Henry Gantt Quotes

Henry Laurence Gantt, A.B., M.E. was an American mechanical engineer and management consultant who is best known for his work in the development of scientific management. He created the Gantt chart in the 1910s.

Gantt charts were employed on major infrastructure projects including the Hoover Dam and Interstate highway system and continue to be an important tool in project management and program management. Wikipedia  

✵ 20. May 1861 – 23. November 1919
Henry Gantt photo
Henry Gantt: 10   quotes 2   likes

Famous Henry Gantt Quotes

“Engineers were the only members of the community "who understand the needs of the nation, desires of the workmen, and the power of the productive forces"”

Source: Organizing for Work, 1919, p. 332 as cited in: J.T. Knoedler (1997) "Veblen and technical efficiency". In: Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec., 1997), pp. 1011-1026.

“Whatever we do must be in accord with human nature. We cannot drive people; we must direct their development… The general policy of the past has been to drive, but the era of force must give way to that of knowledge, and the policy of the future will be to teach and to lead, to the advantage of all concerned”

Gantt (1910) Work, Wages, and Profits: Their Influence on the Cost of Living, p. 116. cited in: Daniel A. Wren (1994) The evolution of management thought. p. 137.
Work, Wages, and Profits: Their Influence on the Cost of Living. 1910

“The aim of our efficiency has not been to produce goods, but to harvest dollars… The production of goods was always secondary to the securing of dollars.”

H.L. Gantt cited in: Walter N. Polakov (1922) "The measurement of human work" in: Wallace Clark (1922) The Gantt chart, a working tool of management. New York, Ronald Press. Preface. p. 152.

“It is becoming perfectly clear that the principles underlying industrial and military efficiency are the same and that a nation, to be efficient in a military sense, must first be efficient industrially”

Source: Industrial leadership, 1916, p. 936) cited in: P.B. Petersen (1986) "Correspondence from Henry L. Gantt to an old friend reveals new information about Gantt". In: Journal of Management Fall 1986 vol. 12 no. 3 pp. 339-350.

“The greatest problem before engineers and managers today is the economical utilization of labor. The limiting of output by the workman, and the limiting by the employer of the amount a workman is allowed to earn, are both factors which militate against that harmonious co-operation of employer and employee which is essential to their highest common good.”

H.L. Gantt (1904) paper presented before the International Congress of Arts and Sciences at the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition, St. Louis, 1904. Published in: H.L. Gantt (1910) Work, Wages, and Profits: Their Influence on the Cost of Living. 1910.

Henry Gantt Quotes

“Finance and industry must be socialized somehow.”

If we refuse to do it from the bottom we shall have to do it from the top, and doing it from the top means the emergence of many Prussias — with wars upon wars.
Henry Gantt cited in: Leon Pratt Alford (1934) Henry Laurence Gantt, leader in industry. p. 265. Highlighted section quoted in: Henry Mintzberg (1994) The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning. p. 169.

“Taylor’s friend Henry Gantt explains to his fellow engineers in the middle of the First World War that they must "develop a task system on the basis of democracy that will yield as good, or better, results than those now in operation under autocracy"”

Source: Industrial leadership, 1916, p. 53 as cited in: Thibault Le Texier (2011) "Management Is By Nature Knowledge Management: Taylor, Scientific Management and the Early Organization of Knowledge".

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