It seems, at first glance, for an obvious step to improve industrial productivity: one should simply watch workers at work in order to learn how they actually do their jobs. However, this highly influential book, a must-read for anyone seeking to understand modern management practices, puts lie to such misconceptions. It disproves that making industrial processes more efficient increases unemployment and that shorter workdays decrease productivity. And it lays the foundations for the discipline of management to be studied, taught, and applied with methodical precision. American engineer FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR (1856-1915) broke new ground with this 1919 essay, in which he applied the rigors of scientific observation to such labor as shoveling and bricklayer in order to streamline their work... and bring a sense of logic and practicality to the management of that work.