Henry Mintzberg on Decision Making

okay I want to talk about management as a practice I don't think management is a science uh I don't think management is a profession not you can't manage everything you have to understand the context I think management is a practice that's learned in context and I think management is is largely about art I always like to point here and realize that nobody's looking there management is largely about art and and somewhat about art the which means the Bas on imagination and creative insights largely mostly about craft which is built on experience and practical learning and

the whole idea of what we're going to talk about in the uh in the program in a few minutes is about that um and management isn't a science but it uses science in the form usually of analysis or systematic evidence so management is a practice that moves between those three parts of that triangle let me give you an example example I'll take something that's close to your hearts literally um decision making uh I'll tell you why it's close to your hearts in a minute there are kind of three broad ways to view decision making uh

one is thinking first which is the very systematic first you diagnose then you design then you decide and then you act very systematic way and that's the way we think of making decisions in most big organizations big companies and so on today a second way is seeing first which is you've seen it and once you've seen it you make the decision you you're looking for a piece of land to build a factory entrepreneurs often like this they drive by they see the land they say that's it no analysis no study I've seen it and I

decide the doing first is is you act in order to think as much as you think in order to act in other words if you're faced with a decision and you don't quite know what to do you try something and either it works or it doesn't work if it works you do more of it if it doesn't work you try something else and you learn your way or you act your way into thinking rather than just thinking your way into acting now if I asked you what you do most of the time in your companies

you'll probably if you're in a big company or big organization you'll probably say you think first um so let's take something very personal how did you find your mate so what all all those people in the classroom who did it through thinking first namely they diagnosed the situation what kind of mate what I like how tall how how uh you know how pleasant uh how sexy whatever it is um then you design you sort of Design Your Perfect Mate um then you go out and find all the various Alternatives uh you pick one and then

you get married uh so how many of you you you care raise your hand I I imagine pretty well everybody raising their hand right now right um unless of course if you come from India and you're in a an arranged marriage it might have been that way but not by you so much as by your family but people don't typically uh find their mates that way seeing first you all know what that is you turn the corner there she is that's it my father uh was living in New York he met my mother called his

mother that day and said I met the woman I'm going to marry uh there wasn't a lot of analysis uh behind that decision although it's a good decision it worked out very well for them but um so seeing first is often how we make decisions even in big companies and doing first well a lot of you probably ended up in your relationships by doing first kind of let's try it uh and see what happens so um so uh I won't get into the consequences of that you're all pretty creative uh but U it's another way

of making decisions so so the art of decision making the craft of DEC decision making the science of decision making