Quote

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.

Henry Mintzberg

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Henry Mintzberg
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: September 2
Author
Economist
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Montreal
Quebec
Real
Program
Crafting
Mind
Lies
Undermine
Challenges
Sharp
Situation
Subtle
Lying
Technique
Future
Strategy
Discontinuities
Business
Challenge
Detecting
May
Touch
Discontinuity

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Anecdotal data is not incidental to theory development at all, but an essential part of it.
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Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: its starting point.
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Companies are communities. Theres a spirit of working together. Communities are not a place where a few people allow themselves to be singled out as solely responsible for success.
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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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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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So technologies, whether it is a telephone or an iPhone, computers in general or automobiles, television even, all individualize us. We all sit in front of our iPhones and communicating but are we really communicating?
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Organizations should be built and managers should be functioning so people can be naturally empowered. If someone's doing their job, if someone's working in one of your warehouses, say, they should know their job better than anybody. They don't need to be 'empowered,' but encouraged and left alone to be able to do what they know best.
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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.
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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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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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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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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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What we call a financial crisis is really at its core a crisis of management, and not just a crisis of management, but a crisis of management culture. ...In other words, what you had is a detachment of people who know the business from people who are running the business.
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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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Strategy making needs to function beyond the boxes to encourage the informal learning that produces new perspectives and new combinations... Once managers understand this, they can avoid other costly misadventures caused by applying formal techniques, without judgement and intuition, to problem solving.
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Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it.
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Learning is not doing it is reflecting on doing.
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Technologies tend to undermine community and encourage individualism.
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While hard data may inform the intellect, it is largely soft data that generates wisdom.
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