Mintzberg's Model of Managing: Random Thoughts from an Observation

Mintzberg's Model of Managing: Random Thoughts from an Observation The classical view of a manager's role has been that he/she organizes, coordinates, plans, and controls. In 1973, Mintzberg clarified that on any given day managers are very busy, frequently interrupted, and at pains to control what they do. Revisiting his observations 35 years later, Mintzberg (2009) delineated a Model of Managing that depicts managing on three planes: through information, with people, and for action. Framed by Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing, this précis presents findings, analyses, and reactions from observation of a single manager. Olivier Serrat 18/10/2018 1 Courtesy of Fayol (1916), the classical view of a manager's role has been that he/she organizes, coordinates, plans, and controls.1 On the contrary, Mintzberg (1973) explained that on any given day—far from Fayol's orderly world—managers are very busy, frequently interrupted, and at pains to control what they do. Revisiting his observations thirty-five years later, Mintzberg (2009) delineated a Model of Managing: the model depicts managing as taking place on three planes—through information, with people, and for action—and invites related competencies (and their development). Framed by Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing, this précis presents findings, analyses, and reactions from observation of a single manager over eight hours in October 2018. The Nature of Managerial Work The reality of what managers actually do was largely unexplored until Mintzberg's The Nature of Managerial Work, published in 1973. Refusing to accept the managerial mystique (e.g., vision, charisma, ability, etc.) Mintzberg watched five managers of medium to large organizations,2 each for one week, toward the doctoral thesis he defended in 1968: he recorded their verbal contacts, telephone calls, and handling of mail in chronological order; he found that—rather than being engaged in deep thought—they were slaves to the moment and moved from task to task, every move dogged by calls and diversions. Mintzberg (1973) documented the characteristics of the manager at work: • Characteristic 1: The manager performs a great quantity of work at an unrelenting pace; • Characteristic 2: Managerial activity is characterized by variety, fragmentation, and brevity; • Characteristic 3: Managers prefer issues that are current, specific, and ad hoc; • Characteristic 4: The manager sits between his organization and a network of contacts; • Characteristic 5: The manager demonstrates a strong preference for the verbal media; and • Characteristic 6: Despite the preponderance of obligations, the manager appears to be able to control his own affairs. (Mintzberg, 1971, pp. 99–101) From these observations, Mintzberg (1990) identified the manager's work roles as (a) interpersonal (i.e., figurehead—representing the organization/unit to outsiders; leader— motivating subordinates, unifying effort; and liaiser—maintaining lateral contacts); (b) informational (i.e., monitor—of information flows; disseminator—of information to subordinates; and spokesperson—transmission of information to outsiders); and (c) decisional (i.e., entrepreneur—initiator and designer of change; disturbance handler—handling non-routine events; resource allocator—deciding who gets what and who will do what; and negotiator— negotiating), as shown in Figure 1. 1 Fayol was a mining engineer and it is too easily forgotten that he originally discerned five primary functions of management (and 14 principles of management) in the context of the mining industry; to be exact, the five primary functions of management were planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. (The 14 principles of management were division of work, authority and responsibility, discipline, unity of command, unity of direction, subordination, remuneration, centralization and decentralization, scalar chain, order, equity, stability of tenure of personnel, initiative, and esprit de corps.) Most likely, Fayol conceived of the five primary functions as all-encompassing and mutually supporting dimensions of management, not necessarily what each and every manager would need to be engaged in 24 hours a day. 2 The employers of the managers that Mintzberg observed were a consulting firm, a school system, a technology firm, a consumer goods manufacturer, and a hospital. 2 Figure 1: The Manager's Roles Formal Authority and Status Interpersonal Roles • Figurehead • Leader • Liaiser Informational Roles • Monitor • Disseminator • Spokesperson Decisional Roles • Entrepreneur • Disturbance Handler • Resource Allocator • Negotiator Mintzberg (1990) To note, The Nature of Managerial Work (Mintzberg,1973) produced few worthwhile imitators: to this day, researchers rely on case studies filled with retrospective wisdom or general interviews in which managers hold forth but eschew particulars; behind fashion and hyperbole, the actual work of managing continues to go unnoticed. There is one exception: in 1983, Kurke and Aldrich replicated and extended Mintzberg's work (Kurke & Aldrich, 1983). Kurke and Aldrich's (1983) sample consisted of four top executives:3 in each instance, they recorded the number of activities per day, deskwork sessions, telephone calls, scheduled meetings, unscheduled meetings, tours, proportion of activities lasting less than 9 minutes, proportion of activities lasting less than 60 minutes, proportion of time spent in verbal contact with others, proportion of scheduled meetings with more than three participants, and proportion of contact time for (the distinct) purposes of organizational work and ceremony. The findings of Kurke and Aldrich (1983) supported Mintzberg's work across all dimensions. In 2009, Mintzberg revisited his earlier work. For his new book, Mintzberg (2009) observed 29 managers for a day each: he wrote what he called "straight descriptions of what happened (as well as what was discussed) and conceptual interpretations of what [he] could make of these descriptions" (p. 237). Mintzberg (2009) aimed to flesh out a Model of Managing, depicted in Figure 2. 3 The organizations were a public hospital (hospital administrator), a school system (a school superintendent), a high technology manufacturing firm (plant manager, with high autonomy), and a bank (bank president). 3 Figure 2: Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing Mintzberg (2009) Eight Hours of Managing: The Task My task, delivered in October 2018, was to replicate Mintzberg's study on a much smaller scale. Specifically, the game plan was to identify a manager whom I would shadow for one day or— minimally—for one half day twice; prepare the manager for the observation; conduct the observation; write up the observation; identify in particular the skills the manager exhibited; compare and contrast findings with Mintzberg using an appropriate model; and volunteer reactions. Eight Hours of Managing: The Case Study I identified a manager in a multilateral development bank headquartered in Washington, DC. Having briefed the manager on the purpose, conduct, and expected outputs of the assignment with reference to Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing, I proceeded to observe her performance over eight hours. The observation cut across the three planes of information, people, and action, taking care to record the pace, variety, and interruptions that characterize the relentlessness of managerial work. A report on the observation is presented in the Box below. 4 Box: María Lapeña—Urban Development and Housing, Acme Development Bank María Lapeña heads the Acme Development Bank's operations in urban development and housing in Latin America and the Caribbean from her organization's headquarters in Washington, DC.a Acting as Division Chief under the supervision of a Sector Manager, she oversees a complement of 70 professionals (of whom 23 are staff recruited on the international market and 47 are long-term consultants).b On Monday morning,c María reports to work at 8:15 after a bus ride and a brisk walk: she connects and boots her laptop, buys a coffee at the cafeteria, and goes straight back up to her office to deal with the electronic mail she received while riding on the bus: there are 10, which have to do with internal news (2), staff and consultant absences or sick leave (3), and sundry messages she was copied to (5). At 8:30, other electronic mail alerts blink, the first has to do with a document on the establishment of a multimillion-dollar trust fund, that she must review on the day; the second requires human resource actions for the movement of staff; and the third contains plans for a trip to Berne, Switzerland, where she will consult the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs responsible for cooperation between Switzerland and the Acme Development Bank. Reviewing the proposal for the trust fund demands full attention and occupies her for the next two hours; in the mist of her review, her work is interrupted by an urgent telephone call seeking confirmation that she will coordinate a session at the Smart City Expo World Congress to be held in Barcelona, Spain on 13–15 November. From 11:30– 12:00, her 30minute lunch break is spent at her desk: she catches up with WhatsApp texts from staff currently on mission, or from colleagues seeking appointments, and responds to two more telephone calls: the first requests her division to extend technical guidance to staff outposted in a country of the region; the second invites her to review within five working days the draft of a recent independent evaluation of marketplaces in Montevideo, Uruguay under a project cofinanced by the European Commission. On Monday afternoon, María holds three meetings, two of which planned; the first concerns a discussion of the results of a fact-finding mission to Panama; the second, unplanned, is an on-the-spot discussion with a staff member of a proposal—issued by another division—toward the establishment of a disaster risk management facility; the third is held in the Sector Manager's office, where she and two of her staff review the outcome of the recent Mayors Forum held in Medellín, Colombia—that she had recently returned from—against the background of that city hosting the World Cities Summit in 2019. (Among others, that last meeting thrashed out ideas for contributions by the UrbanLab, a universitylevel competition sponsored by the Acme Development Bank to engender creative solutions to urban challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean.) Later still, an impromptu meeting sees María discussing with the responsible team a project that has finally received the greenlight for submission to the Board of Directors for approval: this concerns financial intermediation worth $110 million for urban projects in the State of Paraná, Brazil. At 15:30, to save time, she walks over to the operations coordinator in the Sector Manager's office to brief her on a project in Panama and expedite mission clearance. More electronic mail, now totaling about 90 since the morning, keeps coming: some are for information, others call for attention, others still have to do with future operations. She launches CareerPoint, the organization's work plan and evaluation system, and spends 30 minutes reviewing the progress of work programs and signing off on proposed changes. She speaks to Alfredo, her assistant, to take note of developments, be reminded of what she might have forgotten to do, coordinate his responses to inquiries, and authorize the use of her electronic signature on sundry approvals. Incoming electronic mail tapers off, for a cumulative total of 110 since the morning. She finalizes the review of the document on the establishment of a multimillion-dollar trust fund and sends her comments by electronic mail, taking care to copy all interested parties. By now, it is 19:15: María glances at tomorrow's schedule and calls it a day. She has not had five minutes of free time. She realizes she forgot to decide on the particulars of a staff movement. What is more, she could not find time to begin drafting a chapter for a forthcoming book on urban planning in Latin America and the Caribbean; she decides she will draft something later that night, to get the ball rolling. The buses are running late; she finally arrives home by Uber at 20:00. For her, it has been a relatively quiet day. Note. This observation was conducted on October 1, 2018. Names and other identifying details have been changed. 5 a With a history dating back to 1959, 48 member countries, and about 2,000 employees, the Acme Development Bank is the leading source of multilateral development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean: it provides loans, grants, and technical assistance and conducts extensive research. In 2017, the Acme Development Bank's approved lending totaled $11.4 billion. The Acme Development Bank's current focus areas include the three development challenges of social inclusion and inequality, productivity and innovation, and economic integration as well as the three crosscutting issues of gender equality and diversity, climate change and environmental sustainability, and institutional capacity and the rule of law. The Acme Development Bank's overarching objective for urban development and housing in Latin America and the Caribbean is to extend the full benefits of urbanization to all urban residents, both today and tomorrow: achieving this entails support for interventions and institutional changes that systematically address the four major problems that affecting the region's cities, viz., deficits in urban infrastructure and services, deficits in housing, degradation of habitat, and deficits in urban governance. b From an operational perspective, the four goals that María is responsible for and is evaluated against annually are to (a) provide financial support to the region guided by the principles of high quality, efficiency, and development effectiveness (Weight: 45%); (b) advance the consolidation of the Acme Development Bank as a provider of integral solutions to the development challenges (Weight: 10%); (c) promote the development of strategic knowledge and innovation (Weight: 30%); and (d) continue promoting efficiency in the use of resources (Weight: 15%). In 2017, the Acme Development Bank's lending for urban development and housing totaled $327 million for four projects. c In advance of Monday, October 1, 2018, I introduced Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing to María to reveal how I would subsequently analyze the record of observation. Ahead of the observation, María shared her (a) job description (background, key responsibilities, qualifications, leadership competencies, and technical competencies); (b) 2017 annual performance review, (c) divisional goal details; and (d) calendar for two weeks of September 2018, this to illustrate her typical workload. In advance of the same day, I obtained copies of the Acme Development Bank's annual report for 2017 as well as that organization's institutional strategy, 2016–2019, this to obtain contextual information of mission, vision, goal, core values, strategies, objectives, operations, and business processes. Eight Hours of Managing: Method of Analysis Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing was based on the premise that only by fulfilling roles on the three planes of information, people, and action will managers provide the balance that is essential to practice managing: in others words, the manager has to practice a well-rounded job. Toward the delivery of the sundry roles associated with the three planes [e.g., framing, scheduling, communicating, and controlling (information plane); leading and linking (people lane); and doing and dealing (action plane)] Mintzberg (2009) identified personal, interpersonal, informational, and actional competencies. Recognizing that the distinctions between roles can blur at the margins (because managers are active in multiple roles, roles cross over into others, and roles infuse each other), Mintzberg's (2009) Competencies of Managing are a practical tool with which to observe management in action because they most pithily capture the component parts (or ingredients) of Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing. The method used to analyze the manager's eight hours of managing was to transcribe the record of observation through the eyes, as it were, of the competencies displayed including their perceived occurrence (i.e., seldom, often, or always) as shown in the Table below. 6 Eight Hours of Managing: Findings Table: María Lapeña—Competencies of Managing Competency A. Personal Competencies 1. Managing self, internally (reflecting, strategic thinking) 2. Managing self, externally (time, information, stress, career) 3. Scheduling (chunking, prioritizing, agenda setting, juggling, timing) B. Interpersonal Competencies 1. Leading individuals (selecting, teaching/ mentoring/coaching, inspiring, dealing with experts) 2. Leading groups (team building, resolving conflicts/meditating, facilitating processes, running meetings) 3. Leading the organization/unit (building culture) 4. Administering (organizing, resource allocating, delegating, authorizing, systematizing, goal setting, performance appraising) 5. Linking the organization/unit (networking, representing, collaborating, promoting/lobbying, protecting/buffering) C. Informational Competencies 1. Communicating verbally (listening, interviewing, speaking/presenting/briefing, writing, information gathering, information disseminating) 2. Communicating nonverbally (seeing [visual literacy], sensing [visceral literacy]) 3. Analyzing (data processing, modeling, measuring, evaluating) D. Actional Competencies 1. Designing (planning, crafting, visioning) 2. Mobilizing (firefighting, project managing, negotiating/dealing, politicking, managing change) Observation of Occurrence Seldom Often Always              Note: Seldom = 0–30% of the time; Often = 31–70% of the time; Always = 71–100% of the time. At the personal level, managing self internally and externally and scheduling occupied María's time throughout the day of observation, meaning always. At the interpersonal level, leading individuals, leading groups, leading the organization, administering, and linking the organization/unit occupied María often in the first two instances and always in the latter three; her roles were indeed those of figurehead, leader, and liaiser, in no particular order. At the informational level, communicating verbally, communicating nonverbally, and analyzing data occupied María always, seldom, and always, respectively; her roles were indeed those of monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson, in no particular order still. And, at the actional level, designing and mobilizing also occupied María throughout the day of observation, meaning always; her roles were indeed those of resource allocator and negotiator (but that of entrepreneur was less so on the day). Put differently, 10 competencies (out of the total of 13) were always displayed, 2 were often displayed, and 1 was seldom displayed. Personal and actional competencies were always displayed and communicating nonverbally was the only competency to be seldom displayed. 7 Here, it is necessary to remind the reader that María's organizational context evidently holds most explanatory power in relation to the occurrence of the competencies displayed, followed by her job context.4 (The accent on organizational context supports Mintzberg's claim that the most significant impact on a manager's behavior is the nature of the organization, which in María's case is a multilateral development bank).5 The external and situational contexts being more or less predictable in the case of her organization, María's personal context, especially background and tenure, probably explains the rest. María's personal style is proactive and she sees herself as being "throughout" her unit, as distinct from being "on top" or "in the center". She does not tilt toward art (vision), craft (experience), or science (analysis) in practicing management and took care to blend the three although a predilection for science could be detected by virtue of a doctoral degree in environmental engineering. According to the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, María's typology is ENFP (Extraversion, Intuition, Feeling, Perception), a rather unusual combination in a machine organization type of environment that attracts a (more than) fair share of ISTJs (Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judgment) that David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates referred to as Inspectors, one of four types belonging to the temperament they called the Guardians (Mintzberg, 1979; Keirsey & Bates, 1984).6,7 4 Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing recognized untold varieties of managing that stem from 12 factors of management: (a) external context—which pertains to national culture, sector (business, government, etc.), and industry; (b) organizational context—which pertains to the form of the organization (entrepreneurial, professional, etc.) and its age, size, and stage of development; (c) job context—which pertains to the level in the hierarchy and the function (or work) supervised; (d) situational context—which pertains to temporary pressures and managerial fashion; and (e) personal context—which pertains to the background of the incumbent, his or her tenure (in the job, the organization, the industry), and personal style. Mintzberg makes the point that each of the 12 factors is insignificant on any given day: they must all be considered together, one managerial practice at a time, recognizing however that the most significant impact on a manager's behavior is the nature of the organization. 5 The business models of multilateral development banks are country and client-driven, and priorities are identified in coordination with the countries themselves and other development partners including citizens, civil society and nongovernment organizations, foundations, the private sector, other development finance institutions, etc. Country strategies (leading to business plans for particularized portfolios of loans, grants, technical assistance, and equity operations) take shape through collaborative dialogue to ensure country involvement and ownership throughout the so-called project cycle. 6 ENFPs are outgoing and creative with the key skill of perceiving complicated patterns and information and assimilating these quickly; they are flexible, highly adaptable workers; they are driven by a keen devotion to their ideals and a strong drive to help others; less developed are their patience for routine tasks and projection of a serious, committed image. ENFPs need time alone to center themselves and make sure they are moving in a direction that is congruent with their values. Keirsey and Bates referred to ENFPs as Champions, one of four types belonging to the temperament they called the Idealists (Keirsey and Bates, 1984). 7 Another of Mintzberg's notable contributions to the philosophy and practice of management is that of organizational configurations (aka species) (Mintzberg, 1979). Mintzberg (1979) distinguished entrepreneurial organizations, machine organizations (bureaucracies), professional organizations, project organizations (adhocracies), missionary organizations, and political organizations. For one, the machine organization is characterized by standardization: decision-making is centralized, tasks are grouped by functional departments, and work is formalized, with many routines and procedures; jobs are well-defined, with a formal planning 8 Looking at specifics, María's postures (or positional preferences as the situation demanded) displayed the near-totality of Mintzberg's varieties: continuously, she maintained the workflow, connected externally, blended all around, fortified the culture, intervened strategically, managed in the middle, managed out of the middle, and advised from the side.8 Taking all in stride, she never seemed perturbed by Mintzberg's (2009) Conundrums of Managing.9 process underpinned by budgets and verified by audits; business processes are regularly analyzed for efficiency. The chief feature of a machine organization is a pyramidal structure, with hierarchical functional lines that allow increasingly senior managers to command and control in turn. 8 Mintzberg's (2009) Postures of Managing are to (a) maintain the workflow—to keep the organization on course; (b) connect externally—to maintain the boundary condition of the organization; (c) blend all around—to integrate the organization's activities; (d) remote-control— to manage hands-off on the information plane; (e) fortify the culture—to instill a sense of community so that people might be trusted to function appropriately; (f) intervene strategically— to dive specific changes; (g) manage in the middle—to communicate and control on the information plane to facilitate the downward flow of strategies and transmit performance information back up the hierarchy; (h) manage out of the middle—to focus on the external roles of linking and dealing, thereby making special use of the negotiating skills of the manager; and (i) advise from the side—to influence others or simply respond to requests. (To complete his panoply of postures, Mintzberg has identified two others: the new manager—who has to learn to lead by persuasion since the usual hands-on autocratic approach Mintzberg says newcomers inevitably adopt reportedly comes up short; and the reluctant manager—who dispenses with managerial duties quickly to concentrate on other interests. (María is not new and certainly not reluctant.) 9 Mintzberg's (2009) Conundrums of Managing, titled to sound like unpublished oeuvres of J. K. Rowling, are (a) The Syndrome of Superficiality—how to get in deep when there is so much pressure to get it done; (b) The Predicament of Planning—how to plan, strategize, just plain think, let alone think ahead, in such a hectic job; (c) The Labyrinth of Decomposition—where to find synthesis in a world so decomposed by analysis; (d) The Quandary of Connecting—how to keep informed when managing by its very nature removed the manager from the very things being managed; (e) The Dilemma of Delegating—how to delegate when so much of the relevant information is personal, oral, and so often privileged; (f) The Mysteries of Measurement—how to manage it when you cannot rely on measuring it; (g) The Enigma of Order—how to bring order to the work of others when the work of managing is itself so disorderly; (h) The Paradox of Control—how to maintain the necessary state of controlled disorder when one's own manager is imposing order; (i) The Clutch of Confidence—how to maintain a sufficient level of confidence without crossing over into arrogance; (j) The Ambiguity of Acting—how to act decisively in a complicated, nuanced world; (k) The Riddle of Change—how to manage change when there is the need to maintain continuity; and (l) The Ultimate Conundrum—how to possibly cope with all these conundrums concurrently. In my opinion, Mintzberg's (2009) use of the word "conundrum" is not the best: the word appeared in the 16th century from unknown origins but is first recorded as a term of abuse for a crank or pedant, later coming to denote a whim or fancy, also a pun: this somehow detracts from Mintzberg's (2009) intention to describe management as "a practice, learned primarily through experience, and rooted in context" (p. 9), with effective management "a tapestry woven of the threads of reflection, analysis, worldliness, collaboration, and proactiveness, all of it infused with personal energy and bonded by social integration" (p. 217). 9 Eight Hours of Managing: Reactions I observed a manager through the eyes of Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing: in agreement with Kurke and Aldrich (1983), notwithstanding the minimalist size of the sample and the short duration of the observation, the experience generally supported the idea that managers— regardless of the type of organization or their level within it—perform an untold variety of nonetheless similar roles. That said, the observation of María at Acme Development Bank did not fully accord with Mintzberg's conclusion that the roles of disseminator, figurehead, negotiator, liaiser, and spokesperson may be more important at higher levels of an organization, while the role of leader is more important for lower-level managers than it is for either middle- or top-level managers: as mentioned earlier, María served either simultaneously or in quick succession as disseminator, disturbance handler, figurehead, leader, liaiser, monitor, negotiator, resource allocator, and spokesperson (even if less so as entrepreneur on the day). Mintzberg only associates the Internet with electronic mail (and so disparages that medium for its poverty of words): he concludes that the Internet is not changing the practice of management fundamentally; instead, it is reinforcing characteristics we are supposed to have seen for decades.10 Nothing could be further from the truth: we live in a digital age where interactions increasingly take place online thanks in large part to smart phones. Ever faster and cheaper, information and communication technology allows people to seek, acquire, and share expertise, ideas, services, and technologies locally, nationally, regionally, and around the world. Information and communication technology is now integral to the very practice of managing: it requires particularized aptitudes beyond Mintzberg's (2009) Competencies of Managing, all of which makes Mintzberg's (2009) supposedly updated Model of Managing look rather flat in our three-dimensional world.11 Additionally, Mintzberg's (2009) Conundrums of Managing are presented as fixed in time and space, this largely for the purposes of rhetoric; in reality, however, a manager can chip away at a particular conundrum, give it time and space to breathe, and so lessen its effects (as Mintzberg himself admits).12 For example, The Ambiguity of Acting makes much of the doubtfulness of decision: however, the conundrum of ambiguity can be solved by recognizing that decision making is a stream of inquiry, not an event. 10 Everyone knows that workers spend a third of their time reading and answering electronic mail. Even then, Mintzberg (2009) took no notice of the fact that electronic email—certainly official electronic mail—very often channels attachments such as voluminous technical reports that must be read, digested, and acted upon. (Oddly, the ease with which one can attach files leads many to expect immediate reactions to the content thereof.) 11 Virtual teaming is one example: with respect to virtual team management, the predictor of success remains clarity of purpose; but, managing teams whose members are not in the same location or time zone (or may not even work in the same organization) requires deeper understanding of people, processes, and technology and recognition that trust is a much more important variable compared to face-to-face interactions. 12 Mintzberg's (2009) Conundrums of Managing invited reference to paradoxical leadership (aka "both/and" leadership). As organizational ecologies become increasingly dynamic, complex, and competitive, we face intensified contradictory, or seemingly paradoxical, demands: every one of us—not just managers—must develop paradoxical leadership understandings and behaviors so we might visualize and reframe paradox (and thereby produce superior outcomes). The principle of yin–yang, which accepts that seemingly opposite or contrary forces might actually be interconnected, complementary, and even interdependent, serves well when one must synthesize with polarity thinking. 10 Interestingly, Mintzberg chooses not to define managerial effectiveness. Instead, he offers a framework to consider managerial effectiveness in context— that he sees woven by energetic, reflective, analytic, worldly, collaborative, proactive, and integrative threads—and concludes that: (a) managers are not effective; matches are effective; (b) there are no effective managers in general; (c) there is no such thing as a professional manager; (d) to assess managerial effectiveness, you must also have to assess the effectiveness of the unit; (e) a manager can be considered effective only to the extent that he/she has helped to make the unit more effective; (f) managerial effectiveness is always relative, not only to the situation inherited, but also in comparison with other possible people in that job; and (g) managerial effectiveness also has to be assessed for broader impact, beyond the unit and even the organization. Given the typically elastic use of criteria for effectiveness in organizations, few will ask whether anyone can ever be judged to be effective by Mintzberg's framework.13,14 So, we have a model of managing that, openly and almost with relish, advertises its delineations and limitations at every opportunity. Mintzberg thrives on self-criticism: not for him Stephen King's assertion that "… writers are often the worst judges of what they have written"; he prefers James Barrie (of Peter Pan fame), who reportedly reckoned that "We are all failures—at least, the best of us are" (King, 2002; Barrie, n.d.). For its sheer honesty alone, Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing is unlike those of other theorists (and not just early theorists). Deming (2014) and McGregor (2014), to name but two, were unwitting seekers of the one best way of Taylorism even as they tried to distance themselves from it: in other words, they offered solutions (that Deming continued to tinker with in his old age). On the contrary, Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing is a prism through which to study problems. (A model, one should recall, is a schematic description or representation of something, especially a phenomenon or system, used to underscore important properties and/or dynamics in a process.) A model, then, not a theory awaiting falsification, is what Mintzberg thinks is needed to understand and perfect the practice of managing; his three planes of information, people, and action are purposely generic to invite on-the-go application, testing, and eventual refinement of other management theories, such as human relations theory, management by walking around, systems theory, etc., including those of the experts mentioned earlier. (By inviting integration of other theories, Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing alleviated the sectarianism that often characterizes the latter, meaning, that individual management theories often have a particular point to make—or axe to grind.) Citing Albert Hirschman, Mintzberg (2014) put it very well, "A model is never defeated by the facts, however damaging, but only by another model". Models are quite fine— and I find Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing elegant—but they often end up being discussed for what they miss out, not what they explain (as this précis attempted to do in the main), which in the final analysis is not entirely fair. And so, regardless of the caveats brought up earlier, Mintzberg's (2009) Model of Managing is as good as they come: it offers an eminently logical and comprehensive depiction of what managers must practice and how they might do so: organizations will do themselves no harm if they use Mintzberg's (2009) Model of 13 Many reasons have been advanced for abandoning performance reviews: in no particular order, levelheaded arguments are that performance reviews are backward-looking; they are frequently inconsistent; they damage teamwork; they are not necessary to lead a team; and they are expensive. The bottom line is that performance reviews are a solution in search of a problem. 14 Effectiveness is a measure of the extent to which an activity attains its objectives. But, effectiveness per se is insufficient: it needs to be countervailed and complemented by others— efficiency, impact, quality, sustainability, etc.—else everything becomes a nail to single-minded application of a hammer. Performance criteria should reflect as best they can the raison d'être of an organization (or related personnel functions). 11 Managing to identify required competencies of managers, recruit in its spirit (with particular attention to "communityship"), and design executive learning and development programs to help managers hone their practice of management.15 References Deming, W. (2014). Out of the crisis. In Pierce, J., & Newstrom, J. (Eds.). The manager's bookshelf (10th ed., pp. pp. 35–39). Pearson. Fayol, H. (1916). Administration industrielle et générale. Bulletin de la Société de l'Industrie Minérale. Keirsey, D., & Bates, M. (1984). Please understand me: Character and temperament types (5th ed.). Prometheus Nemesis Book Company. King, S. (2002). Everything's eventual: 14 dark tales. Scribner. Kurke, L., & Aldrich, H. (1983). Mintzberg was right!: A replication and extension of the nature of managerial work. Management Science 29(8), 975–984. McGregor, D. (2014). The human side of enterprise. In Pierce, J., & Newstrom, J. (Eds.). The manager's bookshelf (10th ed., pp. 40–45). Pearson. Mintzberg, H. (1971). Managerial work: Analysis from observation. Management Science 18(2), 97–110. Mintzberg, H. (1973). The nature of managerial work. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Mintzberg, H. (1979). The structuring of organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Mintzberg, H. (1990). The manager's job: Folklore and fact. Harvard Business Review. March/April. 163–176. Mintzberg, H. (2009). Managing. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, Inc. Mintzberg, H. (2013). Simply managing. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, Inc. Mintzberg, H. (2014). Developing theory about the development of theory. Unpublished. Retrieved from http://www.mintzberg.org/sites/default/files/article/download/developing_theory_about_th e_development_of_theory_jan_2014.pdf Mintzberg, H. (2015). Rebalancing society: Radical renewal beyond left, right, and center. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Inc. 15 Somewhere between maximal and minimal managing, "communityship"—which designates "how people pull together to function in collaborative institutions"—beckons consideration and use (as warranted) of participative, shared, distributed, and supportive managing (Mintzberg, 2015, p. 35).