A frequent complaint from bosses (senior managers, managing directors or business owners) is that their workers (junior staff, subordinates or line workers) are not passionate about their work. Often they point out, that workers do not put in the same number of hours like they do or that their work shows that they are not wholehearted in their approach, often just fudging along. And at the end of the day, these workers still have the cheek to ask for promotions and pay rises. Of course the boss does not give them what they want and they become disgruntled and leave.

Of course this is just one side of the story. Most people are actually on the other side of the fence, being the workers. The worker’s perspective has been touched upon in my last article on Understanding Disgruntled Workers. So this time round, I thought it would be interesting to start from the perspective of the bosses. Afterall they have pretty direct influence in determining the attitudes of their workers. The worker’s perspective will be touched on later using the Disgruntled Worker’s equation.

Again, as we so often do at Oaktree Research, we are not out to direct blame or pin right or wrong tags on either party. Rather every choice that we make or bosses/workers in this case make bring about consequences. Our intention is to provide understanding of these choices and consequences.

I shall start with a little history on what some people call Motivational Theory. First up is Frederick Taylor who did his studies in the late 1890s and early 1900s. He believed that people work only for money and the more money they could earn, the harder they will work. This is an important starting point as it points out that workers are not altruists and do not work for the love of the job. Rather they work for money and their motivation level is directly correlated to it. Still, there is a limit to how much work they want to do as suggested by the Offer Curve of Labour which states that at a certain point, workers will not do more work even if they have more pay.

Next up is Elton Mayo who conducted the Hawthorne experiments at the Hawthorne factory of Western Electric in the USA from 1927 to 1933. His input is that if bosses treated their workers well and made them feel like an important part of the organization, they would be more motivated in their work. This is significant as it points out that money is not the only significant factor. Though over time, the definition of treating workers well has changed. Previously it used to be a guarantee of lifelong employment but these days, it could be employee perks like a car or club membership or employee empowerment.

Then comes Douglas McGregor with his X-Y Theory from his book "The human side of enterprise" in 1960. Theory X states that workers are lazy and do not want to work. Thus they have no initiative or ambition and thus cannot be trusted, as they only want the money. They have to be watched and supervised closely. Theory Y states quite the opposite that workers like to work and want responsibility. They can be trusted and will work hard for rewards which are not limited to money.

The implication for Theory X and Theory Y is the management style. Theory X bosses will adopt a very authoritative and uncompromising leadership style. Often they are short tempered and let loose on their workers easily. They will over scrutinize expenditure, blame others but themselves and never listen to anyone or anything. In short, they are tyrants who always demand, never ask politely and never appreciate good work. Theory X bosses are also slow to reward workers and take badly to criticism.

Theory Y bosses on the other hand take the time to create a conducive working environment for their workers. They believe their workers are ready to accept responsibility and genuinely care for their job. They are likely to listen more to workers and seek consensus for decisions. They will empower their workers to make decisions, give them ample opportunity to learn and provide them with challenges. Theory Y bosses are more likely to reward their workers and ready to listen to innovative suggestions from their workers.

Now, it does appear that the world is moving towards a Theory Y management style, which is more participative rather than authoritative. Again, I wish to emphasize that there is no right and wrong here. Instead, it depends on whether your workers are Theory X or Theory Y workers. If they are Theory X, than Theory X management is suitable but if they are Theory Y workers, then prolonged exposure to Theory X management would turn them into Theory X workers or make them leave their job. Still in critical situations like crisis management, severe business downturns or turnaround situations, a far bit of Theory X management is required. I would also argue that Theory X management is more suited to short term results achievement. A good manager needs to have both these styles in his or her arsenal.

William Ouchi in his 1981 book "extended" McGregor’s X-Y Theory. His book was entitled "Theory Z: How American management can Meet the Japanese Challenge". This was often referred to as the Japanese management style. It adds the dimension about how workers viewed their bosses and their role in the company. Ouchi states that workers have a strong loyalty and interest in team-working and the organisation. And this in turn compliments McGregor’s Theory Y management style in which bosses give a lot of freedom and trust to their workers. To be fair, Ouchi’s Theory Z sounds like a Theory Y plus, though you can argue that the Theory Z worker is slightly different from a Theory Y worker.

Lastly we come to Abraham Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs which he published in his book, "Motivation and Personality" in 1954. By calling it a hierarchy, Maslow conveys the idea that the lower levels of needs have to be required first before satisfying the higher level of needs. His pyramid looks like this :

So lower needs like survival (basic food, water and shelter) and safety (physical, mental and financial safety) have to be met before higher needs like social needs (social interaction and team spirit) and status (respect, recognition and self-esteem) can be fulfilled. Lastly comes self-actualisation where one focuses only on the development of his potential with the achievement of the potential being the only reward required. This is only possible when the first four needs are fulfilled. According to Maslow only 2% of the world’s population is self-actualising.

Self-actualisation is the state that most bosses wish their workers would be in. But in order to achieve this, they would have to ensure that their other needs are already fulfilled. In particular, this should include a decent pay package and basic employee benefits, conducive company culture as well as organization and sufficient recognition and appreciation of work done.

I am sure you will agree with me that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs sounds very much like a Theory Y management scenario, which is in turn in line with Mayo’s Hawthorne experiments. This starts with the premise that workers are not skiving and lazy bums and that they honestly want to contribute to the company. If the society has strong inherent moral values either from traditional Asian values or strong religious beliefs, this premise is likely to hold true.

So now we come full circle to answer the question of why workers in Singapore are not passionate about their work. When we look at Singapore and its backdrop of Asian values, we also see the family model with a strong father figure who is the head of the household. What he says is the final word in the house and all the children have to listen to what he says. This is the foundation of Theory X management style in Singapore. Most workers in the workforce today have experienced this upbringing with an authoritative figure and this naturally becomes a natural leadership style for most bosses when it is their turn to lead. This is especially so when there is a strong drive to perform, a lot of work that needs to be done or the urgency to produce results.

Long term exposure to Theory X management style creates Theory X workers. Why? Because the only way to deal with a tyrant and keep your job is to give in to the tyrant. Things are done to suit his requirements and exactly the way he wants it, whether or not it is the right, wrong, best or worst way of doing things. Furthermore to please a Theory X boss, short term success are "manufactured" to please his impatience and more time is spent thinking of how to please him than on how better to do the job. The worker becomes boss oriented rather than job oriented. Anyone who has worked with such a Theory X boss will appreciate that it is a thankless, unrewarding and frustrating experience. Furthermore a worker’s core competence is most likely in the job that he is employed to do rather than that of pleasing his boss. I have no doubt there are those blessed with such a core competence, but unless that is your core competence, it is unlikely that you will distinguish yourself with success.

Thus what happens is that workers become disgruntled and as per the disgruntled worker’s equation, they experience negative emotion. This is caused by two of their three soft factors(environmental factors and job satisfaction) becoming quite significantly negative. Thus given that pay and future benefits are constant, the worker will reduce work in order to return emotion to positive territory or at least to zero.

What this appears to the bosses is that the workers have no passion for their jobs, that they just get the minimal amount of work done for the day and then go off. Their work is just about sufficient and they do not bother to look into anything beyond the normal course of work. But relating this back to the disgruntled worker’s equation, we see that the worker is merely trying to achieve positive emotion, as caused by the highly negative environmental factors and job satisfaction. So unless pay or future benefit is increased, this "passionless" behaviour will perpetuate.

Of course over time and partly due to the changing family model, we do see some bosses today who use a Theory Y management style. This takes a little longer to achieve results but they develop a core team that works like a well-oiled machine. This success is likely to be more sustainable and workers more passionate about their work. Though as I mentioned earlier, every successful manager should have both management styles in his arsenal and then use it when appropriate, Theory Y for long term team building and Theory X for short term emergencies.

The million dollar question is that if your boss has been a Theory X boss all his life, how can he overcome his upbringing and inbuilt instincts? It takes great self-awareness and personal humility to consider the need for change and to bring about the change. Or is this a fatal contradiction to what I have written thus far? For a typical Theory X boss who refuses to take criticism or blame himself, how would he appreciate the finer points of this article? The answer is to let him read these concluding paragraphs only.

If you are a boss and your workers are not passionate about your work, this is my proposed solution for you.

Of course any Theory X boss will tell me to skip the part about pay increase and just go on with the other steps. My answer to that is that as per the disgruntled worker’s equation, emotion is already negative. Increase work more without the pay increase will only make the emotion more negative. When that happens, you will only make the passionless workers even more passionless.

Any opinions or comments ?