Douglas Mcgregor: Theory X And Y

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Douglas McGregor: Theory X and Y Contemporary Management October 31, 2011 Introduction The purpose of this paper is to provide and in-depth definition and description of Theory X and Y, what these theories address, and an analysis of the theories with pros and cons. How these are used will then be used in examples of personal experience. Douglas McGregor Douglas McGregor is a native of Detroit, Michigan. He attended the City College of Detroit which is now Wayne University. After getting his PhD at Harvard, he taught psychology at MIT. Up until his death in 1964, he was the Professor of Industrial Management at Sloan Fellows (Crainer, 2006). McGregor was known for studying the way people in an organization behaved and how it affected their work. He saw that management’s role was to set conditions within the workplace that helped the employees reach their goals (Crainer, 2006). He saw that management viewed their employees in one of two ways and came up with Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X Theory X presumes that an employee is basically lazy. They are just at their job for a paycheck and will do the bare minimum to receive it. The employees do not want any responsibilities, have no ambition, and prefer to be in a following position (Theory X and Theory Y, 2010). These workers require management to motivate and push them in order for work to get done (McConnell, 2007). McGregor thought that the average person doesn’t really want to work and will avoid it if possible; people will need to be “coerced, controlled, directed, and threatened” in order for the goals of the organization to be met; and that people want that direction because they have no ambition, but want security (Crainer, 2006). Pros and Cons of Theory X There is no good way to deal with a Theory X person. McGregor even thought that Theory X assumptions were false. If
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