From boring work to becoming a master

Around 1900, Frederick Taylor, considered to be the father of industrial engineering, to improve productivity, originated the concept of simplifying work. Instead of an artisan building a whole product, Taylor divided the work where the worker would do very repetitive tasks over and over again. Henry Ford adapted the idea and set up the assembly line.  Work went from the high skilled artisan to people doing the same thing over and over again every few minutes.  Work became tedious and boring. Ford had to double the wages of the assemble workers to keep them.  But, from this new concept of simplifying work for the human being, Ford Motor became one of the largest and most successful companies in the world. And then on every other company did the same. Many companies became very large and very rich but work for most people took away their personal dignity, their very sense of value in their skill and in themselves. People came to work to make a living and looked elsewhere for their value.

This past summer, the top American CEOs made a new commitment to not only search for "profits," but now also to be socially responsible; hopefully they will begin to look at improving the very nature of work.  People can become masters again.  Instead of doing the same thing over and over again every few minutes, Canon has workers, called "supermeisters" that can assemble an entire copier with over 1000 parts, in three hours, all by themselves. People have enormous hidden talents waiting to be developed and harnessed for their own benefit and the benefit of their corporation.