Tell me something I don’t know, Bill. Most of us consider this is something we’ve always known – innately, or learned at home or elementary school. But I remember a refresher in this, as an adult, more than a half-century ago.
The year was 1973, and I was an early career federal scientist-manager working in Colorado. I was taking a five-day short course put on by the University of Colorado entitled Management of Scientists and Engineers. With me were about 20-25 scientists and engineers from government and industry. Gene Koprowski, a CU faculty member, was one of the speakers as well as the coordinator for the full week.
Gene began our opening session this way, asking the innocent question: What is the great motivator?
Of course we all knew the answer, or thought we did. And we supplied a volley of candidates: money, reputation, competition, learning, love, desire to make a better world, intrinsic pleasure of the work, etc., etc. We each took our turn, providing a bit of rationale.
And each time, Gene would simply shake his head. No.
Finally, after what must have been 5-10 minutes, but seemed like longer, we collectively gave up.
And Gene grinned (this whole exercise was making him happy) and said: Fear! Fear is the greatest motivator – by far. Nothing else comes even close.
Ugh! Whether actually convinced or merely beaten down by the debate to that point, we had to agree.
Gene viewed the nodding heads with satisfaction and asked his second question: Okay! Since we all agree that fear is the great motivator, why don’t we use it?
Sigh. The group was in the tank for another 5-10 minutes while we fumbled around with this question.
Gene responded as we went along: No. No. No. No-no-no-no-no-no-no!
Finally, he showed some mercy. We don’t use fear, he said, because if we do, then the moment our back is turned, our people beat our brains in.
A little colorful, perhaps not so politically correct, but remember, this was 1973, not today.
Gene then told us this story, which he claimed came from his own consulting practice. Hard to do it justice after the passage of fifty years, but it went something like this. One of his clients ran a big aluminum smelter. Some time shortly before Gene had been brought on, they had to replace a veteran manager of the operation. They settled on an off-the-charts-bright early-career guy. The newcomer came into the operations center – a cavernous room covered wall-to-wall with instrument panels and switches, and with a main control desk at the room’s center. Being bright it didn’t take the young boss long to realize from the reading of one of the dials that things were seriously out of whack. He called to the guy at the control desk – an older fellow. Hey, you see that dial? We need to make some adjustments, and urgently! The control operator started to reply but the boss cut him off, saying faster action was needed to avert catastrophe. The boss was approaching the desk, preparing to take over himself, continuing to berate the controller – who suddenly hit the big red button on the desk.
Which shut down the entire smelter.
Aluminum smelter operations are highly energy intensive – the process requires having a lot of molten aluminum/ore around and keeping that mix molten. Shutting the plant down meant a slow process of several days to reheat and the mix and bring the operation back on line. That shutdown cost a heap of money.
According to what the smelter folks told Gene, the operator – a control-room veteran with the company for many years, knew that the one dial in question was malfunctioning and was awaiting replacement, but the new boss hadn’t taken the time to hear him out. The new boss had been subsequently let go; the senior operator was still at his post.
That was Gene’s lead-in to first topic of the five days – an introduction to Theory X vs. Theory Y management, a hot topic back then, but certainly old news today.
Theory X and Theory Y[1], developed by Douglas McGregor, and articulated in his 1960 classic book The Human Side of Enterprise, are contrasting management philosophies: Theory X assumes employees dislike work and need constant supervision, while Theory Y assumes employees are self-motivated and capable of taking responsibility.
Digging deeper: Theory X assumes that employees inherently dislike work and avoid responsibility, that they lack ambition and need constant supervision and direction, and that they are primarily motivated by external rewards and punishments. That prompts a management style that is authoritarian and controlling, focuses on micromanagement and tight control, and emphasizes task completion and efficiency. The potential outcomes might be problematic: low employee morale and job satisfaction, reduced creativity and innovation, and high turnover rates.
By contrast, Theory Y assumes that employees find work to be natural and enjoyable, that they are self-motivated and capable of taking initiative and responsibility, and that they are motivated by internal factors like job satisfaction and personal growth. That favors a management style that is participative and empowering, focuses on delegation and autonomy, and encourages employee involvement in decision-making. This combination leads to likely positive outcomes: increased employee engagement and motivation, higher productivity and quality of work, and greater creativity and innovation.
McGregor saw himself as merely articulating two extremes of a range of managerial approaches. He hoped that managers would use this perspective to analyze their work situations and then adopt one or the other, or blends of the two to optimize outcomes. In later years, most managers and students of management would come to lean toward a strong preference for Theory Y. My memory is that Koprowski’s 1973 presentation tended toward that latter view. That was supported by a subsequent module in that same 1973 short course, taught by an HR person at Texas Instruments (and equally memorable). He spoke of people and their value systems, breaking these down into seven categories and talking about optimal management strategies for each.[2] These strategies varied substantially – but again for most job categories and most people favored Theory Y. The week’s lectures were couched in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow was McGregor’s graduate school mentor), and stressed the importance of getting people operating at the higher levels of Maslow’s pyramid.
The bottom line? As measured by Stephen Covey’s seven-dimensional yardstick of the most recent LOTRW posts? Bullying/intimidation/fear have no place, not even the merest toehold, in the pantheon of effective habits.
A closing note, for those who might want to read more: My grandfather (as a teenager!) and my father (for much of his career) both had some relevant management experience – recounted in previous LOTRW posts.
(Grandfather) Want to reduce disaster losses? Keep score, September 7, 2010.
(Father) Theory X, Theory Y and the genesis of red tape in science, March 14, 2016.
[1]The material here is adapted from a Google AI summary and other Google entries.
[2] Perhaps a topic for another day.