Quote

If you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they plan, organise, co-ordinate and control. Then watch what they do. Don't be surprised if you can't relate what you see to those four words.

Henry Mintzberg

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Henry Mintzberg
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: September 2
Author
Economist
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Montreal
Quebec
Watch
Provoking
Motivational
Surprised
Control
Managers
Asks
Relate
Four
Likely
Words
Plan
Tell
Watches
Ordinate
Plans
Organise

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Managers who don't lead are quite discouraging, but leaders who don't manage don't know what's going on. It's a phony separation that people are making between the two.
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If the private sectors are about markets and the public sectors are about governments, then the plural sector is about communities.
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We find that the manager, particularly at senior levels, is overburdened with work. With the increasing complexity of modern organizations and their problems, he is destined to become more so. He is driven to brevity, fragmentation, and superficiality in his tasks, yet he cannot easily delegate them because of the nature of his information.
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What I have against M.B.A.s is the assumption that you come out of a two-year program probably never having been a manager - at least for full-time younger people M.B.A. programs - and assume you are ready to manage.
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Never set out to be the best. It's too low a standard. Set out to be good. Do Your best.
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Management is a curious phenomenon. It is generously paid, enormously influential, and significantly devoid of common sense
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Corporations are economic entities, to be sure, but they are also social institutions that must justify their existence by their overall contribution to society.
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While hard data may inform the intellect, it is largely soft data that generates wisdom.
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Strategy-making is an immensely complex process involving the most sophisticated, subtle, and at times subconscious of human cognitive and social processes.
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Basically, managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping organizations and units to get things done, which means action. Sometimes, managers manage actions directly. They fight fires. They manage projects. They negotiate contracts.
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The real challenge in crafting strategy lies in detecting subtle discontinuities that may undermine a business in the future. And for that there is no technique, no program, just a sharp mind in touch with the situation.
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The idea that you can take smart but inexperienced 25-year-olds who never managed anything and turn them into effective managers via two years of classroom training is ludicrous.
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Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet
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My feeling about executive bonuses is that any candidate for a chief executive job who even raises the issue of bonuses should be dismissed out of hand.
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Strategies grow initially like weeds in a garden, they are not cultivated like tomatoes in a hothouse.
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Why does every generation have to think that he lives in the period with the greatest turbulence?
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Everyone is against micro managing but macro managing means you're working at the big picture but don't know the details.
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Management and leadership are not separate spheres. The two skills work together in the larger realm of “communityship.
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No job is more vital to our society than that of the manager. It is the manager who determines whether our social institutions serve us well or whether they squander our talents and resources.
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