4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The book that changed management, March 26, 2008
This review is from: The Human Side of Enterprise, Annotated Edition (Hardcover)
Douglas McGregor was a great boss. Wise, witty and insightful, he had extraordinary respect for his employees and believed that if they had the opportunity, they would be enthusiastic, responsible and ethical in the workplace. He believed this so strongly that he wrote this book in 1960 and forever changed management, whose predominant philosophy at that time was that people were inherently lazy, and would work only if you forced and punished them. McGregor was only 58 when he died in 1964, but his contributions to management theory and practice ensure his enduring legacy. In his introduction to this edition of McGregor's classic, commentator Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld points out that in 2004 and 2005 - nearly 50 years after it was published - business journalists and theorists still referred to McGregor's work repeatedly in print. Furthermore, you can apply his philosophy and principles to your everyday life and relationships. McGregor has a tendency to overwrite and, at times, he doubles back over territory that he's already covered. But these are quibbles. getAbstract believes this persuasive book will alter your views about management and your fellow workers. If you supervise others and you haven't yet read it - what are you waiting for?
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Editor's comments on review by "a reader", November 22, 2007
This review is from: The Human Side of Enterprise, Annotated Edition (Hardcover)
I recently discovered the posting about this book under the name of "a reader," which I find troubling.
On the one hand, I join in the view that the beginning of the book has too much material. This was discussed with the publisher; we erred on the side of being inclusive and, in retrospect, we should have kept things simpler as an entry into the text.
On the other hand, it is offensive in many ways when this person (using a pseudonym) implies that inserting additional comments throughout the text is equivalent to Downs Syndrome.
Behind these comments is both a reification (rather than an appreciation) of the original text and an over simplification of what I believe Douglas McGregor meant by "Theory Y."
The original text is brilliant and visionary. It was not designed, however, to be put on a pedestal. A journey into deep underlying assumptions is complicated, challenging, engaging, and interactive. By inserting my own editor's comments and entries submitted by many others, we have attempted to create a dialogue with the text. Could this be further improved? Absolutely. Is it appropriate to take a management classic and integrate dialogue and commentary? I say, "yes" -- it is a way of showing appreciation for the relevancy of the original text.
Although it is not stated, I suspect what is really going on with the posted comment is a fundamental difference of opinion on what is meant by "Theory Y." There is a school of thought (perhaps including this reader) that interprets McGregor's "Theory Y" as only valuing teamwork, consensus, and a unitary approach to management. The risk here is that the teamwork and consensus are superficial -- just serving to maintain a unitary approach centered on management authority and shareholder priorities.
My reading of the original text (and that of many who contributed comments) is that the underlying "Theory Y" assumptions should be anchored in robust (sometimes complicated and adversarial) engagement between labor and management, line and staff functions, business and society. This new edition of the book brings these themes out and some may be uncomfortable with that.
I am reminded of a comment made by Mary Parker Follett in 1933 in her lectures inaugurating the London School of Economics. At the time, she stated:
"There are three ways of settling differences: by domination, by compromise and by integration. Domination, obviously, is a victory of one side over the other. This is not usually successful in the long run for the side that is defeated will simply wait for its chance to dominate. The second way, that of compromise, we understand well, for that is the way we settle most of our controversies - each side gives up a little to have peace. Both of these ways are unsatisfactory. In dominating, only one [side] gets what it wants; in compromise neither side gets what it wants. . . . Is there any other way of dealing with difference? There is a way beginning now to be recognized at least and sometimes followed, the way of integration. . . . the extraordinarily interesting thing about this is that the third way means progress. In domination, you stay where you are. In compromise likewise you deal with no new values. By integration something new has emerged, the third way, something beyond the either-or."
Douglas McGregor focused our attention on key underlying assumptions that make integration possible. He was also well aware that a superficial approach presented as "Theory Y" assumptions was, in fact, just a mask for domination or compromise. This is an important debate and I hope that the new edition of the book helps to facilitate such dialogue.
-- Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, editor, Annotated Edition of "The Human Side of Enterprise"
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The greatest waste in organisations today is the waste in human potential., July 3, 2010
This review is from: The Human Side of Enterprise, Annotated Edition (Hardcover)
The Human side of enterprise is a forgotten landmark in the history of management-research and thinking, which is very surprising considering it clearly provides an explanation for the pitiful state we find within many organisations today. Maybe it's been ignored because it shines a clear light on the fallacious assumptions many organisational designers and developers have about human beings? Maybe it has been ignored because people in influential positions feel threatened by the perceived loss of power and control any change of assumption might bring?
Whatever the reason we are left feeling that the greatest waste in organisations today is the waste in human potential, and this, McGregor points out, is a result of the wrong-headed and unscientific assumptions management have about encouraging the best from people.
McGregor's system and research demonstrates clearly that systems designed to control people certainly provide control but we must ask, what type of control and at what cost? - the cost to productivity, innovation, enterprise, society and human fulfilment?
It is no mistake the book is called `The Human side of enterprise' and not - The Human side of THE enterprise. We are talking here about the enterprise of humans as a natural instinct, not the organisational enterprise which is an unnatural construct.
Traditional management systems are an invention to maintain control over power and resources in an effort to maintain compliance. This creates organisations where everything is forbidden unless permitted and limits the enterprise and potential of human beings.
Traditional organisations trying maintain control narrows focus and closes down possibilities hence the need for extrinsic rewards and punishments to make people do what they would not otherwise do. However, enabling the human side of enterprise opens possibilities by designing organisations around assumptions that people will respond to purpose, autonomy and intrinsic rewards because the ends and means are rewards in themselves.
This book has been wonderfully brought back into the sunshine and placed in the modern setting by Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Senior Research Scientist in MIT's Sloan School of Management.
Creating an enterprise where everything is permitted unless forbidden encourages human enterprise and creates healthier societies.
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