Scrum Masters should change structures. But they do not, and there is a reason for that

There are different interpretations of the Scrum Master's role and job. A superficial view would assign the Scrum Master only the job of managing the Scrum events, helping with administrative tasks, and taking care of the "soft stuff". This job rarely helps improve the deliverability of the company. Moreover, there is a high probability that the Scrum Master will be fired at the first signs of financial difficulties. There is a reason why organizational support for employees is focused mainly on organizational psychology. And if a Scrum Master knows that background, he or she will be able to change his or her approach.

As Greg Crown, Jason Malmstadt and Robert Pieper discussed recently in a video on their YouTube channel: "When organizations treat scrum Masters like that and that alone it becomes very quickly obvious that that's a very expensive meeting facilitator." (Min 3:50)

Scrum Masters should do more. They should get a strong mandate from their teams and management to improve productivity. That includes changing organizational structures and processes if that improves the output (without putting more pressure on the people). In a recent Lean Mag article, Art Byrne recommended: "To become lean, you must change everything in your business." This applies to becoming agile, too. 

It is any manager's job to improve the organization.  Scrum Masters are middle managers, too. Their world views and approaches may differ from those of "classical" managers. But they are managers. So, why are Scrum Masters (and Agile Coaches) hesitant to change structures? Bob Emiliani has a well-researched opinion about it, and I recommend his books to all Scrum Masters. In this article, I want to add another story that might explain it.

The roots of the Scrum Master role

Though the first Scrum team was created in 1993, there is a much longer history of ideas that influenced the role of a Scrum Master. That story goes back to the second half of the nineteenth century, when entrepreneurs created bigger factories. F. W. Taylor and others argued for a scientific way to organize the plants ("a mental revolution"). 

There was a vibrant Scientific Management community, in which people from different parts of the world exchanged ideas. These people created the TWI program in the U.S. in the 1940s. The program went from the United States to Japan after the war. The Toyota company has consistently implemented TWI's ideas in its management system. (E.g. see the description of the hancho role, which is comparable to the supervisor role in TWI.) Toyota again influenced the co-creators of Scrum (see some blog posts at Scrum Inc.'s website).

Going back in history helps us explain why Scrum Masters do not want to work on structures. Now we need to get closer. If you are a Scrum Master, this story might broaden your view.

The Taylorists and George Elton Mayo

I found the following story in Chapter 2 "Management - Past, Present and Future" of the Oxford Handbook of Management. You can find a copy of the text using Google Scholar. The authors, Kyle Bruce and Chris Nyland have researched the history of Scientific Management and Human Relations. They have published more interesting articles.

In 1939, Fritz J. Roethlisberger published the book "Management and the Worker". The book described the research about human relations in the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric, commonly known as the Hawthorne Studies (1924–1933). It was a significant book for the Human Relations School.

My personal simplified and very polemic summary of the Human Relations School would be: "Management does not need to care about payment, working conditions, or workplace democracy. The psychology of the individual worker is more important." (And we will later see that exactly this was the goal of George Elton Mayo, one of the forerunners of good human relations.)

Instead, the proponents of Scientific Management (in the Taylor Society) liked the idea of workplace democracy and the inclusion of workers and even unions in improving productivity. Bruce and Nyland write: "[T]he interwar Taylorist movement rejected the [Human Relations School] claim that workers could not and should not participate in management."

For the Scientific Management Community, Roethlisberger's book did not contain ground-breaking news. Mary Gilson wrote a review of it and complained about the basic shortcomings of the research. In her review, she gave some hints about the real purpose of the research. Her review caused a strong response from George Elton Mayo, who wrote the preface to Roethlisberger's book. Mayo became a sharp critic of the "Taylorists" and called Mary Gilson "insane".

Mayo could have won this argument at that time. But he needed to wait. In 1941 President Roosevelt named Sidney Hillman associate director of the Office of Production Management. Hillman was a prominent union leader and gave the job of improving the productivity of the American war industry to Channing R. Dooley, who was part of the Taylor Society. For now, the Taylorists have won. Especially, the military was happy about the efforts of Dooley's TWI program. The armed forces got the resources they needed to fight the Axis powers. In the end, they were successful.

On the other hand, employers were not happy about the concessions to labor they had to make during Roosevelt's presidency. In their hearts, they preferred profits over contributions to society. So, it was no question that they tried to turn back time after the war. And Mayo gave them the arguments they waited for.

The employers reclaimed their right to manage

After the U. S. have won the war, the military's support for the Taylorists diminished. The New Deal has changed the political situation in the industrial area. The unions were stronger than before. The workers questioned the power of the business owners.

Conservative business circles have started a campaign to redefine the relationship between workers and unions. They were able to establish the view that the Taylorists were technocratic and against unions. Kim Phillips-Fein described the behavior and actions of business people after the war in more detail.

Instead, Mayo's Human Relations approach was sold as the better approach.  Bruce and Nyland write: "[Human Relations] represented a new alliance between psychology, political thought and the government of the workplace which justified managerial authority in corporations as the natural order of things, reconciling it with democratic ideals by asserting that the individual was the fundamental unit on which all legitimate cooperative organizations was  founded. ... [It], with its foundations in the ‘science’ of organizational psychology and psychiatry, presented the potential for greatly restricting workplace democracy and participation". Mayo was convinced that therapy was better than workplace democracy. By the way: Mayo's research was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Mayo emphasized self-fulfilment of the worker as critical for their satisfaction in the workplace. From that point on, Organizational Psychology was the hot thing. Roethlisberger included "Human Relations" in Harvard's MBA program. Many psychologists like Maslow, Rogers, and Lewin followed that path and popularized the idea of individual needs that need to be met in workplaces.

I don't want to ignore the psychological insights. They are valuable. However, constantly looking at yourself is a distraction. In addition, the state of self-realization and the fulfillment of all needs will never be achieved. It simply prevents workers from organizing and advocating for more productive structures.

Learn and change your approach

As Scrum Masters we need to be aware of these backgrounds. We need to know that organizational psychology is not the only thing that can improve the lives of team members. I like to remind to a quote of W. Edwards Deming: "I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system (responsibility of management), 6% special" (Out of the Crisis, The MIT Press., page 270)

As Scrum Masters we have two leverages for our work: working on the self-realization of the individuals (6%) or working on the system of collaboration (94%). Maybe it's time for less Mayo and more Taylor in our work as Scrum Masters.