German Management

Some of the ideas that have inspired the Western practices of personnel management are honest expressions of the prevailing reality in its historical moment, although in its original version today cause us concern. A second reading, however, takes this concern on the verge of the alert red, when we discovered that they still enjoy very good health. I will begin with some citations able to spice up this analysis. In almost all the mechanical trades, the science that underlies the Act of each worker is so big and so important that the ideal worker to do the work is incapable (either by lack of education or insufficient mental capacity) understand this science. The work of each operator is completely planned by management at least one day before, and each man receives, in the majority of cases, full written instructions describing in detail the task you should perform, as well as the means to be used to do the job.

All those who, after appropriate training, unwilling or Unable to work according to the new methods and greater speed, should be dismissed by the management. These paragraphs are part of the work principles of scientific management, published in 1911 by the American engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, who plays almost literally thoughts exposed at the beginning of the 19th century by Scotsman Robert Owen and the English Charles Babbage. For its part, in 1916, the French engineer Henri Fayol did publicize their work industry and general administration, which initiated the current known as the classical theory of administration. The philosophical base of the fourteen principles enunciated by Fayol can be traced by any careful reader in the art of war, book published by a Chinese general Sun Tzu two thousand five hundred years ago. The cientifico-clasico paradigm was rounded up with the contribution of Max Weber, German economist who died in 1920, whose influential work economy and society was published posthumously.