What are the Similarities between the management thoughts of Taylor and Fayol?

Similarities between the management thoughts of Taylor and Fayol:

There are certain similarities between the management thoughts of these two scholars. They are listed below.

1) Both aimed at improving the then prevailing conditions of management and putting it on a rational basis. Taylor used the expression ‘Scientific Management’; Fayol ‘A Theory of Administration’. They were at one in the scientific enthusiasm which they bought to bear on practical problems. The Science of Management is indebted to both.

2) Both were engineers by profession and developed ideas and principles on management from their personal experiences, that is, the approach of both was practical.

3) Both were ‘scientists before managers’. Taylor experimented with high-speed steel, the technique of cutting metals and metals melting. Fayol’s early researches were directed to shafting, timbering and the geological structure of the mines,

4) Both recognized to a limited extent the importance of the human factor and of enthusing the workers. ‘No system of management should be applied in a wooden way’, observed Taylor. ‘The manager can quickly transform men with latest abilities into employees of the first water, pointed out Fayol.

Both, however, thought mainly of financial incentives for the purpose of improving the productivity of labour. Taylor evolved a differential piece rate system. Fayol suggested profit sharing, and

5) Both referred to the universal of management, though Fayol was more persistent about it.

The relative contributions of these two pioneers have been reviewed by Urwick in his forward to the English translation of General and Industrial Management in the following words: “The work of Taylor and Fayol was, of course, essentially complementary.

They both realized that the problem of personnel and its management at all levels is the ‘key’ to industrial success. Both applied scientific method to this problem. That Taylor worked primarily on the cooperative level from the bottom of the industrial hierarchy upwards, while Fayol concentrated on the Managing Director and worked downwards, was merely a reflection of their very different careers.

But Fayol’s capacity to see and to acknowledge this publicity was an example of his intellectual integrity and generosity of spirit. They gave France a Unified management body more than twenty years before the same idea began to be realized in Great Britain”.