Theory X or Theory Y?

What is Theory X and Y? Description
Douglas McGregor, an American social psychologist, proposed his famous Theory X and Theory Y models in his book 'The Human Side Of Enterprise' (1960). Theory X
Assumptions:
Humans inherently dislike working and will try to avoid it if they can.
Because people dislike work they have to be coerced or controlled by management and threatened so they work hard enough.
Average employees want to be directed.
People don't like responsibility.
Average humans are clear and unambiguous and want to feel secure at work.
Application:
Shop Floor, Mass Manufacturing. Production workers.
Conducive to:
Large scale efficient operations
Management Style:
Authoritarian, Hard Management

Theory Y
Assumptions:
People view work as being as natural as play and rest. Humans expend the same amount of physical and mental effort in their work as in their private lives.
Provided people are motivated, they will be self-directing to the aims of the organization. Control and punishment are not the only mechanisms to let people perform.
Job satisfaction is key to engaging employees and ensuring their commitment.
People learn to accept responsibility and seek responsibility. Average humans, under the proper conditions, will not only accept, but even naturally seek responsibility.
People are imaginative and creative. Their ingenuity should be used to solve problems at work.
Application:
Professional Services, Knowledge Workers. Managers and Professionals.
Conducive to:
Management of Professionals, Participative Complex Problem Solving.
Management Style:
Participative, Soft Management.

McGregor sees Theory Y as the preferable model and management method, however he thought Theory Y was difficult to use in large-scale operations.

Theory Z - Ouchi
In 1981, William Ouchi came up with a variant that combined American and Japanese management practices together to form Theory Z, having the following characteristics: long-term employment - collective decision-making - individual responsibility - slow evaluation & promotion - implicit, informal control with explicit, formalized measures - moderately specialized career paths - and a holistic concern for the employee, including family.

Zara supply chain

Zara Supply Chain
Having read Harvard business review article on Zara supply chain by Kasra Ferdows (we are proud of him) n his colleague made me to write this.
It’s a fascinating story from the very beginning to the very end of it, if there’s any. Story begins with a big lingerie order in 1975 that was canceled from the German partner, Amancio Ortega had invested all he had on it so he opened a shop near his factory n started to sell them he named it ZARA.
Soon after he developed a magical supply chain, which in the point of my view is one of the best n smartest in the whole world. Not only they didn’t outsource but also everything is centered in one place. They believe to be successful you need to have five fingers touching the factory n five touching the customer.
Followings are principles of ZARA:
1-Close the communication loop:
Any kind of data hard or soft is transferred quickly. The aim is to close the loop between the end users n upstream operations.
2-Stick to a rhythm across the entire chain:
They spend money on anything that can speed things up.
3-Leverage your capital assets to increase supply chain flexibility:
It produces complicated products in-house (around 50% of their products) n outsource the simple ones (like sweaters in classic colors).
Now let’s take a deeper look at these principles all together n see what they do.
Zara supplies its stores in Europe with trucks half loaded with cloths on hangers or planes to Japan TWICE a week. Its awesome just imagine, how costly it can be to supply in such a way. But ZARA do. Why?
If you go to any of ZARA store around the world (above 650 stores) n choose a t-shirt for instance soon you find out that the rack is almost empty, just one, two from what you have chosen so it tempts you to buy it as soon as possible or you lose the chance to have it the other time you comeback. In such a way it cuts down on inventories n they don really need to markdown to sell what is left on racks cuz there’s almost nothing there.
Zara’s designers create approximately 40,000 new designs annually (Wows), from which 10,000 are selected for production. Zara releases new designs n models one after another, it’s incredible. Customers in central London, for example, visit the average store four times annually, but Zara’s customers visit its shops an average of SEVENTEEN times a year. Therefore Zara spends just 0.3% of its sales on ads while its rivals spend around 3-4% on ads. It’s good to know that Zara growth is 20% yearly.
In this text you can’t find anything about the operations for more information do read HBR on supply chain management, Rapid-Fire Fulfillment.
Wish you the BESTS.

Six ways to strengthen the link between training and business performance

For getting the best out of what we are trying to we’d better train people first then ask them to perform their bests. Is such case both performers and executives can benefit. Here are six ways that you can benefit from:

1- set expectation before training begins
Informing performers plus having the managers support so people notice that manager care for what happens
2- provide coaching to support success
A facilitator is needed so workers can apply what they have already learned to work. Facilitators can also promote and also transmitting feedback is a crucial done by facilitators coz it makes workers adopt new skills.
** Practice makes permanent, feedback makes perfect **
3- Require Evidence of Application of New Skills
When workers learn the skills they may implement it differently in different ways but here we need to put some barriers n integrate skills into work flow
4- Create an environment that support the use of new skills
This environment can be virtual. Via internet, E-mail n staffs.
5- Integrate New Skills into Routine Activities
These skills need to be more like rules rather than expectation. Make things in daily operations n forms.
6- Monitor Ongoing Application of New Skills
Show interest to new skills.
For full text go n read the article on:
http://www.kepner-tregoe.com/NewsArtPub/KTReview/PubOverview-Review-1.cfm#