The super productive company

In 1905 the book “Organising a Factory” by Clinton Edgar Woods came out. In it, he describes the optimal way to — well- organise a factory.

This book is one of the first examples of an at the time emerging new field: management. The art and science of optimising productivity in a company. It contains an early example of an org chart.

As can be seen, Authority clearly trickles down from the top. The people at the bottom had none of that. They were supposed to just do what they were told. If they didn’t, the productivity system would be sub-optimal.

The book tells us what the view of workers was back in the day:

“First of all, clearly define authorities within your establishment;
then chart those authorities simply and graphically, so that every workman knows to whom he is responsible.
There is then no loop-hole through which a neglectful workman, foreman or executive can crawl no longer does he have the excuse that he thought somebody else was going to do it.” — Clinton Edgar Woods

This view of the worker and how to design a productive organisation has in many views lived on and survived in to our days. We still use a hierarchical org chart to indicate authority.