Mintzberg's Managing: Implications for Coaching and Training This prĂŠcis contextualizes Mintzberg's work to expose the cult of leadership and restore management to the front and center, quickly elucidates Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing, and makes the supporting point that if managing is indeed a practice then wide vistas open in coaching and training for competency-building. Olivier Serrat 27/11/2018
1 Mintzberg (2009) remarked that it has become fashionable to distinguish between leaders and managers: "Sure, we can separate leading and managing conceptually. But can we separate them in practice? Or, more to the point, should we even try?" (p. 8). This précis contextualizes Mintzberg's work to expose the cult of leadership and restore management to the front and center, quickly elucidates Mintzberg's Model of Managing, and makes the supporting point that if managing is indeed a practice then wide vistas open in coaching and training for competencybuilding. Leadership vs. Management Tens of thousands of books have been written on leadership and academic journals such as the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, the Journal of Leadership Studies, and The Leadership Quarterly are devoted to the subject; by the same token, tens of thousands of books have been written on management and academic journals such as the Academy of Management Review, the Journal of International Management, and Management Science are devoted to that subject.1 Paraphrasing Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong's famous expression, letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend should promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of science: if so, a myriad of books and dozens of academic journals on the separate subjects of leadership and management should be cause for celebration. However, specialization that drives a wedge between leadership and management may not be propitious: witness the (oft-repeated) Delphic pronouncement that managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing (Bennis & Nanus, 1985, p. 21). Most of what we read about leadership has to do with leaders: Yukl (2014) distinguished characteristics of leaders, followers, and the situation; Bolden, Gosling, Hawkins, and Taylor (2011) made much the same point on leadership as a property of leaders, as a relationship between leaders and followers, and as a social process. But, can trait approaches and notions of, say, situational, transactional, and transformational leadership—all of which still smack of command and control 100 years after Taylor (1911)—serve organizations of ordinary people who without advertising superhuman qualities work with success in the new normal of volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous circumstances. More prosaically: "How would you like to be managed by someone who doesn't lead? That can be awfully dispiriting. Well, then, why would you want to be led by someone who doesn't manage? That can be terribly disengaging: how are such 'leaders' to know what is going on? As Jim March put it: 'Leadership involves plumbing as well as poetry'" (Mintzberg, 2009, p. 8). Enough of Leadership Springing from The Nature of Managerial Work (1973) and Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development (2005), to name but two of the works through which Mintzberg drove his compelling argument, Mintzberg (2009) meant to help us descend from the cloud of leadership theory to the ground of management practice: "It has become popular to talk about us being overmanaged and underled. I believe we are now 1
To note, few books (including Mintzberg's) and even fewer academic journals treat the subject of small businesses and organizations. Most management theories and models, including Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing, are premised on critical mass in medium or large businesses or organizations but the character of managing smaller ventures is much different because they have fewer employees and managers must often provide oversight for several business functions.
2 overled and undermanaged; … leadership cannot simply delegate management; instead of distinguishing managers from leaders, we should be seeing managers as leaders, and leadership as management practiced well; … it is time to recognize that managing is neither a science nor a profession: it is a practice, learned primarily through experience, and rooted in context" (p. 9). Building in particular on The Nature of Managerial Work (1973), which defined the manager's work roles as interpersonal, informational, and decisional, Mintzberg (2009) fleshed out a Model of Managing that takes place on the three planes of information, people, and action, subject of course to external, organizational, job, situational, and personal contexts. Mintzberg's Model of Managing is depicted in the Figure below. Figure: A Model of Managing
Mintzberg (2009, p. 48) If, as Mintzberg (2009) averred, the problem with managing is in the practice, not the theory (p. 90), then we must look into and seek to strengthen the various competencies that might accompany work roles. Drawing from the literature, Mintzberg (1971) identified a manager's work roles as (i) interpersonal (i.e., figurehead—representing the organization/unit to outsiders; leader—motivating subordinates, unifying effort; and liaiser—maintaining lateral contacts); (ii) informational (i.e., monitor—of information flows; disseminator—of information to subordinates; and spokesperson—transmission of information to outsiders); and (iii) decisional (i.e., entrepreneur—initiator and designer of change; disturbance handler—handling non-routine events; resource allocator—deciding who gets what and who will do what; and negotiator— negotiating). The Table overleaf specifies the competencies of managing, including also personal competencies.
3 Table: Competencies of Managing A. Personal Competencies 1. Managing self, internally (reflecting, strategic thinking) 2. Managing self, externally (time, information, stress, career) 3. Scheduling (chunking, prioritizing, agenda setting, juggling, timing) B. Interpersonal Competencies 1. Leading individuals (selecting, teaching/ mentoring/coaching, inspiring, dealing with experts) 2. Leading groups (team building, resolving conflicts/meditating, facilitating processes, running meetings) 3. Leading the organization/unit (building culture) 4. Administering (organizing, resource allocating, delegating, authorizing, systematizing, goal setting, performance appraising) 1. Linking the organization/unit (networking, representing, collaborating, promoting/lobbying, protecting/buffering) C. Informational Competencies 1. Communicating verbally (listening, interviewing, speaking/presenting/briefing, writing, information gathering, information disseminating) 2. Communicating nonverbally (seeing [visual literacy], sensing [visceral literacy]) 3. Analyzing (data processing, modeling, measuring, evaluating) D. Actional Competencies 1. Designing (planning, crafting, visioning) 2. Mobilizing (firefighting, project managing, negotiating/dealing, politicking, managing change) Mintzberg (2009, p. 91) Coaching and Training New-Era Managers If competencies matter even more than we thought, Mintzberg's research has powerful implications for how we select and develop managers and, just as importantly, for how they might be trained or coached. To note, Mintzberg (2009) made little of competency-building in Managing apart from saying that the job of development is best seen as managers helping people to develop themselves (p. 67): preferring perhaps to keep to the higher subject of managerial practice, with insistence that managing is learned on the job, Mintzberg (2009) did not mention that managers might themselves need to be trained or coached (but see the reference to CoachingOurselves below). 1. Training Much has been written on the subject of training, aka training and development: this précis will not chronicle changes in the philosophy, practice, and terminology, all of them lightning rods of vigorous debate. That said, it can be contended that—much as annual performance reviews— training has typically been used to detect shortcomings and put paid to these. Characteristically, the official purpose of training programs is to improve group and individual performance by increasing and honing skills (and sometimes knowledge) as part of an organization's talent management strategy, this in alignment with an organization's overall vision, goal, and objectives. At the practical level, the personnel responsible for training proceeds to identify skills gaps among groups and teams—often through SMART objectives,
4 one-on-one interviews, and (as we saw) annual performance reviews; next, the personnel proceeds to deliver or procure suitable training to fill the gaps identified. Depending on the organization, of course, training can aim to strengthen the entrepreneurial, instrumental, inter-organizational, political, or public interest functions of managers. But, Mintzberg (2013) argued, "Programs for managers need to be organized according to the nature of managing itself—for example, in terms of managerial mindsets, not business functions. Marketing + finance + accounting, etc., does not = management" (p. 170). This is because focusing on business functions overstates analysis, which is but one mindset of managing. What Mintzberg (2009) made plain also is that, beyond imparting skills, the new role of training should be to mediate knowledge in relation to the problems and conundrums managers face in the workplace, aiming to boost evenly necessary personal, interpersonal, informational, and actional competencies. 2. Coaching Ourselves Usually correctly, training vaunts wholesale transfer of skills: but, even with skills (and knowledge), personnel is not likely to stretch to full potential without guidance that inspires, energizes, and facilitates. Coaching can help people achieve self-direction, self-esteem, and efficacy: there are many applications, each to be looked at from as many points of view as possible, but it stands to reason that there will be times when coaching can deliver more intimately than training in relation to the personal, interpersonal, informational, and actional competencies managers need. (But, it is not a case of either–or: training and coaching should go hand-in-hand.) In 2007, Mintzberg co-founded CoachingOurselves with Phil LeNir to bring modern, engaged, and people-focused management education in the workplace and create a culture of continuous learning and growth in organizations. From the premise that training should result in managers actually doing a better job of managing and that this happens best when managers learn from each other in small groups, CoachingOurselves's ambition is to increase an organization's ability to self-develop while building a culture of learning and collaboration. Specifically, CoachingOurselves is a peer-coaching program of human-centered social learning comprising, to date, over 80 90-minute peer-coaching modules on such subjects as Dealing with the Pressures of Managing, Feedforward Instead of Feedback, From Top Performer to Manager, Managing on Tightropes: The Inescapable Conundrums of Managing; and Understanding Organizations. [The objectives of the module about Managing on Tightropes: The Inescapable Conundrums of Managing, for example, are to explore a few of the conundrums at the heart of managing (e.g., how to connect when managing is inherently disconnected? How to go deep when the pressure is to get it done? How to be confident in managing without becoming arrogant?) and share ways to face these in order to be more effective in managing.] Guided by a facilitator, face-to-face or online, groups of 4-6 participants embark on a process of reflection and dialog on managerial practices around specific themes. For each theme, a CoachingOurselves module provides content, questions, and structure for beneficial outcomes. CoachingOurselves is now used in more than 30 different countries and 8 languages by more than 20,000 managers every year. (For now, the modules are available in English and French.)
5 Summing Up Bennis and Nanus (1985) convinced many people that there is a huge gap between managers and leaders: in the exceptional circumstances that call for great leaders, there is value in the distinction; but, leadership and management must fit together in all other instances. Everyday organizations need managers who can lead: they can do without heroic leaders who oversee unimaginative managers from afar. Mintzberg (2009) offered a Model of Managing with which to make out and perfect the art (vision), craft (experience), and science (analysis) of managing (Serrat, 2018): the three planes of information, people, and action invite on-the-go application and refinement; vitally, because managing was thereby reclaimed as practice, Mintzberg (2009) opened wide vistas in coaching and training for competency-building. The deeper message of Mintzberg (2009) was that emphasis on business functions in the course of conventional training builds skills that are valuable per se but do not necessarily contribute to the success of an organization. However, with human-centered social learning facilitated by coaching, managers can become more human and empathetic, rather than cold and calculating, and make organizations better places for communityship. In relation to this, Mintzberg (2009) helped understand what the nature of management truly is, enabled more meaningful (self-)observation and analysis of managerial behavior, and made it easier to see how managers can develop the mindsets and related competencies necessary to work through information, with people, and for action. References Bennis, W., & Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Bolden, R., Gosling, J., Hawkins. B., & Taylor, S. (2011). Exploring leadership: Individual, organizational, and societal perspectives. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Mintzberg, H. (1971). Managerial work: Analysis from observation. Management Science 18(2), 97–110. Mintzberg, H. (1973). The nature of managerial work. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Mintzberg, H. (2005). Managers not MBAs: A hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, Inc. Mintzberg, H. (2009). Managing. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, Inc. Mintzberg, H. (2013). Simply managing. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, Inc. Serrat, O. (2018). Mintzberg's model of managing: Random thoughts from an observation. Unpublished manuscript, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Taylor, F. (1911). The principles of scientific management. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers. Yukl, G. (2014). Leadership in organizations (8th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.