The Management Myth

Neither a Science Nor a Profession

Hundreds of thousands of people earn MBAs annually, but people with MBAs tend to perform worse in business than those without business degrees. Management consultants – typically, new MBAs – flood the workplace, inventing theories and practices. But business isn’t a science, a technology or a profession. Its false prophets mislead organizations and society; they obscure what really makes organizations successful.

The Analyst

Frederick Winslow Taylor invented management science more than 100 years ago. He supposedly could measure how much workers should achieve each day, and precisely how they should carry out their jobs for maximum efficiency. Taylor suggested incentives to spur workers to greater productivity by slavishly following managers’ orders and never showing initiative. Taylor believed his principles held universally across all industries and jobs. New MBA programs followed from Taylor’s ideas, including Harvard University’s.

Taylor’s scientific management process wasn’t scientific; he made most of it up. For example, in determining that a steel worker should ...