The following is a transcript of a very fictional
radio talk show based on very real historical figures.
Jennifer: Welcome back everyone! My next guests are here in the studio with
me; they’ve travelled a long way to be here with us. Sometimes I wish this was television and not
radio because this is hard to believe without seeing it, but our next guests
are actually dead—and have been for some time.
It is my privilege to welcome Max Weber, Frederick Taylor and Luther Gulick,
all brilliant minds, forefathers in the field of Public Administration. They’ve travelled all the way from the
afterlife ladies and gentlemen, to talk to us today. I hope our current public
administrators are listening today because I think we all need to hear what these
men have to say. Mr. Weber, I’d like to
begin with a question for you.
Weber: Please, call
me Max
Jennifer: Certainly, Max I see here you were born in
1864, and died quite young at the age of 56 (Fry & Raadschelders, 2008).
Yet, considering your relatively short life, you were a prolific writer. How did you manage that?
Weber: I started quite young, and felt I had a lot
to say.
Gulick: He’s a windbag—brilliant, but pedantic.
Taylor: Why say in two words, what you can say in 30?
Weber: Don’t mind them—I certainly don’t. The afterlife has provided plenty of time
for my search for lightheartedness. You
see, I was quite serious about, well, everything in my mortal life, so I’ve
made a concerted effort to find humor in death.
Jennifer: I’m glad to hear that. I do have to admit that I found your writing
to be somewhat difficult to get through at times.
Gulick: Admit it, you fell asleep didn’t you? Happens to me all the time. It’s dry stuff.
Jennifer: Let’s just say that it was so interesting,
that I had to read much of it twice.
Taylor: It helps if you only read every other
paragraph—you get the gist but in half the time.
Weber: Laugh it up Speedy Gonzaga, you’ll have your
turn.
Jennifer: It seems you’ve all become friends in the
hereafter.
Weber: Oh most certainly. I never had much time in my mortal life to
get to know these two—and of course Frederick and I died about the time Luther
over there was just catching his stride.
But for all their frivolous mockery, I daresay they both studied my
writings extensively in their time, so I imagine something I said was useful to
them in their work.
Jennifer: So during the decades since your death, have
you had an opportunity to follow much of our current state of affairs in this
country?
Weber: Undoubtedly.
I find it quite fascinating to watch principles, the study of which I
dedicated the better part of my life, manifest themselves posthumously.
Jennifer: Can you give us an example?
Weber: For instance, I’ve always considered
democracy not as “the end of the historical process, but as a precarious
condition” (Titunik, 1997).
Jennifer: How so?
Weber: In the sense that a democracy, contrary to
being simply the panacea of a free society, will eventually produce a new
aristocracy—a new elite political class of wealthy, technically experienced
bureaucrats. This is indeed what we are
all watching develop in the modern political arena. The reality is that the working man does not
have time and wealth sufficient to govern (Fry & Raadschelders, 2008). Far
from a free, self-governing populace, we see the emergence of wealthy career
politicians.
Taylor: Somebody nudge Gulick, I think he fell asleep
at the end there.
Jennifer: Mr. Taylor--
Taylor: Please, call me Frederick.
Gulick: Or Freddy.
Better yet, Fred. It’s more
efficient. He prefers that.
Jennifer: Okay Frederick. Teasing aside, I’d like to address this
concept of efficiency. You are known as the Father of Scientific Management and
renowned for your efforts at creating efficiency in management and
industry. Do you feel that there is ever
a limit to efficiency?
Taylor: In theory no.
In practice, efficiency is limited by many factors of human shortcomings;
mostly surmountable with time.
Jennifer: So, if we had sufficient time, talent and
training, the possibilities of efficiency are limitless?
Taylor:
Precisely.
Gulick: Be warned, this man is all racket and no
balls.
Jennifer: I’d like to point out for our sensitive
listeners that Mr. Gulick was commenting on your tendency towards efficiency at
all cost as well as referencing your time as a champion tennis player. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Gulick?
Gulick: Certainly, and please call me Luther. What I was attempting to convey (although
admittedly with a dose juvenile levity) is that if Frederick believed that the
game of tennis could be played more efficiently by eliminating the tennis ball,
he would do so, without regard for the organic necessity of the ball to the
game.
Jennifer: Yes, I read about this in your work. Can you explain for our listeners, the concept
of organic limitations to the division of labor (Gulick & Urwick, 1937/2012)?
Gulick: Yes of course, you see, there is a limit to
efficiency, particularly in the division of labor. For example “it might seem far more efficient
to have the front half of the cow in the pasture grazing and the rear half in
the barn being milked all of the time, but this organic division would fail”
for obvious reasons (Gulick & Urwick, 1937/2012). I’m not sure Frederick over there realizes
any such limitation.
Jennifer: Frederick?
Do you agree with this organic limitation?
Taylor: Yes and no.
We are limited only by knowledge and time--
Gulick: You see what I mean? Tell me Frederick, how exactly do you propose
to split the cow?
Taylor: What I was about to say before I was
interrupted—
Weber: Knock knock?
Taylor: Good heavens Max, do you really think this is
the place to practice your knock knock jokes?
Weber: Oh, play along, then you can get back to
dissecting the cow. I assure you, it is
relevant. Come on. Knock Knock?
Taylor: I shall
defer to our gracious host. Max here, as
part of his efforts at finding the humor in death, that he found unattainable
in life, has been collecting jokes.
Would you like a sampling?
Jennifer: Certainly, as long as we get back to
dissecting the cow. Alright Max, who’s
there?
Weber: Interrupting Cow.
Jennifer: Interrupting Co--
Weber: --MOO!!!
Ha! Ha! What a clever joke!
Taylor: Hilarious Max. Are you finished?
Weber: Yes, I’m quite finished,
please continue.
Taylor: As I was say—
Weber: --MOO!!
Oh, how I love the modern knock knock joke. I’m sorry, you were saying?
Taylor: As I was saying, the problem is not in the
splitting of the cow. It’s not that we
lack the scientific ability to split the cow in this manner (which, granted we
do). It’s in management’s inability to
properly conceptualize the problem. The
manager, who is the dairy farmer in this instance, has not properly gathered
the knowledge, or studied out the various parts of the system. I would venture to say that the
inefficiencies of this system lie in the time lost in taking the cow to and
from the barn. But that is the way in
which it has always been done by the farmer.
That is the old “rule of thumb” (Taylor, 1912/2012) which management
must strive to replace with knowledge. Luther
has confused the division of labor with the division of the laborer. You don’t take the front half of the cow out
to pasture, you bring the pasture to the front of the cow. I believe they do this in your modern dairy
operations. They milk the animal while
it feeds at a trough. Brilliant. I wish
I’d conceived of this in my lifetime. I
would have been the father of Scientific and Dairy Management.
Jennifer: You’ve obviously given this some thought.
Taylor: My life’s work was making the inefficient
efficient and the efficient more so.
However I do concede that with eternity now before me, sometimes I
wonder at the necessity of all that efficiency.
Gulick: Perhaps you should spend some time figuring
out how to dissect a cow?
Weber: MOO!
Jennifer: Alright, I think it’s time we turned to
Luther. You have at times been called
“The Dean of Public Administration.”
This is because your career in the study and practice of public
administration spans 70 years; a good decade or so longer than either of your
colleagues here even lived. You only passed
away in 1990, which means in your 100-year lifetime, you witnessed nearly the
entire history of the modern public administration movement. It says here that “if there is a single person
who personifies public administration in the United States, it is Luther
Gulick” (Fry & Raadschelders, 85).
Do you feel this is a fair estimation?
Taylor: Luther, are you blushing? I didn’t think dead men blushed.
Gulick: Whether it is fair or not is really a
question for others. I do say that my
life was very fulfilling as a public servant.
I enjoyed my work. It also felt
very long at the time. Now however, it
seems but a blip on the eternal radar.
Jennifer: I can only imagine. One thing I did note in my studies is that many
scholars in this arena have written about the need to distinguish in practice,
the political from the administrative.
This was the prevalent thought among scholars throughout most, if not
all of your lifetime. Yet you consistently
advocated for the intertwining of the two?
Why do you differ on this point?
And in observing the politics of today, do you continue to hold to this
opinion?
Gulick: Consider for a moment your government’s
current state of affairs with regards to the political and the
administrative. Would you say that they
are separate, or overlapping?
Jennifer: Definitely overlapping.
Gulick: Precisely.
And do you recall a time when administration and politics were
successfully separated?
Jennifer: Well, no.
Gulick: Thank you for proving my point. I don’t advocate for separation, first and
foremost because I believe that separation is impossible and impractical (Fry
& Raadschelders, 86). I also believe
that separation is not only impossible but is undesirable, or is not perhaps
the most ideal situation, given the political realities.
Jennifer: So do you think the current system is working
fine in this regard?
Gulick: Not necessarily. I think that the politic can harmoniously be
involved in the administrative without being unduly meddlesome, but in the
current state of affairs, that line is regularly crossed.
Jennifer: Politics is presently meddling too much in
administration?
Gulick: To the point of paralysis. Consider the recent political government
shutdown stunt. What was the impetus?
Jennifer: The Affordable Healthcare Act.
Gulick: Exactly!
A law that should have been well into the administration phase of its
lifespan, and here it is, forever languishing in the political arena. Obviously there is political discord over
this law, which requires some continued interaction between the political and
the administrative; which is why I say complete separation is impossible. But when we reach the point of government
shut down due to a law that is legally on the books, we’ve tipped the balance.
Jennifer: We’re going to have to let that be the last
word as we are out of time. I have
thoroughly enjoyed our visit here today and I thank you all for being here.
Gulick: Well, thank you. It has been delightful.
Taylor: Yes, the pleasure has
been--
Weber: --MOO!
Sorry, couldn’t resist there. Of
course, thank you.
Jennifer: And a special thanks to our producer, River
Sticks and our new intern Weeji B. Horde.
I’m not sure how they managed it, but was largely due to their efforts
that we were able to have these distinguished guests on our show today. Thank you, and please join us next time.
References
Fry, B. R.
& Raadschelders, J.C.N. (2008). Mastering
public administration: From Max Weber to Dwight Waldo (2nd ed.).
Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Gulick, L.
& Urwick, L., eds. (2012). The study
of administration. In J.M Shafritz and A.C. Hyde, Classics of Public Administration (7th ed. pp. 81-89).
(Original work published 1937). Boston: Wadsworth.
Taylor, F.W.
(2012). Scientific management. In J.M Shafritz and A.C. Hyde, Classics of public administration (7th
ed. pp. 37-39). (Original work published 1912).
Boston: Wadsworth.
Titunik, R.
F. (1997). The continuation of history: Max Weber on the advent of a new
aristocracy. Journal of Politics,
59(3), 680.
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