Managers: Theory X and Y

LE03

Managers – Theory X and Theory Y

This time I’ll talk about a few interesting concepts about managers that were discussed this Saturday in our Principles of Management (POM) lecture.

This week we discussed about the Theory X and Theory Y of human motivation. It was proposed by Douglas McGregorat of the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s and have so far been used in human resource management, organizational behavior, organizational communication and organizational development . 

Observation says, there are two types of managers – Type X and Type Y.

X v/s Y Managers:

X type of managers are negative in their points of view of their employees and the organization, whereas Y type of managers remain positive in their views no matter what. Now let’s see what happens when X and Y type managers interact with Lazy and Active Employees respectively:

Situation 1	Employees are Lazy	Manager X thinks they are Lazy	Theory X
Situation 2	Employees are Active	Manager X thinks they are Lazy	Theory X
Situation 3	Employees are Lazy	Manager Y thinks they are Active	Theory Y
Situation 4	Employees are Active	Manager Y thinks they are Active	Theory Y

Theory X:

Situation 1 is often found in the industries. I, while working as a team member in my previous company, observed that a number of teams have suffered because of insincere employees and more importantly, because the manager (X type) did not do much to motivate them to do it sincerely.

Situation 2 is actually worse, wherein the employees are actually sincere and active. However, the manager X does not seem to share their sense of sincerity and actually highlights their weaknesses. Even if an organization is endowed with very active employees, it is very important for the manager to appreciate them and work with them with a positive attitude towards them. The funny fact is, based on my observations, most of our experiences, especially the industry related ones, belong to this category. The reason is probably that as employees, we tend to think that we are active and the manager fails to realize it.

Theory Y:

Now let's see how a type Y manager deals with the employees. 

I’d like to highlight Situation 3 a bit later. Let’s look at Situation 4 first. Here the manager Y thinks that his/her employees are active, and quite rightly so. Questions might be asked on whether this requires any merit from the manager’s point of view at all. Well, for them, I would like to point out that even though the employees are active, it is of utmost importance to appreciate their worth, or else we might end up in a Situation 2. The ones who might have encountered Situation 2 would definitely realize the value of Theory Y in Situation 4.

Now, the curious case of Situation 3, wherein the Manager Y appreciates his/her employees and treats them as they were Active employees, although they are apparently Lazy.

If we look around ourselves, most of our parents, teachers belong to this category. However, it is even more important for a manager to be Type Y when his/her employees are not willing to contribute.

I have had two great mentors in my professional life in the form of my offshore team lead and my client side team lead (for those not familiar with IT jargons, an offshore centre is somewhere the client have outsourced their business). They were full of positive energy and I always had a share of appreciation whenever we achieved something, even if very small. The point is not blind appreciation. In fact, it is, at times, very important to criticize the employees in a constructive way. However, it is very essential to believe one’s employees and treat them as they have great potential.

Observations show, it really does not matter whether the employees are active or lazy. What really matters is whether the managers are type X or Y.

Potential

The previous section highlights the need of identifying and appreciating the potential in employees. Now, on that note, let’s try to understand a few concepts related to potential and hence, goal setting.

 They say, human potential is infinite, and quite rightly so. As an organization, we try to reach our maximum potential in every endeavour. Even if pay attention towards all the definitions in Physics or Mathematics, we always set a parameter which seems  practically unachievable. Example: we define point to be something which does not have any dimension, which seems practically unrealistic. However, this is where the beauty of potential lies. It is infinite. The mor ewe stretch ourselves, we realize that our potential is even higher.

So, keeping that in mind, let’s try to understand how we can set goals and achieve quality performance.

The above picture explains the inter-relationship of

• ·        Our past experiences
• ·        Our estimate of achievable goal
• ·        Goal set
• ·        Performance achieved
• ·        Our Potential

As managers, we must thrive to reach the potential. Hence, the goal set must be higher than our past experiences and our perception of goals achievable. In this process, we must also aspire for a performance which is even higher than the goal set.

In my previous post, I discussed about the tower building exercise that we performed. We can very well relate to that in this context.

Hence, it should the aspiration of a manager to thrive for the utmost potential, and in the process to achieve excellence.

Discussions will continue. Hope you enjoyed this little post. Happy learning !!!

Excellence

Questions:

What is Excellence? What are its Components? And most importantly, How to achieve it?

We had a very intriguing discussion regarding these in the class this Thursday. And we went on to learn a few very important concepts about excellence, and as a matter of fact, about the purpose and working principles of organizations. 

Specimens:

Before trying to define excellence, let’s first look at a few probable specimens.

Is the Tajmahal an excellence? What about Apple iPhone? And UID Adhaar?

Well to talk about Tajmahal, it cannot be regarded as an excellence. The reason being, it is not replicable. What use does a statue in the middle of nowhere serve if it cannot be used by the crores of people around? We want lakhs and crores of Tajmahals.

Apple iPhone, yes it is. It has gone places, reached crores of people beyond boundaries. Probably, it is still a bit expensive to reach many more out of its present purview. Still, the bottomline remains, it is useful and replicable numerous times.

About UID Adhaar, we are not sure yet. However, it definitely shows the potential to be an excellence, provided the issues related to it are addressed properly.

So what conclusions can we draw from the above examples?

1.       Excellence must be replicable and of use to the greater part of the society.

2.        It cannot be achieved by individuals.

3.       Organizations can be used to achieve excellence. In fact, organizations are actually meant for that. They are tools for excellence.

Now, an argument might lie in the second point. That whether one can achieve excellence individually. 

Well, the first point is, even if one can achieve it, why would he/she? The next point is: the capacity of a group is always greater than that of an individual. Of course, if the group is not managed properly, it might produce results even worse than certain individuals. However, that should in no way encourage us to believe that individuals are more likely to achieve excellence than groups/organizations.

Hence, it remains one of the primary concerns of a manager to manage the group/organization properly to achieve this excellence. We’ll be performing an experiment to analyze this even further.

Crossing the valley:

It is called 'Crossing the Valley' exercise. Three of us will have to cross the valley as shown in  the above picture. Definitely the above cannot be achieved by an individual. The challenge for the group of three is to execute the plan and walk as if they were simply walking on a plain surface. I'll elaborate more on this once we perform this experiment.

Components of Excellence:

Now let us try to have a look at the components of excellence. We learned

Excellence = Efficiency X Effectiveness

Now how to elaborate it. Well, in simple words,  Efficiency deals with whether the given work is executed properly, whereas Effectiveness deals with whether the work given was rightly estimated.

Efficiency can be attributed to engineers, whereas Effectiveness remains a managerial concern. (Without any bias, any person who is able to imbibe the two features is both an engineer and a manager.)

We performed an exercise to understand this concept. It's called the Tower Building Exercise.

Tower Building Exercise:

One of our friends won he bid to form the designated tower. He had to build a tower of small cubes (approx. 2x2x2 cube-cm each). Asked how many cubes can be put on the tower without getting it to fall down, the average estimate of the class was below 15. Very importantly, the performer himself estimated a count of only 10. At the end, he could build a tower of 18 cubes.

Obviously, efficiency was above estimate. However, the question to bother is: if one can build a tower of 18, why would one estimate only 10? This is where the question of effectiveness lies as well as does the role of a manager.

We were then asked to give an estimate in case the same experiment is performed by the person blindfolded, with another one or two giving him directions. The estimate was reasonably lower than the previous one - by almost everyone in the class.

Now, here lies the real essence of management. A manager is a person who can think, and think effectively, most importantly, beyond a normal person's limit. If an individual can build 18 cube towers, why won't a group of 3 be able to build one with more? And this is thriving for excellence.

To add value to this discussion, I would like to add that the same experiment was carried out in another class, wherein the group outperformed the estimates of the class and built a 17 cube tower, blindfolded.

Learnings:

So what I learnt is that excellence is achieved by the combination of  efficiency and effectiveness, wherein the latter serves an even greater purpose in achieving the same. As managers, we must be able to develop this effective thinking.

On that note, I'll conclude this post. Happy learning !!!