The Human Side Of Enterprise: An Analysis

All managers, employers and business owners are inherently responsible for ensuring that they develop the most productive workforce possible. Sometimes this can be accomplished by issuing comprehensive and clear direction to each employee with the expectation that they will be followed to the letter, regardless of the employee’s opinion or input. Other times it can be accomplished by providing the employees with an end result and allowing the employees to accomplish the end goal in whichever fashion they desire within certain parameters. Undoubtedly, the two methods offer two different approaches to getting to the same thing, the end result of the product. In his book, The Human Side of Enterprise, Douglas McGregor’s introduces Theory X and
Essentially, Theory X assumes that the primary source of most employee motivation is monetary, with security as a strong second.” (Introduction to Business, 2016, Motivating Employees)
“Theory X and Theory Y,” n.d. adds that workers “need to be supervised at every step” and that they may need to be enticed or threatened to produce the desired results. “Theories X and Y,” 2008 continues with the fact that “[Theory X] has a ready-made excuse for failure—the innate limitations of all human resources.” Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, those strictly following the concept of Theory Y assume
They tend to work on the belief that you get fair pay for fair work. Additionally, their rewards for superior performance are simplified, usually monetary, and are usually “part of the overall mechanisms of control and remuneration. (“Theory X and Theory Y,” n.d.). As “Theories X and Y,” (2008) expresses, “[it] reflects an underlying belief that management must counteract an inherent human tendency to avoid work.” Theory X organizations are more likely to have more supervisors at every step of operation, reducing opportunities for delegation, thus maintaining authority and control centralization. Even back in the 60’s, “McGregor recognized that X-Type workers are in fact usually the minority, and yet in mass organizations, such as large scale production [and unskilled production line work] environment, X Theory management [has its place,] may be required and can be unavoidable. (“Theory X and Theory Y,” n.d.) On the other hand, Theory Y organizations focuses on motivating the employees by providing them with the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process with the expectation that “people will exercise self-direction and self-control in the achievement of organizational objectives to the degree that they are committed to those objectives”. It is management's main task in such a system to maximize that commitment.