Henry Mintzberg is an internationally renowned academic and author on business management. He received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and his PhD from MIT Sloan School of Management. Mintzberg developed several influential frameworks for understanding organizations, including organizational configurations that describe five valid organizational structures. He also identified 10 distinct managerial roles that describe the variety of activities managers engage in. Mintzberg's work emphasizes the importance of understanding what managers actually do in practice.

1. HENRY MINTZBERG
‘One of the Modern Thinkers in Management Discipline’
Source: Google / Wikipedia and Essentials of Management by Harold Koontz &
Heinz Weihrich / http://www.mintzberg.org/ other internet sources
[Recreated by: Dr. Sandeep Solanki, M.Com. (Bus. Admin.), MBA (Fin./Mktg.),
Ph.D. (Mktg. – CB); Sr. Lecturer (Marketing & General Management) & Head
Coordinator – Academics @SDSBCPS, Varkana, Pali, India]

2. About Henry Mintzberg
Henry Mintzberg was born on 02.09.1939 in Montreal, Canada, is an
internationally renowned academician and author on business management.
Completed his UG in Mechanical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of
McGill University and PG in Management in 1965 and PhD from MIT Sloan
School of Management in 1968. He is currently the Cleghorn Professor of
Management Studies at the Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill
University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada where he has been teaching since
1968. He has twice won the McKinsey Award for publishing the best article in
the HBR. Also he is credited with co-creating the Organigraph (can be created
as diagrams or as images which represent the nature of the firm. For example, a
computer company's organigraph could be in the form of a computer. The hard
drive could represent employees, the power supply could relate to its financing,
and the web browser could indicate the firm's strategy.), which is taught in the
business schools. From 1991 to 1999, he was a visiting professor at INSEAD. In
1997 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1998 he was made an
Officer of the National Order of Quebec. Mintzberg runs two programs at the
Desautels Faculty of Management: Internaltional Masters in Practicing
Management and International Masters for Health Leadership.

3. Contribution to Organization Theory
The organizational configurations framework of Mintzberg is a model that
describes five valid organizational configurations:
1. Simple Structure characteristic of entrepreneurial organization
2. Machine Bureaucracy
3. Professional Bureaucracy
4. Diversified Form
5. Adhocracy or Innovative Organization
According to the organizational configurations model of Mintzberg, each
organization can consist of maximum six basic parts:
1. Strategic Apex (top management)
2. Middle Line (middle management)
3. Operating Core (operations, operational processes)
4. Techno structure (analysts that design systems, processes, etc.)
5. Support Staff (support outside of operating workflow)
6. Ideology (halo of beliefs and traditions; norms, values, culture)

4. Contribution to Organization Theory
Regarding the coordination between different tasks, Mintzberg defines the
following mechanisms:
1) Mutual adjustment, which achieves coordination by the simple process of informal
communication (as between two operating employees). Example: Emotional discharges
between the employees of same order may be handled with the mediation of an HR
Manager or one of the employee who is a common friend .
2) Direct supervision, is achieved by having one person issue orders or instructions to
several others whose work interrelates (as when a boss tells others what is to be done,
one step at a time). Example: Enforcement procedures follow-up by a Correctional
Officers in a Jail or holding cells, include arbitrating disputes between inmates,
performing disciplinary action and performing inspections.
3) Standardization of work processes, which achieves coordination by specifying the
work processes of people carrying out interrelated tasks (those standards usually being
developed in the techno structure to be carried out in the operating core, as in the case of
the work instructions that come out of time-and-motion studies). Example: to assemble a
car or PC in a factory.

5. Contribution to Organization Theory
4) Standardization of outputs, which achieves coordination by specifying the results of
different work (again usually developed in the techno-structure, as in a financial plan
that specifies subunit performance targets or specifications that outline the dimensions
of a product to be produced). Example: a plastic bottle may be manufactured with a
variety of sizes, color, shape, design & patterns – all having standard specification of
being light weight, odorless & leak-proof.
4) Standardization of skills (as well as knowledge), in which different work is
coordinated by virtue of the related training the workers have received (as in medical
specialists – say a surgeon and an anesthetist in an operating room –responding almost
automatically to each other’s standardized procedures). Example: training skills to a
nurse involves monitoring medication of patients, recording of daily BP or Diabetic
check-ups, injecting, conducting diagnostic tests like X-rays, treating injuries etc.
4) Standardization of norms, in which it is the norms infusing the work that are
controlled, usually for the entire organization, so that everyone functions according to
the same set of beliefs (as in a religious order). Example: improving factory conditions
& codes of conduct and committing police authorities to take sexual harassment cases
seriously.

6. ‘10 Managerial Roles’
One of the newer approaches to management theory is the managerial roles
approach, popularized by Professor Henry Mintzberg. Essentially his
approach is to observe what managers actually do and from such observations
come to conclusions as to what managerial activities (or roles) are. These
activities are apart from classical managerial functions, in which
predominantly the chief executives are engaged:

7. ‘10 Managerial Roles’
1. THE FIGUREHEAD ROLE: performing ceremonial and social duties as the
organization’s representative.
Example: Attending departmental subordinate’s marriage functions or superior’s
newly born child party.
2. THE LEADER ROLE: to motivate, persuade and affect the working style of
subordinates or his followers.
Example: Exemplifying experience & intelligence as Sr. Pilot while training an
air crew.
3. THE LIAISON ROLE: particularly with outsiders of the organization, such
with government agencies.
Example: Handling tenders, government contracts & documentation. Say in an
Export House a Documentation Officer handles the documentation part of
the imported material and release from customs dept.

8. ‘10 Managerial Roles’
4. THE RECIPIENT/MONITOR OR NERVE CENTRE ROLE: receiving
information about the operation of an enterprise.
Example: As Project Management Officer in an automobile company, track &
monitor overall deliverables according to project plan, monitor trends &
performances in making process improvements, consolidate & streamline
clients operational reporting and service requests etc.
5. THE DISSEMINATOR ROLE: passing information to subordinates.
Example: As an HR Executive, disseminating information to subordinates about
induction, attendance, leave & retirement policy of the company.
6. THE SPOKESPERSON ROLE: transmitting information to those outside
the organization.
Example: As Sr. Manager – Corporate Communications, he is responsible for
press release content, media monitoring, handling events, leverage the social
media platform etc.

9. ‘10 Managerial Roles’
7. THE ENTREPRENEURIAL ROLE: discovering new ways of doing the job
by workers and experimenting business opportunities from the environment.
Example: Identifying opportunities for corporate sales, ensuring successful
launch of new products, working out the brand image, expanding sales
channels etc as Regional Sales Manager.
8. THE DISTURBANCE HANDLER ROLE: real managing skills of the
manager is visible only when organization is facing problems like workers on
strike, financial hiccups, untimely or no supply of material and so on.
Example: Sealing the gates with a row of security guards, suspending workers
due to assaulting act with their supervisors, restriction on food, water,
electricity & toilet access etc. as management reaction against; when a 2000
workers go on wildcat strike and a production of 200 local supplying
factories is stopped.

10. ‘10 Managerial Roles’
9. THE RESOURCE-ALLOCATOR ROLE: utilizing the limited resources of
organization by optimum allocation among different units while budgeting &
forecasting at the same time.
Example: Device budgets on the basis of research and reported data, separately
for marketing, production, human resource, inventory, transportation etc,
when in a role of a Finance Controller.
10. THE NEGOTIATOR ROLE: negotiating in the best interests of the
organization with suppliers, trade unions, big customers and collaborators.
Example: procurement & sourcing of equipment suppliers, cleaning services,
logistics services, real estate negotiation for rental/leasing property for the
company, negotiate tenders & contracts with vendors and suppliers, business
partnering etc as Procurement Manager in an IT Company.

11. 10 Quotes by Henry Mintzberg
1) “Companies are communities. There’s a spirit of working together.
Communities are not a place where a few people allow themselves to be
singled out as solely responsible for success.”
2) “Managers who don’t lead are quite discouraging, but leaders who don’t
manage don’t know what’s going on. It’s a phony separation that people are
making between the two.”
3) “Technologies tend to undermine community and encourage individualism.”
4) “If the private sectors are about markets and the public sectors are about
governments, then the plural sector is about communities.”
5) “This obsession with leadership… It’s not neutral; it’s American, this idea of
the heroic leader who comes in on a white horse to save the day. I think it’s
killing American companies.”
6) “We’re all flawed, but basically, effective managers are people whose flaws
are not fatal under the circumstances. Maybe the best managers are simply
ordinary, healthy people who aren’t too screwed up.”

12. 7) “Basically, managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping
organizations and units to get things done, which means action. Sometimes,
managers manage actions directly. They fight fires. They manage projects.
They negotiate contracts.”
8) “Strategy making needs to function beyond the boxes to encourage the
informal learning that produces new perspectives and new combinations…
Once managers understand this, they can avoid other costly misadventures
caused by applying formal techniques, without judgment and intuition, to
problem solving.”
9) “Effective managing therefore happens where art, craft, and science meet. But
in a classroom of students without managerial experience, these have no place
to meet — there is nothing to do.”
10) “Theory is a dirty word in some managerial quarters. That is rather curious,
because all of us, managers especially, can no more get along without theories
than libraries can get along without catalogs — and for the same reason:
theories help us make sense of incoming information.”
10 Quotes by Henry Mintzberg

13. 1) 2015. Rebalancing Society: Radical Renewal Beyond Left, Right, and Center.
Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
2) 2013. Simply Managing. Berrett-Koehler Publishers
3) 2012. Customizing customization. Sloan Management Re.
4) 2012. Reflecting on the strategy process. Sloan Management.
5) 2010. Time for Design. Journal: Design Management Review , vol. 17, no. 2,
pp. 10-18.
6) 2010. Managing on three planes. Journal: Leader To Leader , vol. 2010, no.
57, pp. 29-33.
7) 2010. Management? It’s Not What You Think! AMACOM.
8) 2009. Managing. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
9) 2008. Business Schools Programmes at the Crossroad. Journal: Finance &
Bien Commun , vol. 30, no. 1.
10) 2007. Tracking Strategies: Toward a General Theory. Kindle Edition. OUP
Oxford.
Henry Mintzberg as Author (Publications)

14. 11) 2006. Management Education as if Both Matter. Journal: Management
Learning – MANAGE LEARNING , vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 419-428.
12) 2005. The invisible world of association. Journal: Leader To Leader , vol.
2005, no. 36, pp. 37-45.
13) 2005. Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour Through The Wilds of Strategic
Management. Simon and Schuster.
14) 2005. Strategy Bites Back: It Is Far More, and Less, than You Ever Imagined.
FT Press.
15) 2004. Managers, not MBAs: A hard look at the soft practice of managing and
management development. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
16) 2004. Management as Life’s Essence: 30 Years of the Nature of Managerial
Work. Journal: Strategic Organization – STRATEG ORGAN , vol. 2, no. 2, pp.
205-212.
17) 2003. The strategy process: concepts, contexts, cases. Pearson Education.
18) 2003. The manager’s job: Folklore and fact. London: Routledge.
19) 2002. Reality programming for MBAs.
Henry Mintzberg as Author (Publications)

15. 20) 2002. The economist who never came back. Journal: Scandinavian Journal of
Management – SCAND J MANAG , vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 616-618.
21) 2001. Managing the care of health and the cure of disease—Part I:
Differentiation. Health care management review, 26(1), 56-69.
22) 2001. The yin and the yang of managing. Journal: Organizational Dynamics –
ORGAN DYN , vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 306-312.
23) 2000. Sustaining the Institutional Environment. Journal: Organization Studies
– ORGAN STUD , vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 71-94.
24) 1999. Managing quietly. Journal: Leader To Leader , vol. 1999, no. 12, pp. 24-
30.
25) 1998. Strategy Safary – The complete guide through the wilds of strategic
management. Free Press.
26) 1998. Covert leadership: notes on managing professionals. Harvard business
review, 76, 140-148.
27) 1996. Managing government, governing management. Harvard Business
Review, 74(3), 75.
Henry Mintzberg as Author (Publications)

16. 28) 1995. Opening up decision making: The view from the black stool.
organization Science, 6(3), 260-279.
29) 1994. Rise and fall of strategic planning. Simon and Schuster.
30) 1994. The fall and rise of strategic planning. Harvard business review, 72(1),
107-114.
31) 1994. The rise and fall of strategic planning: Reconceiving roles for planning,
plans, planners (Vol. 458). New York: Free Press.
32) 1993. Structure in fives: Designing effective organizations. Prentice-Hall, Inc.
33) 1993. Rounding out the managers job. Sloan Management Review, 3.
34) 1992. Cycles of organizational change. Strategic management journal, 13(S2),
39-59.
35) 1990. The design school: reconsidering the basic premises of strategic
management. Strategic management journal, 11(3), 171-195.
36) 1990. Strategy formation: schools of thought. Perspectives on strategic
management, 1968, 105-235.
37) 1990. The managers job. New York.
Henry Mintzberg as Author (Publications)

17. 38) 1989. Mintzberg on management: Inside our strange world of organizations.
Simon and Schuster.
39) 1989. Visionary leadership and strategic management. Strategic management
journal, 10(S1), 17-32.
40) 1987. The strategy concept 1: five p’s for strategy. U. of California.
41) 1985. Of strategies, deliberate and emergent. Strategic management journal,
6(3), 257-272.
42) 1985. Strategy formation in an adhocracy. Administrative science quarterly,
160-197.
43) 1985. The organization as political arena. Journal of management studies,
22(2), 133-154.
44) 1982. Tracking strategy in an entrepreneurial firm. Academy of management
journal, 25(3), 465-499.
45) 1981. Organization design: fashion or fit?. Graduate School of Business
Administration, Harvard University.
Henry Mintzberg as Author (Publications)

18. 46) 1980. Structure in 5’s: A Synthesis of the Research on Organization Design.
Management science, 26(3), 322-341.
47) 1979. The structuring of organizations: A synthesis of the research. University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership
Historical Research Reference in Entrepreneurship.
48) 1979. An emerging strategy of “direct” research. Administrative science
quarterly, 582-589.
49) 1976. The structure of “unstructured” decision processes. Administrative
science quarterly, 246-275.
50) 1976. Planning on the left side and managing on the right (p. 49). July-
August: Harvard Business Review.
51) 1973. Strategy-Making in Three Modes. California management review, 16(2).
52) 1971. Managerial work: analysis from observation. Management science,
18(2), B-97.
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Henry Mintzberg as Author (Publications)