Don't Be a Cog
Businesses large and small usually labor under 19th century technology and ideas. The technology has been upgraded several times and is much more efficient now, but it's still the same basic technology. No, I'm not talking about the telephone. Though that's another one of my pet peeves, I'll rant about the telephone another time. I'm talking about the hierarchical structure of our organizations -- the dehumanizing of work and creation of a "thinking class." OK, hierarchical organizations weren't invented in the 19th century. They go way back, to the armies of the Roman Empire and even before that, but let's pick it up in the 1890s. Railroads were expanding across North America and Europe. Steam ships plied the seas. America was giving birth to the Industrial Revolution. And, in the eyes of Frederick Winslow Taylor, things were remarkably inefficient. Forgoing the chance to go to Harvard, Taylor started on the shop floor as an apprentice, rising rap...