These incentives, rewards,
stimuli, which employers could apply would produce, he stated with
unscientific fervor, the workers' initiative. The inability of Mr.
Taylor and other scientific managers to distinguish between initiative
and short lived reaction to stimulus is simple evidence that their
scientific experiments were confined to comparisons which they could
make between a yield in wealth where the stimulus to labor is weak,
and a yield where it is strong. They will not discover what a worker's
productivity is, or might be, when incited by his impulse to work, nor
will they secure labor's initiative, until they release the factors,
latent in industry, which have inspirational, creative force.
The attitude of Mr. Taylor and his followers, however, differs from
that of the ordinary manager who maintains an irritated disregard of
the disturbing elements instead of accepting them and, as far as is
consistent with business principles, allaying or cajoling them. The
significant contributions which scientific management has made are in
line with the experiments originally introduced by Mr. Taylor. They
call for the study of each new task by the management, for discovering
the economy in the expenditure of labor energy before it is submitted
to the working force; the standardizing of the task in conformity with
the findings; the teaching of the approved methods to the working
force; the introduction of incentives which will insure the full
response of labor in the accomplishment of the task.
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