At about the same time Woodrow Wilson was calling for a science of management, Frederick W.
Taylor (1856–1915) was independently conducting some of his first experiments in a Philadelphia steel
plant. Taylor, generally considered the “father of scientific management,” pioneered the development
of time and motion studies. Today, scientific management is frequently referred to as pseudo-scientific
management because of its conceptualization of people as merely extensions of machines—as human
interchangeable parts of a large impersonal production machine. Premised on the notion that there
was “one best way” of accomplishing any given task, scientific management sought to increase output
by discovering the fastest, most efficient, and least fatiguing production methods. The job of the scientific
manager, once the one best way was found, was to impose this procedure on the entire workforce.
Classical organization theory would evolve from this notion. If there was one best way to accomplish
any given production task, then correspondingly, there must also be one best way to accomplish a task
of social organization. Such principles of social organization were assumed to exist and to be waiting
to be discovered by diligent scientific observation and analysis.
Strangely enough, while Taylor’s 1911 book Principles of Scientific Management29 is the work for which
he is best known, the credit for coining the term scientific management belongs not to Taylor but to an
associate of his, Louis D. Brandeis (1856–1941). Brandeis, who would later be a Supreme Court justice,
needed a catchy phrase to describe the new-style management techniques of Taylor and his disciples
when he was to present arguments that railroad rate increases should be denied before the Interstate
Commerce Commission. Brandeis and his associates dramatically argued that the railroads could save “a
million dollars a day” by applying scientific management methods. The highly publicized hearings beginning
in 1910 caused a considerable sensation and vastly expanded Taylor’s reputation. Ironically, Taylor
was initially opposed to the phrase, thinking that it sounded too academic. But he quickly learned to
embrace it. So did the rest of the country. In the first half of the twentieth century, scientific management
was gospel and Frederick W. Taylor was its prophet.30 Taylor’s greatest public-sector popularity came in
1912 after he presented his ideas to a Special Committee of the House of Representatives to Investigate the
Taylor and Other Systems of Shop Management. A portion of that testimony is reprinted here.
Taylor’s comprehensive statement of scientific management principles was focused on what he
called the duties of management. These duties included:
1. Replacing traditional rule-of-thumb methods of work accomplishment with systematic, more
scientific methods of measuring and managing individual work elements
2. Studying scientifically the selection and sequential development of workers to ensure optimal
placement of workers into work roles
3. Obtaining the cooperation of workers to ensure full application of scientific principles
4. Establishing logical divisions within work roles and responsibilities between workers and
managemen