LE 02

In the second session, we learned about some new concepts related to management like Pygmalion Effect, Theory X & Theory Y Manager.

First of all lets see . . . . . . .

What is Pygmalion phenomena ?

The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect (searched from wiki), is a phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, often children or students and employees, the better they perform. The effect is named after Pygmalion, a Cypriot sculptor in a narrative by Ovid in Greek Mythology, who fell in love with a female statue he had carved out of ivory after it became human from his wishes.

This actually leads to the effect of what we think & what we do relationship, i.e whatever we expect from ourselves, our performance comes in that form only, it can be positive or negative.

Then the discussion moved to Theory X & Theory Y managers………………..

Any organization comprises of one major resource i.e human resource and that human resource is the one who works in that organization as a team member and there is one supervisor or say manager so as to supervise and coordinate the work in that team, i.e Human Resource is bifurcated into two domains:

1.  Team Member or say an employee

2.  Supervisor or  say a Manager

& the collaborative work and relationship determines the fate of the project or in cases fate of  the organization. Based on the behavior and attitude of the given entities,we can divide them into four broad scenarios as given below: 

Type of Manager	Type of Employees
Theory  X Manager	Lazy Employee	Good Employee
Theory  Y Manager	Lazy Employee	Good Employee

Scenario 1: Lazy Employees and Theory X Manager

In such a scenario, the employees are lazy and the theory X manager is sckeptical about the potential of the employee , especially have a negative attitude, assumes that his employees are lazy and this results in the negative sloped growth of the organization.

For example, we can have a peek into the classical teaching problem in Indian government schools, where the students usually don’t take education seriously, and also the teacher looks up to that attitude of students & forms a negative opinion about them and don’t take up classes citing the reason of less students willing to study, rather than making the unwilling students come up to classes by imbibing the significance of education. This leads to negative sloped growth in education sector.

Scenario 2: Not Lazy Employees and Theory X Manager
In such a scenario, the employees are not lazy but the theory X manager assumes that his employees are lazy. The scenario is a demising one as it demotivates the good, hard working employees. All this leads to utmost dissatisfaction among employees and thus results in higher attrition rate.

Scenario 3: Lazy Employees and Theory Y Manager

In this case, the employees are lazy but the theory Y manager, being a positive attitude manager, views his employees as of high potential and this optimism leads to the change in attitude of the employees as they see themselves being awarded with responsibilities and then they come up with their potential to attain tha goals.

This is the scenario which we saw in famous Bollywood movie “Chak De . . . India”, where coach motivated the lethargic women hockey players and led them to win the Hockey World Cup.

Scenario 4: Not Lazy Employees and  Theory Y Manager


This can be termed as the ideal scenario which organizations want to tread on the path of success with the fastest rate. In this case, employees are not lazy and the theory Y manager assumes that his employees are not lazy. This is the environment which we should look up to make in the organization as if a manager gets successful in keeping the hardworking employees motivated, then the 99% of the job is done as the best employees would be retained in the organization.

This is the case which I experienced in my team, where the team members were quite hardworking and concerned about their work and on the other side manager was also quite an encouraging personality, led the team from front, along with that giving us chance to come up with our full potential leading to utmost satisfaction.

So, in all, the organizations should always strive to achieve the scenario 4 in their management style by introducing some changes in organization structure and HR Policies.