Consider, for example, the mechanical precision with which many of our institutions
are expected to operate. Organizational life is often routinized with the precision
demanded of clockwork People are frequently expected to arrive at work at a given time,
perform a predetermined set of activities, rest at appointed hours, and then resume their
tasks until work is over. In many organizations, one shift of workers replaces another in
methodical fashion so that work can continue uninterrupted twenty-four hours a day
every day of the year. Often, the work is very mechanical and repetitive. Anyone who has
observed work in the mass production factory or in any of the large "office factories"
processing paper forms such as insurance claims, tax returns, or bank checks will have
noticed the machinelike way in which such organizations operate. They are designed like
machines, and their employees are in essence expected to behave as if they were parts of
machines.
Fast food restaurants and service organizations of many kinds operate in accordance
with similar principles, with every action preplanned in a minute way, even in areas
where personal interactions with others are concerned. Employees are frequently trained
to interact with customers according to a detailed code of instructions and are monitored
in their performance. Even the most casual smile, greeting, comment, or suggestion by a
sales assistant is often programmed by company policy and rehearsed to produce
authentic The management observation checklist used by a famous fast food restaurant to
monitor employee performance (Exhibit 2.1) indicates the degree to which a simple task
like serving a customer can be mechanized, observed, and evaluated in a mechanical way.
Machines, mechanical thinking, and the rise of bureaucratic
organization
Organizations that are designed and operated as if they were machines are now
usually called bureaucracies. But most organizations are bureaucratized in some degree,
for the mechanistic mode of thought has shaped our most basic conceptions of what
organization is all about. For example, when we talk about organization we usually have
in mind a state of orderly relations between clearly defined parts that have some
determinate order. Although the image may not be explicit, we are talking about a set of
mechanical relations. We talk about organizations as if they were machines, and as a
consequence we tend to expect them to operate as machines: in a routinized, efficient,
reliable, and predictable way.
In certain circumstances, which are discussed in the concluding section of this
chapter, a mechanical mode of organization can provide the basis for effective operation.
But in others it can have many unfortunate consequences. It is thus important to
understand how and when we are engaging in mechanistic thinking and how so many
popular theories and taken-for-granted ideas about organization support this thinking.
One of the major challenges facing many modern organizations is to replace this kind of
thinking with fresh ideas and approaches, such as those discussed in subsequent chapters.
Let us turn, therefore, to the story behind the development of our mechanistic concepts of
organization.
Greeting the customer