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Strategies grow initially like weeds in a garden, they are not cultivated like tomatoes in a hothouse.

Henry Mintzberg

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Henry Mintzberg
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: September 2
Author
Economist
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Montreal
Quebec
Grows
Strategies
Like
Weeds
Initially
Cultivated
Weed
Strategy
Garden
Hothouse
Grow
Tomatoes

More quotes by Henry Mintzberg

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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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Corporations are social institutions. If they don't serve society, they have no business existing
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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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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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An unsuccessful manager blames failure on his obligations the effective manager turns them to his own advantage. A speech is a chance to lobby...a visit to an important customer a chance to extract trade information.
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Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it.
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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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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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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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While hard data may inform the intellect, it is largely soft data that generates wisdom.
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Anecdotal data is not incidental to theory development at all, but an essential part of it.
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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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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 is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet
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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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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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Why does every generation have to think that he lives in the period with the greatest turbulence?
Henry Mintzberg
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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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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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Technologies tend to undermine community and encourage individualism.
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