In this posting, I write about the most fundamental area of consideration when it comes to communication – that’s your communication as well as communication in your organisation:  the paradigm that underpins your approach.  This posting expands on my posting on 3rd March, 2011 for Discuss HR.


Whilst it may seem simplistic to look at just two styles of communication – two paradigms of communication – a number of deep thinkers in the field of leadership and communication do just this.  Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, for example, outlined in his classic book The Human Side Of Enterprise, relate essentially to two different paradigms of communication. One of them (Theory X) is based on the idea that management control is required because employees need to be “coerced, controlled, directed and threatened with punishment to get them to put forth adequate effort toward the achievement of organisational objectives”. This communication paradigm is based on the idea that some people know better than others and have, as a result, the right to dominate and control. (In practice, this belief often translates as “because an individual is in a more senior role than his team he should know better than others”, a belief that is as likely to be held by his team members as it is by the leader him- or herself).  As an alternative, McGregor offers Theory Y, which is based on the assumption that employees are worthy of trust and respect because they are intrinsically motivated to do a good job.


Roger Schwarz, in his book The Skilled Facilitator:  A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers and Coaches, refers to what he calls our Theory in Use and identifies two theories which broadly align to McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y.  He takes the work of Argyris and Schön, 1974 and Action Design, 1997, to outline his Unilateral Control Model.  This is what Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication:  A Language of Life refers to as a domination approach – McGregor’s Theory X.  Schwarz maps very simply the core values and assumptions held by the user of the Unilateral Control Model, the strategies which derive from those beliefs and their consequences.  The aim of this Theory in Use is to win and not to lose, for example, and assumptions include the belief that “I understand the situation;  those who see it differently do not” and “I am right;  those who disagree are wrong”.  It’s easy to see how such beliefs limit communication, discouraging an open dialogue about different points of view, and lead in time to misunderstanding and conflict, defensiveness and mistrust – before, in turn, leading to limited learning and reduced effectiveness.  Schwarz also outlines a Theory in Use which he calls the Mutual Learning Model.  This is characterised by assumptions which value the contribution of all parties, recognising that “I have some information;  others have some information” and “each of us may see things that others do not”.  The strategies that derive from these assumptions tend to lead to increased trust and understanding, on the one hand, and reduced conflict and defensiveness, on the other.


Schwarz’s model illustrates one aspect of McGregor’s research that is often overlooked:  that both theories appear to be “right” in the sense that they constitute self-fulfilling prophecies. If you want motivated staff, choose and cultivate an approach to communication which is rooted in acceptance and aspires to mutual learning (Theory Y). If you want mistrust and mediocre performance to proliferate, choose a domination-based approach (Theory X).  This finding is echoed more recently in Daniel Goleman and colleagues’ The New Leaders:  Transforming The Art Of Leadership Into The Science Of Results.  In it, the authors identify six different styles of leadership and highlight that each style has its place:  the most effective leaders are able to select different styles to meet the needs of different situations as they arise.  At the same time, they caution against the over-use of certain styles, highlighting how this can create dissonance in the workplace.  In short, a leader’s choice of leadership – or communication – style significantly affects the climate across his or her team or organisation and this in turn has a measurable impact on business results.


In practice, few people use one paradigm or the other exclusively.  Some people, for example, view some members of their team in one way and other members in another, so that they are likely to use the Unilateral Control Model with those staff they least trust and a Mutual Learning Model with a few select members of their team.  Other people aspire to use one model – often the Mutual Learning Model – and find that, at times, they slip back into the other model, perhaps because it’s the one they grew up with.  I wonder:  what is your experience?  And are you willing to share it here?


Both approaches differ in where they place attention. If you’re serious about choosing motivation and engagement, you need to choose MacGregor’s Theory Y approach to communication and, in turn, to choose to focus your communication in a way that supports it.  I shall be writing about what this means in practice over the next few days.