Henry Mintzberg - - Round Three

From Henry Mintzberg and Managing (2009):

• Thinking is heavy - - too much of it can wear a manager down - - while acting is light - - too much of that and the manager cannot stay put.
• The manager has to practice a well rounded job.
• Effective managers do not exhibit perfect balance among their roles; they tilt toward certain ones, even it they cannot neglect the others.
• Downsizing - - this looks to be a contemporary form of bloodletting - - the cure for every corporate disease.
• Some managers see themselves on top with regard to the hierarchy of authority, but also metaphorically. Other managers see themselves in the center, with activities revolving around them, outside as well as inside the unit.
• While every manager has to make the job, he or she also has to do the job. That is why managerial style cannot be considered out of context, independent of where it is practiced.
• People who have a job to do shouldn't need to be "empowered" by their managers.
• How to plan, strategize, just plain think, let alone think ahead, in such a hectic job.
• Strategies can form without being formulated: they can emerge through efforts of informal learning rather than having to be created through a process of formal planning.
• Where to find strategic synthesis in a world so decomposed by analysis?
• Structure is supposed to take care of organizations, just as planning is supposed to take care of strategy. Anyone who believes this should find a job as a hermit.