The Practice of Management Part 2
Introduction
“Nothing is quite so powerful or so natural as engaged managers who are committed to developing themselves, their institutions and their communities.” Quote from the master, Professor Henry Mintzberg from his book “Managing”
Before saying more about Mintzberg, the following is a summary of management’s doctrine and philosophy we have inherited from the legacy of Peter Drucker.
· Humanitarian inclusiveness and openness. He stated management could apply to any organization, it could be a church, a school, a union, and not only businesses.
· Management might have tamed business from some of its earlier ruthlessness, and maybe it is still being tamed.
· Drucker was very much an academic, his doctorate, professorship and then the pursuit of knowledge, research, objectivity, using facts, doing analysis, avoiding opinions. We have said that he was practical, used common sense, not always a strength of academics. He came to business from academia.
· We can value business management being very much part of the study at universities with their well-known business schools.
· He made us aware of the global village we live in, nothing brought this home more than the COVID-19 pandemic. Drucker talked about being aware of the developments in the world including new technology.
· We must add the autonomy of businesses, their value systems following core values in morals and competencies, with the need for integrity.
· Then the focus on the customer as being the prime driver of the business’s achievements.
The practice of Management as a feature
Not all managers are associated with the practice of management. A manager can be an administrator or a controller – management can be divided into of staff management, and line management, the practising manager is very much part of line management .
Clem Sunter made a big impact by describing managers as either Foxes or Hedgehogs. The practising manager is a fox. We need hedgehogs ....efficient, competent bureaucrats and administrators. They slow things down, allow foxes the time to think.
Professor Henry Mintzberg
McGill University in Montreal, Canada is Henry Mintzberg’s University, where he heads up the Business School. He came up with a Masters’ Course, IMPM (International Masters in Practicing Management). These Master Courses are now given in Universities in England, Canada, India, Japan, Korea and France – including in South Africa at the Gordon Institute of Business Science at Pretoria University.
Does this course compete or compliment the Standard Master of Business Administration ( MBA)? I can’t answer that. But Mintzberg is firmly of the view that the practice of management is learnt on the job from experience.
MBA covers business subjects, marketing, accounting, financial management, human resources, strategic planning, compliance and more. But to learn how to manage and lead diverse persons in their jobs is a skill that must be learnt by the practising manager themselves.
The Career Path of the Practising manager
The Practising manager must be qualified and experienced in the industry or in a sector of that industry, this before even thinking of becoming a manager. The person may have had some years in tertiary education and skills training or after leaving school might have joined a firm and worked his way up the ladder.
The newly employed will inevitably start in a team or unit under a manager (practising). In business divisions or units, they are in appropriately known as responsibility centres. The practising manager being accountable for performance.
The newly employed can climb the ladder, if ambitious, keeps up to date with continuous learning, self-taught, mentored and coached by the firm.
The first step on the way up is being appointed a junior manager, ( foreman/forewoman) age 24 to 30 years.
Next step, middle management could be operations manager, age 30 to 40 years
then top management, could be general manager, 40 to 50 years
then on the board of directors, even managing director /CEO 50 to 65 years
and then Chairman/President 60 to 75 years ,
We are talking here of a mature firm that has proved its worth in its industry and is stable and is sustainable. The ages above are a perception not written in stone only a realistic guide.
It is in these years of 24 to 50 years that managers can hone their skills in managing and leading …...It is the practice Malcolm Gradwell was talking about. It is also between these ages that Prof Mintzberg believes is a good time to return to the classroom and undertake a IMPM degree.
“The classroom is a wonderful place to enhance the comprehensions and competencies of people already practicing management, especially when it draws on their own natural experience.” I quote Mintzberg again:
The IMPM focuses on the manager as the person responsible to achieve developments through a diverse team of others. Communication is one of those skills, it is often not a strength of an executive manager whose training has been in engineering, accountancy, or computer science as examples.
Staff leave or stay not because of the firm but because of their immediate manager.
If communication skills are a collective term, it must embody a whole host of subjects, coaching, psychology, instinctual leadership, even neuroscience, conflict resolution, motivation, empowerment, staff selection and more. Let me mention AI (Artificial Intelligence) How important is AI in the future of management?
The Triangle of Management Practice
Tom Peters famous for co-authoring with Robert Waterman “ In Search of Excellence” described Prof Mintzberg as a modern management thinker in line with Petter Drucker.
I quote from Henry Mintzberg’s book; Simply Managing He extends his description of management as a practice. The triangle below places management practice in the centre of three areas – Art, Science and Craft.
Science: Management applies science, it is not in itself a science. Science provides the knowledge needed by a practising manager. Science develops systematic knowledge through research.
Art: Produces insights and vision. Mintzberg adds that, based on intuition, we often surpass ourselves by coming up with some amazingly creative ideas.…innovative, and imaginative.
Craft: Learning from experience. This is often the hard one. In whatever field you are managing, you need knowledge and qualifications. You might acquire the knowledge through experience.
Mintzberg summarises these areas of the triangle as follows:
“Art brings in the ideas and the integration; craft makes the connections, building tangible experience; and science provides the order through systematic analysis of the knowledge.”
Achieving executives know what the practice of management is about, they value it, they want to know more about it. They are makers not takers. They are humble, understanding there is always more to learn. They are people of integrity – you can’t be accountable, be responsible, if you are crooking the system. Mintzberg even described Management as a calling.
Two quotes from Peter Drucker one on leadership and management and the second What defines a manager.
Leadership and Management
There is no substitute for leadership. But management cannot create leaders. It can only create the conditions under which potential leadership qualities become effective; or it can stifle potential leadership.
What defines a manager?
The function which distinguishes the manager above all others is an educational one. The one contribution he is uniquely expected to make is to give others vision and ability to perform. It is vision and moral responsibility that, in the last analysis, defines the manager.
Summary
Seven blogs completed to put business management theory and practice at centre stage for South Africa and Africa. Encouraging for me to discover in my notes the emphasis Drucker gives to education……managers are expected to give others vision and moral responsibility. …...it requires education. Top businesses must aspire to become a learning and teaching organisations.
