Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Y
Douglas McGregor may be a really influential figure in organizational
communication, management, and organizational studies. He was a
professor at MIT in Massachusetts. He was a vocal advocate for the human
relations approach, which is an alternate or counterpoint to the artistic style
of management. He was very curious about what motivates people to figure hard
and particularly our beliefs about what motivates people to figure hard.
1960 and X-theory
His ideas gained tons of momentum within the 1960s. At the core, he was focusing on how our beliefs shape our behavior, then in fact how that behavior shapes other people's behavior around us. He articulated Theory X as what he saw because of the dominant belief system about employees. And therefore the premises are as follows.
The average man is naturally indolent. He’s employed as little as possible. Most managers at the time beginning of that factory era believed employees were inherently lazy. He felt a lack of ambition, dislikes responsibility, and prefers to be led. He’s inherently self-centered, indifferent to organizational needs. He is naturally immune to change. He’s gullible, not dazzling, the ready dupe of the charlatan and demagogue. People aren't very smart and it easily manipulated them.
Theory X beliefs
According to Theory X beliefs that McGregor articulated, without this active intervention by management, people would be passive, even resistant, to organizational needs. Therefore, they need to be persuaded, rewarded, punished, controlled. Their activities must direct This is often by the way not what McGregor considered employees about workers. He's articulating the idea X belief the normal managerial view of employees.
The problem with it in fact is that it centers on control. And as we'll see, that's not getting to cause the simplest results. So Theory X's beliefs about people end in tight control, strict policies, and a punishments and rewards system that reinforces those beliefs.
So you've got a boss and if he's thinking in his
head, everybody's lazy, then he's getting to lecture them in relatively harsh
ways and that they might outwardly say, OK, yeah, we'll go alongside that but
they are not really enjoying the method considerably. They are not really
enjoying working there so they are not gonna work very hard.
FORCE BREEDS COUNTERFORCES
According to McGregor, force breeds
counterforces. So you've got Theory X believes that then cause your own
controlling practices toward employees, then employees most times will
resist. The results won't be great. People aren't gonna be working very hard if
they're busy resisting, which then reinforces the idea X beliefs about employees
that you simply shop around and see this circle going over and once again a day
and it isn't gonna cause very productive results for the organization and it
reinforces a negative cycle for everyone.
McGregor articulated Theory Y
For this reason, McGregor articulated Theory Y. this is often a touch more in line with what he believed for the foremost part, which is that the expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest. This is often very different from calling people lazy. He thought people could exert and luxuriate in it.
External control and the threat of punishment aren't the sole means for bringing about effort toward organizational objectives. So, the person will exercise self-direction and self-control within the service of objectives to which he's committed in his agreement,
If people accept as true with
the goals and it committed them to 'em, they'll work really hard. Under the
conditions of recent industrial life, the intellectual potentialities of the
standard person are only partially using. That's different from claiming
that we do not really tap the potential of most employees at work.
COMMITMENT TO OBJECTIVES
Commitment to objectives may be a function of the rewards related to their achievement. So if people believe the goals and that they have rewards related to those goals and objectives, they'll be exerting on that. The foremost significance of such rewards, just like the satisfaction of ego and thus the self-actualization needs, are often direct products of efforts directed toward organizational objectives. That's different from claiming that if the organization arranges things, the proper way that employees can have their ego needs satisfied, their self-actualization needs satisfying while working towards the organization's goals.
The average person learns under proper
conditions has not only to easily accepted but to hunt responsibility. So they're
able to lead. They do not get to be pushed around. They're able to intensify.
The capacity to exercise a comparatively high imagination, ingenuity, and creativity within the solution of organizational problems is widely, not
narrowly distributed within the population.
THEORY Y IN PRACTICE LOOKS DIFFERENT FROM THEORY X IN PRACTICE.
He wanted to be clear that he is not just talking about the simplest of the simplest employees. He's saying that on average most people have a very high potential. Theory Y in practice looks different from Theory X in practice.
If you've got theory Y beliefs about people, then you are going to rearrange things in order that individuals can do their own goals and happily accomplish the organization's goals at an equivalent time. Theory Y managers will make different choices about how they reward people, how they ask people, how they arrange their teams, and their work process in order that people can enjoy work and get the work done.
You may notice that this features a lot of
resemblance to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. McGregor used this hierarchy to
shape his view of Theory X and Theory Y.
PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS AND PYRAMID
To recap, the physiological needs at the rock bottom of the pyramid are really important. That's our food, shelter, clothing, sorts of needs, our physical needs, and once we meet those we start that specialize in our safety needs. And he really saw that these two basic needs were all that was being engaged at work. Up subsequent level is our need for belonging or love and relationships. Above that's esteem,
SELF-ACTUALIZATION NEEDS
And then at the top level is self-actualization, which is a little hard to pin down, but it's when we are reaching our full potential as individuals. And from McGregor's standpoint, most managerial philosophies that wind up with Theory X were really only assuming that people had physiological and safety needs and that was the only thing that was motivating them.
He said, well we're really missing out and
Theory Y helps us see we can tap into these higher-level needs that all
people have. And so this is not really a case of opposites where Theory X and
Theory Y are opposites.
MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
He saw on this continuum on Maslow's hierarchy
of needs that we can continue to engage these higher-level needs and desires of
employees and that's gonna make them work hard and enjoy the work as they do
it. McGregor's work has been incredibly influential. According to Google
Scholar, we have cited it over 12,000 times and counting.
Most work isn't cited by anybody, and if it is,
maybe by only a few other researchers, but his work has been really
foundational to organizational studies, foundational to organizational
communication and management studies. And that's the reason why we
study McGregor for his contributions in Theory X and Theory Y.
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