Simon Head: The Influence Fredrick Winslow Taylor (Blog/Extra Credit)

 Simon Head considers Fredrick Winslow Taylor to be an extraordinary influence on modern civilization that should be mentioned along with the rest of the minds in history that have shaped the world as we know it.  However, many people have never even heard of Fredrick Winslow Taylor.  I am someone who knew of Fredrick Winslow Taylor and briefly of his work, but I never really grasped the true impact he had and how his ideas are still referenced and in use today. 

Simon Head took us through the “Three Centuries” of Fredrick Winslow Taylor’s life, work, and influence on our world.  Head described Taylor’s work as being part of the “River of Industrialism” from him bringing about his ideas of scientific management, to his ideas influencing the rise of Japanese production methods, to eventually the fusion of scientific management with information technology in today’s world.  Scientific management is a method that has been very influential throughout history as Head explains its use in applications such as the flexible mass production of General Motors, its use in aircraft production, and in Japanese production where it was implemented by companies such as Toyota. 

Through all of this great influence of scientific management and the ideas of Taylor, what was most interesting to me was to hear the actual motives of Taylor and his scientific management was to deskill our work force.  His main intention according to Head was to transform processes and make machinists and labors less skilled to the point where a process could just be memorized and require little to no skill.  The Japanese took these ideas and put them to use in taking the process of micro production and deskilling it entirely.  Simon Head went on to explain how we have ultimately transformed from a manufacturing to a service economy referencing this “Digital Age” we live in where powerful service companies such as Walmart and Amazon are coming about.  An interesting example Head used was his description of Xerox and how they applies scientific management to complex processes and utilized computers in call centers to help customers which in hand deskilled call center workers and managers. 

This idea of workers becoming deskilled is something that I agree with to an extent.  In today’s world everything is becoming computerized and virtualized and individuals are less likely to think for themselves and debate ideas when they have powerful tools such as Google at their fingertips to give them answers to every problem they may face.  Therefore, it is easy to see the bright side and dark sides that came along with scientific management and Fredrick Winslow Taylor’s ideas.  While Taylor and his ideas were widely influential his ideas also resulted in criticism because of the exploitation of workers and the pressures it put on them and managers as well as the fact that Taylor had a strong mechanical approach to ideas to get this done faster and more efficient, but he never considered the human element and looked at humans as machines.