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
One excerpt from the book that I remember vividly was Winslow saying he went up to a worker and told him (I'm paraphrasing), "Look, you brute, you're not educated enough to understand this but I'm going to tell you exactly what to do and I want you to repeat the process all day long. And if you do it my way, you'll be much more efficient and I'll pay you more."
I couldn't help but chuckle at how absurd talking like that to an employee sounds. But the serious side of me cringes since it shows how poorly so many employees were treated back then. Because of some comments like this, I can see why some people are really turned off by the work when they put it in today's context.
Winslow's work seemed to focus on doing something very basic. He tried to figure out the most efficient process for a particular job. But back then nobody bothered to study this and thus he made a big impact in his time. Of course, in today's world we've evolved past that point (hopefully!) and therefore the book isn't a must read for the average reader of management books.
But if you want a quick read on what things were like in the business world at the turn of the last century, then you will probably find this book interesting.
Greg Blencoe
Author, The Ten Commandments for Managers