A Taste of Taylor

Excerpts from Taylor, Frederick Winslow. Principles of Scientific Management. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1998.

Contents Taylor's Purpose: Efficiency Taylor's Problem: The old style management Taylor's Solution: Scientific or Task Management Taylor's Assumptions About Human Beings About Managers About Labor-Management Relations About change Taylor's List of Management Duties Taylor's Goal What we forget about Taylor   Read Taylor for yourself.

I.       Taylor’s Purpose: Efficiency

A.     To make the country more efficient, as he says in his introduction:

1.     To show “the great loss which the whole country is suffering through inefficiency in almost all of our daily acts”

2.     To show that “the remedy for this inefficiency lies in systematic management, rather than in searching for some unusual or extraordinary man.”

3.     “To prove that the best management is a true science, resting upon clearly defined laws, rules, and principles, as a foundation. “

4.     Notice:

a.      He applied his ideas to all areas of life—“almost all our daily acts.”

b.     He rejected the possibility of finding enough extraordinary workers to make a difference.

c.      He regarded science as the best possible solution.

B.     To resolve the tension between the individual and the organization using a “scientific” method

1.     “The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employé.”

2.     “The majority of these men believe that the fundamental interests of employés and employers are necessarily antagonistic. Scientific management, on the contrary, has for its very foundation the firm conviction that the true interests of the two are one and the same; that prosperity for the employer cannot exist through a long term of years unless it is accompanied by prosperity for the employé, and vice versa; and that it is possible to give the workman what he most wants—high wages—and the employer what he wants—a low labor cost—for his manufactures.”

C.    To solve a problem of human motivation: “soldiering”

1.     When the same workman returns to work on the following day, instead of using every effort to turn out the largest possible amount of work, in a majority of the cases this man deliberately plans to do as little as he safely can to turn out far less work than he is well able to do in many instances to do not more than one third to one half of a proper day’s work. And in fact if he were to do his best to turn out his largest possible day’s work, he would be abused by his fellow workers for so doing, even more than if he had proved himself a “quitter” in sport. Under-working, that is, deliberately working slowly so as to avoid doing a full day’s work, “soldiering,” as it is called in this country, “hanging it out,” as it is called in England, “ca came,” as it is called in Scotland, is almost universal in industrial establishments, and prevails also to a large extent in the building trades; and the writer asserts without fear of contradiction that this constitutes the greatest evil with which the workingpeople of both England and America are now afflicted.ich the workingpeople of both England and America are now afflicted.

2.     Taylor sees three causes for under-working:

a.      Workers mistakenly believe that if they work too hard, people will be put out of work.

b.     Managers use methods that encourage slow work to protect the worker’s own interests.

c.      Managers allow and employees use “inefficient rule of thumb methods” to perform tasks.

II.     Taylor’s Problem: The old style management

A.    Different labels for the same approach

1.     “Rule of thumb” methods.

a.      Instead of having a deliberate method for performing a task, employees work according to inexact traditions passed on by their masters. Some of these methods may be efficient—but not all workers will perform them efficiently. Overall, these methods lack the precision necessary to achieve maximum efficiency.

      “The workmen in each of these trades have had their knowledge handed down to them by word of mouth, through the many years in which their trade has been developed from the primitive condition, in which our far distant ancestors each one practised the rudiments of many different trades, to the present state of great and growing subdivision of labor, in which each man specializes upon some comparatively small class of work.”

b.     These methods have evolved a la Darwin to a fairly refined level.

      “Thus the methods which are now in use may in a broad sense be said to he an evolution representing the survival of the fittest and best of the ideas which have been developed since the starting of each trade.”

c.      But these methods are not “codified or systematically analyzed or described.”

d.     There is not “one best way” to perform a task.

e.      Improved day work was substituted for the old slipshod method.

2.     Initiative and Incentive Management

a.      Managers over these workers realize that they themselves don’t know all these rule of thumb methods.

b.     Therefore, the workers must determine the best way to perform the tasks.

c.      The role of management, therefore, is motivational: to induce “each workman to use his best endeavors, his hardest work, all his traditional knowledge, his skill, his ingenuity, and his good will in a word, his “initiative,” so as to yield the largest possible return to his employer.”

d.     To get this “initiative” from the worker, the manager must offer some special incentive. “It is only by giving a special inducement or ‘incentive’ of this kind that the employer can hope even approximately to get the ‘initiative’ of his workmen.”

      This incentive can be given in several different ways, as, for example, the hope of rapid promotion or advancement; higher wages, either in the form of generous piece work prices or of a premium or bonus of some kind for good and rapid work; shorter hours of labor; better surroundings and working conditions than are ordinarily given, etc., and, above all, this special incentive should be accompanied by that personal consideration for, and friendly contact with, his workmen which comes only from a genuine and kindly interest in the welfare of those under him.

3.     Ordinary Management

a.      Ordinary management, therefore, is that management that necessarily results from the initiative-incentive culture. It is ordinary because it is common, unscientific.

b.     “Under the ordinary type of management the necessity for offering the workman a special inducement has come to be so generally recognized that a large proportion of those most interested in the subject look upon the adoption of some one of the modern schemes for paying men (such as piece work, the premium plan, or the bonus plan, for instance) as practically the whole system of management. Under scientific management, however, the particular pay system which is adopted is merely one of the subordinate elements.”

c.      As has been indicated before, the essential idea of the ordinary types of management is that each workman has become more skilled in his own trade than it is possible for any one in the management to be, and that, therefore, the details of how the work shall best be done must be left to him. The idea, then, of taking one man after another and training him under a competent teacher into new working habits until he continually and habitually works in accordance with scientific laws, which have been developed by some one else, is directly antagonistic to the old idea that each workman can best regulate his own way of doing the work.

B.    For Taylor, the old system of management encouraged solidering because it left to the worker the best way to perform the work:

1.     “The underlying philosophy of all of the old systems of management in common use makes it imperative that each workman shall be left with the final responsibility for doing his job practically as he thinks best, with comparatively little help and advice from the management. . . . Because of this isolation of workmen, it is in most cases impossible for the men working under these systems to do their work in accordance with the rules and laws of a science or art, even where one exists.”

2.     “Broadly speaking, then, the best type of management in ordinary use may be defined as management in which the workmen give their best initiative and in return receive some special incentive from their employers”

III.   Taylor’s Solution: Scientific or Task Management

A.    Task Management: in which the manager methodically determines the one best way to perform a task.

        Perhaps the most prominent single element in modern scientific management is the task idea. The work of every workman is fully planned out by the management at least one day in advance, and each man receives in most cases complete written instructions, describing in detail the task which he is to accomplish, as well as the means to be used in doing the work. And the work planned in advance in this way constitutes a task which is to be solved, as explained above, not by the workman alone, but in almost all cases by the joint effort of the workman and the management. This task specifies not only what is to be done but how it is to he done and the exact time allowed for doing it. And whenever the workman succeeds in doing his task right, and within the time limit specified, he receives an addition of from 30 per cent. to 100 per cent. to his ordinary wages. These tasks are carefully planned, so that both good and careful work are called for in their performance, but it should be distinctly understood that in no case is the workman called upon to work at a pace which would be injurious to his health. The task is always so regulated that the man who is well suited to his job will thrive while working at this rate during a long term of years and grow happier and more prosperous, instead of being overworked. Scientific management consists very largely in preparing for and carrying out these tasks.ly understood that in no case is the workman called upon to work at a pace which would be injurious to his health. The task is always so regulated that the man who is well suited to his job will thrive while working at this rate during a long term of years and grow happier and more prosperous, instead of being overworked. Scientific management consists very largely in preparing for and carrying out these tasks.

B.    Scientific Management: for Taylor, “scientific” implies a deliberate, rigorous method to determine the one best way to perform a task.

C.    Management takes on a more pro-active, hands-on role:

        The managers assume new burdens, new duties, and responsibilities never dreamed of in the past. The managers assume, for instance, the burden of gathering together all of the traditional knowledge which in the past has been possessed by the workmen and then of classifying, tabulating, and reducing this knowledge to rules, laws, and formulae which are immensely helpful to the workmen in doing their daily work. In addition to developing a science in this way, the management take on three other types of duties which involve new and heavy burdens for themselves.

IV.  Taylor’s Assumptions

A.     About Human Beings

1.     Regarded human beings as machines:

“In the same way maximum prosperity for each employé means not only higher wages than are usually received by men of his class, but, of more importance still, it also means the development of each man to his state of maximum efficiency, so that he may be able to do, generally speaking, the highest grade of work for which his natural abilities fit him, and it further means giving him, when possible, this class of work to do.”

2.     Employees by their very nature will tend to work slowly:

“This common tendency to ‘take it easy’ is greatly increased by bringing a number of men together on similar work and at a uniform standard rate of pay by the day.”

3.     The average worker is not smart enough to know how best to perform his work.

In almost all of the mechanic arts the science which underlies each workman’s act is so great and amounts to so much that the workman who is best suited actually to do the work is incapable (either through lack of education or through insufficient mental capacity) of understanding this science

4.     Taylor assumed the primary motivation is monitary:

“it is possible to give the workman what he most wants—high wages”

B.     About Managers

1.     The managers possess superior intelligence and skills to design the work properly:

“As engineers and managers, we are more intimately acquainted with these facts than any other class in the community, and are therefore best fitted to lead in a movement to combat this fallacious idea by educating not only the workmen but the whole of the country as to the true facts.”

2.     Managers are like generals who need reports from the battlefield.

Dealing with every workman as a separate individual in this way involved the building of a labor office for the superintendent and clerks who were in charge of this section of the work. In this office every laborer’s work was planned out well in advance, and the workmen were all moved from place to place by the clerks with elaborate diagrams or maps of the yard before them, very much as chessmen are moved on a chess board, a telephone and messenger system having been installed for this purpose.

C.    About Labor-Management Relations

1.     “In almost all of the mechanic arts the science which underlies each act of each workman is so great and amounts to so much that the workman who is best suited to actually doing the work is incapable of fully understanding this science, without the guidance and help of those who are working with him or over him, either through lack of education or through [10] insufficient mental capacity. In order that the work may be done in accordance with scientific laws, it is necessary that there shall be a far more equal division of the responsibility between the management and the workmen than exists under any of the ordinary types of management. Those in the management whose duty it is to develop this science should also guide and help the workman in working under it, and should assume a much larger share of the responsibility for results than under usual conditions is assumed by the management.”

2.     The relationship between labor and management should be “close and intimate,” employing “friendly help” to determine the best way to perform the work, and then to actually perform it. Not “driven or coerced.” Not “left unaided.”

a.      This close, intimate, personal cooperation between the management and the men is of the essence of modern scientific or task management.

b.     To work according to scientific laws the management must take over and perform much of the work which is now left to the men; almost every act of the workman should be preceded by one or more preparatory acts of the management which enable him to do his work better and quicker than he otherwise could. And each man should daily be taught by and receive the most friendly help from those who are over him, instead of being, at the one extreme, driven or coerced by his bosses, and at the other left to his own unaided devices.

c.      All of this requires the kindly cooperation of the management, and involves a much more elaborate organization and system than the old-fashioned herding of men in large gangs.

D.    About change

Taylor assumes the work will not change quickly. Therefore, he can establish a fixed scale of production and a specific method that the worker can perform routinely.

V.    Taylor’s List of Management Duties

A.     Four Duties

1.     First. They develop a science for each element of a man’s work, which replaces the old rule of thumb method.

2.     Second. They scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past he chose his own work and trained himself as best he could.

3.     Third. They heartily cooperate with the men so as to insure all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of the science which has been developed.

4.     Fourth. There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between the management and the workmen. The management take over all work for which they are better fitted than the [16] workmen, while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown upon the men.

B.    Overall, they design the work so labor does not have to

1.     Thus all of the planning which under the old system was done by the workman, as a result of his personal experience, must of necessity under the new system be done by the management in accordance with the laws of the science; because even if the workman was well suited to the development and use of scientific data, it would be physically impossible for him to work at his machine and at a desk at the same time. It is also clear that in most cases one type of man is needed to plan ahead and an entirely different type to execute the work.

2.     To summarize: Under the management of “initiative and incentive” practically the whole problem is “up to the workman,” while under scientific management fully one half of the problem is “up to the management”

C.    Managers are educated and guided by “logic” as they divide the work.

1.     When men, whose education has given them the habit of generalizing and everywhere looking for laws, find themselves confronted with a multitude of problems, such as exist in every trade and which have a general similarity one to another, it is inevitable that they should try to gather these problems into certain logical groups, and then search for some general laws or rules to guide them in their solution.

VI.  Taylor’s Goal

A.    This kind of relationship will improve both production output and wages, creating more jobs instead of fewer and will inspire labor to further progress.

Through this friendly cooperation, namely, through sharing equally in every day’s burden, all of the great obstacles (above described) to obtaining the maximum output for each man and each machine in the establishment are swept away. The 30 per cent. to 100 per cent. increase in wages which the workmen are able to earn beyond what they receive under the old type of management, coupled with the daily intimate shoulder to shoulder contact with the management, entirely removes all cause for soldiering. And in a few years, under this system, the workmen have before them the object lesson of seeing that a great increase in the output per man results in giving employment to more men, instead of throwing men out of work, thus completely eradicating the fallacy that a larger output for each man will throw other men out of work.

B.    Scientific management is not a cure-all, but can significantly improve a society’s economic welfare:

1.     Under scientific management the intermediate periods [between economic recessions] will he far more prosperous, far happier, and more free from discord and dissension. And also, that the periods will be fewer, shorter and the suffering less. And this will be particularly true in any one town, any one section of the country, or any one state which first substitutes the principles of scientific management for the rule of thumb.

2.     Perhaps the most important of all the results attained was the effect on the workmen themselves. A careful inquiry into the condition of these men developed the fact that out of the 140 workmen only two were said to be drinking men. This does not, of course, imply that many of them did not take an occasional drink. The fact is that a steady drinker would find it almost impossible to keep up with the pace which was set, so that they were practically all sober. Many, if not most of them, were saving money, and they all lived better than they had before. These men constituted the finest body of picked laborers that the writer has ever seen together, and they looked upon the men who were over them, their bosses and their teachers, as their very best friends; not as nigger drivers, forcing them to work extra hard for ordinary wages, but as friends who were teaching them and helping them to earn much higher wages than they had ever earned before. It would have been absolutely impossible for any one to have stirred up strife between these men and their employers. And this presents a very simple though effective illustration of what is meant by the words “prosperity for the employé, coupled with prosperity for the employer,” the two principal ob [36] jects of management. It is evident also that this result has been brought about by the application of the four fundamental principles of scientific management. any one to have stirred up strife between these men and their employers. And this presents a very simple though effective illustration of what is meant by the words “prosperity for the employé, coupled with prosperity for the employer,” the two principal ob [36] jects of management. It is evident also that this result has been brought about by the application of the four fundamental principles of scientific management.

VII. What we forget about Taylor

A.    Yes, Taylor does talk about communication as information flow for decision-making

Dealing with every workman as a separate individual in this way involved the building of a labor office for the superintendent and clerks who were in charge of this section of the work. In this office every laborer’s work was planned out well in advance, and the workmen were all moved from place to place by the clerks with elaborate diagrams or maps of the yard before them, very much as chessmen are moved on a chess board, a telephone and messenger system having been installed for this purpose.

B.    However, Taylor talks in detail about communication as a means of influence:

1.     Taylor gives the example of finding an efficient way to handle 92 lb pigs of iron: “This work is so crude and elementary in its nature that the writer firmly believes that it would be possible to train an intelligent gorilla so as to become a more efficient pig iron handler than any man can be. “

2.     A pig iron handler isn’t smart enough to figure out the best way to perform the task for which he may be perfectly suited physically. He needs a smart manager to direct him.

“It is impossible for the man who is best suited to this type of work to understand the principles of this science, or even to work in accordance with these principles without the aid of a man better educated than he is.”

3.     Bethlehem Steel needed to move pig iron from a field where they had stored back into the mill. The average worker moved 12 ½ tons of pig iron per day. Taylor determined a man should be able to move 47 tons per day.

There is a science of handling pig iron.”

4.     To perform the task at this level, Taylor selected a simple, strong, stingy “Pennsylvania Dutchman” named Schmidt.

5.     Taylor writes out the dialog for how to influence Schmidt to do the work. He analyzes the rhetorical situation and makes rhetorical choices:

This seems to be rather rough talk. And indeed it would be if applied to an educated mechanic, or even an intelligent laborer. With a man of the mentally sluggish type of Schmidt it is appropriate and not unkind, since it is effective in fixing his attention on the high wages which he wants and away from what, if it were called to his attention, he probably would consider impossibly hard work.

C.    Taylor calls his method “scientific” but it is also psychological, rhetorical, motivational.

1.     He want to “stir ambition.”

In a comparatively short time this record enabled the foreman to stir the ambition of all the inspectors by increasing the wages of those who turned out a large quantity and good quality, while at the same time lowering the pay of those who did indifferent work and discharging others who proved to be incorrigibly slow or careless.

2.     He wants to motivate through rewards.

A reward, if it is to be effective in stimulating men to do their best work, must come soon after the work has been done.

3.     He makes use of “personal ambition.”

Personal ambition always has been and will remain a more powerful incentive to exertion than a desire for the general welfare.

4.     He recognizes the affect of the group on motivation

The few misplaced drones, who do the loafing and share equally in the profits, with the rest, under cooperation are sure to drag the better men down toward their level.

5.     He anticipates the Hawthorne effect

Each girl was made to feel that she was the object of especial care and interest on the part of the management, and that if anything went wrong with her she could always have a helper and teacher in the management to lean upon.

6.     He recognizes the need for changing attitudes.

The change from rule of thumb management to scientific management involves, however, not only a study of what is the proper speed for doing the work and a remodeling of the tools and the implements in the shop, but also a complete change in the mental attitude of all the men in the shop toward their work and toward their employers.

7.     He emphasizes training

This change can be brought about only gradually and through the presentation of many object lessons to the workman, which, together with the teaching which he receives, thoroughly convince him of the superiority of the new over the old way of doing the work. This change in the mental attitude of the workman imperatively demands time. It is impossible to hurry it beyond a certain speed. The writer has over and over again warned those who contemplated making this change that it was a matter, even in a simple establishment, of from two to three years, and that in some cases it requires from four to five years.