
Before There Was Lean, Agile Or Waterfall There Was Theory X, Y And Z - askorkin
http://www.skorks.com/2009/08/before-there-was-lean-agile-or-waterfall-there-was-theory-x-y-and-z/
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rjprins
Slightly tangent: The question if humans are inherently lazy or not is wrong.
To understand motivation you need to grasp back to evolutionary principles.
People work hard to ensure procreative success, but will spare energy when
possible.

In process management terms, ideally you couple the sense of genetic urgency
to the job. But realistically a lot of jobs obviously have no connection to
procreative success. In that case assume the employees are lazy.

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mechanical_fish
Ah, the spherical cow theory of human psychology. I believe they call that
"Theory Epsilon".

Are you going to try to convince us that (e.g.) Steve Wozniak was lazy? Or are
you going to try to convince us that the still-childless Mr. Wozniak drove
himself furiously to invent the Apple I and II as part of a strategy to
improve his procreative success?

Evolutionary psych is a field that has useful things to say, but only to the
extent that it avoids being the 21st-century version of cocktail-party
Freudianism. ("Of course higher mathematics is about sex! Of course classical
music is about sex! Of course your relationship to your mother is about sex!
Of course that hat is about sex! _Everything_ is about sex!")

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rjprins
Sigh, what you dismiss as cocktail-party Freudianism is social psychology that
you fail to understand.

You are taking the idea of sexual motivation too directly.

Sexual motivation underlies status awareness, which in turn drives ambition.
Steve Wozniak was status aware, but his perceived social environment was
computer hackers. Therefore inventing the Apple I and II put him right at the
top of his social circle, which exemplified by you mentioning him.

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RyanMcGreal
tl;dr version: people work more effectively when everyone participates in
improving processes.

