Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

2 EFFICIENCY METHODS can render. The original literature which explains them best is not readily obtained in England, and is often costly. No works manager is inclined to acquire a small library of expensive books when he is extremely doubtful whether they, or indeed any written treatise, will be of any use to him. Mean- while the subject has become, in the United States, violently controversial; the reports and the periodical literature dealing with it are volumin- ous, and it may be added that they are often verbose to weariness, and display a tendency to diffuse abstract discussion which is most unattrac- tive to the British business mind. It is not, then, surprising that a habit has sprung up in the British Press of referring to the new so-called efficiency methods in a way that betrays much ignorance of their nature. Valid criticism of them and of their pretensions must come from closer acquaintance. They have gained adherence, and enthusiastic adoption in some establishments, where they seem permanently rooted; in others they prove failures. In the latter cases the reasons of the failure are themselves often worth study. Many individuals find in the methods a complete new gospel for industry; others dismiss them as either worthless, or injurious, or already known and practised. As the attitude of the American Trades Unions has been generally hostile, the English ones are disposed to follow suit without much investiga- tion ; although the President of the recent con- ference of the Workers’ Union has said that “ seien-