Scientific management was to replace the old approach entirely. This old approach dated from the pre-industrial era of tradesmen. Then, Taylor writes, managers sought to induce each workman “to use his best endeavours, his hardest work, all his traditional knowledge, his skill, his ingenuity, and his goodwill – in a word, his ‘initiative’, so as to yield the largest possible return to his employer.”3 He wanted to consign that to history.
