I just loved the below paragraph by drucker from his book Management - Task responsibilities and practices ' He has beautifully articulated the role of psychology in managerial task and how it also if used extensively is nothing but X ,albiet camouflaged. Find below the exact para as mentioned in the book
"To
look for a new set of drives to take the place of the old carrot and stick
seems not
only
rational but tempting. Such replacement drives are indeed being offered
managers in
the
form of a new “enlightened psychological despotism.”
Most,
if not all, of the recent writers on industrial psychology profess allegiance
to
Theory
Y. They use terms like “self-fulfillment,” “creativity,” and “the whole man.”
But
what
they talk and write about is control through psychological manipulation. They
are
led
to this by their basic assumptions, which are precisely the Theory X
assumptions: man
is
weak, sick, and incapable of looking after himself. He is full of fears,
anxieties, neuro173
ses,
inhibitions. Essentially he does not want to achieve but wants to fail. He
therefore
wants
to be controlled. Indeed, for his own good he needs to be controlled—not by
fear of
hunger
and incentive of material rewards but through his fear of psychological
alienation
and
the incentive of “psychological security.”
I
know that I am oversimplifying. I know that I am lumping under one heading half
a
dozen
different approaches. But they all share the same basic assumptions, those of
Theory
X,
and they all lead to the same conclusions. Psychological control by the
superior,
the
manager, is possible; and psychological control by the superior, the manager,
is “unselfish”
and
in the worker’s own interest. By becoming his workers’ psychological servant,
however,
the manager retains control as their “boss.”
This
is “enlightened” whereas the old carrot-and-stick approach may be condemned as
crassly
coercive (and is condemned as such by the psychologists). But it is despotism
nonetheless.
Under this new psychological dispensation, persuasion replaces command.
Those
unconvinced by persuasion would presumably be deemed sick, immature, or in
need
of psychotherapy to become adjusted. Psychological manipulation replaces the
carrot
of
financial rewards; and empathy, i.e., the exploitation of individual fears,
anxieties,
and
personality needs, replaces the old fear of being punished or of losing one’s
job.
This
is strikingly similar to the eighteenth-century philosopher’s theory of the
enlightened
despot.
As in modern organization today, affluence and education—in this case, the
affluence
and rising education of the middle class—threatened to deprive the sovereign of
his
carrot and stick. The philosopher’s enlightened despot was going to maintain
absolutism
by
replacing the old means with persuasion, reason, and enlightenment—all in the
interest
of the subjects, of course.
Psychological
despotism, whether enlightened or not, is gross misuse of psychology.
The
main purpose of psychology is to acquire insight into, and mastery of, oneself.
Not
for
nothing were what we now call the behavioral sciences originally called the
moral
sciences
and “Know thyself” their main precept. To use psychology to control, dominate,
and
manipulate others is self-destructive abuse of knowledge. It is also a
particularly repugnant
form
of tyranny. The master of old was content to control the slave’s body.
We
are concerned, however, here neither with the proper use of psychology nor with
morality.
But can the Theory X structure be maintained through psychological despotism?
Can
psychological despotism work?
Psychological
despotism should have tremendous attraction for managers. It promises
them
that they can continue to behave as they have always done. All they need is to
acquire
a
new vocabulary. It flatters them. And yet managers, while avidly reading the
psychology
books
and attending psychological workshops, are shying away from trying the
new
psychological Theory X.
Managers
show sound instincts in being leery. Psychological despotism cannot work
any
more than enlightened despotism worked in the political sphere two hundred
years
ago—and
for the same reason. It requires universal genius on the part of
the ruler. The
manager,
if one listens to the psychologists, will have to have insight into all kinds
of
people.
He will have to be in command of all kinds of psychological techniques. He will
have
to have empathy for all his subordinates. He will have to understand an
infinity of
individual
personality structures, individual psychological needs, and individual psychological
problems.
He will, in other words, have to be omniscient. But most managers find
it
hard enough to know all they need to know about their own immediate area of
expertise,
be
it heat-treating or cost accounting or scheduling.
And
to expect any large number of people to have “charisma”—whatever the term
might
mean—is an absurdity. This particular quality is reserved for the very few.
Managers
should indeed know more about human beings. They should at least know
that
human beings behave like human beings, and what that implies. Above all, like
most
of
us, managers need to know much more about themselves than they do; for most
managers
are
action-focused rather than introspective. And yet, any manager, no matter how
many
psychology seminars he has attended, who attempts to put psychological
despotism
into
practice will very rapidly become its first casualty. He will immediately
blunder. He
will
impair performance.
The
work relationship has to be based on mutual respect. Psychological despotism is
basically
contemptuous—far more contemptuous than the traditional Theory X. It does
not
assume that people are lazy and resist work, but it assumes that the manager is
healthy
while
everybody else is sick. It assumes that the manager is strong while everybody
else is
weak.
It assumes that the manager knows while everybody else is ignorant. It assumes
that
the
manager is right, whereas everybody else is stupid. These are the assumptions
of foolish
arrogance.
Above
all, the manager-psychologist will undermine his own authority. There is, to be
sure,
need for psychological insight, help, counsel. There is need for the healer of
souls
and
the comforter of the afflicted. But the relationship of healer and patient and
that of
superior
to subordinate are different relationships and mutually exclusive. They both
have
their
own integrity. The integrity of the healer is his subordination to the patient’s
welfare.
The
integrity of the manager is his subordination to the requirements of the common
task.
In
both relationships there is need for authority; but each has a different ground
of authority.
A
manager who pretends that the personal needs of the subordinate for, e.g.,
affection,
rather
than the objective needs of the task, determine what should be done, would not
only
be a poor manager; no one would—or should—believe him. All he does is to
destroy
the
integrity of the relationship and with it the respect for his person and his
function.
Enlightened
psychological despotism with its call for an unlimited supply of universal
geniuses
for managerial positions and its confusion between the healer’s and the manager’s
authority
and role is not going to deliver what it promises: to maintain Theory X
while
pretending to replace it."
