Principles of Scientific Management Written by Frederick Winslow Taylor

The world today is a lot different from the world ten years ago. Furthermore, the world today is an entirely new one from the one we lived in one hundred years ago. There is no doubting we are living in a time of incredible rapid change. Every day, let alone every year, our society makes advancements towards bettering the quality of life of people. With change comes many things. For one, our society has experienced a shift away from the blue collar jobs and many new jobs have taken their place. Although there are thousands of new jobs today than their were hundreds of years ago, the efficiency of the working man and how one responds to their work has stayed consistent. In the Principles of Scientific Management, written by Frederick Winslow Taylor, Taylor discusses more than just outdated jobs such as pig handling. Rather he brings forth many interesting views concerning the management of work and how workers respond to incentives. The paper written by Taylor may come off as old fashioned but his points still hold true today.

“Captains of industry are born not made.” In the past this expression was the theory that everyone had bought into. Instead of teaching and instructing someone on how to perform a specific task, our society would rather wait for that “extraordinary” man to come along who knew all and did all. While Taylor understood the importance for finding a good man for every job, he also understood the importance of training an individual and putting him in a position to become successful. Frederick Taylor was a man way ahead of his time. In his paper he illustrates three topics all based upon the efficiency of work management. In his opinion, the inefficiencies which exist in daily acts can be prevented by systematic management, where laws, rules, and principles are used as the foundation. Taylor stresses that the system must come before the man in order for the system to become successful. Taylor’s work was the start of a new beginning where the search for the “ready- made, competent man” was over, and the onus for creating these type of men lied in the hands of the system.

“The principle object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee.” (PSM 1) In order to attain this maximum prosperity one must reach his maximum efficiency which can be defined as turning out his largest possible daily output. This whole concept sounds simple. As long as everyone works to their maximum ability he or she will achieve their maximum prosperity. While this statement does hold some truth, realistically speaking this goal is unattainable. Human nature gets the best of each person when he or she decides to not work up to their maximum potential. Like our forefathers, the real task at hand for working people has to do with attaining maximum prosperity while doing the least amount of work possible. This type of