Henri Fayol:learning from

experience

5

Henri Fayol: learning fromexperience

Daniel A. WrenUniversity of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA

An understanding of the life, contributions and influence of Henri Fayol, aFrench engineer/executive who wrote almost eight decades ago, provides animportant landmark in the development of management theory. Fayol lived in aperiod in French history when many traditional ideas were being challenged. Itwas an age of scientific enquiry, sparked by the ideas of Claude Bernard (1813-1878) who developed a theory of the experimental method and madeapplications of this research method in medicine[1]. He would later influenceHenri Fayol, who used biological metaphors frequently in his writing, and otherssuch as Pierre and Marie Curie, Louis Pasteur, the sociology of Emile Durkheim;and the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte. Comte sought a “science ofsociety” which studied the nature and properties of things knowable byexperiment and experience, which, in the French language, are synonymous (i.e.expérience). Comte’s positivism stressed knowing, an age of reason, rather thanbelieving, an age of faith.

Fayol was a graduate of the National School of Mines at Saint Etienne and hiscareer began as a mining engineer. His early research about fightingunderground fires, the reclamation of partially buried mine shafts, his “deltatheory” of the geology of coal formations, and other technical work wasrecognized by the award of the French Academy of Science’s prestigious DelessePrize. Fayol’s technical work was based on a scientific method of enquiry: heperformed various experiments, recorded and tabulated his results meticulously,and analysed his data before forming his conclusions. Fayol’s son recalled thathis father was a “quiet, reflective man [who] took notes on management and thelife of the company every day”[2]. These daily observations and experiencesprovided the raw material for his evolving ideas about management, just asFayol had based his technical studies on the scientific method.

The industrial setting is also important to understanding Henri Fayol. Francelagged behind Great Britain, Germany and the USA in industrial developmentafter the Industrial Revolution. After intermittent periods of revolutionaryfervour, anarchy, Robespierre’s reign of terror, and Napoleon’s ambitions, theFrench Third Empire (1870-1940) promised a more stable democraticgovernment which would be more conducive to economic development. Large-scale enterprise in France was a late nineteenth-century development, led by theiron and steel industry where Fayol spent his career.

Maurice Lévy-Leboyer’s studies revealed that social status, political officeand engineering schools were the most likely paths to industrial leadership in

Journal of Management HistoryVol. 1 No. 3, 1995, pp. 5-12.

© MCB University Press,1355-252X

JMH1,3

6

nineteenth century France. The result, according to Lévy-Leboyer, was thatthose who managed did not take advantage of the best available administrativepractices, causing a “managerial gap” and a lag in the development of Frenchindustry[3]. Small firms typically followed the custom of keeping managementand control in the family. A reverence for technology drove some firms topromote their best technicians, which explains why Henri Fayol becamemanager of the Commentry coal pits at the age of 25. Other firms saw technicalability as primary in their managerial positions. Andre Citroën, for example,focused on efficient automobile production with little regard for labourproblems, pricing policy, or inventory, and these factors forced Citroën to anearly bankruptcy before others could reform the company.

Fayol’s lifetime was characterized as one of change in France: the separationof church and state in education; more vocal and stronger unions; the slowlyincreasing growth of large-scale enterprise; family owned and managed firmsgradually moving towards management by those who did not own the firm; amanagerial gap, enhanced by an overarching belief in technical ability; andpositivism, creating widespread interest in applying the scientific method ofresearch through experience and experiment. These were pivotal years forFrance and these events had a direct influence on Henri Fayol.

Experience and management theoryIn 1898 Fayol’s notebook suggests that his decade of experience as managingdirector of Commentry-Fourchambault and Decazeville (later calledComambault) had been fruitful in developing his administrative abilities:

One can ask if the management (maniement) of men can be learned other than bypractice…one current opinion, paraphrasing Brillat-Savarin: “one can become an engineer,but one is born an administrator”. Will experience, therefore, be useless? For a long time thewisdom of nations has held to this opinion.

Experience is useful but it has not the same utility for everyone. Without a doubt there arenative [inborn] qualities. But what native quality would not be susceptible to improvement bystudy and experience?…

When I assumed the responsibility for the restoration of Decazeville, I did not rely on mytechnical superiority... I relied on my ability as an organizer [and my] skill in handling men(manoeuvrier des hommes)[4, p. 23].

Fayol believed that his experience in managing people and in organizing werethe primary contributors to his success in returning the firm to prosperity, nothis competence as an engineer.

Numerous pioneers in management thought were practitioners, such as F.W.Taylor, Robert Owen, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Daniel McCallum, et al.,especially during that long period before the 1930s. Academics are oftensceptical of the adage that “experience is the best teacher” – instead there is atendency to cast aside the observations and analyses of the practitioner asbeing a priori. Reasoning from prior experiences by a person is considered bysome critics as limited, clouded by participant-observer bias, lacking researchrigour, and not amenable to generalization. In his “management theory jungle”article, Koontz[5] argued against this position:

Henri Fayol:learning from

experience

7

To make the assumption that the distilled experiences of men such as these (Fayol, et al.)represent a priori reasoning is to forget that experience in and with managing is empirical.While the conclusions [of] perceptive and experienced practitioners of the art of managementare not infallible, they represent an experience which is certainly real and not “armchair”. Noone could deny, I feel sure, that the ultimate test of accuracy of management theory must bepractice and management theory and science must be developed from reality.

Koontz’s “theory jungle” generated substantial controversy among the adherentsof the six different approaches to management which he identified. A direct resultwas a symposium at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) withinvitations to various scholars and practitioners representing these diverse viewsto see if there was any hope of finding what Koontz called a “unified theory”. Indiscussing the pioneers of management, such as Frederick Taylor, James Mooney,Luther Gulick and others, Ernest Dale felt that “there has been some real testing ofclassical ideas in, for example, the work of Fayol, who was at once a great thinkerand a very successful practicing businessman”[6, p. 109].

Herbert Simon, already on record as criticizing the “principles” ofmanagement as “proverbs”, expressed his doubts about the importance ofexperience: “What you are saying about Fayol is that I ought to believe Fayolbecause he ran some coal mines, or whatever it was that he ran, very well. I seeno reason to conclude from this that he is a man who can state propositions oforganization theory that will stand up under the test of evidence”[6, p. 110].Ralph C. Davis replied to Simon: “I think you underestimate, possibly, thecontribution that these people have made. They have not set up a propositionwhich says, ‘You must believe Fayol’, or ‘You must believe Taylor’, or you mustbelieve anyone. All they said is that these people went out and did things. Theywere not stupid. They must have learned something”[6, p. 111].

The battle was thus joined about whether experience was a reliable way ofbuilding theory, or whether more rigorous scientific methods should be used. Aparticularly pressing issue is that of generalization – what conclusions can bedrawn from the observations and experiences of one person, or from a casestudy? Fayol took the position that every organization required management:“Be it a case of commerce, industry, politics, religion, war, or philanthropy, inevery concern there is a management function to be performed”[7]. Thus Fayolsaw his ideas as generic, some might say universal, capable of generalization toother situations. Others would argue that particularistic theories neededdevelopment since organizations differed in size, mission, industry specificfactors, and so on.

McGuire[8] feels that the generalizability of observations and findings ofindividual experiences or case studies can be improved by:

● focusing on the abstract or generic properties of a new situation to see ifthere is a fit with previous findings;

● if divergent situations, such as comparing public and private enterprises,are studied and similarities are found, then more confidence is gained ingeneralizability;

JMH1,3

8

● intuition – do these experiences and observations make sense in alogical-inductive manner?

Glaser and Strauss[9] have suggested that “grounded theory”, the discovery oftheory from data, can provide relevant explanations, interpretations andapplications. Qualitative data, such as reflections based on personalexperiences, whether recorded during or after the experiences, are considereduseful in generating data to be further tested systematically. For practitioners,such as Fayol, data collecting and theory building are ongoing andinterdependent activities which can be subjected to further comparativeanalysis to improve generalizability. Fayol hoped that his experiences wouldmake others start thinking about management and to that end he started hisCentre for Administrative Studies. Here, and elsewhere, the experiences of non-academics provided the first insights into building a body of managementknowledge. Without the contributions of these pioneers, such as Fayol, wewould probably be teaching industrial engineering, sociology, economics, orperhaps ergonomics to those who aspire to manage. To be doing so would pushus back to the nineteenth century when technical knowhow reigned supreme asa path to managerial responsibility. We are fortunate that Henri Fayol drewfrom his experiences to separate technical and managerial abilities and to beginto codify a body of knowledge which could be taught and researched.

Building theory from experience: 1900-1916Fayol’s notebooks recorded the building blocks but his ideas aboutmanagement do not appear to have been made public until he was asked toprovide some closing remarks to the International Congress of Mining andMetallurgy, 23 June 1900. This was a plenary session and an opportunity forFayol to tell his fellow engineers what had been confided to his diary for manyyears. He observed that the Congress of Mining and Metallurgy dedicated itselfalmost exclusively to technical matters while he felt that more attention shouldbe given to the administrative functions and its many duties:

I must turn now to the administrative problems to which I want to draw attention, because itseems to me that the mutual education, which we practice with such useful results on thetechnical side of our work, can be of equal service on the administrative side.

The technical and commercial functions of a business are clearly defined, but the samecannot be said of the administrative function. Not many people are familiar with itsconstitution and powers; our senses cannot follow its workings – we do not see it build orforge, sell or buy – and yet we all know that, if it does not work properly, the undertaking is indanger of failure.

The administrative function has many duties. It has to foresee and make preparations tomeet the financial, commercial and technical conditions under which the concern must bestarted and run. It deals with the organization, selection and management of the staff. It is themeans by which the various parts of the undertaking communicate with the outside world,etc. Although this list is incomplete, it gives us an idea of the importance of the administrativefunction[10, p. 179; 11].

All employees participated in the administrative function to some degree, withthe worker doing little, the first line supervisor more, and increasing in

Henri Fayol:learning from

experience

9

importance until the “time given to technical questions is progressivelyreduced, and becomes almost negligible when we reach the level of the head ofa really big concern”[10, p. 80]. Engineers were trained to master the materialworld but learning to organize and administer were just as vital: “The properutilization of the physical, moral, and intellectual gifts of men is just as essentialfor the good of mankind as the proper utilization of our mineral wealth”[10, p. 80]. Then Fayol made a plea for the congress to work together to share “ourobservations, our experiences, our studies. Surely research into improvedmethods of training and testing industrial employees deserves quite as muchcare and attention [as technical research]”[10, p. 80]. In this 1900 speech, Fayolhad made an initial attempt to identify administration as a function which couldbe distinguished from other functions of the firm, such as the technical andcommercial functions; its increasing importance relative to technical ability asone moved upward in the enterprise; and the need for the Congress of Miningand Metallurgy to support the establishment of a collecting house for sharinginformation about doing a better job of organizing and managing.

Fayol proceeded to challenge the way engineers were educated. He noted thatmore courses were being added to the programme of study, there was too muchtheoretical instruction, and too much time was devoted to mathematics:

Would you like to know, for instance, to what extent higher mathematics is used in our twogreat industries [i.e. coal and steel]. Well, it is never used at all. Having found this to be the casein my own experience, after quite a long career, I wondered whether I was not an exception; soI made inquiries, and I found that it was a general rule that neither engineers nor managersused higher mathematics in carrying out their functions.

We must, of course, learn mathematics, but the question is how much must we learn? Up tothe present this point has nearly always been decided simply by professors, but it seems to meto be a question in which professors do not count very much, and in which they count less asthey become more learned and more devoted to their work. This has been the cause of a greatdeal of wasted time and effort[10, p. 81].

Instead of devoting so much time and effort to mathematics, engineers shouldbe instructed in administration: “Administration, which calls for the applicationof wide knowledge and many personal qualities, is, above all, the art of handlingmen (manie les hommes). In this art, as in many others, practice makes perfect(c’est en forgeant qu’on devient forgeron)”[10, p. 81]. By 1900, Fayol saw thedifference between technical abilities and administrative ones; noted that allemployees participated in administration to some extent but, at higherorganizational levels, administrative ability formed a larger part of one’sactivities; proposed that engineers spend less time on mathematics; andobserved that administration was, above all else, the art of managing people.

Fayol’s next pronouncement came on 14 June 1908 when he delivered aspeech for the Jubilee Congress of the Société de l’Industrie Minéral. Fayol’saddress covered the 50-year history of Commentry-Fourchambault andDecazeville (Comambault), its acquisitions, such as the takeovers and mergerswhich had created the large mining and metallurgical combine, and the policies,organization and administrative procedures which had finally led to its success

JMH1,3

10

and survival. Only a portion of Fayol’s speech of 1908 was published, but adraft copy was obtained by Arthur Bedeian from Henri Fayol’s son. Entitled“L’exposé des principes généraux d’administration”[12], this account of generaladministrative principles provided another stage in the evolution of Fayol’sideas.

Fayol stressed that certain previous administrative actions had led thecompany to near ruin, while different administrative procedures had restoredits prosperity. He said that the effect of administrative procedures on businessactivities was not known with certainty, but in his experience he had seen bothdefective procedures and effective ones and concluded that: “…the success of anenterprise generally depends much more on the administrative ability of itsleaders than on their technical ability. Nevertheless, it is certain that a leaderwho is a good administrator but technically mediocre is generally much moreuseful to the enterprise than if he were a brilliant technician but a mediocreadministrator[12, p. 3].

The principles in 1908 were:(1) unity of command, “every action must be ordered by one person only”; (2) the hierarchical transmission of orders, “chain of command”;(3) a separation of powers which involved defining and delimiting activities

through authority, subordination, responsibility and control;(4) centralization, the extent to which authority would be delegated

(decentralized) or not;(5) order, “a place for everything and everything in its place”.

These five principles had to be supplemented by discipline and anticipation. Inlater writing Fayol would extend these five to 14 principles which he had founduseful from his experience. He maintained that principles were not rigid butflexible and capable of adaptation and served as lighthouses to guidemanagerial actions. Anticipation, or foresight ( prévoyance), would become inlater writing the planning job of the manager. In 1908 Fayol indicated the needfor long-range planning and the need for adapting to changing environmentalcircumstances. Contrary to a myth perpetuated by modern writers, Fayol didnot see the firm as a closed system:

Anticipation is even more necessary and much more difficult to achieve when the enterprise islarger and when the cycles of production and consumption are longer…Nevertheless, it is verynecessary to make plans and programs for longer periods…One cannot anticipate withprecision everything which will happen over a longer period but one can minimize uncertaintyand carry out one’s program as a result…

Far from diminishing that freedom of action which is always good to have, a thoroughlystudied program will strengthen this liberty in difficult times by allowing all attention and allavailable forces to be focused on the threats. Besides, any long-term program should besusceptible to being changed according to the variety, complexity and instability of events.Like any living object the industrial enterprise undergoes continuing transformations: thepersonnel, the tooling, the methods, even the goals of the association change; the programmust without ceasing be kept, as far as possible, in harmony with the environment[12, p. 15].

Henri Fayol:learning from

experience

11

Fayol also discussed the need for an organization chart to provide a view of thedepartments and their relationship to one another, who was in charge, and howthe hierarchical route for communication was defined. This chart should bereviewed annually to ensure its usefulness. Fayol also presented certain toolswhich managers used: accounting statements, conferences for co-ordinationand frequent reports, although managers should avoid becoming engrossed indetail and red tape. Fayol promised to address the subjects of recruitment,organization and direction of personnel but those items had to wait. By 1914 hismajor work was ready for publication, but the First World War intervened andit would not be published until 1916.

Experience and theory: new assessmentsAs Harold Koontz concluded, the test of management theory must be in thepractice of management and must be developed from reality. Henri Fayolprovided the foundation for management theory from his experience and hishope that: “once the stream [of theory] has started to flow it will not bestemmed. It is a case of setting it going…[and] that is what I am trying to do bypublishing this survey, and I hope that a theory will emanate from it”[7, p. 16].Management scholars have paid much attention to Fayol’s major work,Administration Industrielle et Générale[10] to the neglect of his othercontributions. This special issue goes beyond what has been accepted as thecomplete Fayol to illustrate, through previously unknown or untranslatedworks, a richer analysis of his contributions.

The Japanese scholar, Tsuneo Sasaki, spent a year in France studying theFayol family through public records and other original sources. The ancestorsand descendants of Fayol are discussed, providing a more completeunderstanding of Fayol and those who were close to him. Fayol’s relationshipwith his son, Henri Fayol fils, is examined as well as the role of the Fayols in theinternational management movement. Sasaki’s research has never before beentranslated, and this issue presents a first look at Fayol’s family.

At the end of Administration Industrielle et Générale, Fayol promised topublish more of his work, but US readers did not find that material readilyavailable. From archival sources in France, however, Donald Reid provides anilluminating discussion of Fayol’s personal observations and experiences. Fromunpublished and untranslated sources, Reid enables us to understand theevents and forces which led to Fayol’s views of planning, labour relations, therole of the board of directors, and other insights. Perceptively, Reid concludesthat Fayol’s previously unpublished works provide a clear view of the problemsFayol faced as a manager and how this further evidence does not support thosecritics who felt that Fayol’s ideas lacked generalizability.

Fayol saw his role as starting the management theory stream flowing and tothis end formed the Centre for Administrative Studies in Paris. John Breezeprovides a thorough examination of the formation and development of thiscentre. The first product of the centre was a collection of readings, many byFayol, which indicated the interest in and applicability of Fayol’s theory in other

JMH1,3

12

settings. Through Breeze’s translation and presentation of L’Eveil…, it ispossible to see how Fayol’s ideas were being tested in comparable situations,promoting the conclusion that Fayol’s theory was capable of generalization.

The concluding article by Donald Reid yields an overall perspective on Fayoland the events which influenced his theory building and how he has beenviewed by critics and supporters. Through Reid’s “3D glasses” we learn ofFayol’s acceptance in the USA, but that he did not receive the same acclaim fromFrench scholars. Yet, through the years and in spite of the critics, Fayol still hasan appeal for us today.

Notes and references1. Bergson, H., “The philosophy of Claude Bernard”, in Bergson, H., The Creative Mind

(translated by Andison, M.A.), Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, pp. 238-47.2. Fayol, H. fils (son), quoted in Chambers, P., “Europe’s greatest management pioneer”,

International Management, Vol. 29 No. 6, 1974, p. 50.3. Lévy-Leboyer, M., “The large corporation in modern France”, in Chandler, A.D. Jr and

Daems, H. (Eds), Managerial Hierarchies, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1980,pp. 117-60.

4. Fayol, H., diary entry of 29 July, 1898, in Blancpain, F. (Ed.), “Les cahiérs inédits d’HenriFayol”, Bulletin de l’Institute International d’Administration Publique, Nos 28/29, 1973, p. 23.

5. Koontz, H., “The management theory jungle”, Journal of the Academy of Management,Vol. 4 No. 3, 1961, pp. 183-4.

6. Koontz, H. (Ed.), Toward a Unified Theory of Management, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY,1964, p. 109.

7. Fayol, H., General and Industrial Management, (translated by Storrs, C.), Pitman & Sons,London, 1949, p. 41.

8. McGuire, J.B., “Management and research methodology”, Journal of Management, Vol. 12No. 1, 1986, pp. 5-17.

9. Glaser, B.G. and Strauss, A.L., The Discovery of Grounded Theory, Aldine Publishing,Chicago, IL, 1967.

10. Fayol, H., Industrial and General Administration, translated by Coubrough, J.A.,International Management Institute, Geneva, 1930, p. 179.

11. Fayol’s remarks, “Discours prononcés par M. Henri Fayol…à la Séance Solonelle deClôture”, were printed in the Bulletin de la Société de l’Industrie Minérale, in 1901, and havebeen translated by Coubrough, J.A., and included in his 1930 translation of Fayol’sbook[10].

12. Fayol, H., “L’exposé de principes généraux d’administration”, unpublished paper,translated by John Breeze, provided by Henri Fayol fils to Arthur G. Bedeian, translated byJohn Breeze, 1908.