In the decade before World War I, two American naval officers tried to reform naval manufacturing with the help of Frederick W. Taylor, the foremost management consultant of his time. They failed. Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich was forced to retire in 1909, and Commander Holden A. Evans resigned in 1911 after his career was ruinedfor trying to change a Navy organizational policy by implementing Taylor's management ideas. Yet, the lengthy deliberations about how to manage helped the Navy find its own "best way" prior to World War I. This article, using new evidence, studies their actions as an example in American management history of the eventual success of a consulting effort that initially failed.
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