Henry Mintzberg Quotes

37 quotes in 558 categories

• Organizational effectiveness does not lie in that narrow minded concept called rationality. It lies in the blend of clearheaded logic and powerful intuition
• No generalizing beyond the data, no theory. No theory, no insight. And if no insight, why do research.
• 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…
• Corporations are social institutions. If they don't serve society, they have no business existing
• 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.…
• That is the trouble with flying: We always have to return to airports. Thank of how much fun flying would be if we didn't have…
• Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing.
• A leader has to be one of two things: he either has to be a brilliant visionary himself, a truly creative strategist, in which case…
• 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…
• Management and leadership are not separate spheres. The two skills work together in the larger realm of “communityship.
• 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…
• Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: its starting point.
• Empowerment is what managers do to people. Engagement is what managers do with people.
• To 'turn around' is to end up facing the same way. Maybe that is the problem, all the turning organizations around.
• An enterprise is a community of human beings, not a collection of "human resources".
• Management is a curious phenomenon. It is generously paid, enormously influential, and significantly devoid of common sense
• It is time to recognize conventional MBA programs for what they are - or else to close them down. They are specialized training in the…
• 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…
• 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…
• 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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