The Manager’s Job: Folklore And

Fact
Henry Mintzberg

Presented by-
Ashma Shrestha
Prajjwol Bikram
Khadka
Sanju Rajak
1916: The French Industrialist H. Fayol
introduced 4 typical manager’s activities

➢ Planning
➢ Organizing
➢ Co-ordinating
➢ Controlling
 2005: General Opinion breaks past
stereotypes

➢ What do managers do?

➢ How can we teach management?
➢ How can we design planning or information systems for
managers?
➢ How can we improve the practice of management?
 Henry Mintzberg

➢ Canadian academic and author on business

and management
➢ 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
Who are the managers?
➢ Foremen
➢ Factory supervisors
➢ Staff managers
➢ Field sales managers
➢ Hospital administrators
➢ Presidents of companies and nations
➢ Street gang leaders
Who are managers?

Definition: The person in charge of an organization or one of

its subunits
➢ Vice presidents, bishops, foremen, hockey coaches and
prime ministers
Contents
➢ Folklore and Facts
➢ Managerial roles
➢ Effective management
➢ Education job for effective management
➢ Conclusion
Folklore and facts
➢ Folklore: The manager is reflective, systematic planner
➢ Fact: Managers work at an unrelenting pace, their
activities are characterized by brevity, variety,
discontinuity. They are strongly oriented to action and
dislike reflective activities
 Examples
Studies on 5 chief executives proved:
● ½ of the activities < 9 minutes
● 10% activities > 1 hour
Studies on 56 U.S. foremen proved:
● 583 activities per 8-hour shift
● 1 activity every 48 seconds
+ Mails, calls, coffee breaks and lunches
Folklore and facts
➢ Folklore: The effective manager has no regular duties to
perform; need only to delegate more, plan more and
spend less time with customers and on negotiations
➢ Fact: Managerial work involves performing a number of
regular duties, including ritual and ceremony,
negotiations and processing of soft information that links
the organisation with its environment
Example
➢ Companies can’t afford staff specialists so president of
small companies are to substitute them and perform those
routine activities
➢ Up to them is: meeting visiting dignitaries, giving out gold
watches, presiding at Xmas dinners
Folklore and facts
➢ Folklore: The senior manager needs aggregated
information, which a formal management information
system best provides
➢ Fact: Managers strongly favor verbal media, telephone
calls and meetings, over documents
Example:

➢ 66% to 80% time in verbal communications

➢ 78% American Chief Executives
➢ Responses to only 2 of the 40 routine reports
➢ Cherish soft information: gossip, hearsay, speculations
 Emphasis on the verbal media raises 2
points:

➢ Verbal information is stored in the brains of people: the

organizational strategic data bank is in the minds of its
managers
➢ Extensive use of verbal media gives answer to why
managers don’t want to delegate tasks to subordinates
 Folklore and Facts
➢ Folklore: Management is becoming a science and a
profession (involving systematic, analytically determined
procedures or programs)
➢ Fact: The manager’s programs to schedule time, process
information, make decisions- remain locked inside their
brains
The basic description of managerial work
Formal authority and
status

Interpersonal Information Decisional

roles: roles: roles:
Entrepreneur
Figurehead Monitor
Disturbance handler
Leader Disseminator
Resource allocator
Liaison Spokesperson
Negotiator
Interpersonal Roles
➢ The Figurehead: performing ceremonial duties. eg:
attending an employee’s wedding, meeting with foreign
dignitaries
➢ The Leader: manger is responsible for the work of its
people, motivating and encouraging employees
➢ The Liaison: manager makes contact outside the vertical
chain of command establishing contacts with their peers
as well as customers and suppliers
Information Roles

➢ The Monitor: the manager continuously scans his

environment for collecting new information
➢ The Disseminator: passing on privileged information
directly to subordinates, who would otherwise have no
access to it
➢ The Spokesperson: sharing information with people
outside the organization. Eg: conference call with
investors, conversation with suppliers
Decisional Roles
➢ The entrepreneur: seeks to improve the unit by
initiating projects
➢ The disturbance handler: responds involuntarily to
pressures too severe to be ignored.eg: a looming strike, a
major customer gone bankrupt, or a supplier reneging on
a contract
Decisional Roles contd…..
➢ The resource allocator: decides who get what
➢ The negotiator: committing organizational resources in
“real-time” with broad information available from their
informational roles
Manager’s job is an integrated job
➢ The roles of the managers are indivisible and every
manager has to fulfill all the roles without any split
➢ The managers as per the nature of the obligations can and
should however stress on required role
For eg-sales manager stresses on interpersonal roles
Staff manager stresses on informational roles
Effective management requirements
➢ Managers effectiveness is most significantly influenced by
their insight and self examination into their own work
➢ The article prescribes 14 self study questions for managers
to become introspective about their work and hence
effective
 Areas of concern under effective
management
➢ Dilemma of delegation:
1. Information should be shared between the manager and
the close subordinates addressing the confidentiality
issues
2. The use of management scientist who have time and
technology to respond to numerous and varying pressures
on the job
Gain control over his/her own time

➢ The manager needs to gain control over his or her time by:
1. Turning obligations on the job into advantages
2. Freeing time to force obligations into the schedule about
the matter perhaps no one thinks is important
3. Free time is made and never found
Educator’s job for effective management
➢ Management schools should focus on skill training next to
cognitive learning
➢ Managements schools need to: identify the skills
managers use,select student who show potential in these
skills, put the students into situations(real or simulated)
where these skills can be practiced and then give them
systematic feedback on their performance
Educator’s job for effective management
contd...

➢ Managers determine if our social institutions serve us well

and their roles are vital to the society
➢ Educators need to focus on realistic skills development
next to cognitive learning
➢ But it is the managers responsibility to be self analysing
and introspective about his/his roles
Conclusion

➢ The myths about the manager's job be substituted by more

realistic roles as defined in the article
➢ Managerial roles are integrated and indivisible
➢ Educators role is pivotal for effective management
considering the skill development next to cognitive
learning
➢ Managers are required to have introspective vision about
their jobs