Henry Mintzberg, an appreciation

Henry Mintzberg is a Canadian with a well-deserved international reputation for his contribution to business management strategies. His prolific writings include some fifteen books and over a hundred articles. His most famous work, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning was written in 1994. It is highly critical of modern strategic planning.

The contribution I appreciate most, written in 2004, in his book, Managers Not MBAs. Here he discusses what he sees as the downfalls of current management education. He feels that even prestigious business colleges like Harvard are guilty of being overly concerned with the numbers game and turning business into a science. He feels this has been very damaging to management education.

For Henry Mintzberg, the way forward is in post-graduate education for people already in management positions or with other real world experiences and a bit of maturity behind them. He is an advocate of practical, active learning through solving problems and addressing issues within their own business.

In my opinion, this really sets the scene for leadership coaching: enabling business leaders to develop sustained and detailed learning based on the concrete day-to-day needs of their organizations.

I've not spent much time in business schools, but am amazed at the arcane nature of a lot of published research that can only be de-coded by other academics. Surely, business schools should be at pains to minimise the theory-practice gap. Theories that have little practical relevance are a luxury we can't afford any time.

Henry Mintzberg blames the recent economic crash on leadership failures, stating the ‘bonus’ culture of the City financiers and managers are instrumental in undermining the effective running of organizations. The banks failed because their management failed, he says, simply. He argues that bonus payments have no role to play in business as leaders who decide to give themselves these huge financial bonuses are not qualified to lead, in his opinion.

It is perhaps quite ironic, given how critical Mintzberg is of the strategy consultation business that he is a double winner of the McKinsey Award, having been judged to have written the best article featured in the Harvard Business Review. Mintzberg really does know what he is talking about, according to his peers.

He is given joint credit for creating the ‘organigraph’. This concept is taught in many business schools around the world. This is a way of representing a company structure in graphical form. It is an improvement upon older, linear structures as it represents the more organic flow of association and competition inside an organization and from external sources into the organization.

Henry Mintzberg co-owns CoachingOurselves International where he brings his business coaching philosophy to more people. Basically, rather than give a whole raft of tools and exercises, Mintzberg encourages managers to benefit from their experiences and the experiences of others through discussion and debate ... learning from the real life situations they have met in their working lives. He thinks that experience is a better teacher than any textbook. Managers are encouraged to meet up locally in their own time to discuss their work and the demands it places on them.

Mintzberg purports that there are 6 different types of organizational framework whereby coordination is achieved:

1. Mutual adjustment – coordination is cooperatively achieved through informal communication (as between two operating employees)
2. Direct supervision - one person issues orders to several other people
3. Standardization of work processes – people fulfil one part of the work process which interrelates with the work of others
4. Standardization of outputs – work targets are issued or products are standardized
5. Standardization of skills – people have subject specialisms (such as doctors) and they coordinate with people with other specialisms
6. Standardization of norms – work of a whole organization is governed by standardized norms and these control the work.

1. Strategic Apex (top management)
2. Middle Line (middle management)
3. Operating Core (operations, operational processes)
4. Technostructure (analysts that design systems, processes, etc)
5. Support Staff (support outside of operating workflow)
6. Ideology (halo of beliefs and traditions; norms, values, culture)

Coming from a background in integrative medicine and practitioner education, I've found a very there is a constructive dialogue to be had between Henry Mintzberg's ideas and those of Donald Schön in his discussion of the reflective practitioner. They seem to agree that professional learning takes place best in the real-life situation, provided learners have time to question their experiences and reflect deeply on the issues that emerge from their reflections.

Article provided by: Robert Fordham

Robert is a director of The People Development Practice Ltd (UK). His career as a practitioner of integrative medicine and training school director gives him a unique approach to coaching individuals and leaders ... and to coach training. He maintains this: leadership development coaching website.

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