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knowledge of good and evil. According to McGregor, this punishment consisted of
banishment from the Garden, and most importantly, the requirement that Adam and
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Lesson One - Introduction to TQM, Management Thinkers, Deming and his Management
Principles
Eve work for a living.4 Management, in emphasizing productivity and performance
rewards, reflects a basic belief that man's tendency to avoid work must be overcome.5
In general, rewards are not sufficient to motivate people; only fear of punishment will
accomplish that.
In contrast to the assumptions of Theory X, McGregor lists the following Theory Y
assumptions:
1) "The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play
or rest.
2) External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means for
bringing about effort toward organizational objectives. Man will exercise
self-direction and self-control in the service of objectives to which he is
committed.
3) Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with their
achievement.
4) The average human being learns, under proper conditions, not only to accept
but to seek responsibility.
5) The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity,
and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not
narrowly, distributed.
6) Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentialities
of the average human being are only partially utilized."6
According to Theory Y, work is natural, and people are capable of self-directed,
responsible, and creative behavior in the work place. The implication, according to
McGregor, is that problems of cooperation in an organization are not due to human
nature. Rather, these problems are because of management's failure to unlock the
potential of its human resources.7
TQ Anthropology
In Japan, Total Quality, and the assumptions it shares with Theory Y, is the standard
system of management. Kaoru Ishikawa finds a religion's anthropology plays a
significant role in implementing Total Quality principles. He observes that Japanese
society has been influenced by Confucianism, one strain of which teaches that man is
good by nature. He agrees with that teaching, and that through education, anyone
can become good. Managers that are convinced of the basic goodness of their workers
will trust them to exhibit self-direction, responsibility, imagination, ingenuity, and
creativity. This being the case, the worker is given a great degree of control over the
production process.
In the West, Total Quality principles began to be implemented in the late Seventies.
As stated earlier, Ishikawa teaches that these principles will have a more difficult time
taking hold in the West because our management principles have traditionally been
based on assumptions that man is basically evil (Theory X). However, Western Total
Quality advocates seem to have embraced Theory Y assumptions based on non-
Biblical presuppositions, just as in Japan.
In his book, Safer Than a Known Way; The Deming approach to Management, the
Australian John McConnell states that people want to learn, to be innovative, and to
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Total Quality Management
enjoy their work. These ideas are consistent with Theory Y. He also implies that man
is basically good, and that factors extrinsic to himself (which he calls the "Forces of
Destruction") are responsible for any inability to work well.8
American Alfie Kohn is another example of an influential Western author associated
with the Total Quality movement who embraces Theory Y ideas. Set in the context of
his critique of competition, he says that while man may not necessarily be good, he is
at least neutral.9 Attitudes that make us a good worker (e.g. the desire to cooperate
with others, creativity, ingenuity10) either come to us at birth or are learned shortly
thereafter.
The reason that western Total Quality practitioners have embraced non-Biblical views
of man may be due to the influence that eastern philosophy has had on our culture
during the latter half of this century. However, the West has its own philosophical
traditions which reject the Biblical view of fallen man. For instance, the 18th century
philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau taught that man is naturally good and his
problems come from the influences of society.11 Existential philosophers such as Jean-
Paul Sartre believe that man does not have a nature, as such. Rather, he comes upon
the scene undefined, neither good nor bad, and determines himself, what he will be.12
Biblical Anthropology
In contrast with these philosophies, the Biblical doctrine of the total depravity of man
teaches that man is basically evil; that is, because of sin, "every part of man's nature is
corrupted--his intellect, his will, his emotions, his judgments, his imagination... Man is
by nature dead in sin."13 This doctrine is derived from verses such as the following:
Genesis 6:5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great
in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually.
Titus 1:5 To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are
defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and
conscience are defiled.
Colossians 2:13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with
Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.
Common Grace
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