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Sly-entific Management 4

Previously in this series: First, Second, Third

So, what makes scientific management scientific? Originally, Taylorism was not referred to as Scientific Management, but as The Taylor Method. Taylor claimed it was rooted in scientific method, so Louis Brandeis, a progressive attorney, suggested the label. In a society crazy about science, the label stuck. So, the first reason this approach is called Scientific Management is that a clever lawyer, trying a prominent case, called it that. The case got press and the label was permanent. Slip over here for more ...

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Sly-entific Management 3

... Previously ...
First Installment
Second Installment

What starts as inspiration, gets explained as technique. Then technique gets taught as if that would induce inspiration.

The history of every management scheme, every movement since Scientific Management, has followed exactly the same pattern. It starts with some visionary, a real oddball, experiencing an insight. [Hey, that works!] Usually for no reason directly related to anything the oddball actually did (but sometimes due entirely to passionate public relations), the odd insight gets noticed. Perhaps it gets a little prominent press. Slip over here for more ...

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Sly-entific Management 2

... Continued from here.

Henry Laurence Gantt is not remembered as the Father of Scientific Management, but he was present at the birth. He knew the mother well. He worked 'under' Frederick Winslow Taylor at Midvale and Bethlehem, and was one of the four people closest to Taylor professionally. He knew how Taylor operated, and may have operated in the same autocratic way. It's a curious fact of history that most of the attempts to implement Scientific Management failed, and every implementation was achieved only by autocratic command. Slip over here for more ...

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Who Is Your Daddy?

Father.

Father is the painting of a blue house green. Father lives on the other side of the sky. Father is a cloudy day with sun. Father is an email, a phone call. Father is paperwork and publishers. Father is books and drives in the country. Father is fireplaces and snow. Father is the ocean I swim in. Father is a cascades volcano, a skyscraper. Father is large and powerful. Father is a bold line across a blank page. Father is a bowl of pasta, an arugula salad, a Christmas goose. Father is a day in June. A long day, where the sun shines almost till midnight.

Love,

Heidi

©2009 by Heidi Astrid Schmaltz, all rights reserved

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Sly-entific Management

Read your history. Not the retrospective history written from the distance of today, but the history published as daily dispatches in newspapers and the original writings of those who went on to make history. There you will find a different texture, because none of the authors knew what would come next, though many assumed they did. History stands upon folly enlivened by circumstance.

The word 'manager' has existed for about one hundred and seventy-five years; 'scientist' for perhaps just a few years longer. The melding of these two new concepts didn't take hold until two generations later. By then, corporations had grown beyond proprietorships manageable by the owner into geographically-dispersed, culture-straddling entities which were, by traditional means, unmanageable. Slip over here for more ...

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Taking Stock

We made an unusually rich haul at the Clarendon Farmer's Market this morning. Probably the last of the season's asparagus. Two quarts of the most delightful strawberries, and a pint of the first blueberries. A bag of beets, tops on. Another bag of yellow baby patty-pan squash. Garlic scapes (at last)! More of that perfect Greek yogurt, rich and sour, perfect for strawberry-dipping. One enormous fresh mozzarella ball. A bunch of fresh, yellow-stalked chard. Four perfect little purple eggplants for grilling. Some brown free-range eggs. A fresh sprig of Italian parsley.

Perfect until it came time to store our wonderful finds. This little apartment doesn't have a root cellar or an auxiliary beer fridge in the garage, not even a garage. It was time to clean out the also-rans. Time to make stock. Slip over here for more ...

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The Modern Chief Executive

I am the very model of a modern chief executive
My name is widely known and mostly used as if an expletive
I know you are a sucker, so I quote the Dow historical
From bull to bear and back again, my profits categorical.

I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters hypothetical
I leave it to my quants to understand the mere quadratical
About the buzz on Wall Street, well, I'm teeming with a lot o' news
But don’t expect me to explain the square of an hypotenuse.

Don’t expect me to explain the square of an hypotenuse
Don’t expect me to explain the square of an hypotenuse
Don’t expect me to explain the square of an hypotenuse Slip over here for more ...

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