Theory X & Theory Y
Dr.Mandi lectured
us on the famous theories of human
motivation created and developed by Douglas McGregor.
He
started explaining to us that the managers can be divided into two
categories based on their attitude towards their employees: Theory X managers (negative
managers) and Theory Y managers (positive managers).
Theory X managers:
These managers
think that most of the people don’t care about the needs of the organization
they work for. They think the team lack ambition and has very little creativity
and problem-solving capacity. These managers never believe in the potential of
their employees. They never think of channelizing the potential of their teams
in the right direction to produce the desired results. Instead they criticize
the team resulting into dissatisfactory performance of the team.
Theory Y
managers:
As opposed to
Theory X managers, Theory Y managers trust their employees. They believe that
most of the people are high performers in a proper work environment. These
managers will always do something that will keep their employees motivated. The
team will also work for the organization with great passion. The motivation is
the key these managers use to make the team work in proper direction.
The following
figure shows the mentality of workers on how the two different managers will
have a paradigm about them
Dr.
Mandi further explained us there are two category of workers, Lazy workers and Motivated
workers. The following analysis describes the various possible scenarios within
an organization.
Category 1 : Employees are
lazy and the manager also thinks that they are lazy
This situation the
team does not perform at the level it can perform. This situation leads to low
productivity. The similar situation occurred during my tenure in metamation
eventually lead to termination of employee
Category 2 : Employees are good
and the manager assumes that they are lazy
Most of the people
think that they have been through this situation. This is very harmful
situation to have. In this situation even if the employees are good and willing
to work, their strengths and potentials are not used to that extent. They are
never encouraged or motivated by their managers. It may lead to dissatisfaction
of worker and may reduce productivity & interest of worker. Such team lacks
the healthy communication and synchronization between the levels.
Category 3 : Employees are
lazy but the manager thinks that they are good.
Let’s take example
of parents having children. Even if their child is not doing well in the
studies, parents still believe in their child. They always encourage their
child to perform better by saying that their child is good. This the way
managers can make their employees work and channelize their potential in the
right direction to produce the desired goals. This improves team productivity.
Category 4 : Employees are
good and the managers also think that they are good
This is the ideal
situation people can be into. This is the situation where we can expect maximum
productivity out of the team.
Dr.Mandi and we tried
ranking the most desired situation in an organisation. We then decided upon the
following result. The most desired category is ranked 1.
|
Rank
|
Category
|
|
1
|
Category 4
|
|
2
|
Category 3
|
|
3
|
Category 2
|
|
4
|
Category 1
|
My Perspective
I am in agreement with the common consensus
that category 4 is the ideal situation. But, I would personally relish to work
in a category 3 situation. This would have more scope for improvement and could
present a challenging environment. My aim will be to transform the organisation
this category 3 situation into a category 4 situation.
