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First of all, open-plan offices border on back-door health discrimination. I'm surprised they're legal, to be frank about it. This is the Theory Z teamism. It'

First of all, open-plan offices border on back-door health discrimination. I'm surprised they're legal, to be frank about it. This is the Theory Z teamism. It's a cargo-cult mentality that doesn't work, leads to mediocrity, and makes a farce of the concept of a "team". Theory X was extreme pessimism toward workers: rob them or they'll rob you. Theory Y was extreme optimism-- treat them well, and they'll return the favor. Theory Y worked very well until 1980 or so when the yuppie generation sold out their employers' secrets to score private equity jobs, proving that human nature can be quite nasty. Theory Z is the compromise, based on the idea that people are neither altruistic nor egoistic but most, by default, are localistic. They care about the people they spend a lot of time with. They'll screw over "the company" given the right incentives, but interpersonal cohesion keeps them honest enough, if it's done right-- at least, in theory. That's Theory Z and while it's the most accurate in its view of human nature (localism, not universal altruism or degenerate egoism) it's still wrongheaded and leads to mediocrity. It fails in several ways. Namely, the only thing people on a "team" share is that they report to the same manager. Often, they didn't choose to be on that project (closed allocation) which means they actually share nothing in common. So there's nothing that makes them a team. In fact, since the most common thing to unite people in such circumstances is a common enemy (management) the bosses would often prefer they not be a real team. Further reading: * http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/gervais-macleod-8-human-nature-theories-x-y-z-and-a/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/gervais-macle... * http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/gervais-macleod-20-bozo-bit-vs-simple-trust/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/gervais-macle...

robin2 14y ago
I thought Matthew Stewart's take on Theory X / Theory Y from a few years back was fairly sharp: http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00029?gko=5d297 http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00029?gko=5d297 In particular, his account of how the axis of freedom vs control in this sort of management theory obscured the nature of conflict in an organization. Of course, some might think that obscuring the reality of organizational politics is precisely the point of management theory. I would call that a cynical point of view but that wouldn't be strictly accurate. (See http://rdn32.com/2013/01/27/on-cynicism/ http://rdn32.com/2013/01/27/on-cynicism/)
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  That's interesting. I think I must be a Y/T then. I believe that people are at their best if trusted (to do their work) but I also believe that human aggregates are doomed to eventual dissolution. The goal is to create value while you can and leave a legacy that allows newer and better institutions (formed decades or centuries later, so perhaps long after individual death) to learn from it. I've written a lot about the concept of simple trust. Essentially, it means trusting people to do their work and generally do the right thing. It doesn't mean you'd hand them a suitcase with $5 million in it; it means you think the person is competent and not an idiot or scumbag. Not all trust is binary, but simple trust ("bozo bit") is, and it's also symmetric and usually transitive, so it becomes systemic. It's actually binary across a company (trust-dense or trust-sparse) and I think those tie into K- and r-selection. If you don't have simple trust, you'll end up with a company where employees are treated badly, so they treat it badly (as they should) and it eventually fails.

robin2 14y ago

I thought Matthew Stewart's take on Theory X / Theory Y from a few years back was fairly sharp: http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00029?gko=5d297 http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00029?gko=5d297 In particular, his account of how the axis of freedom vs control in this sort of management theory obscured the nature of conflict in an organization. Of course, some might think that obscuring the reality of organizational politics is precisely the point of management theory. I would call that a cynical point of view but that wouldn't be strictly accurate. (See http://rdn32.com/2013/01/27/on-cynicism/ http://rdn32.com/2013/01/27/on-cynicism/)

michaelochurch 14y ago
That's interesting. I think I must be a Y/T then. I believe that people are at their best if trusted (to do their work) but I also believe that human aggregates are doomed to eventual dissolution. The goal is to create value while you can and leave a legacy that allows newer and better institutions (formed decades or centuries later, so perhaps long after individual death) to learn from it. I've written a lot about the concept of simple trust. Essentially, it means trusting people to do their work and generally do the right thing. It doesn't mean you'd hand them a suitcase with $5 million in it; it means you think the person is competent and not an idiot or scumbag. Not all trust is binary, but simple trust ("bozo bit") is, and it's also symmetric and usually transitive, so it becomes systemic. It's actually binary across a company (trust-dense or trust-sparse) and I think those tie into K- and r-selection. If you don't have simple trust, you'll end up with a company where employees are treated badly, so they treat it badly (as they should) and it eventually fails.