The slide is related Mcgregor theory and comaprison of X and Y theory

2. Introduction
• Douglas Murray McGregor was born in the city of Detroit
• His greatest contribution to the school of management thought came to life in
the book, “The Human Side of Enterprise”, published in 1960
• It bring about a theory which has left a deep impression visible even now. in a
poll conducted by the Fellows of the Academy of Management was voted as
the fourth most influential management book of the 20th century.

3. Introduction
• He became the first management theorist who blatantly proposed the
fact that most managers at that point in time did not know to utilize
the human resource successfully.
• A remarkable quote by Peter F. Drucker was printed onto the cover
page: “With every passing year, McGregor’s message becomes ever
more relevant, more timely, and more important.”

4. Scenario in the 1950s
• The belief that employees were powerless and were obligated to act as per the whims and
fancies of the boss was prevalent in most industrial managers.
• They lacked the capacity to comprehend that mere authority does not inspire or assure the
loyalty of the workforce and yield results.
• Workers tended to be undervalued thus the outcomes were quite often negatively impacted.
• In basic conceptions, attention was not given to social sciences to adopt methods to gain the
best out of human resource.

5. The Idea
• McGregor classified human nature into two distinct each of these behaviours
that could be exhibited termed as Theory X and Theory Y for simplicity.
• The conventional way of management as philosophized by F.W. Taylor was
elaborated as the ‘Theory X’ by McGregor.
• Theory X takes a pessimistic perspective of the personality of personnel
employed in the organization, who are lethargic, not intellectually competent,
driven by self-interest and inflexible.
• The management approach to be implemented in this context would be a
typical approach and exercising complete control over the personnel along
with constant monitoring.
• This approach does not take into consideration the basic Newtonian
principle “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”.

6. The Idea
• This authoritarian style meets the goal of economic gains by coercing or modifying
human behavior to suit this.
• McGregor highlights the fallacies of both “hard” and “soft” styles of management
adopted as low commitment, performance levels dropping below par, possible
rebellions within the organization and in the extreme case disruption of production.
• McGregor at the juncture of proposing ‘Theory Y’ relied heavily upon the research,
findings of a contemporary American psychologist, Abraham H Maslow.
• McGregor utilized Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, to derive correlations between
motivation and management.

8. ‘Theory Y’,
• In ‘Theory Y’, McGregor argues at the workplace physical, safety needs
are already fulfilled in terms of monetary income and job security.
• In order to satisfy the higher needs of social, egotistical and self-
actualization needs the emphasis is to be shifted.
• The suggestion provided by McGregor is to incorporate opportunities
into the workplace to ensure sustained employee motivation.

9. ‘Theory Y’,
• This theory also is accompanied by an assumption made by McGregor
considering the optimistic view of human nature “that people will
exercise self-direction and self-control in the achievement of
organizational objectives to the degree that they are committed to those
objectives” which allows this participative form of management to
function.

10. ‘Theory Y’,
• Although McGregor was practical not to conceptualize a 100% Theory
Y-type organization, he put for methods in alignment to Theory Y like
decentralization of decision-making authority, delegation, job
enlargement, and participative management to bring about effective
management

12. Criticism of Theory X & Y
• The basic premise of theory X and theory Y could be interpreted as
treating workers as children who need to be controlled versus treating
them as mature adults who need to be given more liberty to achieve the
best output.
• Though there has been a lot of contention over the years as to which is
more apt for an organization, Theory X or Theory Y.
• Empirical evidence regarding the validity of Theory X and Theory Y,
however, is varied.

13. Criticism of Theory X & Y
• Some thinkers have gone ahead to observe and advise Theory Y
organizations to revert to Theory X in situations of an unstable
economy.
• Though McGregor honestly admits that the theory he brought forth
would be “Overgeneralized and will ignore important qualifications”
• McGregor's concepts are included in the majority of basic management
textbooks, and which are studied by academics and students.