Douglas McGregor - Management Quotes

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Formal theories of organization have been taught in management courses for many years, and there is an extensive literature on the subject. The textbook principles of organization — hierarchical structure, authority, unity of command, task specialization, division of staff and line, span of control, equality of responsibility and authority, etc. — comprise a logically persuasive set of assumptions which have had a profound influence upon managerial behavior.

Douglas McGregor
The key question for top management is what are your assumptions (implicit as well as explicit) about the most effective way to manage people?

Douglas McGregor
The essential task of management is to arrange organizational conditions and methods of operations so that people can achieve their own goals best by directing their own efforts toward organizational objectives.

Douglas McGregor
The ingenuity of the average worker is sufficient to outwit any system of controls devised by management.

Douglas McGregor
It is one of the favorite pastimes of headquarters groups to decide from within their professional ivory tower what help the field organization needs and to design and develop programs for meeting these "needs." Then it becomes necessary to get field management to accept the help provided, and a different role is taken by the staff: that of persuading middle and lower management to utilize the programs.

Douglas McGregor