CLASSICAL APPROACH - LUTHER GULICK AND LYNDALL URWICK

An Introduction: By 19th and early 20th centuries Systematic study and analysis of organisation had begun and attempted the scientific study of organisation. 'Principle of Scientific Management' formulated by Taylor to improve productivity and efficiency in organisations. Henry Fayol, a French manager and industrialist, published in his book "General and industrial Management" in 1916. Max Weber, a German Sociologist, focused on the concept of 'Bureaucracy'. James Mooney, an industrialist, co-authoring with Alan Reiley, the book 'Onward Industry' in 1918 .

Luther Gulick and Lyndall Urwik were "indefatigable publicists, propagandists, and promoters of the gospel of neutral principles directed at raising the level of organisational efficiency".

• Gulick was a member of the "Presidents' Committee on Administrative Management". He had edited "Papers on the Science of Administration"(1937) which summarized the principles of administration and proclaimed that Public Administration sided by efficiency could become a science. Gulick's other works include: Administrative Reflections from World War-II, Metropolitan Problems and American Ideas, Modern Management for the City of New York. 
• Urwick's publications: "The Elements of Administration", "Management of Tomorrow", "The Making of scientific Management" (3 Volumes), "The Pattern of Management and Leadership of the XX Century Organisations" etc.

What will we learn here?

1. the classical approach to administration and organisation given by Gulick and Urwick 
2. the short-comings of the universal principle and 
3. evaluate the importance of classical approach in the administrative theory. 

IMPORTANCE OF STRUCTURE

Gulick and Urwick's interest were in dealing with administration as a whole but they dealt mostly with the technical aspects of formal organisation. Urwick's organisation theory was heavily oriented to formalism. Gulick and Urwick formulated 'universal' principles of organisation which are popularly called 'classical theory' of organisation. They are also called 'administrative management' theory, 'mechanistic' theory, etc. 

Why it is named as classical theory? Because it is one of the earliest formulations based on systematic analysis of organisations; it is dominant in the field of administrative theory; and finally because it is long established and generally accepted in administrative literature. They sincerely believed that a science of administration can be developed based on some principles and based on the experience of administrators. Thus, the administration which was considered hitherto an art developed into a science. 

In discussing organisations as social groups, Urwick says "the correct analogy must be analogy with the living organism-the biological parallel....For this reason the mechanistic parallel can be very helpful in discussing organisation. Another name for it is the engineering approach". 

Gulick and Urwick, along with other classical theorists had given more importance to the structure than the role of the people in the organisation. The reasons could be:

• according to Urwick, a very large proportion of the friction and confusion in the society , with its manifest consequences in human suffering to the faulty structural arrangements in organisations. 
• Therefore, Urwick stressed the importance of design in organisation. Because it is impossible for humanity to advance the knowledge of organization unless this factor is isolated He further considered lack of design as "illogical, cruel, wasteful and inefficient". 

Urwick(in his book,"Elements of Administration'') defines organisation as determining activities necessary to any purpose and arranging them in groups assigned to individuals. The whole arrangement must be undertaken like the preparation of an engineering design, without any reference to the individuals in the organisation. Thus, he believed that effort must be made to fit people to the structure.

*(The classical approach to administration and organisation given by Gulick and Urwick )*
FROM FAYOL'S ELEMENTS TO POSDCORB: Both Gulick and Urwick were heavily influenced by Taylor and Fayol. Gulick used Fayol's five elements of administration (POCCC) as a framework for his neutral principles and five elements being: 

1. Planning, 
2. Organisation, 
3. Command, 
4. Coordination and 
5. Control  

Gulick condensed the duties of an administrator into a famous acronym POSDCORB depicting the seven activities of the administrator: 

• Planning (P): working out the things that need to be done and the methods for doing them to accomplish the purpose set for the enterprise; 
• Organizing (O):establishment of the formal structure of authority through which work sub divisions are arranged, defined and coordinated for the defined objective; 
• Staffing(S): the whole personnel function of bringing in and training the staff and maintaining favorable conditions of work; 
• Directing (D): continuous task of making decisions and embodying them in specific and general orders and instructions, and serving as the leader of the enterprise; 
• Coordinating (CO):The all important duty of inter-relating the various parts of the work; 
• Reporting (R): keeping the executive informed as to what is going on, which thus includes keeping himself and his subordinates informed through records, research and inspection; and  
• Budgeting (B): all that goes with budgeting in the form of fiscal planning, accounting and control. 

The term POSDCORB came into wide use in the administrative processes.

PRINCIPLES OF ORGANISATION: Urwick identified eight principles of administration applicable to all organisations:

1. The "principle of Objective"- that all organisations should be an expression of a purpose; 
2. The"principle of Correspondence"- that authority and responsibility must be co-equal; 
3. The"principle of Responsibility"- that the responsibility of higher authorities for the work of subordinates is absolute; 
4. The "Scalar Principle" - that a pyramidal type of structure is built up in an organisation; 
5. The "principle of span of Control"; 
6. The "principle of Specialization"- limiting one's work to a single function; 
7. The "principle of Coordination"; and 
8. The "principle of Definition"- clear prescription of every duty.

Gulick and Urwick stressed the significance of structure as a designing process and had identified the functions of the executive in terms of POSDCORB. They concentrated their efforts on the discovery of principles of organisation based on which the structure may be designed. Thus, Gulick expounded ten principles of organisation which was very much influenced by Henry Fayol's 14 basic elements of administration:

1. Division of work or Specialization;
2. Bases of departmental organisations;
3. Coordination through Hierarchy;
4. Deliberate Coordination;
5. Coordination through Committees; '
6. Decentralization;
7. Unity of Command;
8. Staff and Line;
9.  Delegation and
10. Span of control.

Let's  examine some of these Important principles briefly.

1. Work Division or specialization: Gulick acknowledged work division as the foundation of organisation and the reason for organisation itself. Similarly the other classical thinkers also made the principle of work division as the central tenet of their theory. Work division is necessary because "men differ in nature, capacity and skill, and gain greatly in dexterity by specialization". In assigning functions to groups of people, their first principle is homogeneity based on the identity or simplicity of four factors which are popularly known as Gulick's 4'P' bases of departmentalization:

• The purpose they serve, (function),
• The process they use, 
• The persons or things they deal with (clientele), and 
• The place where they work. 

However, in subdividing the work or establishing the units of work, a choice must be made as to which of these principles - purpose, process, person(s) or place are relevant. 

Realizing the limitations of the division of work, Gulick observed that "division of work and integrated organisation are the bootstraps, by which mankind lifts itself in the process of civilization".

2. Coordination: If sub-division of work is inescapable, Gulick declared coordination becomes mandatory. Based on his experience, Gulick says that coordination can be achieved in two primary ways: 

• By organisation, that is inter-relating the sub-division of work by allotting them to persons who are appropriately placed in the Structure of authority, so that the work may be coordinated by orders reaching from the top to the bottom of the entire organisation. 
• By the dominance of an idea, that is, the development of intelligent singleness of purpose in the minds of those who are working together so that each worker will voluntarily fit his task into the whole with skill and enthusiasm. 

These two principles of coordination, he observes, are not mutually exclusive, but together both are really effective. Size and time are the great limiting factors in the development of coordination. Therefore, he pointed out, coordination must be approached with different emphasis in small and in large organisations, in simple and in complex situations, in stable and in new or changing organisations. 

Thus, Gulick maintains that "coordination is not something that develops by accident. It must be won by intelligent, vigorous, persistent and organised effort".

3. Unity of Command: Gulick and Urwick believed that "well managed administrative units in the Government are almost without exception headed by single administrators". They were against boards or commissions. Leadership is vested in one hand against a plural body. They reiterated Fayol's maxim of unity of command, knowing that rigid adherence to this principle may lead to absurdities. They emphasized that "A man cannot serve two masters". Order from more than one supervisor make worker "confused, inefficient and irresponsible" and a workman subjected to order from but one superior may be "methodical, efficient, and responsible".

4. Line and Staff: A special mention should be made of the Gulick-Urwicks principle of staff assistance to the executives and the relations between the "Line" and "staff officials". They borrowed these principles from their experience in military administration. However, the meaning of the Line and Staff principles have not been clear yet in civilian organisations. According to Gulick - the staff experts to the knowing, thinking and planning functions and they must not be given any administrative authority or responsibility but they should get the results by the "authority of ideas". Thus, they emphasized the necessity of special staff to assist the higher executives. 

Public officials in their every day work do not have time to read, think and meet their subordinates; hence they need assistance in their central tasks of command, control and coordination. 

Such assistance should be extended by general staff, coordinating the work of staff specialists. Thus, the general staff and special staff relieve the top executive from the burdensome details of administration; they free him to concentrate upon the most important tasks and enable him to exercise a larger span of control.

5. The Span of Control: To Urwick, "no supervisor can supervise directly the work of more than five or at the most six subordinates whose work interlocks".The limit of control is due  to various reasons:

1. the limits of knowledge, time and energy, and different, 
2. kinds of works and 
3. sizes of organisations. 

It raises in part from the differences in the capacities and work habits of individual executives and in part from the non-comparable character of work. Thus, the principle of span of control is governed by: 

1. the element of diversification of function, 
2. the element of time and 
3. the element of space. 

The failure to attach sufficient importance to these variables limits the scientific validity of the principle. Gulick arid Urwick were influenced by Graicudas who furnished mathematical support to the concept of a narrow Span of Control. Gulick had favored further research into the problem, but also had concluded that the chief executive of an organisation can deal with only a few immediate subordinates. The number is determined by :

1. the nature of work,
2. the capacity of the executive, 
3. the number of immediate subordinates, 
4. the stability and geographical proximity of organisation. 

Though, he was less categorical about the number of subordinates, he was nonetheless confident about the general validity of the principle.

PRACTICAL VALUE OF CLASSICAL THEORY(importance of classical approach in the administrative theory)

According to Baker certain specific ideas of practical value have emerged from classical theory. They are enumerated below:

1. The first was the identification of organisation or administration as a distinct function to be studied and practiced. The practical achievement was to make people think and apply themselves to the problem of management and organisation.
2. Secondly it introduced some clear thinking about authority, responsibility, delegation.
3. Thirdly it propounded the idea that administration is a separate activity which deserves intellectual investigation.
4. Fourthly it played a significant role in rationalizing and stimulating production in the industrial organisation, to some extent.

In all, the very limitations of the theory instigated further investigations in organisational behavior. Thus, classical theory despite its shortcomings made significant contribution to the development of the organisation theories.

CRITICISM OF CLASSICAL THEORY: Herbert Simon attacked some of the accepted principles of administration of classical organisation theory, particularly its principles of division of functions, unity of command and span of control. 
a) principle of division of functions: Referring to the 4'P's, he asserts that division of responsibility and specialization can be either by function, or by process, or by objective or by place. Classical theory, he points on has not given any clue as to which basis is preferable in any particular circumstance. 
b)  principle of unity of command: For him the principle of unity of command is also ambiguous in terms of sphere. 
c) span of control: Simon described the "Principles of Administration" as the mere "Proverbs of Administration", each paired with a mutually contradictory proverb - as Span of Control should be narrow, but chains of command should be short. 

Gulick's line and staff functions in large and complex organisations are simply out of touch with reality of control doctrine is even more confusing and misleading. The responsibility for this confusion rests mainly with Graicuna mathematical formula of 'five or most probably four'. The basic fallacy is the authoritarian assumption that the top executive needs to have some sort of relationship with every one below him in the organisation. 

The principles of administration of Gulick and Urwick were severely criticized as they have not made clear as to what they meant by the universal validity of the 'principles'. Simon considered that "the principles of administration are at best criteria for describing and diagnosing administrative situations". They suggest only working rules of conduct which wide experience seems to have validated. The classical theorists were concerned with the problems of management and not the other organisational problems that concern the other levels of management and men. The theory is criticized as atomistic, which looks as the individuals in isolation from the fellowmen in the organisation. It is mechanistic as it fails to explain the dynamics of organisational behavior. It is static and rational. It also does not take any note of non-economic incentives. It is more concerned with the work than the human being who does the work. It underestimated the human element and human behavior. The human being is considered a mere cog in the organisation machine.

Summary: Though the classical ideas were expounded in the first two decades of this century, the classical management thinking is still dominant among many practicing administrators today. The most distinguishing feature of classical theory is its concern with the formulation of principles of organisation. The classical theorists attempted to discover the true bases on which division of work in organisations can be carried on and find effective methods of coordinating the work for the sake of efficiency. They placed emphasis on the precise definition of various activities and their inter-relationship and suggested the use of authority through a system of checks and control over the people working in the organisations to get things done. Accordingly, classical theory of organisation is a formal structure of design and plan. The theory advocates a body of principles of organisation in accordance with which organisation plans are made out to fit into the requirements of selected purpose or function and then capable men are selected to get the things done as per the preconceived plan. This approach "bears the stamp of the engineer seeking scientific precision, logical structure, and the one best way of performing each step, and of relating the parts to a unified whole". Thus, the theory clearly manifests four features-Division of work, hierarchy, impersonality and efficiency.