Declaring Independence from the Tyranny of Taylorism - a podcast by Ron Baker and Ed Kless

Ron and Ed discuss the Cult of Efficiency beginning with an explanation of Frederick Winslow Taylor the father of so called Scientific Management.

Business aren’t paid to be efficient. There's nothing more useless than being efficient at doing the wrong things. Industries at peak efficiency are destined for obsolescence, think buggy whip manufacturers. Effectiveness trumps efficiency and creates true competitive advantage. Would you want an efficient or effective heart surgeon? This is why Walt Disney didn’t produce Snow White and Three Dwarfs.

The McKinsey Maxim of What you can measure you can manage will also be discussed, and why it's dangerously wrong. Also, why Frederick Taylor was wrong in treating management as a science, and Ron and Ed will propose a superior concept to effectiveness. That of efficaciousness.

Further episodes of The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy

Further podcasts by Ron Baker and Ed Kless

Website of Ron Baker and Ed Kless