Mintzberg on Management
December 17, 2009
Our board member David Creelman has written a commentary on Henry Mintzberg’s new book, Managing. You can find David’s discussion of this book here. Dr. Mintzberg is a professor at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal and a frequent contributor to publications like the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Fast Company, etc.
David’s comment about the book below really rang a bell for me. How about the rest of you managers out there?
The crazy world of the manager doing twenty things at once, working off-the-cuff in a situation only half understood is not a flawed system—that’s what management is.
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2 Responses to “Mintzberg on Management”
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Fine (and fun) perspective here.
The inverse relationship between knowledge and power — that the further up the management ranks you go, the less you actually know about what’s really going on — is always a source of amusement. But does it really have to be such a conundrum?
The best (perhaps only) antidote, besides having one’s ego surgically removed, is to get out and talk with customers — a lot.
The most effective bosses I’ve ever had were the ones who were managed outward largely by listening — to front-line, real people using our products, not just the execs who authorized P.O.s — and brought back what they learned to unsettle the rest of us in the home office.
Mark - thanks for the comment. I think the inverse relationship between knowledge and power may still hold true when it comes to managing people whose technical or functional expertise exceeds your own - a common phenomenon as your responsibilities expand as a manager.
I’m in full agreement with your recommendation that managers seek understanding of their customers’ points of view. Managers can become rooted in cognitive biases about what customers want that were formed at earlier stages of their careers. By talking to customers directly (ideally) and indirectly (through customer research) managers and organizations are more likely to be successful.