Managing Teams
With Reference to selected management theories and drawing on specific examples, discuss why the theory of management cannot be easily translated into the practice of management (being critical)
The concept of management has been in existence for many years. In this regard, there are many management scientists and psychologists who engaged in studies to elaborate various concepts of management and leadership. In their studies, most of them were in agreement that management or leadership is the ability to influence others to follow certain objectives. It is for this reason, that most of the management theories were established to elaborate the relationship between managers and their employees or subordinates. Although these theories have their positive attributes, there have been many developments in the management concept that have made most of the theories established in the past to be impractical in the modern management concept.
One of the earliest theories in management is the scientific management theory that was established by FW Taylor (1915-1915). Taylorism was about distribution of small manual works in a factory or a manufacturing environment where each task was timed to analyse the convenient way of performing it (Witzel & Varner, 2013). Employees, therefore, received specialized trainings to enable them perform their tasks more efficiently. This management concept is however not practical to be applied in any organisation today as it makes employees to be very rigid. In addition, most organisations encourage flexibility among their employees as this enhances their performance instead of specialized in some task.
Scientific theory also encouraged fragmentation of work due to the emphasis on division of labour. The only source of motivation for the workers was the pay based on their output. As a result, this system did not allow employees to negotiate their salaries since their performance was measured scientifically. In addition, this management theory made managers to be responsible for the planning and control of all the activities in an organisation. As such, employees were only supposed to follow instructions from their managers with minimal questioning (Myer, Becker, & Vandeberghe, 2004). This may not be applicable in the modern management since workers are allowed to negotiate their salaries and employees share ideas with their managers. If this management concept is applied to organisations, there will be high occurrences of workers’ unrest due to salary issues and lack of involvement in decision making.
According to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs Theory, there are five needs that each individual tries to achieve in life. These needs include physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self actualization needs. Physiological needs are the basic needs such as water, air, food, clothing, and shelter. In the safety needs, Maslow mentioned physical, environmental, and emotional protection. In this case, people would require job security, financial security, family security, health security as well as protection from enemies and animals (Milles, 2012). Need for love, friendship, and belongingness fall under the category of social needs that are third in the hierarchy. The fourth needs in the Maslow’s hierarchy are the esteem needs that can either be internal or external. The internal esteem needs include confidence, respect, competence, freedom and achievement. On the other hand, the external esteem needs comprise of power, recognition, status, admiration, and attention.
Self-actualisation needs are the highest in the Maslow’s hierarchy and include becoming what you are capable of becoming or exploiting your full potential (Greenway, 2008). They also include the need for self-contentment and growth, desire to acquire more knowledge and skills, and social service. He concluded that self-actualisaton needs cannot be fully satiable since psychological growth of an individual leads to the emergence of more opportunities for growth.
Maslow’s theory of motivation suggests that people are motivated by unsatisfied needs and that satisfaction of any needs leads to a desire of another need. He continues to state that the physiological needs and the safety needs can be categorized as lower-order needs while the esteem, social, and self-actualization needs are the high order needs. The lower order needs can be satisfied externally, while the high-order needs can be intrinsically satisfied
Maslow’s theory of motivation is not easy to implement in practical management. Basically, it requires a manager to understand the need level of all the employees in order to try and address those needs. This is not an easy task since employees will have varying needs, some of which will be difficult to categorize. In addition, the hierarchy that was suggested by Maslow is not practical in a management situation (Griffin & Mooreland, 2011). For instance, there are some people who would prefer recognition even before their social needs are met. To others, a sense of belongingness and love would be preferred to job security especially if they have other sources of income. In the case of the self-actualization needs, an employee may continue with an urge of reaching his full potential even when his salary is not enough to support a decent accommodation.
The Two Factor Theory of Motivation by Frederick Herzberg proposes that some job factors lead to satisfaction while others prevent dissatisfaction. He categorized the two factors into hygiene and motivational factors. Hygiene factors are necessary for motivation at workplace and lead to dissatisfaction if they are not present (Adetule, 2011). These needs are extrinsic in nature and include good pay, fringe benefits such as reliable health plans, good physical working conditions that are safe and clean, acceptable interpersonal relationships among employees, and job security for the employees. In the contrary, motivational factors lead to positive satisfaction by influencing employees to perform better. They are intrinsic in nature and include psychological needs such as recognition, sense of achievement, promotional opportunities at the work place, sense of responsibility, and meaningful work that is challenging and interesting.
The two-factor theory is not practical to be implemented in management because motivational factors cannot be identified easily. For a manager to address the needs of the employees some analysis have to be conducted to rate them according to their needs. Moreover, it is not easy to measure satisfaction as some employees may find their job to be acceptable even when they do not like it (Cole, 2004). When employees are being rated, they will always tend to blame dissatisfaction on some external factors such as company policies and salaries. On the contrary, they will give themselves credit for job satisfaction at work and hence portraying a biased analysis that may not be helpful to the management. Additionally, there is no guarantee that employees will always perform better when the motivational factors are met. Take for example a manager who gives employees a sense of responsibility by minimising control. Actually, some employees may abuse their responsibility which might lead to poor performance. This implies that a manager should not assume that motivated employees will always perform better but should instead closely monitor employees even when a sense of responsibility has to be promoted.
Theory X and Theory Y by Douglas McGregor illustrate the two aspects of human behaviour that represent different views of employees. The negative views are represented in Theory X while Theory X represents the positive aspects (Sapru, 2008). According to the Theory Y, employees find their job to be normal and relaxing and do not require external control for them to perform. This theory is also based on the assumption that employees will always be committed to an organisation so long as their job is rewarding and satisfying.
Theory X is however different in its approach as it holds an assumption that an average employee dislikes work and has to be persuaded by managers to achieve organizational goals. This calls for a close supervision by managers or warning employees with punishments for them to be productive (Lindenau-Stockfisch, 2011). Moreover, this theory assumes that employees lack ambitions so long as there is job security, employees resist change in an organization and they generally do not like responsibilities.
Generally, Theory X illustrates the pessimistic views of employees’ behaviour while Theory Y is more optimistic of employees’ behaviour in an organisation. Application of Theory X in management is not a realistic approach because managers will always have to control their employees through close supervisions due to the assumption that employees do not like working (Messmer, 2011). If this is put into practice, it will be very difficult to manage employees in a large organisation since it is practically impossible to have close supervision for all employees. Although there are some employees who are likely to resist change in an organisation, it would be quite misguided for a manager to assume that all employees will resist change. This theory portrays employees as rebellious in nature and as people who are not ambitious. As a result, such a negative perception towards employees puts a big gap between the management and the employees a situation that makes it impossible for the organizational goals to be achieved. Again, it is impractical that an organisation can follow Theory X and succeed.
In management, it is not advisable to have an assumption that employees perceive their job to be relaxing and normal as suggested by Theory Y. In reality, there are some employees who are in some job positions due to lack of alternatives. In such a situation, a manager will be wrong to assume that such employees are comfortable with their job (Hardina, Middleton, & Montana, 2006). Another assumption for the Theory Y that may not be practical in management is the perception that employees will be committed and have loyalty to an organisation if their jobs are rewarding and satisfying. Indeed, there are many other factors that determine employees’ loyalty or commitment other than their jobs. One of this may include the desire to provide for their families that requires them to remain committed to their organisations even if their jobs are not satisfying.
The theory X and Y only present two extremes sides of employees in organisation. In reality, this may be misleading because as there are many employees who do not fall in any of the extreme scenarios presented (Lauby, 2005). Then theory tries to bulldoze that one can either like working or does not, either accept responsibility or avoid responsibility, either hardworking or lazy. This is quite shallow and may create conflict between management and employees due to the general assumption that all employees must agree with managers without questioning.
To synchronize Maslow’s hierarchy theory with research, Clayton Alderfer started the ERG Theory of motivation. In this theory, he categorized Maslow’s needs into three classes of needs that include existence needs, relatedness needs, and growth needs. The existence needs consist of physiological and physical safety needs while relatedness needs include aspiration to have a good relationship with friends and family (Hayes & Ninemeier, 2008). Also included in these needs is the desire for public fame and recognition. For the growth needs, the theorist included the need for self- development and personal advancement. The explanation for this theory is however different with Maslow’s as it states that one stays in a given level of need until the needs accomplished. The frustration regression element of this theory is that an individual opts to fulfill lower needs if the higher needs are not accomplished. In addition, the ERG theory is flexible since it assumes needs to be in variety instead of hierarchical. In relation to this, a person may decide to satisfy the growth needs even when the existence and relatedness needs are not fulfilled.
The ERG theory fails to be practical in management especially in the aspect of frustration regression. If a manager assumes that employees will always result to fulfill a lower level of needs when the higher needs are not satisfied, this does not address the reaction of employees when the existence needs are not satisfied (Koontz & Weihrich, 2006). The general assumption for this theory that poor motivation of employees will lead to poor performance is difficult to apply in a work situation since there is no measure for motivation.
The other management theory that may be difficult to apply real life management is the Equity Theory of Motivation. According to this theory, the employees’ motivation is related to then fairness and equity that is practiced by managers. When there is a higher perception of fairness an individual will be highly motivated and have low motivation when fairness is low or lacking. To determine fairness, an employee considers his job input and the compensation for the same. This is also compared with other employees of equal job group. If the input is equal to the amount compensated, equity is perceived to be there but under-rewarding is experienced when the salary is less than the input (Hayes & Ninemeier, 2008). Furthermore, employees have a perception of being over-rewarded when their job input is less than their compensation. Poor remuneration for employees in relation to their input may influence them to quit job or reduce their input in a given job. This theory also suggests that such employees may also decide to compare themselves with different people to see whether the ratio will remain the same.
This theory fails to provide the rationale of employees getting motivated when they realize that are being over-rewarded. In a normal situation, this theory may not apply because it may be difficult for employees to measure their input in specific jobs. To explain this further, someone may have a work input that is not physically visible. In an event that this happens, there is a great likelihood that employees will always try to overestimate their input while trying to under-estimate their compensation for the same (Holbeche & Mayo, 2012). Comparing input and output with other employees in an organisation may not be a true reflection of individual inputs and may result to employees blaming the management unfairly. In addition, most organisations employ their staff after some contractual agreements have been signed. Comparing yourself with others will therefore be retrogressive since your terms may be different even when you appear to be doing the same job. Other factors that are necessary to consider include work experience and education experience.
The expectancy theory of motivation that was proposed by Victor Vroom states that employees’ performance depends on the expectation that there will be a definite outcome for their work. In general, the theory implies that the level of motivation in any given task is largely dependent on the expectation of receiving a reward or having a positive outcome. Some factors that may affect the expectation of an employee include availability of appropriate skills, information, and resources for performing the given tasks.
Application of this theory in management will be rare due to its idealistic nature since there are very few people who relate their performance to rewards. As such rewards are not directly correlated with performance in many organizations. For instance, an organisation may only decide to reward some employees in some department and this may only happens on irregular basis (Khalid et al., 2011). Sometimes performance may be based on the level of responsibility, education, and job position. Due to this, comparing rewards and performance will be simplistic for the management. In addition, some organisations lack proper policies of performance appraisal and therefore this theory may not be applicable as it will result in biased reward system.
Edwin Locke established the Goal-setting theory of motivation in 1960. The theory states that goal setting is related to task performance and that specific goals that are challenging may result to better performance by employees (Dzimbiri, 2009). In simpler terms, goals in an organisation offer directions to employees on the effort needed to achieve them. This theory emphasizes that clear goals motivate employees to perform better while ambiguous goals lead to poor performance. In addition, the theory assumes that employees will be more motivated to work in challenging goals than in easy goals. It is however necessary for the employees to receive feedbacks for their performance since this is likely to motivate them to do better.
Putting the goal setting theory into management practice will be difficult because sometimes organizational goals conflict with managerial goals. In such a case employees may be confused on whether to follow the managerial or the organizational goals. What happens is that most employees end up adhering to the goals set by the managers with an assumption that they are supposed to guide the organizational goals (Institute of Public Affairs, 2012). It is also unrealistic to have a perception that all goals will motivate employees to work harder just because they are clear. Clearly, this theory ignores the fact that some goals may be challenging for the employees to achieve and hence cannot motivate them to perform better. This mainly happens when such goals require employees to have specific skills or qualifications. When employees do not have the required skills they will certainly not be motivated to achieve those goals. If indeed goal-setting improves job satisfaction, then there would be very few cases of employees’ dissatisfaction since most organisations have clear goals. However, there are many reported cases of employees’ dissatisfaction even with a proven track of effective goal setting.
The Reinforcement theory of motivation, which was proposed by BF Skinner, is another management theory that is difficult to put into practice. According to this theory, individual behaviour is influenced by its consequences as stipulated in the law of effect. In this regard, individual behaviour that has positive effects is likely to be repeated while behaviour with negative consequences is avoided (Ahistrom & Bruton, 2009). This theory ignores the individual’s inner feelings by focusing on what happens after a certain action is taken by an employee. Moreover, Skinner highlights the importance of designing the external environment of an organisation in a way that will influence positive behaviour from employees.
The various ways that managers can use to control the behaviour of their subordinate include positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, and extinction. Positive reinforcement involves giving employees positive responses when they behaviour is appealing. This is supposed to motivate employees to repeat the positive behaviour. On the contrary, negative reinforcement is rewarding employees by exposing them to undesirable consequences such as being penalised. This is supposed to discourage employees from repeating the unacceptable behaviour in their organisations.
Managers may also expose employees to punishment by introducing undesirable consequences for the unwanted behaviours. Punishment can include suspension or job termination to some extent. Extinction is a condition where employees exhibiting negative behaviour are exposed to no reinforcement (Amos, et al., 2009). This can be achieved by withdrawing a reward from an employee with such behaviour. For instance, if a manager used to praise an employee for some good behaviour, such praises should be withdrawn when there is a change of behaviour. This should eventually cause the employee to lower the undesirable behaviour.
It is not easy to apply the reinforcement theory into management practice because it fails to recognise the cause of behaviour by paying too much attention to the consequence of the behaviour. Using positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, or punishment is only likely to influence behaviour change temporarily. It is paramount for the managers to confirm from the employees on the causes of the behaviour change (Gitman & McDaniel, 2008). The purpose for this would be to address the root causes of the behaviour change in order to formulate more permanent solutions. Punishing employees or introducing any form or reinforcement will not be helpful if the manager does not inform them what they are not doing right. Equally important, managers should advise their employees on the best ways to achieve positive reinforcement.
The McClelland theory of needs by David McClelland is another theory that is not very clear in its application in management. According to this theory, the three needs that contribute to human behaviour are power, affiliation, and achievement (French, 2006). Basically, the need for achievement involves the human desire to excel or to succeed in relation to some given standards in the society or in an organisation. Similarly, the need for power is the urge to influence the behaviour exhibited by others. To put it differently, it is the desire to control others by influencing them positively. However, the need for affiliation is the urge to forge a positive interpersonal relationship with others.
Those people with high achievement needs tend to be motivated by challenging work. The theory adds that such people have a desire to be promoted in their work places. Likewise, they strive to have feedback on their achievement either from their colleagues of their managers. Such individuals are also satisfied when they do their tasks better than others and hence high achievement needs are associated to high performance (Crouse, 2005). In most cases, they also tend to be highly motivated and are always ready to be involved in problem solving. Actually, McClelland compared such people to gamblers who risk in setting high standards for themselves and then rejoice after meeting those standards. He further adds that they consider an achievement of the set goals as a better reward than a financial reward.
The problem with trying to apply the concept of high achievement needs in organisations is the lack of clarity on what is to be achieved. In the contemporary society, it will be very rare to get employees who portray the desire to achieve without any financial gain. For those who tend to achieve their goals without any financial gain, at least look forward to being recognized by the management (Analoui, 2009). This form of recognition can either be through promotion or being praised for their high performance. By stating that people are motivated by to achieve, McClelland insinuates and ideal scenario that is not easy to achieve. To put it in better way, the theorist should have insisted that only few people in organisations are motivated to achieve without financial gain or recognition.
Another area that McClelland highlighted is that people who are motivated by power are able to influence others and are domineering in their ideas. Their main motivation is the desire for self esteem and a good reputation. However, mentions that individuals with more power and authority have better performance than those with fewer powers. The theory adds that managers with high desired for power are more determine and loyal to their organizational. Truly, this gets it wrong by insinuating that individuals with more powers perform better than those without powers (Borkowski, 2009). What it fails to point out is that there are some managers who misuse their powers by taking control of their subordinates but that does not always translate to better performance. In addition, the intention to possess power varies from with individuals where some are only interested to boost their image to the society. There are others also who strive to have power in order to humiliate their colleagues. Considering the cultural change that is experienced in many organisations, many managers are able to listen to their subordinates by using their ideas to benefit their organisations. As a result, employees who are not in powerful positions are given a chance to contribute in problem solving. This makes the McClelland’s theory to be quite impractical to implement.
Scientific management theory is impractical in the current situation because it makes employees rigid through specialization of tasks. McClelland theory mainly focuses on people’s need for achievement, affiliation, and power. It however fails to recognise that power does not always lead to effective performance in an organisation. On the other hand, the reinforcement theory does not mention the importance of managers telling their subordinates where they went wrong but only focus on behaviour reinforcement. Likewise, the two factor theory focuses on motivational factors without elaborating how they can be identified among employees. Both Maslow’s and ERG theories focus on categorising human needs into various levels without clear scientific evidence of how that was done. In summary, most management theories have positive aspects and were established to improve efficiency in the management process ether by enlightening managers on employee behaviour or suggesting various ways of motivating employees for better performance. However, most of them have major weaknesses that make them impractical to apply in organizational management today.
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