Henry Mintzberg
Henry Mintzberg
Henry Mintzberg, OC OQ FRSCis an internationally renowned academic and author on business and management. He is currently the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at the Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he has been teaching since 1968...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth2 September 1939
CountryCanada
Henry Mintzberg quotes about
business mba practice
It is time to recognize conventional MBA programs for what they are - or else to close them down. They are specialized training in the functions of business, not general educating in the practice of management.
art creativity practice
I describe management as arts, crafts and science. It is a practice that draws on arts, craft and science and there is a lot of craft - meaning experience - there is a certain amount of craft meaning insight, creativity and vision, and there is the use of science, technique or analysis.
practice people way
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.
change art practice
Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet
experience finance functional matter programmes tools understanding
What you get out of an M.B.A. programme, no matter how much experience, is functional tools and understanding in disciplines: you'll understand economics, you'll understand marketing, finance, accounting. That, M.B.A. programmes do very well.
assume assumption people program programs younger
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.
allow companies few people singled solely spirit success themselves
Companies are communities. There's 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.
parachute understanding
Often, M.B.A.s will parachute around from one company or industry to another, without really understanding what's behind it.
senior organization tasks
We find that the manager, particularly at senior levels, is overburdened with work. With the increasing complexity of modern organizations and their problems, he is destined to become more so. He is driven to brevity, fragmentation, and superficiality in his tasks, yet he cannot easily delegate them because of the nature of his information.
school management great-men
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?
art crafts students
Effective managing therefore happens where art , craft, and science meet. But in a classroom of students without managerial experience, these have no place to meet there is nothing to do.
fun airports flying
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 to return to airports.
horse thinking ideas
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.
technology community individualism
Technologies tend to undermine community and encourage individualism.