Shop Class as Soulcraft
By Andy Wagner: The New York Times recently published an essay by Matthew Crawford, based on his new book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work. In his inquiry into the value of work, Crawford takes…
Tag Taylorism
Taylorism is often confused with Lean, but they are fundamentally different approaches to work, leadership, and respect for people.
Taylorism refers to early “scientific management” approaches that treated work as something to be optimized for people rather than with them.
Posts included here examine time-and-motion studies, command-and-control thinking, and why Lean is often misunderstood when it’s confused with Taylorism instead of grounded in respect for people.
More Retail Taylorism (The Whole Story)
Updated 11/17/08 10 PM central If you have WSJ access, check out today’s article “Stores Count Seconds to Trim Labor Costs”. I thought, oh no punitive Taylorism… And sure enough they reference Taylor. Be sure to see the end of…
Thinking is For Factories, Too
Seth’s Blog: Henry Ford and the source of our fear I really like Seth Godin’s blog… but when he steps into “Lean” territory, he tends to be wrong (as he was last year). In his recent post, he explores the…
Teaching "How to Think" not "What to Think"
I heard a great phrase, the Army liaison officer to the White House, Col. Chris Hughes, saying on cable news, “we teach our young soldiers and officers how to think, not what to think.” From a quick Google search, this…
God Forbid You Actually Listen to the Bottom 98%
Management Leaders Turn Attention to Followers – WSJ.com This article caught my eye, this idea that someone other than top executives might actually have some ideas. In “Followership,” a book being published this winter, Ms. Kellerman argues that a big…
“You’re the Time Study Man”: Taylorism, Lean, and Respect for Nurses
TL;DR: Being mistaken for a “time study man” reveals how often Lean is confused with Taylorist observation and speed-up tactics. True Lean in healthcare partners with nurses to reduce waste and improve care–without blame, stopwatches, or fear of layoffs. I…
Communists Hate Lean
Political Affairs Magazine – High-tech Capitalism and the Class Struggle: You might not want to click on the above link if you don’t want to risk a “cookie” on your computer from a communist publication. I’m not throwing the word…
The Tragedy of Waste
By Luke Van Dongen I was very fortunate to have met Bob Emiliani at the Linking Lean Thinking to Education conference in Worcester Mass last month. Bob has a wonderful combination of industry and academic experience and has several publications…
WSJ’s Wrong Conclusion on Frederick Taylor
Deja Vu – WSJ.com “Early Industry Expert Soon Realized a Staff Had Its Own Efficiency” The WSJ has it wrong on manufacturing, once again. Not that I expect the Wall Street Journal to be a friend of the “working man,”…
