Organizational Behavior At A Local Community College

Charles M. Carson, (2005),"A historical view of Douglas McGregor's Theory Y", Management Decision, Vol. 43 Iss 3 pp. 450 - 460

Classical organization theory evolved during the first half of this century. It represents the merger of scientific management, bureaucratic theory, and administrative theory.

McGregor first published his ideas in his book, The Human Side of Enterprise. One of the experiences he had that influenced his thoughts was from work that he did at his grandfather’s establishment for temporary workers in Detroit. Because he was a close acquaintance of Abraham Maslow, who developed “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” McGregor wished to counter the scientific approach on management (“Douglas McGregor,” 2008) and named Theories X & Y.

The A-Team was forced to disband because from the very first tasking, there was conflict between the group members. The group never actually came together to complete their first tasking of defining roles. The arguments between the group members got so bad that one of their team members walked out for the group and threatened to quit the program.

Is your workplace safe? Do you encourage camaraderie and team building exercises? Some examples might be: company picnics, luncheons or holiday pot-lucks. These lower level needs will need to be addressed and achieved in order for workers to move onto the issues that management wants to focus on such as productivity, innovation and efficiency. Looking at McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y I would determine if Marshall’s management is using the negative aspects of the classical management theory and making assumptions about the workers (p. 43). If I found that Marshall’s management was adhering to Theory X more than Theory Y I would suggest a shift towards Theory Y thinking and managing. Theory Y states that workers will seek out satisfaction of the higher-order needs if management treats them as such and if those lower-order needs are satisfied. I would focus particularly on point number five of Theory Y, which states: the capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population (p. 43). Looking at this point could address participation levels in the team management system. For example instead of allowing employees to elect the same people to represent each production area in the Marshall Team monthly meetings, perhaps try a

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In the past working with both younger and older employees operating under the conditions of both McGregor’s Theory X and Y, and a mixture of Theory Z. Meaning an employee can be

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When managing people, McGregor’s model, indicated below, shows to styles of management. Theory X is directive, whereas Theory Y is enabling, and looks at employee engagement/ teamwork in order to achieve the

Theory X and Theory Y, developed by Douglas McGregor, grew out of opposition towards classical management methods. Classical management theorists, such as Fredrick Taylor, focused on scientific training and efficiency and did not account for personal and behavioral issues, such as management styles or job satisfaction. McGregor saw these deficiencies in the classical school of management which lead him to develop a theory of management that would factor the importance of the individual worker. If a manager could tap into the feelings and attitudes of their workers, then the manager would be able increase their employee’s motivation which would then increase production. McGregor’s theory viewed the employee as a person and not as a machine

This leadership style bases itself on McGregor’s Theory X, that regards team members to be careless and disliking work, assumes they attempt to avoid work as much as possible, and are in need of guidance from their leader.

Douglas McGregor was a management professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He introduced a new motivational theory in his book ‘The Human Side of Enterprise’, stating that all workers were divided into two groups: Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X workers were lazy, irrational and unreliable, and were only motivated by money and threatened by punishment. Theory Y workers were able to seek and accept responsibilities and fulfil any goals given.

2007). Kermally (2005, p.36) explain that McGregor believed ‘how managers manage people in practice depends on what assumptions they make about workers’. It means that which kind of leadership managers choose, according to how managers perceive workers’ attitudes toward their job. Managers believe their workers related to Theory X and Y normally use strict supervision approaches to reduce workers’ control on their job, in contrary, managers allow workers to be innovative and willing to authorise more responsibility to Theory Y workers (Waddell et al. 2007).

10. McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y • Taught psychology at MIT. • At Antioch College, McGregor found that his classroom teaching of human relations did not always work in practice. • From these experiences, his ideas evolve and lead him to recognize the influence of assumptions we make about people and our managerial style. Content Theories of Motivation McGregor‟s Theory X and Theory Y – Theory X • Assumes that workers have little ambition, dislike work, avoid responsibility, and require close supervision. – Theory Y • Assumes that workers can exercise self- direction, desire responsibility, and like to work. – Motivation is maximized by participative decision making, interesting jobs, and good group relations.

There have been many different approaches to management theory. Each theory has made an important contribution to the way managers operate in different organizations. Douglas McGregor is perhaps one of the most interesting theorists in my opinion because he chose to approach management from two different perspectives. Douglas McGregor created two distinct assumptions about the employee. He called his assumptions Theory X and Theory Y. Douglas McGregor wrote a book, The Human Side of Enterprise, which was published in 1960. In this book McGregor goes into great detail describing his management theories, which have been impacting management styles for over 50 years.