Mintzberg - Managing

Henry Mintzberg's book is worth occupying shelf space in any management library. Visionary management guru Peter Drucker elevated the status of management as a science, currently leadership is the organisational goal and displaced management as the science of running the business and measuring resource allocation.

Mintzberg feels “instead of distinguishing managers from leaders, we should be seeing managers as leaders, and leadership as management practiced well.” Restoring management to its proper place in the organisational hierarchy is Mintzberg's aim.

Mintzberg feels real world managers cannot be the reflective, systematic planners as idealised in current management textbooks. Researching management as actually practiced in real world situations as opposed to management classes in university lecture halls.

As such, Mintzberg shadowed twenty-nine managers undertaking a typical work days. He viewed current management realities requiring an unrelenting pace, frequent interruptions and a high level of activity.

Such a pace according to Mintzberg makes textbook management practices near impossible to implement. Recognising the current conundrum managers face, Mintzberg envisions a contemporary management model.

His proposal outlines a a dynamic process that managers accomplish their purpose working through data, people and direct action; not list of tasks needing to be crossed off. This is why Mintzberg insists management is not a profession but a practice learned primarily through experience and rooted in context.

Here is a book that sat in my bookcase for a number of years untouched until finally over the Christmas break I was able to crack the book open and work through this highly engaging read.