“As yet the efficiency of selling goods has not been worked out. Most salesmen believe it cannot be done. They claim that there are too many variables in the problem. Perhaps there are, but nobody knows until the experiment has been thoroughly tried. In every case the victories of Efficiency have been won in spite of the most stubborn opposition from the men who were being helped. And one fact is sure - that the first Advertisers and Sales Managers who try out Efficiency and succeed will find themselves in a gold mine. They will have found a better way to enter a market that handles, in an average year, thirty thousand million dollars worth of goods.”

— Herbert N. Casson

Source: 1910s, Ads and Sales (1911), p. 7

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Herbert N. Casson 20

Canadian journalist and writer 1869–1951

Herbert N. Casson (1869–1951) Canadian journalist and writer

Herbert N. Casson in: National Printer Journalist Vol 51 (1933), Nr. 7-12. p. 28; Cited in Arthur Tremain (1951) Successful Retailing: A Handbook for Store Owners and Managers p. xi
1920s-1940s

“A good liar knows that the most efficient lie is always a truth that has had a key piece removed from it.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Prisoner of Heaven

Source: The Prisoner of Heaven

“The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves.”

Herbert N. Casson (1869–1951) Canadian journalist and writer

Herbert N. Casson cited in: Supervisory Management. Vol. 1 (1955). p. 60
1950s and later

“We never had any use for Taylor or any of the efficiency or scientific management crowd. They never realized that human toil was the last thing in the world you had to be efficient about; the only way to be really efficient is to eliminate it entirely, and this would have been heresy to any of the Taylor, Gant, Barth, Cook efficiency crowd.
It is sad to contemplate that men of the technical ability of the names mentioned in this paragraph were so lame in their thinking and social outlook that they missed the boat so completely. Who in hell wants to be efficient with a shovel, and what sense would there be even if you succeeded? They should have had their heads opened with a shovel; it might have been more effective.”

Howard Scott (1890–1970) American engineer

Source: History and Purpose of Technocracy, 1965, p. 7-8

“While [bureaucratic] solutions have been frequently criticized by those within and without the organization, no alternative way has been found to cope with the problem of organizing large numbers of people to produce goods and services efficiently.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970, p. 90

“There is no doubt that the efficiency of the Works at Bournville is assisted by the Suggestion Scheme, and it has been found that the good accomplished, is not only in the pecuniary value to the Firm or to the suggestor, but also in the development of the mental and creative power, which makes both men and girls more efficient and valuable workers, and fosters an intelligent independence.”

Edward Cadbury (1873–1948) British businessman

Source: Experiments in industrial organization (1912), p. 16; Cited in: Chris Smith, John Child, Michael Rowlinson. Reshaping Work: The Cadbury Experience. Cambridge University Press, 1990. p. 64

“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.”

Henry Gantt (1861–1919) American engineer

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.

“Much brass has been sounded and many cymbals tinkled in the name of advertising; but the advertisements which persuade people to act are written by men who have an abiding respect for the intelligence of their readers, and a deep sincerity regarding the merits of the goods they have to sell.”

Bruce Fairchild Barton book The Man Nobody Knows

Source: The Man Nobody Knows (1924), Ch. 5 : His Advertisements

“Especially must we find a substitute for creation by fiat, or efficient causation. For no being that arises out of efficient causation can possibly be free”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.332

“Under the natural course of things each citizen tends towards his fittest function. Those who are competent to the kind of work they undertake, succeed, and, in the average of cases, are advanced in proportion to their efficiency; while the incompetent, society soon finds out, ceases to employ, forces to try something easier, and eventually turns to use.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

Vol. 3, Ch. VII, Over-Legislation
Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative (1891)

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