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Management cannot provide a man with self-respect or with the respect of his fellows or with the satisfaction of needs for self-fulfillment. It can create conditions such that he is encouraged and enabled to seek such satisfactions for himself, or it can thwart him by failing to create those conditions.

— Douglas McGregor Douglas McGregor (1957)

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Source, in full

Douglas McGregor (1957), "The Human Side of Enterprise," in: Adventure in Thought and Action, Proceedings of the Fifth Anniversary Convocation of the School of Industrial Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, April 9, 1957. Cambridge, MA: MIT School of Industrial Management.

More quotes by Douglas McGregor

Classical organization theory suffers from "ethnocentrism": It ignores the significance of the political, social, and economic milieu in shaping organizations and influencing managerial practice.

The Human Side of Enterprise (1960)

Behind every managerial decision or action are assumptions about human nature and human behavior.

The Human Side of Enterprise (1960)

Man will exercise self-direction and self-control in the service of objectives to which he is committed.

The Human Side of Enterprise (1960)

The average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it if he can.

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The key question for top management is what are your assumptions (implicit as well as explicit) about the most effective way to manage people?

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Douglas McGregor (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.