Money Hungry Businesses

Week Seven

I’ve decided to make my last entry about my personal experiences with a certain “Money Hungry Business” this past week. To keep the store away from this blog, I’ll call it the Big Red Star.

I wanted a seasonal job this winter break, so I wouldn’t die from the sheer boredom that College Station gives off during the holidays of everyone being gone. So I did. And by doing this, that meant I had to work BLACK FRIDAY. DUN, Dun, duuuuun.

But ANYWAYS, I have decided that I will never, ever get a job with within a business like the Big Red Star again. Being a college student, I’ll do the dirt work and get paid. I do not mind, but this could never become a career for me.

I have work many other jobs that were considered family businesses, so I’m used to being close to my coworkers and feeling like you have friends working with you. This is much different from the Big Red Star. Most employees are only there to work, and don’t care about getting to know you. The head people are friendly and inviting at first, but don’t let that façade fool you. Within a minute from getting back from lunch and walking up to the counter I work at, I was getting snapped at for standing around.

They also give us goals every shift that we should meet, which should help motivate us to sell, right? Wrong. They have our goals jacked up so high, that we are only destined to fail and not meet them. They also try to motivate us to sell so we can put our names in with special drawings to win very mediocre prizes, for example 40% on a given item. It’s just so we can spend our money at their store. So what they pay us, they ultimately just get back.

To reference Week Three, I feel like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. 

This X style of management is in no way encouraging and motivating to me. And it makes me terribly sad that there are people out there who have to settle with taking these kinds of jobs. I hope I never have to be one of those people. Whether I work for myself or for a company, I want goals that allow me to be creative and grow as a person. Even if that means I’m not earning a large salary, I know I’ll be happy.

Y Theory Within Y Theory

As I was thinking about what to write about for this week, it dawned on me: This Communication Leadership and Conflict Management Project was a form of X Theory.

The amount of freedom we were given is crucial for being a form of theory Y.

• We were given the choice to pick what format we want to do the project in.
• We have the choice to choose whatever theory or strategy of our liking.
• We were given a flexible and doable weekly schedule to finish each post.
• We got to choose worked with or if we wanted to work alone.

I’ve enjoyed this project because it’s given me that ability to be creative, unlike many other projects that I’ve done in other courses over the years. Having to be responsible for remembering and doing a post each week would fall under the Y Theory. And having the ability to choose formats, topics, and all around blog design has allowed me to exercise self-direction. It’s an encouraging feeling that someone has high standards of me, and believes that I have the tools to decide and form something worth looking at, even if it’s just working on a blog over the span of a month.

It’s disappointing to when people think you’re unmotivated and lazy and unable to think for yourself. I like when it’s assumed that I enjoy working, because I really do. Some people just need to be given a chance, creative freedom, and a reasonable schedule to get quality work done. And this project has allowed that.

X & Y & Education

Week Five

Though we study the X & Y Theory so it may be applied management, it can also great for our learning environments.

Some professors don’t realize the importance of the biases that their students bring to on the first day of class. They snag these expectations from other students who had previously taken the class can effect their motivation and eventual success in the course they’re in (Markwell 323). Whether students have good or bad thoughts about a teacher can be greatly be based on their X or Y teaching style. These two quotes and lists of descriptions are each an example of what an X and a Y teacher would view their students as:

X Based Teachers:

“Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.”—John Maynard Keynes

·      Students have low desire to learn new things.

·      The teacher must control all situations to prevent cheating.

·      Students want to be directed and not have responsibilities.

·      The teacher has to be the source of information.

·      “Many students are not capable of learning the necessary material and can be expect to earn a low grade" (Markwell 324).

Y Based Teachers:

“Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.”—John Ruskin

·      “Learning is as natural to students as play or rest.”

·      Students aren’t really lazy; and threats towards grades aren’t necessary.

·      Students have motivation to achieve own goals.

·      “Students will naturally accept responsibility for learning.”

·      They are naturally creative and will apply it to their work.

·      “The intellectual potential of most students are being only partially utilized in the classroom" (Markwell 324).

Most teachers aren’t strictly x or Y; there are always ones in the grey area. Also, many students will and have the ability to succeed no matter who the teacher is. But there is still a large amount of students that will be affected by the way their professor sets up the class and their style of teaching (Markwell 324). I don’t believe teachers should be soft and allow their students to take advantage of them, but with personal experience the classes with non-flexible teachers were my poorest and most miserable classes to slug through. I, and I’m sure many other of my peers, enjoy it much more when my teacher gives me the chance to be more responsible for my education and learning outcome. Not just given a massive amount of information to absorb, but to actually get the chance to have personal learning experience and grow, but still have the skeleton of a schedule and given deadlines.

Work Cited:
Markwell, John. "The Human Side of Science Education." BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY EDUCATION 32.5 (2004): 323-25. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.

Which Do You Favor?

Week Five

I talked last week about how I believe I’m very much a Y Theory person, which most people are; but it wasn’t until I came across this quiz that I realized I might be a little more X Theory than I realized.

This would make sense, though. Because most texts specifically focus how the two theories are different, it’s easy for us to forget that the X and Y theory aren’t actually this black and white. We have the ability to apply or mix and match the two theories, because both ultimately have some good qualities that could be of great use.

My quiz results ended up being moderately Y, so there were some areas where I didn’t fully agree with Y and areas where X seemed to be the better choice. Here are my following results:

Y Theory:

I ended up being moderately Y theory. Most of my answers were 3s and 4s, and I only fully agreed with Y three times out of ten. While taking the quiz, I kept disagreeing with many X theory questions, but had to take into account that not every person works the same. For example, the first question ask "Most people will try to do as little work as possible. " I don't find this completely true at all. I personally like to go the extra yard with most everything I'm working on, but I'm not everyone. So I can't completely disagree, because some people may only care enough about a certain task, so they'll do as little as possible.

X Theory:

I didn't strongly agree once during the quiz, but did have one simple agree.  That was on question six, "Most employees would prefer increased job security to increased responsibility." With our currently economy, I find this question pretty true. We would much prefer to keep a solid job without the worry of losing it, than have the chance to move up and take a risk. That's it, most people are afraid of taking risks. Even I am. 

Modern Times

Week Three

This past week in my English class over Modernism, we watched the Charlie Chaplin film “Modern Times.” If interested, you can find the full movie here and the synopsis here. Bellow is the clip I’ll be reflecting on today. 

The clip you just watched is a perfect example of the X Theory, because Charlie's character was being treated like a robot that isn't capable of an original thought. They were making him work on a strict schedule because they assume he and his employees can only preform well and fast under these kinds of circumstances. Today I really just wanted to journal about why the Y Theory would personally fit me best.

I could never happily have a career in a job that supports the X Theory management. I like to think of myself as a creative person and would love to further pursue my love for photography and possibly land a job in another part of the creative industry, like advertising and so on… So the very thought of having all of my work planned out for me and on a very harsh and specific time schedule terrifies me. As a college student, I’m not going to be picky about my jobs just yet. Money is money; but having worked in the food industry, I already somewhat know how it feels to work under X Theory management. It’s just not for me.

I do need some kind of deadline and pressure for other people to really get my creative juices flowing, but if the stress is too much to handle, I just fall apart. It’s not a pretty site.

What always makes me most curious though, is does the Y Theory only apply to more creative thinkers? I found an example last week of how Ford’s employees thrived under the Y Theory even though it was an assembly line job. So maybe Chaplin’s character would’ve help a job better with some Y management in his life. 

Assembly Lines

Week Two

 It’s fairly safe to say that most people, including McGregor, thought Theory Y was the best management style; but that doesn’t mean there is no place for Theory X, right?

According to Rich Bayer, there can be a place for both theories. For example, Theory X would work well for a company that uses assembly lines. “For these types of jobs, there’s a need to set quotas and have fairly strict guidelines with little margin for error” (Bayer 1). They also just need repetition and not a constant change of work methods.

Then there are jobs that need the employees to be creative and problem solving sills like in research and advertising. Because these employees need more room to think and thrive, the more flexible Theory Y would work well for them (Bayer 2).

But there is some evidence that from the view of psychological health, the Y Theory approach could benefit all employees and many different job settings. (Bayer 2)

According to Bayer:

“Theory Y managers boost job satisfaction by treating employees with dignity and respect. A Theory Y manager can even boost job satisfaction among employees whose jobs are routine and do not present a high degree of mental challenge. With such employees, a manager can improve satisfaction by giving them additional responsibilities that make the work more challenging or by helping them understand how their personal goals actually match company goals” (2).

We could use Ford as an example of an assembly line company that flourished from the Y Theory. For 17 years before the lat 1990s, Ford Motor Company used the slogan, “Quality is job one” (Bayer 2). This slogan didn’t only help boost sales against the foreign automobile market, but also boosted the morale of the employees. “It gave Ford employees a company goal that could match their personal goals” (Bayer 2). This change I management lead to the improvement of Ford cars and trucks for many years to come.

Work Cited:

Bayer, Rich. "Employee Management: Are You X or Are You Y." Upper Bay Counseling and Support Services, Inc. (2004): 1-2. Web. 27 Oct. 2013. <http://www.upperbay.org/DO%20NOT%20TOUCH%20-%20WEBSITE/articles/employee%20management.pdf>.

Intro Into X & Y Theory

Week One

Starting this project, I felt that it was most important for me to first look more in depth on McGregor’s X & Y theory before I started comparing and applying it to mine and other’s experiences. Like for any other research project, I started by simply typing, “X and Y conflict theory” into Google and clicked on the first hit on the page, just expecting it to be a definition of the theory. While reading the very intriguing article, "X and Y, Revisited" by Matthew Stewart, I started to realize, of course, that there was much more to the theory than just in our textbooks. To make things as short and sweet as possible (for the sake of boring you) I wrote down what points made that I found were most interesting. But before I get into those, I’d first like to make sure we know the basic differences between X and Y.

In McGregor’s influential book, published in 1960, he claims that there are “two competing theories about human nature that dominant the managerial thought world*” (Stewart 1). One of them, theory X, enforces the belief that humans are lazy and self-centered, unmotivated, don’t encourage change, and want to be told what to do. It’s said that this theory requires managers to use fear and pain to motivate employees (Stewart 2). The Y theory supports the idea that human beings are “active rather than passive shapers of themselves and of their environment. They long to grow and assume responsibility”. This means authorities need to manage them as little as possible so they can meet their fullest potential (Stewart 2).

Now that we have the basic understanding of the X & Y Theory, I will leave you with just a few of the following points made in the article that I found important to point out.

• Obviously theory Y is a good thing and almost always the most popular of the two. It's also great McGregor made to known to managers, so companies can start moving out of the overly harsh management that once was thought to be the most successful way of controlling employees. But does using the Y theory always result in an absolute "happy ending?" And what faults could we possibly find in this theory?

• Some of the "most successful companies in the world are routinely rated the best to work" because they have applied the Y theory into their management; but is this success because most of these companies are worth billions and can afford this (Stewart 2)? Or is it possible that any company, large or small revenue, has the ability to be successful with the Y theory?

• According to Stewart, the McGregor's theory isn't "about the distinction between theories of human nature, but between theories about the nature of human relations - or in less confusing jargon - the sources of human conflict."Stewart renames these U and T theories (Stewart 3). 

Work Cited:
Stewart, Matthew. "X and Y, Revisited." Oxford Leadership Journal 1.3 (2010): 1-5. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. <http://www.oxfordleadership.com/journal/vol1_issue3/stewart.pdf>.