Tower Building: Craftsmanship-------->Modern Management

Before getting into the discussion of Craftsmanship vs Modern Management, let us first define what they are.

Craftsmanship:
When there is just one person doing each and every part of the work, it's Craftsmanship.
E.g. A cobbler

Modern Management:
When the work is divided into atomic parts and is then assigned to a number of people where one person is doing just one atomic part of the work, it's modern management.
E.g. A manufacturing plant

To start with the comparison, we had a Tower building activity in which a tower of cubes had to be built by placing one cube over the other. First, there was just one person building the tower where he was the lone person doing everything in the process signifying Craftsmanship.

Then, a team of 8 people was made to build the tower where each person had a specific job signifying Modern Management.

However, in the first case there was a tower of 17 cubes built while in the second 7 cubes. This was mostly because in the second case the person who was placing the cubes was blindfolded and the other 7 persons did not have any proper roles defined. This is not to say that Modern Management does not succeed. In fact, it does to a larger extent if the task is executed in an appropriately planned manner.

Let us have a look at some points to see why modern management is much better than Craftsmanship.

• There can be no parallel work in craftsmanship whereas it is used in modern management to save time and hence increase the scale of production.
• In craftsmanship, everything is done by a single person whereas in modern management, the work is broken down into jobs followed by activities followed by tasks and so on up to the elemental level and then each elemental level is given to a person.
• In craftsmanship, skill is the requirement, whereas modern management thrives on De-skilling so that anyone can do the de-skilled job and the organization does not have to depend on a skilled individual. So, as we move from craftsmanship to modern management, the control gradually shift from the worker to the non-worker i.e. the management.

The advantage that craftsmanship has over modern management is that there is job satisfaction in the former while there is job alienation in the latter.

There is also a concept of 3 E's in management: Excellence, Effectiveness, Efficiency
Here's the relation between the three:

                            Excellence = Effectiveness x Efficiency

Here, effectiveness signifies direction and Efficiency signifies speed. So, efficiency means "getting more out of less" and effectiveness means "for more".
Therefore, Excellence essentially means

                 "Getting more out of less for more"

Hence, when we evolve from craftsmanship towards modern management, we not only scale-up the processes and output but also generate a lot of employment in the society by employing a larger population.