Management theory can be summarized to: how people manage employees in an organization.

This field of study was first pioneered by “professors of practice”: Frederick Winslow Taylor, Henry Ford.

Frederick was an American mechanical engineer, widely known for his methods to improve industrial efficiency.

Henry was an American industrialist, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production.

Both of these men proposed that management was most successful, efficient, and profitable when organizations took on an authoritarian structure.

It was very hierarchical, those who gave orders and those who executed orders without question.

Half a century later enter our good man Peter Drucker, an Austrian-American management consultant who obliterated the views proposed by Henry and Frederick.

Peter introduced results-driven management and the idea that the best corporations function like communities. Where subordinates are consulted and work in harmony towards overarching company goals.

He brought a key element of behavioral science, that people are more likely to follow through when they help choose a course of action, which helped many companies support their employees which led to dominating the market.

Photo by Liz Hopfner on Unsplash.