Quotes from Henry Mintzberg

Often, M.B.A.s will parachute around from one company or industry to another, without really understanding what's behind it.

We have great managers who havent spent a day in management school. Do we have great surgeons that havent spent a day in surgical school?

If the private sectors are about markets and the public sectors are about governments, then the plural sector is about communities.

Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it.

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.

This obsession with leadership... It's not neutral; it's American, this idea of the heroic leader who comes in on a white horse to save the day. I think it's killing American companies.

An enterprise is a community of human beings, not a collection of "human resources".

Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing.

No generalizing beyond the data, no theory. No theory, no insight. And if no insight, why do research.

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.

Corporations are social institutions. If they don't serve society, they have no business existing

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?

You can teach all sorts of things that improve the practice of management with people who are managers. What you cannot do is teach management to somebody who is not a manager, the way you cannot teach surgery to somebody whose not a surgeon.

We're all flawed, but basically, effective managers are people whose flaws are not fatal under the circumstances. Maybe the best managers are simply ordinary, healthy people who aren't too screwed up.

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.

Technologies tend to undermine community and encourage individualism.

Management and leadership are not separate spheres. The two skills work together in the larger realm of "communityship.

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 solely responsible for success.

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.

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.

While hard data may inform the intellect, it is largely soft data that generates wisdom.

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.

We have great managers who haven't spent a day in management school. Do we have great surgeons that haven't spent a day in surgical school?