Ted was a successful entrepreneur. He had a history of buying small companies in difficulty, streamlining their operations and taking them from the brink of bankruptcy back to full viability. The approach he adopted had been the same for each company. He examined the organization as a flow process and broke the systems into their component stages. He then considered how to simplify each stage in a way that would enable it to lead from the previous phase smoothly into the next.

In most companies he had found that the staff tended to follow whatever was being processed from start to finish. His experience had shown that this was extremely inefficient. The staff was not good at anything in particular and could not take a pride in their work. Ted believed that it was far better to encourage staff to specialize on a single aspect, develop their skills in that area of work and get a sense of a job well done. This approach led to other problems, such as disputes between groups of workers, and there was a tendency for one group to blame another if mistakes were made. However, the improvements to profitability of the operations meant that it was possible to employ good quality supervisors who were able to put a stop to any silliness.

By the time Ted retired he had created a conglomeration of small and medium-sized companies, was chairman of the local chamber of commerce and had received an OBE.

Question:Do you agree with Ted's ideology regarding Taylorism? Explain.