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On Henry Mintzberg's Model of Managing

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 On Henry Mintzberg’s Model of Managing
Phuong Nguyen
Centre Franco-Vietnamien de formation à la Gestion (CFVG), Vietnam
nphuong@cfvg.org

1. About the Author

Henry Mintzberg is one of “the world’s premier management thinkers” as credited

by Tom Peters on the front cover of Mintzberg’s book Managing (Mintzberg, 2009a).
He currently is a Cleghorn professor of management studies at Desautels faculty of
management, McGill University in Montreal.

Mintzberg earned his Ph.D. from Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, in 1968 on a thesis as “The Manager at Work – Determining
his Activities, Roles and Programs by Structured Observation” (Mintzberg, 1968).
Since his primary interest is about management, he has published several break-
through books on the subject. The first book of his, The Nature of Managerial Work,
published in 1973, was about roles and characteristics of managerial work which was
based on his Ph.D. thesis. His other books on management include Mintzberg on
Management: Inside Our Strange World of Organizations (Mintzberg, 1989),
Managers Not MBAs: a Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management
Development (Mintzberg, 2004), and Management: It’s not what you think (Mintzberg,
Ahlstrand, & Lampel, 2010).

Henry Mintzberg is one of the founders of the International Masters Program in

Practicing Management (IMPM) in 1996 which is designed for experienced managers,
focusing on insights and learning derived from the manager's experience
(www.impm.org). Henry Mintzberg was named in Who’s Who in America in the year
of 1982 and Who’s Who in the World of the year 1999. Among his awards, there was
the Distinguished Scholar Award for Contributions to Management, Academy of
Management, in the year 2000 (Mintzberg, 2010).

In early 2011, the book Managing was named as the Chartered Management
Institute’s Management Book of the Year. The Management Book of the Year

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competition, run by the Chartered Management Institute in association with the British
Library, seeks to credit the best books on management and leadership. Mintzberg’s
Managing won the competition from a field of 145 entries, a victory over a shortlist of
15 business and management authors.

2. The purposes of this paper

The aims of this article are (1) to briefly review major focus of management
components published before Mintzberg’s Model of Managing, (2) to provide a short
synthesis of the Model of Managing, and (3) to offer a discussion on its implications
for the practice of management.

3. Management Components of Focus before Model of Managing

The world witnessed several significant focuses of management components from

outstanding gurus such as Henri Fayol, Tom Peters, Michael Porter, Warren Bennis
and Herbert Simon (Mintzberg, 2009a, p. 43–44). Although being considered by
Mintzberg as isolated parts of management the gurus’ ideas have been well recognized
years before Mintzberg’s work on the Model of Managing was published in 2009.
These gurus’ focus of management components focus on various single elements of
the management which have been proven to significantly impact the practice of
management at their time or in specific business circumstances.

Henri Fayol was the author of one of the first general theories of management. He
proposed six management functions and 14 principles of management which pioneered
the knowledge of management science (Narayanan & Nath, 1993). His focus was on
the control area of management. Controlling is described in the sense that a manager
must receive feedback about a business process to make necessary adjustments and
action. Fayol’s work has been proven relevant up-to-today as contemporary
management applies this controlling process in business, especially in financial
management. Tom Peters recommends organizations and managers to live on action-
orientation. Arguing that no matter how good a firm’s strategy is if it is not
implemented or poorly implemented business results cannot be assured Peters focus
management efficiency on “a bias for action” within firms (Peters & Waterman, 1988).
The focus of Peters on action would then goes against what Michael Porter pursues.

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Seeing a manager as a strategist, Porter emphasizes the analytical mindset of
management and proposes a model of industry competition that revolutionizes the field
of business strategy (Porter, 2008). Leadership has been intensively focused in the 20th
century’s practice of management for which Warren Bennis pioneers the world’s
leading school of thoughts (Bennis, 1999). Last but not least, decision making is
another essential management area from the gurus of the world citing Herbert Simon
as the author (Simon, 1997). Table 1 illustrates the main focused management
components aforementioned.

Table 1: Focused Management Components from the World’s Gurus

Author The focused Illustration

component

Henri Fayol Controlling Among the first general theory of management with
six primary functions of management and 14
principles of management (Narayanan & Nath,
1993). The six features of management with a focus
on controlling are “forecasting, planning, organizing,
commanding, coordinating, and controlling” (Fayol,
1949).

Tom Peters Doing Peters and his co-author, Waterman, in In Search of

Excellence (1988) pinpointed eight common themes
which were proven to be responsible for the success
of a firm in which the most critical theme is “a bias
for action, active decision making.” In a more recent
article, his emphasis maintained the theme as “a
persistent focus on simply doing stuff, not talking it
to death” (Peters, 2008).

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Table 1: Focused Management Components from the World’s Gurus (continued)

Author The focused Illustration

component
Michael Thinking Proposed the analysis of five competitive forces at an
Porter industry level that shapes competitive advantages of a
firm: the threat of new entrants, threats of substitute
products and services, bargaining power of suppliers,
bargaining power of buyers and in the center position
is rivalry among existing competitors. Porter
commented that analyzing the competition requires
managers “to think structurally about competition as it
is more important than ever” (2008).

Warren Leading Being as a thought leader in business and one of the

Bennis founders of the modern democratic management
philosophy, Bennis influenced the fields of
leadership and management theory significantly.
Leadership is essential in realizing “the full potential
of intellectual capital” which is one of the significant
factors that generate future competitive advantage of
organizations (Bennis, 1999).

Herbert Decision Administrative Behavior was Herbert Simon’s Ph.D.

Simon making dissertation and his first book on cognitive processes
of making rational human choices. Understanding
the decision-making process is at the heart of
organizations and management (Simon, 1997). There
are various factors such as human behaviors,
cognitive abilities, management techniques,
personnel policies, etc. which have a direct and
indirect influence on the making of decisions.

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4. The Model of Managing

Observing the different schools of thought on management from both practitioner

and academics points of view, Henry Mintzberg argues that management is not set of
various disconnected parts of the job as perceived by managers, nor a whole universal
job of listed individual tasks manager do as understood by academic scholars. Thirty
years after his Ph.D. dissertation on management (Mintzberg, 1968), Henry Mintzberg
admitted that his earliest work on management was just a consolidated list of things
that managers do rather than a model that helps managers understand their work
(2009a). Thereby, Mintzberg has attempted to identify a logical positioning of
different parts of managing in a practical framework. Nevertheless, his model is also
based on sound evidence of scholarly research work cited in the book. He proposed a
Model of Managing, not of management, implying that the job of managers is to be
perceived as practicing. His work was based on a qualitative study of structured
observation with twenty- nine managers with whom Mintzberg joined their working
days together.

By a quick review of previous thoughts on management, Mintzberg argues that

management is not just one of the following acts: controlling, doing, thinking and
analyzing, leading and decision making. Instead, managing is a blended set in a
meaningful way of all of these actions. Based on that argument the author started his
work on a Model of Managing as early as the year 1990 keeping the management
component focus from the gurus as underpinnings of his model. Figure 1 illustrates
one of his early works on the model in which some of the attention of the other gurus’
component focus, such as doing, thinking and leading, were pre-specified.

The different thing Mintzberg puts on his Model of Managing the appropriate
connection of the components. Thus, his purpose is not to propose a new
comprehensive list of things managers do but a Model of Managing that managers can
refer to understand their work, to overview the required competencies managers need
to obtain and to help make a right balance of different managerial roles. It is the
content of managing, in other words, what a manager does in an ordinary day of his
work. The model is expected to be more generalized so that it can be applied broadly.
As explained by him, the way Mintzberg did in the early step of his work was just to

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simply put all the main components of managing into one page of a paper and try to
reorganize the elements into order, logic and relationship. Figure 2 depicts Mintzberg’s
Model of Managing published in 2009 nineteen years after his start to work on the
model.

Figure 1: An early work on the Model of Managing by Mintzberg (2009b).

Figure 2: The Model of Managing (Mintzberg, 2009a, p. 48).

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 As discussed in section 3 of this paper, the Model of Managing is nested on the
underpinnings of management components from the world’s management gurus (Table
2).

Table 2: The Underpinnings of Model of Managing

The element of the model Major management Author

components

The manager as the center A combination of

management components

Information plane Thinking, analyzing Michael Porter

Controlling Henri Fayol

Decision making Herbert Simon

People plane Leading Warren Bennis

Action plane Doing Tom Peters

Decision making Herbert Simon

In the Model of Managing the manager is positioned in the center whereas his
surroundings include his managed unit, the rest of the organization and the outside
world relevant to his unit. From the center, the manager has three different approaches:
his directly doing, his managing information, and his leading people. That is the
primary structure of the model, and as named by Mintzberg they are the information
plane, people plane, and action plane. Descriptions of roles and sub-roles of a
manager in the three planes can be reviewed in Table 3.

As the center, the manager has two major roles: framing and scheduling his work
on top of the managing actions. Framing is defined as how the manager approaches his
job. It has different facets of management such as making decisions, developing
strategies, focusing on particular issues. Scheduling is the manager’s time management
and involves much in the business planning process which indeed has impacted not
only on his work and but also on his people’s work in the unit.

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Table 3: Managerial Roles and Sub-roles (Adapted from Mintzberg, 2009a, p. 90)

The manager Framing and Scheduling

Internal External
Information Plane Communicating
Monitoring Spokesperson
Nerve center Nerve center
Disseminating
Controlling
Designing
Delegating
Designating
Distributing
Deeming
People Plane Leading Linking
Energizing individuals Networking
Developing individuals Representing
Building teams Convincing,
Strengthening culture Conveying
Transmitting
Buffering
Action Plane Doing Dealing
Managing projects Building coalitions
Handling disturbances Mobilizing support

The first plane is about dealing, handling and utilizing information in which a
manager controls the process of information as to encourage his subordinates to do
their jobs. The information plane consists of communicating all around, inside and
outside, his unit and his organization, and controlling his unit. Communicating
consumes much of a manager’s time as to collect and disseminate information. By
communicating the manager can monitor the business, and be a central role of
information which every other person in the unit keeps him informed of the different
business perspectives. The manager can also act as a spokesperson for the unit and
sometimes for the organization in one or another circumstance. Informal information
obtained through listening, seeing and feeling will also help a manager to be able to

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manage information. This type of information is essential in understanding his people
and his unit. Controlling is the role of a manager to direct the behaviors of his people.
Furthermore, control is practiced through the decision-making process in which
deeming, delegating, designing, designating, and distributing are major steps (Figure
3). Controlling on the information plane is essential, but it always has to do with the
other two planes, people, and action. Otherwise, it is not managing.

Figure 3: Controlling through Decision Making (Mintzberg, 2009a, p. 59)

The people plane concerns with managing with people and through people in a
closer step to actions. It includes leading people in the unit and linking people just
outside the unit, within the organization or even outside of it. Leading people can be
practiced at two levels: individual subordinates for motivating and developing
individuals, and team or a whole unit for building and maintaining the teams, and for
establishing and strengthening the organization’s or the unit’s culture. While leading
looks inside the unit, linking looks out the way of the unit to develop and maintain a
relationship with individuals and groups relevant to the business of the unit. A
structure of linking role of the manager is illustrated in Figure 4. The role of linking
comprises activities of networking, representing, conveying and convincing,
transmitting, and buffering. These acts help managers manage at the boundaries of his
unit to protect it and to promote it in different business circumstances.

The last plane of managing concerns with direct action. While managing
information is abstract and conceptual, and managing people become closer to action
with personal and emotional elements, managing action is more active and concrete.
Doing inside the unit involves in managing projects and handling problems proactively
reactively and efficiently. Dealing outside the unit includes building coalitions and
rapports and conducting negotiations. As doing connects to people and information,

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doing is a principal plane for managers. It helps managers gain more knowledge and
make better strategic decisions.

Figure 4: The Linking Process (Mintzberg, 2009a, p. 75)

A conclusion on the three planes of managing is that a manager needs to have a

dynamic balance between thinking and analyzing information, leading people, and his
direct actions. This dynamic balance is essential to effective management. Further to
Table 3 on the roles and sub-roles of a manager, Mintzberg provides a detailed
description of competencies required to fulfill the managerial functions. Furthermore,
when managing the boundaries between the planes blurs, in practice, it is not possible
to distinguish the planes behaviorally.

The roles and sub-roles of managing and their sub-roles can even cross over into
the others. For example, managers sometimes have to deal, not do, with their
subordinates who obsess specialized skills and on the other hand, they may need to do
with outsiders for a particular reason. The vertical and horizontal relationships in
managing are illustrated in Figure 4. It is because of the trend that organizations are
becoming increasingly flat and the networking between a firm’s employees and their
coalitions become enlarging.

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 Figure 5: Vertical and Horizontal Relationships in Managing
(Mintzberg, 2009a, p. 93)

5. Implications of the Model of Managing

As stated in the Preface of the book Managing (Mintzberg, 2009a, p. xi), its target
primary readers are managers, the book in general and the Model of Managing in
particular offer managers and organizations useful applications. The model is not the
generic combination of the management components in such a simple piece of paper,
but Mintzberg attempted to examine the interrelationship between them and ensured
they are in a more meaningful and logical way. The model has the following
significant managerial implications.

First, Model of Managing draws in details a comprehensive and logical structure of

what managers must practice. A suggestion of Henry Mintzberg on the composition of
managerial competencies is presented in Table 4. Organizations can use the model to
identify required competencies of managers and design appropriate executive
education programs for their managers. The model would be beneficial for managers
to understand and reflect their work, and prepare themselves for further development
programs. This orientation tool is critical to ensure such managers will not fail in their
beginning career path of management as well. For example, the list of managerial
competencies is found to be quite matching with the content of a management
education programs offered by Johnson & Johnson managers in the 2000’s (Table 5).
It is interesting to note that the program at Johnson & Johnson was designed for newly

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appointed managers, not for experienced managers, implying that the importance of
the skills and competencies to be developed at the beginning state of the career path at
the firm. Such development programs in organizations would help managers better do
their jobs.

Table 4: Competencies of Managing Source: Mintzberg, 2009a, p. 91.

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 or mentoring or coaching, inspiring,
dealing with experts)
2. Leading groups (team building, resolving conflicts or mediating, facilitating
processes, running meetings)
3. Leading the organization or unit (building culture)
4. Administering (organizing, resource allocating, delegating, authorizing,
systematizing, goal setting, performance appraising)
5. Linking the organization or unit (networking, representing, collaborating,
promoting or lobbying, protecting or buffering)
C. Informational Competencies
1. Communicating verbally (listening, interviewing, speaking or presenting or
briefing, writing, information gathering, information disseminating)
2. Communicating nonverbally (seeing, sensing)
3. Analyzing (data processing, modeling, measuring, evaluating)
D. Factional Competencies
1. Designing (planning, crafting, visioning)
2. Mobilizing (firefighting, project managing, negotiating or dealing, politicking,
managing change)

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 Table 5: A Management Fundamental Program for Managers
Source: Ken Blanchard Training Program for Johnson & Johnson, 2003.

Main area Course contents Compatibility with

Model of Managing

Self- Roles of the Manager The manager

Management Critical Transition Issues The manager
Communications Information plane
Decision Making Information plane

Talent People selection interviewing People plane

Management People retention People plane
Managing poor performers People plane

Coaching Goals setting People plane

Feedback People plane
Coaching People plane
Delegation People plane
Managing low contributors People plane

Leadership Influence and Leadership People plane

Motivation People plane
Breakthrough thinking Information plane

Teamwork Stages of team development People plane

Group dynamics People plane
Team communications People plane
Problem-solving People plane
Team leadership People plane
Provocative dialogue People plane
Developing ground rules People plane

Second, the Model of Managing challenges contemporary education programs such

as MBA. According to Henry Mintzberg, there has been a substantial disconnection
between the practice of managing and what was taught in MBA classes intended to
develop managers. Therefore, the challenge has been approached by Mintzberg and his
colleagues in many parts of the world by starting an entirely different master program
from MBA. The International Masters Program in Practicing Management (IMPM)
since 1996 has been attended by experienced managers from many organizations with

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excellent feedback from both the participants and their organizations. “Doing a better
job, not just getting a better job” is the uniqueness and the primary objective of IMPM
program. It focuses on management mindsets to help managers to share their
experience. The program is based on management as a practice, combining art, craft,
and science; it adopts the manager's point of view, and focuses on insights and
learning derived from the participants' experience. Table 6 gives a simple comparison
of MBA programs, the IMPM program, and organizations’ management development
programs.

Table 6: Positioning Management Education (Mintzberg, 2004, p. 361)

Common Business Education Management Education Management

Characteristic (MBA) (MPM) Development

Target audience Business aspirants, Experienced managers, Experienced

on own from companies managers, in
companies
Timing Full-time study Sequence of modules Short blocks
Organizing Business functions Managerial mindsets Corporate
framework concerns
Focus on Analyzing (models, Managing (judgment, Leading (skills or
theories, techniques) “soft skills”) knowledge)
Pedagogy Absorbing Reflecting on Applying ideas via
established experience via sharing projects and
knowledge via exercises
lectures and cases
Seating Tiered rows Roundtables Varied, with
break-out rooms
Ultimate Better decisions in Better judgment in Better skills in
intention general (science) context (craft) companies (art,
craft)

It would be a good example to give a real situation in which organizations follow

the idea of “managers, not MBA.” Table 7 is an extract from a presentation of a vice

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president of a multinational company to his managers in 2004. The excerpt shows the
expectation of the firm from managers for doing and performing, not knowing.

Table 7: What business schools may not teach managers?

Source: Presentation of vice president, Jay H. Chang, Janssen-Cilag, Johnson &
Johnson, March 2004

What managers learn from most What firms expect from managers
business schools

Accounting Vision, inspiring

Finance Ambitious

Human Resources Strong drive with high energy

Operation Boundaryless passion for learning

Marketing Get it done, action

I.T. Persistent

People, value, care, coaching

Integrity

To further understand the managerial utilities of Model of Managing it is necessary

to read the chapters of Managing following the one on Model of Managing. Mintzberg
helpfully offers further utilities for managers and organizations by decomposing the
paradox of managing as well as detailing recommendations for efficiently managing.
Although the paradoxical dilemma of managing is inherited like itself, Mintzberg did
provide recommendations and solutions for what managers can learn to practice the
management.

6. References

Bennis, W. (1999) The Leadership Advantage, Leader to Leader, 12.

Fayol, H. (1949). General and Industrial Management. London: Pitman.

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 Mintzberg, H., (1968) The Manager at Work - Determining his Activities, Roles, and
Programs by Structured Observation, Ph.D. dissertation. Retrieved from
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/14146/23907193.pdf?sequence=1
Mintzberg, H. (1973) The Nature of Managerial Work, Harpercollins College Division.
Mintzberg, H. (1989) Mintzberg on Management: Inside Our Strange World of
Organizations, Free Press.
Mintzberg, H. (2004) Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of
Managing and Management Development, Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Mintzberg, H. (2009a) Managing, Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Mintzberg, H. (2009b) The evolution of a model of managing. Retrieved from
http://www.mintzberg.org/sites/default/files/managingmodel.pdf
Mintzberg, H. (2010), Curriculum Vitae, Retrieved from
http://www.mintzberg.org/sites/default/files/CV_2010_Henry_Mintzberg.pdf
Mintzberg, H., Ahlstrand, B., & Lampel, J. (2010). Management: It’s not what you
think, AMACOM.
Narayanan, V. K., & Nath, R. (1993) Organization theory: a strategic approach,
Irwin.
Peters, T. J. (2008) Strategic Excellence, Leadership Excellence, 25(5), 13–14.
Peters, T. J., & Waterman, R. H. (1988). In search of excellence: Lessons from
America’s best-run companies. New York: Warner Books.
Porter, M. (2008) The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business
Review, 82–83.
Simon, H. A. (1997) Administrative Behavior, 4th Edition, Free Press.

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