A recent economist had a survey about the evolving nature of businesses. One quote I found interesting
“You can't have a bunch of hippies running a plant full of explosive hydrocarbons,” he says. “But would you rather have the plant operated by trained professionals, for whom pride in safe working is part of their personal identity, or by people who only work safely because they are afraid of the boss? The identification of discipline with hierarchy is a dangerous mistake.” Mr Fairtlough's preferred alternative is something he calls “responsible autonomy”, a form of organisation in which groups of workers decide for themselves what to do, but are accountable for the outcome.
The article goes on to say "But there are many reasons why companies are not in a hurry to adopt them." An article examining why 'scientific management' (the type of managment espoused by Fred Taylor) is not yet dead starts by describing the three main tenets of Taylorism.
The first principle of "scientific management" as Taylor called it, is the decoupling of the labor process from the skills of the workers: "The managers assume [..] 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".
The second principle is: "All possible brain work should be removed from the shop and centered in the planning or laying-out department".
The third principle is, that management should not leave it to the workers to decide how they go about their tasks. Instead, management should prescribe exactly how, and how fast, the tasks must be performed.
The author goes on to say that one of the key attractions of Taylorism is that it
"promises that the best possible method, "the one best way" will be used. Whether there exists a one best way to work may be a matter of philosophical debate. Taylor strongly believed in it."
Organizations will continue to practice a version of Taylorism as long as the people "at the top" always believe that their way is the best (and therefore the only) way. A worker who is treated like a machine will never contribute as much to the process as a worker who is truely engaged and whose knowledge is respected and harnessed. A organization that rejects Taylorism must therefore ensure that its workers not only have the knowledge and skills to do the job but that they also have values and beliefs aligned with their organization. Only then will an organization engender a culture of 'responsible automony' and allow all of its employees a chance to find fulfillment in their work.
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