Division or Unification of Labor

I heard a fairly convincing two-part argument against Smith's principle of the division of labor.   I use the qualifier of "fairly" because I don't think that it entirely disproves the theory, nor does it replace it, but it does cast some doubt as to whether it is universally applicable.

Division of Labor

As a refresher on the original principle: Smith suggested that dividing a task into a number of simpler tasks, and training workers to perform only a small step in an overall process, enabled considerably greater production with considerably less skilled hands.  It's the theory that was best demonstrated by assembly-line production, and the astounding level of output that could be achieved.

Smith's example was that of a pin factory: each worker performs a simple task: one draws the wire, another cuts it, another straightens it, another grinds the head, and another sharpens the point.  And by this method, a small group of illiterate farmhands could, with very little training, far outproduce an equal number of master blacksmiths.

Strictly speaking, this was not the origin of the division of labor.  Even before Smith's theory was put into practice, separate tradesmen mined the ore, smelted the metal, and fashioned it into useful objects.   Blacksmiths also specialized according to the kinds of objects they were most skilled in fashioning, and there were separate "smiths" for various kinds of metal.    So in essence, Smith was merely observing an existing phenomenon, but he took it to the extreme.

First Rebuttal: Divisibility

The first rebuttal to Smith's theory draws on an example that seems patently ludicrous - but which seems no less extreme than the example proposed by Smith: that of typing a letter by using fifty or so workers, each of whom uses a machine that has a single key: one person types a lowercase "e", another an uppercase "T", another a comma, another the spacebar, etc.

This follows the very principle of the division of labor, and illustrates the dysfunction of taking it to extremes.  The amount of time to load and position the paper, strike the key, remove the paper, and transport it to the next workstation overwhelms any benefit of specialization, and requires a tremendous amount of coordination to move it from one worker to the next in proper order.

Plainly, the task can be performed most efficiently by a single skilled worker than a team of unskilled workers, and it makes little sense (and much waste) to subdivide it.  As such, the unification of the tasks involved into one skilled typist makes far more sense than the division of labor among many unskilled hands.

And to that point, the unification of labor is taken further by the elimination of the typist - as it is presently common for the author of a letter to do his own typing, and likely far more efficient, as the speed at which keys can be struck is of relatively minor effect.

Second Rebuttal: Skilled Labor

A second rebuttal, more philosophical than functional, is that Smith's theory was created at a time when skilled labor was in short supply: it was the perfect solution to the problem of manufacturing when there was not a ready supply of skilled blacksmiths and illiterate laborers had to be trained to perform tasks in a short amount of time (five years of apprenticeship was not feasible).

But in the present day, most workers are at least semi-literate and considerably more intellectually sophisticated than their eighteenth-century counterparts.  So it lo longer seems necessary or desirable to break down a task into functions that are so simple that they could be performed by a trained chimp or replaced by a mechanical device that repeatedly performs the same sequence of basic motions.

It's also worth considering that the manufacturing of goods has become a relatively minor part of the present economy.   Most workers in the post-industrial world are involved in what is generally called "knowledge work," in which the intellectual component is of far greater importance in the generation of value than the manual tasks involved in producing physical artifacts.

Many of the most highly-compensated professions produce no physical artifact at all: a doctor, an attorney, and an executive do not (directly) produce any physical object.  And neither is this work adaptable to the division of labor beyond a certain degree.   It can be argued that the work of a physician has been divided into specialized forms of medicine (podiatrists, oncologists, cardiologists, etc.) and that some of the tasks are handed off to labs or clinics (blood work, X-rays, etc.), but there remains the need for a general practitioner to manage the care of a given patient in a holistic manner, calling in specialists when it is beneficial.

In more abstract terms, an intelligent person is capable of performing more sophisticated tasks, and more tasks, and there is not a practical need to subdivide labor.  In addition to being counterproductive, it is patently unnecessary in a culture in which there is ready availability of an educated workforce.

Reconciling the Extremes

Each of these arguments takes an extreme position - the complete division of a process into minute tasks, or its complete unification onto a single workbench.  As in many things, my sense is that neither extreme is right, but represent the ends of a continuum along which an intelligent choice must be made.

When a task is too divided, there arises a need for administration and control, and the number of errors as a result of miscommunication and misdirection rise.  I vaguely recall an article that suggested it can be assessed by the ratio of non-productive employees who supervise and audit work as compared to the number of employees who are directly productive.   Where that ratio is less than 1-to10, the overhead cost of administration likely exceeds the efficiencies of division of labor.   Seems a bit arbitrary, but likely a good indicator that consideration is necessary.

When a task is too unified, productivity decreases.  I don't expect the argument of an educated workforce holds much weight here: I don't think education would have been a factor in Smith's pin-factory example.  The most educated and skilled blacksmith would still be capable of producing far fewer pins than an assembly-line of uneducated workers.  I can recall no guidance on this issue, but it seems to me that it has much to do with task-switching, and perhaps the same ratio of 1-to10 could be used to assess whether the nonproductive time of a given worker (switching from one task to the next) as compared to the productive time (performing a given task) likely exceeds the efficiency that can be gained by specialization, when considering both the time to move work from one person to the next as well as the overhead costs of coordination and control.

In terms of managing knowledge-workers, the educational factor likely comes into play.   While some individuals claim to be able to perform all tasks related to a given act of production with expert precision, it is very seldom true.   I've found this to be the case in print and Web production, where individuals arrogantly claim to be experts at every facet - only to find that they are very good at one or two things, marginally competent in a few others, and woefully inadequate at the rest.  There does seem to be a finite number of things a person can do very well, and when a task requires expertise in too many dimensions, unification of labor produces a low-quality and low-volume result.

As such, it seems necessary to determine the point between the extremes for any given task or process: division or unification of labor to the logical extreme is not a panacea for all forms of work - but instead, the idiosyncratic nature of the task, and the idiosyncratic capabilities of the individuals who perform it, must be intelligently assessed to arrive at a point where productivity, cost, and quality have achieved an optimum balance.

Culture and Service Expectations

I was taken aback by an study I read that indicated that customers in the south are much more fastidious, impatient, and demanding in their relationships to service providers than are people in the north ... until I noticed that the article was referring to the north and south of England.

The situation there is much the opposite to the (eastern) United States, where the north is urbanized and densely populated than the south and people are a lot less gentle with one another - but if you flip the poles, the situation is likely the same: people who live in urban environments tend to lead more hectic lives, and are far less civil to one another, and likely carry those cultural proclivities over to their relationships with the companies that serve them.

Likely, it would be fair to say "cultural stereotypes" rather than "cultural proclivities" because the north/south dichotomy is a broad generalization. There's a dramatic difference between the personality traits of an individuals who live in Manhattan and those who live "upstate" in a less densely populated area - though both are in the north, the latter are more easygoing, congenial, and almost "southern" in the way they interact with other people.

This got me to thinking that there are a number of factors in the culture of the customer (as opposed to the culture of an organization) that have a dramatic impact on the perception of customer service. In general, the way in which a person is inclined to interact with other people in society will influence the way in which he interacts with them in his role as an employee in a business or customer situation.

That is, an impatient, rude, obnoxious, and self-centered person is going to be a difficult customer to please.   He will be more critical of flaws, less appreciative of extra efforts, and more surly and difficult in general.  Aside of individual psychology, my sense is that there are objective and measurable environmental factors that will lead a person to exhibit this personality.

The most germane factor to the study that spun up this train of thought is location - though it's not as simple as latitude, it likely is highly correlated to the population density in the locations where a person lives and works that influences his perspective: people whose daily lives are conducted in densely-populated areas are far more irritable in any situation in which they are faced with human interact than are those who live in areas of lower population density.

Age might also be seen to have an impact, though it's difficult to say whether younger customers would be inclined to be more peevish, self-centered, and unreasonable than older ones. There is the stereotype of elderly people being cantankerous and cranky, and there are no stereotypes without prototypes - and plenty of them - but at the same time, younger customers are peevish and petulant as well.

The more I think on it, the more it seems that this is more a matter of sociology than customer service - though it certainly impacts the latter - and there's likely no shortage of data on the subject based on more formal research than an individual's speculation ... so I'll stop speculating, but preserve this note for future consideration, as much of my ruminating considers the culture of the organization rather than that of the customer, which is likely as important if not more.

Media Clutter

My curiosity has been piqued by a new, or at least unusual, method of in-store advertising: floor stickers, particularly in grocery stores. If you've not seen one (as I hadn't until recently), it's a sticker that's about the size of a welcome mat that contains a promotional message for a product, with an accompanying train of footprint-shaped stickers (in the same color as the promotion) leading from the sticker at the end of the aisle to the shelf where the product is located.

What makes this unusual is that the floor of a retail store - the physical surface beneath the shoppers' feet - is presently a blank canvas. Some marketing enthusiast recognized it as a space he could leverage to grab attention and pimp his wares. Granted, there's some consumer resistance to the increase of promotional messaging, every available inch of space seems to be plastered with a clutter of ads - but the novelty makes this technique particularly effective.

I paused to watch a few customers, who noticed the sticker, followed the footprints to the shelf, and inspected the item being promoted. None of them actually bought it. I expect that my study of half a dozen people in one location isn't sufficient to draw firm conclusions, but it did seem highly effective: everyone seemed to notice the ad, and about a third went to the shelf to inspect the item. That's not statistically sound, but it does seem to indicate merit.

A floor sticker is also a tricky problem for functional design: it has to stand out against whatever floor it is affixed to. It must stand up to wear and stains that occur from people walking on it (and being mopped each night), but yet not be so slippery that it constitutes a hazard. The adhesive has to be strong enough to hold it to the floor, but not leave a residue when it comes time to remove it, etc. But this is likely a digression into minor tactical concerns.

What makes this mode of promotion so (presumably) effective is that it is unique. It is the only advertisement on the floor - one message in an uncluttered expanse automatically gets attention. Will it be as effective when there are two? Will it be as effective when there are six of them on each end of the aisle, with a patchwork of interweaving footprint trails from one end of the aisle to another?  I expect not.

And this is true of advertising in all media: it is effective when it is new precisely because nobody else is doing it. If there were but one billboard on a stretch of road, chances are people would notice and pay attention. It's likely a matter of imitative evolution: the first billboard got attention and effectively increased revenue. Someone else saw the idea and copied it, and then there were two. Years later, the roadside is so cluttered with billboards that drivers no longer pay attention, and even complain about it being a distraction and an eyesore, and pundits declare roadside advertising is ineffective.

And this is where I take issue with blanket statements that a given kind of advertising "does not work."   It works, and it works very well, until so many companies attempt to do the same thing that it becomes clutter. People would not like music concerts if there were six bands playing at the same time, each one trying to play louder than the rest - it would be a cacophony of noise, an incomprehensible nuisance. But it would be wrong to conclude that people don't like music and find it annoying - they would like it, and give it their attention, but for the clutter.

But to drag myself back to the specific topic at hand (floor advertising), it will be interesting to see, in ten years, what has become of it. Will the idea catch on at all? Will it become so ubiquitous that customers ignore it? For most forms of advertising, few can remember when it was just getting started and the field was uncluttered - and I look to this as an idea that can be watched from the early stages of its evolution.

Beating the Commodity Trap

Commoditization seems to be a growing problem in the present marketplace, given the downturn in the global economy and the increasing power of the consumer, though arguments seem vague and contradictory as to the causes and results. With this in mind, I found Richard Aventi's book on the topic to be particularly enlightening.

By his reckoning commoditization is not, as some are fond of suggesting, a one-way march to a dead end where all products are reduced to the preferences of the lowest common denominator, but a cyclical occurrence in consumer markets that persists so long as customers have need of a product.

It begins simply enough, with one firm offering a new product to customers with an attitude of "take it or leave it," and then panics when customers decide to leave it for products that better suit their needs. What ensues thereafter is a constant struggle among competing firms to suit specific segments of the market, offering the benefits they value at a price they are willing to pay. It doesn't end until a greater change takes place in the environment: customers have the same basic needs as they ever have, but merely find a different way to satisfy them.

That struggle in the middle presents an ongoing cycle of commoditization, which is not a terminal toward which markets progress, but which merely a lull (sometimes brief, sometimes quite long) during times when customers are complacent with a limited number of options and firms become entrenched in providing them, assuming that they will never change ... until they do. The cycle has repeated throughout history, and it always seems to take them by surprise.

The book itself identifies three different forms of commoditization (deterioration, proliferation, and escalation) as well as three different strategies that firms can use in response to each situation (escape, destroy, or exploit) - which gets a bit tedious at times, and I can't help wondering if it's quite comprehensive. But all in all, it's an interesting set of considerations that makes the phenomenon of commoditization a lot less monochromatic, and a lot less daunting.

Pretending to Be Ethical

A person can fake his behavior, but not his character. I should likely qualify that as being in reference to the short term, because character can be developed over longer periods of time - perspectives can change, and values can be adopted - but over shorter periods of time, a person has great difficulty pretending to be something he is not, going through the motions to create a false sense that his actions are driven by motives that are incompatible with his actual motivation.

It doesn't take an expert in "reading vocal tone, choice of words, and nonverbal elements of communication to have a sense that a person isn't being entirely honest. Most reasonably observant people can detect this, and few have the skills necessary to maintaining a facade. They will eventually slip, or crack, and go back to their true nature, such as it is ... generally when they have gotten what they wanted and no longer feel the need to maintain the charade.

The same is true of companies: it's not uncommon for a firm that has suffered from bad publicity to go out of its way to support charities or causes that are aligned against the very behaviors of which the firm has been accused and is often entirely guilty. When a petroleum firm has cut costs by neglecting security precautions and coated the shorelines with oil, it's a boon to environmental charities, but for a very short amount of time.

Companies show their true colors in far less dramatic and far more extensive ways: consider the quality of tech support for electronic products, the difficulty you encounter returning merchandise to stores, or the haggling you must do to redeem a CD at a bank. When you made the purchase, service was impeccable ... once they have your money in their hands, their behavior takes a turn, and should you want your money back, things get ugly.

It's in moments such as those that marketing slogans about customer service are put to the test and often fail. The values espoused in advertising and corporate documents reflect what the firm wants people to think, not what it actually is, nor how it actually conducts itself, nor how it has any intention of ever conducting itself.   The experience you have of a firm in everyday encounters demonstrates its actual values.

It's just as true of good companies as it is of bad ones: there are firms that are legendary for the quality of service they provide after the sale and merchants who simplify the return process, realizing that in order to maintain their reputation they must act in accordance to their professed values - giving up a little profit now means maintaining the trust and retaining the lifetime value of a customer. There are some who would suggest, and rightly so, that this behavior is maintained in order to nurture positive relations in hopes of getting your future business.  Even if that's true, it's not necessarily a bad thing. 

From an ethical perspective, a promise kept is a promise kept - even if there are ulterior motives for doing so. By some standards, it's more admirable to keep a promise if you gain no benefit from doing so - but it may be clutching at straws.   It's difficult enough simply to be good - and when someone behaves in a positive manner, it seems unjustly cynical to muckrake to unearth (or invent) a reason to be sour about it.

I also don't agree that companies should care about customers in a general way, "as human beings" or whatever phrase that is used to connote an ineffable and unconditional love for no particular reason. It's certainly a sentiment that customers, even those who seem to demand it for themselves, are unwilling to return. A company's love of customers is for the value they get from them, and a customer's love of a company is exactly the same.

I'd go further, to say that it would be unethical to suggest otherwise - and ethical to acknowledge the relationship such as it is: a commercial relationship, like a professional relationship, that has a given context and specific conditions: each gets what they expect of the other, with a clear sense of boundaries, utterly devoid of illusions or misconceptions, and both are happy with the arrangement.

This is also likely a critical difference between firms that are highly profitable for a short amount of time and those that earn a respectable (but not astronomical) profit and sustain themselves for a longer period of time: they do not pretend to be ethical, they simply are ethical, and not just in regard to their customers, but to their employees, investors, suppliers, partners, and communities.

This may be scratching at the surface of a deeper meditation - that ethics is not merely being true to one's nature, but having a good nature in the first place, such that their interaction with anyone they affect is either mutually beneficial, or at the very least not harmful. I'll think on this some more.