177ten
Community and Accountability
In the late 1920s and 1930s, a series of experiments were held
at Western Electric’s Hawthorne factory in the suburbs of
Chicago to determine whether changes in the work environ-
ment would improve worker productivity.
Elton Mayo formulated the experiments that began with
simply increasing the lighting. Researchers noted that worker
productivity significantly improved with the enhanced light-
ing. They went on to implement other changes, such as
increased breaks and varied working hours. Every time they
made a change, productivity improved.
While that seems logical, what is fascinating is that when
all those measures were returned to their original states, pro-
ductivity was at a fever pitch. In other words, employees were
most effective after all the improvements were eliminated.
It doesn’t make sense at first glance, but Mayo and his team
discovered that it wasn’t the changes that improved productiv-
ity, but rather the simple knowledge that their productivity was
being measured. This became known as the Hawthorne effect.^1