The Human Side of Enterprise, Annotated Edition (BUSINESS BOOKS)

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In the cynical sixties the book got a mixed reception, those who understood and practiced the McGregor philosophy were in the minority and those who were absolutely sure that the McGregor proposition could never happen were the huge majority. Let us consider some of the important environmental conditions which affect the growth of managers...(1) economic and technological characteristics of the industry and the firm, (2) policies and practices of the company, and (3) the behavior of the immediate superior." Preface -- Part I. The theoretical assumptions of management. 1. Management and scientific knowledge -- 2. Methods of influence and control -- 3. Theory X : the traditional view of direction and control -- 4. Theory Y : the integration of individual and organizational goals -- Part II. Theory Y in practice. 5. Management by integration and self-control -- 6. A critique of performance appraisal -- 7. Administering salaries and promotions -- 8. The Scanlon plan -- 9. Participation in perspective -- 10. The managerial climate -- 11. Staff-line relationships -- 12. Improving staff-line collaboration -- Part III. The development of managerial talent. 13. An analysis of leadership -- 14. Management development programs -- 15. Acquiring managerial skills in the classroom -- 16. The managerial team -- Conclusion It is one of the favourite pastimes of management to decide, from within their professional ivory tower, what help the field organisation needs and then to design and develop programs for meeting these needs.

If a climate and soil conditions conducive to growth are created by the way management manages, the cream will rise to the top, in the sense that individual managers throughout the whole organization will be involved in a process of self-development leading to the realization of their full potentialities." When people respond to managerial decisions in undesired ways the normal response is to blame them, rather than managements failure to select the appropriate means of control.” So began Douglas McGregor in this 1960 management classic. It was a seemingly simple question he asked, yet it led to a fundamental revolution in management. Today, with the rise of the global economy, the information revolution, and the growth of knowledge-driven work, McGregor's simple but provocative question continues to resonate-perhaps more powerfully than ever before. On the contrary, Theory Y assumes people “will exercise self-direction and self-control in the service of objectives to which he is committed”. This means that human growth and development is possible at work. Yawn. I dunno, I found the majority of McGregor's "findings", especially what is stated early in the book, to be fairly obvious. And there is something yawn-inducing about his academic writing style. Nothing all that eye-opening here, but it's considered a classic in the business/general management sub-genre, so I'm glad I got it out of the way at least.What caught my eye first in the book was that this was the source of the Theory Y Management Strategy. Douglas McGregor characterised the current management practises as Theory X and in this book he proposed the antidote to the destruction that was waged by Theory X managers. My takeaways from the book are a long list of ideas and mental models about management that are perfectly synthesized by Douglas. Some of them are not new, but again it is surprising that they were written in 1960. Soon after graduation, he entered Harvard University where he studied for three years, earning an M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology. It’s interesting to note that the color-blind McGregor chose “The Sensitivity of the Eye to the Saturation of Colors” for his PhD topic. He remained at Harvard for two years as a psychology lecturer. What are your assumptions (implicit as well as explicit) about the most effective way to manage people?"

Team-based organizations are not new. In The Human Side of Enterprise, McGregor cautions that: “Most teams aren’t teams at all, but merely collections of individual relationships with the boss. Each individual vying with the others for power, prestige and position.” He adds: “…the mistaken idea that the effectiveness of the group depends solely on upon the leader. As a matter of fact, the research evidence indicates quite clearly that skilled and sensitive membership behavior is the real clue to effective group operation.” Elaborating, McGregor observes that a successful team has an “informal, comfortable, relaxed atmosphere,” broad participation in discussions, tasks or objectives that are well understood, constructive disagreement, decisions mostly reached by consensus, the chair does not dominate, the group frequently “will stop to examine how well it is doing, “and “members listen to each other!” Looking to the future, McGregor states: “The modern industrial organization is a vast complex of interdependent relationships, up, down, across, and even ‘diagonally.’ . . . It is probable that one day we shall begin to draw organizational charts as a series of linked groups rather than as a hierarchical structure of individual ‘reporting’ relationships.” Confidence thus rests heavily on the subordinate's belied in the integrity of the superior, When one is dependent, any suspicion that the superior cannot be fully trusted arouses anxiety."He chose instead to pursue a psychology degree at what is now Wayne State University in Detroit. After two years, he married, dropped out of college, and worked as a gas station attendant in Buffalo, New York. By 1930 he had risen to the rank of regional gas station manager.