Part 3--- Frederick Taylor's Relevancy Today

This is the last posting I will have on Frederick Taylor's contributions to the CI/ Lean, Leadership and Change fields, in spite of what many hold dearly to the contrary.  If you would like more information on Taylor's principles and how to employ the principles to today, fell free to contact me at: [email protected] and I will provide you with more insights to Taylor.

- "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 and coerced by his bosses, and the other left to his own unaided devices."

As we desire and believe today, leadership and those who add the value, no matter at which gemba, should be engaged in a cooperative, open communicative, mutually beneficial relationship which allows everyone to work to their highest potential and share in the organizational profits that come from the cultural and organizational concerted efforts, where creativity flourishes; innovation is embraced; and continual improvement is the "norm" rather than the "struggle" and "abnormal."

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

- "Scientific management fundamentally consists of certain broad principles, a certain philosophy, which can be applied in many ways, and a description of what any man or men may believe to be the best mechanism for applying these general principles should in no way be confused with the principles themselves...... It not here claimed that any single panacea exists for all the troubles of the working-people or of employers."

Taylor wanted to warn those who tried to implement his ideas, concepts and principles that Scientific Management was not the "total answer" for solving every problem. He knew that there was no system that existed then or would ever exist that, in reality, could be a panacea. However, sometimes we forget that no principle, no matter what "methodology" or "system" we believe in and practice or we might embrace, teach and practice, no system is applicable in 100% of the cases.  All systems are imperfect, created by Men, who are by their nature imperfect. Yet we undertake our behaviors and actions as if we were proselytizing others to gain converts to a "religion" or the "one true religion". 

So remember, every system is infallible and while we can be passionate about our beliefs, do not conflict passion with "infallibility". There must be a margin of error that allows for flexibility; adaptability; and evolution of our system(s), thought and practice.

- "Practically in no instances have they [the current practices] been codified or systematically analyzed or described. The ingenuity and experience of each generation[employee and management]-- of each decade, even, have without doubt, handed-on over better to the next.... who ...possess this mass of traditional knowledge, a large part of which is not in the possession of the management."

Again, Taylor is addressing the absence of written standardized work that is not on file; audited; and actually enforced rather than the shambles we see often in many organizations where little or outdated information on the "standards" are not possessed or documented. Without standardized work, every thing is useless and only short-term.

However, Taylor is also addressing the issue of " holding back" by team members and leaders, managers and support staff on how much work can actually be done with quality and efficiency; and the actual methods and tools that are used (which often differs between each team member performing the work or task in the manner which "they like."

This is a topic that we do not often actually face head-on or with any clarity. It often is assumed that everyone understands that "holding back work potential and methods" is perhaps the main issue in implementing Lean/CI/Leadership/Six Sigma and Change. Sometimes it is the leaders and managers who will not enforce the standardized work so things deteriorate back to chaos. Other times it will be the team members who do not want to follow the standardized work, and know that no enforcement for not following the standardized work will ever exist, or that no auditing to verify that standardized  work is being following is done.

- ...First, Wherein do the principles of scientific management differ essentially from those of ordinary [current back then] management?

Taylor's foresight with Scientific Management and connecting both the "harder tools of tasks, methods, and IE" with the "softer side of the people-side of Change." That was revolutionary at that time and even Ohno acknowledged later on Taylor's influence on him.

Today, we think of this today to be "common-sense", yet from Taylor's time till today that was often not the common, accepted practice. We owe much to Taylor in the area of Leadership; IE; Change; the "people side of change elements" alongside the more widely aspects of Taylor's "harder tactics".

"...why are better results attained under scientific management than under other types?"

In my opinion and others, Taylors insight and intuitive, gut-feeling, he had about the leadership; management; support; and team members was real-world, hands-on, experience, and common-sense based. It was built upon academic "learning"  and Taylor himself was well-read and academically taught. This allowed him to perceive and develop a system, Scientific Management, that addressed the deficiencies of the current management and cultural, work-world, and perhaps was the "leading star" for the future. We had new "gurus" and innovators that were also influential, even today, that often built upon Taylor's contributions; principles and tools.

It was the success and positive results for organizations and employees that resulted from following Taylor's Scientific Management, sometimes with some changes to adapt to a specific organizational culture and need that caused so many people to believe in Taylor and his Scientific Management approach.

"...Third, is not the most important problem that of getting the right man at the head of the company? And if you have the right man cannot the choice of the type of management be safely left in his hands."

Taylor's recognition of the impact that effective leadership was critical to the success of any change, the style of leadership which became part of the organizational culture, and heavily influenced how the organization would function departmentally as well as an organization-wide broad stroke, was revolutionary and prescient and has become a part of most of the Lean/CI/Change/Leadership/Six Sigma efforts today.

There is a dark side to trying to let any Leader, by him or herself, choose the management style. The style may prove to be "dysfunctional" and who then will save the organization from the Leader? There must be clarity, vision, and a precise understanding of what type of Leader and the style that will be brought into an organization, better than what is adhered to today. While there is training; teaching; literature covering the importance of Effective Leadership, a lot of it is misapplied resulting in Effective Leadership being one of the important causes for change failures.

If a Leader is already in the organization when the Change is undertaken, that is a greater, more delicate situation, because if the Leader has allowed a "dysfunctional and chaotic" environment to be the "norm" any change will have to include addressing this issue. It cannot be ignored. If it is not, the Change initiative will fail. Pure and simple.

So that is all!! Hope you found the 3 posts on Taylor informative and interesting.

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read the posts. Much appreciated.