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Dehumanizing with AI, Automation, and Technical Optimization

The Practical Leader

In the early 1900s, Frederick Taylor, used “Scientific Management” principles to make the new production lines more efficient. Workers became cogs in the machine; shut off their minds, shut their mouths, and did what engineers and managers told them to do.

McGregor 101
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The Capitalist Philosophers: A book review by Bob Morris

First Friday Book Synopsis

The Capitalist Philosophers: The Geniuses of Modern Business–Their Lives, Times, and Ideas Andrea Gabor Times Business (2000) A brilliant discussion of thirteen “geniuses of modern business” While preparing questions for another interview, I recently re-read this book (published in 2000) in which Andrea Gabor focuses on Frederick (..)

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The Capitalist Philosophers A book review by Bob Morris

First Friday Book Synopsis

The Capitalist Philosophers: The Geniuses of Modern Business–Their Lives, Times, and Ideas Andrea Gabor Times Business (2000) A brilliant discussion of thirteen “geniuses of modern business” While preparing questions for another interview, I recently re-read this book (published in 2000) in which Andrea Gabor focuses on Frederick (..)

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What Circuit City Learned About Valuing Employees

Harvard Business Review

In 1960, 11 years after he founded the company that became Circuit City, my father Sam Wurtzel was reading a book he couldn't put down: The Human Side of Enterprise , by MIT professor Douglas McGregor. The next morning, he called McGregor's office and asked for a meeting with him. It was also central to how Sam built Circuit City.

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Management’s Three Eras: A Brief History

Harvard Business Review

Organization as machine – this imagery from our industrial past continues to cast a long shadow over the way we think about management today. Managers still assume that stability is the normal state of affairs and change is the unusual state (a point I particularly challenge in The End of Competitive Advantage ). Townes, and Henry L.