Long blog post on this question: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/gervais-macleod-8-human-nature-theories-x-y-z-and-a/ http://michaelochurch.wordp

Long blog post on this question: 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... The Theory X workplace believes people have to be intimidated into working. Theory X managers love to micromanage, to play psychological games, and to be mysterious and slightly terrifying to the people below them. Theory Y holds that people do their best work when they're happy, enabled, and trusted. Who's right? Mostly, Y. It is almost obviously true that people do their best work when happy. There is one issue with Theory Y workplaces, which is that while being decent and liberal in trusting people with their own time and energy tends to pay off without fail when creativity and output are measured, one does have to take a hard-line (even zero-tolerance) approach on certain ethical issues. It goes back to what Lord Acton said about judging talent at its best and character at its worst. The reason there are so few Theory Y/R&D workplaces left is that, in the 1980s (Reagan Era) people sold out their companies to snag private equity jobs (thanks, Boomer yuppies!) making the case that maybe workers shouldn't be liberally trusted. The Theory Y workplace died out because it couldn't defend itself against what people became in a time of increasing economic inequality (more specifically: potential for personal advancement through unethical means). As much as they're reviled here, the three-letter agencies (NSA, CIA, etc.) do a great job of this. They're Theory Y work environments in general (employees are treated very well) but take a "need to know" stance on high-level secrets that could kill people if lost, and have a zero-tolerance policy regarding leaks. They take a mostly Theory Y approach on peoples' ability to work hard given the right context, but are X (that is, very conservative with trust) on the things that need to be protected.