Abstract
THIS is a remarkable book written by an author of remarkable experience. “The new techniques” which it describes, in elementary fashion, are those of industrial psychology. “Management,” he says, “faced with the absolute necessity of adopting the new techniques” crudely employed by the early efficiency engineers in the United States, ‘yet finding that their introduction was always the signal for labor troubles, finally recognized that the problem was, in its essence, a psychological one. They turned to the university psychologists and asked them what could be done about it. Bred in the cloistered peace and quiet of their campus laboratories, these psychologists were not of much assistance. They had no experience in the workaday world, and most of them were not inclined to venture into it to attack the monumental problem which they had been asked to solve. Here and there a bolder spirit was found who could see not only the tremendous interest which might be aroused by work in the field but the vital necessity for finding a solution. … A few pioneers took up the work and soon found they had entered a rich field in resources and awaiting only careful research to yield a wealth of practical values not only to the industry but to general psychology itself (pp. 104-5).
The New Techniques for Supervisors and Foremen
By Prof. Albert Walton. Pp. vi + 233. (New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1940.) 17s. 6d.
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MYERS, C. The New Techniques for Supervisors and Foremen. Nature 147, 592 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147592a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147592a0