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Douglas McGregor's Theory X & Theory Y Douglas McGregor (1906 - 1964) was an industrial management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1960 's. He was also at one time, the president of Antioch College in Ohio. McGregor believed that the management thinking concepts that were being used at the time were put into place long ago to meet the needs of a more feudal society. In his time, Douglas McGregor felt that the world was changing, and that it was time for new thinking. His ideas about managerial behavior had a great effect on management thinking and practice. Some of Mcgregor's ideas were strongly influenced in part by Abraham Maslow's need satisfaction model of motivation.
His hierarchy of needs is based on the idea that motivation comes from need. "Needs provide the driving force motivating behavior and general orientation. Maslow's ideas suggested that worker disaffection with work was due-not to something intrinsic to workers, but due to poor job design, managerial behavior and too few opportunities for job satisfaction. " (www. new grange). Maslow's hierarchy of needs showed the basic needs to be; physiological needs (basic survival needs including food, water, and shelter), and then up the ladder were; safety needs (including the need for peace and security at work and at home), social needs (including the need to feel loved, accepted, and as part of a group), esteem needs (including the need for status, self-confidence, and respect), and finally self-actualization needs (including the need to develop your full potential, achieve, and be all you can be) at the top. These ideas greatly influenced Mcgregor's thinking.
In fact, it is said that Abraham Maslow and Douglas McGregor were two of the best known contributors to the human resources perspective. The human resources perspective was a management perspective that suggested that jobs should be designed to meet higher level needs by allowing workers the ability to utilize their full potential. McGregor observed that managers had two different attitudes that led to entirely different managerial styles. He called them Theory X & Theory Y. Theory X was the traditional way of management thinking. It was based on certain assumptions about human nature and human behavior.
Many assumptions are made in the workplace, based on observations of workers, and their relationship with management. The kinds of tasks being performed, as well as the types of employees that constitute a particular company or organization can set the stage for the types of leadership roles that will be assumed. Theory X management assumes that the average person dislikes work. It assumes that the average person will avoid work if at all possible. It assumes that because of this dislike of work, the average person must be forced, controlled, or threatened with punishment to make him or her put forth enough effort to achieve the organizational goals. It also assumes that the average human being prefers to be directed and wishes to avoid responsibility.
Basically, they are self-interested and prefer leisure rather than working for someone else. These same individuals, according to Theory X, have relatively little ambition, and seek security most of all. The last assumption of theory X is that a human beings primary motivators are fear and money. For many, many years, the typical manager operated from these assumptions, and of course, there are some who still do today.
In these types of situations, motivation is more likely to take the form of punishment for unsatisfactory work, rather than reward for good work. Theory X people require a rigidly managed environment, usually requiring threats of disciplinary action as a primary source of motivation. It also holds that employees will respond only to monetary awards as an incentive to go the extra mile for the company. Workers are given very little responsibility or authority. "McGregor felt that such managerial views led to behaviors and organizational systems which relied on rewards, promises, incentives, close supervision, rules and regulations, even threats and sanctions all designed to control workers. " (wwwnewgrange). Theory X managers (also called autocratic managers) believe that they need to energize their staff. Tasks need to be well specified.
Many need pushing in order for them to apply an adequate amount of effort towards the task at hand. Managers feel if their relax their grip around their employees, then sloppiness will set in. Autocratic managers like to retain most of their authority. They make decisions on their own and inform the workers. Autocratic managers are also often called "authoritative " managers for this reason. This type of manager is highly task oriented.
They place a great deal of concern with getting the job done. They have little concern for the workers attitudes toward the manager's decisions. Theory X communication is largely one-way. It is orderly and quick. If employees hesitate to respond, they can be blamed for lack of interest and be deemed unreliable. These types of managers usually lose ground in the workplace.
People tend to like leaders who share more authority and decision making with employees, who will work as a group. McGregor argued that there was nothing wrong or bad about exercising authority or giving instructions, simply that it was probably less effective in the grand scheme of things. There was also what was known as "soft X" and "hard X."Hard approaches are represented by -the stick- coercive language, harsh authoritarian management. Soft applications-the carrot- dangle rewards and promises in front of the employees nose /i. e.
more pay (cash and non-cash), more work, a fair days work for a fair days pay. The relationship is a wage-work bargain, an exchange. " (wwwnewgrange). This leads me into the aspects and assumptions of the Theory Y. Theory Y is based on more humanistic values. It offers the following assumptions.
The average person enjoys work. Work (the expenditure of physical and mental effort) is as natural as play or rest. It also assumes, the average person naturally works toward goals in which he or she has committed themselves to. External control and the threat of punishment are not the only ways to bring about effort towards organizational goals. The depth of a workers commitment to goals depends on the perceived rewards for achieving them.
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