Do You Believe In Theory X or Theory Y?

Douglas McGregor developed a philosophical view of humankind with his Theory X and Theory Y in 1960. These are two opposing perceptions about how people view human behavior at work and organizational life.

THEORY X
With Theory X assumptions, management's role is to coerce and control employees.
* People have an inherent dislike for work and will avoid it whenever possible.
* People must be coerced, controlled, directed, or threatened with punishment in order to get them to achieve the organizational objectives.
* People prefer to be directed, do not want responsibility, and have little or no ambition.
* People seek security above all else.

THEORY Y
With Theory Y assumptions, management's role is to develop the potential in employees and help them to release that potential towards common goals.
* Work is as natural as play and rest.
* People will exercise self-direction if they are committed to the objectives (they are NOT lazy).
* Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with their achievement.
* People learn to accept and seek responsibility.
* Creativity, ingenuity, and imagination are widely distributed among the population. People are capable of using these abilities to solve an organizational problem.
* People have potential.

Which theory do you subscribe to?

His book, "The Human Side of Enterprise"
http://www.codysbooks.com/product/info.jsp?isbn=0071462228

(Thanks Kary!)

Don't Delegate: Just Do It

As a manager, do you feel entitled to delegate tasks to "less-important" people? How does it feel when your own manager asks you to do something that you feel is a waste of time? Or when your manager asks you to do something that you know would take them 10 minutes but will take you an hour?

The point is not that delegation is bad, but that delegation is like any tool: it can be used efficiently or inefficiently. If it becomes a way for a manager (whether you or your own manager) to just shift pain to someone more vulnerable than they, like a report, it becomes destructive. There is a difference between delegating work to the right person who should own it, and delegating work to someone else because you don't want to do it or think that you're too busy (who isn't busy?) Delegation gone wrong wastes your and your people's time and sends a message to them that you don't respect their time.

As a manager, by just getting stuff done that you might have delegated for the wrong reasons in the past, you:
1) Save you the time of explaining, clarifying and following up,
2) Saves your team's time and increase their productivity, and
3) Boosts their morale by communicating to them through your actions that you respect their time

Be authentic about your delegation - who really is the best, not most convenient or most junior, person to handle it?