From "e;one of the most original minds in management,"e; the landmark book on managing as a practice learned primarily through experience and rooted in context (Fast Company). In this sweeping critique of how managers are educated and how, as a consequence, management is practiced, Henry Mintzberg offers thoughtful and controversial ideas for reforming both. "e;The MBA trains the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences,"e; Mintzberg writes. "e;Using the classroom to help develop people already practicing management is a fine idea, but pretending to create managers out of people who have never managed is a sham."e;Leaders cannot be created in a classroom. They arise in context. But people who already practice management can significantly improve their effectiveness given the opportunity to learn thoughtfully from their own experience. Mintzberg calls for a more engaging approach to managing and a more reflective approach to management education. He also outlines how business schools can become true schools of management. "e;Henry Mintzberg's views are a breath of fresh air which can only encourage the good guys."e; The Observer
A half century ago Peter Drucker put management on the map. Leadership has since pushed it off. Henry Mintzberg aims to restore management to its proper place: front and center. "We should be seeing managers as leaders." Mintzberg writes, "and leadership as management practiced well."
This landmark book draws on Mintzberg's observations of twenty-nine managers, in business, government, health care, and the social sector, working in settings ranging from a refugee camp to a symphony orchestra. What he saw-the pressures, the action, the nuances, the blending-compelled him to describe managing as a practice, not a science or a profession, learned primarily through experience and rooted in context.
But context cannot be seen in the usual way. Factors such as national culture and level in hierarchy, even personal style, turn out to have less influence than we have traditionally thought. Mintzberg looks at how to deal with some of the inescapable conundrums of managing, such as, How can you get in deep when there is so much pressure to get things done? How can you manage it when you can't reliably measure it?
This book is vintage Mintzberg: iconoclastic, irreverent, carefully researched, myth-breaking. Managing may be the most revealing book yet written about what managers do, how they do it, and how they can do it better.
