Douglas McGregor's Theory X & Theory Y
             Douglas McGregor (1906-1964) was an industrial management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1960's. He was also at one time, the president of Antioch College in Ohio. McGregor believed that the management thinking concepts that were being used at the time were put into place long ago to meet the needs of a more feudal society. In his time, Douglas McGregor felt that the world was changing, and that it was time for new thinking. His ideas about managerial behavior had a great effect on management thinking and practice.
             Some of McGregors ideas were strongly influenced in part by Abraham Maslow's need satisfaction model of motivation. His hierarchy of needs is based on the idea that motivation comes from need. "Needs provide the driving force motivating behavior and general orientation. Maslow's ideas suggested that worker disaffection with work was due-not to something intrinsic to workers, but due to poor job design, managerial behavior and too few opportunities for job satisfaction." (www.newgrange). Maslow's hierarchy of needs showed the basic needs to be; physiological needs (basic survival needs including food, water, and shelter), and then up the ladder were; safety needs (including the need for peace and security at work and at home), social needs (including the need to feel loved, accepted, and as part of a group), esteem needs (including the need for status, self-confidence, and respect) , and finally self-actualization needs ( including the need to develop your full potential, achieve, and be all you can be) at the top. These ideas greatly influenced McGregors thinking. In fact, it is said that Abraham Maslow and Douglas McGregor were two of the best known contributors to the human resources perspective. The human resources perspective was a management perspective that suggested that jobs should be designed to meet higher level needs by allowing...