Douglas McGregor, Revisited - Managing the Human Side of the Enterprise (Hardcover)

Everyone was excited about the potential of his assumptions about people in the workplace: Employees want to do a good job; they will make extra effort to learn and accomplish more; they have the potential to much more; and it makes great sense to get everyone involved as much as possible. At the time, it seemed like the first breath of fresh air in the stale world of corporate bureaucracies. Although I haven't thought much about McGregor in over 20 years, I realize that I was profoundly influenced by his thinking.

Reading this fine book gave me a valuable new perspective on McGregor -- that a central weakness of many companies and managers is that the company's leadership is not consciously aware of what it assumes about its employees. While almost every company espouses humanistic and empowerment ideas and ideals, many continue to operate in the same old command and control way. Most of the focus is on creating carrots and sticks to manipulate behavior.

Why don't people get it? McGregor had figured out that managers don't think much about their assumptions about employees. McGregor made the important point that everyone needs to determine what those assumptions are (Can people be trusted? If yes, use Theory Y. If no, use Theory X). What happens now is that many people hold Theory X beliefs that employees cannot be trusted and but try to use Theory Y methods (that they can), and the mixed messages keep everyone confused. 'I want you to take full charge of this project, but check with me before doing anything.' Sound familiar?

In particular, managers don't really understand Maslow's hierarchy of needs. As simple needs are fulfilled, psychic needs become more important such as working on something that will make a difference. Chapters 6 and 7 are especially good on how intrinsic personal motivation is created.

This book is excellent in that it contains a retrospective perspective on McGregor as well as some of McGregor's own key essays. I especially enjoyed Warren Bennis's essay on the weaknesses in McGregor's argument: How do managers get their needs served if they are always servant leaders (see Joe Jaworski's excellent book, Synchronicity to get an answer to that) and what is the role of the environment on the needs of the worker in the workplace? Clearly, the Internet is one example of a new force that irresitibly is creating Theory Y contexts for accomplishment, independent of what managers do.

The main weakness of this book is that it does not point out that the limit to Theory Y was that McGregory did not give enough detail to make it possible to know exactly what to do. See Bill Jenson's book, Simplicity, for the significance of this mistake by McGregor.

Whether you believe that employees cannot be trusted or that they are your first line of offense and defense empowered on their own, you will benefit from reading and thinking about the questions and topics in this book. It can be an important step forward toward helping you build an irresistible growth enterprise.