The Keele University 2007 "Guru" Lecture,
The Full Lecture. Free Streaming Video
The E-Pop Video
Nov 2007.
Phil McMinn - Sheffield: 20/11/2007 17:40:09
What do you do when one doesn't want to care about their job? Is there any way you get them to care?
If someone does not want to care about their job then there is no way that they can be made to care.
In my experience I have never met anyone who when they were given the opportunity did not start to take pride and therefore care about what they did.
Rather than seek to blame the employee for their failure to care, (A very Theory X thing to do) look to the organization the person works for and find out what it is doing that is stopping the employee from caring.
S.Shah - Exeter: 20/11/2007 17:47:08
Do the changes within an organisation "only" start with the workforce or at senior management level too?
The change already exists within the workforce, we don’t have to change anything.
What has to change is the behaviour of the management that is suppressing the performance of the workforce.
We don’t drive the change we simply allow management to discover what they have been doing wrong, then stand back while the natural behaviour of the workforce reasserts itself.
In order to do this we need the buy in of senior management to sanction the project but we do not need the buy in of middle management.
Middle management are a part of the workforce like everybody else and like everybody else they want to do a good job that they can be proud of.
When middle management see what happens to performance as the workforce start to care they want to find out how it happened so that they can sustain that performance, because they too want to be part of a winning team.
Andrew Turnbull - Northumbria: 20/11/2007 17:57:11
Does theory X have any place in the workforce anymore?
There are so many different work scenarios and it would be difficult to give a definitive answer.
The military would seem to be the last bastion of theory X behaviour but my own experience as an officer in the Royal Navy and that of two officers in the USN, Commander Ben Simonton, author of 'Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed', and Captain Mike Abrashoff, author of “Its Your Ship”, suggests that the purely directive Command and Control behaviour, although still prevalent in the military is now suppressing the performance of personell who have changed from unskilled cannon fodder to highly skilled and trained technicians who if they are treated abruptly or given direct orders will do the absolute minimum to execute those orders within the letter of the law.
We, Ben Mike and myself, have all found that when we remove that destructive theory X behaviour personnel all tend to excel.
UWE, Bristol: 20/11/2007 17:57:32
If the answer is so simple - why haven't we been doing this for years?
The answer is simple, and has been available as an academic argument for over fifty years.
Unfortunately most managers are practical people who spend all their time managing and have little time to spare in academic research.
What we have now is a practical, repeatable process that any manager can administer without investing uneconomic swathes of time in academic endeavour or expensive consultant driven interventions.
UWE, Bristol: 20/11/2007 17:59:05
How important are Language Skills in getting the workforce to like ownership?
Not at all, because we don’t have to persuade anyone to like it.
Ownership is the natural behaviour that we exhibit that allows us to care.
Nobody persuades us to care, we do it because we prefer to care.
The reason we don’t care is not because we don’t want to. It is because of what is done to us by the organization we work for.
UWE, Bristol: 20/11/2007 17:59:43
How do you deal with people who stop caring?
This sounds as if when someone stops caring it is their fault.
It is not.
When they stop caring seek out what the organization has done to stop them caring then address that problem.
We should try to stop blaming individuals for their reaction to what has been done to them by the organization.
UWE, Bristol: 20/11/2007 18:00:31
Are there any circumstances in which theory X is more appropriate?
I am positive that there are many instances where an adherence to instructions is absolutely necessary but I cannot think of any more appropriate than frontline troops in a war zone.
Captain Mike Abrashoffs book, “Its Your Ship” shows how strong and responsive to theory X commands his team became in the Gulf war when the balloon went up but he also showed that this strength came from a concensus that theory X was appropriate in this circumstance. After an action the officers were accountable to the men for the way they carried out an action and every opportunity was taken to review and improve their performance, at every level.
bm457(UoG): 20/11/2007 18:01:21
So who should be more concerned? is it the senior mgmt or the workforce?
I am not sure from the question what they should be concerned about, underperformance?
Currently management are concerned and the workforce don’t care.
If the workforce did care then the whole workforce would be working together towards their common goal.
UWE, Bristol: 20/11/2007 18:01:22
Is your method more than then "Hawthorne Effect"?
The Hawthorne effect describes how the workforce’s behaviour changes as a result of people paying attention to them.
Their performance increases when their performance is measured.
This is because they want to be seen to be doing a good job.
Their performance reverts when they know they are not being measured because they don’t care, they are simply working harder to look good in the results.
By allowing the workforce to care their performance is not dependent on their being measured, it is therefore a consistent sustainable improvement.
Yes, this method is much more than the temporary trick that is the Hawthorne effect.
Oxford Brookes: 20/11/2007 18:07:36
Theory Y is only useful when we haven't got a good enough understanding of the metrics needed to apply theory X – discuss
Theory Y is useful because it allows an interactive response that uses the experience and skills of all involved to search for and implement improvement.
In this case the directive tone of this question fits firmly into the Theory X style of management. If I was an employee, or otherwise beholden to the questioner, then I would make the shortest response that I thought I could get away with because I want him to continue paying me but I don’t want to give any more than I absolutely have to.
If this question had been asked in an inclusive, Theory Y, manner I would have been happy to spend my time giving the best answer I could.
As it is, my failure to answer this question is a result of the manner in which it was asked.
I feel that exposing the example set by the tone of this question will be more useful to the rest of the students than pretending that I had not noticed or was comfortable being addressed in this way.
Keele:
If you are improving a company's performance (and profits to shareholders) by making employees care, does the company have a moral/ethical obligation to reward them monetarily?
Good question, one that could create an endless debate without ever coming up with an answer that is right in every culture/circumstance.
So instead of trying to decide what we think would be the right thing to do for the workforce, we could simply ask the workforce how they think they ought to be rewarded.
The fear is that they will go bananas and order a Ferrari for everybody on the production line or otherwise seek a reward that will compromise the performance of the organization. This is born from the attitude of a workforce who do not care for the organization.
When the workforce care they will seek a reward that does not compromise the company because they care about their jobs and their long term future.
The reward they seek may be monetary or it may be in kind, we can be sure that it will be affordable and possible because the workforce care.
Keele
Do we screen for attitude when we employ somebody.
No never. When a prospective employee is interviewed that employee is keen and willing to share previous experience and skills. His or her attitude is great.
If their attitude changes it is because of what the organization has done to them to make that bad attitude, not their fault for having it.
Keele
What if somebody’s attitude has already been changed by their experience with another employer.
"People Leave Managers Not Companies"
If you're losing good people, look to their manager ....the manager is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he is also the reason why people leave.
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.
Most people leave their employment because of the behaviour of their manager.
If you are interviewing somebody who has just left another company then the chances are that they left because of what their previous manager did to them.
In this case their attitude will certainly have been changed but they will be looking for a new job with a new manager who does not treat them in the same way.
If your organization has mangers who understand the value of the individual and the way to behave towards employees that allows them to care then this employee will stay and enjoy a long and fruitful relationship with your company.
If you pretend that you care about him you may trick him into joining but he will leave you very soon afterwards with all the expense and wasted time that finding a replacement entails.
If the management style of your organization still does not change then his replacement will leave too, ad infinitum.