A question for my open ed peeps. In a piece I'm thinking about writing about current politics & higher ed, I want to talk about Taylorism (Frederick Taylor) & it's relationship to higher ed. Anybody w/ bus. school bkgrnd should know Taylorism but I'm curious as to whether it means anything to others w/ non-business higher ed backgrounds? @katebowles @Mweller @dkernohan @actualham @mahabali @davecormier @bonstewart
@econproph @katebowles @mahabali @actualham @davecormier @Mweller @bonstewart yep. And the Taylor/Skinner link is interesting. Discourses of optimisation are a 50s thing, like social security and really good jazz.
@dkernohan @katebowles @mahabali @actualham @davecormier @Mweller @bonstewart funny you say 50's, cuz my little 7 yr involvement in college strategic planning, accreditation, & governance convinced me that all higher ed mgt is stuck in a 50's-60's world. They think Taylor is the ONLY way to organize. Totally missed everything learned in bus strategy & org theory of last 50 yrs -esp last 15.

@econproph @dkernohan @katebowles @mahabali @actualham @davecormier @Mweller @bonstewart

Yes! This explains why when I wandered around saying things like, "Not all business ideas are bad" and "Some of them could actually help us be better" it didn't usually end well. I've learned to stop doing that...

@Tdorey @katebowles @mahabali @econproph @actualham @davecormier @Mweller @bonstewart DON'T EVER CONTEMPLATE STOPPING DOING THAT. There are some great ideas from business that could work in education. But not all of them.
@dkernohan @Tdorey @katebowles @mahabali @actualham @davecormier @Mweller @bonstewart @kenbauer THANKS ALL. I agree there's a LOT of good ideas from bus/org studies. Unfortunately, it seems the most successful stuff isn't read/seen by hi ed types. For ex: holacracy, truly flat orgs, non-hierarchy collaboratives, etc really work, but Hi ed seems to want to copy GM circa 1975 structurally, behaviorally, conceptually.