The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency (Sloan Technology)

Though not nearly as well known as Ford or Edison, Frederick Winslow Taylor's influence on the modern age is no less significant; management guru Peter Drucker calls Taylor "the most powerful as well as the most lasting contribution America has made to Western thought since the Federalist Papers." Although Taylor's name may have been forgotten by the masses, the management practices he implemented have become the worldwide standard for efficiency. Taylor invented what became known as "Scientific Management," or simply "Taylorism," an approach to organizing factories and offices that placed workers within a rigid system designed for maximum productivity. Taylor broke down the machinery and management of industrialization, measuring each movement with stopwatch precision to deduce how the whole could operate more efficiently. A man perfectly suited to his times, he lived during the peak of the Industrial Revolution, providing him a grand stage for displaying his ideas. Today his legacy may be viewed by some as a sort of curse; the modern workplace he helped to create pits employees in a race against the clock, virtual slaves to a system created nearly a century ago. The One Best Way is a fascinating history of the man who revolutionized the way we do business and, in turn, the way we live.