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Robert Kanigel

The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency (The MIT Press) Paperback – January 14, 2005

by Robert Kanigel (Author)

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The definitive biography of the first "efficiency expert."

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) was the first efficiency expert, the original time-and-motion man—the father of scientific management, the inventor of a system that became known, inevitably enough, as Taylorism. "In the past the man has been first. In the future the System will be first," he predicted boldly, and accurately. Taylor bequeathed to us, writes Robert Kanigel in this definitive biography, a clockwork world of tasks timed to the hundredth of a minute. Taylor helped instill in us the obsession with time, order, productivity, and efficiency that marks our age. His influence can be seen in factories, schools, offices, hospitals, libraries, even kitchen design. At the peak of his celebrity in the early twentieth century, Taylor gave lectures around the country and was as famous as Edison or Ford. To organized labor, he was a slave driver; to the bosses, he was an eccentric and a radical. To himself, he was a misunderstood visionary whose "one best way" would bring prosperity to worker and boss alike. Robert Kanigel's compelling chronicle takes Taylor from privileged Philadelphia childhood to factory floor to international fame, telling the story of a paradigmatic American figure whose influence would be felt from the New Deal to Soviet Russia and remains pervasive—even insidious—today.

Print length

706 pages
Language

English
Publisher

The MIT Press
Publication date

January 14, 2005
Dimensions

5 x 1.77 x 7.75 inches
ISBN-10

0262612062
ISBN-13

978-0262612067
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Editorial Reviews

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An expansive and illuminating biography of both the man and the gritty industrial world he inhabited.—The New York Times—

From the Back Cover

"In the past man has been first. In the future the System will be first", predicted Frederick Winslow Taylor, the first efficiency expert and model for all the stopwatch-clicking engineers who stalk the factories and offices of the industrial world. In 1874, eighteen-year-old Taylor abandoned his wealthy family's plans for him to attend Harvard, and instead went to work as a lowly apprentice in a Philadelphia machine shop, shuttling between the manicured hedges of his family's home and the hot, cussing, dirty world of the shop floor. As he rose through the ranks of management, he began the time-and-motion studies for which he would become famous, and forged his industrial philosophy, Scientific Management. To organized labor, Taylor was a slave-driver. To the bosses, he was an eccentric who raised wages while ruling the factory floor with a stopwatch. To himself, he was a misunderstood visionary who, under the banner of Science, would confer prosperity on all and abolish the old class hatreds. To millions today who feel they give up too much to their jobs, Taylor is the source of that fierce, unholy obsession with "efficiency" that marks modern life. The assembly line; the layout of our kitchens; the ways our libraries, fastfood restaurants, and even our churches are organized all owe much to this driven man, who broke every job into its parts, sliced and trimmed and timed them, and remolded what was left into the work of the twentieth century.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press; 1st edition (January 14, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 706 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262612062
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262612067
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 1.77 x 7.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,943,777 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #98 in Engineering Management
- #634 in Industrial Management & Leadership
- #1,554 in Business Encyclopedias

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Robert Kanigel

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Robert Kanigel is the author of eight previous books, most recently "Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs," long-listed for the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for nonfiction and named an NPR best book of the year. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship, the Grady-Stack Award for science writing and, for his new biography of Milman Parry, a Public Scholar grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. His book "The Man Who Knew Infinity" was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and named a New York Public Library "Book to Remember"; it has been translated into more than a dozen languages, and was the basis for the film of the same name starring Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel. Kanigel and his wife, the poet S. B. Merrow, live in Baltimore. [robertkanigel.com]

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foobar

Riveting

Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2010

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For anyone with an interest in the history of management theory, the early twentieth century, or what life was like without the extreme material abundance that marks our civilization (and how we came to be that way), this book is phenomenal. Kanigel deserves special praise for his even-handed treatment of the subject and of the many controversies that surround it. I got the sense that, through writing this book, he came to really appreciate Taylor and fully understand his critics.

I especially appreciated that he refrained from drawing conclusions about how to reconcile Taylor's ideas with later movements or from reinterpreting him through modern eyes. Instead, he leaves this all-important work to the reader.

Overall, the book is extremely well done. I highly recommend it.

4 people found this helpful

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Shertzaik

Worth a lot more than .01

Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2016

Verified Purchase

Purchased this used for .01 because I'm very much into management practices. Today we have started self-directed work teams. This book outlines a complete opposite practice of a hierarchical command structure. As I was reading this thorough and interesting book, I was reminded of how labor unions came about and how work was such a chore for the common laborer. Thank goodness we have come a long way from these horrible work practices.

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Rebecca

Great product, arrived on time

Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2019

Good condition.

I could put this book down...

Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2013

Verified Purchase

This was so interesting, I couldn't stop reading it; Frederick WinslowTaylor's impact on our daily lives is amazing this was The One Best Way.

One person found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Very well researched. Concise and substantive.

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2017

Verified Purchase

Very well researched. Concise and substantive.

Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2016

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Excellent

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Todd Cherches - BigBlueGumball

This book is The One Best Way to learn everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about Frederick W. Taylor!

Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2014

Part biography, part history book, and part management study, this amazing piece of work kept me interested and engaged for every single one of its 685 pages. I was familiar with Taylor's "time-and-motion studies," and had read (and taught) his classic 1911 paper, "The Principles of Scientific Management," but I knew nothing about the man, himself, until reading this awesome tome.

As a management consultant, trainer, coach, and professor, I have a fascination with (ok, an addiction to) management books and theories, but reading "The One Best Way" was actually like watching an epic movie as the author, Robert Kanigel, leads you on an exciting journey to the time and place where "management," as a practice, and "management consulting," as an occupation, was born.

We all know by now that Taylorism has its pros and cons: On one hand, its methods and processes created efficiencies of scale never before possible, and we see its remnants today, everywhere from the government and the military to McDonalds and, yes, Amazon. In fact, most modern organizational structures, systems, and bureaucracies have its roots in Taylor's principles.

The negatives, which have been around since Day One are obvious: the dehumanization of the worker who is treated as nothing more than a disposable cog in a heartless and ruthless machine. The key, we've since learned, is to balance the "management" side -- the efficiencies and effectiveness of systems and processes -- with the "leadership" side that treats people humanely, as individuals, to engage and inspire them, and to help them maximize not only their performance and productivity, but also their potential. While there are thousands of business books available out there, they can all be traced back to Taylor's groundbreaking work. If Peter Drucker is considered the father of modern management, Taylor must be considered his forefather.

While some might find this book to be more than you ever wanted or needed to know about Taylor the man, if you are a student of history and/or of business, then I encourage you to travel back in time to the period of 1856 through 1915 to gain a greater appreciation for who Frederick Winslow Taylor was -- and why he was -- and decide for yourself whether his paradigm-shifting contributions to the world were for good...or evil. Or both. Reading this book is probably The One Best Way to find out.

4 people found this helpful

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Wally Bock

An excellent history about a man who changed the world

Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2005

Frederick Winslow Taylor virtually created some aspects of modern management. His influence was so powerful and so pervasive, that many things we now take for granted were concepts that he pioneered and if you hear about Taylor at all, it's usually with a strong negative judgpment.

Taylor, who did some of the very first efficiency studies, is vilified as the person who tried to turn people into machines. He's seen as the progenitor of the efficiency studies. The first of those assumptions is partially true, and the second is certainly true that needs to be set in context..

What author Robert Kanigal has done is clean up the facts and set Taylor in context.

He does this with an excellent history/biography. We learn that Taylor, who came from a wealthy background, also spent time working in machine shops. We find him learning as much from that process as from formal education; and claiming at times that the practical experience of working in a shop is necessary to understand industry - or at least industry as it was developing when he did his studies.

That time was the late 19th and early 20th Century. Even though the Industrial Revolution had been going on for awhile, factories were still developing into what we know them as today. Taylor showed how individual workers could be more efficient and effective. This was great for production, but not always popular with the workers he studied.

Taylor's studies gave rise to what was called "scientific management" and laid the groundwork for later "efficiency experts" like the Gilbreaths of "Cheaper by the Dozen" fame. His legacy is both positive and negative.

Part of his positive legacy is that Taylor demonstrated that you could actually study the way work was done and make improvements in the process. That's a powerful insight and like most powerful insights, it can be used for good or ill.

One of Taylor's famous studies, for example, tried to determine the most efficient way to shovel coal into steel mill furnaces. Taylor found that the mill could make great improvements in efficiency by changing things like the location of the pile of coal, the design of the shovel, and by allowing the shovellers to take periodic rest breaks.

Lots of folks who owned factories loved things like this. They got the shovels. The located the pile of coal where Taylor suggested. But they often left out things the didn't like, such as those periodic rest breaks.

What Taylor gave the world were powerful methods of analysis that can make factories and shops and offices more effective. In that sense, he would be the grandparent of techniques like operations research, statistical quality control and kaizen.

But, like the rest of us, Taylor was a product of his times, of his breeding, and of his experience. Like the rest of us, he had human flaws. The strength of this book is that it gives you a look at the whole picture.

You get to see just how remarkable Taylor's insights were, and how his life and experience shaped those insights. You get to see how others took what he had to say and used it both for good and for ill. And you get that all in a well-written biography that will hold your attention.

2 people found this helpful

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Rw Lawson

A Surfeit of Detail

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2003

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The subject of this book was one of the most influential people in the management area in the twentieth century, so the subject is certainly interesting. Unfortunately this book contains too much detail and superflous padding.
No doubt it is academically one of the most complete biographies
of this man, so if you want a fine reference work then buy it. But if you want an interesting read, then don't.
Long on words, but short on illumination.

One person found this helpful

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