Helping People and Organizations Manage the Future

You Should Know - Books

The Principles of Scientific Management
Frederick  W. Taylor
Originally Published 1911, Dover Publications 1997 Edition

For almost a hundred years organizational leaders have based their approaches to management on the work of a mechanical engineer named Frederick Taylor who summarized his ideas in his book the Principles of Scientific Management published in 1911. Taylor believed there was ‘one best way’ to do any job and that data was essential to finding that one ‘best way;’ his central thesis was that ‘in the past man had been first, in the future the system would be first.’ Like the air we breathe, Taylor’s ideas are everywhere, but - also like the air we breathe - they’re rarely seen and not often discussed. 

Taylor’s book as well as his experiments, writings, and speeches have left an indelible stamp on how today’s managers do their jobs. Peter Drucker has called The Principles of Scientific Management “the most powerful as well as the most lasting contribution America has made to western thought since the Federalist Papers;” Social commentator Jeremy Rifkin observed that Taylor “probably had a greater effect on the private and public lives of men and women in the twentieth century than any other individual;” and historian Anson Rabinbach suggested that “no other development in the history of industrial work had an impact equivalent to Frederick Winslow Taylor’s ideas of industrial organization.” Many of us may not know who Taylor was, but that doesn’t diminish the impact he continues to have on how we manage and more broadly how we lead our lives.

Almost every contemporary manager makes decisions based on Taylor’s ideas – reading his book provides insight into how many of us manage.

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