The division of labor is the business principle that productivity goes up as tasks are divided up and simplified. The most famous contributor to the science of dividing labor is Henry Ford. By dividing up labor on an assembly line, Ford was able to "democratize the automobile." Since then, every other industry has utilized the principle of "division of labor" to make goods and services more affordable for the majority of Americans.
The benefits of dividing management are just as great as dividing labor; yet, businesses have been slow to change. The greatest advancements in the "division of management" are the franchise and Deming philosophy. By decentralizing ownership to franchise owners, corporations like McDonald's have successfully engaged employees and empowered individuals. Likewise, by doing away with unnecessary layers of management and empowering employees with a purpose beyond profits, Toyota and other Japanese companies found monumental success with W. Edwards Deming's philosophy. More and more businesses are copying the successes of companies like McDonald's and Toyota, but we are still far from perfecting the "division of management." We will know that we have arrived when, one day, people will freely and continually reorder their businesses, as we do our political systems, to inspire greater innovation, create more efficiency & productivity, and capture the $300 billion that are lost annually, in the U.S., because of employee disengagement.
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