“42 Stories for a Manager, or Bedtime Stories from Henry Mintzberg”
The author, whose name we have already indicated in the title of the article, is definitely a multifaceted person. A writer, professor, a classic of management. He has already written more than 20 books. The one we are talking about today is one of the latest.
Henry Mintzberg has a website that contains information about his biography, published works, and links to his own video content on management. It's convenient to use for navigation if you want to study everything in more detail. A nice moment – about hobbies. Mr. Mintzberg loves an active lifestyle, and is amazing at sharing personal moments somewhere inside the worker. For example: hoba, and a photo with a canoe at the beginning of the book, where he talks about himself. Or a separate page on his website about a collection of beaver art – wooden masterpieces that these animals leave behind in the water or on land. These pieces of wood are truly charming if you look closely. They are valuable to the writer, and he hopes that one day there will be a place for such things in a museum.
And now let's move from beaver lyrics to what millions of readers around the world turn to Henry Mintzberg for – his own view on management. In addition to teaching at the university, he helps managers develop in the corporate environment. Reading a book of 180+ pages is not difficult, and for those who want to develop in management, it is also useful.
The reading we recommend today is a snap. You can read it all at once, but it is also suitable as a quick morning read, a little at a time, before the workday. There are forty-two stories inside – they are short. We dare to assume that they are even suitable for quoting at a planning meeting, if there is such a need. The book is divided into seven semantic parts:
about management,
about the organization,
about analysis,
about development,
about stories “in context” (whatever that means),
about responsibility,
about tomorrow.
The cover reads: “Goodbye, godlike leaders… Welcome, managers who can engage their teams.” And from the very beginning, the author explains in detail why top management sometimes needs to change their approach to management and stop looking only at the numbers. He also emphasizes teamwork and employee engagement and warns about fatal mistakes. For example, how strict rules can create barriers between rank-and-file specialists and management, which can make staff want to run away from their once-loved jobs. There is such a story in his book – about a hospital and nurses, and it is sad – both for the organization and for the nurses themselves.
On the subject of losing common sense, Henry Mintzberg tells a funny story: “One day, the CEO of Eastern Airlines decided to fly somewhere at the last minute. There were no seats left in first class, and the flight attendants moved another passenger (who, of course, had paid for the seat) to economy class to give their CEO his usual level of comfort. The latter felt awkward and went up to economy class to apologize to the passenger who, thanks to him, had been so unfairly treated. “You see, I’m the CEO of this airline,” he explained to the victim, to which the victim replied: “Well, I’m the CEO of IBM.” Hee-hee.
In the pages of the book, Henry Mintzberg challenges the ingrained “criminality” against all this and, among other things, puts the brakes on common misconceptions about the primacy of numbers. It seems that you can’t just say: “Bring me a presentation, report the situation, calculate some percentages of something,” and not delve into the essence of the matter. At the same time, he highlights the problems of data well: they can be late, too general and, as a result, inaccurate. Although he does not rule out the calculations themselves: “Calculate and manage is not a bad idea: what can be measured should be measured, what cannot be measured should be taken seriously and thoughtfully managed. In other words, you need to manage regardless of whether you can measure something or not.” If you manage a team, look at the indicators, but still have trouble with management (for example, the numbers are good, but there is staff turnover or the reputation of the product or service is suffering), then this book will help you look at your management style from a different angle.
Our readers will probably be interested in learning from this book the basics about different types of organizations and finding confirmation that freedom is important for employees in innovative projects. Try to force an idealistic professional into a rigid framework, and he will most likely leave for another company where he will be valued more, or even start his own business. In the book, the author mentioned teams for creating a unique product, be it research laboratories or advertising agencies, as a separate point – he emphasized that such guys even need idleness to achieve efficiency.
“Serving clients is not a method or a program of action, but a lifestyle, a philosophy of doing business. Let's say you treat clients well because it brings you money, but it is not a fact that you serve them. The question is what comes to your mind first: after all, he who sees money does not see the person behind it. He who sees the person will set reasonable prices for services, and will receive satisfaction from work, and will succeed,” the professor writes. Probably, if he can say this from the height of his flight, then it is worth listening to him.
Henry Mintzberg compared his stories to bedtime stories – they are light, without passions and negativity. You won't be able to fall asleep after this, unless you feel a surge of motivation and a desire to quickly change everything in your company. We can compare such reading to yoga for managers, because it is about flexibility and grounding.
Read in one go or a couple of stories instead of scrolling through social networks. Recommended.
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