Henry Mintzberg in his own words

In my opinion, this really sets the scene for leadership coaching: enabling business leaders to develop sustained and detailed learning based on the concrete day-to-day needs of their organizations.

I've not spent much time in business schools, but am amazed at the arcane nature of a lot of published research that can only be de-coded by other academics. Surely, business schools should be at pains to minimise the theory-practice gap.

Theories that have little practical relevance are a luxury we can't afford any time

Henry Mintzberg blames the recent economic crash on leadership failures, stating the ‘bonus’ culture of the City financiers and managers are instrumental in undermining the effective running of organizations.

The banks failed because their management failed, he says, simply. He argues that bonus payments have no role to play in business as leaders who decide to give themselves these huge financial bonuses are not qualified to lead, in his opinion.

It is perhaps quite ironic, given how critical Mintzberg is of the strategy consultation business that he is a double winner of the McKinsey Award, having been judged to have written the best article featured in the Harvard Business Review. Mintzberg really does know what he is talking about, according to his peers.

On the rediscovery of curiosity

Here he is in an expansive mood, lecturing to an audience at TEDx McGill, on the topic of curiosity: how it is lost when we are ‘schooled’; and how it can be reanimated in the education of adults.

He – of course – focuses on the education of managers and the practical tools that he uses in creating an environmentthe that supports a learning community.

He is given joint credit for creating the ‘organigraph’. This concept is taught in many business schools around the world. This is a way of representing a company structure in graphical form. It is an improvement upon older, linear structures as it represents the more organic flow of association and competition inside an organization and from external sources into the organization.

Henry Mintzberg co-owns CoachingOurselves International where he brings his business coaching philosophy to more people.

Basically, rather than give a whole raft of tools and exercises, Mintzberg encourages managers to benefit from their experiences and the experiences of others through discussion and debate ... learning from the real life situations they have met in their working lives. He thinks that experience is a better teacher than any textbook.

Managers are encouraged to meet up locally in their own time to discuss their work and the demands it places on them.

This is an advertising video for his company. I think there is enough substantive material on the subject of management coaching to make it worth watching.

Here at Leadership Development Coaching, we fully support that approach. We encourage managers to take an action research approach to the issues they face. We use action learning in a cycle of stages: observe, analyse, diagnose, plan, implement, evaluate.

Managers also learn to use action learning sets and team and peer coaching.

Mintzberg theorizes how each company works and places emphasis upon the roles and personalities within that organization for shaping it.

He looks at how each organization pulls together to work as a whole, given the various interpersonal relationships. Thus, his theories have been influential in modern management theory. He argues that modern strategic planning must take account of these factors.

Coming from a background in integrative medicine and practitioner education, I've found that there is a constructive dialogue to be had between Henry Mintzberg's ideas and those of Donald Schön in his discussion of the reflective practitioner.

They seem to agree that professional learning takes place best in the real-life situation, provided learners have time to question their experiences and reflect deeply on the issues that emerge from their reflections.

Kolb said: ‘People do not learn from their experiences. They learn by reflecting on their experiences.’

Every organizational leader and senior manager would do well to follow Henry Mintzberg’s advice and ensure they have sufficient time to reflect on how their staff, teams and organizations function.

Skills required to manage effectively and efficiently:

• developing robust relationships
• handling conflict
• negotiating
• teaching, guiding, mentoring and coaching
• appraising and providing sound feedback
• achieving consensus
• and so on

Require that managers manage with self-awareness, circumspection and insight.

These are the fruits of a robust coaching relationship of the sort advocated by Henry Mintzberg.