Man is lazy by nature. Theory X and Theory Y by Douglas McGregor. "Theory X" by Douglas McGregor

Often managers cannot understand why high salaries, medical benefits, good vacation pay, sick leave and pension contributions are practically not provided to their subordinates. Consider Douglas McGregor's views on this topic and his Theory X and Theory Y.

Douglas McGregor (1906-1964), American scientist and social psychologist. Doctor of Philosophy degree from Harvard University. President of Antioch College. First Sloan Fellow Professor.

Douglas McGregor published The Human Side of Enterprise in 1960, a book that changed management theory forever. At that time, management was based on the idea that people are lazy by nature and only work when forced.

Douglas McGregor argues that any management decision or action must be preceded by assumptions about human nature and human behavior, which are key points that determine the individual leadership style of a particular manager. Douglas McGregor divides all these assumptions into two categories, which he calls “Theory X” and “Theory Y.”

"Theory X" by Douglas McGregor.

According to Theory X, people are lazy by nature and work only under duress. Theory X was once the most widely accepted approach to management. Today, in a highly developed capitalist world, Theory X seems outdated for three reasons:

1. Theory X is based on outdated paradigms.

Hierarchical models like the army or the church are not applicable in modern business. For example, today, members of work groups often do not report to a single leader, but solve problems across several departments simultaneously.

2. “Theory X” is too abstract.

Theory X does not take into account the political, social and economic conditions of an individual company.

3. “Theory X” is based on incorrect assumptions about human nature.

Theory X suggests that people can only work if they are forced to. However, any coercion has its limits. Often people work much better under the influence of a belief or interest in working together.

Theory X takes a pessimistic view of human nature. According to Theory X, relationships between managers and subordinates are based on mutual hostility.

Theory X managers believe that employees are incapable of thinking and acting independently. For this reason, such managers, for the common good of the company, strive to closely monitor the activities of their subordinates, believing that subordinates work only when someone is constantly monitoring them.

Theory X managers assume that employees are unwilling to volunteer for responsibility because they are only interested in getting paid.

Theory X managers believe that subordinates do not see the big picture or do not care about the success of the company as a whole.

Douglas McGregor's Theory X is based on three statements:

1. People don't want to work.

A person experiences an innate aversion to work and tries to avoid it. Performance standards, meeting targets, and time clocks are management's response to employees' natural tendency to shirk.

2. Coercion is inevitable.

An enterprise will not achieve its goals without coercion and intimidation of its employees. The only incentive for employees to work is punishment, not encouragement. Career, bonuses and benefits only increase a person’s demands, rather than inspiring the desire to work hard.

3. Employees try to avoid responsibility.

All people want from life is a quiet job with a regular salary.

"Theory Y" by Douglas McGregor.

Theory Y - Supervisors should respect subordinates and give them the opportunity to act independently in order to awaken in them the desire to follow moral principles and maintain discipline. According to Theory Y, if an employee does not show interest in work and does not follow orders, then the blame should not be on the employees, but on poor management.

Douglas McGregor's Theory Y is based on the following statements:

1. People do not innately dislike work.

Under certain conditions, employees enjoy what they do.

2. Employees do not have to be kept in fear.

Properly, employees will work without being pushed and make active efforts to solve the problems facing the enterprise.

The feeling of success gives employees pleasure. Achieved success strengthens self-confidence, and as a result, employees strive even more actively to achieve their goals.

3. People want to do responsible work.

Man by nature seeks every opportunity to perform responsible work.

Humans have a natural ability to be creative. Most people are capable of creatively solving the problems they face.

4. People are smart and quick-witted.

Managers often greatly underestimate the intellectual abilities of their subordinates.

In Theory Y, managers not only can, but must, act decisively because they are ultimately responsible for solving the problems they face. When a critical situation arises, subordinates will look to them for instructions on what actions to take. This does not mean that in a crisis “Theory Y” becomes irrelevant. Even in a critical situation, a manager must treat people politely and impartially, without questioning them. However, he must act firmly and, if necessary, even fire employees - especially those with a Theory X mentality.

Theory X argues that a company's internal policies should be determined by its management, without consulting its employees. According to Theory Y, management must take into account both the needs of the company as a whole and the needs of its employees, who, in turn, would like to benefit their organization.

Douglas McGregor views Theory Y as the preferred management model and method, although he believed that Theory Y was difficult to use in large-scale operations.

One leader of a very large enterprise, whom I respect, proposed his amendment to Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y: “in regulated sectors of the Ukrainian economy, Theory Y will not work.” And I agree with him. But if it is possible to outsource some of the work from this enterprise, then at partner enterprises Theory Y, introduced initially, will give a good result with an economic effect. There are plenty of examples of this.

This theory is somewhat isolated from other procedural theories of motivation due to the fact that it describes the types and behavior of organizational leaders, therefore in management it is often classified as a theory of power and leadership. However, due to the fact that managers are also employees of the team, who are characterized by labor motivation and certain behavior in the work process, it is classified as a process theory of motivation.

As a behavioral characteristic of a leader, D McGregor identified the degree of his control over his subordinates. The extreme poles of this characteristic are authoritarian and democratic leadership.

Douglas McGregor analyzed the activities of the performer in the workplace and found that the manager can control the following parameters that determine the actions of the performer:

• tasks that a subordinate receives;
• quality of task performance;
• time of receiving the task;
• expected task completion time;
• the means available to accomplish the task;
• the team in which the subordinate works;
• instructions received by a subordinate;
• convincing the subordinate that the task is feasible;
• convincing a subordinate of rewards for successful work;
• the amount of remuneration for the work performed;
• the level of involvement of the subordinate in a range of work-related problems.

All these factors depend on the manager and, at the same time, to one degree or another influence the employee, determine the quality and intensity of his work. Douglas McGregor concluded that, based on these factors, it was possible to apply two different approaches to management, which he called “Theory X” and “Theory Y.”

• a person is lazy by nature, does not like to work and avoids it in every possible way;
• the person lacks ambition, he avoids responsibility, preferring to be led;
• effective work is achieved only through coercion and the threat of punishment.

It should be noted that this category of workers does occur. For example, people who are psychasthenoids by personality type. Without showing any initiative in their work, they will willingly obey management, and at the same time complain about their working conditions, low wages, etc.

“Theory Y” corresponds to a democratic management style and involves delegation of authority, improving relationships in the team, taking into account the appropriate motivation of performers and their psychological needs, and enriching the content of work. According to her:

• labor for humans is a natural process;
• in favorable conditions, a person strives for responsibility and self-control;
• he is capable of creative solutions, but realizes these abilities only partially.

It is these people and this leadership style that are most suitable for achieving effective motivation in market conditions.

Both theories have an equal right to exist, but, due to their polarity, are not found in their pure form in practice. As a rule, in real life there is a combination of different management styles.

These theories had a strong influence on the development of management theory in general. References to them today can be found in many practical manuals on enterprise personnel management and motivating subordinates.

McGregor's theories were developed in relation to the individual. Further improvement of approaches to management was associated with the development of the organization as an open system, and the work of a person in a team was also considered. This led to the concept of a holistic approach to management, i.e. the need to take into account the entire range of production and social problems.

The cause of laziness is usually considered to be improper upbringing, when a child does not develop a positive attitude towards work, but, on the contrary, develops a consumer attitude. Laziness can also develop when a child is given overwhelming responsibilities. The child becomes convinced that he cannot cope with the work anyway, and therefore either strives to avoid it or does it somehow. The same result will happen if the goal is not clear to the child.

However, as mentioned above (M. Levin), laziness can be caused by dysfunctions in the development of mental processes, that is, not only by external, social factors, but also by internal ones. According to I. I. Dudkin, laziness is also caused by biological factors.

The study of this issue by psychologists clearly lags behind the demands of pedagogy and developmental psychology. We can point to only one monograph devoted to the problem of laziness (T. V. Ponaradova). The author revealed that a high level of personal and situational anxiety can provoke and deepen laziness.

Yu. S. Oshemkova believes that laziness in young people is a consequence of the lack of existential motivation. The author came to the conclusion that the current idea of ​​laziness as a weak development of the volitional sphere of a person can be expanded and understood as adherence to the same stereotypes in the absence of change and development. This interpretation of laziness, according to Yu. S. Oshemkova, allows us to directly contrast it with the concept of self-realization: it is not the one who constantly does the same thing who realizes himself, but only the one who continuously develops, moves forward, which is possible only if there is existential motivation . Hence, the fight against laziness should be solved through authentication psychotherapy, during which a psychologist helps a young man free himself from the stereotypes imposed on him by society and gain true existential motivation - to reveal the uniqueness of his personality.

According to E.L. Mikhailova, lazy students differed from hardworking students in their low level of development of volitional regulation (it is more difficult for them to complete the work they have started, they have less developed ability to plan and distribute the workload), and a low desire to learn.
N. Borovskaya, dividing students according to self-esteem and expert assessment of teachers into lazy and non-lazy, discovered differences between them. For lazy people, compared to non-lazy people, the following tendencies are more typical: low self-esteem of perseverance; a pronounced desire to avoid failure; low self-regulation in educational activities; weak nervous system; the predominance of inhibition according to the “internal” balance (the latter typological feature indicates a weakly expressed need for activity); lower educational motivation (focus on knowledge and grades). Accordingly, non-lazy people are more characterized by: high self-esteem of perseverance; high achievement motive; high self-regulation in educational activities; great strength of the nervous system; the predominance of excitation according to the “internal” balance (which indicates a high need for activity); higher educational motivation (focus on knowledge and grades) and motivation for success.

It takes three years to learn hard work; to learn laziness - only

Chinese proverb

Thus, these data show that so-called laziness depends on both motivation and willpower, which are determined by the presence of the following natural inclinations: strong or weak nervous system, predominance of excitation or inhibition according to the “internal” balance (severity of the need for activity) .

The situational manifestation of laziness, as shown by D. A. Bogdanova, is determined by 13 situations: lack of mood, boredom, fatigue, illness, drowsiness, hunger, uninteresting, meaningless, uncertain or difficult task, overload, external pressure, lack of opportunities.

We must warn teachers and parents against the false understanding of laziness. A child’s reluctance to study cannot be considered laziness if it is associated with the occurrence of any illness... There are frequent cases when parents and teachers encourage a child who has been ill for a long time to quickly eliminate his educational lag. They do not understand that the child’s body is weakened by the disease, heavy loads are difficult for him at once, and time is needed to fully restore strength. On the contrary, adults often falsely associate such a child’s lagging behind in school with laziness that has developed from idleness.

Children who want to be outside more and communicate more often with their peers are often considered lazy. The prevalence of such an assessment is evidenced by a survey of many... schoolchildren of various classes. It was carried out in the mid-80s. employees of the departments of pedagogy and psychology of Moscow Pedagogical University. Among the methods of studying schoolchildren was questionnaires. One of the questions was: “What would you like to do in your free time?” The predominant answer was “to go for a walk.” School teachers explained this answer mainly as laziness. students, their disinterest in “serious” academic subjects. However, a study of the daily routine of these schoolchildren and conversations with them showed that there is an inability of children and adolescents to quickly solve educational problems, as well as an overload of homework in almost all school disciplines. The consequence of this was a long stay indoors, lack of fresh air and movement. Thus, the most important need of people for physical activity was not satisfied. Therefore, this behavior of children should be considered completely justified and fair. In addition, a lack of communication with peers also has an extremely adverse effect on the psyche of schoolchildren, especially teenagers. After all, for the latter, communication is the leading activity.

We also cannot consider a child lazy who does not know why, why and how he needs to do something. For example, many schoolchildren shy away from systematically following their parents’ orders around the house. This often happens because schoolchildren do not understand why they should do anything in the family.

And they consider these assignments a whim of adults, an unnecessary burden that distracts them from interesting things.

...In younger schoolchildren, we often deal not with laziness, but with disorganization.

There is a widespread belief among teachers that the lack of persistence is caused by the student’s lack of activity and laziness. This statement is true only for a portion of non-persistent students. Among this category of people there are many active, active students, but they avoid difficult and lengthy work under various pretexts. Such schoolchildren resemble the jumping dragonfly from I. A. Krylov’s fable, which “sang the whole summer.” These are people with a light character, often pleasant to talk to, but not obligatory.

However, there are many schoolchildren who are dutiful and diligent, but who retreat in the face of emerging or only apparent difficulties, i.e., prone to frustration. They are used to completing educational tasks at once, and when they encounter difficulties, they easily panic and express disbelief in their abilities.

Stepanov V. G. Psychology of difficult schoolchildren. M., 1997. S. 154-156, 180-10.3. Learned helplessness

The phenomenon of learned helplessness is associated with passive, maladaptive human behavior. Learned helplessness is a violation of motivation as a result of the subject’s experience of the uncontrollability of the situation, i.e., the independence of the result from the efforts made (“no matter how hard you try, it’s still useless”). The phenomenon of learned helplessness was first described by American psychologists M. Seligman and S. Mayer based on experiments on dogs when they were irritated with electric current.

The dogs, which were first exposed to weak shocks (which they could not avoid), were then placed in other cages, where their activity could help them avoid unpleasant effects. However, contrary to the predictions of behaviorist learning theory, dogs did not want to learn such seemingly simple things and were passive. The essence of the discovery was that this passivity, or helplessness, has its source in the animal’s perceived independence of results (outcomes) from its actions (efforts). Experience convinced them that their actions did not influence the course of events in any way and did not lead to the desired results, which gave rise to the expectation that the results of their own actions were uncontrollable, a feeling of inability to control events (the situation) and, accordingly, the pointlessness of efforts.

Gordeeva T. O. Psychology of achievement motivation. M., 2006. P. Then numerous studies discovered the existence of this phenomenon in people. Hiroto repeated the experiment by exposing subjects to an unpleasant loud sound, which could be interrupted by selecting a key combination on the control panel. According to Hiroto, two extreme groups of people emerged. One group (which included every third person) did not fall into a state of learned helplessness at all. The other group (which included every tenth subject) did not try to do anything to counteract the growing noise; the subjects sat motionless near the remote control, despite the fact that they had been trained in how to stop the effect of the sound.

M. Zeligman notes that learned helplessness is formed by the age of eight and reflects a person’s belief in the degree of effectiveness of his actions.

The researcher pointed to three sources of helplessness:

1. Experience of experiencing unfavorable events, i.e. lack of ability to control the events of one’s own life; at the same time, the negative experience acquired in one situation begins to be transferred to other situations when the possibility of control actually exists. Seligman considered uncontrollable events to include insults inflicted by parents (one might add, by teachers and child care providers), the death of a loved one and animal, serious illness, parental divorce or scandals, and loss of a job.

2. Experience of observing helpless people (for example, television stories about helpless victims).

3. Lack of independence in childhood, the willingness of parents to do everything instead of the child.

The relative stability of learned helplessness was confirmed by F. Finham et al. and M. Burns and M. Seligman, and the latter of these authors believed that helplessness remains for life.

Learned helplessness is characterized by deficits in three areas—motivational, cognitive, and emotional. Motivational deficit manifests itself in the inability to act, actively intervening in a situation, cognitive - in the inability to subsequently learn that in similar situations an action can be quite effective, and emotional - in a depressed or even depressive state arising from the futility of one’s own actions.

It is common for every person to be lazy. At least once, everyone has experienced a depressing feeling when there is an urgent need to complete work or start a new project, but something inside resists it. And the arguments of reason cease to have a magical effect. Everyone had to experience remorse and hear the offensive word “lazy” addressed to them. Traditionally, it is customary to fight laziness by breaking your own careless nature. However, laziness is a signal from the psyche that something has gone wrong. Therefore, it is simply necessary to understand the origin of this psychological phenomenon in order to live in harmony with oneself.

The mechanism of laziness turns on when our subconscious begins to classify work as useless, even if the conscious person perfectly understands the importance and necessity of the work being performed. This can happen for several reasons.

So laziness is not always a negative thing. We just need to learn to recognize the signals that our inner world gives us in various forms.

Research on Social Loafing

The social loafing effect was experimentally discovered by Max Ringelmann. A person, being in a team where his contribution is not identified, exhibits social laziness.
In a number of experiments, subjects working in groups were not told about the hidden dimension of their contribution. As a result, everyone's efforts were less than when working individually.

A rope was attached to the dynamometer, and the pulling participant was blindfolded and informed that the whole group would pull the rope. As a result, only one person pulled the rope. According to the measurement results, its contribution was on average 18% lower than with individual measurements.

“You can’t bypass fate,” “Karma,” “Life’s script from above,” “Everyone lives like this, I’m no worse.”
It seems to me that each of us has heard these expressions, perhaps in a different interpretation. But who thought about their deep meaning? Who uses these expressions?

But these expressions are justifiable. Just think...
A person doesn’t want to do anything, goes with the flow of life, works as a “tabik” (you would go there, but you would do that), doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know the word “responsibility”, and everything suits him, he created his own world, persuaded himself to live there and deceives himself and those around him that he is happy. And God forbid this program fails...

The worst thing that people do in this situation is to start drinking heavily and talking about the topic, “if it weren’t for some circumstances that prevented me from flying and swimming (in their opinion, the obstacle was global, in my opinion - simple laziness and irresponsibility), then I would become an astronaut, singer, captain, great actress, business woman...

Less worse, but no less thoughtless, is to simply run away from everything and everyone. Pack up and go to another city, another country and not show up again until something in life changes. But it won’t change... If a person is not lazy or a coward, then he achieves success here, in the place where he is now. And this is just an escape from himself and from reality, which will overtake him everywhere.

Laziness and fear of one's own failures haunt people.
Many people say: “I want to start a business...” or “If I had money, I would...”
I don't listen to people like that anymore.
People who want to start a business, they don’t talk, they were already doing it yesterday... They don’t reason, they act. They don’t dream, “oh, if only they could,” they give strong arguments in favor of their idea and plow... They plow so much that smoke comes out of their pants...

Well, if I had money, I definitely wouldn’t open a business with it. I would simply invest them wisely and live on the dividends, like Christ has in his bosom...
Those who start doing business are those who have nothing, and no money either, but have a desire, aspiration, an idea (necessarily crazy), with which they can infect others so much that they find like-minded people, helpers, etc. Well, those who are very smart and have a desire to make money act alone, so as not to expose anyone to “it’s either hit or miss.”

I look around and understand that many simply do not realize this.
People are lazy by nature. And in order to live, you must not be afraid, not wait, not live out a script written by someone, but live, change, act.

If you ask people “do they live the way they want?”, many will answer: “yes!” But this is not true. They are deceiving themselves. If they lived the way they wanted, they would be what they dreamed of, but otherwise... They go with the flow, live according to someone else’s scenario, inhabit the earth to no avail...

If only people weren’t afraid to change something about themselves, that would be half the battle.
But the majority prefer not to notice their problems, do nothing and complain about fate.

It’s never too late to change the scenario of your life, and it’s not difficult either. But for this you need to take responsibility for your life. But we don’t want to take responsibility, we weren’t taught, because it’s much more common to avoid this very responsibility and swim, dream...
Dreaming about who they could have become, but who they never became because...
And all this is laid down in every person from childhood. Yes, from early childhood a child needs praise and love, warmth and parental authority, friendship and understanding. If this is not the case, then for the rest of his life a person will feel deprived and will experience enormous difficulties in relationships with other people; he will not live, but adapt to the social environment.

Today it is difficult to hide the fact that there are many drunks among middle-aged people. If we say “who did he/she follow? His/her parents are good and hardworking” - this is one side of the coin. And if you think about the fact that parents, because of the race for money, for carpets, for dachas, did not see their children, did not give them that very food for the soul, then everything becomes clear.

If young people by the age of 30-35 have not determined their goal or their path, have not found a place in life, have not found their business, then they believe that time has been lost and that very “midlife crisis” is approaching. You can call it whatever you want, but it is during this period that many, especially men, despair, abandon everything that was dear to them, and fall into deep depression or go on a drinking binge. Many will never get out of these binges, attributing all their failures to external circumstances, to “you can’t escape fate,” but not to your own account.
In fact, it doesn’t matter what life scenario or “fate” is. It's scary that people don't have the strength, will and energy to change their lives the way they want.

Of course, you can continue to go with the flow, or you can stop, look around and change everything.
Do you have a desire to change your life? You should not sit and wait for that person to appear who will begin to change your life... You need to act... If you haven’t done anything in 12 hours, you are simply satisfied with everything and you are lazy.

Changing your own life means making a revolution for yourself, and this requires courage, hard work and responsibility.

Psychologist Eric Berne says that there are three types of people:
1. Loser.
2. Not a winner, which in our understanding is a middle peasant who believes that “You can’t bypass Fate,” “Karma,” “Life’s script from above,” “Everyone lives like this, I’m no worse,” etc.
3. Winner. This is the one who chooses his own life scenario.