First, the combination of reference and innovation. Taylor's scientific management thought is not Taylor's original creation, but the result of learning from previous management thoughts and reforming and innovating in practice. As urwick, an American management scientist, said: Taylor's job is not to invent a completely new thing, but to synthesize what Britain and the United States produced and developed in the whole19th century and form a set of ideas. He made a series of unorganized pioneering things and experiments have a philosophical system, which is called scientific management. "[14] It is Taylor's successful experience to learn from and innovate in practice, and it is also the experience of enterprise management all over the world. After World War II, the reason why Japan can develop rapidly in just a few decades, even surpassing the United States, is because it can set out from its own reality and create its own quality management model and team management method on the basis of learning the management ideas and experience of the United States, including Taylor system. In recent years, the reason why the United States can leap to the world economic hegemony again is that it has created a management model of "reorganizing organizations" in practice on the basis of learning from the experience of Japan and Europe. Since the reform and opening up, many enterprises in China have studied Taylor's scientific management theory and methods with great enthusiasm, generally strengthened quota management, standardized management, cost management, personnel training and on-site management in management practice, established and improved various rules, regulations and organizations, and gradually embarked on the track of managing factories according to law, and achieved remarkable results. For example, the one-vote veto of simulated cost, the selection of the best post, the selection of the best operation, the linkage between salary and bonus and performance, the dolphin-for-percentage award, the post salary setting and the improvement of systems and standards, and the Hanyu Second Management Work Law, etc. These can be said to be innovations based on Taylor system.
Adhere to the combination of learning and innovation, we must pay attention to avoid two wrong tendencies. The first one is "comprehensive transplantation", copying. Taylor's scientific management thought, although it reflects some universal laws in human management practice, is still worth learning and learning from. But different times have different realistic conditions, and different countries have different historical and cultural traditions. The environment we live in today is far from Taylor's era, and it is impossible to copy it completely. Moreover, Taylor has always believed that there is no fixed management model suitable for all situations, and the theory must be constantly innovated with the development of practice. Copying others, not knowing how to innovate, can only fall behind forever. The second is to be ambitious and catch up with the new trend. Some people think that Taylor's management thought originated from the era of scale economy, and now it is the information age. We should learn more advanced and better cultural management, and should not speculate on the "Taylor system". In fact, any management theory is a product under certain historical conditions and is produced to meet the needs of certain economic development. There is no difference between good and bad in itself. The key depends on whether it conforms to the actual situation at that time and whether it can better promote the economic development at that time. Although Taylor's scientific management thought originated from management practice nearly a hundred years ago, it is the foundation of enterprise management. Without the baptism of scientific management, any advanced management method can't be really implemented and applied. The shadow of Taylor system can be found in the experience of any successful enterprise in the world. Even the popular cultural management is developed on the basis of Taylor system, and it is implemented under the conditions that various management norms have been improved, social production efficiency and people's living standards have been greatly improved, the quality of employees has been better, and spiritual needs have exceeded material needs. At present, except for a few advanced enterprises in China, most enterprises do not have such conditions, and even the management foundation has not been laid well. They are generally in the stage of experience management, and blindly catching up with fashion is bound to backfire. What's more, even if cultural management is implemented, it needs to be guaranteed by scientific systems and norms, and scientific management cannot be completely abandoned.
In a word, Taylor's scientific management thought, like any other foreign theory, must adhere to the combination of learning and innovation. Adhere to the combination of digestion, absorption and practice, summary and innovation, and learn, practice, explore, summarize and innovate. Only in this way can our management theory and practice continue to develop and improve.
Additional features
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856- 19 15) is a famous American engineer and management scientist, and the founder of scientific management theory. For the first time, he systematically introduced scientific methods into management practice, collected the achievements of previous management thoughts and practical experience, founded scientific management, pioneered the study of western management theory, and made management truly become a science and develop. Taylor is therefore known as the father of scientific management and is respected by the world. Lenin once gave a scientific evaluation of Taylor's scientific management thought. He said Taylor system is the latest invention of capitalism. Like all other progressive things of capitalism, it has two aspects. On the one hand, it is the most ingenious and cruel means of bourgeois exploitation, on the other hand, it is a series of the richest scientific achievements. "[1]. He also stressed that the Soviet Union paid close attention to the new development of Taylor system, learned from and absorbed its advanced achievements, improved enterprise management and promoted economic development. Lenin's scientific evaluation points out the correct direction for us to study and learn from Taylor's scientific management thought.
Taylor's scientific management thought was formed at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century. Its fundamental content is to improve the efficiency of enterprises. At that time, the American capitalist economy developed rapidly and the scale of enterprises expanded rapidly. However, due to backward management, chaotic production, tense labor relations, a large number of workers muddling along, and the efficiency of enterprises is low. Taylor believes that the main reason for the inefficiency of enterprises is that the management department lacks reasonable labor quota and the workers lack scientific guidance. Therefore, we must apply scientific knowledge and scientific research system to management practice, scientifically select and train workers, scientifically study workers' production process and working environment, formulate strict rules and regulations and reasonable daily workload accordingly, mobilize workers' enthusiasm with differential piece-rate wages, and implement the exception principle of management. "In order to successfully implement scientific management, both employers and employees must carry out a great spiritual revolution, replace the struggle of opposites with friendly cooperation, and shift their attention from the remaining distribution to the remaining growth. In other words, the two sides must cooperate to maximize production profits, and scientific knowledge must be used instead of personal opinions or personal experience and knowledge "[2].
Taylor's scientific management thought has far-reaching influence. As the famous management scientist urwick said, many, if not most, of the so-called modern management sciences can be traced back to the ideas put forward by Taylor and his followers half a century ago. Although these management methods have been improved and developed almost beyond recognition, their core ideas can usually be found in Taylor's works and practice. "[3] Even today at the turn of the century, Taylor's scientific management thought is still shining and full of vitality.
On the whole, the author thinks that Taylor's scientific management thought has obvious characteristics such as practicality, scientificity, standardization, coordination and efficiency.
Practical. Taylor believes that management practice precedes management theory and is the source of management theory. As a doer, he attaches importance to practice and strongly hopes to reform enterprise management and create management theory from reality. His scientific management thought is the crystallization of more than 20 years of practical experience in factory management. Every achievement of his comes from practice and is tested and improved in practice. He respects practice, and he will not hesitate to abandon all measures and methods that have been tested by practice as inappropriate and pursue the best. "He is also willing to practice. In order to explore the best management method, he led his assistant to carry out long-term experiments, and the experiment of metal chip technology alone lasted for 26 years. In order to improve the efficiency of the boiler cleaner, he climbed into the boiler several times to seek the best working methods and procedures. He believes that management should proceed from reality, find problems, clarify problems and solve problems. In order to improve the production efficiency of the enterprise, he conducted various experiments, adopted various methods, and joined experts in various fields (mathematicians, psychologists, experts in action and time analysis, etc.). ) The combination of scholars and managers has created a set of efficiency measures that still play an important role, and created a precedent for all kinds of professionals to serve as management consultants. The management ideas, principles and methods he advocated, as well as his more than 40 invention patents, are the results of direct practice. His work in Midvale Iron and Steel Plant and Bethlehem Iron and Steel Company is an important period of his life in management practice, and his management thought is largely a summary of practical experience in this period. Of course, Taylor's practice is by no means blind, but under the guidance of previous management thoughts, he creatively innovated their thoughts in practice. As he himself said, scientific management is nothing new, but a summary and promotion of previous human management thoughts. He is always so humble, never satisfied with his achievements, and always explores and develops in practice. He once said: every step of scientific management is development rather than theory. In all cases, practice precedes theory. ..... People I know who are related to scientific management are ready to give up any plan or theory and support to find a better one. In scientific management, nothing is fixed. " [4] Management is a practical science, which will develop with the development of practice. This shows the dynamic nature of scientific management, which is the vitality of Taylor's scientific management thought. Taylor believes that the wisdom of each generation has put forward some faster and better ways to participate in every part of every industry. Broadly speaking, some methods adopted at present are evolved, which marks the survival of the fittest and is the best idea since the establishment of various industries. "[5] However, due to the different practical basis and conditions of each generation, their theories are relative, and there is no management theory that is completely applicable to all times and conditions. For nearly a hundred years, Taylor's thought has been guiding management practice and theoretical research, which has made his theory develop rapidly since it came into being.
Scientific. Taylor introduced science into management practice, replaced pure personal experience with scientific research and methods, raised the sensibility in traditional management to rationality, broke through the myth that management is an intangible art and a talent formed by people for thousands of years, and made management a science of research and teaching. The scientificity and practicality of Taylor's thought are inseparable. His theory is a scientific summary of the effective experience of himself and his predecessors in management practice, which reflects the inherent law of management to a certain extent, conforms to the objective reality and has withstood the test of management practice, so it is scientific. In Obedience of Congress, he once said that people initially called his theory scientific management because people thought his various efficiency measures and his differential piece-rate wage system were the result of strict scientific experiments. Taylor doesn't think this is the main thing. His theory deserves such a name because its basic principle is scientific. He summed up this principle in four aspects: first, the manager summed up the traditional knowledge, skills and know-how accumulated by workers through long-term practice, compiled them into tables, then summarized them into laws, codes and even mathematical formulas, and then implemented them throughout the factory. Second, scientific selection and continuous training of workers. On the one hand, study everyone's personality, performance and ability; On the other hand, it is more important to discover the possibility of each worker's development, train, help and guide each worker step by step and systematically, and provide them with opportunities for progress. In this way, the worker can engage in the highest, most interesting, most advantageous and most suitable job in the company that employs him. "[6] Third, combine scientific, scientifically selected and trained workers, forcing both sides to use scientific working methods instead of previous empirical methods. Make workers smarter "instead of working harder. Fourth, workers and management maintain constant close cooperation to form a pleasant working environment for both sides, thus improving labor efficiency. In addition, in the specific management methods, he is also very scientific, advocating the establishment of reasonable work quotas on the basis of scientific working hours research and action analysis; It advocates scientific research on workers' work and environment to determine standardized tools, materials and operating methods, scientifically match workers' labor and rest time, and improve workers' work efficiency without increasing labor. "He believes that scientific research and scientific data are not only the basis of standards and systems, but also the basis of harmonious cooperation between enterprises. The biggest obstacle to harmonious cooperation between workers and employers lies in employers' ignorance of this matter, that is, what constitutes the standard for every worker to work reasonably in a day. He believes that the lack of scientific management is the root cause of idle workers and low efficiency of enterprises. Therefore, we call for scientific methods to replace outdated personal judgments or opinions in all aspects of management. The scientific nature of Taylor's management thought also lies in its feasibility in practice. Taylor applied his management thought to the management practice of Midvale Steel Works and Bethlehem Steel Works, and guided the management reform of Ford Company. Both of them have achieved great success and their labor efficiency has doubled. Without extending working hours, the average output of workers has more than doubled, and wages have increased by 30%, reaching 100%. The living standard of workers has improved, and their ideological and cultural quality has also improved. They love learning more, cherish the fruits of labor more, cooperate more easily and work more happily. Therefore, even in the era of frequent strikes, these factories have never gone on strike. Taylor's thoughts have been widely spread, and many factory management practices in other countries in the world have also achieved varying degrees of success.
Normative. Taylor believes: "The best management is a real science, based on clearly defined disciplines, rules and principles." [7] His management is actually a standardized and standardized management. Use training to teach workers the skills to complete tasks, use scientific research to formulate standards and rules and regulations, and stipulate and issue tasks accordingly, and use incentives such as rewards and punishments to ensure the completion of tasks. This is Taylor's trilogy of scientific management, the core of which is the standardization, standardization and institutionalization of work tasks. Taylor believes that standardization and institutionalization are the basic requirements for large-scale production of enterprises, the basis for the implementation of any advanced management ideas and the basis for scientific management. Only when strict norms are formulated and the specific work of the enterprise is carried out according to the rules can the competent personnel concentrate on the major policies of the enterprise and deal with a few exceptions, and the actions of the workers can be followed. Otherwise, it will inevitably lead to the arbitrariness of management and the confusion of production. Of course, strict norms cannot be formulated at will, but must be based on scientific research. Because rules and regulations can only be understood, supported and implemented by employees if they are scientific and reasonable. Strict norms must also be clear. Taylor believes that the ambiguity of norms or explanations leads to misunderstanding, which is an important reason for the contradiction and inefficiency between management and managed. He advocates that there must be clear norms, clear rights and obligations, clear operating methods and procedures, clear objectives and clear control within the enterprise. Only in this way can we avoid mutual prevarication and blame between employers and employees and improve labor production efficiency.
The standardization of operation extends the specification from things to people, and the standardization of management extends the specification from workers to managers. The rules and regulations formulated on the basis of all these standardization have become the norms of enterprises, thus making standardization and standardization the basis of the operation of the whole enterprise. This is the so-called modern management system, and Taylor completed the framework and foundation of this system. Today, any advanced modern management system is based on this. It can be said that there is no modernization of management without standardization of management.
Coordination. Taylor believes: "The conventional feature of scientific management is coordination rather than disharmony." [8] Among many elements of scientific management, the most important is the close cooperation between employers and employees. Replace struggle with peace, quarrel and conflict with wholeheartedly brotherly cooperation, run counter to each other with efforts in the same direction, and replace mutual suspicion with mutual trust. The two sides became friends, not rivals. This is the essence of scientific management "[9]. He stressed that no matter how good the management system is, it should not be rigidly adopted. Employers and workers must maintain a good personal relationship and take into account all kinds of prejudices when dealing with workers. [10] Only on the basis of mutual trust, understanding, coordination and cooperation between employers and employees can management achieve lasting success. He opposes capitalists' indifference and unfairness to workers, and advocates that superiors should treat workers with equal attitude, sympathize with and care for them, and encourage each worker to discuss the difficulties encountered inside and outside the factory with his superiors, and have the opportunity to express their opinions freely, while superiors must pay attention to listening and take them seriously. Under the scientific management system, the management authorities should become the servants of the workers, do their best to create the best conditions for the workers, provide the best services, make the workers work hard and maximize the labor efficiency. He also firmly believes that management and workers can work closely together because their interests are the same. Management cares about the lowest cost and workers care about the highest salary. As long as the two sides work closely together to improve labor productivity and maintain long-term growth of production, this goal can be achieved. He pinned his hopes on a great spiritual revolution of coordination and cooperation between the two sides, that is, both sides did not take the distribution of surplus as the top priority, but turned their attention to increasing the surplus until the surplus was so large that neither side had to quarrel about how to distribute it.
Taylor emphasized the harmonious interpersonal relationship within the enterprise, the management's respect, sympathy and concern for workers, and the elimination of unpleasant factors in the working environment, so that workers can work happily and give full play to their abilities. For the first time in history, workers are encouraged as human beings, not as tools like machines. For the first time, we began to pay attention to the influence of human factors in enterprise management, which is indeed a great progress in the history of management thought. However, in the capitalist society based on private ownership of the means of production, in the contradiction between the desire for primitive accumulation of capital and the relative shortage of surplus wealth, the fundamental interests of both employers and employees can never be consistent. The infinite pursuit of surplus value cannot make capitalists really care about and sympathize with workers. Therefore, Taylor's great spiritual revolution of trying to reconcile the class contradictions between employers and employees and connecting them into a mutually beneficial whole can only be a beautiful fantasy.
Efficiency. Improving production efficiency is the starting point and destination of Taylor's scientific management thought. The purpose of scientific management is to "cultivate and explore the talents of every worker in the enterprise, so that every worker can do his own work-achieve the highest efficiency at the fastest speed" [1 1]. Taylor believes that the great improvement of production efficiency is the difference between civilized countries and uncivilized countries and the symbol of great progress of human society. It is precisely because of the improvement of production efficiency and the increasing richness of social products that today's working people live almost as well as the king 200 years ago. Therefore, any behavior that hinders the improvement of labor efficiency is immoral and deprives people of the right to a happy life. Improving labor efficiency is beneficial to both employers and employees, which can increase surplus and ensure the maximum prosperity of both sides. "Therefore, he did everything possible to improve labor efficiency. The practicality, scientificity, standardization and coordination of his management thought all serve efficiency. He believes that the premise of improving efficiency is the close cooperation between employers and employees, and the effective way is to introduce scientific research and knowledge into management practice and replace empirical methods with scientific methods in all aspects of work. His piecework wage system, his various management principles and norms, his functional organizational structure, his scientific research experiments and his inventions are all concrete measures to improve efficiency. In his view, the fundamental purpose of management is to improve efficiency. The whole industrial history is a history of efficiency, and any measures to improve efficiency, no matter how much resistance they encounter, will eventually win. He firmly believes that scientific management is an effective means to improve workers' labor efficiency ... no matter where, who, what class, and what methods are adopted to oppose it, scientific management will always win. I think scientific management is correct. If it is correct, if scientific management can make workers improve their work efficiency without increasing labor, then scientific management will surely win. "[ 12]
Scientific management has indeed won. Used in enterprise management, which doubles the production efficiency of many enterprises. Many of its efficiency indicators are still widely used by people. Taylor's viewpoint of improving work efficiency by scientific methods without increasing workers' labor broke through the thinking boundary of predecessors that efficiency can only be improved by increasing labor intensity and prolonging labor time, which made capitalist production and wealth grow rapidly. Drucker praised in New Reality: Taylor showed that the real potential of increasing production lies in working smarter. He not only greatly increased the output, but also made it possible to raise the wages of workers, at the same time reduced the price of products and raised the requirements for products. (In fact, Taylor asked the factory owners to raise their wages by a large margin, sometimes even as much as three times, otherwise, he refused to provide help) ... Because Taylor, the more blue-collar workers are employed, the more middle-class and bourgeois they are in terms of income and living standards. "Of course, Drucker's words have great one-sidedness. The improvement of workers' situation in capitalist countries is not only Taylor's credit, but also the workers' struggle. But Drucker also expounded Taylor's management thought's positive role in improving production efficiency and promoting economic and social development.