Question

summarize Robert s. McNamara and the evolution of modern management and the key point.

Answer 1

Robert Strange McNamara (June 9, 1916 - July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He played a major role in escalating the United States involvement in Vietnam War. McNamara was responsible for the institution of systems analysis in public policy, which developed into the discipline known today as policy analysis.

The carrer of Robert S. McNamara spanned academia, private enterprise, government and humanitarian service. He was a professor at Harvard business school in the early 1940s; an executive of Ford motor company for 15 years, becoming its president in 1960; the secretary of defense for seven years under presidents Kennedy and Johnson; and the president of the World Bank for 13 years.

Robert McNamara personified management in the 20th century. In his legacy we see the triumphs of modern management as well as its most troubling limitations.

Robert McNamara after graduating in 1937, he entered Harvard business school. According to Jeffrey Cruikshank's history of the school, this was a time when the field of management was on the cusp of great progress. In 1936, Professor Ross Walker offered a course called Aspects of Budgetary Control, which focused on practical aspects of planning and decision making. The curriculum covered the techniques of modern professional management: cost accounting, control systems, management information systems and decision science. McNamara was an eager and receptive student of the new methods.

At the Pentagon, McNamara applied his usual rigorous approach to the management of the vast military establishment.

In 2005, months before his 89th birthday, McNamara returned to Harvard business school and spoke with students on the subject of decision making. Among the lesson he stressed: That for all it's power, rationality alone will not save us. That humans may be well-intentioned but are not all-knowing. That we must seek to empathize our enemies, rather than demonize them, not only to understand them but also to probe whether our assumptions are correct.

Evolution of modern management through Taylorism: An adjustment of scientific management comprising behavioral science. From traditional approach to scientific approach and scientific management to modern phase; methodology, principles and approaches have reached its current stage.