“Different people have to be managed differently”

After the Second World War, firms and organizations began to realize that the services and goods they provide were becoming more complex and the staff who produced and provided them needed to be more “technically skilled.”

The management consultants McGregor and Drucker began to sense this need by employers through “changes in management style.”  Maslow on the other hand was a psychologist and focused upon the hierarchical needs and development of individuals often expressed by the following pyramid.  

Douglas McGregor maintained in his book, The Human Side of Enterprise, that individuals must be managed in one of two ways – either by Theory X or by Theory Y – ranging from an authoritarian to a democratic management style – acknowledging that Theory Y was more predominant than Theory X.  An MIT offshoot program is entitled The Scanlon Plan.  

In hospitals, most experts are the individual professional licensed staff members that provide direct patient care services.  Drucker aptly called these individuals The Knowledge Workers.  He reasoned that as tasks become more technical

in nature, it is the knowledge worker who: (1) fully understands the task being performed, (2) can perceive ways to correct a problem or improve an operational process, and (3) makes the required changes.

Drucker further states that over time, individuals in management become less and less knowledgeable regarding such skills - thus requiring a different style of management.  Drucker reached a similar conclusion as McGregor regarding the management of the workforce.  

Given management’s lack of technical skills, they often try to apply top-down motivational programs to address this issue.  Knowledge workers humorously call them “flavor of the month.” 

The motivational concept was discussed by Abraham Maslow in his original book entitled Eupsychian Management: A Journal (1965) and a second edition Maslow on Management (1995) published after his death.  His writings cover concepts of “hierarchy of needs,” "self-actualization" and his concept of motivational management of an organization’s workforce, all of which he introduced as “Theory Z.”