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The world of the manager is complicated and confusing. Making sense of it requires not a knack for simplification but the ability to synthesize insights from different mind-sets into a comprehensible whole. The . Five Minds of a Manage byjonathan onathan Gosling Gosling and and Henry Mintzberg ^ ^ T -^ HE CHIEF EXECUTIVE of a major Canadian com- pany complained recently that he can't get his engineers to think like managers. It's a common complaint, but behind it lies an uncommonly important question: What does it mean to think like a manager? Sadly, little attention has been paid to that question in recent years. Most of us have become so enamored of "leadership" that "management" has been pushed into the background. Nobody aspires to being a good manager anymore; everybody wants to be a great leader. But the separation of management from leadership is dangerous. Just as management without leadership encourages an uninspired style, which deadens activities, leadership without management encourages a disconnected style, which promotes hubris. And we all know the destructive 54 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW power of hubris in organizations. So let's get back to plain old management. The problem, of course, is that plain old management is complicated and confusing. Be global, managers are told, and be local. Collaborate, and compete. Change, perpetually, and maintain order. Make the numbers while nurturing your people. How is anyone supposed to reconcile all this? The fact is, no one can. To be effective, managers need to face the juxtapositions in order to arrive at a deep integration of these seemingly contradictory concerns. That means they must focus not only on what they have to accomplish but also on how they have to think. Managers need various "mind-sets." Helping managers appreciate that was the challenge we set for ourselves in the mid-1990s when we began to NOVEMBER 2003 develop a new master's program for practicing managers. We knew we could not rely on the usual structure of MBA education, which divides the management world into the discrete business functions of marketing, finance, accounting, and so on. Our intention was to educate managers who were coming out of these narrow silos; why push them back in? We needed a new structure that encouraged synthesis rather than separation. What we came up with-a structure based on the five aspects of fhe managerial mind - has proved not only powerful in the classroom but insightful in practice, as we hope to demonstrate in this article. We'll first explain how we came up with the five managerial mind-sets, then we'll discuss each in some depth before concluding with the case for interweaving the five. 55 The Five Minds of a Manager the subject beyond the self, into the manager's network of relationships. Anaiysis goes a step beyond that, to the The Intemational Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresorganization; organizations depend on the systematic cent Societies, headquartered in Geneva, has a managedecomposition of activities, and that's what analysis is all ment development concern. It worries that it may be about. Beyond the organization lies what we consider drifting too far toward a fast-action culture. It knows that the subject ofthe worldly mind-set, namely context-the it must act quickly in responding to disasters everyworlds around the organization. Finally, the action mindwhere-earthquakes and wars, floods and famines-but it set pulls everything together through the process of also sees the need to engage in the slower, more delicate change-in self, relationships, organization, and context task of building a capacity for action that is careful, The practice of managing, then, involves five perthoughtful, and tailored to local conditions and needs. spectives, which correspond to the five modules of our Many business organizations face a similar problem program: they know how to execute, but they are not so adept at • Managing self the reflective mind-set stepping back to reflect on their situations. Others face • Managing organizations: the analytic mind-set the opposite predicament: They get so mired in thinking • Managing context: the worldly mind-set about their problems that they can't get things done fast • Managing relationships: the collaborative mind-set enough. We all know bureaucracies that are great at plan• Managing change: the action mind-set ning and organizing but slow to respond to market forces, If you are a manager, this is your world! just as we're all acquainted with the nimble companies Let us make clear several characteristics of this set of that react to every stimulus, but sloppily, and have to be sets. First, we make no claim that our framework is either constantly fixing things. And then, of course, there are scientific or comprehensive. It simply has proved useful those that suffer from both afflictions-for example, firms in our work with managers, including in our master's prowhose marketing departments are absorbed with grand gram. (For more on the program, see the sidebar "Mindpositioning statements while their sales forces chase Sets for Management Development.") Second, we ask you every possible deal. to consider each of these managerial mind-sets as an attiThose two aspects establish the bounds of managetude, a frame of mind that opens new vistas. Unless you ment: Everything that every effective manager does is get into a reflective frame of mind, for example, you cansandwiched between action on the ground and reflection not open yourself to new ideas. You might not even notice in the abstract. Action without reflection is thoughtless; such ideas in the first place without a worldly frame of reflection without action is passive. Every manager has mind. And, of course, you cannot appreciate the buzz, the to find a way to combine these two mind-sets-to funcvistas, and the opportunities of actions unless you ention at the point where reflective thinking meets practigage in them. cal doing. Third, a word on our word "mind-sets." We do not use it But action and refiection about what? One obvious anto set any manager's mind. All of us have had more than swer is: about collaboration, about getting things done coenough of that. Rather, we use the word in the spirit of operatively with other people-in negotiations, for exama fortune one of us happened to pull out of a Chinese ple, where a manager cannot act alone. Another answer cookie recently: "Get your mind set. Confidence will lead is that action, refiection, and collaboration have to be you on." We ask you to get your mind set around five key rooted in a deep appreciation of reality in all its facets. We ideas. Then, not just confidence but coherence can lead call this mind-set worldly, which the Oxford English Dictio- you on. Think, too, of these mind-sets as mind-5/^hfs-pernary defines as "experienced in life, sophisticated, practispectives. But be aware that, improperly used, they can cal." Finally, action, reflection, and collaboration, as well as also be mine sites. Too much of any of them-obsessive anworldliness, must subscribe to a certain rationality or alyzing or compulsive collaborating, for instance-and the logic; they rely on an analytic mind-set, too. mind-set can blow up in your face. So we have five sets ofthe managerial mind, five ways in which managers interpret and deal with fhe world Managing Self: around them. Fach has a dominant subject, or target, of its own. For reflection, the subject is the self; there can be The Reflective Mind-Set no insight without self-knowledge. Collaboration takes Managers who are sent off to development courses these days often find themselves being welcomed to "boot Jonathan Gosling is the director ofthe Centre for Leadership camp." This is no country club, they are warned; you'll Studies at the University of Exeter in Exeter, England. Henry have to work hard. But this is wrongheaded. While manMintzberg is the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies agers certainly don't need a country club atmosphere for at McGill University in Montreal and the author of theforth- development, neither do they need boot camp. Most mancoming book Managers Not MBAs/rom Berrett-Koehler. agers we know already live boot camp every day. Be- The Five Managerial Mind-Sets 56 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW The Five Minds of a Manager sides, in real boot camps, soldiers learn to march and obey, not to stop and think. These days, what managers desperately need /5 to stop and think, to step back and reflect thoughtfully on their experiences. Indeed, in his book Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky makes the interesting point that events, or "happenings," become experience only after they have been reflected upon thoughtfully: "Most people do not accumulate a body of experience. Most people go through life undergoing a series of happenings, which pass through their systems undigested. Happenings become experiences when they are digested, when they are reflected on, related to generai patterns,and synthesized." These days, what managers desperately need is to stop and think-to step back and reflect thoughtfully on their experiences. ; ,, -•. .. ~. Unless the meaning is understood, managing is mindless. Hence we take reflection to be that space suspended between experience and explanation, where the mind makes the connections. Imagine yourself in a meeting when someone suddenly erupts with a personal rant. You're tempted to ignore or dismiss the outburst-you've heard, affer all, that the person is having problems at home. But why not use it to reflect on your own reaction-whether embarrassment, anger, or frustration-and so recognize some comparable feelings in yourself? Your own reaction now becomes a learning experience for you: You have opened a space for imagination, between your experience and your explanation. It can make al! the difference. Organizations may not need "mirror people," who see in everything only reflections of their own behavior. But neither do they need "window people," who cannot see beyond the images in front of them. They need managers who see both ways - in a sense, ones who look out the window at dawn, to see through their own reflections to the awakening world outside. "Reflect" in Latin means to refold, which suggests that attention tums inward so that it can be turned outward. This means going beyond introspection. It means looking in so that you can better see out in order to perceive a familiar thing in a different way - a product as a service, maybe, or a customer as a partner. Does that not describe the thinking of the really successful managers, the Andy Groves ofthe world? Compare such people with the Messiers and Lays, who dazzle with great mergers and grand strategies before burning out their companies. NOVEMBER 2003 Likewise, reflective managers are able to see behind in order to look ahead. Successful "visions" are not immaculately conceived; they are painted, stroke by stroke, out of the experiences of the past. Reflective managers, in other words, have a healthy respect for history not just the grand history of deals and disasters but also the everyday history of all the little actions that make organizations work. Consider in this regard Kofi Annan's deep personal understanding ofthe United Nations, a comprehension that has been the source of his ability to help move that complex body to a different and better place. You must appreciate the past if you wish to use the present to get to a better future. Managing Organizations: The Analytical Mind-Set Literally, analysis means to "let loose" (from the Greek ana, meaning"up"and/yef>?, meaning"loosen"). Analysis loosens up complex phenomena by breaking them into component parts-by decomposing them. Analysis happens everywhere - in context (industry analysis), with relationships (360-degree assessments), and so on. But it is especially related to organization. You simply can't get organized without analysis, especially in a large company. Good analysis provides a language for organizing; it allows people to share an understanding of what is driving their efforts; it provides measures for performance. And organizational structure itself is fundamentally analytic-it is a means of decomposition to establish the division of labor. Just look at any organization chart, with all the boxes neatly lined up. Picture the modem manager in an office in a tall building, looking down on the grid ofthe city below and across at the offices of companies in other buildings. From this perspective, the manager does not see individual people so much as systems of organization, power, and communication. Turning around, that manager is surrounded by 57 The Five Minds of a Manager the plush paraphemalia of his or her own company, the fruits of many people's tireless work on structures and systems and techniques. All of this represents analysis in the conventional sense: order and decomposition. How is such a manager to escape the analytic mind-set? We prefer a different question: How is the manager to get truly inside the analytic mind-set, beyond the superficialities of obvious analysis, into the essential meanings of structures and systems? The key to analyzing effectively, in our view, is to get beyond conventional approaches in order to appreciate how analysis works and what effect it has on the organization. Consider three related tasks, one simple, one complicated, one complex. Building a pleasure boat can be relativeiy straightforward-it's about such things as the ratio of displacement to length. Building an aircraft carrier is far more complicated, involving the coordination of all kinds of subsystems and supply networks. Yet even here the component parts can be readily understood and the necessary behaviors made rather predictable. But a decision on whether or not to deploy that aircraff carrier can he truly complex: Who is to say with any certainty what is the right thing to do, or even what is the best thing under the circumstances? Making that kind of complex decision means standing above shallow analysis and easy technique - just running the numbers-and going deeper into the analytic mind-set. You have to take into account soff data, including the values underlying such choices. Deep analysis does not seek to simplify complex decisions, but to sustain the complexity while maintaining the organization's capacity to take action. That was the great power of Winston Churchill's rhetoric during World War 11. His simple expressions captured the complexity that was Great Britain and the war in which it was engaged. others to change course, and helped resolve problems. Was this analysis or reflection? It was reflective analysis. The problem for many managers today, as well as the business schools that train them, is not a lack of analysis hut too much of it-at least, too much conventional analysis. This is exemplified by that popular metaphor in finance ofthe tennis player who watches the Scoreboard while missing the ball (much like the marketer who studies the crowd while missing the sale). The trick in the analytic mind-set is to appreciate scores and crowds while watching the ball. Managing Context: The Worldly Mind-Set We live on a globe that from a distance looks pretty uniform. "Globalization" sees the world from a distance, assuming and encouraging a certain homogeneity of behavior. Is that what we want from our managers? A closer look reveals something rather different. Far from being uniform, this world is made up of all kinds of worlds. Should we not, then, be encouraging our manag- From Global We have come across examples of deep analysis from managers participating in our own program who were being forced into obvious decisions by shallow analyses: Close the plant, speed up a slow project. After studying the analytic mind-set during the second module of our program, they went back to their jobs and probed more deeply. They analyzed the analyses of others-where these people were coming from, what data and assumptions they were using. They dug out other sorts of information that didn't make it into the conventional analyses and found limitations in the techniques used. Most important, they recognized biases in their own thinking. As a result, they saw things differently, encouraged 58 to Worldly By getting out of their offices and appreciating what the world looks like from the places where products are made and customers are served, managers can become truly worldly instead of merely global. The worldly perspective acknowledges that life on this globe is made up of all kinds of worlds. The Global View The Worldly View what matters is generalizations about markets, values, and management practices. What matters is attention paid to particular responses to specific conditions. Local consequences are of less importance than overall economic performance. Global companies are not really responsible for local consequences. Local consequences are a key indicator of performance, which has to add social as well as economic value. Companies are responsible for the local consequences of their actions. Traveling around the world, we see a blur of differences. Landing in different places, we join a plurality of worldviews. The world is converging toward a common culture. This is a world made up of edges and boundaries, like a patchwork. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW The Five Minds of a Manager ers to be more worldly, more experienced in life, in both "How can you possibly drive in this traffic?" an Amerisophisticated and practical ways? In other words, should can marketing manager from Lufthansa, shaken up durwe not be getting into worlds beyond our own-into other ing her ride from the airport, asked an Indian professor. people's circumstances, habits, cultures - so that we can He replied,"I just join theflow."Leaming can begin! That better know our own world? To paraphrase T.S. Fliot's is not chaos on the streets of India, but another kind of famous words, should we not explore ceaselessly in order logic. When you realize it, you have become that much to retum home and know the place for the flrst time? more worldly. That to us is the worldly mind-set. We ask the participants in our program, after they go Being worldly does not require global coverage, just as back to work between sessions, to write reflection paglobal coverage does not a worldly mind-set make. Inpers on what they've leamed at the modules. Affer the deed, global coverage does not even ensure a global perIndia module, a Russian manager from the Red Cross, spective, given that the managers of so many "global" with his own share of third-world experiences, wrote companies are rooted in the culture ofthe headquarters' about seeing a pile of tires with a huge black cross on it: country. But there are companies that seem to be reason"Black Cross: The Clinic for Tires" read the sign. He was ably global as well as worldly-a Shell, perhaps. Shell has, of course, long covered the globe. But because of social pressures, including a headquarters that has always had to work across two Be global, managers are told, and cultures (Dutch and British), it has struck us in be local. Change and maintain order. personal contacts as rather worldly. By this we mean that the company tailors and blends its How is anyone supposed to reconcile parts across the world, socially and environa l l this? The fact is, no one can. mentally as well as economically. It must flnd and extract oil without violating the rights of the people under whose territories the oil sits, and it has to refine and sell that oil in ways that are restruck hy a symbol so familiar to him used in such a radispectful of the local environment. That may seem clear cally different context. He wrote: "Once again India [has enough today, but think about what companies like Shell reminded me] how interdependent, similar, and different went through to get there. at the same time are our worlds." This is the worldly mindWe conclude from this that while global managers may set in action: seeing differently out to reflect differently spend a lot of time in the air, and not just literally, they hein. We might say that the worldly mind-set puts the recome worldly when their feet are planted firmly on the flective one into context. ground of eclectic experience. That means getting out of In our view, to manage context is to manage on the their offices, beyond the towers, to spend time where edges, between the organization and the various worlds products are produced, customers served, and environthat surround it - cultures, industries, companies. What ments threatened. (For a comparison of the global and Ray Raphael has written about "Edges," in his book by the worldly worldviews, see the exhibit "From Global to that title, is germane to every manager: Worldly.") Many of the most interesting things, say the bioloOf course, shifting from a global to a worldly perspecgists, happen on the Edges-on the interface between tive is not easy. In James Clavell's novel Shogun, a Japathe woods and the field, the land and the sea. There, livnese woman tells her British lover, who is perplexed by ing organisms encounter dynamic conditions that give the strange world of seventeenth-century Japan into rise to untold variety.... which he has fallen, "It's all so simple, Anjin-san. just Variety, perhaps, but there is tension as well. The change your concept ofthe worid." Just! flora of the meadows, for example, as they approach But maybe it's not quite as hard as it seems. One way to the woodlands, find themselves coping with increasbegin (as in the novel) is through immersion in a strange ingly unfavorable conditions: the sunlight they need context: Get into someone else's world as a mirror to your might be lacking, and the soil no longer feels right. own. That is why we hold our program's module on the There is also the problem of competition with alien worldly mind-set in India: For all but the Indian managspecies of trees and shmbs. The Edges, in short, might ers, India is not just another world, but, in a sense, otherabound with life, but each living form must fight for worldly. Being there, especially among fellow managers its own. from Indian companies, takes the non-Indian participants past the nice abstractions of economic, political, and soNo wonder managers must be worldly. They have cial differences, down onto the streets, where these difto mediate those wide zones where organization meets ferences come alive. context - not just, for example, "customers" acting in NOVEMBER 2003 59 The Five Minds of a Manager When John Kotter was asked if the members ofthe Harvard Business School class of 1974, whose careers he followed in his book The New Rules, were team players, he replied, "I think it fair to say that these people want to create Managing Relationships: the team and lead it to some glory The Collaborative as opposed to being a member of a team that's being driven by Mind-Set somebody else." That is not the It need hardly be said that mancollaborative mind-set. Having to aging is about working with peorun the team may be necessary at ple - not just as bosses and subtimes - although we suspect it's ordinates but, more important, needed far less often than most as colleagues and partners. Yet people think - but it hardly repdespite all the rhetoric about resents a collaborative point of collaboration, in the West, at view, nor does it foster teamleast, we often take a narrow work. Leaders don't do most of view. Thanks to the influence of the things that their organizaeconomic theory, we see people tions get done; they do not even as independent actors, detachmake them get done. Rather, they able human "resources" or "ashelp to establish the structures, sets" that can be moved around, conditions, and attitudes through bought and sold, combined, and which things get done. And that "downsized." That is not the colrequires a collaborative mind-set. laborative mind-set. We talk a great deal about netIf you picture yourself on In fact, our own original defiworks these days, as well as teams, top of a network,looking down nition of the collaborative mindtask forces, alliances, and knowlon it, then you are out of it. set got a jolt when our Japanese edge work. Yet we still picture How can you possibly manage colleagues began to design the managers on "top." Well, then, picprogram's fourth module. It had its relationships that way? ture yourself on top of a network, been called Managing People. looking down on it. That puts you But they pointed out that a truly out of it; how can you possibly manage its relationships collaborative mind-set does not involve managi that way? To be in a collaborative mind-set means to be ple so much as the relationships among people, in teams inside, involved, to manage throughout But it has a more and projects as well as across divisions and alliances. Getprofound meaning, too - to get management beyond ting into a tmly collaborative mind-set means getting managers, to distribute it so that responsibility flows natbeyond empowerment-a word implying that the people urally to whoever can take the initiative and pull things who know the work best must somehow receive the blesstogether. Think of self-managing teams, of slaink works; ing of their managers to do it - and into commitment. It indeed, think of who "manages" the World Wide Web. also means getting away from the currently popular heroic style of managing and moving toward a more engaging style. "markets," however "differentiated," but all those particular people in particular places buying and using products in their own particular ways. Managing Change: Engaging managers listen more than they talk; they get out of their offices to see and feel more than they remain in them to sit and figure. By being worldly themselves, they foster collaboration among others. And they do less controlling, thus allowing other people to be in greater control of their own work. If "I deem, so that you do" is the implicit motto of the heroic manager, then for the engaging manager it is "We dream, so that we do." Our Japanese colleagues call this "leadership in the background"-it lets as many ordinary people as possible lead. (For a comparison of heroic and engaging management, see the exhibit "TWo Ways to Manage.") 60 The Action Mind-Set Imagine your organization as a chariot pulled by wild horses. (That may be easy for you to do!) These horses represent the emotions, aspirations, and motives of all the people in the organization. Holding a steady course requires just as much skill as steering around to a new direction. Philosophers from Plato to Vivekenanda have used this metaphor to describe the need to harness emotional energy; it works well for management, too. An action mindset, especially at senior levels, is not about whipping the HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW The Five Minds of a Manager horses into a frenzy, careening hither and yon. It is about mobilize energy around those things that need changing, developing a sensitive awareness of the terrain and of while being careful to maintain the rest. And make no what the team is capable of doing in it and thereby helpmistake about it, managing continuity is no easier than ing to set and maintain direction, coaxing everyone along. managing change. Remember those wild horses. Action, and especially change, need no introduction, of The dominant view of managing change is Cartesian: course. Everybody today understands them and the need Action results from deliberate strategies, carefully planned, for them. That's the problem. that tmfold as systematically managed sequences of deciThere is now an overwhelming emphasis on action at sions. That is the analytic mind-set, not the action one. the expense of reflection. The Red Cross Federation is Monsanto went into genetically engineered agriculture unusual, not in experiencing this problem, but in being with that approach, with its strategy all worked out in aware of it. In addition, people are obsessed with change these days. We are told, relentlessly, that we live in times of great upheaval, that everything is changing, so we had better be in a constant state of alert. Change or else. Well, then, look around. Heroic management Engaging management What do you see that has changed re(based on self) (based on collaboration) cently? Your clothing? (Your grandparents wore cotton and wool; they too butManagers are important people, Managers are important to the extent toned buttons.) Your car? (It uses the separate from those who develop that they help other people do the basic technology of the Model T.) The products and deliver services. important work of developing airplane you're flying in? (That technolproducts and delivering services. ogy is newer: the flrst commercial jet aircraft took flight in 1952.) Your teleThe higher "up" these managers go, An organization is an interacting phone? (That changed - about ten years the more important they become. network, not a vertical hierarchy. ago. Unless, of course, you are not using At the "top," the chief executive is Effective leaders work throughout; a cellular phone.) the corporation. they do not sit on top. Two Ways to Manage Our point is not that nothing is changing. No, something is always changing. Right now it is information technology. But many other things are not changing at all - and these we don't notice (like buttons). We tend to focus on what is changing and conclude that everything is. That is hardly a reflective mind-set, and it is detrimental as well to the action mind-set. We have to sober up to the reality that change is not pervasive, and that the phenomenon of change is not new. If the reflective mind-set has to respect history, then the action mind-set could use a little humility. Change has no meaning without continuity. There is a name for everything changing all the time: anarchy. No one wants to live with that, certainly no organization that wishes to survive. Businesses are judged by the products they sell and the services they render, not the changes they make. So change cannot be managed without continuity. Accordingly, the trick in the action mind-set is to NOVEMBER 2003 Down the hierarchy comes the strategy-clear, deliberate, and bold-emanating from the chief, who makes the dramatic moves. Everyone else "implements." Out ofthe network emerge strategies, as engaged people solve little problems that grow Into big initiatives. Implementation is the problem because, while the chief embraces change, most others resist it. That is why outsiders must be favored over insiders. Implementation is the problem because it cannot be separated from formulation. That is why committed insiders are necessary to come up with the key changes. To manage is to make decisions and allocate resources-including human resources. Managing thus means analyzing, often calculating, based on facts from reports. To manage is to bring out the positive energy that exists naturaily within people. Managing thus means inspiring and engaging, based on judgment that is rooted in context. Rewards for increasing performance go to the leaders. What matters is what's measured-shareholder value, in particular. Rewards for making the organization a better place go to everyone. Human values, many of which cannot be measured, matter. Leadership is thrust upon those who thrust their will upon others. Leadership is a sacred trust earned through the respect of others. 61 The Five Minds of a Manager advance. With control of seed varieties and certain pesticides and fertilizers, it could bring an entire ecosystem to the market. And it had the research capacity and presence worldwide to do it. So it set about a series of brilliantly conceived acquisitions and effectively positioned the company to be the Microsoft of agribusiness. But the fanners and consumers weren't there - they were more enthusiastic about continuity at that point-and the plan collapsed. Change, to be successful, cannot follow some mechanistic schedule of steps, of formulation followed by im- plementation. Action and reflection have to blend in a naturalflow.And that has to include collaboration. Satish Kumar, the director of the Schumacher Institute in the United Kingdom, put it nicely in the title of his latest book. You Are Therefore 1 Am: A Declaration of Dependence. We had better be reflectively collaborative, as well as analytically worldly, if we wish to accomplish effective change. Of course, energized action is necessary too, but that doesn't mean being hyperactive or flddling around endlessly with structure. It means remaining curious, alert. Mind-Sets for Management Development IN 1996, when we founded the International Masters Program in Practicing Management with colleagues from around the world, we developed the managerial mind-sets as a new way to structure management education and development. Managers are sent to the IMPM by their companies, preferably in groups of four or five. They stay on the job, coming into our classrooms for five modules of two weeks each, one for each ofthe mind-sets, over a period of 16 months. We open with a module on the reflective mind-set. The module is located at Lancaster University In the reflective atmosphere of northern Engiand-the nearby hills and lakes inspire reflection on the purpose of life and work. Then it is on to McGill University in Montreal, where the grid-like regularity ofthe city reflects the energy and order ofthe analytic mind-set. The worldly mind-set on context comes alive atthe Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, where new technologies jostle ancient traditions on the crowded streets. Then comes the collaborative mind-set, hosted by faculty in Japan, where collaboration has been the key to managerial innovations, and Korea, where alliances and partnerships have become the basis for business growth. Last is the action mind-set module, located at Insead in France, where emerging trends from around the world convert into lessons for managerial action. So our locations not only teach the mindsets but also encourage the participating man- 62 agers to live them. And so have we, in the very conception ofthe program. Our approach to management development is fundamentally reflective. We believe managers need to step back from the pressures of their jobs and reflect thoughtfully on their experiences. We as faculty members bring concepts; the participants bring experience. Learning occurs where these meet-in individual heads, small groups, and all together. Our 50-50 rule says that half the classroom time should be turned over to the participants, on their agendas. The program is fully collaborative all around,There is no lead school; much ofthe organizational responsibility is distributed. Likewise, the faculty's relationship with the participants is collaborative. And faculty members work closely with the participating companies, which over the past eight years have included Mean, BT, EDF Croup and Gazde France, Fujitsu, the International Red Cross Federation, LG, Lufthansa, Matsushita, Motorola, Royal Bank of Canada, and Zeneca. We think of our setting as being especially worldly, because the participating managers andfacultyhosttheir colleagues at home, in their own cultures, and are guests abroad. We also believe that the program's reflective orientation allows us to probe into analysis more deeply than in regular education and work. Finally, our own purpose is action: We seek fundamental change in management education worldwide-to help change business schools into true schools of management. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW T h e Five M i n d s o f a M a n a g e r experimental. Changing is a leaming process, and so is maintaining course. We may thinl< of stasis as the norm and change as driven, but it doesn't have to be that way. Active members of an organization may resist change imposed on them because they understand that the change would be dysfunctional. And they in tum may engage in "silent change" of their own, continually re-creating operations for better performance. Weaving the Mind-Sets Together Clearly, these five mind-sets do not represent hard-andfast categories. We need distinct labels for them, but they obviously overlap, and they are more than mere words. They are more than metaphors too, but a metaphor can help us understand how they come together. Imagine the mind-sets as threads and the manager as weaver. Effective performance means weaving each mind-set over and under the others to create a fine, sturdy cloth. You analyze, then you act. But that does not work as expected, so you reflect. You act some more, then find yourself blocked, realizing that you cannot do it alone. You have to collaborate. But to do that, you have to get into the world of others. Then more analysis follows, to articulate the new insights. Now you act again - and so it goes, as the cloth of your effort forms. But one piece of cloth is not enough. An organization is a collective entity that achieves common purpose when the cloths of its various managers are sewn together into useful garments - when the organization's managers collaborate to combine their reflective actions in analytic, worldly ways. We have been emphasizing the need for all managers to get deeply into all five mind-sets. But many managers naturally tilt to one or another, depending on their situations and personal inclinations. Some people are more reflective than others, some more action oriented, some more analytic, and so on. Finance and marketing have their share of calculating managers (lots of analysis), salespeople can sometimes be a little too worldly, those from HR a little too enthusiastic about collaboration. So the weaving often has to be collaborative, too, like the sewing, as managers come to understand one another and combine their strengths. Companies have been quite concerned about seamlessness in recent years. Yet we all appreciate seams that are nicely sewn, just as we appreciate mind-sets that are nicely combined. Effective organizations tailor handsome results out of the woven mind-sets of their managers. ^ Reprint R0311C; HBR OnPoint 5364 To order, see page 141. "Money's out ofthe question. How about a cup of sugar?" NOVEMBER 2003 63 The world of the manager is complicated and confusing. Making sense of it requires not a knack for simplification but the ability to synthesize insights from different mind-sets into a comprehensible whole. The . Five Minds of a Manage byjonathan onathan Gosling Gosling and and Henry Mintzberg ^ ^ T -^ HE CHIEF EXECUTIVE of a major Canadian com- pany complained recently that he can't get his engineers to think like managers. It's a common complaint, but behind it lies an uncommonly important question: What does it mean to think like a manager? Sadly, little attention has been paid to that question in recent years. Most of us have become so enamored of "leadership" that "management" has been pushed into the background. Nobody aspires to being a good manager anymore; everybody wants to be a great leader. But the separation of management from leadership is dangerous. Just as management without leadership encourages an uninspired style, which deadens activities, leadership without management encourages a disconnected style, which promotes hubris. And we all know the destructive 54 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW power of hubris in organizations. So let's get back to plain old management. The problem, of course, is that plain old management is complicated and confusing. Be global, managers are told, and be local. Collaborate, and compete. Change, perpetually, and maintain order. Make the numbers while nurturing your people. How is anyone supposed to reconcile all this? The fact is, no one can. To be effective, managers need to face the juxtapositions in order to arrive at a deep integration of these seemingly contradictory concerns. That means they must focus not only on what they have to accomplish but also on how they have to think. Managers need various "mind-sets." Helping managers appreciate that was the challenge we set for ourselves in the mid-1990s when we began to NOVEMBER 2003 develop a new master's program for practicing managers. We knew we could not rely on the usual structure of MBA education, which divides the management world into the discrete business functions of marketing, finance, accounting, and so on. Our intention was to educate managers who were coming out of these narrow silos; why push them back in? We needed a new structure that encouraged synthesis rather than separation. What we came up with-a structure based on the five aspects of fhe managerial mind - has proved not only powerful in the classroom but insightful in practice, as we hope to demonstrate in this article. We'll first explain how we came up with the five managerial mind-sets, then we'll discuss each in some depth before concluding with the case for interweaving the five. 55 The Five Minds of a Manager the subject beyond the self, into the manager's network of relationships. Anaiysis goes a step beyond that, to the The Intemational Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresorganization; organizations depend on the systematic cent Societies, headquartered in Geneva, has a managedecomposition of activities, and that's what analysis is all ment development concern. It worries that it may be about. Beyond the organization lies what we consider drifting too far toward a fast-action culture. It knows that the subject ofthe worldly mind-set, namely context-the it must act quickly in responding to disasters everyworlds around the organization. Finally, the action mindwhere-earthquakes and wars, floods and famines-but it set pulls everything together through the process of also sees the need to engage in the slower, more delicate change-in self, relationships, organization, and context task of building a capacity for action that is careful, The practice of managing, then, involves five perthoughtful, and tailored to local conditions and needs. spectives, which correspond to the five modules of our Many business organizations face a similar problem program: they know how to execute, but they are not so adept at • Managing self the reflective mind-set stepping back to reflect on their situations. Others face • Managing organizations: the analytic mind-set the opposite predicament: They get so mired in thinking • Managing context: the worldly mind-set about their problems that they can't get things done fast • Managing relationships: the collaborative mind-set enough. We all know bureaucracies that are great at plan• Managing change: the action mind-set ning and organizing but slow to respond to market forces, If you are a manager, this is your world! just as we're all acquainted with the nimble companies Let us make clear several characteristics of this set of that react to every stimulus, but sloppily, and have to be sets. First, we make no claim that our framework is either constantly fixing things. And then, of course, there are scientific or comprehensive. It simply has proved useful those that suffer from both afflictions-for example, firms in our work with managers, including in our master's prowhose marketing departments are absorbed with grand gram. (For more on the program, see the sidebar "Mindpositioning statements while their sales forces chase Sets for Management Development.") Second, we ask you every possible deal. to consider each of these managerial mind-sets as an attiThose two aspects establish the bounds of managetude, a frame of mind that opens new vistas. Unless you ment: Everything that every effective manager does is get into a reflective frame of mind, for example, you cansandwiched between action on the ground and reflection not open yourself to new ideas. You might not even notice in the abstract. Action without reflection is thoughtless; such ideas in the first place without a worldly frame of reflection without action is passive. Every manager has mind. And, of course, you cannot appreciate the buzz, the to find a way to combine these two mind-sets-to funcvistas, and the opportunities of actions unless you ention at the point where reflective thinking meets practigage in them. cal doing. Third, a word on our word "mind-sets." We do not use it But action and refiection about what? One obvious anto set any manager's mind. All of us have had more than swer is: about collaboration, about getting things done coenough of that. Rather, we use the word in the spirit of operatively with other people-in negotiations, for exama fortune one of us happened to pull out of a Chinese ple, where a manager cannot act alone. Another answer cookie recently: "Get your mind set. Confidence will lead is that action, refiection, and collaboration have to be you on." We ask you to get your mind set around five key rooted in a deep appreciation of reality in all its facets. We ideas. Then, not just confidence but coherence can lead call this mind-set worldly, which the Oxford English Dictio- you on. Think, too, of these mind-sets as mind-5/^hfs-pernary defines as "experienced in life, sophisticated, practispectives. But be aware that, improperly used, they can cal." Finally, action, reflection, and collaboration, as well as also be mine sites. Too much of any of them-obsessive anworldliness, must subscribe to a certain rationality or alyzing or compulsive collaborating, for instance-and the logic; they rely on an analytic mind-set, too. mind-set can blow up in your face. So we have five sets ofthe managerial mind, five ways in which managers interpret and deal with fhe world Managing Self: around them. Fach has a dominant subject, or target, of its own. For reflection, the subject is the self; there can be The Reflective Mind-Set no insight without self-knowledge. Collaboration takes Managers who are sent off to development courses these days often find themselves being welcomed to "boot Jonathan Gosling is the director ofthe Centre for Leadership camp." This is no country club, they are warned; you'll Studies at the University of Exeter in Exeter, England. Henry have to work hard. But this is wrongheaded. While manMintzberg is the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies agers certainly don't need a country club atmosphere for at McGill University in Montreal and the author of theforth- development, neither do they need boot camp. Most mancoming book Managers Not MBAs/rom Berrett-Koehler. agers we know already live boot camp every day. Be- The Five Managerial Mind-Sets 56 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW The Five Minds of a Manager sides, in real boot camps, soldiers learn to march and obey, not to stop and think. These days, what managers desperately need /5 to stop and think, to step back and reflect thoughtfully on their experiences. Indeed, in his book Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky makes the interesting point that events, or "happenings," become experience only after they have been reflected upon thoughtfully: "Most people do not accumulate a body of experience. Most people go through life undergoing a series of happenings, which pass through their systems undigested. Happenings become experiences when they are digested, when they are reflected on, related to generai patterns,and synthesized." These days, what managers desperately need is to stop and think-to step back and reflect thoughtfully on their experiences. ; ,, -•. .. ~. Unless the meaning is understood, managing is mindless. Hence we take reflection to be that space suspended between experience and explanation, where the mind makes the connections. Imagine yourself in a meeting when someone suddenly erupts with a personal rant. You're tempted to ignore or dismiss the outburst-you've heard, affer all, that the person is having problems at home. But why not use it to reflect on your own reaction-whether embarrassment, anger, or frustration-and so recognize some comparable feelings in yourself? Your own reaction now becomes a learning experience for you: You have opened a space for imagination, between your experience and your explanation. It can make al! the difference. Organizations may not need "mirror people," who see in everything only reflections of their own behavior. But neither do they need "window people," who cannot see beyond the images in front of them. They need managers who see both ways - in a sense, ones who look out the window at dawn, to see through their own reflections to the awakening world outside. "Reflect" in Latin means to refold, which suggests that attention tums inward so that it can be turned outward. This means going beyond introspection. It means looking in so that you can better see out in order to perceive a familiar thing in a different way - a product as a service, maybe, or a customer as a partner. Does that not describe the thinking of the really successful managers, the Andy Groves ofthe world? Compare such people with the Messiers and Lays, who dazzle with great mergers and grand strategies before burning out their companies. NOVEMBER 2003 Likewise, reflective managers are able to see behind in order to look ahead. Successful "visions" are not immaculately conceived; they are painted, stroke by stroke, out of the experiences of the past. Reflective managers, in other words, have a healthy respect for history not just the grand history of deals and disasters but also the everyday history of all the little actions that make organizations work. Consider in this regard Kofi Annan's deep personal understanding ofthe United Nations, a comprehension that has been the source of his ability to help move that complex body to a different and better place. You must appreciate the past if you wish to use the present to get to a better future. Managing Organizations: The Analytical Mind-Set Literally, analysis means to "let loose" (from the Greek ana, meaning"up"and/yef>?, meaning"loosen"). Analysis loosens up complex phenomena by breaking them into component parts-by decomposing them. Analysis happens everywhere - in context (industry analysis), with relationships (360-degree assessments), and so on. But it is especially related to organization. You simply can't get organized without analysis, especially in a large company. Good analysis provides a language for organizing; it allows people to share an understanding of what is driving their efforts; it provides measures for performance. And organizational structure itself is fundamentally analytic-it is a means of decomposition to establish the division of labor. Just look at any organization chart, with all the boxes neatly lined up. Picture the modem manager in an office in a tall building, looking down on the grid ofthe city below and across at the offices of companies in other buildings. From this perspective, the manager does not see individual people so much as systems of organization, power, and communication. Turning around, that manager is surrounded by 57 The Five Minds of a Manager the plush paraphemalia of his or her own company, the fruits of many people's tireless work on structures and systems and techniques. All of this represents analysis in the conventional sense: order and decomposition. How is such a manager to escape the analytic mind-set? We prefer a different question: How is the manager to get truly inside the analytic mind-set, beyond the superficialities of obvious analysis, into the essential meanings of structures and systems? The key to analyzing effectively, in our view, is to get beyond conventional approaches in order to appreciate how analysis works and what effect it has on the organization. Consider three related tasks, one simple, one complicated, one complex. Building a pleasure boat can be relativeiy straightforward-it's about such things as the ratio of displacement to length. Building an aircraft carrier is far more complicated, involving the coordination of all kinds of subsystems and supply networks. Yet even here the component parts can be readily understood and the necessary behaviors made rather predictable. But a decision on whether or not to deploy that aircraff carrier can he truly complex: Who is to say with any certainty what is the right thing to do, or even what is the best thing under the circumstances? Making that kind of complex decision means standing above shallow analysis and easy technique - just running the numbers-and going deeper into the analytic mind-set. You have to take into account soff data, including the values underlying such choices. Deep analysis does not seek to simplify complex decisions, but to sustain the complexity while maintaining the organization's capacity to take action. That was the great power of Winston Churchill's rhetoric during World War 11. His simple expressions captured the complexity that was Great Britain and the war in which it was engaged. others to change course, and helped resolve problems. Was this analysis or reflection? It was reflective analysis. The problem for many managers today, as well as the business schools that train them, is not a lack of analysis hut too much of it-at least, too much conventional analysis. This is exemplified by that popular metaphor in finance ofthe tennis player who watches the Scoreboard while missing the ball (much like the marketer who studies the crowd while missing the sale). The trick in the analytic mind-set is to appreciate scores and crowds while watching the ball. Managing Context: The Worldly Mind-Set We live on a globe that from a distance looks pretty uniform. "Globalization" sees the world from a distance, assuming and encouraging a certain homogeneity of behavior. Is that what we want from our managers? A closer look reveals something rather different. Far from being uniform, this world is made up of all kinds of worlds. Should we not, then, be encouraging our manag- From Global We have come across examples of deep analysis from managers participating in our own program who were being forced into obvious decisions by shallow analyses: Close the plant, speed up a slow project. After studying the analytic mind-set during the second module of our program, they went back to their jobs and probed more deeply. They analyzed the analyses of others-where these people were coming from, what data and assumptions they were using. They dug out other sorts of information that didn't make it into the conventional analyses and found limitations in the techniques used. Most important, they recognized biases in their own thinking. As a result, they saw things differently, encouraged 58 to Worldly By getting out of their offices and appreciating what the world looks like from the places where products are made and customers are served, managers can become truly worldly instead of merely global. The worldly perspective acknowledges that life on this globe is made up of all kinds of worlds. The Global View The Worldly View what matters is generalizations about markets, values, and management practices. What matters is attention paid to particular responses to specific conditions. Local consequences are of less importance than overall economic performance. Global companies are not really responsible for local consequences. Local consequences are a key indicator of performance, which has to add social as well as economic value. Companies are responsible for the local consequences of their actions. Traveling around the world, we see a blur of differences. Landing in different places, we join a plurality of worldviews. The world is converging toward a common culture. This is a world made up of edges and boundaries, like a patchwork. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW The Five Minds of a Manager ers to be more worldly, more experienced in life, in both "How can you possibly drive in this traffic?" an Amerisophisticated and practical ways? In other words, should can marketing manager from Lufthansa, shaken up durwe not be getting into worlds beyond our own-into other ing her ride from the airport, asked an Indian professor. people's circumstances, habits, cultures - so that we can He replied,"I just join theflow."Leaming can begin! That better know our own world? To paraphrase T.S. Fliot's is not chaos on the streets of India, but another kind of famous words, should we not explore ceaselessly in order logic. When you realize it, you have become that much to retum home and know the place for the flrst time? more worldly. That to us is the worldly mind-set. We ask the participants in our program, after they go Being worldly does not require global coverage, just as back to work between sessions, to write reflection paglobal coverage does not a worldly mind-set make. Inpers on what they've leamed at the modules. Affer the deed, global coverage does not even ensure a global perIndia module, a Russian manager from the Red Cross, spective, given that the managers of so many "global" with his own share of third-world experiences, wrote companies are rooted in the culture ofthe headquarters' about seeing a pile of tires with a huge black cross on it: country. But there are companies that seem to be reason"Black Cross: The Clinic for Tires" read the sign. He was ably global as well as worldly-a Shell, perhaps. Shell has, of course, long covered the globe. But because of social pressures, including a headquarters that has always had to work across two Be global, managers are told, and cultures (Dutch and British), it has struck us in be local. Change and maintain order. personal contacts as rather worldly. By this we mean that the company tailors and blends its How is anyone supposed to reconcile parts across the world, socially and environa l l this? The fact is, no one can. mentally as well as economically. It must flnd and extract oil without violating the rights of the people under whose territories the oil sits, and it has to refine and sell that oil in ways that are restruck hy a symbol so familiar to him used in such a radispectful of the local environment. That may seem clear cally different context. He wrote: "Once again India [has enough today, but think about what companies like Shell reminded me] how interdependent, similar, and different went through to get there. at the same time are our worlds." This is the worldly mindWe conclude from this that while global managers may set in action: seeing differently out to reflect differently spend a lot of time in the air, and not just literally, they hein. We might say that the worldly mind-set puts the recome worldly when their feet are planted firmly on the flective one into context. ground of eclectic experience. That means getting out of In our view, to manage context is to manage on the their offices, beyond the towers, to spend time where edges, between the organization and the various worlds products are produced, customers served, and environthat surround it - cultures, industries, companies. What ments threatened. (For a comparison of the global and Ray Raphael has written about "Edges," in his book by the worldly worldviews, see the exhibit "From Global to that title, is germane to every manager: Worldly.") Many of the most interesting things, say the bioloOf course, shifting from a global to a worldly perspecgists, happen on the Edges-on the interface between tive is not easy. In James Clavell's novel Shogun, a Japathe woods and the field, the land and the sea. There, livnese woman tells her British lover, who is perplexed by ing organisms encounter dynamic conditions that give the strange world of seventeenth-century Japan into rise to untold variety.... which he has fallen, "It's all so simple, Anjin-san. just Variety, perhaps, but there is tension as well. The change your concept ofthe worid." Just! flora of the meadows, for example, as they approach But maybe it's not quite as hard as it seems. One way to the woodlands, find themselves coping with increasbegin (as in the novel) is through immersion in a strange ingly unfavorable conditions: the sunlight they need context: Get into someone else's world as a mirror to your might be lacking, and the soil no longer feels right. own. That is why we hold our program's module on the There is also the problem of competition with alien worldly mind-set in India: For all but the Indian managspecies of trees and shmbs. The Edges, in short, might ers, India is not just another world, but, in a sense, otherabound with life, but each living form must fight for worldly. Being there, especially among fellow managers its own. from Indian companies, takes the non-Indian participants past the nice abstractions of economic, political, and soNo wonder managers must be worldly. They have cial differences, down onto the streets, where these difto mediate those wide zones where organization meets ferences come alive. context - not just, for example, "customers" acting in NOVEMBER 2003 59 The Five Minds of a Manager When John Kotter was asked if the members ofthe Harvard Business School class of 1974, whose careers he followed in his book The New Rules, were team players, he replied, "I think it fair to say that these people want to create Managing Relationships: the team and lead it to some glory The Collaborative as opposed to being a member of a team that's being driven by Mind-Set somebody else." That is not the It need hardly be said that mancollaborative mind-set. Having to aging is about working with peorun the team may be necessary at ple - not just as bosses and subtimes - although we suspect it's ordinates but, more important, needed far less often than most as colleagues and partners. Yet people think - but it hardly repdespite all the rhetoric about resents a collaborative point of collaboration, in the West, at view, nor does it foster teamleast, we often take a narrow work. Leaders don't do most of view. Thanks to the influence of the things that their organizaeconomic theory, we see people tions get done; they do not even as independent actors, detachmake them get done. Rather, they able human "resources" or "ashelp to establish the structures, sets" that can be moved around, conditions, and attitudes through bought and sold, combined, and which things get done. And that "downsized." That is not the colrequires a collaborative mind-set. laborative mind-set. We talk a great deal about netIf you picture yourself on In fact, our own original defiworks these days, as well as teams, top of a network,looking down nition of the collaborative mindtask forces, alliances, and knowlon it, then you are out of it. set got a jolt when our Japanese edge work. Yet we still picture How can you possibly manage colleagues began to design the managers on "top." Well, then, picprogram's fourth module. It had its relationships that way? ture yourself on top of a network, been called Managing People. looking down on it. That puts you But they pointed out that a truly out of it; how can you possibly manage its relationships collaborative mind-set does not involve managi that way? To be in a collaborative mind-set means to be ple so much as the relationships among people, in teams inside, involved, to manage throughout But it has a more and projects as well as across divisions and alliances. Getprofound meaning, too - to get management beyond ting into a tmly collaborative mind-set means getting managers, to distribute it so that responsibility flows natbeyond empowerment-a word implying that the people urally to whoever can take the initiative and pull things who know the work best must somehow receive the blesstogether. Think of self-managing teams, of slaink works; ing of their managers to do it - and into commitment. It indeed, think of who "manages" the World Wide Web. also means getting away from the currently popular heroic style of managing and moving toward a more engaging style. "markets," however "differentiated," but all those particular people in particular places buying and using products in their own particular ways. Managing Change: Engaging managers listen more than they talk; they get out of their offices to see and feel more than they remain in them to sit and figure. By being worldly themselves, they foster collaboration among others. And they do less controlling, thus allowing other people to be in greater control of their own work. If "I deem, so that you do" is the implicit motto of the heroic manager, then for the engaging manager it is "We dream, so that we do." Our Japanese colleagues call this "leadership in the background"-it lets as many ordinary people as possible lead. (For a comparison of heroic and engaging management, see the exhibit "TWo Ways to Manage.") 60 The Action Mind-Set Imagine your organization as a chariot pulled by wild horses. (That may be easy for you to do!) These horses represent the emotions, aspirations, and motives of all the people in the organization. Holding a steady course requires just as much skill as steering around to a new direction. Philosophers from Plato to Vivekenanda have used this metaphor to describe the need to harness emotional energy; it works well for management, too. An action mindset, especially at senior levels, is not about whipping the HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW The Five Minds of a Manager horses into a frenzy, careening hither and yon. It is about mobilize energy around those things that need changing, developing a sensitive awareness of the terrain and of while being careful to maintain the rest. And make no what the team is capable of doing in it and thereby helpmistake about it, managing continuity is no easier than ing to set and maintain direction, coaxing everyone along. managing change. Remember those wild horses. Action, and especially change, need no introduction, of The dominant view of managing change is Cartesian: course. Everybody today understands them and the need Action results from deliberate strategies, carefully planned, for them. That's the problem. that tmfold as systematically managed sequences of deciThere is now an overwhelming emphasis on action at sions. That is the analytic mind-set, not the action one. the expense of reflection. The Red Cross Federation is Monsanto went into genetically engineered agriculture unusual, not in experiencing this problem, but in being with that approach, with its strategy all worked out in aware of it. In addition, people are obsessed with change these days. We are told, relentlessly, that we live in times of great upheaval, that everything is changing, so we had better be in a constant state of alert. Change or else. Well, then, look around. Heroic management Engaging management What do you see that has changed re(based on self) (based on collaboration) cently? Your clothing? (Your grandparents wore cotton and wool; they too butManagers are important people, Managers are important to the extent toned buttons.) Your car? (It uses the separate from those who develop that they help other people do the basic technology of the Model T.) The products and deliver services. important work of developing airplane you're flying in? (That technolproducts and delivering services. ogy is newer: the flrst commercial jet aircraft took flight in 1952.) Your teleThe higher "up" these managers go, An organization is an interacting phone? (That changed - about ten years the more important they become. network, not a vertical hierarchy. ago. Unless, of course, you are not using At the "top," the chief executive is Effective leaders work throughout; a cellular phone.) the corporation. they do not sit on top. Two Ways to Manage Our point is not that nothing is changing. No, something is always changing. Right now it is information technology. But many other things are not changing at all - and these we don't notice (like buttons). We tend to focus on what is changing and conclude that everything is. That is hardly a reflective mind-set, and it is detrimental as well to the action mind-set. We have to sober up to the reality that change is not pervasive, and that the phenomenon of change is not new. If the reflective mind-set has to respect history, then the action mind-set could use a little humility. Change has no meaning without continuity. There is a name for everything changing all the time: anarchy. No one wants to live with that, certainly no organization that wishes to survive. Businesses are judged by the products they sell and the services they render, not the changes they make. So change cannot be managed without continuity. Accordingly, the trick in the action mind-set is to NOVEMBER 2003 Down the hierarchy comes the strategy-clear, deliberate, and bold-emanating from the chief, who makes the dramatic moves. Everyone else "implements." Out ofthe network emerge strategies, as engaged people solve little problems that grow Into big initiatives. Implementation is the problem because, while the chief embraces change, most others resist it. That is why outsiders must be favored over insiders. Implementation is the problem because it cannot be separated from formulation. That is why committed insiders are necessary to come up with the key changes. To manage is to make decisions and allocate resources-including human resources. Managing thus means analyzing, often calculating, based on facts from reports. To manage is to bring out the positive energy that exists naturaily within people. Managing thus means inspiring and engaging, based on judgment that is rooted in context. Rewards for increasing performance go to the leaders. What matters is what's measured-shareholder value, in particular. Rewards for making the organization a better place go to everyone. Human values, many of which cannot be measured, matter. Leadership is thrust upon those who thrust their will upon others. Leadership is a sacred trust earned through the respect of others. 61 The Five Minds of a Manager advance. With control of seed varieties and certain pesticides and fertilizers, it could bring an entire ecosystem to the market. And it had the research capacity and presence worldwide to do it. So it set about a series of brilliantly conceived acquisitions and effectively positioned the company to be the Microsoft of agribusiness. But the fanners and consumers weren't there - they were more enthusiastic about continuity at that point-and the plan collapsed. Change, to be successful, cannot follow some mechanistic schedule of steps, of formulation followed by im- plementation. Action and reflection have to blend in a naturalflow.And that has to include collaboration. Satish Kumar, the director of the Schumacher Institute in the United Kingdom, put it nicely in the title of his latest book. You Are Therefore 1 Am: A Declaration of Dependence. We had better be reflectively collaborative, as well as analytically worldly, if we wish to accomplish effective change. Of course, energized action is necessary too, but that doesn't mean being hyperactive or flddling around endlessly with structure. It means remaining curious, alert. Mind-Sets for Management Development IN 1996, when we founded the International Masters Program in Practicing Management with colleagues from around the world, we developed the managerial mind-sets as a new way to structure management education and development. Managers are sent to the IMPM by their companies, preferably in groups of four or five. They stay on the job, coming into our classrooms for five modules of two weeks each, one for each ofthe mind-sets, over a period of 16 months. We open with a module on the reflective mind-set. The module is located at Lancaster University In the reflective atmosphere of northern Engiand-the nearby hills and lakes inspire reflection on the purpose of life and work. Then it is on to McGill University in Montreal, where the grid-like regularity ofthe city reflects the energy and order ofthe analytic mind-set. The worldly mind-set on context comes alive atthe Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, where new technologies jostle ancient traditions on the crowded streets. Then comes the collaborative mind-set, hosted by faculty in Japan, where collaboration has been the key to managerial innovations, and Korea, where alliances and partnerships have become the basis for business growth. Last is the action mind-set module, located at Insead in France, where emerging trends from around the world convert into lessons for managerial action. So our locations not only teach the mindsets but also encourage the participating man- 62 agers to live them. And so have we, in the very conception ofthe program. Our approach to management development is fundamentally reflective. We believe managers need to step back from the pressures of their jobs and reflect thoughtfully on their experiences. We as faculty members bring concepts; the participants bring experience. Learning occurs where these meet-in individual heads, small groups, and all together. Our 50-50 rule says that half the classroom time should be turned over to the participants, on their agendas. The program is fully collaborative all around,There is no lead school; much ofthe organizational responsibility is distributed. Likewise, the faculty's relationship with the participants is collaborative. And faculty members work closely with the participating companies, which over the past eight years have included Mean, BT, EDF Croup and Gazde France, Fujitsu, the International Red Cross Federation, LG, Lufthansa, Matsushita, Motorola, Royal Bank of Canada, and Zeneca. We think of our setting as being especially worldly, because the participating managers andfacultyhosttheir colleagues at home, in their own cultures, and are guests abroad. We also believe that the program's reflective orientation allows us to probe into analysis more deeply than in regular education and work. Finally, our own purpose is action: We seek fundamental change in management education worldwide-to help change business schools into true schools of management. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW T h e Five M i n d s o f a M a n a g e r experimental. Changing is a leaming process, and so is maintaining course. We may thinl< of stasis as the norm and change as driven, but it doesn't have to be that way. Active members of an organization may resist change imposed on them because they understand that the change would be dysfunctional. And they in tum may engage in "silent change" of their own, continually re-creating operations for better performance. Weaving the Mind-Sets Together Clearly, these five mind-sets do not represent hard-andfast categories. We need distinct labels for them, but they obviously overlap, and they are more than mere words. They are more than metaphors too, but a metaphor can help us understand how they come together. Imagine the mind-sets as threads and the manager as weaver. Effective performance means weaving each mind-set over and under the others to create a fine, sturdy cloth. You analyze, then you act. But that does not work as expected, so you reflect. You act some more, then find yourself blocked, realizing that you cannot do it alone. You have to collaborate. But to do that, you have to get into the world of others. Then more analysis follows, to articulate the new insights. Now you act again - and so it goes, as the cloth of your effort forms. But one piece of cloth is not enough. An organization is a collective entity that achieves common purpose when the cloths of its various managers are sewn together into useful garments - when the organization's managers collaborate to combine their reflective actions in analytic, worldly ways. We have been emphasizing the need for all managers to get deeply into all five mind-sets. But many managers naturally tilt to one or another, depending on their situations and personal inclinations. Some people are more reflective than others, some more action oriented, some more analytic, and so on. Finance and marketing have their share of calculating managers (lots of analysis), salespeople can sometimes be a little too worldly, those from HR a little too enthusiastic about collaboration. So the weaving often has to be collaborative, too, like the sewing, as managers come to understand one another and combine their strengths. Companies have been quite concerned about seamlessness in recent years. Yet we all appreciate seams that are nicely sewn, just as we appreciate mind-sets that are nicely combined. Effective organizations tailor handsome results out of the woven mind-sets of their managers. ^ Reprint R0311C; HBR OnPoint 5364 To order, see page 141. "Money's out ofthe question. How about a cup of sugar?" NOVEMBER 2003 63
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