Customer Reviews

The Principles of Scientific Management

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Let me caution you before commenting on this book. Most people who refer to Taylor and Scientific Management have not read Taylor, but about Taylor in secondary sources. So, forget what you have heard about Taylor. Keep an open mind.

Prior to Taylor, management tried to create output by providing incentives to workers. But pressure from peers kept workers from doing more work. Everyone agreed that this would lead to fewer jobs.

The virtuous cycle of higher performance, lower prices, more sales, and higher pay for workers and shareholders was not yet uncovered.

Taylor sees the results of the higher productivity mostly being of help to consumers, with the remainder of the benefit split between shareholders and workers. In that he was prescient. Advanced thinkers today are rediscovering this old truth, first elaborated by Taylor.

What I found to be delightful in the book was the emphasis on trying to approach the ideal practice, rather than being satisfied with the best of today.

Here are the key principles for your reference:

(1) develop a science for each element of a task to determine the most productive way to do that task (quality and quantity considered in terms of total costs)

(2) scientifically select and train those who can do the task the most effectively in what needs to be done, and provide all of the help they need

(3) create an environment where the person doing the task can be productive (this often involves systems limitations, like input from others)

(4) management has a role in designing the work, selecting workers who are ideal for the work, and helping the work be learned properly. There is an equal division between the worker and management in creating the right result.

In reading this list, I am reminded of Bill Jensen's new book, Simplicity, in which he calls for something rather similar to the broad concepts of Scientific Management. So although many people consider almost all existing management Taylorian, a closer examination would say that management is not doing its job.

The basic problem with Scientific Management was not that it was flawed, but that it took slow long to do that it was impractical to try too many experiments. The time and measurement experiments took forever. The calculations of multivariate problems were hard to solve in precomputer days. The change process was slow (usually 3-5 years).

The experiments that we all know about and applaud now (team-based learning and self-directed work teams, TQM, reengineering, and so forth) could have been addressed by the Scientific Management method as soon as the limitations described above could be lifted.

As a result, I think it is incorrect to be pro TQM or reengineering and anti Scientific Management. I believe that the basic principles are more compatible than not.

At some point, all of this becomes merely philosophical. I think you will find the case studies in the book revealing about what the potential for improvement can be in tasks that people have been doing for centuries (like laying bricks).

I was impressed that Taylor was so good at locating stalls of disbelief, misconception, communication, and bureaucracy. He had a keen sense of where mental models were wrong, and how to bust those stalls. In fact, he may have been the 19th century's first business stallbuster.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in understanding more about how measurements can be useful to identifying ways to improve performance for all of society.

Frederick Winslow Taylor comes straight to the point when he explains the reason for writing the book: First, "to point out the great loss which the whole country is suffering through inefficiency in almost all of our daily acts". Second, "to try to convince the reader that the remedy for this inefficiency lies in systematic management, rather than in searching for some unusual or extraordinary man". Third, "to prove that the best management is a true science, resting upon clearly defined laws, rules, and principles, as a foundation".

However, this starting point does not set the tone for the rest of the book. Taylor and his Taylorism/task management is more human than most people will tell you. This can be seen from the first page of the first chapter, where Taylor explains the principal of object of management, which "should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee".

Initially, Taylor starts with a short introduction and reasons of "soldiering" which he refers to as "deliberately working slowly as as to avoid doing a full day's work". Taylor then turns to his now-famous Scientific Management. The four elements which constitute the essence of scientific management are: First, the development of standardization of methods. Second, the careful selection and training of personnel. Third, extensive supervision by management and payment of bonuses. Fourth, an equal division of the work and responsibility between the workman and the management. Taylor uses some somewhat old-fashioned examples to explain task-management, such as pig-iron handling, bricklaying, and inspection of bicycle balls.

Just like other readers I expected something different from this book, since much of what is said about this book on MBA and management-courses is not true. I did enjoy reading this book, even though it is now somewhat out of date (originally published 1911), but it is amazing how much scientific management is still around us and the influence it still has on modern management (business process reengineering). It is written in simple English and is very thin for a management book with just 140 pages.

Taylor's ideas are commonly viewed as being antiquated because of the time and circumstances under which he worked. Not so! If you think TQM (including Deming, Juran, Shewart, and Taguchi) and Collaborative Management are the answer, you'll find the roots of of these and more in Taylor. It is true that Taylor applied his efforts mainly to work consisting of brute force - but that was the workplace world which existed then.

Before reading Taylor, you should first get up to speed on modern management/leadership concepts. Then, travel back to a time before machines replaced human labor. (If you are my age it should be easy!) Now read Taylor and use just a bit of imagination to visualize what he would be doing today. Then, and only then, can you begin to understand and appreciate what this man and a few other pioneers like him did.

Would his mindset change the way you do business? Then you'd better change because TQM and Collaborative Management are just Taylor on steroids. You can't understand management/leadership unless you understand Taylor. And you can't compete unless you understand both of these.

F.W. Taylor is where the serious student of scientific management begins. I believe that it's one of the best books on the subject that I've ever read - and it was an academic paper presented by Taylor almost 100 years ago. It's funny at times (and probably not meant to be), written in the academic style of the early 20th century. His movements back and forth between the theory and real life examples prove that he was one of the better economists of his day.

Taylor had humble beginnings (he was a shop laborer early in his career), and later he switched to consulting for various types of manufacturers. Peter F. Drucker and other scientific management gurus owe Taylor a debt of gratitude, which I'm sure they would readily acknowledge. All of us owe a debt to him as well. How can a firm reach greater efficiencies? Taylor suggested that firms do it in ways that even today are resisted and misunderstood by management. Increase workers' pay. Give them mandatory breaks throughout the day. Timing rest breaks between heavy lifting optimizes productivity. Please don't ignore these examples in the information age - Taylor was ahead of his time and perhaps even ahead of ours. Today's intelligent manager can still discover many useful ideas in this book.

It's not a terribly long work, and it's fun to read. I'm surprised that I was able to earn a BSBA without being required to read it, or parts of it. It's invaluable for firms and workers in any country, developed or undeveloped, and the firms that dare to utilize the ideas will be quite happy with the result: increased productivity, and therefore, increased profits. econ

Let's face it; if you're thinking about buying The Principles of Scientific Management, you don't need a review. You're either a scholar who's already quite familiar with Taylor and know why you want to read the original, or you're a student who's been assigned to read the book. I suppose an historian could offer a useful review of how this edition differs from other editions, but I can't do that.

I would, however, like to point out that the book is very readable, and that reading it gave me, for one, a much richer appreciation for the context in which Taylor was devising his theory, for the types of labor he was envisioning as applications. Most importantly, reading the original text surprised me with Taylor's thoughtfulness about his workers' well-being and how to convince them to accept Taylorist management. Taylor clearly had an intuitive grasp of worker psychology, which he did not formalize and which thus was not present in the brief summaries of Taylor I had learned.

So if you're one of the few people who is (a) interested in Taylor's work but (b) not sure it's worth the time to actually read Taylor, instead of simply relying on textbook summaries, I would like to urge you to pick it up. It's a quick read, and will add a great deal to the crude caricatures that I, at least, had learned.

Taylor is viewed as the grand father of business process re-engineering and the intellectual foundation for much of the work on business process change. Unfortunately few people who invoke Talyor's name have ever read his origional work on sought to understand his ideas. Most authors latch on to the essense of his ideas -- to look at the work, organize it as best as possible, measure it and improve it.

While these are important aspects of modern management, most people fail to understand the issues Taylor is trying to address. He must be read in the context of his times -- the late 19th and early 20th century when work was moving out of being a craft and into scientific-mass produced factory labor. When you consider the context-Taylors work is really about removing "slack" from work practices and standardization more than anything else.

Given that people are now talking about "knowlege work and empowerment" references to Taylor fall somewhat flat. The economy is moving back from factory to craft work based on knowledge.

The pamphlet is a good read for someone who wants to understand the intellecutal underpinnings of a process/workflow approach to management. In that regard it is higly recommended even it it takes some time to get through and you have to remember that this is a man of the 1870's and 1900's else you will get hung up on his ethinically insensitive comments -- particularly if you are Irish and other ideas.

Taylor's Principles of Scientific Management is unsurpassed by any other in its' understanding of the job of management and the worker. Taylor's book shows what good quality critical thinking applied to industry can accomplish. Taylor placed the burden of management totally on management and not the worker unlike so much of the worker incentive and innovation crap that we hear today. Taylor's manager really knew what he was doing and was not just a slave-driver as was common in his day and our day. Taylor had been a worker as well as manager and understood what motivated the first-class worker so as to get top performance out of him. Hint: It's not goofy awards or kudos or gain sharing or profit sharing. This book should be required reading for all managers and workers.

I am neither a scholar nor a student required to read Taylor. Instead, I am an IT consultant and MBA who wanted to go back and fill in some of my literature gaps. I have read many books that refer to Taylor's Scientific Management in the context of time and motion studies, and outmoded commant-and-control management. Having now read the book, I am pleased at what a thoughtful and inciteful piece it really is.

It seems that Taylor is outlining the fundamentals of workflow management involving a large component of human labor. He includes concepts we might today refer to as actors, tasks, routings, measurement, feedback and enablers--all necessary ingredients to process design and optimization. His take on efficiency improvement also reads like the basis for lean manufacturing or operations. Pages 92-93 summarize the notion of time and motion studies.

I was also pleased with his key idea of integrating management with the frontline workers, for the purposes of coordinating, teaching, monitoring and assisting--something not done at the time. This concept appears time and again in business writings. In fact, in the last month I read similar ideas in James Champy's "Re-engineering Management" (1995) and McKinsey Quarterly's, "Unlocking the Potential of Frontline Managers" (Aug 2009). It's been 100 years, and Taylor is still holding up!

Although dated this short book contains intersting lessons. The book presents scientific management. Scientific management applies to the management of industrial processes and is based on four principles:
- Development of a science: The various ways of doing the task are analyzed and the best way is identified (note that further progress may be made due to new innovation);
- Selection and training of the work force: The most suitable people are hired and trained to perform according to the science;
- Constant help and feedback: The employees receive regular feedback on their work and help if they are falling behind;
- Deep management involvement in production: Management plans ahead to make sure that the tasks are performed in the best possible way.
The book also emphasizes the human aspect of management: change can only be done slowly and by convincing the employees of the benefits. This explains why it takes a long time to switch to scientific management. Employees need financial rewards for performing well and employees who create better practices should also be recognized and rewarded.
Most examples in the book are dated and not particularly relevant today. They still provide data to judge the improvements that scientific management may provide. The language is also dated and politically incorrect. However if you do not let this distract you, the core of the book remains relevant. Even for modern intellectual work, there are many lessons that can be learned from the book. For example, for software engineering (which I am familiar with):
- Make sure that you use the best practices ;
- Hire smart people and give them the right tools;
- Give feedback on performance and training when needed;
- Actively manage the project, especially the scope of the project when changes occur.
Although scientific management can be applied to turn employees into automata, there is something good about its emphasis on hard numbers and best practices.
I suggest that you read the book with an open mind and pick the core material that applies to your situation.

When Frederick Taylor wrote his paper in 1911, "The Principles of Scientific Management," it would appear to be the way to go in managing and motivating people. At least, that would be lessons taught in our education system, thus his rhetoric would echo the halls of many of our business schools as the gospel of economics.

I would learn otherwise, once I got out into the real world and would be handed the responsibility of managing personnel. I would learn very quickly that 'Taylorism' is not the answer; the principles of management taught by the late Dr. Edwards Deming is 'the only way to go.'

Taylor spoke about rewarding good men (employees). This bit of mandate called for scoring and ranking workers. Now, how can one "compare" someone who is really good at a given task against someone who is good at another task? These two individuals may well be very good at what they do; however, it quite often requires a mix of these talents to produce a quality product or service.

To deal with those who slack off, you hire the best and set a high-standard pass-fail system. I've been on teams where I was considered to be the best and if I had slacked off, I would have been thrown off the team (and essentially let go). It takes a lot of management know how by people who'd worked the production floor for years to implement this team leadership.

Another problem with grading is that it becomes a popularity contest. If a teacher or supervisor likes you, they grade easy on you; otherwise, you're out of luck. So much for totem-pole integrity.

So there's a time and place for everything. In order for you as an entity to compete in the marketplace, you must have your employees collaborating to present the best solutions. To enhance the rewarding effects of teamwork, provide the workforce a form of profit/loss share such as stock options. Should everyone do their part and it leads to a successful business, everyone wins.

As depicted in the movie "Hoosiers," Coach Normal Dale stripped the super-egos of the high school basketball squad down to nothing and rebuilt it as a team. He said it twice in the film: "Team. Team. Team. No one is more important than the other." Based on a true story, the small-town team would win the Indiana Championship in 1951.

Yes, as perpetuated by the late Dr. Deming, it's a rich blend of individualism (those who are challenged by team mates to excel to all heights) and teamwork (those who can take their rich talent and make it function as a competitive unit). That to me is sheer capitalism in its finest hour.

For Mr. Taylor, his paper would become a 20th century boondoggle. Already, reports by economists suggest that developing nations are looking to Deming as the real only way to go. We either get on the bandwagon, or be left behind in the new economic dust.