79 Quotes by Henry Mintzberg

An unsuccessful manager blames failure on his obligations; the effective manager turns them to his own advantage. A speech is a chance to lobby...a visit to an important customer a chance to extract trade information.

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

Why does every generation have to think that he lives in the period with the greatest turbulence?

Corporations are economic entities, to be sure, but they are also social institutions that must justify their existence by their overall contribution to society.

Data don't generate theory - only researchers do that.

Theory is a dirty word in some managerial quarters. That is rather curious, because all of us, managers especially, can no more get along without theories than libraries can get along without catalogs and for the same reason: theories help us make sense of incoming information.

The idea that you can take smart but inexperienced 25-year-olds who never managed anything and turn them into effective managers via two years of classroom training is ludicrous.

Five coordinating mechanisms seem to explain the fundamental ways in which organizations coordinate their work: mutual adjustment, direct supervision, standardization of work processes, standardization of work outputs, and standardization of worker skills.

No generalizing beyond the data, no theory. No theory, no insight. And if no insight, why do research.