By Jack Ruffer

While Julie's elected to focus on the future for this issue, I'd like to
revisit the past and address an important and valuable lesson, something
well-worth retelling. Just because it’s been around awhile doesn't mean
it's outdated. And, in this case, it’s as operable today as it was in
1924.

Seventy- five years ago, efficiency experts at a Western Electric plant
in Hawthorne, Illinois, decided to conduct research to determine the
effect of the work environment on productivity. In fact, I believe they
expected to prove a hypothesis upon which they'd already agreed, i.e.
that increases in illumination on the assembly floor would result in
higher productivity. Their ultimate goal was to determine the ideal mix
of physical conditions necessary to maximize production floor output. In
keeping with standard research methodology, the efficiency experts
selected a test group that would work under varying lighting
conditions, and a control group, which would work under normal lighting
conditions so that the efficiency experts could measure the difference between the two groups.

What they found was that as the lighting was increased for the test
group the productivity indeed went up. But, what they couldn't
understand was why the productivity of the control group, where the
lighting had remained unchanged, also went up. Unable to explain these
surprising results, the efficiency experts sought the assistance of
Elton Mayo of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.

Mayo and his team arrived at the plant and selected for their
experiments a work group of women who assembled telephone relays and
just like the efficiency experts, they too discovered some unexplainable
results. Over a period of some eighteen months, Mayo and his researchers
improved the working conditions of the women by providing scheduled rest
periods (not required by law at that time), shorter work weeks, company
sponsored lunches, etc. Then, overnight and without notice, they took
away all of the improved working conditions they had added expecting
productivity to tank. Result? Productivity soared to record highs.

Eventually, the Harvard team extended their research to include
interviews with over twenty thousand employees from every department in
the company. What they found was that productivity was not tied to the
physical aspects/working conditions in the plant as they had expected.
The answer was to be found in the human aspects. Because of all the
attention lavished upon them the workers felt important to the company.
They felt they were a part of something special. Someone was paying
attention to them. Their opinions were important. Why else would
researchers ask all those questions? Why else would researches spend so
much time observing them? They felt they were part of a respected and
valued group each of whom was competent. These needs, which had long
gone unsatisfied, were now being met. It mattered little that the
lighting changed or that their hours were longer. They were happy to
feel they were a part of something important, and that they, as
individuals and as a group, were important to their employer.

The results of the Hawthorne Study speak volumes. It doesn't matter if
you work in the most dilapidated building on the block and work with technology
that is ten years old. What matters is how you are treated and how you
treat your people. Treated as professionals, people respond accordingly.
Ignored, treated with disrespect, they don't perform. Simple, isn't it.

The efficiency experts hypothesis that started the whole experiment was
based on some faulty, but all too common, assumptions about workers, and
that subject we'll address next month when I review Douglas McGregor's
Theory X and Theory Y.