Business Transformation

„Leadership vs. Management? That’s plain nonsense“

Interview Management is about balancing change AND continuity, says Henry Mintzberg, the grand old man of management theory. He calls for communityship in organizations. Because "we should stop talking about top and bottom".

"Everybody functions in times of change. But we make too much out of it, too."       Foto: Owen Egan
"Everybody functions in times of change. But we make too much out of it, too." Foto: Owen Egan

Managing difficult changes

We are living in difficult times – chaos everywhere, climate change, recession, Brexit, digitization, automation ... What´s the most important management task right now?

I am not sure if you can generalize. Different managers are managing different things.  If you are manager of an oil company I suppose you are worrying a lot about climate change. If you're managing Amazon it’s a very different kind of concern. I think managers are always functioning in times of change. Everybody functions in times of change. But we make too much out of it, too. When I meet a group of managers I ask them to look around the room and find one thing that has changed dramatically in the last 30 years. The only things they can point to are iPhones or laptops. Chairs haven’t changed, food hasn’t changed, clothing hasn’t changed. We still button buttons that were invented in Germany in the 15th century. Styles change, fashion changes, but underneath the surface there is no dramatic change. When you manage a business maybe the way you do accounting or you move money around is new because of new technology. But the rules of accounting and moving money are the same as they were for decades or centuries. A car is a technology that is over a hundred years old, if it’s electric or with gasoline. So, change is something managers are always dealing with. And continuity is something managers are always dealing with. You have to do both.

Managers have to get to the ground, they have to see, live and experience what’s going on there.   
Henry Mintzberg

But there are thousands of articles and books written about change and none about continuity …

That’s exactly the problem. But you as a journalist do not write about continuity because no one is going to read it. So you have to write about change. There is a bias. What I am saying is that all management is happening in front of the interface of change AND continuity. The question is how to manage the relationship between change and continuity. Whatever the change now is happen to be. But what are the changes we are talking about? Global warming? Well, how many companies have that impact really extraordinarily? If you are in the business of plastic bags things have really changed because you might not be selling them anymore. If you make chairs or run restaurants or whatever it is you have to adapt, for sure. You have to cut down your use of energy etc. But those changes are not different from changes you had at other points of your business over the time. Of course the whole political crisis could blow up, for example the Turkish war against the Kurds in Syria. But if you are not operating in this region your business is not affected very much.

Change is something managers are always dealing with. And continuity is something managers are always dealing with. You have to do both.
Henry Mintzberg

At the moment everybody is talking about innovation. History of mankind is the history of innovation, we innovate since the ancient Egypts. So why is there so much fuzz about it right now?

Because it’s sexy. And intriguing. We are all intrigued by some new business models. I am not a fan of Uber but the Uber business model is fascinating, it is brilliant. Just the execution of it is horrible. Let’s face it: There are a lot of companies engaged in this disruptive innovation. And there are a lot that try to hang on inspite of it or there are those whose industries do not change at all. Go around and make a list of companies that are really innovative! What does Shell Oil do? They’re still drilling and running ten thousands of service stations worldwide. And by the way Shell is making a fuzz about what they are doing around renewable energy! But how much of their investments is actually going there? We love innovation, the phone I am holding is a spectacular piece of innovation. I think the smartphone is the most amazing technological innovation ever. Because all the other ones gave us only one thing in time: printing press affordable books, radio wireless broadcasting, television the vision, telephone the possibility to talk to people wherever in the world ... The smartphone binds everything together in a small piece of hardware. That really was the biggest innovation. But all the talking about innovation is mainly just fuzzing.

There are different kinds of organizations with different kind of management. But they have always been there. Project organizations are managed another way than machine bureaucracy organizations. That is nothing new.
Henry Mintzberg

Related to the innovation topic are the many voices that say that hierarchical, classically structured companies are too slow, to rigid, too decrepit to be innovative. Self organization and networks are supposed to be the answer …

I would like to gather all those anti-hierarchical people in an airplane and let them fly it by themselves! Of course we need hierarchy and of course we need expertise! I imagine you in a surgery and the nurse tells you “Don’t worry the surgeon is a very creative one”. You don’t want an innovative surgeon but an experienced one who has done this a thousand times. These things are much too overstated.

There are different kinds of organizations with different kind of management. But they have always been there. Project organizations are managed another way than machine bureaucracy organizations. That is nothing new.  

Another discussed topic is leadership. It seems that everybody wants to be a leader, very few want to be managers. What’s so unattractive about management?

That´s another business school stuff. It started off with Abraham Zeleznik and different people at Harvard saying that leaders do the big stuff and managers do the scut work as they called it. That’s just plain nonsense. Leaders that don’t manage don’t know what is going on. You know what’s going on by managing, by getting to the ground, seeing what’s happening, talking to people, experiencing the products. That’s management! It is day to day involvement and engagement. Leadership without management is detached. Management without leadership does not work either. Who wants to be managed by someone that has no leadership capabilities? This is a very dangerous disruptive distinction!

Leadership without management is detached. Management without leadership does not work either. This is a very dangerous disruptive distinction!
Henry Mintzberg

The distinction seems to be very attractive to many people, at least.

Well, follow all the trends that bombed one after the other. There are ideas that are beneficial. Leadership instead of management is not. There are so many leaders who are disconnected. That is my chief concern about what is happening these days.

Communityship and purpose

Is that one of the ideas behind the concept of communityship that you describe in your new book?

Communityship is about the sense of people of belonging to something that is bigger than they are. And I think that part of organizations have that sense of communityship, of binding things together.

That binds together top and bottom as well?

That binds them together, yes. But we should stop talking about top and bottom anyway. I mean what is top, what is bottom? A worker on the ground is bottom, a CEO up in the air is top?! I believe this thinking is part of the problem. There’s an expression in english saying “To be on top of things” which means to know what is going on. So how can you be on top of things when you see yourself on top of the organization? Things are happening on the ground and you hover on the top? I don’t like that vocabulary though.

Is this concept of communityship widespread among companies?

I see communityship among companies that are functioning well. I don’t see it so widespread because the trend of separating leadership from management is more and more powerful. People are managing via remote control, like a television set. You press a button. That’s how too many people try to manage a company. And they are managing badly. Again: Managers have to get to the ground, they have to see, live and experience what’s going on there.