Customer Reviews

The Human Side of Enterprise: 25th Anniversary Printing

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This book changed my life. I assumed I was lazy because I didn't like my work. McGregor helped me to see that I wasn't simply mercenary in my attitude toward work. He posits that each person can discover an almost hidden potential for satisfaction at work that will drive the individual to heights of achievement that are as intrinsically satisfying and remunerative to him/her as they are, of course, to the employer. I used to preserve a status quo and just mouth agreement to get along. I was unhappy because work didn't satisfy latent higher order achievement goals which I think I had subjugated through fear. Regardless of this personal scenario, what I think McGregor provides are key clues and methods for creating an environment in which the fear of offering ideas goes away. There are key pychological/environmental conditions which give rise to people who begin offering ideas and personal investment that they previously could never believe were possible. Read this book if you are hungry to have your people discover their strengths and begin to use them. Read this book if you are wondering what its going to take for you personally to buy into what your company is doing. I would rather be the janitor at NASA who believes his efforts are putting a man on the moon than an executive who has lost vision for what his company is doing.

This book does a great job in describing how humans are motivated and the practical implications for applying that as a manager. Any manager that wants to have a team that is self motivated and involved in their work should read this book. This requires that the manager create a framework in which the employee gets concrete feedback and understands his contribution to the organization. Once that framework is in place the employee will want to excel. Before reading this book I tended to think of employee measurement as a heavy handed, big brother tactic. After reading this book I have a better understanding of why keeping track in business is just like keeping score in golf or basketball. Keeping score if done to let someone track their own performance and not used as a management stick allows the business person at any level in the organization to improve and feel successful. A good complement to this book is "Keeping Score : Using the Right Metrics to Drive World-Class Performance" by Mark Graham Brown

This book, written in 1960, is one of the true management classics, one of the greatest and most influential management books of the past century. McGregor describes Theory X and Theory Y, two fundamentally different ways managers view their employees. McGregor describes Theory X as the dominant view: people ar seem as lazy, not very capable, unwilling to work (unless you make them work), opportunistic and prepared to deceive (providing they think they won't be caught). Theory Y views people in a much more positive way: they are seen as intrinsically motivated, willing to work and basically honest. Now the essential point: the way you view people determines the way you treat them and the way you interpret their behavior, which determines the way they will respond to you, which in turn will reinforce the way you view(ed) them. In other words: both Theory X and Theory Y are true because they create their own reality! They are self-fulfilling prophecies. If you have a choice, what do you choose? This book, written many years ago, is still an interesting read and I think you can still read it in 2060 and find it relevant and interesting.

McGregor really elevates management to a higher plane: this book is at least as good and important as James McGregor Burns' "Leadership." The book is a treatise against traditional command and control management: it is an optimistic book, buoyant with ideas on how even non-management is capable of creativity and self-direction (I refer here to the influence of Abraham Maslow's ideas on his work). I couldn't help but be wowed by McGregor's faith in common workers (one of his ideas is that employees should evaluate themselves, for instance, instead of getting evaluated by superiors). In essence the book is summed up in his sentence: "The distintive potential contribution of the human being . . . at every level of the organization, stems from his capacity to think, to plan, to exercise judgement, to be creative, to direct and control his own behavior" (114). Is every worker like this? Probably not, but it was refreshing to read someone who thought so. Those who enjoyed this book would also like John Gardner's "On Leadership."

If you're journeying through management literature of the present day, you're bound to come across the two theories proposed by Douglas McGregor back in the '50s and early '60's: Theory X and Theory Y. In fact, you'll probably find that some of the more modern theories and human behavior models are based on this work by McGregor.

This is what makes reading this book so valuable. Reading the attributes and studies about Theory X and Theory Y management styles in McGregor's own words, instead of a one or two line sentence concerning his theories in another book, is well worth the price of this book.

The book was compelling because many of the attributes of today's managers, and organizations in general, can STILL be applied to either Theory X or Theory Y management types! In fact, much of the literature today suggests that companies with a Theory Y mindset are surviving better today than Theory X companies. The supporting information McGregor provides to each theory suggests, again even today, that these two themes will be prevalent in society for years to come.

Having this book in your professional library will provide you with some good insight and historical reference to modern day theories. I highly recommend it!

This book is a classic. A "must read" for anybody in management. This wisdom is timeless!

Dr. Michael Beitler
Author of "Strategic Organizational Change"

McGregor wrote this management classic 25 years ago. It is as relevant today as it was then. This is not to be missed by any generation of manager who truly wants to motivate employees in a manner which recognizes their most human characteristics.