Douglas McGregor

Luciana Peña
 Introduction
Douglas McGregor (1906 - 1964) was a Management
professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management
whose 1960 book The Human Side of Enterprise had a
profound influence on management practices. In the
book he identified an approach of creating an
environment within which employees are motivated via
authoritative, direction and control or integration and self-
control, which he called theory X and theory Y.
 Theory X
'authoritarian management' style
• In this theory management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid
work if they can.
• workers need to be closely supervised and comprehensive systems of controls
developed. A hierarchical structure is needed with narrow span of control at each
level.
• employees will show little ambition without an enticing incentive program and will
avoid responsibility whenever they can.
• Most people must be forced with the threat of punishment to work towards
organisational objectives.
 Managers in theory X
• The Theory X manager tends to believe that everything must end in blaming
someone. He or she thinks all prospective employees are only out for
themselves. Usually these managers feel the sole purpose of the employees
interest in the job is money. They will blame the person first in most
situations, without questioning whether it may be the system, policy, or lack
of training that deserves the blame.
• Managers that subscribe to Theory X, tend to take a rather pessimistic view
of their employees. A Theory X manager believes that his or her employees
do not really want to work, that they would rather avoid responsibility and
that it is the manager's job to structure the work and energize the employee.
The result of this line of thought is that Theory X managers naturally adopt a
more authoritarian style based on the threat of punishment.
 Theory Y
'participative management' style
• Effort in work is as natural as work and play.
• People will apply self-control and self-direction in the pursuit of
organisational objectives, without external control or the threat of
punishment.
• Commitment to objectives is a function of rewards associated with their
achievement.
• People usually accept and often seek responsibility.
• The capacity to use a high degree of imagination, ingenuity and creativity in
solving organisational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the
population.
• In industry the intellectual potential of the average person is only partly
utilised.
 Managers in theory Y
• A Theory Y manager believes that, given the right conditions, most people
will want to do well at work and that there is a pool of unused creativity in the
workforce. They believe that the satisfaction of doing a good job is a strong
motivation in and of itself. A Theory Y manager will try to remove the
barriers that prevent workers from fully actualizing themselves .
• Many people interpret Theory Y as a positive set of assumptions about
workers. A close reading of The Human Side of Enterprise reveals that
McGregor simply argues for managers to be open to a more positive view of
workers and the possibilities that creates.
Diagram