The Human Side of Enterprise

12/03/2008

If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.
Gail Sheehy

When I was learning about how to operate a child care center, my mentor, Gwen Morgan, handed me a book she thought I should read. The book, The Human Side of Enterprise by Douglas McGregor (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960) influenced my thinking about how to lead people more than any other book I have read. McGregor's thesis is that there are two types of managers — those who rely on rules and tight discipline to keep employees in line (he called these Theory X managers) and those managers who seek to nurture employees to make the most of their abilities (he called these Theory Y managers). Here are the principle elements of McGregor's Theory Y:

Management is responsible for organizing the elements of productive enterprise — money, materials, equipment, people — in the interests of economic ends.
People are not by nature passive or resistant to organizational needs. They have become so because of their experience in organizations.
The motivation, the potential for development, the capacity for assuming responsibility, the readiness to direct behavior toward organizational goals are all present in people. Management does not put them there. It is responsibility of management to make it possible for people to recognize and develop these human characteristics for themselves.
The essential task of management is to arrange organizational conditions and methods of operation so that people can achieve their own goals best by directing their own efforts toward organizational objectives.

It is interesting how this philosophy of leading people aligns so closely with child-centered theories on how children learn.

Holiday Gift Idea #3 -- Solutions for Parents

The parents in your school would value highly a gift from you of Roslyn Duffy's new Exchange book, The Top Ten Preschool Parenting Problems and What to Do about Them!

Here are just a few of the problems Duffy addresses in this no-nonsense guidebook for parents...

Whining — How can that high-pitched little voice wield so much power?
Not Listening — What we really mean is that she doesn’t do what she is told to do.
Meltdowns — Meltdown is easy to predict when whining and listening isn’t working.
Negotation and Manipulation — When does negotiation stop and manipulation begin?
Morning Hassles, Mealtime Mischief, Bedtime Blues — Daily life can sure wear us down.

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For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.