Is your employee experience Theory X or Theory Y?

Robin Schooling Employee experience, Motivation Leave a Comment

Sixty years ago Douglas McGregor from the MIT Sloan School of Management presented two theories of workforce motivation he named “Theory X” and “Theory Y.” Over the intervening decades these theories have been used by leadership teams, HR professionals and OD folks as they craft and create HR policies, performance management programs, rewards and recognition, and work space design. If it’s been some time since you gave much thought to McGregor’s work, here’s a refresher: Employee experience Theory X vs Theory Y Theory X assumes that: people dislike work people want to avoid work (i.e. “people are inherently lazy”) people …

The observer effect is not about cats in boxes

The observer effect:  the surprising role of structured questions

Philip Carden Employee experience, Engagement, Feedback, Motivation

How do we measure things like engagement and experience? We ask questions. But what if asking the question changes the very thing we are trying to measure? Here’s a newsflash: That’s exactly what happens. And it’s not a bad thing — in fact it’s a huge opportunity, because the questions themselves can be subtle but powerful change agents. The observer effect: simply observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes that phenomenon (a fact commonly cited in physics). We’re huge fans of open questions, but here are three good reasons why interactions should start with carefully chosen structured questions. Three good reasons that …