One of the most misunderstood theories of management has been scientific management by Fredrick Taylor and the sister effort in Europe by Max Weber – “Division of labor”. Organizations emphasized specialization of roles and functions in order to improve productivity. Along that thought finance managers became financial experts, Marketers became marketing experts, the Customer service people became logistics and order management experts and collectively they coordinated the work to make an ensemble “The Company”. As some of these people rose through the ranks of their specific functions, some functions evolved to realize the need for breath and started to call themselves general management. General managers are groomed to be able to talk about overall management, describe a holistic view of the business that included all the tasks they may or may not have had a chance to perform at some time or the other during their careers. General management usually comes from the core function of the business or the line business with responsibility for the profit and loss for the organization. General management make allocation decisions on funds and career paths for the entire company.
Over that same period of time creativity in the support functions has been destroyed! Functions became SILOS and were mandated to stay ancillary without opportunity to enter general management, each got a seat at the table while GMs sat at the head! Outside of line management motivation is expected to be derived mostly from financial rewards and punishment… not work enrichment.
In his 1983 book Structures in Five – Designing Effective Organizations, Mintzberg refers to this exact concept but focuses on the blue collar jobs. He quotes James Worthy of Sears and Roebuck from 1950, “One has the feeling of division of labor gone wild, far beyond any degree necessary for efficient production”. This by removing “all possible brain work from the shop floor and moving it into planning and laying out department”.
