d friendship (Neuborne, 1997).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 system. Theory Y basic assumption is that staff will contribute more to the organization if they are treated as responsible and valued employees. By simply treated the soldiers under my tutelage as valued employees, I was able to maintain the best and fastest communication team in the battalion. There is also a new twist on the popular X and Y theories, Theory O, in which all the employees act like owners--because they are. As owners, they have certain rights, but they also have responsibilities to make sure their jobs are performed as well as possible in light of the needs of the company. Theory O companies strive to create what John Case of Inc. magazine called "a company of business people," a company in which everyone understands the needs of the company and has opportunities and expectations to move those needs forward. When ownership is added to this management practice, people need to understand precisely how if they do act as business people, they will be the ones...
