Clergyman's

It is one of the favorite pastimes of headquarters groups to decide from within their professional ivory tower what help the field organization needs and to design and develop programs for meeting these ""needs."" Then it becomes necessary to get field management to accept the help provided, and a different role is taken by the staff: that of persuading middle and lower management to utilize the programs.
- Douglas McGregor

Every managerial act rests on assumptions, generalizations, and hypotheses — that is to say, on theory. Our assumptions are frequently implicit, sometimes quite unconscious, often conflicting; nevertheless, they determine our predictions that if we do a, b will occur. Theory and practice are inseparable.
- Douglas McGregor

Every managerial act rests on assumptions, generalizations, and hypotheses — that is to say, on theory. Our assumptions are frequently implicit, sometimes quite unconscious, often conflicting; nevertheless, they determine our predictions that if we do a, b will occur. Theory and practice are inseparable.
- Douglas McGregor

It is probable that one day we shall begin to draw organization charts as a series of linked groups rather than as a hierarchical structure of individual ""reporting"" relationships.
- Douglas McGregor

It is probable that one day we shall begin to draw organization charts as a series of linked groups rather than as a hierarchical structure of individual ""reporting"" relationships.
- Douglas McGregor

Management cannot provide a man with self-respect or with the respect of his fellows or with the satisfaction of needs for self-fulfillment. It can create conditions such that he is encouraged and enabled to seek such satisfactions for himself, or it can thwart him by failing to create those conditions.
- Douglas McGregor

The average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it if he can.
- Douglas McGregor

Behind every managerial decision or action are assumptions about human nature and human behavior.
- Douglas McGregor

The approach that dominates organizational theory, teaching, and practice for most of the twentieth century looked at organizations from the top-down, starting with a view of the CEO as the ""leader"" who shapes the organization's strategy, structure, culture, and performance potential. The nature of work and the role of the workforce enter the analysis much later, after considerations of technology and organization design have been considered. However, if the key source of value in the twenty-first-century organization is to be derived from the workforce itself, an inversion of the dominant approach will be needed. The new perspective will start not at the top of the organization, but at but at the front lines, with people and the work itself — which is where value is created. Such an inversion will lead to a transformation in the management and organization of work workers, and knowledge. This transformation was signalled by McGregor, but we must go further.
- Douglas McGregor

Delegation means that he will concern himself with the results of their activities and not with the details of their day-to-day performance. This requires a degree of confidence in them which enables him to accept certain risks. Unless he takes these risks there will be no delegation.
- Douglas McGregor