Corporate Biscuit

Who's Mr.Taylor?


There was this person named Frederick Winslow Taylor who postulated the Principles of Scientific management, with the results of his wonderful experimentations in the Bethlehem Steel corporation. Let me just tell you what the principle is all about...simply put, it just tries to say that upon clear investigation and experimentation, we can narrow down to one optimum way of doing a work, with the least possible fatigue. That's how he narrowed down to a shovel size with which the labourers can carry 21.5 pounds of raw unprocessed iron. The exact weight of 21.5 pounds means that the labourers can work all day (in the optimised pattern) with the least possible fatigue and the maximum utilization of energy to provide maximum possible productivity. Essentially this was a win-win situation, but like every good idea, this principle too was not very unwelcome, and later I do not know what happened to it.


The Reason: we are humans, not machines, to work in a defined mechanised pattern.
Sounds really sensible!..Doesn't it?!

We can't be sure if this ideology of the aggressive capitalistic era still holds good today.
But had you thought about what you just read and asked me, I would give it a big YES, the difference being that there is nobody imposing it on us. Rather, we impose it on ourselves.

Starting from the chairs we sit in our office to the mobiles we use, we can see the brilliant touch of Frederick W Taylor, only if we are willing to see it!

Let me just give you the picture in bulleted points (after all, this is web and not a book and I value your time(That's a hint for my next blog!))

> From the chairs we sit to the mobiles we use, everything is "ergonomically" designed, why did we shell out huge sums of money to buy it?
...........cos we want maximum productivity with least fatigue.

> Our work timings are almost 45-48% of a day, and we almost always work outside the office which contributes to the work inside the office, HOW?
Being a worker in this timespan called the information era, we have no choice to stay ignorant. We have something that has to be learnt every single moment. Else what happens? In corporate lingo...we might become outdated (Hey, that makes me compare us to our PC's, Mac's and anti-virus softwares!...Oh my God,for a moment I forgot that I am a human!!!)

> How can I forget health and beauty!...Don't we corporates like being healthy to push ourselves better at work and be more appealing (convincing) to our clients, and win that contract!?

> Even now, after a good 9 hours work at the office, I am typing this with my music on! WHY? cos, I like music...NO, cos I can't afford to lose my cool right now... I got three more articles to write for a website and some cartoons for a column! Why do I do this? because Taylor lives in all of us.

> Then comes the weekend, the only time when we can equip ourselves with courses and trainings, like foreign language courses, certification courses and professionalism workshops etc...PASSION?...No...for career advantages and to have that "Edge" over others in this competitive world.

So here I see the idea of scientific management assume immortality in all of us...it doesn't care whether we know that it exists or not, we don't care whether it exists or not, But YES, IT DOES LIVE IN ALL OF US.

If you successfully made to this line of the article...Taylor is in you too!
Trust me, I have a friend who couldn't make it to this line!
There still are some people who are uncorrupted by Taylor's soul, they choose to live a life which is less pushy and more pleasant, but we call them De-motivated workforce!

Further reads:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor

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