Bedtime Stories for Managers: Farewell, Lofty Leadership . . . Welcome, Engaging Management

by Henry Mintzberg

Overview

In forty-two succinct, surprising essays, legendary scholar Henry Mintzberg brings management down from the clouds and onto solid ground.

If you're like most managers and things keep you up at night, now you can turn to a book that's designed especially for you! But you won't find talking rabbits or princesses here. (There is a cow, but it doesn't jump.) Henry Mintzberg has culled forty-two of the best posts from his widely read blog and turned them into a deceptively light, sneakily serious compendium of sometimes heretical reflections on management.

The moral here is this: managers need to leave their castles and find out what's actually going on in their kingdoms. And like real bedtime stories, these essays have metaphors galore. So prepare to grow strategies like weeds and organize like a cow. Discover the maestro myth of managing, find the soft underbelly of hard data, and learn why downsizing is bloodletting and your board should be a bee. Mintzberg writes, "Just try not to be outraged by anything you read, because some of my most outrageous ideas turn out to be my best. They just take a while to become obvious."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781523098781
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	02/05/2019
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Henry Mintzberg is Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Montreal, the winner of awards from the most prestigious academic and practitioner institutions in management (Harvard Business Review, Academy of Management, Association of Management Consulting Firms, and others), and the recipient of twenty honorary degrees from around the world. He is the author or coauthor of fifteen books, including Managers Not MBAs, Strategy Safari, and The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, and is a founding partner of CoachingOurselves.com.

Table of Contents

Good Evening 1

About This Storyteller

The Tooth Fairies

1 Stories of Managing

Managing Scrambled Eggs

The Maestro Myth of Managing

Managing to Lead

Selecting the Flawed Manager

The Epidemic of Managing without Soul

Managing in the Age of the Internet

Decision-Making: It's Not What You Think

Growing Strategies Like Weeds in a Garden

2 Stories of Organizing 37

Organizing Like a Cow

Community ship beyond Leadership

Networks Are Not Communities

Transformation from the Top? Or Engagement on the Ground?

Species of Organizations

Why Do We Say "Top Management" but never "bottom management"?

Enough of Silos? How about Slabs?

Manageable and Unmanageable Managing

The Board as Bee

3 Stories of Analyzing 73

Analyst: Analyze Thyself

Ye Gods: An Efficient Orchestral

What Could Possibly Be Wrong with "Efficiency"? Plenty.

The Soft Underbelly of "Hard Data"

The Tricky Task of Measuring Managing

Evidence and Experience in Management, Medicine, and More

How National Happiness became gross

4 Stories about Development 97

Jack's Turn

MBAs as CEOs: Some Troubling Evidence

Engage Managers Beyond Administration ("emba")

Don't Just Sit There…

5 Stories in Context 119

Managing Family Business

Global? How about Worldly?

Who Can Possibly Manage a Hospital?

Managing Government, Governing Management

6 Stories about Responsibility 137

A CEO's Letter to the Board-long overdue

"Downsizing" as Twenty-First-Century Bloodletting

Productive and Destructive Productivity

The Scandal That Is a Syndrome

Please Welcome CSR 2.0

7 Stories for Tomorrow 155

The Extraordinary Power of Ordinary Creativity

Customer Service or serving customers?

Enough of MORE: Better Is Better

Be Good: The Best is Too Low a Standard

Rise and Shine!

Notes 175

Index 185