Why Managers Disliked a Scientific Manager

Why Is There Such an Apparent Dislike for Frederick W. Taylor

By Rom Antony Day

Thursday, July 02, 2009

I think that it is not a disdain against him personally as much as it is a dislike based on hearsay of his methods that maybe arose back during his days from the older conservatively cautious management who looked out for the well-being of their companies and often U.S.A. Federal Government Agencies and the armed forces inclusive.

As a result of a most thorough book written about him, I understand Frederick W. Taylor writings were of such an advanced English writing composition type and about methods and systems which were so new that they felt foreign to readers already entrenched in other management systems.

Thus experienced managers, from the late 1800s to early 1900s at around age forty on the average, felt themselves unable to grasp where Taylor was coming from with his then new management way.

I read that while the older pack could not get a grasp on, generally, the very well-defined management methods he proposed and used, the younger one was able to.

Shall you have an interest in the methods, processes and concepts in his contributions to management used today, you may want to avail yourself of a 2007 article I authored titled Frederick W. Taylor’ Contributions to Personnel Management.

References

* Frank Barkley Copley; Frederick W. Taylor Father of Scientific Management, Vol. I and II, First edition 1923, reprinted 1969