sufficiently responsible to allow for flexibility and where the employee can see his own position in the management hierarchy. If these conditions are present, managers will find that the participative approach to problem solving leads to much improved results compared with the alternative approach of handing out authoritarian orders. Once management becomes persuaded that it is under estimating the potential of its human resources, and accepts the knowledge given by social science researchers and displayed in Theory Y assumptions, then it can invest time, money and effort in developing improved applications of the theory. McGregor realizes that some of the theories he has put forward are unrealizable in practice, but wants managers to put into operation the basic assumption that: staff will contribute more to the organization if they are treated The military is a classic example of theory X the most common management practice) management organizes all elements of production, motivates and controls employee behavior to fit the needs of the organization, and without this intervention, employees would be indifferent to changing organizational needs. I enlisted in the United States Army in 1988 as a chance to travel and further my education. During the initial part of my six years of active military duty the general assumption was that soldiers felled squarely into theory X. Most senior enlisted officers I encountered for the most part seemed to have this mindset of soldiers having a natural dislike for work. I believed control and punishment are not the only ways to make people work, man will direct himself if he is committed to the aims of the organization. Needless to say once promoted through the ranks I chose a different approach than the one inherited with the syste...
