Chapter 2
THEORIES OF MANAGING PEOPLE
Materials Needed: Presentation copy (PowerPoint slide or document projector copy) of
old lady/young lady or Escher’s Angels and Devils from Chapter 9. A board or flip chart
if you’re planning to ask them, “What is the best way to manage?” or “What do great
managers do?” Some instructors hand out some kind of prize to the award winners who
give the speeches and take their photos to increase the fun factor.
Objectives: By the end of the chapter, students should be able to:
A. Describe seven theories of management and their “ideal” manager.
B. Explain the competing values framework and what constitutes a master manager.
C. Explain why it’s important to identify their personal theories about management and
organizational behavior.
D. Describe their personal theories of management.
E. Identify the managerial skills they need in today’s global business environment.
Preparing the Classroom:

Decide where you want the students to give their speeches. (It’s better to have
them come to the front of the class to make it more formal.)
Sample Class Agenda:
6:00–6:30
6:30–7:00
7:00–7:30
7:30–8:00
Lecturette: Theory X and Y, Evolution of Management Thought, and
Quinn's Competing Values Theory
Groups prepare speeches
Manager of the Year speeches
Summary and Debriefing
Setting the Stage—Lecturette
You can “sell” the importance of management theories with examples of companies that
based their decisions on incorrect theories or mental maps with negative results. There
are some good examples in Pfeffer and Sutton’s book, Hard Facts, Dangerous HalfTruths & Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management (Boston, MA:
Harvard Business School Press, 2006).
All the chapters in the first part deal with some form of mental map that leads to an
understanding of individual differences—in this case it concerns management theories. If
you wish, you can ease into mental maps by using a perception figure that contains two
images, like Escher’s angels and devils or the more common old lady/young lady. We
replicate the original old lady/young lady experiment and doctor the two images so that
one image is much clearer than the other (e.g., delete the feather for the old lady and
darken the borders of her face and features). Then we show only one image to each half
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of the class while the other half closes their eyes. All are then shown the normal figure,
and we ask who saw what. The results of the original study found that students continued
to see whatever image they saw first and had greater difficulty seeing the second image.
Assure students that it is not uncommon for people to fail to perceive one of the images
and have other students help them find it. With respect to this class session, the main
lesson from figures like these is the need for humility and provisionalism when tempted
to argue with people who see things from a different perspective or mental map. If we
can’t always see the other image in a perceptual figure like these, we certainly can’t
expect to see everything going on in complex organizations or human behavior.
Theory X and Y are examples of different mental maps about human nature. We go over
the theory and student scores on the test and comment on cultural differences relating to
this theory. The majority of U.S. students that we have seen in recent years categorize
themselves as Theory Y; occasionally students from other cultures categorize themselves
as Theory X. But you can bring the theory home to them and provoke an interesting
discussion by asking them what percentage of their fellow students are Theory Y or X
students. How would a Theory X or Y student behave? Is their own test score consistent
with the way they behave as students? Why? Usually someone mentions that they act like
a Theory X student in some classes and not in others. This leads into a discussion of the
contingencies that affect behavior in the classroom (which we list on the board) and at
work. Which type of student or employee would they prefer to teach or supervise and
why? We generally mention Lewin’s B  f (P  E ) at this point and emphasize that a key
job for a manager is creating an environment that fosters Theory Y behavior. The lesson
here is that people are more complex than a simple test or theory indicates and that many
factors influence behavior. Today, many students espouse Theory Y beliefs, but their
behavior depends on the environment and other contingencies.
If you want to go over the evolution of management thought, you can involve the
students by putting these categories on the blackboard: (1) theory, (2) historical time, (3)
social climate, and (4) concept of the "ideal manager." Then we ask them to fill in the
blanks for scientific management, administrative theory, human relations, open systems,
contingency management, and Quinn's theory of competing values.
Another technique we sometimes use to introduce Quinn's theory is to ask the students,
"What's the best way to manage people?" As students contribute their ideas, the
instructor places them into the appropriate columns, which are not labeled until the end of
the exercise. Often, there is a preponderance of items in one category, e.g., human
relations with younger students. We tell them we’ll come back to this later in the lecture;
when we do, we mention that this preponderance tells us about the mental map that is
characteristics of their demographic group and discuss the implications when they work
with people from other groups and have more broad-reaching jobs later in their careers.
You can also ask students to do the same for “great” managers, using this to highlight
Buckingham and Coffman’s recommendations for effective managers. It is interesting to
contrast these recommendations with the research findings regarding the differences in
the activities of effective versus promoted managers. This can lead to a useful discussion
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about how managers spend their time and the implications of those choices for career
advancement and organizational performance.
We give a brief recap of Quinn's theory, using the slide showing the four quadrants and
their values followed by the slide with the positive and negative zones. We emphasize
the practicality and usefulness of this theory to managers. Although we generally
discourage stereotyping, we ask students to guess the stereotypical theory held by each of
the functional areas found in organizations (e.g., marketing and senior management =
open systems; operations = rational goal; MIS, accounting, personnel = internal process;
strategic HR, training and development = human relations). We make the point that our
theory determines what we see and by extension the roles we assume as managers.
(Incidentally, Pfeiffer sells an assessment instrument developed by Quinn that you may
want to use with MBA students to determine what roles they perform relating to each
quadrant.)
Another type of mental map that works well with this chapter is the structural, human
resource, political, and symbolic framework found in Bolman and Deal's Reframing
Organizations (Jossey-Bass, 1991).
You can use the Custom Chip Case in the back of the workbook in conjunction with this
chapter and focus on managerial roles (Mintzberg, Reader) and how the protagonist sees
his job.
Issues to Consider in Leading the Experiential Exercise
A. Consider how many speeches this will mean and the time you have available before
you determine the number of people per group. Then divide the students into groups (5 is
a good number if that doesn’t result in too many speeches in a row, which can become
boring. Since we want students to get to know as many people as possible in the class, we
often have them number off to form groups. Remind them that any one of them may be
chosen for the award and should therefore be ready to give the speech—this is a great
way to obtain participation points.
B. If you wish, you can give them a brief refresher on public speaking before the first
person speaks. “What are the most important speaking tips that you remember? What
are the most common errors you see in student presentations?” And then you can add
any other tips for public speaking they might have missed.
B. When the groups are ready to begin their speeches, explain the coding scheme. It may
help to show them the Quinn's Competing Values Model of Leadership again. Pick your
award winners using whatever system you like. Some instructors have students number
off in their group and then they spin an arrow on a wheel; if the arrow lands on the “5,”
the #5 students represent their group and give the speech. Lead the clapping after every
speaker and thank all of them again at the end of class for their bravery.
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C. For shorter classes, you can do the theory one day and the speeches the next. Be
careful, though, about having too many lecture classes in the beginning of the course,
because this sets a norm of passivity that does not promote experiential learning and
participation. For this reason, we included the suggestions on how to make the lecturette
more interactive.
Relevant Reader Articles
“The Manager’s Job” by Henry Mintzberg
“Mastering Competing Values: An Integrated Approach to Management” by Robert E.
Quinn
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