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 !!!