Quite certainly, all personnel like to know that their work, efforts and particular skills are being appreciated. McGregor points out that this dimension represents a great priority to man subsequent to having achieved his survival needs and attended to his social requirements. When these basic imperatives have been satisfied, McGregor makes the point that all individuals will attempt some greater level of personal validation. This, he reports, is to be formed on a combination of personal self-esteem and the validation given thereto by others.
McGregor goes on to argue that especially for those working in the lower tiers of the industrial-organizational hierarchy, positive ego-orientation can be nearly impossible to achieve. He makes the argument -- notably connected to the practices of his era -- that commonly applied methods of production strategy make no acknowledgement of the connection between positive performance and positive...
Condemning a particularly proper production strategy for his time and place, McGregor argues that "the conventional methods of organizing work, particularly in mass-production industries, give little heed to these aspects of human motivation. If the practices of scientific management were deliberately calculated to thwart these needs, they could hardly accomplish this purpose better than they do." (p. 185)
Though hardly an empirically backed observation, this argument underscores a basic position strung throughout McGregor's work that the strategies used to produce greater efficiency in industrial and organizational labor settings has a tendency to stifle humanist interests. This, as a consequence, has a negative bearing on employee performance and the achievement of overall production goals.
Works Cited:
McGregor, D.M. (1957) The Human Side of Enterprise. Management Review.
