When viewed against the backdrop of the Schmidt story, it is not difficult to understand why Follett and Taylor are frequently portrayed as pursuing different approaches. Follett posits a connection that might catch some readers off guard. "From one point of view," she suggests, "one might call the essence of scientific management the attempt to find the law of the situation" (Fox & Urwick, 1973, p. 29). And as it turns out, advocates of scientific management also understood the connection with Follett's work. Virtually all of Follett's major concepts were viewed as confirming and extending Taylor's theory in a 1929 celebration of scientific management compiled by members of the Taylor Society (Person, 1929).
What, then, is the connection between Follett's work and scientific management? At one point during 1912 congressional hearings on scientific management, Taylor (1947) asserted, "What I want to make clear is that the old arbitrary way of having a dictator, who was head of the company, decide everything with his dictum, and having his word final, has ceased to exist" (p. 189). The premise on which Taylor based this assertion is contained in the following passage: