Quote

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.

Henry Mintzberg

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Henry Mintzberg
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: September 2
Author
Economist
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Montreal
Quebec
Important
Blame
Obligations
Trade
Customer
Advantage
Manager
Speech
Visit
Failure
Managers
Blames
Information
Effective
Lobby
Chance
Obligation
Extract
Turns
Customers
Unsuccessful

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While hard data may inform the intellect, it is largely soft data that generates wisdom.
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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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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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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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Management and leadership are not separate spheres. The two skills work together in the larger realm of “communityship.
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Corporations are social institutions. If they don't serve society, they have no business existing
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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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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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Strategies grow initially like weeds in a garden, they are not cultivated like tomatoes in a hothouse.
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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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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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Anecdotal data is not incidental to theory development at all, but an essential part of it.
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Technologies tend to undermine community and encourage individualism.
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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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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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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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Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it.
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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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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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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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