The Principles of Scientific Management

Rating 3 stars to balance the 1 star and 5 star aspects.

Many people will find this monograph hideous with no redeeming value whatsoever, as can be seen by the numerous 1 star reviews it has garnered.

On the other hand, it's regarded as the most influential book on management of the 20th century. For this reason I find it worthwhile to ready it for myself to understand why that might be so.

Having spent years working as a carpenter in residential construction, I do respect that the author started his career as a laborer and worked his way up through the ranks. That was not common then, and not common now.

This guy did behavior analysis before it was cool ;P

I'm actually pretty positive to Taylor's system, having read this. I suspect his bad reputation is from no real fault of his, but rather failed implementations. Although today there is a massive amount of data from general experimental analysis of behavior, that could further improve any enterpise to enormous heights.