The theory of X and Y

Theory X and Theory Y

The thoughts and perception of the human is responsible for his attitude and his bearing, the same goes for an organization. To explain it in a better way Mr. Douglas McGregor proposed the theory X and theory Y of human motivation. Theory X and Theory Y have to do with the perceptions managers hold on their employees.

Manager Belonging to theory X is a authoritarian and has following characteristics

1)  He assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can and that they inherently dislike work.

2)  Workers needed to be supervised and controlled regularly.

3)  He believes employees lack ambition and if they are not given proper incentive, they will avoid responsibility,.

Manager belonging to theory Y is optimistic and hence can be indentify as

1)  An individual who believes employees are self motivated and they practice self control.

2)   He thinks employees enjoy their work and duties.

3)  They believe employees are creative and if they are given proper environment, their creativity will flourish which would be helpful in accomplishing the goals of an organization.

Now consider the following cases

Manager X works with good employee (motivated)-

In this case workers like their work, enjoy it and self-motivated to accomplish the goal effectively under the given deadline but manager still don't have confidence on workers and keep an eagle eye to monitor each and every activity of the workers. Manager supervises them according to his/her perception not by the observation which in turn vitiates the environment all around the workers and affects their emotions also. This will create lack of trust and pacify the self-motivation. This kind of culture hampers the growth of an organization.

Manager X works with bad employee (unmotivated)-

In this case as workers dislike their work and management push them to let the work done. Without goal clarity and lack of proper strategy which leads dissatisfaction amongst workers and borne havoc between management and workers. Workers are coerced by the management to accomplish the objective. That's the story in most of the organizations.

Manager Y works with good employee (motivated) –

In this case, employees will enjoy their work. The manager feels employees are motivated and they will dedicatedly complete the assigned work. The relationship between worker and management grow stronger period by period. As the workers understand their responsibility, his work doesn’t hamper the growth of an organization and organization flourishes.

 Manager Y works with bad employee (unmotivated)-

In this case, workers are lazy and Manager think workers are good. Even though workers dislike the work, manager motivate them,   they build trust on each other and try every possible alternative which satisfy the workers. Manager provides incentives, appreciation and rewards them for the work being done. The management which follow theory Y gives more satisfaction to the workers in the organization in contrast to theory X. This attitude of management shapes the organization and expedites its growth.

the kind of scenario that i have seen in my organization belongs to category four where manager are motivated and workers are not. In this case, the organization has to come up with the various incentives like providing vehicle and car loan to them at subsidized rate, organizing the training of the workers and empowering them. Workers are given due saying in a management through union. The policies are worker friendly. The result of this can be seen as the company has lower attrition rate in an industry and growing faster as compare to its competitors.