Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y

Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human motivation given by Douglas McGregor

 

Theory X suggests that Manager thinks

• that employees are lazy by nature and avoids work
• has no ambition and follow rather than lead
• never worries about organizational goal but their own
• managers have to use threat of punishment in order to make them work

Theory Y suggests that Manager thinks

• that employees are not lazy and like to work
• has their own ambition and aspiration
• they understand the organizational goal
• managers have to just guide the employees to work

Fig. 2.1. Snapshot of our Green-board

As shown in the figure there can be two types of worker:

1. Good Worker
2. Bad Worker

Also, there can be two types of managers:

1. Hopeful manager with positive attitude
2. Hopeless manager with negative attitude

From the above, four situation can arise:

1. Bad worker working under positive manager
2. Bad worker working under negative manager
3. Good worker working under positive manager
4. Good worker working under negative manager

Let us analyse the situation one by one,

Situation 1: This situation has a decent scope of improvement, a good/positive manager can strive this situation towards the situation 3.
eg. A manager comes from a good company to work for another company where there is Industrial Union problem.
Situation 2: This is the worst situation and from here the situation can't improve.
eg. The manager doesn't like his job and wants to leave it and there are various worker unions in the company which regularly calls for strike
Situation 3: This is the ideal situation, all the other situation should strive to this situation.
eg. All the big production and manufacturing companies which is running profitably for last many decades.
Situation 4: This situation will degrade to situation 2 in due time.
eg. A manager who is transferred from some other department and he is not happy with it, but the workers are all experienced and happy with their jobs.

It is evident that the Theory X leads to depressing work environment and Theory Y leads to more stimulating environment for development of the organization as a whole. In today's world where Theory Y is more pertinent the mid level management is loosing its purpose. Also, with technology advancement it is very easy for the top management to be in touch with the low level management, which is leading us to believe that mid level management has become a thing of the past.

Any business must be oriented towards following heads:

• Objective
• Performance
• Result

The top management sets the objective and the low level management perform to give results.

Craftsmanship - an introduction
It can generally be described as a one man management where he/she is responsible for all the jobs related to the business.
eg. A guy vending clay toys on a thela - He is responsible for the finance (money), procurement of raw material (clay), production of toys and sales of those toys.

This generally requires great skill and is meant for the profit of single individual.


Activities in the class:

Activity 1: One person was required fro this activity and choice was done through bidding, whoever bids the highest would be given the place on the dais for tower building.
Job: To build tallest single block thick tower.
Highest bid:  Rs. 500
He built a tower 16 blocks high, much higher than our expectation of 7,8 or even 10

Activity 2: A group of 8 people volunteered
Job: To build tallest single block thick tower with a blind-folded builder.
1 person was assisting him closely and 6 watching from a distance and commenting now and then. They made a tower 8 blocks high. The builder complained of too many directions and commands.