Choice Theory: Unlocking the Success of the “Japanese Post-War Economic Miracle” for Leadership in Business

• In Event: Presentation | Leadership Development and Workplace Culture

Short Description

W. Edwards Deming and William Glasser were both American born and educated scholars who have received international recognition for their work. Surprisingly, the philosophy of business leadership Glasser shared with Deming seems to have gained more traction in Japan than in the U.S. Furthermore, empirical studies of Choice Theory applied in the business setting are practically non-existent despite Glasser having published a book on this topic. This paper positions Choice Theory in comparison with similar organizational leadership perspectives and serves as springboard for further research in this largely untapped leadership domain.

Detailed Abstract

There is a great deal of interest in discovering the factors that influence workplace productivity. The entire field of Industrial Organizational Psychology is centered on this interest. The field of Leadership Studies has also emerged to partake in this quest to unlock the secret of moving people efficiently towards a collective goal. While scholars in both I/O Psychology and Leadership studies have contributed a great deal to our understanding of workplace productivity, some individuals outside of these specific fields claim to have solved the puzzle. Two such individuals, Drs. W. Edwards Deming and William Glasser, may be worthy of our attention and further research.

While academically trained with a Ph.D. in Math and Physics, W. Edwards Deming worked with business leaders as a consultant to assist Japan in 1950 and was subsequently recognized in Japan as the most impactful person on Japanese manufacturing and business not of Japanese heritage. Japan established the Deming Prize in his honor in 1951. William Glasser, MD. a Psychiatrist, realized that his theories about how people are motivated aligned well with Deming’s teachings and sought to communicate his principles to the America audience through his book, “The Control Theory Manger: Combining Control Theory of William Glasser with the Wisdom of W. Edwards Deming to Explain Both what Quality is and what Lead-Managers Do to Achieve it” (Glasser 1994). Note, Glasser originally used the label “Control Theory” to conceptualize his ideas but later renamed the concept “Choice Theory.”

Glasser used the term Boss Management as the typical way that people are managed and Lead Management to denote how people should manage (Glasser 1994, Glasser, 1998). This paper will describe Choice Theory’s Boss Management verses Lead Management and highlight the scarcity of research in this domain. The focal point of this paper/presentation will analyze similarities and distinctions between Choice Theory and other leadership theories that have become mainstream in scholarly discourse. This analysis will provide operationalizable distinctions that will be valuable for further research. The potential validity of the theory will be highlighted through comparisons of similar ideas to leadership best practices that have become widely accepted in the current literature. Suggestions for further research will be discussed to uncover the level of applicability Choice Theory’s has for the U.S. demographic and test claims of its proponents regarding its utility for increasing worker productivity and quality output.

William Glassers Choice Theory incorporates several ideas. One is the belief that humans have five basic needs that include survival, belonging, power, freedom and fun. This aspect of Choice Theory is somewhat peripheral in Glasser’s writings on Choice Theory applied to business; however, out of the handful of extant articles that apply Choice Theory concepts to business, several focus on this aspect of the theory.
A foundational concept of Choice Theory in relation to management deals with the concept of ones “quality world.” A person’s quality world, according to Glasser, includes the aspects of one’s world that are most valued. They include things ideas (or beliefs) and people that are held in high esteem. According to Glasser, work is naturally in a person’s quality world evidenced in the way people naturally include it as a part of their self-concept. The problem, according to Glasser, is that the way the people are managed causes them to remove work from their quality worlds which results in lower quality work form workers. Glasser outlines the dichotomies in two ways of management that he terms “Boss Management” and “Lead Management.”

According to Glasser, Boss Management utilizes External Control Psychology which, in short means that it seeks to control others through external forces of manipulation, punishment and reward tactics. Lead management utilizes Internal Control Psychology. Lead Management acknowledges and works with individuals intrinsic desires but does not seek to control them through external manipulations. The four elements of Boss Management verses Lead Management are described.

A challenge in theory development involving people and personalities is that it is often difficult to create an experimental design or even a quisi-experimental design due to the difficulty of creating an operationalizable definition. In McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, for example, the language is centered on managers’ beliefs more than the outcome of actions. Choice Theory makes specific behavioral suggestions which may make operationalization more feasible. Scholarly research in the domain of Choice Theory applied to the workplace is long overdue. While the propositions put forth by W. Edwards Deming and redefined through William Glasser’s Choice Theory, are not new, the research to provide evidence to accept or reject the claims remains in its infancy.

Given the acceptance and apparent success that Deming and later Glasser’s concepts have achieved in Japan, the call for further research in this domain is a worthy endeavor. The following are suggested to advance the literature of Choice Theory applied to the workplace. This theory paper should be followed by the development of a Choice Theory Lead Management Scale. Second, a study analyzing influences of culture to further aluminate why Choice Theory has only found marginal adoption in the United States. Third, evaluate existing organizations on the Choice Theory Lead Management Scale to compare outcome differences; and four, analyze effects of Choice Theory Lead Management training and coaching interventions.

Participant

• Marcus C. Hubbard, James Madison University
  Presenter