In the '60s, Douglas McGregor highlighted the fact that "old-fashioned" management saw the worker as resistant to work and did everything to avoid it.

This is what he calls Theory X, based on a management style of control and constraint.

He contrasts this with another vision of the worker, for whom work and physical and intellectual effort are as much a pleasure as a leisure activity. For this to happen, the activity must meet certain conditions.

  • Feeling committed to the objective
  • Be able to demonstrate self-management and self-direction.

This is Theory Y, based on delegation and participation.

Jane Mouton and Robert Blake took up theory Y in creating the Managerial Grid.

This grid proposes a reading of management no longer based solely on productivity but also on a second axis expressing the manager's interest in the human and relational aspects of his task.