Frederick Winslow Taylor: The Anti-Improviser

If anyone were to ask me “How can I be a Daily Improviser in my organization?” I would say, “Read Frederick Winslow Taylor’s The Principles of Scientific Management – and whatever he says, do the opposite.”

Yes, I would have tongue firmly planted in cheek as I said it, but in fact much of what we today regard as “enlightened thinking” in the organizational world is largely a 180-degree turn from the principles that Taylor set out in the early 20th Century. At the risk of greatly oversimplifying Taylor’s extensive body of work, his principles can be distilled as follows:

Thinkers think. Planners plan. Workers work.

In other words, under Taylorism, the role of management is to define the “one best way” to perform any task through rigorous measurement, analysis, and planning, while the role of the worker is to perform the task exactly as designed – no questions asked, no suggestions accepted.

Taylorism might have made sense in a world where cause and effect acted in machinelike order, where knowledge and expertise were concentrated in a few heads, and where workers had little power and even less expectation of being heard. But the spread of complexity, education, and entitlement have resulted in a world where organizations should expect – and, in fact, need - every member to be Thinker, Planner, and Worker (or, let’s say, “Doer”) rolled into one.

And this is where the improvisation connection comes in. An improv performer can be seen as simultaneously wearing the hat of Author, Director, and Actor, collaborating with other similarly hatted performers. The performers must engage in a journey of real-time discovery, spontaneously determining at every turn what must be done to create an entertaining scene – and then immediately doing it.

Not much different from the challenge of the multi-hatted improvisational organizational performer, is it? Being Thinker-Planner-Doer, acting flexibly and collaboratively in real-time with other T-P-Ds to determine what will meet the organization’s purpose (which ideally is embodied in a Commander’s Intent) – and then doing it!

In its creation of rigid role definitions, Taylorism might have led to some greater efficiencies and standardization, but ultimately it was demeaning and deadening for the worker. Unfortunately, the ghost of Taylor is still roaming the halls of many organizations. In my next post, I’ll describe the negative effects of latent Taylorism on employee engagement, organizational innovation, and customer satisfaction, and describe the antidote to Taylorism: The improvisational approach.

For a fascinating view into the life and work of Frederick Winslow Taylor, see Robert Kanigel’s The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency.