HENLEY ALUMNI ASSOCIATION – MALTA
NEWSLETTER – 28 November 2009
Issue No: 212
A fortnightly newsletter to keep Henley Alumni Association – Malta (HAAM) members informed
with latest management practices and with news and activities of HAAM.
The contents of this edition are:
Introduction
Management Concepts
Theory X and Theory Y
Leading Management Thinkers
Philip Crosby
Members Section
Henley Business School Newsletter
News from HAAM
Future activities
Introduction
This e-Newsletter is designed as a Web page so as to facilitate navigating through its pages. Using
Word for Microsoft 97 or later versions, you should be able to browse through this document by
clicking on the underlined links. These will take you to the relevant sections of this newsletter and
also to Internet resources. To achieve the latter you would have to be connected to the Internet.
Your feedback and contribution (for example sending relevant research papers, Internet sites of
interest to Alumni) would be appreciated. E-mail your feedback or request for further information
to the following address:
haam@henleymc.ac.uk
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Management Concepts
This section contains an article on some essential business idea/s. Remind yourself and get to grips
with key management concepts in a language that's easy to understand.
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Theory X and Theory Y
Even though he died more than 30 years ago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor
Douglas McGregor remains one of the most influential and most quoted thinkers in human
relations (or, as it was known in the 1940s and 1950s, behavioral science research). His work
influenced and inspired the work of thinkers as diverse as Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Warren Bennis,
and Robert Waterman. Most notably, McGregor is renowned for his motivational models, Theories
X and Y.
Theories X and Y were the centerpiece of McGregor's 1960 classic, The Human Side of
Enterprise. Theory X was traditional carrot-and-stick thinking built on “the assumption of the
mediocrity of the masses.” This assumed that workers were inherently lazy, needed to be
supervised and motivated, and regarded work as a necessary evil to provide money.
The premises of Theory X, wrote McGregor, were “(1) that the average human has an inherent
dislike of work and will avoid it if he can; (2) that people, therefore, need to be coerced,
controlled, directed, and threatened with punishment to get them to put forward adequate effort
toward the organization’s ends; and (3) that the typical human prefers to be directed, wants to
avoid responsibility, has relatively little ambition, and wants security above all.”
The flip side was described by McGregor as Theory Y, based on the principle that people want and
need to work. If this is the case, then organizations need to develop the individual’s commitment to
its objectives, and then to liberate his abilities on behalf of those objectives. McGregor described
the assumptions behind Theory Y: “(1) that the expenditure of physical and mental effort in work
is as natural as in play or rest—the typical human doesn’t inherently dislike work; (2) external
control and threat of punishment are not the only means for bringing about effort toward a
company’s ends; (3) commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with their
achievement—the most important of such rewards is the satisfaction of ego and can be the direct
product of effort directed toward an organization’s purposes; (4) the average human being learns,
under the right conditions, not only to accept but to seek responsibility; and (5) the capacity to
exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in the solution of
organizational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population.”.
Theories X and Y were not simplistic stereotypes. McGregor was realistic: “It is no more possible
to create an organization today that will be a full, effective application of this theory than it was to
build an atomic power plant in 1945. There are many formidable obstacles to overcome.”
The common complaint against McGregor’s Theories X and Y is that they are mutually exclusive,
two incompatible ends of a spectrum. To counter this, before he died in 1964, McGregor was
developing Theory Z, a theory that synthesized the organizational and personal imperatives.
Theory Z
Before Douglas McGregor died in 1964, he was developing Theory Z, which synthesized the
organizational and personal imperatives earlier developed in his Theory X and Theory Y. The
concept of Theory Z was later seized upon by William Ouchi. In his book of the same name, he
analyzed Japanese working methods. Here, he found fertile ground for many of the ideas
McGregor was proposing for Theory Z: lifetime employment, concern for employees including
their social lives, informal control, decisions made by consensus, slow promotion, excellent
transmittal of information from top to bottom and bottom to top with the help of middle
management, commitment to the firm, and high concern for quality.
Key Reading
Robert Waterman. The Frontiers of Excellence. Nicholas Brealey, 1994
Douglas McGregor. The Human Side of Enterprise. Twenty-fifth anniversary printing, McGraw-Hill, 1985
Karl E. Weick. The Social Psychology of Organizing. McGraw-Hill, 1979
William Ouchi. Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge. Addison-Wesley, 1981
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Leading Management Thinkers
This page gives a short profile and backgrounder on the leading management thinkers, past and
present
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Philip Crosby
Philip Crosby (1926-2001) began his working life on an assembly line, rising to become quality
manager for Martin-Marietta. At the company he came up with the concept of ‘zero defects’.
Crosby then spent 14 years as corporate vice president for ITT.
He set up his own company in 1979 to promote his quality theories. At the height of the quality
bandwagon, Philip Crosby Associates advised 200 of the Fortune 500. At one time the company
had 300 employees and revenues of $80 million. Crosby was called to give evidence at the
Congressional Committee investigating the Challenger disaster. In 1985 Philip Crosby Associates
was floated for $30 million.
In 1989, Crosby sold his company to the UK consultancy Proudfoot for $67 million. Crosby stayed
on as creative director for a salary of £500,000. In 1997 he bought the company back for less than
$1 million.
Crosby’s books include Quality Is Free (1979), Quality Without Tears (1984) and various others
on the same theme.
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MEMBERS SECTION
This page is dedicated to the contribution of our members. Members are invited to contribute to this page by
submitting e.g. their own profiles, research studies, job opportunities, product/service advertisements, etc. All
contributions must be in Word 97 format and not greater than 200K Bytes so as to facilitate distribution through this
Newsletter.
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Henley Business School Newsletter
Attached with our Newsletter is a copy of the latest edition of the Henley Business School Newsletter.
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NEWS FROM HAAM
Latest news, appointments, events can be found in this page.
Future Activities
The events sub-committee within your committee is continuing to work on a program of activities
for the rest of the year. The next activity planned is the Film & Meal, then Wine tasting and
cultural activities. We also strive to bring you educational activities as opportunities arise. We
will inform you by e-mail with the details of these activities when they are finalised.
We look forward to your feedback as this helps us to maintain a strong network among our
members.
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Your comments are appreciated – e-mail them to: haam@henleymc.ac.uk
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