Old school Vs New Age: A look at Theory X and Theory Y.

Two friends were talking when one of them asked the other "Give me an example of Theory X and Theory Y ? " The other friend replied " When you take your wife to shopping it is theory X and when you take your girlfriend to shopping it is theory Y ." So if you didn't get the joke then probably you should read rest of the post in which I will try to explain something about this motivation theory approach.

This theory was put forward by Douglas McGregor in his book “The Human Side of Enterprise” in 1960.This theory explains two type of type management:
1.Theory X -- is authoritarian style of management where the main focus of the manager is to increase the productivity
2. Theory Y -- is participative style of management In which it is believed that People are Committed to there objectives.

Theory X believes that people are really don't want to work, they prefer to do nothing or shy away from the given work.Work alone cannot be the source of motivation for the workers they need some more motivation in form of money,incentives, or reward.

Theory Y believes that people naturally like to work, they like to take responsibility and they enjoy their work.Work itself is enough as a source of motivation as completion of work provides them satisfaction, pride, growth and social contacts.

Here is a video which will make it more clear:

Now 4 different conditions arises :

1. A good manager supervise bad workers
2.A good manager supervise good workers
3.A bad manager supervise good workers
4.A bad manager supervise bad workers

In the first situation the company will suffer as manager will think that workers are self motivated whereas workers will like to be lead.

Now the second situation is the ideal one where a good manager and good workers co-exist.the workers will find their work satisfying and will be self motivated to do their own work and manager will take their opinion also in account while taking decisions.

In the third situation the workers will lose enthusiasm over a period of time due to the authoritative style of manager.

The last situation will ultimately lead to the shutting down of production facility.

So it is really so easy to manage people and get your wok done by keeping everyone happy ? Not really given the fact that each individual's response is different to different situation management becomes more of a Rubik cube where you have to align all the different pieces in their right place without disturbing the other pieces.