Calls for Theories

This call for "management" to have a theoretical basis is not original to this site nor is it new. It has been repeated consistently over the past 100 years.

Douglas McGregor in his very important book "The Human Side of Enterprise" published in 1960 opens with the recognition that:

"The theoretical assumptions management holds about controlling its human resource determine the whole character of the enterprise"

To make his point McGregor polarises two distinct theories that he called X Theory (we dislike work) and Y Theory (we like work, it is a need) to show the different structures that emerge from these two assumptions. However his main wish was that we should be able to identify which theory we are using and then be prepared to challenge it.

The following is an extensive quotation from the conclusion from his book.

Developments in physical science theory during the first half of the twentieth century have led to the creation of a new world. If anyone had been able to predict in 1900 what life in the United States would be like in 1960, he would have been regarded as a complete fool. Passenger travel 6 to 8 miles above the earth at 600 miles an hour, space vehicles circulating the moon, radar, a nuclear powered submarine traveling under the ice cap at the North Pole, air conditioning, television, frozen foods, stereophonic reproduction of the music of world-renowned musicians in the home – these things and hundreds more were almost inconceivable sixty years ago. They would still be inconceivable were it not for developments in scientific theory and man’s inventive genius in exploiting them.

Although the parallel may seem unreasonable to some, we are today in a period when development of theory within the social sciences will permit innovations which are at present inconceivable. Amongst these will be dramatic changes in the organisation and management of economic enterprise. The capabilities of the average human being for creativity, for growth, for collaboration, for productivity are far greater than we yet have recognised. If we do not destroy life on this planet before we discover how to make it possible for man to utilise his abilities to create a world in which he can live in peace, it is possible that the next half century will bring the most dramatic social change in human history.

……..  The purpose of this volume is not to entice management to choose sides between Theory X or theory Y. It is rather to encourage the realisation that theory is important, to urge management to examine its assumptions and make them explicit. In doing so it will open a door to the future. The possible result could be developments over the next decades with respect to the human side of enterprise comparable to those of that have occurred in technology during the past half century

And if we can learn how to realise the potential for collaboration inherent in the human resources of industry, we will provide a model for governments and nations which mankind sorely needs.

 The following are just a sample of others recognising the need to move to deeper levels of thinking.

• 1911 – F W Taylor – Taylor marked a distinction between true scientific management and the efficiency craze. The difference was a mental revolution on the part of the employer and the employee.
• 1916 – Henry Fayol –complained that schools of management focus on teaching technical skills. There is an absence of management theory.
• 1930s – Albert Einstein – It is theory that decides what we observe – We cannot solve our problems from the same level of thinking that created them.
• 1982s - Konosuke Matsushita - We are going to win and the industrial West is going to lose out; there is not much you can do about it because the reasons for your failure are within yourselves. Your firms are built on the X theory model. Even worse so are your heads. With the bosses doing the thinking while workers wield the screwdrivers, you are convinced deep down that this is the right way to do business. For you the essence of management is getting ideas out of the heads of the bosses and into the hands of labour. We are beyond your mindset. Business, is so complex and difficult, survival of firms so hazardous in an environment increasingly unpredictable, competitive and fraught with danger, that their continued existence depends on the day to day mobilisation of every ounce of intelligence.
• 1993 – W Edwards Deming – Knowledge is built on theory – Without theory there is no learning.
• 2000+ – Peter Senge – his focus on the mental models of an organisation – plus “Equally central to any discipline are the underlying principles. These represent the theory that lies behind the practices of the discipline.”

Tom Johnson in his article talks about the need to move away from "Mechanistic" thinking and to see organisations ar living entities. He talks about levels of thinking and the danger of confusion of levels.

In the Book "Presence" by Senge, Scharmer, Joworski, and Flowers they talk about "Deeper Levels of Learning"

Peter Senge - depth of thinking

We include all the above to emphasise, as we do throughout this site, that we move forward not through new methods but through new thinking.