A New Method for Executive Development
Reflecting And Learning From Your Own Experience: an extract from an interview with Henry Mintzberg and Art Kleiner: “‘Managing’ opens by saying that management isn’t a science, it’s a practice. How much do we understand about the nature of this practice?” Henry Mintzberg: “I think it’s amazing how few people are actively researching managerial work - empirical studies of what managers do - as their main focus. Many people are concerned with organizational issues, but because they don’t actually study what managers do, they lack insight into the essence of organizations. Even topics like the impact of e-mail on the way managers work have not been adequately studied. Some research has been conducted on the effects of the Internet on behavior - for example, the way people tend to casually shoot off e-mail messages and then wonder, “Why did I send that?” But there have been no real studies of the impact of e-mail on day-to-day management activity. Where there is reliable management research, it doesn’t always get recognized or translated into practice. For example, we know that the most effective companies and organizations are those that embody the importance of being communities. People in these companies are committed and respected, and when you unleash that kind of energy, it’s quite remarkable.
