Is management an art or a science? The debate is not new, nor is it over. In recent times, the ‘art’ lobby has been making up some lost ground, but the fact that we ever began to think of management as a science at all must be laid at the door of Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915). He inspired the phrase by which he is best remembered - ‘scientific management’. Not convinced? Well, Peter Drucker, the management guru’s management guru, says he deserves a place alongside Darwin and Freud in the making of the modern world.
Taylor believed that production was subject to universal laws that were independent of human judgement. It was the task of scientific management to uncover these laws, to discover the “one best way” of doing things. It might be the best way of shovelling coal, of ensuring quality control
