DIVISON OF LABOUR

source:http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/division_of_labor.htm

This Course is surprising me. Making me think in so many directions and re-examine many of my assumptions. Dr Mandi's win-win style of 'earning while learning' seemed hard to believe because  it came with his deceptively-ascetic ways. Make no mistake, however, his philosophy is purely materialistic even though he explores the sustainable side of it.

But then he has his ways of putting
things so controversially it's hard to forget one thing he says in the class!



Factory line of production if taught in a routine class-room way will hardly raise an eyebrow.This seems so understandable. Wikipedia defines Factory line or Assembly line as:

An assembly line is a manufacturing process (most of the time called a progressive assembly) in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added to a product in a sequential manner to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods.

But then this will also be the most prosaic a way!

He puts it most bluntly and says if you want a job to become more 'scientific' (scientific meaning definable,improvable etc) just take the decision making capacity out of a worker and let him do the job mechanically. The craftsmanship, he says, is  not in sync with the modern ways and the skill has to die for a meaner, more efficient way of production to flourish. 

This statement seemed so unacceptable to me and I was very vehement in opposing it. To which he says with a chuckle whether I have any connections with Kolkata! I am not a socialist /communist. I always had faith in the power of capitalistic system and perhaps this is the reason I chose to be an MBA. But then his ways of putting things was so stark even if you had an iota of doubt against the utility of this 'mechanical' system this approach will help you question it. 


You can find his take on the things here:
http://pomcourse2012.blogspot.in/2012/09/concepts-division-of-labor.html

This line of thinking also set me re-examine what I experienced in my  past jobs. I worked with TATAs and with L&T. I found TCE employee with more skill (very subjective and perhaps not true at one to one level), however, The L&T with its more set way of doing things was so efficient. Both giants were/are producing differently skilled leaders. It always struck me that something was fundamentally different with their approaches but I couldn't figure out what. Thanks to Dr Mandi now I can see what was going on.


He, of course, was quick to add  that this method will bring an amount of dissatisfaction which should be treated as an HR issue and dealt within this ambit without compromising the efficiency part.The problems with this approach can be found here;

http://www.preservearticles.com/2012022323619/what-are-the-disadvantages-of-division-of-labour.html

But I think he is very true when he says these problems must be dealt with a HR perspective.