team this was satisfactorily resolved with 500 people leaving Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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under a voluntary early retirement scheme. Relocation and other similar issues now had to be addressed. Other difficulties arose through a proposal to give productivity bonuses to craft workers. These had never been popular with this group and were not accepted easily. Despite some setbacks the pacesetter programme progressed well. Everyone now had the mission-related explanatory book, and all employees, including management, were pledged to commit to the values in it. In 1998 Shell was accredited as an “investor in people.” The Coverdale team, assisted by employees at all levels, identified where improvements could be made and, in partnership with internal teams, introduced efficiency programmes to improve performance. This was seen as a programme of transformation in which the Shell vision could be clarified and reinforced. Shell values would be emphasised to create a unity of purpose; strategies and plans would align with the vision and values, as would tasks and targets. Matthew White, a student on the Production and Operations Management course at Nottingham University, was asked to make an independent evaluation of the Stanlow pacesetter initiative for his degree dissertation. He designed a questionnaire to find out how a cross section of people at Stanlow felt about the change process and also had many informal discussions with groups and individuals. Matthew saw Stanlow’s pacesetter process as incorporating the following: a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i.

j.

Defining a vision. Describing the characteristics of the vision so all could see what pacesetter is. Determining the gap between the status quo and the vision. Sharing this with everyone on the site. Inviting each person on-site to provide ideas to close the gap between vision and current position. Encouraging people to voice concerns and raise any issues which may prevent achievement of the vision. Reviewing every idea and ranking them openly. Informing employees on what happened to their ideas and why. Inviting volunteers from all levels in the organization to sit on the teams whose task it was to develop the best ideas into proposals. These, when implemented, would lead to achievement of the vision whilst addressing as far as is practicable the key concerns of the people. When all teams’ proposals had been presented, discussed and agreed, implementation would then be handled in the normal way within the line.



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A project manager was put in place for the early phases of the project to facilitate the process and ensure milestones were achieved. Chris Gillies, the general manager, believed that communication had been Stanlow’s most important facilitator. This had been open and honest and available to everyone. Also management had been totally committed to the new vision and values and able to communicate these to everyone on-site. At this time Stanlow was trying to institute probably the most difficult kind of change, that of altering a culture so as to make management and workers more responsive to innovation. At the end of the project it was felt that this had been achieved. Everyone now understood the need for change in order to compete more effectively with other refineries. The pacesetter project had successfully created a reevaluation of work methods and generated good ideas from all levels of staff. The notion of continuous improvement was now understood and accepted as a strategy. But the process had had some weaknesses, principally organizational. For example, there were still too many levels of management and some intersection rivalry still existed. Teams had been created but did not always understand their role, and perhaps the most important, the pacesetter initiative had dropped away. Suggestions were no longer collected and those that had been deferred were no longer being evaluated. It was recommended that these deficiencies should be looked at again. One excellent aspect of the Stanlow pacesetter program was that it provided a means for the refinery to compare itself with other similar plants in the oil industry. This exercise demonstrated a need for change and the importance of creating a culture more receptive to innovation. This, in turn, required a critical examination of current practices and a willingness to rethink these. The approach for identifying problems and creating solutions was very similar to that introduced by the Tavistock Institute 40 years previously. Ideas for improvement were sought from all levels of staff, and strategy groups were set up to evaluate these and to select those most relevant to future improvement. Careful thought was given to how these could best be implemented. The original Tavistock values of participation, team working, the development of personal skills, and group responsibility for decision taking were all present in the organizational reforms. Shell now had nurtured, sustained and implemented its quality of working life values for 40 years.

Shell and the Environment In many countries there is increasing anxiety about environmental issues and a belief that major oil companies are drilling for oil without paying much Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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attention to the needs of the local populations or to the impact on the local environment. There have also been a number of high profile incidents associated with the oil industry that have made many people very angry. The Exxon Valdez and Torrey Canyon disasters led to major oil spillages in Alaska and the Scilly Isles. In Shell, the disposal of the redundant offshore Brent Spa oil rig aroused considerable controversy. Shell wanted to sink this in deep water in the Atlantic but environmental bodies saw this as highly polluting and thought the rig should be broken up and the parts disposed of in other ways. More controversy arose from the execution of the Nigerian playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogonis in 1995 and the belief that Shell could have prevented these deaths but did nothing. Saro-Wiwa had protested about oil exploration in the southern Delta region of Nigeria and the negative impact of this on the Ogoni people who inhabited that region. Shell had for some time been very aware that its public image and behaviour greatly needed improvement to make them more socially acceptable. These negative episodes reinforced this view. In the early 1990s Shell was undergoing a great deal of internal change. In 1994 the Group initiated a broad transformation process in reaction to unsatisfactory business performance. Not only did it reorganize its business units, it also began to internalise concern for social impacts and to promote interaction with stakeholders in its operations. Soon after these initiatives started, the Brent Spa and the Ken Saro-Wiwa incidents occurred. These led to a public outcry against Shell that served to underline the importance of the changes that were already taking place. It decided not only to reorganize to improve efficiency but also to try and change attitudes and behaviour. The Brent Spa and Nigeria difficulties served to underline the urgency of what had already begun. This problem is now increasing in severity. Groups which see globalisation as a threat rather than a benefit have organized protests in London, Seattle, Washington, Prague, Quebec and London. These question the whole notion of democratic capitalism and see it as essentially malevolent in its human consequences. Others argue that globalisation is likely to be beneficial but needs international regulation if it is not to create economic and social instability. At the same time there are pressures for companies such as Shell to move away from oil to renewable and cleaner sources of energy. This strategy is a result of the uncertainty as to how long oil, or the demand for oil, will last and the need for alternative sources of energy. It is also influenced by Shell’s continuing belief that change and social responsibility are good business (Monbiot, 2000).



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Today, Shell is very aware of this increasing public criticism. In response to a “tell us” initiative directed at identifying public anxieties, an Australian citizen wrote: Every facet of the industry from exploration to consumption is at odds with environmental conservation. Is that fact lost to you people? I think not. In its year 2000 report, Shell replied: Reducing emissions to air, water and land is critical to our contribution to sustainable development. It is also critical to our business performance. It continued: As a sign of the importance that reducing emissions plays, we have set ourselves tough improvement targets and projections for the Group—and in the past year achieved all of them apart from one of the spills. Preserving the richness and diversity of biological life—biodiversity—is also an integral part of our commitment to contribute to sustainable development. Shell has been involved in several significant conservation projects, such as an alliance with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in the Gulf of Mexico and our work with the Smithsonian Institution in the Camisea region of Peru. The challenge now is to apply the knowledge gained through such activities systematically to our operations around the world. (The Shell Report, 2000) It is the Camisea project that we shall use as an example of a sociotechnical approach applied to environmental issues. Heller (1997) points out that joint optimisation of the social and the technical now has to be achieved between three systems: the social, the technical and the ecological. These gestures towards caring for the environment and looking after the interests of employees and local people were suddenly and horrifically disturbed by the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York and part of the Pentagon in Washington on 11 September 2001. In a flash the corporate world was turned upside down, and a period of great fear and uncertainty replaced the cautious progress that was being made. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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THE CAMISEA PROJECT Until recently some companies looking for market opportunities in the tropics have placed immediate financial gain way ahead of long-term societal benefits. This view is now changing as corporations increasingly see their competitive advantage as being linked both to establishing good relations with host communities and to adequate protection of fragile ecosystems. Unfortunately many have little expertise in either of these areas and they may not get much encouragement from their shareholders. In the late nineties Shell decided that factors such as these must be of great concern in future projects. The case study documents Shell’s attempts to do things differently in the Camisea gas field of the Peruvian Amazon. It highlights the efforts to incorporate stakeholder concerns made by Shell’s national subsidiary Shell Prospecting and Development Peru (SPDP). This involved comprehensive consultation, participatory processes and the incorporation of emerging issues into technical and design decisions. It can be regarded as industry-wide best practice (May, 1999). Shell first came to Camisea in the early 1980s during an exploration campaign in which it discovered rich “world-class” gas and condensate deposits. Unfortunately, while exploration was underway Shell was accused of adversely affecting local social conditions and of endangering the health of previously uncontacted native people. The company had to withdraw. In 1994 Shell, in partnership with Mobil, returned to Peru to revive the Camisea project. Shell was the operator. This time it had a clear commitment to a new approach. It had already made an assessment of local risks and conditions and felt it understood the local situation. An ongoing process of consultation with local communities had already begun. It was now believed that the benefits to the company would include a lessening of the risk of social and environmental problems, an increase in local goodwill, and cost avoidance in future phases of the project. Also, what was learned in the Camisea project would also have an application in other areas of the business. Camisea is in the Lower Urubamba region of Upper Amazonia in the Peruvian rain forest. Although the project was eventually abandoned through lack of time to complete necessary negotiations, it provides an excellent example of how a socio-technical environment appraisal study can be effectively carried out. Shell’s final investment decision was originally scheduled for May 16, 1998, but problems arising from the technology and costs associated with the extraction of an adequate volume of condensates frustrated an early decision. There were more tests, but in July Shell withdrew from the project, citing gas marketing and distribution issues as the reason. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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Developing the gas reserves in Camisea required a high level of social and environmental awareness. The region is home to a number of indigenous communities and has a highly sensitive natural environment. The predominant tribe, the Machiguenga, has a history extending back some 5,000 years. Today, most of the communities have title to their land. Two years before the signing of the licence agreement, an environmental risk assessment was undertaken. The risks identified included major social and environmental problems. For example, the risks of alienating indigenous groups and the environmental problems associated with the rain forest, biodiversity and Amazonia. Could current oil industry practice cope with these? By working closely with a range of stakeholders in Camisea, including a broad range of government and community representatives, Shell produced an environmental profile in 1994 and its first environmental impact assessment in 1996. These could act as a guide for future activity. The processes for arriving at this are useful as a guide to the effective management of change. They included getting an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the problems ahead through discussions with all groups with an interest in the project, irrespective of the nature of the interest. The Camisea risk assessment report, called the environmental profile, that emerged from this process in 1994 was made available to all groups for information and input, as were all other briefing notes, performance guidelines and other reports. These discussions and the environmental profile led to the next critical stage of taking decisions for future action. Stakeholders were now involved in this process with the result that, in July 1996, approval was given to build a supply base and drill up to four appraisal wells. Shell now ensured that it had a management team experienced in problem environments and committed to the adoption of the highest standards with regard to environmental and social issues. Every care was taken to establish continuing communication with all stakeholders and other interested groups. All important policy decisions were taken after ongoing consultation with local communities. Inspections and visits by local communities and other interested groups were encouraged and welcomed. All reports were made public and nothing of relevance to the local population was kept secret. Shell aimed to keep all potentially interested parties informed of all project stages. This was done by opening permanent two-way communication channels and by engaging stakeholders in the decision-making process to take advantage of their collective expertise. Participation included:


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1. 2. 3.

4. 5.

Identification and contact with all stakeholders (about 200 organizations) representing different areas the project would affect. Provision and continuous dissemination and exchange of information to all stakeholders. Participation in six successive rounds of consultations with over 30 native communities in the Lower Urubamba. These were a specific initiative related to the development of the gas plant. Discussions covered what this could be, the associated infrastructure and supply system, and all related impacts. Consultation was an ongoing activity with all communities and interested groups. There were community liaison officers permanently in the field from 1996 onwards. Their job was to continually be in contact, to listen and report on concerns, to negotiate agreements and to deliver on these agreements. A series of participatory workshops at different levels (regional, national and international) to further promote and facilitate dialogue. Incorporation of stakeholders’ concerns and recommendations to enhance the project decision-making process.

There were often misunderstandings within Shell on the role of consultation. Traditionally, operations personnel had conceived of consultation as simply a tool to explain a project to stakeholders, with the intention of “clearing the way.” But the Camisea goal was to generate meaningful feedback so the project could integrate local concerns. It was to be a long-term partnership with a neighbour rather than “making a pact” with the devil. To ensure that all important local issues were being addressed, Shell arranged for there to be independent monitoring of actions taken and of local responses to these. Both the University of California, Berkeley, the Washington Smithsonian Institute and the Peruvian Environmental Network acted in this role. During each of the network’s visits to the sites, arrangements were made for two of its members to link with two community members. They had access to all information. In addition the indigenous peoples were free to visit the sites at any time, and often did. Also people from local communities were employed on the sites and could see what was happening. Stringent measures were also taken to ensure that the project had no adverse effect on local community health. The living quarters of Shell employees were segregated from those of the local community so that there was no chance of diseases being passed from the Shell workers to the native population or vice versa. Early on in the project, a set of community relations



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guidelines were produced. These were strictly adhered to. Environmental concerns were assisted by a “no roads” policy. This prohibited the construction of any roads by Shell or its contractors. Equipment and materials were moved to and from the sites by river and helicopter. Throughout the project Shell adopted an adaptable and flexible approach, which enabled it to meet unforeseen and unexpected problems. An example of one of these was the reaction of local people to the use of hovercrafts for river transport. These were viewed by the “natives” as demons which brought bad luck. Shell responded by consulting closely with affected communities and ensuring that the logistics manager and his staff were directly involved in problem solution. Listening to, and really understanding, local concerns led to a reduction in hovercraft noise, carefully scheduling when they were used, reducing other river traffic and having the hovercrafts screened for demons before they set off. The locals were also encouraged to make the hovercrafts their own by giving each a name. The outcome of this consultation and negotiation were contracts and agreements that allowed Shell access to the indigenous lands. There were two types of agreement: the first giving Shell access to land owned by the local community and the second to provide benefits to the entire region whether or not the land was locally owned. To assist the second, health and socioeconomic studies were carried out with community participation, and the communities themselves set priorities for development activity. Shell, in partnership with local governments, took responsibility for delivery of the improvements. Shell offered community-wide social infrastructure programmes such as building schools and water wells and providing health facilities. This was seen as social capital which would enable the local community to benefit from the project. Lessons learned from the Camisea project were that good design and management of the community liaison process were essential elements in successful cooperation. Identification of significant community issues came from consulting stakeholders at an early stage in the development process and making commitments on socio-environmental policies. These commitments must be given by senior management to have credibility. They must also be delivered as promised. Shell staff continuity was also important. There had to be guardians of corporate memory and individuals the local community had learned to trust. Camisea became a laboratory for a learning process at Shell. The local community also benefited and expressed dismay when Shell had to eventually


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withdraw from the project. Its members sent a public letter of protest to the president of Peru. Shell fully recognised that effective problem solving in a sensitive and demanding environment required in-depth understanding of the problems that would have to be tackled, especially those of a social and environmental nature. These problems, and their solutions, could only be understood through involving all stakeholders and local interests in the decision-making processes. This, in turn, required a recognition of who all the stakeholders were. None must be overlooked. Communication and consultation were therefore central to future success, and great attention must be paid to how they were carried out. Shell did not entirely trust its own judgment here and brought in independent groups to assist with the monitoring and evaluation. Guidelines for community relations were produced at an early stage and strictly adhered to. Only designated community liaison officers could have contact with local communities. Good relations were cemented by the provision of facilities and structures that improved the local environment and met social needs for better health, education and infrastructure. Most important of all was that Shell personnel should be continually sensitive to the feelings, beliefs and interests of the local community. This was facilitated by ensuring that the same people were available to communicate with the local groups throughout the project. Trust, respect and friendship could then result. The approach used in Camisea was adopted by Shell for use in projects around the world. It is an excellent example of a comprehensive socio-technical approach being used to address environmental issues. Shell learned the following very important lessons from the Camisea project: •

• • • •

A good understanding of the problems that have to be addressed is essential. Companies must become sensitive to critical socio-environmental issues as early as possible through consultation with all stakeholders. Management must then internalise these issues and reward staff advances in understanding and learning with stakeholders. A fair and transparent process will help to achieve long-term relations of trust during project development and implementation. Companies must make early commitments at the highest managerial level to rigorously uphold socio-environmental policies throughout the enterprise. Companies must perform to the agreed operational standards and be able to demonstrate through independent inspection that the standards are being met.



• •

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The company should seek to ensure staff continuity, recognising how important are individuals themselves as guardians of corporate memory and commitment. Throughout, the company must emphasise setting creative and modest targets rather than unattainable or costly ones, thus enhancing credibility with stakeholders.

Most important, the Camisea project showed how essential it is to provide a framework for collaborative learning among civil society, government and private enterprise. An excellent and detailed report on the Camisea project was produced by the researchers, Peter May and his associates, who belong to the Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley. Shell was eventually given an award for successfully fulfilling three of its important business principals in Camisea, those related to society, to health safety and the environment, and to the community—principles 2, 6 and 7. The Shell approach now influences all the activities of the company and has been translated into World Bank projects. But it must not be seen as removing responsibility from government. There must be an effort to make every state a more credible, effective partner in its country’s development by matching the state’s role to its capabilities and by reinvigorating public institutions. However, despite its environmental efforts Shell continues to receive criticism for not paying enough attention to environmental issues (Monbiot, 2000). Shell is an excellent example of a participative project that involves the management of a great deal of complexity. Murray Jones, who was Shell’s manager of health, safety and the environment for the Camisea project, describes some of the aspects of this. He tells us: The project involved a progressive decision-making process that was necessitated by the need to carry out technical studies in advance of a project decision. This was followed by the continuing design of project components (e.g., pipelines and fractionation facilities) after the project decisions. Each part of the project also required an environmental assessment (EIA), which took account of the decisions that had influenced engineering design, the probable environmental impact and the needs, concerns and expectations of the resident native communities. It was clear from the start that the project would take place in an environment that was highly sensitive from the point of view of location. It was Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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sited in Upper Amazonia, in the homeland of indigenous peoples and in an area of high biodiversity. It was recognised that there were many groups and organizations who would have different levels of concern. It was also clear that, in addition to the implementation of the results of the environmental impact studies, there must also be long-term biodiversity studies, extensive community interaction, a wide-ranging consultation and the development of an ongoing programme of community regional planning. These formed what was called an “adaptive environmental process.” This enabled not only critical-path environmental impact assessments to be completed but also a continuous process of learning that could be integrated into project decisionmaking. This was the model for the Camisea project. _______________________________________________________________________ Shell International—Statement of General Business Principles Principle 1—objectives. The objectives of Shell companies are to engage efficiently, responsibly and profitably in the oil, gas, chemicals and other selected businesses and to participate in the search for and development of other sources of energy. Shell companies seek a high standard of performance and aim to maintain a longterm position in their respective competitive environments. Principle 2—responsibilities. Shell companies recognise five areas of responsibility: To shareholders—to protect shareholders’ investment and provide an acceptable return. To customers—to win and maintain customers by developing and providing products and services which offer value in terms of price, quality, safety and environmental impact, which are support by the requisite technological, environmental and commercial expertise. To employees—to respect the human rights of their employees, to provide their employees with good and safe conditions of work, and good and competitive terms and conditions of service, to promote the development and best use of human talent and equal opportunity employment, and to encourage the involvement of employees in the planning and direction of their work, and in the application of these principles within their company. It is recognised that commercial success depends on the full commitment of all employees. To those with whom they do business—to seek mutually beneficial relationships with contractors, suppliers and in joint ventures and to promote the application of these



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principles in so doing. The ability to promote these principles effectively will be an important factor in the decision to enter into or remain in such relationships. To society—to conduct business as responsible corporate members of society, to observe the laws of the countries in which they operate, to express support for fundamental human rights in line with the legitimate role of business and to give proper regard to health, safety and the environment consistent with their commitment to contribute to sustainable development. These five areas are seen as inseparable. Therefore, it is the duty of management continuously to assess the priorities and discharge its responsibilities as best it can on the basis of that assessment. Principle 3—economic principles. Profitability is essential to discharging these responsibilities and staying in business. It is a measure both of efficiency and of the value that customers place on Shell products and services. It is essential to the allocation of the necessary corporate resources and to support the continuing investment required to develop and produce future energy supplies to meet consumer needs. Without profits and a strong financial foundation it would not be possible to fulfil the responsibilities outlined above. Shell companies work in a wide variety of changing social, political and economic environments, but in general they believe that the interests of the community can be served most efficiently by a market economy. Criteria for investment decisions are not exclusively economic in nature but also take into account social and environmental considerations and an appraisal of the security of the investment. Principle 4—business integrity. Shell companies insist in honesty, integrity and fairness in all aspects of their business and expect the same in their relationships with all those with whom they do business. The direct or indirect offer, payment, soliciting and acceptance of bribes in any form are unacceptable practices. Employees must avoid conflicts of interest between their private financial activities and their part in the conduct of company business. All business transactions on behalf of a Shell company must be reflected accurately and fairly in the accounts of the company in accordance with established procedures and be subject to audit. Principle 5—political activities. Shell companies act in a socially responsible manner within the laws of the countries in which they operate in pursuit of their legitimate commercial objectives. of companies. Shell companies do not make payments to political parties, organizations or their representatives or take any part in party politics. However, when dealing with governments, Shell companies have the right and the responsibility to make their position known on any matter which affects themselves, their employees, their


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customers or their shareholders. They also have the right to make their position known on matters affecting the community, where they have a contribution to make. of employees. Where individuals wish to engage in activities in the community, including standing for election to public office, they will be given the opportunity to do so where this is appropriate in the light of local circumstances. Principle 6—health, safety and the environment. Consistent with their commitment to sustainable development, Shell companies have a systematic approach to health, safety and environmental management in order to achieve continuous improvement. To this end Shell companies manage these matters as any other critical business activity, set targets for improvement, and measure, appraise and report performance. Principle 7—the community. The most important contribution that companies can make to the social and material progress of the countries in which they operate is in performing their basic activities as effectively as possible. In addition Shell companies take a constructive interest in societal matters which may not be directly related to the business. Opportunities for involvement—for example through community, educational or donations programmes—will vary depending upon the size of the company concerned, the nature of the local society, and the scope for useful private initiatives. Principle 8—competition. Shell companies support free enterprise. They seek to compete fairly and ethically and within the framework of applicable competition laws; they will not prevent others from competing freely with them. Principle 9—communications. Shell companies recognise that in view of the importance of the activities in which they are engaged and their impact on national economies and individuals, open communication is essential. To this end Shell companies have comprehensive corporate information programmes and provide full relevant information about their activities to legitimately interested parties, subject to any overriding considerations of business confidentiality and cost. _______________________________________________________________________ Note. The companies in which Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and the “Shell” Transport and Trading Company plc directly or indirectly own investments are separate and distinct entities. But, in this chapter, the collective expression “Shell” (or “Group”) is used for convenience in contexts where reference is made to the companies of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group in general and where no useful purpose is served by identifying a particular company or companies.

REFERENCES Bracho, F. (2000). The OPEC summit and the future of oil. Foresight, 2(6), 545-548.



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Heller, F. (1997). Sociotechnology and the environment. Human Relations, 50(5), 605-624. Hill, P. (1971). Towards a new philosophy of management. London: Gower Press. May, P.H., et al. (1999). Corporate roles and rewards in promoting sustainable development: Lessons learned from Camisea. Internal document report. University of California, Berkeley, Energy and Resources Group. Molitor, G. T. T. (2001). Emerging economic sectors in the third millennium: A pit stop on the path to cleaner energy. Foresight, 3(1), 47-58. Monbiot, G. (2000). Captive state: The corporate takeover of Britain. London: Pan Books. Sampson, A. (1982). The changing anatomy of Britain. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Trist, E. (1981). The evolution of socio-technical systems. Ontario, Canada: Quality of Working Life Centre.


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PART FIVE: DESIGNING FOR THE FUTURE


Designing for Problem Prevention

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Chapter 13

Designing for Problem Prevention Security is a risky business. Survey finding

FROM POSITIVE TO NEGATIVE Participative systems design has, in the past, been seen as a positive group process of thinking through needs and problems and arriving at solutions for making the situation better. This improved situation then continues until new technology or new solutions provide an opportunity for making the situation better still. So far this book has concentrated on how to make the best use of the positive factors assisting change, especially change that involves the introduction and use of technology. It has described the importance of getting a clear understanding of the change problem and its complexity, of developing effective strategies to address this complexity, and of the creation of structures, often organizational, to facilitate the subsequent use of the new system. This last requires always keeping in mind the need to meet the dual objectives of achieving operating efficiency and a good quality of working life. This is often described as job satisfaction. Most of all there has been a continual stress on Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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the importance of participation. This involves sharing the design tasks with those who will be affected by them and taking account of their opinions in design decisions. This chapter addresses the reverse of this positive objective. It considers the negative factors in a change situation which are likely to cause problems and to threaten the success of the change programme and of the new system. There are very many of these kinds of problems and it is only possible to discuss a few here. The ones I have selected are criminal threats which affect the future viability of the company, technical problems which reduce efficiency, unpleasant and stressful work that threatens employee health, and problems of morale which affect the individual’s happiness in the workplace. A consideration of negative factors brings us into the challenging areas of uncertainty and risk. Uncertainty is when we do not know what is going to happen and often contains an element of surprise. This is especially true today when so many decisions depend on forecasts of the future. A contributing factor here can be an overemphasis on the present as a means of forecasting the future. Uncertainty is also often a result of the behaviour of others rather than of events. This is hard to predict. Experts tell us that today we are living in a risk society (Beck, 1992). Complex design problems can have a high degree of uncertainty and easily become risks. They often have a subjective element, for what one person considers a problem or a risk, another will see as an opportunity. Complex problems also require information for their solution and this may be difficult to find. It requires the ability to search for, analyse and synthesise, relevant intelligence and relate it to past, current and future events. Threats to important institutions from terrorists are of a different nature and scale to those that have been experienced before. Many will take us completely by surprise. Bernstein (1996) suggests that the essence of risk management lies in maximising the areas which we have some control over while minimising those areas where we have no control over the outcome and the linkage between cause and effect is hidden. When we take a risk we are making a bet that a particular outcome will result from the decision we have made although we have no certainty that this will happen. Risk management usually starts with risk analysis, which attempts to establish and rank the most serious risks to be avoided so far as these are known. Here many companies attempt to achieve a balance between the benefits of greater security and the costs involved. Too high a level of security, while providing good protection, can result in a system that is both difficult to use and expensive to operate (Mumford, 1999).



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Risk analysis next moves on to risk assessment. This is an analysis of the seriousness of different risks by determining the probability and potential damage of each one. For example, major risks can come from a large concentration of data in one place that is accessed by many different people, not all of whom are known. There can be relationships between risks. Clifford Stoll’s (1990) book The Cuckoo’s Egg shows how the ability of a German hacker to enter a university laboratory computer made it possible for him to later enter into the computers of United States military bases. Risk analysis identifies the risks; risk assessment tries to estimate how likely they are to happen and how serious the consequences will be. Risk priorisation recognises that all companies cannot be protected from all risks and choices must be made. Risk impact is the likely magnitude of the loss if a system break-in, fraud or other serious problem occurs. Risk control involves further actions to reduce the risk and to trigger further defensive actions if a very serious problem occurs. Risk control also covers the monitoring of risk on a regular basis to check that existing protection is still effective. This can lead to risk reassessment. Very serious risks such as those coming from terrorist attack or criminal activity require monitoring. This, together with the detailed documentation of any problems or illegal activities when they occur, is essential to avoid complacency. An effective system must both prevent problems and detect when they have occurred. All of these activities to design security into a system require human vigilance if they are to be effective. All employees should accept some responsibility for checking that the system they work with continues to maintain its integrity and security. This chapter will place its main focus on protective problem solving and design directed at avoiding or minimising very serious risks. Today, it is unwise for managers to neglect this. Because of its growth in recent years and its prevalence today criminal activity will be examined first in some detail. Particular attention will be paid to how the involvement of employees in problem solving can play a part in reducing or avoiding this.

CRIMINAL ACTIVITY In recent years many computer-based systems have been subject to attack by groups and individuals wanting to achieve some personal gain from destroying or damaging them. These negative actions have had serious adverse consequences for firms, communities and governments. The attacks have taken many different forms. They include fraud, money laundering, corruption,


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information theft, personal assault and terrorism. The criminal motivations behind these have ranged from the personal to the economic and from the political to the religious. Terrorism is the most extreme form of crime, as its intention is to oppress through fear. Cyber terrorism is a deliberate attempt from outside to destroy or injure a company. Companies, and also countries, now realise that just as systems and organizational design require a carefully thought-out strategy to create an appropriate positive change programme, another kind of change strategy is required to manage threats, assess vulnerability and consider risk. Paul Robinson (2001), editor of the journal Secure Computing, makes the point that the 2001 World Trade disaster could have been even worse in its consequences if instead of crashing planes into buildings the terrorists had made a concerted cyber attack. The aftereffects of this would have been more drastic, longer lasting and more costly than the terrible disaster that actually happened. He suggests that “a methodical terrorist attack against the various Internet systems that now hold our many civilised societies together would have had a far more widespread impact on far more people, even if it did not have the visual impact of aeroplanes crashing into skyscrapers.” He also points out that much of our finance and business transactions now take place in cyberspace, and he believes that because of this, cyber terrorism now presents a massive danger. Fortunately, horrific events of this kind have, until recently, been virtually unknown. Research has shown that in most countries fraud is the most common cyber crime and is mostly carried out by people who work within the attacked organization (Robinson, 2001). Three out of five network security breaches are caused by users. The motives are financial gain, attempts to get even with disliked employers through destroying or distorting data, or espionage for a rival company. A national survey carried out in the US found that layoffs, mergers and acquisitions greatly increased security breaches. In the UK deliberate sabotage by employees or ex-employees is the biggest area of concern. Fraud is usually committed by an employee who sees a way of manipulating the computer system so that money it is recording ends up in his or her bank account. This is still a frequent event, though there are now a multitude of protective devices to ensure that money enters the correct account and is not diverted elsewhere. Less common, but still very prevalent, is fraud by an external person who, to give one example, can obtain access to customers’ credit card numbers.



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Hacking, or illegally breaking into a computer, is also very common at the moment and is proving difficult, if not impossible, to combat. A great deal of this appears to be politically motivated and takes the form of altering data rather than destroying it. Words are changed to say the opposite to the original text, pricing information or product specifications are altered, or viruses are introduced. These kinds of attacks are especially damaging as they are difficult to spot and time-consuming to put right (Robinson, 2001). Although there are many protective devices on the market, including encryption, in which data can only be read after it has been translated using a code, the skill of the hacker or the sophistication of the virus seems able to win the day. In May 2000 a virus called the Love Letter worm infected millions of email messages and cost firms an estimated $8.7 billion. More recently a Code Red worm spread to hundreds and thousands of computers via the Internet in less than 15 hours, without any user interaction. Economists estimate that this worm cost the economy $2.4 billion.

STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS CRIMINAL THREATS The great difficulty with recent disasters such as the World Trade towers destruction and attacks on US post office and other staff with anthrax in mail is that they are quite new and there are no tried and tested responses. Companies, management and employees have to work out response strategies without the knowledge of how to do so. Many of today’s problems are both ill-defined and complex, and they can interact with and amplify each other. For example, organized crime is often associated with drug trafficking and financial theft with money laundering. Frightening and threatening problems of this kind, while increasing in number, are very different from natural disasters. Human motives and desires lie behind them. They usually start with a set of carefully planned actions and reactions which, because they are not seen and interrupted, eventually end, as was intended, in serious problems for those on the receiving end (Mumford, 1999). The complexity of these logical interconnections means that strategic thinking must bring together many different variables and, ideally, the relationships between one variable and another need to be identified. This makes our chapter four recommendation, that it is necessary to get a good understanding of a problem before starting to solve it, sometimes difficult to comply with.


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Good intelligence is required, much of it from grass roots sources, before prevention or retaliation can be organized. We still are not entirely sure who planned the World Trade Centre disaster and why and whether the reasons were political, religious or even economic. It is possible they were all of these, with different participants collaborating for different reasons (Hall & Fox, 2001). Effective problem solving also requires a capacity to combine the collection of information with considered action, often on the spot and under stress. This is no easy task. Yet if certain problems are not solved within a given period of time, it may not be possible to solve them at all. We do not know how to deal with today’s challenges, yet strategic thinking is essential. There is a desperate need for ideas on how to respond to new kinds of disasters. These can then act as a guide if the worst happens again.

Developing Strategy Strategy should relate to the present and to the future, to what may take place and to what is likely to take place. It will build on information from international, government and law enforcement agencies and information from people at the grass roots who may understand criminal aims and objectives. Strategy should provide a clear guide to the priorities everyone must follow, yet it must be flexible and able to change quickly as the situation develops (Hall & Fox, 2001). Strategy must encompass threat, vulnerability and risk. Threat is Will criminals attack a particular target? Vulnerability is What are the characteristics of the target that affect the likelihood of the attack succeeding? Risk is an assessment of how successful the attack is likely to be when threat and vulnerability come together (Tuball, 2001). Security experts point out that a distinction must always be made between intelligence and evidence. Intelligence is information that can help explain what is going to happen, or has happened, and why. Evidence is information which can support a criminal case in a court of law. An area very vulnerable to attack is the Internet. Most companies will be doing business on the Internet in the near future and so strategies, plans and programmes to prevent this business being threatened by people with criminal or nuisance intent are essential. Yet, despite the importance of protection, many firms still fail to take proper security measures or overestimate the value of those they do use. Technical aids such as firewalls to inhibit illicit entry, encryption to conceal data, and risk analysis to assess vulnerability can all help a company protect itself against attack but none is infallible. Email is often the point where companies are most vulnerable. A great deal of important Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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confidential information is communicated by email messages and yet these can be easily intercepted, read and altered. There is little or no protection. It is predicted that by 2003 there will be 835 million email users. This requires security policies for everyone in every company.

ENHANCING SECURITY THROUGH PEOPLE In this area, as in most other areas related to new work systems and change, the most important factor is people, yet this is also usually the most neglected factor. As the World Trade disaster seems to have been part of an international conspiracy, it is doubtful if greater vigilance could have helped, but this is not true of many other threatening situations where the criminals are national or local. The journal Secure Computing suggests that all employees must be educated about security and their role in the prevention of security breaches. It sees good security as starting with the employee and suggests that many attacks are made possible because employees have little knowledge of security or security issues. Employees should understand the different ways their system can be broken into, the security risks they may encounter and how to prevent these. They must keep a continual watch to ensure that viruses have not infiltrated the system or hackers have not made an entry into corporate networks. In addition there must be a well-documented security procedures plan that everyone is familiar with. A feature of complex problems such as terrorism or major security breaches is the need for good coordination by the different groups who must work together effectively. These range from governments to industries and local authorities and from senior managers to specialists and victims (Mumford, 1999). All will need to be clear where their task boundaries are located so that responsibilities do not overlap in a dysfunctional way, and they will need to agree which areas should be handled cooperatively and which left to specialist groups. Good communication and the sharing of information on a fast and continuing basis will be essential, and networked information systems will be a valuable aid. Electronic information, although valuable, is no substitute for face-to-face contact, however; and meetings to discuss policy and progress will need to be regular events. Ross Ashby’s (1956) law of requisite variety, referred to in Chapter 4 and described in the Appendix, can provide useful guidelines for negative as well as positive problems. Ashby argues that only variety can control variety. By this he means that if a problem is complex, with many variables, then the techniques for dealing with it will have to have the same amount and kind of variety. Similarly the experts dealing with the problem will need to have a mix of the Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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relevant knowledge. Ross Ashby also points out that with many difficult problems you can only go so far and no further before the law of diminishing returns affects results. Continuing to take action will not lead to greater improvements or understanding. Extravagant ideas of future progress should not then be encouraged, as further effort will be wasted energy.

DESIGNING STRUCTURES FOR SECURITY Recent security challenges and disasters are now making companies think very hard about how they can best protect themselves. In the past there have been two problems that have inhibited the design and use of secure systems. One, prevalent in industry, has been the difficulty managers have had in recognising that they have a security problem. Many never find out that their files are being accessed by outsiders or that they are losing money through fraud. The second is that too much trust has been placed in security technology; whereas, we now know that no system is really secure if a criminal wants to gain access. Most crimes are committed by people and an effective contingent strategy is to pay great attention to the organizational and social context within which the crime takes place and to the social processes involved in committing it. Until the World Trade disaster, people in the West had not appreciated that young men in other countries had such strong views on certain ethical issues that they were willing to kill themselves in an attempt to right what they see as terrible wrongs. International collaboration is now accepted as necessary if international crime is to be combated. In 1997 the G8 nations—the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia—met in Washington, DC to discuss new threats to the human race. Although they could not then appreciate the threats they were to experience in 2001, they did pay considerable attention to cyber crime. They all believed that crime of this kind required nations to share information and have common strategies, and they agreed to implement the following: • • • •

To have contacts available 24 hours a day so that countries can quickly track computer criminals. To train and equip enough law enforcement officers to fight high-tech crime and help agencies abroad. To review their legal systems to ensure high-tech crimes are treated properly. To build computer crime issues into treaties and aid agreements.



• •

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To improve cross-border searches of data files containing information on criminals. To work with industry to find new ways to detect and prevent crimes.

PEOPLE PREVENTING CRIME As this book is about people and systems design, it is appropriate to end this section by suggesting the competencies that are required to combat cyber crime. Cyber crime is carried out by people with powerful objectives and motivations, and these need to be understood both by those designing, implementing and using new systems and those trying to entrap the criminals. At the same time, protection requires committed staff who, both as individuals and as members of groups, are constantly vigilant and on the look- out for breaches of security. These staff need to know exactly what to do and whom to tell if they suspect that security breaches are taking place. Most important, they need to have positive attitudes that make them want to help the company they work for, rather than to take a blind eye and say nothing. Security experts are now reminding us that security strategies should not only rely on technical safeguards such as firewalls, access control and encryption, together with the encouragement of increased staff awareness. Today even greater vigilance is required. Physical security is critically important and strategies to prevent access to the company by criminals is required. Jack Wiles, the president of a security firm, is now being asked by many managements to test how secure from physical attack their offices are. When he sent a team into a firm which had just experienced a major loss of information, he found many weaknesses which the company was not aware of and had never even thought about. He describes the criminal access techniques to which almost all firms are vulnerable. Here are some of them. Stolen in-house telephone directories which show the location of different departments and who works there. A criminal can then approach a receptionist and ask for the office of a specific person. He will usually be told this. Again, strangers are rarely challenged even though they may appear in the firm in out-of-office hours. The criminal always has a well-prepared story to explain his presence but, as a rule, he is never asked for this. Clever criminals are also always dressed in the kind of clothing generally worn by employees so that they can blend into the environment. When the criminal has to get through secured doors requiring card access, the practice is to walk into the building through a back entrance behind someone Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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who is employed there. The security investigator usually finds that the door is held open for him. Wastepaper bins are also very rewarding for the criminal. Shredded documents can easily be reassembled while the hard drives of old computers waiting to be disposed of are a gold mine. The solution is a corporate-wide awareness program focusing on serious risk management issues (Wiles, 2001). The tackling of both cyber crime and physical security requires speed, consistency, integrated technical and human systems, and a general understanding of what the company’s assets are so that they can be given priority protection. Observant employees who know what to do and to look for are invaluable.

Required Competencies The knowledge and skills required to combat threats will include the following: Awareness Employees need to understand the possible threats to the business from cyber and related crime and recognise the need for continual vigilance. Management needs to have an up-to-date knowledge of the available technical, organizational and human relations measures that can assist security. Managers also need to be aware of security problems. Evidence suggests that many are not and that no preventive action is taken until disaster strikes. Communication This is the ability to explain the need for vigilance to colleagues and subordinates and to arouse and maintain their interest in security. It is especially important that top management should do this. Implementation Many companies are excellent at developing strategies but poor at implementing them. Plans are made and published but then forgotten. No one has responsibility for their implementation. Developing strategy is an intellectual exercise but implementation requires action. If a crisis has occurred, then this action will need to be both fast and appropriate. Coordination There must be internal coordination between departments so that security priorities are agreed and accepted. If a criminal activity occurs, then fast implementation of strategy becomes a necessity and coordination will involve Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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external groups such as security investigators and the police. All of these need to share information and agree on action. Coordination now needs to be creative. The crime must be solved but steps must also be taken to see it can not happen again. How to protect a firm against cyber crime is not always a major subject in system design textbooks or in articles on socio-technical design. It is clear that it now needs to be. There must also be a general appreciation of risks throughout the company and a willingness of employees to work together to reduce these. Even more important, firms must be motivated to share information with each other and to work cooperatively to combat the risks of a kind that they may never have experienced before. At an international level there are now Interpol working parties on information technology crime. Two of these are the American and European working parties. The European group was formed in 1990 and has since met three times a year. It has representatives from Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The American working party had its third meeting in Canada in 2000 and was attended by representatives from all the major US and Canadian law enforcement agencies. These groups are developing an international training unit for those associated with the prevention and investigation of information technology crime. They are researching the changing nature of criminal threats against e-commerce. They are also developing training modules on investigation both for security officers and for managers. Their aims are cooperation, the sharing of knowledge and practical experiences about information technology crime, the promotion of standardisation of methods and procedures and the development of good practice guidelines for the investigation of information technology crime. However, the chief of Interpol, Ronald Noble, has forcibly pointed out that the potential for large-scale corruption will continue to exist until good systems design, watchful employees and high ethical standards make this impossible (Noble, 2001).

OTHER PROBLEMS Criminal activity is clearly the most serious problem most companies will encounter, but there are other, much less serious ones that can still cause difficulties which reduce profits and lower morale. Technical problems of different kinds are common when new systems are introduced. New systems do not work as expected and may be technically flawed, often because they are Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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prototype systems that have not been built before. Deficiencies of this kind need to be corrected by technical personnel but they will still cause tremendous frustration in those that experience them. A new system that is recognised as needed and looked forward to will create disillusionment and anxiety if it does not perform as expected. There are very many examples of these. They seem often to occur with important national systems to be used by a large section of the population. The British government has experienced many difficulties of this kind. There are other serious problems with systems that work reasonably well but are disliked by the people who have to use them. The experience of Digital Equipment is an excellent example. Here, as we have seen in Chapter 9, a participatively designed configuring system was rejected because it had a negative effect on a very important aspect of user morale, namely, the salary levels of the sales force. XSEL was accurate but slow, and the members of the sales force could configure much more quickly without it, even though they made mistakes that had later to be corrected. But they were paid for the number of machines sold, not the number of accurate systems that were sold. Here was a variable that was forgotten when the configuring problem was first defined. It could have been avoided if the financial bonuses had been given for correctly configured systems that were installed without problems. A common difficulty that produces negative employee reactions is systems that impose new controls on users. Staff have to work more quickly or more accurately and may have their output monitored by supervisors. These systems do not liberate in any way; they reduce freedom. Call systems are the great offenders here, and Clifford Stoll points out that these systems are used as management tools. They can keep track of idle time, number of words typed and number of errors made. Telephone operators must handle a certain number of calls per minute. Secretarial staff face a quota of typing a certain number of insurance claims every hour. It is what he calls “working in a digital dungeon.” All of these control activities communicate to the unfortunate employee the message that ‘you are not to be trusted; we have to continually check that you are doing a good job” (Stoll, 1995). Here is an important cause of stress. Most lower level employees, when given the opportunity to design their own work systems, will ensure that freedom and a degree of challenge are built in. They want a variety of tasks, responsibility, work interest and, ideally, membership of a helpful and encouraging team of colleagues to which they make a useful contribution. More senior employees, in contrast, often seek the opposite to this. They want less variety and less challenge. For example, they do not want to be faced each morning with a hundred emails, all of which they Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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have to read and many of which will require them to do extra work. They would prefer a pleasant telephone call rather than a curt and threatening electronic message. And they are bombarded with masses of paper. It seems the notion of the paperless office died a death some time ago. They also bemoan the fact that they and their companies seem to have little control over unexpected and threatening events, which seem to happen frequently. They too experience stress, but this is a product of too much, rather than too little, variety. A problem likely to become increasingly common in the future is shown by the Rolls Royce case where newly multiskilled employees were seen as attractive and desirable by other parts of the company and attempts were made to lure them away from the department which had given them these new talents. Many skilled staff are in short supply at present and therefore a very valuable resource. Firms will need to make their own work environments attractive enough to keep staff that they cannot afford to lose. The old days of easily replaceable staff available on the labour market have almost certainly gone. All of these are negative design problems that could have been foreseen and many of their consequences recognised and reduced before the new system was completed and introduced. Usually they were either neglected or ignored.

What Can Be Done To Prevent These Problems? Although we know what today’s problems are, what tomorrow’s will be is not at all clear. UIrich Beck (2000) in his book The Brave New World of Work offers a number of alternative visions of the future while suggesting that the world of work as we know it is coming to an end. People will be more and more replaced by smart technologies. Nonetheless, even if he is right, we will still need to ensure that we can attract people into industry and business, and a concern for their welfare is an important means for doing this. This means evaluating change in terms of its likely impact on motivation and morale, and designing systems that can cater for these needs. More than anything, in times of change people need information. They want to know what is going to happen and why, and how it will affect them personally. The provision of this must be part of systems design. Yet, communication in industry has always been a challenge and is still a problem. Many employees are heard to complain: “We want to know what’s going on, but no one tells us anything. We’re always kept in the dark.” In the past the response of managers has often been, “Our communication policy is based strictly on ‘need to know.’ We tell our employees only what is important to performing their jobs well.” Unfortunately, some of these attitudes still exist today. The Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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result is that in many situations formal interpersonal communications are replaced by rumour. Stories fly round the company at lightning speed, with colour and distortion added at every passing-on point and contact. The tendency is for these messages to be “doom watch” rather than “blue skies.” Most unofficial news is interpreted as bad, and we all know that bad news travels fast. Also the hoary, old army joke in which “Send reinforcements, I’m going to advance” becomes “Send three and four pence, I’m going to a dance” is often not too far off reality. Most managements now realise that this situation is not sustainable and is also preventable, and strategies to improve communication have been introduced into many firms. These can take different forms. One that has not proved successful is the “waterfall approach,” in which managers are given information and also the responsibility for seeing that this is passed on to their departmental supervisors, who then pass it on down the line. Unfortunately, with this approach, information very rarely reaches the grass roots. Few people are motivated to become channels of communication or are even competent communicators, and rumour continues to dominate. Enlightened managers now appreciate that not only do they need to improve their downward communication, it is also important to know what their employees are thinking—how they are likely to react to proposed change and what benefits they wish to secure from this. Upward communication must be as efficient as downward. Some companies use a conference approach as described in Chapters 11 and 12. Others organize regular meetings with their staff, provide constantly updated newsletters and bulletin boards, and use frequent attitude surveys to test morale and find out how employees are reacting to proposed changes in the work situation. Groups responsible for change now urgently need information before the change is made rather than after it has been implemented. Many companies in both the United States and Europe are once again using participative strategies in which employees are both consulted and involved in decision making, especially in regard to factors that will affect their work or community environments. Users, technologists and other interested groups work together to analyse problems, to identify a range of different needs which include social, technical, economic, environmental and any other relevant issues, and to eventually agree new technical and organizational systems to meet these needs. The result, hopefully, is motivated staff who understand the new systems, want them to work efficiently, and believe they will increase their quality of working life. An additional spin-off will be that participating in project developments also makes them more expert in the management of change. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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Individuals and groups responsible for major change need, as part of the design process, to evaluate what they are doing in human, technical and environmental terms, to identify any factors likely to cause stress or drops in morale, to reduce or eliminate these, and to constantly monitor the proposed new systems to ensure they can work effectively in both their technical and their human aspects. Negative design, or design for negatives, is design that avoids problems before they occur. Designing to avoid failure is a major contributing factor to designing for success.

REFERENCES Ashby, W. R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. London: Chapman & Hall. Beck, U. (1992). Risk society. London: Sage. Beck, U. (2000). The brave new world of work. London: Polity Press. Bernstein, P. L. (1996). Against the gods. London: Wiley. Hall, R., & Fox, C. (2001). Rethinking security. Intersec, 11(10), 302-304. Mumford, E. (1999). Dangerous decisions: Problem solving in tomorrow’s world. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Noble, R. (2001). Keynote address to the 10th International Anti-Corruption Conference, Prague, October. Robinson, P. (2001, October). What sort of war? Secure Computing, 11. Stoll, C. (1990). The Cuckoo’s Egg. London: Bodley Head. Stoll, C. (1995). Silicon Snake Oil. London: Macmillan. Tuball, C. (2001). High risk solutions. Intersec, 11(10), 316-319. Wiles, J. (2001, November). Protecting information with physical security. Secure Computing, 30-31.


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Chapter 14

Designing for an Uncertain Future What is required on a large scale is to humanize our world of civilisation and technology. This cannot be done by logical sets of rules or systems. The way into the future is directed by the unsophisticated rules of human behaviour. These are centuries old. Heinz Zemanack

THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE The philosophy of this book is that problem solving and the management of change will be facilitated by participation. By participation is meant that all those affected by change, or their representatives, will be able to play some part in its definition, in agreeing strategies for its implementation and in evaluating its success. Most of the case studies discussed have been concerned with the positive aspects of change involving systems redesign. The stimulus here was usually the introduction of a new technical system. Early projects used participation as a means for assisting the introduction of a specific new system into a single or small number of departments. Later ones were larger and had more dramatic effects. All employees would now be involved, either from a particular function or from the company as a whole and, on occasion, from its environment.


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My objective has been to try and assist the creation of work systems which are both efficient and meet human needs for acceptable, stimulating and satisfying work environments. As well as user involvement, these systems will aim to have certain other desirable characteristics, namely, suitability, flexibility, complementarity and sustainability. Suitability requires them to provide a good fit with the technical and social needs of the work situation. In other words they do a good job in production and human terms. They are also flexible and able to cope easily with subsequent technical and organizational change. They complement existing systems and connect easily with these, and because they have these characteristics, they are sustainable and endure into the future. Their complementarity feature will also extend into the external environment so that industrial and clerical systems will mesh easily with environmental systems and create harmonious work, community and physical environments. But, most important, they are also democratic. All except the first enabled the people who would work with or be affected by them to have a role in their design, development and implementation. The first case study of dock workers and the Liverpool docks, in Chapter 4, makes the point that one of the most important requirements of successful change and systems design is understanding the nature and complexity of the problem and problem area that is being addressed. This will be true throughout the design process as the nature of the problem can alter as different aspects of the change situation are encountered. It is an advance on early approaches to systems design when great attention was paid to technical variables but other aspects of the change situation were neglected. The next two case studies— coal mining and automobiles—are concerned with the choice and implementation of the organizational structures that mesh with the technology and create a viable socio-technical system. In these case studies, the principal technical input was production and transport engineering not computers. The coal industry was where socio-technical design was first developed. The Swedish automobile industry next used it as the basis for developing car-body assembly systems which were managed by groups of shop-floor workers. The case studies that follow these all involve computer technology and all were designed participatively by the people who were going to work with them. The belief here is that an important aspect of a satisfying work situation is a personal or group feeling of ownership and control and that a major part of this comes through employees being able to influence the design of the work systems they are using. My research projects then progressed from small, single-purpose systems affecting only one or a few departments to large-scale systems affecting a whole company or a major part of this. The Digital Equipment Corporation in Boston was an important example here. After Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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Digital, I was able to study socio-technical design in Air Products, a US company which involved all employees and used a conference approach to assist its decision making. Lastly, Shell provided an example of employee participation in plant decisions and of public participation in company decisions which affected the environment. The book ends by describing the negative task of designing for security rather than for development. It is apparent that a great deal of today’s design must take a preventive as well as a proactive form. We have to protect critical systems from invasion or manipulation by others. All of these case studies have important lessons for today as, although technology changes, the process of designing a good socio-technical system while meeting technical and human needs at one and the same time has changed very little. Participative design is about people in groups, at all levels and in many different roles and functions, striving to achieve common interests and common goals. Most businesses depend on groups who can work harmoniously together and get results. This will be even more important in the future. It may be difficult to achieve and does not always happen, but challenges and difficulties can bring people closer together, encourage teamwork and reduce conflict. It is possible that some of the recent terrorist attacks will stimulate interest in achieving these things. Before these occurred, individualism ranked high and greater work democracy might only have been of interest to a minority. Now there is a desire for closeness, for coming together, for helping ones colleagues. Workers and bosses may feel an urge to protect each other in new strange and unfamiliar kinds of circumstances. I believe more participative design will assist the achievement of these things in the future. An important feature of the book is that it is multidisciplinary and seeks to keep technology in as one part of a larger pattern. It is one important variable among many others of equal importance. Today’s challenge is that systems analysis, no matter how comprehensive, can never accommodate all the relevant complexities. If we wish to understand the impact of information and other technologies and learn how to use them effectively, we must recognise that their consequences are a result of many variables interacting with each other, often with unpredictable consequences. Technology can no longer be viewed and addressed in isolation.

WHAT WILL ORGANIZATIONS BE LIKE IN THE FUTURE? To prepare for successful democratic design in the future, we have to try and predict what the future is going to be like. Forecasting the future will always Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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be difficult and uncertain, but it has to be attempted. It gives us a choice of order or disorder. The philosopher Edmund Burke tells us, “You can never plan the future by the past,” and so we will have to ask the following questions. How are we going to be affected by all the major social, political, economic and technical changes which are already taking place? How will these develop? Shouldn’t we be making plans or at least trying to understand them better? Where can we obtain helpful information? Obtaining answers to these questions may be difficult but attempts are necessary, even though many available predictions about the future appear partial and biased. They are either super-optimistic or extremely pessimistic. They focus on either social or technical issues but rarely on both at the same time. And this seems always to have been the case. The forecasts of the seventies, when the early computer systems were first being introduced, also had these defects and in this are little different from the forecasts of today. Early examples of both kinds of predictions include The Collapse of Work, authored by the British trade unionists Clive Jenkins and Barrie Sherman and published in 1979 by Methuen. This was negative about employment prospects in the future. In contrast there was The Future With Microelectronics by Ian Barron and Ray Curnow and published by Francis Pinter in 1976. This provided a positive technical viewpoint. More recently we have had negative social forecasts from The Economic Horror by the French author Viviane Forrester, published in 1999 by Polity Press; from The End of Work by American economist Jeremy Rifkin (Penguin, 2000); and, more recently, from the German sociologist Ulrich Beck in The Brave New World of Work (Polity Press, 2000). In contrast a positive technical approach is provided in many recent publications, for example, Enterprise.Com by Jeff Papows (1998), the president and CEO of Lotus. In the seventies Clive Jenkins and Barrie Sherman were taking a very pessimistic view of the future in terms of employment. When the book was written, the number of unemployed in Britain had been hovering around the one and a half million mark for somethree3 years and had not fallen below a million since 1975. The authors claimed that even worse was ahead, saying, “We now stand on the threshold of a new industrial revolution, based on developments in microelectronics which will have a profound effect on jobs and employment prospects. The shadow of large scale unemployment is hovering over the western world.” At the same time they were very vague on what could be done about this serious and rapidly approaching problem. Their suggestions included resisting the new technology and carrying on as usual—a latter-day Luddism; thinking small and developing alternate technologies to inhibit the new pattern Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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of production; and, most regressive of all, persuading women to stay at home and in this way easing the strains on the male labour force. They had no suggestions on how the new technology could be accommodated for everyone’s benefit. Thirty years later, we find Forrester, Rifkin and Beck providing similar scenarios to those of Jenkins and Sherman, although their books are better written and have had more sophisticated marketing. While The Collapse of Work probably had a smallish group of readers drawn mainly from trade unionists, all three later books have attracted international attention. The primary message of the books is identical. All the authors see many aspects of capitalism as essentially malignant, but with little the oppressed worker can do about it. They argue that we are now in a period of jobless growth with great insecurity for the many who are producing large profits for the few. Forrester’s solution is very similar to that of the trade unionists. We must disengage from globalisation and make life decent and viable in our own way. Again, no advice is given on how to do this. Rifkin sees the changing structure of work as having a potential for new and very serious problems. He foresees the end of secure jobs for many groups that have become accustomed to them, together with the absence of jobs for young unskilled men. Both of these, he argues, could lead to greatly increased crime and social disturbance, together with a major growth in the size of what today is called the “socially excluded” class. He believes that the global market, although hailed as a great opportunity, is unlikely to be a source of continuing social stability. Alliances between firms, industries and countries will lead to successes for some, but disasters for others. There will be both winners and losers. Also, because the global production system is now so interlinked, a problem in one national area may easily spread to others. Beck has a more positive solution to the instability of future employment. This is of paid work becoming unpaid work. This will be carried out by active citizens working for the good of local and national communities through democratically organized citizen networks. Other commentators take a more cautious approach about employment in the future but suggest that multinational companies now require more accountability. This is especially the case in the three critical areas of financial stability, care of the environment and respect for cultural values. If these are not managed in the interests of society, there is a danger of protests and riots. Graham Searjeant suggests in the London Times of 25 January 2001 that the World Economic Forum must take important initiatives here. In contrast the books written by technologists are all much more optimistic. The 1976 study by Ian Barron and Barry Curnow called The Future With Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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Microelectronics makes positive predictions on how microelectronics technology is likely to develop and be to our advantage in the future. Similarly, Jeff Papows, president and CEO of Lotus, in his 1998 book called Enterprise.COM provides what the blurb describes as an incisive and powerful view of the technology revolution. His positive vision is of the “market-facing” enterprise in which all relationships and functions are enhanced through technology. Technology will be our dominant facilitator and will substitute for many of today’s less advanced communication processes. In the networked economy, the activities of business can be coordinated around the world to make the most of the advantages that different countries offer. Today these interesting if contradictory social and technical forecasts, and the time differences between them, show that predictions have not changed very much from the seventies to the nineties in their analysis of possible consequences. One is frightening, the other reassuring and neither help us very much in deciding how to manage the future, although both suggest that it can be managed. A problem with many forecasters seems to be that they extrapolate from the situation and the variables they are interested in and assume that everything else stays the same. Jenkins and Sherman had no concept of how increasing prosperity would change the opportunities in the labour market. Nor do Forrester, Rifkin and Beck seem to take account of the fact that political, social and economic factors may have a dramatic effect on their unemployment predictions. None could foresee that the future would suddenly become extremely uncertain because of the activities of groups of terrorists associated with another part of the world. This raises the question of how we can make predictions or plan when the future is so uncertain. How can we identify and tackle the major problems that will have to be addressed if we are to reach what, for most of us, is still our principal objective, the development of a socially stable, equitable, creative and sustainable world society? And how, through participative approaches, can we involve all citizens in all countries more effectively in the creation of this society? Since September 11, US disaster, everything has dramatically changed. The future is dark and we are faced with the messy complexity of an uncertain and dangerous real-world situation. The future now appears in some ways not too different from the book written by Sir Arthur C. Clarke in the sixties and made into the film 2001 by Stanley Kubrick. Many of Clarke’s technology predictions have turned out to be correct. Man has landed on the moon, although only once. HAL, the controlling, all-powerful computer has now spawned millions of children much smaller than himself, and we all have these Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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in our homes and at work. Increasingly these offsprings dominate our lives, sometimes making them better, sometimes worse. Some technocrats are warning that future machines may control us rather than we them and that nothing can be done to prevent this. So the extrapolation of technical attributes from HAL to today’s and tomorrow’s world may bear some resemblance to future events (Clarke, 1961). The social projections, however, are perhaps closer to our experiences today. HAL’s passengers travel in a calm and comfortable environment untroubled by noise or crowds until suddenly Hal decides to kill them off and they all come to an unfortunate end. Perhaps we can learn an important lesson from the film 2001. This is that while technical projections may be quite accurate and provide realistic pictures of our technical futures, social projections are much less reliable and subject to the impact and distortion of many different variables. This means that many aspects of the future will be threatening shocks rather than pleasant surprises. What, if anything, can we do to manage these?

Other Views of the Present and the Future As social commentators appear to forecast the worst while technologists exaggerate the best, are there other forecasters who take a more neutral position? Let us see what historians and influential journalists have to say. Historians are used to dealing with time as a continuing process and seeing the future in terms of what has happened in the past. Their forecasts may be more accurate, or at least more conservative, than those of other groups. I have chosen Eric Hobsbawm (1999) and his book The New Century as an important source of information and also Hamish McCrae (1994), an internationally renowned journalist who tries to take a middle of the road approach to predictions about the future. Eric Hobsbawm, the historian, also poses the question we are all asking, “What will the future be like?” He believes that despite the odd hiccup such as the dot-com fiasco, technical progress will continue. He is, however, very worried about the widening gap of social and economic inequalities both within states and between regions and countries. He quotes the International Herald Tribune of the end of February 1999 as pointing out that: A million people living in dire poverty alongside a billion in widening splendour on a planet growing ever smaller and more integrated is not a sustainable scenario. Professor Hobsbawm tells us that “as the world is integrated one way by globalisation, it is increasingly divided in another way into a permanently inferior Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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majority of states and a privileged and self-satisfied minority of states. This minority enjoys a self-reinforcing superiority of wealth, technology and power. … These two factions of humanity can neither understand nor communicate with each other.” He also points out that globalisation is not the product of a single action; it is a historical transformation process that has always been with us but has speeded up dramatically in the past 10 years. It is a process greatly influenced by technology, communications and the economy, with its principal focus on technology and the elimination of technical obstacles (Hobsbawm, 1999). One of technology’s most striking characteristics today is that it leads to the abolition of distance and time and creates what some commentators call “placelessness” (Nikko, 1996). The most advanced stage of globalisation would be a situation in which all the inhabitants of the world would have the same access to goods and services in any place, providing they had the same technical resources and the same money to spend. Today, production is no longer organized within the political boundaries of the state where the parent company resides; information technology now facilitates much wider boundaries. Globalisation has also transformed the international financial markets by creating an imbalance between the world’s real economy, the production of goods and services, and the flood of financial transactions stemming from those looking for quick money. Hobsbawm suggests that globalisation is irreversible but not always advantageous. He points out that capitalism does not distribute resources in an optimal manner. We can deduce from this that the future will not be quiet and harmonious but riven by political conflicts that have little to do with technology and a great deal to do with the politics of envy. Hamish McCrae produces a different perspective and a more cautious vision of the future. He points out that in most areas of manufacturing, the 1980s and 1990s saw the start of a long retreat from mass production. Also, instead of large numbers of workers doing repetitive tasks, a smaller number are performing highly skilled jobs. These changes are most evident in the motor industry, where robots carry out many repetitive jobs while consumers demand more variety and change their tastes more swiftly. The downside of this progress is that large income and wealth differentials are resulting in high social costs. These include crime, drug abuse and poor health for many. McCrae suggests that growth in the future will be associated with more efficiency in service industries, while new companies will be small and based on entrepreneurial skill and knowledge. These will prove popular as employers, for most people prefer small units to large ones as places of work. Despite these changes, large companies may take a long time to die, as they have large Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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knowledge bases which will be difficult for small firms to replicate. McCrae also believes that inventing technologies will be less important in the future than finding new ways of applying existing ones. He maintains that top-down control by bosses in the US and the UK has not proved as effective as bottom-up responsibility generated by a highly educated workforce such as that found in Scandinavia and in Japan in the past. He suggests that European industry will perform best when it goes back to craft-based tools with skilled labour. Other commentators in countries where capitalism is not compatible with the cultural heritage and social institutions of the nation see a highly disturbed future with the revolutionary forces of IT, globalisation and freer markets disrupting the social order (Halal & Taylor, 1999). There are also major organizational changes taking place within industries. Companies are moving away from hierarchies to networks (Castells, 1996) and from centralised to decentralised structures, in which parts of a company are run as semiautonomous units. And so change can be traumatic in an age when all economic and many social systems are in a state of upheaval. Despite these problems, and even because of them, systems design and the management of change will have to be addressed with new tools, techniques and approaches and with due account for social, technical, environmental and, perhaps the most important of all, political factors. Ulrich Beck suggests that one way of handling uncertainty is to have plans for all contingencies. To assist this he favours the development of scenarios, already discussed in Chapter 10. These are different visions of the future and offer a range of alternatives when the interested party has little or no knowledge of what is going to happen. They were first developed by Shell, and Ulrich Beck (2000) provides a variety of examples in his book The Brave New World of Work. These range from the optimistic to the very pessimistic. One of Beck’s scenarios follows Hobsbawm by predicting global apartheid with an increasing split between rich and poor. Rising unemployment will cause disorder and may result in civil wars. A second sees the unemployed as having freedom, yet it is the freedom of insecurity. Work will be individualised, and there will be much franchising, with company names and products put up for sale. In his view, this can lead to the disintegration of society, with people always looking for the next job. A third sees a multi-activity society that is not based only on the concept of paid work. There will be new ways of distributing work which may be full-time, part-time, or very flexible. Some people will work for nothing as a service to the community. Finally, there is the scenario of the leisure society, in which governments will pay people not to work. This was seriously considered by US government committees in the fifties and sixties Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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when the future and consequences of technology could not be foreseen and machines were seen as taking over from people. Whichever scenario proves to be correct, Beck is convinced that the work society is becoming more like a leisure society. The old certainties of standardised work are gone. Work will be more flexible and more insecure. Employees will have less money but more personal control.

FROM SCENARIOS TO STRATEGIES Appropriate strategies for managing change and facilitating participation will depend on the social, political and economic situation existing at a particular time, but important lessons can still be learned from the past. The problemsolving processes and case studies described in this book all assume that the management of change can be a logical process, and perhaps it still can. But what if it is not? What if the future is unpredictable, dangerous and likely to present managers and their firms with challenges of which they have no experience? The tragedy of September 11 was a forerunner of this situation. Mike Friedman (2001), writing in the British Guardian newspaper, suggests that we are now in a period of “asymmetric warfare” characterised by an unknown and invisible enemy using new kinds of weapons to attack new kinds of targets. How can we handle this situation or is control and stability impossible? How would a larger company in a similar situation protect itself? An effective strategy is to follow Shell International’s approach and start with scenarios. What are the different threats which the company needs to protect itself from? Why and how might they occur? These scenarios need to range from the likely to the almost unthinkable. Would any of the firms in the US World Trade Centre have imagined that their staff would soon be killed because of an aeroplane deliberately flying into the building in which they worked? The academic notion of requisite variety, that variety and complexity in a problem requires the problem solvers to recognise and address the same variety and complexity in their problem-solving procedures, is very valid here. This means that every scenario must attempt to include the human, economic, technical, environmental and other relevant issues that a change situation contains. The necessary skills for addressing these problems must also be identified. Choosing and using appropriate scenarios requires flexibility, imagination and constant feedback to recognise when energies are being directed to the wrong target. An inappropriate scenario can then be modified or abandoned for a new one. In an early chapter we referred to the danger of entropy Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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or activity that is unproductive because it is focused on the wrong problem or a wrong definition of the problem. This is still very relevant. The affected company will now need certain capabilities to implement and manage the scenarios seen as most relevant to the new situation, and it will also need staff with the necessary competences to do this. These will include an ability to assess the situation and make an informed choice from alternative options. It will need to rethink its business objectives for a time of crisis. When really difficult and threatening change confronts a company, one of these will be survival, another the restoration of business confidence if this has been lost. A third should be concern for the well-being of employees and customers and any other groups with which it interacts. Here the long-term values of the company are extremely important and, if possible, ways of recognising and following these should form part of every scenario. The last chapter on security made the point that all staff should be involved in the process of identifying possible future problems and dangers and in creating strategies for avoiding or tackling these. In return the company should ensure that staff are given the same protection as management. If the worst happens and disaster strikes, a scenario has to become a strategy. An important question now is: Can the firm be proactive rather than reactive? Is there any part of the problem situation where an initiative can be seized? Also, is it possible to take a long-term view as well as the essential short-term view? In the past, many firms and industries have kept their problems and their plans for combating these strictly confidential. Today this seems unwise. Firms, industries and governments now need to get together, share information and develop strategies that reinforce each other. When terrorism is the problem, this is also true of the activities of the security services. These, in the past both nationally and internationally, have often had relationships where the norm has been competition rather than coordination. Happily, a recognition that today many problems cannot be solved without international cooperation seems to be changing this narrow approach, and the security services are willingly assisting each other in developing strategies which can be applied in all countries. Unfortunately, one great difficulty in the competitive new world change situation is that many problems are so new that firms cannot easily anticipate these and have little knowledge on how to combat or prevent them. This means that they need to be quick thinkers, have rapid responses and be always aware that the future is fluid so they cannot always know the consequences of any actions they may take. At the same time, they should be cooperatively building up a knowledge base of what the future is likely to hold and why. But the Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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consequences may still be unclear. Ulrich Beck (1992) believes that in unstable situations, intended effects will be continually covered over by unintended side effects. These make designing the future extremely difficult and uncertain. Constant rethinking and improvisation will be required. Trying to understand and influence the big picture now becomes very important. For change and innovation to succeed, countries, as well as industries, need to run smoothly and to possess an educated and stable workforce. Beck believes that the ability to do this will largely determine which parts of the world prosper and are able to exert political influence. In his view, order must triumph over chaos. It has become a more important element in the competitive mix than used to be the case.

Management Skills in Times of Change What are the required skills of today’s and tomorrow’s senior company managers? Lessons here can be learnt from managers who run successful industries while withstanding and responding effectively and ethically to unexpected shocks and dilemmas. These can weigh up situations in terms of their company’s potential vulnerability and develop effective and socially positive strategies for defence. They are also able to identify and co-opt any special assistance they need. They have powerful sanctions which include rewards for those who assist them. They are good organizers and can develop and implement sound change strategies, often helped by a small group of close colleagues who can give orders, make plans, decide which customers to target, create training facilities and set the change operation in motion. Most important, they have a quality that every political or industry leader ideally requires. They can get their associates and the public to support their endeavours through showing employees, customers and politicians that they are running an ethical firm that is making a major contribution to community needs. Interestingly, with the exception of the ethical and socially positive approach, these skills are not dissimilar to those required of terrorist leaders, who need to attract and keep followers, and of drug barons, who have the negative but challenging task of organizing the movement of drugs from one part of the world to another with the rewards for success or failure, wealth, death or imprisonment. Managers will find the principle of requisite variety of value in many of their activities. They need financial viability to support future initiatives and respond effectively to problems. They must train their colleagues to cope with unexpected change and they must ensure their employees, associates and the public are supportive, even enthusiastic, about the strategies they are following.


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In times of major change, all employees are required to develop new attitudes to work. In the past, work provided security for both the employee and his or her family. The traditional supports were firm, job, career, salary and family. But the boundaries between work and nonwork are now becoming increasingly fluid, and other kinds of security must be sought and achieved. This may come from nonwork activities and from new and wider sets of relationships. Nevertheless, certain needs may endure and still be sought even though they become increasingly difficult to find. These are likely to include a degree of stability and security which endures over time, even though it no longer comes from the work situation; for example, freedom to develop personally and try out new activities and to strive for rewards, even though these are not always financial and may increasingly come from personal relations. We will continue to seek happiness and approval, also a degree of unity and order which comes from harmony, cooperation and coordination. Both inside and outside work, we will also still want acceptable task structures free from excessive stress, and the opportunity to collaborate, make judgments, use our discretion and actively participate in the successful running of the groups with which we are associated. We will still value highly friendship and our family (Burnand, 1982).

Participation in Times of Change Participation, as described in this book, has been used for a specific purpose, namely, the more effective introduction and management of change. It has also had the ethical aim of improving the quality of life for those affected by change. One way of doing this is to enable those in this situation to contribute to the design of their own futures by actively participating in, and influencing, the change processes. It is suggested that this will create better futures for the organizations in which they work and for the communities in which they live. “Better” here will depend on personal and group attitudes but will frequently encompass less stress and opportunities for personal development and for pleasant and positive group relationships. This will, in turn, lead to the kind of change which, in the longer term, reinforces stability rather than increases conflict. Joseph Nye, dean of the Kennedy School of Government at the Harvard Business School, describes the importance of what he calls “soft power” ( Nye, 2002). This rests on the ability to set agendas in a way that shapes the preferences of others. It can do this when those it interacts with admire its values and want to emulate these. Here, following Ulrich Beck, it can be argued that participation is a risk reducer when change is being introduced. He also maintains that terrorist Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


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attacks, and horrific incidents of this kind, can have the opposite effects to those intended. They can bring people together and lead them to creative cooperation. He argues that common values are important means for achieving goals. Nye suggests that groups most likely to gain power in an information age are, first, those whose dominant culture and ideas are closer to prevailing social norms. These now emphasise liberalism, pluralism and autonomy. Second are those with most access to multiple channels of communication and thus with more influence over how issues are addressed; and third are those whose credibility is enhanced by their domestic and external performance. It seems possible that we are about to enter a more philosophical state at work and in the community and home, one in which common values, collaboration and an ethical vision of the future become more powerful incentives for action than conflict and aggression. Nye believes that what is required is no longer command power, the ability to control what others do. Instead we need co-optive power, the ability to shape and respond to what others want. This will depend on our ability to manage information in the future and to use it for the common good rather than individual status and power.

Future Opportunities The future offers positive as well as negative developments. We are now moving into the era of what is called “soft technology.” Socio-technical design always saw people and technology as part of a single system but still tended to treat them separately. The sequence usually was that a forward-looking company identified a business problem and acquired technology to help solve this. It then realised that the new technical system affected both the employees’ work and the work environment. This was redesigned so that both the quality of working life should not suffer because of innovation while efficiency was also improved. Employees participated in this redesign process. The future seems likely to be quite different. Technology is often now acquired not because of a business problem but because of external demand. People want a particular kind of service, for example, to be able to buy products on the Internet, to purchase air tickets, or to get certain kinds of information. At the same time, the firm producing the product or service has the ability to find out who its customers are, where they are located and who buys certain products. Social needs now stimulate technical innovation, and these create a sequence of activities of which technology is only one part (Durand & Dubreuil, 2001). Social innovation now leads to organizational and technical innovation, and this is stimulated by many different needs in the community, the home and


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the environment. The social sciences can no longer be kept away from technical innovation. They are increasingly the stimulants that create its use. Socio-technical systems design provides a new worldview of what constitutes quality of working life and humanism at work. It facilitates organizational innovation by recommending the removal of many elite groups and substituting flatter hierarchies, multiskilling and group decision-taking. It wants to replace tight controls, bureaucracy and stress with an organization and technology that enhances human freedom, democracy and creativity. As we move forward into the new century, we need more than ever to strive for these quality of working life concepts. But work that is routine, tightly controlled and without developmental opportunities is still with us, even though it takes different forms. Much of today’s work is so demanding that it has adverse consequences for morale and health. Our challenge is to enable the philosophy of socio-technical design to come to fulfilment in the 21st century.

REFERENCES Barron, I., & Curnow, R. (1976). The future with microelectronics. London: Francis Pinter. Beck, U. (1992). Risk society. London: Sage. Beck, U. (2000). The brave new world of work. Cambridge, England: Polity Press. Burnand, G. (1982). Via focal problems. London: Leadership Ltd. Castells, M. (1996) The rise of the network society. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Clarke, A. C. (1961). The challenge of the spaceship. New York: Ballantine. Durand, T., & Dubreuil, M. (2001). Humanizing the future. Foresight, 3(4), 285-296. Forrester, V. (2000). The economic horror. London: Polity Press. Friedman, M. (2001, November 18). The Guardian. Halal, W., & Taylor, K. (1999). 21st century economics. London: Macmillan. Hobsbawm, E. (1999). The new century. London: Little & Brown. Jenkins, C., & Sherman, B. (1979). The collapse of work. London: Methuen. McCrae, H. (1994). The world in 2020. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Nikko, W. (1996). Bold new world. New York: Kondasha America. Nye, J. (2002). Hard and soft power in a global information age. In M. Leonard (Ed.), Re-ordering the world. London: Foreign Policy Centre.



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Papows, J. (1998). Enterprise.Com. Reading, MA: Perseus Books. Rifkin, J. (2000). The end of work. New York: Penguin. Searjeant, G. (2001, January 25). Globalisation can work better if we try. The London Times.


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Appendix:

Methods and Tools

A METHOD If you are helping with participative design projects, do you need methods and tools to assist you? This depends on who you are, what you are trying to achieve as a member of the design group and what your fellow participants are interested in. Methods have always been seen as essential to the technical systems designer, whose role was principally organizing data inside computer hardware. Those helping with participant design projects, who may be managers, consultants, information technologists, students or social scientists, if they need methods at all, will want to use them for a very different purpose. Academics, especially if they are Ph.D. students, will wish to make use of the project to test old theory and develop new theories. This may be their principal objective, but it should not be their sole objective. Managers and consultants, in contrast, will be principally interested in helping the design group develop a system that meets both the group’s and the company’s needs, together with any Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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customer and community needs that can be affected by the new system. They will have little interest in contributing to theory. However I would suggest that the major task for all groups, whether researchers or consultants, is to help deliver a system that is participatively designed, works well technically and meets any social, environmental, economic and business objectives that have been set for it. Contributions to theory can be useful but should take second place. Methods frequently do have a theoretical basis. For many years, an approach called positivism or logical positivism has been popular with scientists and with many researching in the field of computer technology. Positivism is based on the view that all true knowledge is scientific and must be a result of scientific enquiry, scientific enquiry being defined as the systematic study of observable phenomena. This approach was challenged by a Harvard theoretical physicist, Thomas Kuhn, who wrote a groundbreaking book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn (1970) argued against the common view of science as the accumulation of observations and data. Instead he maintained that science changes as the environment in which it operates changes and as the ideas and objectives of researchers also change. This means that to a large extent the interests of scientists are socially determined, and that current interests and fashions can influence the way science is carried out. This book has followed the ideas of Kuhn by adopting the notion of research pragmatism. Research objectives and the methods used to achieve them will be, to a large extent, determined by the kinds of problems that are being investigated. Current interests and questions, especially those of powerful groups such as well-known academics and government bodies, will also exert a major influence (Holloway, 2001). The original Tavistock researchers, who were academically inclined, always had two important objectives. These were to create a good system and make a contribution to knowledge at the same time, with the second following from the first. They might start the process through carrying out the design task and then, on its completion, examine what new theory could be developed from the practice. Or they might start with some theory—and here they were followers of early systems thinking, especially the open systems theory of von Bertalanffy (1950)—and see how using this affected design outputs. Both of these approaches were called action learning. Systems design is a logical process and therefore tools and methods may assist this. However, design in the real world is likely to suffer all sorts of random distortions that can affect the development of the project. Methods, if used, therefore have to be flexible and contain feedback loops that enable Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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learning to take place as the project develops. Tightly structured methods can be dysfunctional as they will reduce the flexibility required to cope with unexpected pressures and problems as the system develops. The result can be the creation of a system that is a bad fit with the needs of the users and of others affected by it.

Systems Design in Practice Effective systems design requires a good understanding of the presenting problem and a recognition of the interaction that is taking place between a large number of different factors—psychological, economic, technical, cultural, environmental and political. A practical question which it is useful to ask before the design process begins is: What kinds of solutions will be culturally and politically acceptable in this environment? Another complicating feature of today’s systems design is that the definition of needs may alter over time as the project develops. Changes in the business environment, particularly in its economic context, may cause the design task to have to be rethought and redefined. This happened several times in the Digital XSEL project. Also, as the design group gains a greater understanding of the problem’s complexity, some rethinking may need to take place on its scope and emphasis. Throughout this book, the importance of understanding a problem before starting to solve it has been continually stressed. This has been called taking a holistic approach. Although very complex design problems are too large and intractable to be treated as single entities, they need to be designed as linked systems with the knowledge that addressing one will affect some or all of the others. Participative design groups must give thought and discussion to agreeing the nature of the problem, the kind of solution that is needed and the best means for achieving this. They must also try and assess the likely consequences of any design strategy to ensure that its implementation does not result in a raft of new problems being released. Finding out how other designers have tackled similar problems or similar systems is a useful strategy here. The successful design of large systems requires a great deal of “coordination,” with different groups working effectively together. Socio-technical design requires decisions to be taken, or influenced by, the groups most likely to be affected by them. These, according to how the project is organized, will range from software suppliers, outsourcing contractors and external consultants to internal managers at all levels and users of the system. Critical groups will be the external users of the system, especially if they are customers or members of the public.



Choosing a Methodology The original socio-technical approach did have methods as part of its design strategy. These have been described in Chapter 2. However, some individuals and groups may not want to use a structured approach to design. They may prefer to work extremely flexibly and have a feedback process which responds to needs and events as they occur. This is liberated and imaginative, but it can also be risky as it may be difficult to set and follow clear objectives. Serendipity may not be enough. Over the years I have found that most groups like a series of defined steps to take them from the start of the design process to its conclusion. This gives them a sense of “progress” without restricting their decision taking. The participative projects I have been involved with have usually been situations where technical innovation is accompanied by organizational redesign. The ETHICS method described below emerged less from theory than from practice and from working with many different groups. ETHICS stands for the effective technical and human implementation of computer-based systems. It is not intended to be a blueprint for systems design but merely a set of logical procedures which design groups can use in any way they want. You may wish to follow the process as it is set out or prefer to “pick and mix,” or just use parts of it. This is entirely up to you.

THE ETHICS METHOD The Design Challenge ETHICS has three principal objectives related to the management of change. First, it seeks to legitimate a value position in which the future users of computer, and other new systems, at all organizational levels play a major part in the design of these systems. The argument here is that people should, whenever possible, be able to contribute to the design of their own work situations and that if this kind of intervention is encouraged then there are likely to be both job satisfaction and efficiency gains—job satisfaction gains because the members of the user group whose quality of working life is going to be affected by the systems change are better able to diagnose their own needs than any outside group of specialists; efficiency gains because these same people are likely to have an excellent knowledge of day-to-day information needs and work problems and can make useful contributions to the specification of the first and the solution of the second. Also, they will be committed to operating efficiently a system which they have themselves partly designed. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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The second objective is to enable groups concerned with the design of computer or other technical systems to set specific job satisfaction and quality of working life objectives in addition to the usual technical and operational objectives. Here it is argued that unless these objectives are made explicit, and the technical system and associated organization of work designed to achieve these, the human impact of a new computer system will be unpredictable because it has not been consciously planned for. The result can be that the new system will have undesirable human consequences such as a routinisation or deskilling of work, an increase in stress, or other features that are not welcomed by the user. Staff in the user department may then respond in a negative way, refusing to operate the system or ensuring that it runs at low efficiency; and, in addition, absenteeism and labour turnover may increase. All of these responses can impose high financial costs on management. The third objective is to ensure that any new technical system is surrounded by a compatible, well-functioning organizational system. Today, technical design is only one part of a large, complex design process, which may start with an external customer need or demand and will include everything that both interacts with and surrounds the technical system in the total design task. This covers direct man-machine interaction; the design of work procedures, individual jobs and work group activities; the specification of roles and relationships within the department or functional area where the new technical system is being introduced; the creation of good boundary management techniques; and an ability to meet the needs of the customer. Design groups may vary in their composition but will normally include technical experts as well as users. The steering group will provide the management input.

ETHICS—Step by Step ETHICS was created to give groups unused to being involved in participative system design some simple tools to assist logical thinking . But it must be stressed that the approach is in no way prescriptive. The steps set out below can be ignored altogether, used as a toolbox with some selected and others rejected, and addressed in any order the group feels to be appropriate. It is intended as a helpful guide, not a design straight jacket. I believe, however, that the step-by-step approach does have some advantages. It keeps the group moving forward in its thinking and avoids going round in circles without making progress. It also gives the group a sense of achievement as each stage is completed. And it assists clear communication with other interested groups, such as colleagues or the project steering group. Ideas and proposals can now be described in a logical manner. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


ETHICS is a flexible methodology that can be used in many different ways according to the wishes of the participating groups. If a proposed new system is likely to be large, covering different functions and departments, then a design group may be required to hold meetings over a period of months. If, in contrast, the system is important but restricted in its use, for example, an information system for senior managers, then the time available for problem analysis may have to be restricted to days rather than weeks or months. With large projects, it is desirable to have both a steering committee and one or more design groups to cover different problem areas. The role of the steering committee is to set strategic guidelines for the new system and ensure that company objectives for the system are clear, precise and understood. The design groups should be representative of all direct users of the system. They should also be aware of who will be affected by the system so that they can invite other interested parties to meetings when matters relevant to them are to be discussed. A facilitator who can help the group with its task is also essential. Ideally this individual should not have a direct interest in the system. Very large change projects may best be served by a conference approach, as described in Chapter 11. The design groups I worked with usually proceeded through the following discussion and design stages. These do not necessarily have to follow the sequence shown below, and there must always be a feedback process in which earlier decisions are revisited if later decisions show a need for rethinking. These stages are very similar to those developed and used for socio-technical design where new technology is not a factor. They have been reformulated to fit the design requirements of computer-based information systems. Step 1. Why Change? At the start of the project the design group needs to be very clear why it wants to change the existing system. It should discuss present problems, future demands and the opportunities for improvement that a new technology and new organization could bring. Step 2. System Boundaries It should also be aware of where its design responsibilities begin and end by identifying the system boundaries. Who and what will be affected by the new system either directly or indirectly? Who will not be affected? Step 3. Description of Existing System It is useful for the design group, before going further, to look at the existing system in some detail. How does it work? What are its benefits and problems? Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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What needs to be kept and what abandoned? This step has two advantages. It ensures the design group members understand what is there before focusing on what should be changed. Discussing processes with which they are very familiar also gives them confidence. This enables them to start working together as a team. Step 4. Definition of Key Objectives Some fundamental questions now need to be asked to guide the design process. What is the mission of the department, function or group that will use the system? What are its key tasks? Will these be the same or different in five years time? This discussion should produce a preliminary list of key objectives that must be kept in mind throughout the design process. Step 5. Efficiency Needs: Analysis of Variances This is a critical part of the socio-technical approach and is aimed at improving efficiency by identifying problems that the design area has and will continue to have irrespective of what system is introduced. They are often a result of external demands and relationships. Problems of this kind are called variances and defined as “a part of a system that deviates from expected or desired standards.” One objective of the design process will be to remove or secure better control over these variances. When managers are using ETHICS and an effective management information system is a priority objective, Stafford Beer’s (1985) viable system model is used as an intellectual guide. Step 6. Analysis of Job Satisfaction Needs Job satisfaction is defined as the “fit” between an individual or group’s job needs and expectations and the demands of the job which they presently occupy. Following the socio-technical philosophy, ETHICS tries to give equal weight to both efficiency and job satisfaction. This information is usually collected by a confidential questionnaire which is completed by all the future users of the system. The results are discussed after they have been analysed for the group as a whole. An ETHICS questionnaire covers three broad areas of job satisfaction: a) knowledge and psychological needs, b) efficiency and competence needs, and c) needs associated with individual and group values. The theoretical basis of the questionnaire is derived from the work of Talcott Parsons (Parsons & Shils, 1951). ETHICS is here following the socio-technical goals of trying to give equal weight to technical and social factors.



Step 7. Future Analysis It is essential that the new system meets future needs as well as present ones. This means that strategic thinking about the future is necessary. This is best achieved through joint discussions between the design and the steering groups. Step 8. Setting System Objectives This is a key step in the design process. Based on the diagnoses of efficiency, job satisfaction and future needs, the design group must now discuss and agree a list of precise objectives for each of these categories. These will provide the basis for the design of the new system. These objectives need to be ranked in terms of importance and scope. They will be grouped in terms of efficiency, job satisfaction and future needs. It is extremely important for the design group to check these objectives with other groups before proceeding further. They must be approved by the steering committee and discussed with all groups likely to be affected by the new system. External groups such as customers and suppliers must not be forgotten in this process. Step 9. Organizational and Technical Design Organizational design and technical design are now used to achieve the specified and agreed objectives and should be considered in parallel rather than sequentially. Ideally, new technology should fit an improved organizational design rather than vice versa. The kinds of organizational designs that result in this part of the exercise will depend on the preferences of the design groups, although all should take account of efficiency, job satisfaction and future change needs. Groups are recommended to consider a number of options here. Many clerical groups the author worked with produced quite complex forms of reorganization. These incorporated teamworking, multiskilling, more higher level decisions and taking responsibility for specific groups of customers. Solutions of this kind invariably required a training programme to help achieve the desired results. The Digital sales force had responsibility for software design and were more interested in improving their efficiency and job satisfaction through creating a user-friendly expert system than in redesigning their sales offices. These were already organized in a flexible way to meet staff needs and many salesmen worked from home. Senior managers were interested in the structure of their own jobs but again placed the focus of their attention on achieving job satisfaction through an efficient and user-friendly information system. Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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In the seventies, where the focus was on information systems for clerical workers, systems designers were members of the design group and would build appropriate software after listening to job satisfaction requirements and assisting in organizational design decisions. In the eighties and nineties, firms increasingly bought software off the shelf. ETHICS was then of value in a different way. It enabled users to state their needs clearly and precisely and to test available software against their project objectives. If these could not be completely met by technology, then efforts would be made to meet them through organizational redesign. Step 10. Implementation Design is an intellectual exercise; implementation requires action and can be even more difficult. If the design group is willing and has the necessary skills, they can change their role and develop an implementation strategy that will enable the new system to be introduced without stress and upheaval. Alternatively a new group can be formed with responsibility for implementation. A system that has been participatively designed can still encounter serious problems if the way it is introduced does not fit with user ideas on what is an acceptable implementation strategy. All groups concerned with the change process, including senior and departmental managers, the design group, the staff they represent and, if they are affected, external groups such customers and suppliers, must understand the nature and logic of the proposed change, must approve and like the changes that are to be made, and must regard the introduction of these as beneficial to their own interests. Implementation involves developing user commitment to the new system and providing users with an understanding of how it functions and with the skills to operate it effectively. Commitment is facilitated by user involvement in the design process and by a belief that the system will increase job satisfaction and provide an improvement on previous work methods. This belief must not be jeopardised by poor implementation. Change will only prove successful if groups which experience it can adapt easily to the new situation and feel comfortable with it. Step 11. Evaluation Once the new system is operational it is essential to monitor its performance. Early monitoring will check how well it is meeting efficiency, job satisfaction and future change objectives and make adjustments where there are difficulties. Later monitoring will be to check if user needs in the three areas are changing and the system needs to be redesigned to meet these. A Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


fundamental socio-technical principle is that design never stops. This is particularly true of design that involves new technology. A contracted version of the ETHICS method called QUICKethics is used when managers are defining their information needs. A great deal of personal information is collected through face-to-face interviews and discussion with individual managers. This is followed by two one-day meetings at which the managers as a group identify and agree their priority information needs. The reorganization of managerial work is not usually a part of this agenda (Mumford, 1997). This process is described in Chapter 10. Once again it is important to stress that these suggestions for addressing projects concerned with change are not intended to be prescriptive. They need to be moulded to fit the needs and objectives of particular projects and problems. They are ideas not requirements. They do, however, have the advantage of being tested out many times in practice and of working well.

Shall We Use ETHICS? These are some of the questions that I was asked by the manager of a firm thinking of using a participative approach. Manager: Can you give me a brief description of ETHICS? E.M. ETHICS is intended to provide users with the means to contribute in a practical way to the design of new work systems, especially those which incorporate new technical applications. It does this by enabling future users to analyse their own work needs and problems, covering efficiency, job satisfaction and likely future change, and to identify a number of feasible organizational redesign options. These will be evaluated against specified efficiency, job satisfaction and other change objectives and the “best fit” programme for the company’s needs selected and implemented. It is based on a socio-technical philosophy and is largely process-oriented, although it recommends tools and techniques for collecting and analysing information. Manager: What are the prerequisites to using the methodology? E.M. The most important is the existence of shared values between the participants. These will accept the importance of the involvement of all staff, at all levels, in the design process. And there will be agreement that an improvement in the quality of working life for all is an important and valid design Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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objective. If external groups such as community members or customers are affected by the new system, an improvement in the quality of their lives will be equally important. ETHICS also assumes that socio-technical theory and practice provides a means for achieving these objectives. Manager: What philosophy lies behind the ETHICS method? E.M. The socio-technical philosophy of giving equal weight to social, technical and organizational issues is of prime importance. The application of this philosophy requires a decision structure that includes all interested groups directly affected by the new work system; a process which enables the design task to be carried smoothly forward from an identification of the need to change to the successful operation of the new system; and a content that enables business efficiency andquality of working life issues to be considered in parallel and given equal weight. Manager: What are the design outcomes? E.M. ETHICS is concerned with improving organizational effectiveness as well as improving efficiency. It places emphasis on identifying new approaches to tasks and problems and new relationships within and outside the company. Systems design using ETHICS should result in improvements to the work responsibilities of individuals and groups and to the level of control they have during and after the development process and may also increase feelings of commitment to the firm and to their work responsibilities. Manager: What kinds of problems can occur? E.M. In my experience a flexible use of ETHICS has worked well in all the situations in which it has been used. These have been very different and have ranged from hospital nurses to the British Royal Navy. However, I believe that there are certain situations where its use would be ill-advised. The first of these are companies where there is considerable hostility and mutual distrust between management and employees. Here aggression and a “war game” will replace collaboration. The second is where top management is very controlling and unwilling to hand over decision taking to lower level groups; the third is where companies are inexperienced, confused and unable to create design groups or a steering group to guide and monitor the project.



The result of participative design may now be chaos rather than improved decision making. There is no point in improving the quality of working life if, at the same time, the company is moving rapidly into bankruptcy.

An Earlier Design Method The early socio-technical consultants used the following method for analysing work. This is more prescriptive than the ETHICS approach and also more appropriate for a traditional production system. Step 1. Initial Scanning The consultant should first get an understanding of the pre-change situation by making a description of the existing production system and its environment. He or she should determine where the most serious problems are located and where the emphasis of the analysis should be placed. Step 2. Identification of Unit Operations Next, the consultant should identify the main stages of the production process. These are sets of activities or tasks that help move the product into its finished state yet which are relatively self-contained. Usually there will be some kind of discontinuity between each stage, for example, the introduction of a new set of procedures, a new material, or an elapse of time. Step 3. Identification of Variances The consultant should now look in more detail at the problems or variances, a variance being defined as a weak link in the system where it becomes difficult to achieve required or desired norms or standards. A variance is considered “key” if it affects the quantity or quality of production, or operating or social costs. Variances must be carefully documented. It is useful to set them out as matrices so that a note can be made of how a powerful variance travels through a work system and causes increasing disturbance. Step 4. Analysis of the Social System The social system should next be examined and documented. This will cover the work relationships associated with the work system and include the following: (i)

A brief review of the organizational structure. Who works with whom, how and why.


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(ii) A table of variances noting the following: • where the variance occurred • where it showed up and was seen • where it was corrected • who did this • what they did to correct it • what information was needed to correct it (iii) A note of other activities unconnected with the control variances (iv) A description of the relationships required between workers for the optimal production of the product (v) A note on the extent of work flexibility: the knowledge each worker had of the jobs of others (vi) A description of pay relationships: the nature of the pay system, differentials, bonuses, etc. (vii) A description of the workers’ psychological needs Step 5. How the Workers Saw Their Roles The consultant should examine the extent to which the workers thought the work structure and their work roles met psychological needs. Step 6. The Maintenance and Supply Systems An assessment should be made of how the system of machine maintenance in operation impacted on, and affected, the production system. The same should be done for the system that supplied materials and services to the department. Step 7. The Corporate Environment Information should be obtained on how development plans might affect the future operation of the department. Step 8. Proposals for Change Finally the consultant should gather together all this information and, after discussions with different interest groups in the department, should arrive at an action programme. Proposals for action should contribute both to the improvement of the production system and to the improvement of the social system. The latter required actions directed at improving job satisfaction and the quality of the work environment. It can be seen that this problem-solving process for work reorganization is extremely complex and, apart from the emphasis on social concerns, bears Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.


some resemblance to work study. This complexity was a drawback to its use. It also takes little account of the impact of technology. However, it may still be useful in drawing attention to aspects of work that even today’s managers and systems experts are prone to forget.

TOOLS Tools often form part of methods but can be used on their own to assist a part of the design process. Some of the ones I find most helpful have been derived from operational research, particularly from the work of Professor Ross Ashby and Professor Stafford Beer. One of these is requisite variety (Espejo & Harnden, 1989). See Chapter 4.

Requisite Variety The notion, or law, of requisite variety was first developed in the 1950s by Professor Ross Ashby (1956), a cybernetician who argued that variety can only be controlled by variety. By this he meant that the solution to a complex problem requires the problem solvers to be able to understand and influence all the variables contained in the presenting problem. This, in turn, requires both perception and organization—the ability to recognise, understand and manipulate the different components of the problem. I find this a useful concept at the start of a project because it assists the decision on who becomes a member of the design group, or a consultant to it. In addition to members who are selected democratically, usually through a vote, there will need to be some experts who can give advice on specific aspects of the problem and the problem situation.

Variance Analysis Another useful tool at the start of a project is variance analysis. This too was developed by the early Tavistock group. It shows how a problem which occurs at an early stage in a work system, if not corrected, can cause other later problems in the same system. Here is an example from the coal mine study. At Maypole colliery it was commonplace for insufficient supplies of pit props and other roof supports to be sent to the coal faces. This then led to a sequence of dangerous events, which followed on from one another. The sequence of face-working activities was getting the supplies, including pit props, to the coal face and next removing the loose coal and erecting roof supports. This moved the face line forward about six feet. After this, the


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conveyor belt was also moved forward so that it lay along the new face. Lastly the worked face was packed with loose stone to prevent the roof falling in and the pit props were removed. Simultaneously with these activities a ripping team was extending the roadways to ensure access to the new advanced face position. All of these activities could be adversely affected and endangered if the correct number of pit props were not sent to the face. If there were too few pit props, the roof would be inadequately supported and part could fall on the conveyor belt. This would then break and production could be held up for the rest of the day. Even worse, a roof fall could badly injure or kill a miner, causing consequences that could affect the pit for months. It is a useful exercise to work out the consequences of disturbances to work activity. Some will be trivial; others may generate a set of consequences which cause major problems.

A Viable System Stafford Beer’s notion of a viable system can also be a useful tool. This enables clear, simple and logical descriptions of work activities to be made. A firm, department or work process is now described as a hierarchy of five levels of activity. Good systems design requires each of these levels to be recognised, designed and managed, and to interact smoothly with the others if the work process is to proceed at a high level of performance. The diagram below shows the five levels in the model. A Viable System Level 5: CONTROL Meeting targets and standards ......................................... Level 4: DEVELOPMENT New thinking ............................................ Level 3: OPTIMISATION Adding value ............................................ Level 2: ANTI-OSCILLATION Preventing and solving problems ..................................................... Level 1: OPERATIONAL Day-to-day tasks



The viable system model can be used both to help define the necessary components of the eventual system and the requirements of the problemsolving process. The five levels of a viable system to assist problem solving could be the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Identifying the basic, often routine tasks, that have to be identified in addressing the design problem. Thinking through, and documenting, the likely difficulties that may occur and inhibit the successful completion of these tasks. Identifying the critical success factors that provide guidance on those aspects of the problem that must be given priority or maximum attention. Understanding the nature of the information that needs to be collected and disseminated as the design process progresses. Creating methods of evaluation—the monitoring checks and measures that can provide guidance on whether progress is being made and whether goals are being achieved.

Finally, there will be a need for a constant review of strategy to ensure that results are in fact being achieved (Espejo & Harnden, 1989). See also Chapter 4.

ADAPTIVE FEEDBACK Systems design can be greatly assisted by what Beer calls “adaptive feedback.” This, put simply, is the ability to learn from experience and to use this learning to rethink and adjust further action. Beer’s viable system will contain its own problem-solving capacity because it has the capacity to adapt. It can maintain stability by responding effectively to unexpected disturbances (Espejo & Harnden, 1989). This capacity for adjustment makes it capable of a degree of self-regulation. The actions required to tackle systems design problems are, in many ways, similar to those of a good doctor. They will, ideally, be based on an approach in which the total picture of what is required in the design task is first established and an appropriate broad strategy developed. Next, the many subproblems will have to be identified, understood and managed with a recognition that each is likely to affect the others. Also, a number of groups, each of which makes a different contribution, will have to cooperate if progress to a solution is to be made. For example, the Digital Equipment Corporation had a policy of always using multidisciplinary teams for the solution of complex systems design Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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problems. These would be set up before any new project got underway. Risk analysis and management can also be useful tools in assessing the impact of possible design and implementation problems. They can provide an evaluation of the consequences of not avoiding, or dealing quickly with, unexpected problems.

QUESTIONNAIRES It may sometimes be helpful, in a participative design project, to use a questionnaire. This is particularly the case if the views of a large group of people are being sought to assist the development of appropriate strategies. Also, change agents using the ETHICS methodology or similar approaches will need to get the views of users on both job satisfaction and on operational work problems. There are two important things to remember with questionnaires. First they need to be relevant to the needs of both those creating them and those answering them. Students will want to develop a questionnaire that provides useful information with which to test research hypotheses. Change agents using a participative approach will need a questionnaire which provides useful factual information about what people think of their jobs and job environment, and what they would like to change. Second, they need to ensure that information obtained from questionnaires is used and seen to be used. Nothing is more frustrating for employees than completing a questionnaire which is then ignored by those in a position to help improve undesirable aspects of their work situation. This means that it is important for those asked to complete questionnaires to have a say in the questions that are asked and in how their opinions are implemented in the change situation.

Job Satisfaction Here are some thoughts on job satisfaction. Some years ago it was believed that there were certain basic features of work that contributed to job dissatisfaction. These included poor job security, machine domination and lack of opportunity to develop skills (Blauner, 1964). Today, with our variety of lifestyles and aspirations, job satisfaction needs are much less clear and it is very difficult to generalise. For example, in the Rolls Royce case study a group of clerks refused to have their jobs enriched in any way. It turned out that they were actors whose real life began after they had left the factory and joined their fellows in the theatre. Rolls Royce was just the least distracting way of adding to their income. Ideally then, design groups and the users they represent should



agree on the content of questionnaires to suit their own needs, objectives and interests. However, some suggestions on questionnaire content may be helpful to people who have little experience of questionnaire design. Job satisfaction is defined here as the achievement of a good fit between job needs and expectations and job experience. The notion of a “good fit” is broken down into a number of categories. These are broadly defined as knowledge, psychology, efficiency, job design and ethical needs. Questions to find out what each employee would ideally like from a new system could include the following. KNOWLEDGE needs How would you like your skills and knowledge to be used and developed? How can change and a new system improve your knowledge opportunities? PSYCHOLOGICAL needs How important are the following to you? Obtaining a sense of achievement, recognition, responsibility, and status from work. How could opportunities for these be better provided? PAY and EFFICIENCY needs What do you regard as an equitable effort-reward bargain, and work targets which are acceptable? What support services such as information, technical aids and supervisory help do you require? Do you receive these? JOB DESIGN needs What features of your work are most important to you? For example, variety, interest, feedback, control, autonomy and an absence of stress. ETHICAL (social value) needs Do you want to work for an employer and in a job where work requirements do not contravene your personal values? What would this mean? How important to you are good communication, consultation and high-level company? If an employee’s needs in these five areas can be met, then that individual should have high job satisfaction.

Work Efficiency The questionnaire on work efficiency should be easier to compile than the one on job satisfaction, as most people will be well aware of the operational Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.

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problems that they experience. If a guide is required, then the viable system model can be of help either to structure the questionnaire or to categorise the results. Questions related to Level 1 will be an assessment of any difficulties experienced with the performance of day-to-day tasks. Level 2 will be an identification of major problems and their avoidance. These can be either systemic and due to the fundamental nature of the work or transient and related to inadequate technology or poor work organization. This is essentially the socio-technical variance analysis. Level 3 considers problems associated with key tasks, critical activities related to meeting organizational goals. These will be very significant. Level 4 is development opportunities that come from acquiring relevant information, both internal and external, to improve performance, and the ease or difficulty of obtaining this. Level 5 is control and coordination. Do all these different aspects of work fit smoothly together or is the creation of a viable system impeded by an inability to achieve this? Here is an example of a questionnaire which uses Beer’s viable system to identify a manager’s information needs or the information needs of a group of managers. It starts by finding out how the manager sees his job: DAY-TO-DAY TASKS Step 1. What is your work mission and key tasks? State what you are striving to achieve in your job. Step 2. Describe your most important key task. Identify the following: • • • • • • •

The regular activities it requires The critical success factors Problem areas Coordination needs Development areas Controls—targets and checks Likely future change

Do the Same for Other Key Tasks Step 3. Now define your information needs. • •

Information for regular, routine activities Information for critical success factors



• • • •

Information to avoid or correct problems Information required for better coordination Information to assist the introduction of new developments Information to assist the control of work

Step 4. Now rate each of these information requirements as essential or desirable. Go Through These Steps Again for other Key Information Needs It is important to recognise the tools and methods for facilitating the introduction of change are only aids to assist the design and delivery of an efficient and user-friendly end product. They are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Poor tools and methods may mislead rather than assist. They should be carefully evaluated in terms of their relevance to change objectives and goals before they are accepted for use.

REFERENCES Ashby, R. W. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. London: Chapman & Hall. Beer, S. (1985). Diagnosing the system for organization. New York: Wiley. Bertalanffy, L. von. (1950). The theory of open systems in physics and biology. Science, 3, 22-29. Blauner, R. (1964). Alienation and freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Espejo, R., & Harnden, R. (1989). The viable systems model. New York: Wiley. Holloway, R. (2001). Doubts and loves. Edinburgh, Scotland: Canongate Books. Kuhn, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mumford, E. (1997). Assisting work restructuring in complex and volatile situations. In J. Neumann, K. Kellner, & A. Dawson-Shepherd (Eds.), Developing Organizational Consultancy. London: Routledge. Parsons, T., & Shils, E. (1951). Towards a general theory of action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.


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About the Author

Enid Mumford is an Emeritus Professor of Manchester University, England, and a Visiting Fellow at the Manchester Business School. Her research experience has included a year at the University of Michigan and a period at UCLA. She is also a member of the US Socio-technical Round Table. In 1983 she won the American Warnier Prize for her contributions to information science. In 1996 she was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland, and in 1999 she was one of four international academics to be given a Leo award for Lifetime Exceptional Achievement in Information Systems by AIS (Association of Information Systems) and ICIS (International Conference on Information Systems). The other recipients were from the United States and Sweden. Her principal research interests are the management of change, problem solving and participative design.


Index 285

Index A action research 13, 77 adaptive feedback 66 adaptive strategic planning 24 AG Metall 18 Air Products 195 American Socio-Technical Round Table 148 amplification 2 assembly activity 92 assembly line 92, 179 assembly line principle 95 associative democracy 29 attitudes to change 46 automobile industry 90 automobile manufacturers 90 autonomous group structure 131 autonomous teams 95

B batch computer system 120 behavioural sciences 19 benchmarking 212 biodiversity 221 black box 181 blue eyes 60 blue- collar 8 Boston Consulting Group 175 boundary location 25 boundary management 174 Brent Spa oil rig 220 British car plants 91

British government 172 British Leyland 91 British National Coal Board 71 British police force 203 bureaucracy 27 business climate 147 business objectives 170 business principles 48 business process reengineering (BPR) 172 business success 172 business values 172

C call centres 179 Camisea gas field 222 Camisea goal 224 Camisea project 222 Camisea risk assessment report 223 capabilities 5 capitalism 252 car industry 90 Carnegie Mellon University 150 casual worker 61 Centre for Continuing Education 13 Centre for Group Dynamics 13 change 44 change agents 47, 52 change consultants 199 change environment 71 change facilitator 37 change problem 47, 172, 233 change processes 260


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change programme 45, 195 change situation 47 change skills 47 change strategy 37 Chanters 75 Chrysler 20 clarification 184 climate change 211 coal face 72 coal mine experiments 193 Code Red worm 237 collaborative learning 227 collective intelligence 7 colliery management 78 colliery managers 72 commercial computers 115 commitment 6 commitment to change 205 common values 261 community liaison officers 224 community needs 259 compatibility 24 complex problem 2 computer breakdown 113 computer specialists 111 computer technologists 130 computer technology 109 computer vendors 125 conference approach 204 conference meetings 213 conference model 37, 194 configure 150 conflicts of ideas 43 conflicts of interest 40 consensus 39 consensus design 132 consensus participation 37 consistency 184 consultative participation 130 content of participation 36 continuous improvement 203 conveyor belts 72 conveyor moving 73 coordination 6 Core-R.O.I., Inc. 197 Council for the Quality of Working Life 13

courage 6 Coverdale 216 Coverdale’s values 216 creative thinking 121 criminal motivations 236 criminal threats 234 crises 4 critical success factors 68 cultural differences 200 customer demands 99 customer reaction 115 cyber crime 3, 240 cyber terrorism 236 cybernetics 66

D data preparation 136 data preparation clerk 133 dealing room 119 democracy at work 14 democratic design 250 democratic involvement 170 Demos Group 28 departmental manager 40 Derby Engine Group 132 design for negatives 247 design group 42 design group meetings 135 design tasks 234 Digital Equipment Corporation 7, 149, 194 Digital staff 151 Digital’s culture 151 discretion 117 “dock assembly” work system 16 Dock Labour Board 55, 61 dock work 54 dockers’ gang 84 drifters 60

E economic needs 102 economic pressures 194 effective learning 208 effective strategy formulation 207 effectiveness needs 99, 103


Index 287

email 239 empathy 184 employee culture 197 employee involvement 118 employee knowledge 203 energy crisis 215 entrepreneur 182 entropy 1 environmental bodies 220 environmental conditions 99 environmental impact assessment 223 environmental issues 219 environmental needs 100 environmental profile 223 ergonomists 14 ethical approach 184 ethical capability 143 ethical code of conduct 211 ethical competence 144 ethical leaders 182 ethical needs 100 ethical position 43 ETHICS methodology 151, 154 European Productivity Association 109 evaluating success 68 expert selling (XSEL) 150 expert systems 149 Exxon Valdez 220

F face conditions 73 face workers 80 facilitator 40, 153 facilitator’s role 41 Fiat 18 fillers 72 filling 73 floaters 60 Ford 20 Foreign Exchange Department 119 foremen 59 forms of participation 36 France 17 fraud 236 freedom 117 French government 17

G gangs 61 General Motors 20 Germany 18 Glacier Metal Company 21 global apartheid 256 global environment 7 global market 3, 252 global standards 211 globalisation 195, 211 grapevine 118 Green lobby 215 group identity 123 group leader 72 group relationships 260 groupwork 7

H hacking 237 happiness 117 Henry Ford 94 high-performance work systems 194 holistic approach 4 homeostasis 23 human amplifier 2 human consequences 220 human relations movement 14, 34 human rights 211 humanisation of work 15 humanistic strategies 28 humanistic values 9

I ideal approach 137 ideal system 137 ideology 6 impartiality 184 improvement targets 221 incentive schemes 102 incentive-based wage systems 102 incompletion 25 India 20 industrial democracy 94 industrial relations 77, 91 industrial relations problems 82


288 Mumford

industrial relations strategies 215 informal system 141 information needs 186 information system 186, 239 information technology 15 innovation problems 115 innovation programme 115 insubordinate minority 151 internal leadership 143 international collaboration 240 International Quality of Working Life Council 148 International Quality of Working Life Group 194 Interpol 243 Italy 17

J Japanese car plants 96 job design 16 job enrichment 142 job satisfaction 233 job satisfaction survey 105 Job Satisfaction Working Party 122 job security 61 joint consultation 21, 72 joint optimisation 21, 212

K Kalmar plant 95 knowledge capability 142 knowledge competence 143 knowledge needs 99, 101 knowledge workers 148 knowledge based jobs 8

L large-scale intervention approach 206 large-scale interventions 200 law of requisite variety 142, 239 leadership development 197 lean manufacturing 91 lean/flexible production system 96 learning process 41 leisure society 256

Liverpool 53 Liverpool docks 54 Lloyds Bank International 119 local area networks (LANs) 148 London Tavistock Clinic 13 long-wall method 79 long-wall method of mining 72 low job satisfaction 97 lung disease 78 Lyon’s Electronic Office (LEO) 109

M machine monitoring 118 machine operator 112 management map 53 management of change 71, 108, 257 management of complexity 66 management philosophy 212 Manchester Business School 90 manning point 58 manning procedure 60 manning scales 60 marketing strategies 112 Martins Bank 112 Maypole 75 Maypole coal faces 79 Maypole coal seams 81 Maypole disaster 78 method 44 middle manger 40 minimal critical specification 24 minimal critical specifications 24 mining industry 72 Mitbestimmung 19 Mondragon Corporation 29 money laundering 4 morale 114 motor manufacturers 91 multidisciplinary 162 multifunctionality principle 25 multinational companies 210 multiskilled team 74

N National Dock Labour Scheme 55 National Union of Mineworkers 72


Index 289

NC machine tools 90 negative feedback 207 Netherlands 19 networks 6 new technology 71 new work system 94 Nigeria 220 Norway 15 Norwegian Industrial Democracy Programme 15 Norwegian Institute for Industrial Social Research 14

O object-oriented programming 181 occupational group 82 office computerisation 111 office work 109 oil exploration 220 oil industry 211 oil sanctions 215 O’Keefe family 56 Olivetti 18 open system 23 open systems concept 23 operating principles 203 organization and methods departments 111 organization change 202 organizational alternatives 41 organizational change 6, 28, 179, 249 organizational design 16, 34, 38, 52, 71, 89, 185 organizational hierarchy 200 organizational innovation 147 organizational options 166 organizational solutions 185 organizational structure 89 organized crime 237

P pacesetter initiative 218 pacesetter programme 218 packers 73 packing 73 paper transactions 120

participation 35 participative approach 34, 38, 253 participative design 250 participative design groups 41 participative leadership 118 participative management philosophy 21 participative networking styles 205 participative systems design 233 participatory community 49 participatory processes 222 pattern recognition 4 payment for knowledge 103 payment systems 86 personal development 101 personal relationships 61 Peruvian Environmental Network 224 Philips 19 physical hazards 78 pilot projects 214 pit props 85 plan of action 207 Port of Liverpool 61 portfolio group 46 portfolio workers 45 power loader 85 primary groups 24 problem analysis 198 problem situation 53 problem solver 4, 10 problem solving 1, 43, 248 problem solving process 38, 66 process of participation 36 project leader 161 project team members 162 prototype 162 psychological capability 143 psychological competence 144 psychological health 105 psychological needs 100 punch operating 110 Purchase Invoice Department 131

Q quality of life 260 quality of working life 22, 63, 213


290 Mumford

Quality of Working Life Council 22 Quality of Working Life Programme 98 QUICKethics questionnaire 188

R rate of pay 82 redundancy of functions 24 reorganization 159 representative design 39 representative group 140 representative participation 36 Representing Digital 151 requisite variety 66, 257 resource competence 144 revolutionary change 44 rewards 117 risk analysis 235 risk assessment 223, 235 risk avoidance 148 risk control 235 risk impact 235 risk management 234 risk priorisation 235 risk society 234 Rockefeller Foundation 13, 75 role ambiguity 118 Rolls Royce Aero Engine Division 131

S sales force 154 Scandinavia 22 Scandinavian banks 127 Scandinavian countries 8 scenario builders 190 scenarios 190 secure systems 240 security policies 239 security technology 240 self-development 10 senior management 126 senior sales management 158 shared values 10 Shell 21 Shell (UK) 212 Shell International 195, 210 Shell’s belief 211

Shell’s objectives 211 Shell’s performance 212 shop stewards 212 Shop Stewards Committee 92 shot firers 72 shot firing 80 Silicon Valley 45 social cohesiveness 64 social innovation 261 social interaction 74 social norms 261 social processes 47 social relations 82 social resources 212 social system 26 socio-environmental policies 225 socio-technical approach 25, 68, 147, 221 socio-technical criterion 24 socio-technical design 5 socio-technical design environment 195 socio-technical ideas 22 socio-technical initiatives 149 socio-technical philosophy 174 socio-technical pioneers 127, 193 Socio-technical Round Table 20, 172 socio-technical school 27, 191 socio-technical supporters 28 socio-technical system design 193 socio-technical theory 23, 173 socio-technical values 163 socio-technical work 71 soft technology 261 software development 181 speed of the line 92 stability 117 Stanford University 14 Stanlow Oil and Chemical Complex 213 Stanlow pacesetter program 219 Statement of General Business Principles 210 steering group 42, 134 strategic change point 115 strategic thinking 89, 237 strategy for action 70 stressed groups 46


Index 291

strike action 56 strike record 75 strike-prone 75 structure 117 structure of participation 36 subsidence 76 success factors 45 successful change 48, 52 support congruence 25 sustainability 68 sustainable change 217 sustainable production 194 sustainable society 68 sustainable world 69 Sweden 15 Swedish automobile industry 249 Swedish industry 16 Swedish Work Environment Fund 173 systems design 33 systems principles 142 systems redesign 248

T task group 173 Tavistock group 216 Tavistock group structure 74 Tavistock Institute 14, 71 Tavistock Institute of Human Relations 13 Tavistock work design principles 173 Taylorism 17 Taylorist model 18 teamwork 201 technical aids 238 technical knowledge 166 technical perspective 163 technical specialists 40 technical system 166, 248 technical variables 249 technology 6 teleworking 9 terrorism 236 terrorist attacks 260 top management 172 Torrey Canyon 220 Torslanda 94

total involvement process (TIP) 197 trade union officials 57 trade union representatives 63 trade unionists 252 trade unions 22, 63 transfer lines 91 transformational change 196 Transport and General Workers’ Union 215

U underground environment 78 underground equipment 81 underground place of work 75 underground production 77 underground relationships 83 underground supervision 81 unforeseen consequences 178 United Automobile Workers’ Union 20 United Kingdom 21 United States 20 unity 117 University of California, Berkeley 224 University of Michigan 13 University of Pennsylvania 13 user design group 151 user design meetings 155 user involvement 249

V values 9 variables 66 variety of knowledge 67 variety of the problem 67 VAX 150 VAX machines 158 viable system 66, 67 viable system model 68 Vienna Centre 90 virus 237 visionary groups 26 visions of the future 8 voluntary simplicity 29 Volvo 91 Volvo’s Kalmar Plant 16


292 Mumford

W warring relationships 83 Washington Smithsonian Institute 224 welting 61 West Yorkshire Police 195 white-collar 8 wild cat strike 62 work culture 61, 201 work design principles 178 work environment 261 work organization 184 work redesign 20 Work Research Institute 13 work segmentation 121 work structure 140 work study departments 111 work systems 38, 249 worker-management disputes 93 workplace democracy 15 workplace teams 202 works councils 18 World Bank projects 227 World Trade Centre 221 World Trade disaster 236

X XCON 150 XSEL development process 154 XSEL project 171

Y York University 13


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