Elton Mayo - Social Quotes

6 Sourced Quotes

View all Elton Mayo Quotes
What social and industrial research has not sufficiently realised as yet is that... minor irrationalities of the average normal person are cumulative in their effect. They may not cause breakdown in the individual but they do cause breakdown in the industry.

Elton Mayo
Viewed from the standpoint of social science, society is composed of individuals organized in occupational groups, each group fulfilling some function of the society. Taking this fact into account, psychology – the science of human nature and human consciousness – is able to make at least one general assertion as to the form a given society must take if it is to persist as a society. It must be possible for the individual as he works to see that his work is socially necessary; he must be able to see beyond his group to the society.

Elton Mayo
The recent growth of interest in political matters in Australia is by no means a sign of social health.

Elton Mayo
If our social skills (that is, our ability to secure co-operation between people) had advanced step by step with our technical skills, there would not have been another European War.

Elton Mayo
So long as commerce specializes in business methods which take no account of human nature and social motives, so long may we expect strikes and sabotage to be the ordinary accompaniment of industry. Sabotage is essentially a protest of the human spirit against dull mechanism. And the emphasis which democracy places upon political methods tends to transform mere sporadic acts of sabotage into an organized conspiracy against society.

Elton Mayo
Revolution or civil war is the only outcome of the present irreconcilable attitude of Australian political parties. The methods of "democracy," far from providing a means of solving the industrial problem, have proved entirely inadequate to the task. Political organization has been mistaken for political education; the party system has accentuated and added to our industrial difficulties. Democracy has done nothing to help society to unanimity, nothing to aid the individual to a sense of social function.

Elton Mayo