it is important to note that the mayo team began its work trying to fit into the mold of classical organization theory thinking the team phrased its questions in the language and concepts inddustry was accustomed to using in order to see and explain certain problems among them productivity in relationship to such factors as the amount of light the rate of flow of materials and alternative wage payment plans the mayo team succeeeded in making significant breakthroughs in understanding only after it redefined the hawthorne problems as social psychological problems-problems concep-tualized in such terms as interpersonal relation in groups group norins control over one's own envi-ronment and personal recognition it was only after the mayo team achieved his breakthrough that it became the grandfather the direct precursor of the field od organizational behavior and human resource theory the hawthorne experiments were the emotional and intellectual wellspring of modern theories of motivation they showed that complex interactional variables make the difference in motivating people-things like attention paid to workers as individuals worker's control over their own work differences between individuals'needs management's willingness to listen group norms and direct feedback