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Understanding Organizations...Finally!
Book

Understanding Organizations...Finally!

Structuring in Sevens

Berrett-Koehler, 2023
First Edition: 2023 المزيد...

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Editorial Rating

9

getAbstract Rating

  • Analytical
  • Applicable
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

Writer and educator Henry Mintzberg distilled his long career of research and publishing into this thorough, succinct guidebook to understanding organizations. Although brimming with analytical expertise, the Mintzberg wrote the book for anyone who wants to gain insight into organizations, so it’s accessible even to readers with no formal academic training on the subject. Any leader, manager, management student, or employee who is subject to the vagaries of organizational life will benefit from Mintzberg’s experience and insight.

Summary

You exist in a world of organizations.

Rising from bed, checking your email, enjoying your breakfast, and going to work all involve organizations that manufacture goods, provide utilities, deliver food, process materials, manage logistics, transport people, or offer retail and other services. Most people are born in medical facilities, which are organizations. When someone dies, the family can turn to a funeral home – another organization. Yet most people know little about organizational frameworks.

Organizations differ considerably. The familiar two-dimensional model with boxes and lines reveals surprisingly little. A chart can illustrate hierarchy, but cannot reveal the point of the hierarchy nor what the organization actually does. Any organizational progress may be illusory, so inefficiency and confusion are real. Despite charts showing stacked boxes, an organization’s components function more like links in a chain. The chart suggests a linear workflow sequence, similar to an assembly line. But an organization’s components interact as parts of a web, hub, or set.

In a linear organization, managers occupy a vertical chain of command. In a hub, the manager ...

About the Author

Henry Mintzberg is Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Montreal. He is also the author of  Strategy Safari, The Structuring of Organizations, Simply Managing, Managers Not MBAs, Rebalancing Society, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, Managing the Myths of Health Care, Tracking Strategies, and Bedtime Stories for Managers.


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