Henry Mintzberg Quotes

Quotes about:

• Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: its starting point.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Opposites, Planning, Strategy

  Henry Mintzberg (2000). “The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning”, p.333, Pearson Education

  132 Copy quote

• Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet

  Henry Mintzberg

  Change, Art, Top Management

  125 Copy quote

• When the world is predictable you need smart people.
  When the world is unpredictable you need adaptable people.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Smart, People, Needs

  117 Copy quote

• Organizations are communities of human beings, not collections of human resources

  Henry Mintzberg

  Organization, Community, Resources

  Henry Mintzberg (2015). “Rebalancing Society: Radical Renewal Beyond Left, Right, and Center”, p.32, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

  88 Copy quote

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

  Henry Mintzberg

  Leadership, Reading, Swimming

  Henry Mintzberg (1980). “The Nature of Managerial Work”, Prentice Hall

  110 Copy quote

• A leader has to be one of two things: he either has to be a brilliant visionary himself, a truly creative strategist, in which case he can do what he likes and get away with it; or else he has to be a true empowerer who can bring out the best in others.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Two, Creative, Leader

  94 Copy quote

• Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Reflecting

  Henry Mintzberg (2009). “Managers Not Mbas: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development: Easyread Edition”, p.5, ReadHowYouWant.com

  87 Copy quote

• Strategy is a pattern in a stream of decisions

  Henry Mintzberg

  Decision, Patterns, Strategy

  82 Copy quote

• The real challenge in crafting strategy lies in detecting subtle discontinuities that may undermine a business in the future. And for that there is no technique, no program, just a sharp mind in touch with the situation.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Real, Lying, Challenges

  Henry Mintzberg (2003). “The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts, Cases”, p.148, Pearson Education

  27 Copy quote

• If you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they plan, organise, co-ordinate and control. Then watch what they do. Don't be surprised if you can't relate what you see to those four words.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Motivational, Thought Provoking, Watches

  89 Copy quote

• Strategies grow initially like weeds in a garden, they are not cultivated like tomatoes in a hothouse.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Weed, Garden, Tomatoes

  Henry Mintzberg (2003). “The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts, Cases”, p.415, Pearson Education

  55 Copy quote

• Strategic planning is not strategic thinking. Indeed, strategic planning often spoils strategic thinking, causing managers to confuse real vision with the manipulation of numbers.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Real, Thinking, Numbers

  Attributed to Henry Mintzberg in C. W. Cook, P. L. Hunsaker "Management and organizational behavior" (p. 58), 2001.

  67 Copy quote

• Empowerment is what managers do to people. Engagement is what managers do with people.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Leadership, People, Empowerment

  Henry Mintzberg (2013). “Simply Managing: What Managers Do — and Can Do Better”, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

  44 Copy quote

• The great myth is the manager as orchestra conductor. It's this idea of standing on a pedestal and you wave your baton and accounting comes in, and you wave it somewhere else and marketing chimes in with accounting, and they all sound very glorious. But management is more like orchestra conducting during rehearsals, when everything is going wrong.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Somewhere Else, Ideas, Marketing

  92 Copy quote

• Strategy-making is an immensely complex process involving the most sophisticated, subtle, and at times subconscious of human cognitive and social processes.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Sophisticated, Strategy, Social

  Henry Mintzberg (2013). “Strategy Bites Back ePub eBook”, p.74, Pearson UK

  78 Copy quote

• 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.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Jobs, Our Society, Talent

  Henry Mintzberg (1989). “Mintzberg on Management: Inside Our Strange World of Organizations”, p.24, Simon and Schuster

  60 Copy quote

• Management is a curious phenomenon. It is generously paid, enormously influential, and significantly devoid of common sense

  Henry Mintzberg

  Common Sense, Risk, Management

  78 Copy quote

• Never set out to be the best. It's too low a standard. Set out to be good. Do Your best.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Standards Set, Being The Best, Lows

  18 Copy quote

• 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.

  Henry Mintzberg

  People, Community, Working Together

  68 Copy quote

• An obsession with control generally seems to reflect a fear of uncertainty.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Obsession, Seems, Uncertainty

  Henry Mintzberg (2000). “The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning”, p.202, Pearson Education

  12 Copy quote

• Organizational effectiveness does not lie in that narrow minded concept called rationality. It lies in the blend of clearheaded logic and powerful intuition

  Henry Mintzberg

  Powerful, Lying, Effectiveness

  74 Copy quote

• 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.

  Henry Mintzberg

  Mean, Fighting, Fire

  27 Copy quote

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

  Henry Mintzberg

  Learning, Knowledge, Community

  86 Copy quote

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

  Henry Mintzberg

  Data, May, Intellect

  30 Copy quote

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

  Henry Mintzberg

  Business, Corporations, Management

  55 Copy quote

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