Amazing Similarities...

"As yet, however, we have but vaguely appreciated the importance of "the larger question fo increasing our national efficiency.""

Hmmm... national efficiency, resources coming in, not the visible outcomes we expect, could be Afghanistan 2009 for sure...

But that was FW Taylor writing in 1903. But there's plenty more similarities between the time that Taylor was writing and right here right now in Afghanistan (and other developing countries I assume). The family, extended and honour was more important. Most of the same kind of shops were all in the same place. Most workers were not used to working in managed environments.

To what extent does modern management theory originating from studies on western (or at least relatively secure and wealthy societies) where their parents were working in what we would recognize as a managed environment apply to a post conflict S. Asian society? To what extent are more humanist theories really relevant here?

What Taylor saw was mostly people whose skills had been passed down by rule of thumb through the family. Sounds familiar. Generally expertise / expectations were not really out there...

Even if someone is completely motivated; then how can he/she accomplish reasonable results if the benchmark is not really known, the job not really designed, and the person's efforts, for lack of experience, possibly quite misdirected...

Actually my unscientific guess would be if we could achieve Taylor / Ford level efficiency in Afghanistan we'd be flying high by comparison.

In my opinion much of what Taylor was criticized for afterwards was actually ignorance of what he really said, that the interests of the employee and employer must be in alignment, and the positive outcomes, must be shared. If we don't forget this, then there's every reason to believe that these methods could be a more mutually beneficial way forward superior to more humanistic thinking. Set against a backdrop of rote learning how can one expect the results you look for by applying mostly coaching models etc?

Go to many offices and one will find plenty of folks just sitting on MSN and there are plenty of staff assessment forms and all the rest of it. Taking what Taylor says, checking out how much one *should* expect, then sharing improved outcomes, the result would likely be better.

Given how close the outside environment there would be to what we see out here, is turning the clock back a moment the way to move forward faster?