CONTROL THROUGH COMMUNICATIONS
By JoAnne Yates
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, 339 pages
Most Significant Arguments
The work in question seeks to look at the advancement of communication technology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The work takes the reader through an interesting review of communication “technology.” I put that in quotes because some of what is shown as technological progression didn’t initially strike me as technology, such as how paper is filed. As I read, Yates swayed me on this portion. Communication is shown to go from verbal, to unstructured letters, to structured letters and forms. The pattern continues with printed tables and graphs. The nature of the format was dependent on who was communicating to whom. She also showed technology from the perspective of duplication. Starting with multiple handwritten copies, to press books, to mimeographs, to carbon copy on typewriters, to photocopying. Likewise, means of conveyance were addressed beginning with direct human interaction, to postal services, to the telegraph.
Aside from the tech, Yates points to how these different types of technology were chosen. Often it had to do with who was communicating what to whom. For example, to lower the likelihood of train crashes, leadership at the Illinois Central Railroad adopted printed train schedules in a table format that were shared with train station employees, engineers, conductors, and patrons. These were reproduced many times and physically delivered on paper. Whenever deviation from the schedule was required the dispatchers would use telegraph to note “specials” or exceptions.
The other technology area Yates outlined was around storage and retrieval. From the pigeon hole, to the press book, to horizontal storage and finally vertical filing, the progression was about economy of space, but also about the ability to find the information later.
In each example (Illinois Central, Scovill and Dupont) she looks at how information was shared downward for control, upward for evaluation and analysis, and laterally for clarification or to work out disagreements.
Comparison with other readings
After establishing the lines of technology (writing, duplicating, storage, transmission), Yates goes on to give three specific company examples. In each case study, all of the lines of technology are explored and how they advanced. Given the name of the book includes the word control, it is clear the argument is about how information is gathered, and to what purposes the information is used. Yates quotes David F. Noble early in this book. Noble was concerned about control of the work place, but in his work, Forces of Production, it seemed like the motivation of executives was always about personal control (meaning power) and greed. Yates doesn’t seem to make that argument about control being the goal. However, when she does speak to motivation it often seems to be more about concern for the company. For example, in each company some executive steps forward as a champion for the ideas of systematic management. Profitability (or rather the lack of it) is often at the heart of the “why” for these champions. They seem concerned about ideas of modernization and see systematization as its definition. Those not wanting to make the change blamed cost, but often saw no motivation because the business had plenty of revenue. It sometimes required outside stimuli such as increased competition, government regulation, or shrinking revenues to help the champions step in and push the new systematic approaches.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Yates herself acknowledges that three case studies do not define a pattern. Although these had similar outcomes, their individual paths were not all that similar. For example, the railroad was slow to use telegraph technology even though it was timely and available to them for little or nothing in cost. Even after more impersonal communications processes were adopted, executives looked for ways to personalize communications in some ways. An example was the shop paper where articles included information about individual workers or family activities. It’s also not clear how much of the advancement would have happened at the “grass roots” were it not for an executive champion stepping forward. As the typewriter and copy technology became cheaper surely at least some of the newer styles of communication would have percolated into the workplace. I like Yates' writing model of generalized trends followed by specific examples. Even if the handful of examples don’t define the trends, they can help to better understand the applicability of trends.
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