MANAGEMENT

INNOVATORS

The People and Ideas

That Have Shaped Modern Business

Daniel A. Wren
The late Ronald G. Greenwood

New York
Oxford University Press
1998
Oxford University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wren, Daniel A.
Management innovators : the people and ideas that have shaped modern business /
Daniel A. Wren, Ronald G. Greenwood,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-511705-0
1. Businesspeople—United States—biography. 2. Executives-
United States—Biography. 3. Industrial management—United States—
History. I. Greenwood, Ronald G. II. Title.
HC102.5.A2W73 1998 97-30036
658T.0092'273—dc21
[B]

Catalogs and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company by Boris Emmet
andJohnE.Jeuck/p. 248, line 20, p. 249, line 35, p. 339, line 31, and p. 340, line 15.
Copyright © 1950. Reprinted by permission of the University of Chicago Press.

The Human Side of Enterprise by Douglas McGregor/p. 33, line 5, p. 34, line 23, p. 47, line 17,
and p. 48, line 14. Copyright © 1960. Reprinted by permission of the MacGraw Hill Companies.

Leadership and Motivation: Essays of Douglas McGregor by Douglas McGregor,

Warren G. Bennis, Edgar S. Schein, and Carolina McGregor/p. 125, line 13 and line 29.
Copyright © 1966. Reprinted by permission of MIT Press.

"Happiness and Unhappiness: A Brief Autobiography," by Frederick I. Herzberg, in

Management Laureates: A Collection of Autobiographical Essays, Arthur G. Bedeian (ed.)/
p. 5, line 23 and p. 5, line 40. Copyright © 1993. Reprinted by permission of the JAI Press.

987654321

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper
 10

LEADERS

William Shakespeare wrote, "Some are born great, some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon them" (Twelfth Night, act II, scene 5).
These notions reflect commonly held explanations of what happens on the
way to being a leader. Being "born great" suggests some natural set of qual-
ities, abilities, or traits that distinguishes leaders from nonleaders. Over the
years this list grew longer and longer: courage, sense of humor, judgment,
health and fitness, intelligence, moral rectitude, an interest in people, imagi-
nation, initiative, decisiveness, and so on, but no clear sense of agreement
about leader traits has ever been achieved.
The idea that it is possible to "achieve greatness" reflects a long-standing
and widely published view of a success ethic—you can become a leader by
reading certain books, by finding the right mentor, through education and/or
experience, or by taking other actions to develop your leadership skills and
abilities. Horatio Alger's stories brought the dreams of success to American
readers for over half a century and set the stage for the enduring ideas of Dale
Carnegie's 1936 book How to Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie's per-
sonal-magnetism ethic advised that the path to success resided in making oth-
ers feel important through a sincere appreciation of their efforts; making a
good first impression; winning people to one's way of thinking by letting oth-
ers do the talking and being sympathetic; and changing people by praising

190
 Leaders 191

good traits and by giving the offender the opportunity to save face. This
advice has withstood the test of time, and a person could do worse than fol-
low Carnegie's formula of how to win the cooperation of others.
Having greatness "thrust" upon someone suggests that circumstances
play a large part in who is chosen to lead. Chance, fortune, or being in the
right place at the right time provide opportunities for some to ascend to a
leadership role. Winston Churchill comes to mind, but there are undoubt-
edly countless others. Churchill, out of power and out of favor in Britain
before World War II, became prime minister for wartime duties, then fell
back out of power after the crisis ended. Another example, perhaps more
difficult to justify, was Moses, who was empowered by a higher authority to
lead the Israelites out of their bondage in Egypt. But was he a great leader?
Divine intervention was required to part the Red Sea for the exodus, and
afterward the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years. If there are
lessons of history in these examples, they suggest that some are chosen only
as long as the crisis endures and that it is often difficult to follow the
supreme efforts of an exemplary leader.
Despite years of study and a mountain of books, the qualities of a leader
remain elusive, suggesting that leadership is very much an art. The philoso-
phers selected for this section do not offer any one best way to lead but
rather challenge our thinking about power, conflict, and human nature.
Nicolo Machiavelli provides one view of people and the nature and use of
power. Mary Parker Follett provides a counterpoint to Machiavelli about
power and the role of the leader. Douglas McGregor urges that we examine
our assumptions about human nature and how these guide our behavior.
Together, these philosophers do not provide all of the answers, instead
offering insights to stimulate our thinking about ourselves and others as
leaders.

NICOLO MACHIAVELLI

Playwright, diplomat, soldier, and historian, Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

is best remembered as an observer of power and its uses. The son of a Flo-
rentine lawyer, Machiavelli held a governmental office in republican Flo-
rence, wrote plays, and served as a soldier in a war between Florence and its
nearby longtime enemy, Pisa. When the Florentine republic fell in 1512 to
the Medicis, Machiavelli was arrested and tortured by four turns of the rack,
192 ORGANIZING AND MANAGING THE BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

but was finally acquitted and banished from the city. He had a country place
near Florence, where he endured the sweat and mud, longing for a return to
Florence and a more favorable life. For his return ticket he wrote The Prince,
dedicated to Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, hoping that this historical analysis
of politics and power would regain him his former status. Written in 1513,
The Prince became one of only a few books to be printed again and again
over the centuries. The fawning Machiavelli never regained the position he
sought, but his book did give him literary immortality and preserves his
name in an adjective for describing a style of leadership.
Machiavelli did not seek to reform tyrants but to describe them as they
were, "for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he
who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather learn to
bring about his own ruin than his preservation." Machiavelli's times were
part of the Italian Renaissance, and among his contemporaries were
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. While others sought enlightenment in
art and literature, Machiavelli described the forces of power at work, and he
became as well known, perhaps more widely recognized by some, than the
great leaders of the cultural rebirth of that period.
What is it about The Prince that explains its remarkable longevity? His
assumptions about human nature seem out of step with contemporary
beliefs—but are they? "Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws,
must start with the assumption that all men are bad and ever ready to dis-
play their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it. ... It may
be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anx-
ious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain; as long as you benefit them, they
are entirely yours."1 Some other observations also seem to be appropriate to
modern times:

• On image management: "Everybody sees what you appear to be, few

feel what you are, and those few will not dare to oppose themselves to
the many. . . . In the actions of men . . . the end justifies the means."
• On fear and love: "[There] arises the question whether it is better to be
loved more than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that
one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two
to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the
two has to be wanting.... Still, a prince should make himself feared in
such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred;
for fear and the absence of hatred may go well together."
 Leaders 193

• Delegating the dirty work: "Princes should let the carrying out of
unpopular duties devolve on others, and bestow favors themselves."
• Making changes: "It must be considered that there is nothing more
difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more danger-
ous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer
has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only luke-
warm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order."
• Covering your backside: "A prince being thus obliged to know well
how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion can-
not protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself
from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a
lion to fight wolves. Those that wish to be only lions do not under-
stand this."
• Human nature: "If men were all good, this precept would not be a
good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith in
you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them. . . . It is necessary
to disguise this character well, and to be a great feigner and dissem-
bler; and men are so simple and so ready to obey present necessities,
that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to
be deceived."2

Machiavelli identified three ways to the top: fortune, ability, and villainy.
Those who rose through their good fortune had little trouble in getting to
the top spot, but had difficulty maintaining it because they must depend on
the goodwill of others and were indebted entirely to those who elevated
them. Those who gained the crest by ability endured a thousand difficulties
getting there, but would be able to maintain their position more easily. Vil-
lainy, an oft-chosen path in Machiavelli's Florence, used methods that would
gain power but not glory; afterward the crown would always rest uneasily as
they awaited the next villain or revolt.
We need to see Machiavelli in his times and consider his motives. What
we call Italy today was then a group of city-states, often at war with their
neighbors; the Catholic Church and papal states were at odds with the rem-
nants of the Holy Roman Empire; and power, intrigue, and villainy were the
way things were. The Prince focused on how the top spot could be gained (by
ability, fortune, or villainy) and how to stay on top (through deceit, treach^
ery and being a lion and a fox). Machiavelli wrote of the ruler, but not of the
ruled; of power, but not of rights; of ends, but not of means. Machiavelli fed
194 ORGANIZING AND MANAGING THE BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

the ideas of Lord Acton about power corrupting, and absolute power cor-
rupting absolutely. Machiavellian became an adjective to describe those who
were unscrupulous, crafty, and cunning.
Can this enduring fascination with Machiavelli, despite such criticisms, be
explained? Is it because he describes power and striving for power so well
that he brings us face-to-face with the moral use of power? Does he awaken
in us primitive urgings, stripping away the veneer of civility? Or, by posing
the evils, does he make us contemplate what could happen?

MARY PARKER FOLLETT

W. L. Gore and Associates, J. C. Penney, and Wal-Mart share a number of

characteristics: They are profitable firms as well as among those considered
outstanding to work for. These firms deemphasize the hierarchy of author-
ity, stress employee involvement and a "family" atmosphere, encourage
employee stock ownership; display leadership styles that stress human rela-
tionships, and echo the technique of a management philosopher who was
putting her ideas into print some six to seven decades ago. Each company
bears the imprint of its founder's philosophy, but the rationale for how
these companies operate is the product of the thoughts of Mary Parker
Follett.
Born in Boston on September 3,1868, and aided by a respectable inheri-
tance from her grandfather and father, Mary Follett received her college
education at the Annexe (later named Radcliffe College) at Harvard Univer-
sity and at Newnham College, Cambridge University, England. She was
called home because of her mother's illness and did not finish her A.B.
degree until 1898, shortly before attaining the age of thirty. By this time,
however, she had already published a political science book that received
very favorable reviews. Rather than pursuing an academic life, she spent
most of her early years working in various community-service groups that
sought to provide vocational guidance, education, recreation, and job place-
ment activities for some of the less fortunate among Boston's youth. In
these largely volunteer organizations, operating with little or no authority,
she realized that there was a need to rethink previously held concepts of
authority, leadership, and conflict resolution. In observing and working with
these groups, she gained firsthand experience in the dynamics of groups and
the need for teamwork.
 Leaders 195

Managing Conflict

One commonly observed problem that leaders encounter in working with

groups is conflict—differences of opinion or fact or interests that are seen
by each side as legitimate but which often lead to frustration and hostility
rather than cooperation. Differences could be expected, but how can leaders
redirect these to progress rather than conflict? Typically, she observed, one
group or individual will surrender, or there will be a struggle and the victory
of one side over the other. In both cases there is a win-lose result. Another
common outcome is compromise, which Follett saw as on the same level as
fighting because neither side achieves what he or she truly seeks and, as with
fighting, the conflict goes away briefly, only to arise later in a nastier form.
She used union-management relations as an example of the futility of com-
promise. Collective bargaining rests on the relative balance of power, cre-
ates an adversarial relationship, ignores the mutual interests of labor and
management, and inevitably leads to a compromise that postpones, but
does not resolve the problem.
Follett advocated integration—thinking creatively to find a solution that
satisfies both sides without domination, surrender, or compromise. In her
approach, the leader(s) work to make both sides rethink the issues and their
total relationship. They are asked to share information openly, avoid win-
lose quick fixes, be creative in examining the problem from different angles,
and see the problem as "ours" and not "yours." Conflict, to be constructive,
requires respect, understanding, talking it through, and creating win-win
solutions.
Although Follett advocated integration, she was realistic enough to rec-
ognize that it might not be possible in every case, but suggested that it is
possible in more cases than we realize. Without trying to achieve integra-
tion, we certainly will not succeed, but the important thing is to work for
something better in each situation and improve our chances of success. And
perhaps if it is not possible now, it will be later if we try.
The path to integration could be smoothed if people begin by recognizing
their common purpose, that is, why they are working together. Labor and
management tend to lose sight of what they have in common. In taking
sides, for example, prolabor or promanagement positions solidify and the
parties fail to see the business as a shared effort for which they have joint
responsibilities. This responsibility begins at the departmental level, where
employees are to be given group responsibilities to create a feeling of mutual
196 ORGANIZING AND MANAGING THE BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

interests: "When you have made your employees feel that they are in some
sense partners in the business, they do not improve the quality of their
work, save waste in time and material, because of the Golden Rule, but
because their interests are the same as yours."
In Follett's view, this is not a reciprocal back-scratching arrangement, but
a true feeling on the part of both labor and management that they serve a
common purpose. People assume there is a line between those who manage
and those who are managed, but there is no line, and all members of the
organization who accept responsibility for work at any level contribute to
the whole: "Labor and capital can never be reconciled as long as labor per-
sists in thinking that there is a capitalist point of view and capitalists that
there is a labor point of view. There is not. These are imaginary wholes
which must be broken up before capital and labor can co-operate." Integra-
tion as a means of resolving conflict begins by recognizing the mutual inter-
est of those in the enterprise as they work toward a common goal.

Leaders and Authority

A number of firms, includingj. C. Penney, Wal-Mart, and others, refer to

employees as associates. This term was based on the ideas of Mary Follett,
who suggested that boss and subordinate are emotionally loaded words that
create the feeling of "me" and "you," not "we." These notions of superior
and subordinate work against creating the feeling of a shared purpose and
commonality of interests. Follett suggested that we avoid having an order
giver and an order taker by obeying what she called the "law of the situa-
tion": "One person should not give orders to another person, but both
should agree to take their orders from the situation. If orders are simply
part of the situation, the question of someone giving and someone receiv-
ing does not come up." The "situation" she referred to is what is necessary
to do the job in accordance with the goals of the work unit and the firm. It is
defined by the task, not by the authority of a person. Follett's law of the sit-
uation preceded by some years the similar concept of management by
objectives of Peter Drucker.
Follett felt that obeying the law of the situation creates a different con-
cept of authority by emphasizing working with someone rather than work-
ing under someone. This jointly exercised power is coactive, not coercive,
and reflects the more modern use of the term associate instead of a hierar-
chy of authority. Decades ago she offered some phrases about leadership
that still ring true:
 Leaders 197

• Team building: "The leader then is one who can organize the experi-
ence of the group—and thus get the full power of the group. The
leader makes the team. This is pre-eminently the leadership quality—
the ability to organise all the forces there are in an enterprise and make
them serve a common purpose. Men with this ability create a group
power rather than express a personal power."
• Transforming: "When leadership rises to genius it has the power of
transforming, of transforming experience into power. And that is what
experience is for, to be made into power. The great leader creates as
well as directs power."
• Visionary: "The ablest administrators have a vision of the future. . . .
The leader must see all the future trends and unite them. Business is
always developing. Decisions have to anticipate the development."
• Followers: "Their part is not merely to follow, they have a very active
part to play and that is to keep the leader in control of a situation. Let us
not think that we are either leaders or—nothing of much importance.
As one of those led we have a part in leadership. . . . Leader and follow-
ers are both following the invisible leader—the common purpose."
• Developing others: "A leader is not one who wishes to do people's
thinking for them, but one who trains them to think for themselves.
Indeed the best leaders try to train their followers themselves to
become leaders. A second-rate executive will often try to suppress
leadership because he fears it may rival his own."
• Purpose: "[A leader] should make his co-workers see that it is not his
purpose which is to be achieved, but a common purpose, born of the
desires and the activities of the group. The best leader does not ask
people to serve him, but the common end. The best leader has not fol-
lowers, but men and women working with him."
• Power: "Our task is not to learn where to place power; it is how to
develop power... . Genuine power can only be grown, it will slip from
every arbitrary hand that grasps it; for genuine power is not coercive
control, but coactive control. Coercive power is the curse of the uni-
verse; coactive power, the enrichment and advancement of every
human soul."3

Mary Follett was never a practicing manager but learned her lessons by
observing groups at work. Her writings were read by business leaders of the
19205 and 19305, and she lectured in Britain and often spoke to professional
groups such as the New York city's Bureau of Personnel Administration.
198 O R G A N I Z I N G A N D M A N A G I N G T H E B U S I N E S S E N T E R P R I S E

After her death on December 18,1933, many of her speeches were published,
but time passed and many forgot the lessons she provided. A most modern
expert of leadership, Warren Bennis, acknowledges her as a pioneer:

Just about everything written today about leadership and organizations

comes from Mary Parker Follett's writings and lectures. They are dispiritingly
identical—or if not identical, they certainly rhyme—with the most contem-
porary of writings. . . . Follett was there first. It makes you wince when you
sincerely believe, as I do, that what you have written about leadership was
already literally bespoken by another 40 years before your precious and "pre-
scient" sentences saw the light of day.4

Mary Parker Follett deserves a renaissance as a philosopher of leadership.

DOUGLAS M. MCGREGOR

Douglas McGregor's ancestors would have agreed with Nicolo Machiavelli's

conclusion that human nature is essentially evil. These ancestors included a
Scotch Presbyterian minister, a lay minister, and Doug's father, a biblical
scholar who argued in lifelong correspondence with his son that humankind
was sinful from the time of Adam and Eve. From this family tree would
emerge a philosopher who challenged our assumptions about people.
Douglas Murray McGregor was born in Detroit, Michigan, on Septem-
ber 16, 1906, the son of Murray James and Jessie Adelia McGregor. As a
youth, he worked in a shelter for homeless workers, played piano to accom-
pany his mother, who sang for those transients, and later enrolled at Oberlin
College intending to become a minister. Perhaps it was the rebelliousness of
youth, but he dropped out of school to work, returning later to college to
study psychology. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard Uni-
versity in 1935; his dissertation was entitled on "The Sensitivity of the Eye to
the Saturation of Colors," an appropriate inquiry since McGregor himself
was color-blind.
He taught at Harvard briefly, then joined the psychology faculty at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he would be promoted
through the ranks and eventually become the chair of the Industrial Rela-
tions Section. The peak experience that changed his life, however, was leav-
ing MIT in 1948 to become president of Antioch College. On the eve of his
retirement after six years as Antioch's president, he wrote of his experience:
 Leaders 199

It took the direct experience of becoming a line executive and meeting per-
sonally the problems involved to teach me what no amount of observation of
other people could have taught.
I believed, for example that a leader could operate successfully as a kind of
adviser to his organization. I thought I could avoid being a "boss." Uncon-
sciously, I suspect, I hoped to duck the unpleasant necessity of making difficult
decisions, of taking the responsibility for one course of action among many
uncertain alternatives, of making mistakes and taking the consequences. I
thought that maybe I could operate so that everyone would like me—that
"good human relations" would eliminate all discord and disagreement.
I couldn't have been more wrong. It took a couple of years, but I finally
began to realize that a leader cannot avoid the exercise of authority any more
than he can avoid responsibility for what happens to his organization.5

After Antioch, McGregor found the human-relations model inadequate for

coping with the realities of managing an organization, and he began a
search to expand his understanding.
With his MIT colleague Joseph Scanlon, he began to study cases where
labor and management were working together successfully. Scanlon, a for-
mer prize fighter, cost accountant, steelworker, and local union president,
had been hired in the Industrial Relations Section and had a significant
impact on McGregor's thinking about employee participation in decision
making. The Scanlon Plan began in the 19305 yet endures today as a model
for union-management cooperation and employee sharing in the benefits of
reducing costs. In working with Scanlon, McGregor began to write about
his evolving view of human nature: "A manager who believes that people in
general are lazy, untrustworthy, and antagonistic toward him will make very
different decisions [from] a manager who regards people generally as coop-
erative and friendly." McGregor also agreed with Mary Follett that collective
bargaining is competitive and adversarial and prevents cooperation and
mutual understanding. These were only the preliminary steps in McGre-
gor's effort to find a new leadership philosophy.
Alfred P. Sloan Jr. was a member of MIT's board of advisors, and McGre-
gor heard him raise the question of whether leaders were born or made—
for if we had "born leaders," who needed a school of management? With a
grant from the Sloan Foundation, McGregor began to try to answer Sloan's
question, and in the process emerged •with four major variables involved in
leadership: the personality and ability characteristics of the leader; the atti-
tudes, needs, and other characteristics of the followers; the nature of the
200 ORGANIZING AND MANAGING THE BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

organization, such as its structure and its mission; and the social, economic,
and political environment of the enterprise. To McGregor this meant that
leadership is not a property of the individual, but a complex interaction
among these variables. The old argument over whether the leader makes
history or history makes the leader is resolved by this conception. Both
assertions are true within limits. Leaders are not born, but are created
within a complex situation.

Assumptions About People

If leaders are not born but created, what circumstances guide that develop-
ment? McGregor's answer returned to his long difference of opinion with
his father about human nature. Leadership and motivation are insepara-
ble—one has to be motivated to lead and followers have to be motivated as
well. Without motivation one cannot have leadership, for leadership
requires followership. Maslow's writings ended McGregor's search for a
leadership philosophy based on the hierarchy-of-needs theory of motiva-
tion. Maslow's humanistic psychology is growth-oriented, as individuals
seek to satisfy higher and higher levels of needs. To McGregor, this meant
that how leaders operate depends upon their assumptions about the needs
of their followers. If it is assumed that lower-order needs are sought, a per-
son will lead one way; if the leader assumes that higher-order needs are the
goal, he or she will operate another way. Behind every action or decision by
a leader are the assumptions he or she makes about human behavior and
human nature.
McGregor called one set of assumptions about people Theory X and
lumped into it all that his ancestors had said about human nature:

1. The average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it
if he can....
2. Because of this human characteristic of dislike of work, most people must
be coerced, controlled, directed, threatened with punishment to get them
to put forth adequate effort toward the achievement of organizational
objectives. . . .
3. The average human being prefers to be directed, wishes to avoid responsi-
bility, has relatively little ambition, wants security above all.6

Theory X reflects the punishment of Adam and Eve for their sinfulness in
the Garden of Eden, consigning them to a life of labor by the sweat of
 Leaders 2.01

their brow. Since work is distasteful, carrots and sticks must be used to
prod people to put forth effort at work. Lower-order needs, such as physi-
ological and safety needs, dominate as leaders seek to appeal to their
employees.
McGregor's Theory Y put a more positive spin on human nature:
1. The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play
or rest.. . .
2. External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means for
bringing about effort toward organizational objectives. Man will exercise
self-direction and self-control in the service of objectives to which he is
committed.
3. Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with
their achievement....
4. The average human being learns, under proper conditions, not only to
accept but to seek responsibility. . . .
5. The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity
and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not nar-
rowly, distributed in the population. . . .
6. Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentiali-
ties of the average human being are only partially utilized.7

This theory is directed toward higher-order needs of work as a means to

self-actualization and of self-direction and self-control. Out with KITA! Peo-
ple are basically good by nature and desire growth and development. Any
limits to human efforts are not in the nature of people but in how they are
nurtured by the organization. In Theory X the obstacle to performance is
human nature; in Theory Y the only barrier is how people are nurtured.
Why are assumptions about people so important? According to McGre-
gor, managers organize, lead, control, and motivate people in different ways
depending on these assumptions. Those who accept the Y image of human
nature will not structure, control, or closely supervise the work environ-
ment. Instead, they will attempt to aid the maturation of subordinates by
giving them wider latitude in their work, encouraging creativity, using less
external control, encouraging self-control, and motivating through the satis-
faction that comes from the challenge of work itself. The use of external
controls will be replaced by getting people committed to organizational goals
because they perceive that this is the best way to achieve their own goals. A
perfect integration is not possible, but McGregor hoped that the adoption of
Y assumptions by managers would improve existing practices.
202 ORGANIZING AND MANAGING THE BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

To McGregor, how people are treated is largely a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If it is assumed that people are lazy, and if they are treated as though they
are, then they will be lazy. On the other hand, if it is assumed that people
desire challenging work and increased individual discretion, they will
respond by seeking more and more responsibility.

The Best of All Possible Worlds?

Douglas McGregor died on October 13,1964, leaving a legacy that has infl-
uenced generations of those who think about leadership. Yet his X and Y
theories are often misunderstood as opposites, when they are merely differ-
ent ends of a continuum of looking at the world. At Non-Linear Systems,
for example, some felt that Theory Y had failed in Kay's grand experiment
to run his company when turbulent times came. It was not a failure of The-
ory Y, however, and Kay admitted that the efforts at Non-Linear Systems
caused their managers to take their eyes off the daily operations, thereby los-
ing sight of the purpose of the business.
Is Theory Y "soft" on people? As Drucker commented: "Theory Y is not
permissive . . . it's far more demanding than Theory X, it does not allow
people to do their own thing, but demands self-discipline of them. It's a very
hard taskmaster, so it will only work if you start out with high performance
goals and performance standards and don't tolerate anything else."8 Is The-
ory Y a one-size-fits-all scheme? Maslow pointed out that Theory Y will not
work in some cases:

It's become more & more clear to me that my theory of evil is needed to
combat the perfectionism & impatience & unrealism, mostly of the young,
but also the "inexperienced" intellectual . . . and "idealist." . . . Just as in
McGregor's stuff, there's no systematic place in Theory Y for bastards & sick
people & for just plain normal human foolishness, mistakes, stupidity, dopi-
ness, cowardliness, laziness, etc.9

McGregor's essay about the Scanlon Plan could also be applicable to his
view of Theory Y, in that he cautioned us about expecting quick fixes:

It is simply this: we cannot learn to run until we have learned to walk. It takes
time and lots of mistakes before we can grow from the pattern that we may
be accustomed to, of treating people like children and having them respond
like children, to the pattern of having them react like adults. . . . If you adopt
 Leaders 203

a way of life that is built on a genuine belief that people can grow, can learn
together, and can solve their mutual problems together, you must still expect
the process to take some time. . . . This [is a] natural but difficult process of
growth and development that goes on when one attempts to practice a new
managerial philosophy.10

Douglas McGregor challenged Machiavelli's assumptions about human

nature and extended Follett's belief in the possibilities of human collabora-
tion. He left us with the philosophy that what leaders are able to accomplish
is influenced largely by the assumptions they make about others. McGregor
did not create a perfect world, but he pushed us a step closer by asking us to
question our assumptions about people and how they influence the way we
practice the ancient art of leadership.