The representative work of the school of managers' role is mintzberg's Essence of Management (1986, China Social Sciences Press). What did the manager do? How did they do it? Why are you doing this? There are many ready-made answers to these ancient questions, but mintzberg does not believe these ready-made answers easily, but studies the reality deeply. When he was a doctoral student, mintzberg took a stopwatch to record what the five managers were really doing, instead of listening to them say what they had done or asking scholars to imagine what they were doing. He spent a week observing and studying the activities of five CEOs. These five people come from large consulting companies, teaching hospitals, schools, high-tech companies and consumer goods manufacturers. Mintzberg found that in the process of enterprise management, managers seldom take time to make long-term considerations, and they are always led by one thing or another, and have no time to take care of long-term goals or plans. It is an obvious fact that the average time they spend thinking about a problem is only nine minutes. If a manager wants to do something regularly, such efforts are doomed to fail, because he will be constantly interrupted by others and will always need him to deal with other affairs. Therefore, mintzberg believes that management is planning, organizing, directing, coordinating and controlling from the perspective of management function, which is too pedantic. Ask any manager what he does and what he doesn't do, and I'm afraid no one can answer. Therefore, mintzberg advocated that management should not be analyzed from various functions of management, but should be regarded as a combination of various roles.
According to mintzberg's observation and research, the work of managers has six obvious characteristics, namely, the tension and heaviness of the work, the simplicity, variety and triviality of the work, the concern for reality without false thinking, the love of oral conversation, the "bottleneck" of the organization's contact with the outside world, and the integration of power and responsibility. Managers have ten roles in their work, including nominal responsible person, leader, contact person, supervisor, communicator, spokesperson, entrepreneur, problem solver, resource allocator and negotiator. These ten roles can be divided into three categories: interpersonal relationship, information and decision-making. According to different roles, mintzberg divides managers into eight types: contact type, political type, entrepreneur type, internal type, real-time type, coordinated type, expert type and new type. To sum up, a set of figures can be used to describe the genre of managers' roles, namely, six characteristics, ten roles and eight types. This is the first time in the history of management to comprehensively analyze managers' activities from an empirical perspective.
Six characteristics
(1) The work is tense and heavy. The manager's job is just like what we in China ridicule: "Eyes open, too busy to turn off the lights." They have little leisure time, they have to face frequent interruptions, they will also consider different things with very different minds at the same time, and even they will suddenly think of something when eating. A survey of workshop directors shows that they have to deal with 237 to 1073 things every day. Mintzberg's own survey data of CEO is: 36 emails a day, 5 phone calls a day and 8 meetings a day. There is no rest from entering the office to leaving, and coffee and lunch alternate with meetings. Even after work, I can't get rid of my working state of mind. The key to this situation is that the manager can't say "my duties have been completed"-all other work is marked as completed, such as the engineer completing the design and the lawyer's case being pronounced, and the manager must concentrate on moving forward forever.
(2) The works are short, diverse and trivial. All kinds of occupations in society are developing towards specialization and simplification, and the basic trend is rationalization, repetition and uninterrupted, while the work of managers is not. For example, when an email is being processed, a subordinate will report something urgent; This matter is on fire, and there will be a farewell ceremony for retirement; Before the ceremony was over, someone came to urge the discussion of a valuable contract bid. So the manager's speed in dealing with problems is amazing. Mintzberg's observation is that half of the work processing time is less than 9 minutes; The average file processing time is 15 minutes, and the average temporary meeting time is 12 minutes. Even the pre-arranged meeting to discuss major issues is only over an hour. Managers are usually not interested in long reports and usually just skim through them. Middle and grass-roots managers can handle affairs faster. Managers rarely stay undisturbed for more than half an hour. "It's too late to light a cigarette now." What interested mintzberg was that he found that the interruption of this kind of work was often the manager's own initiative, that is, they took the initiative to end the meeting or interrupt the phone, and they also interrupted the processing of official documents from time to time and called subordinates to come to him. If he is willing to be left alone, the secretary can give him good protection. But he must take the initiative to find this kind of interference, and the key lies in the sensitivity and intuition of managers to his time and opportunity cost.
(3) Give priority to practical activities. Mintzberg classified and analyzed the CEO's handling of written information, and found that only the information contained in it was active, involving specific issues of concern to everyone, and paid little attention to regular reports and periodical publications. The newer the information, the higher the priority. "Instant messaging" will interfere with the meeting and even cause the work schedule to be modified. Their work arrangements are also very direct. For example, only one verbal contact with 14 is arranged in advance. In contrast, managers pay more attention to the information contained in rumors, guesses and rumors. More importantly, managers' activities involve specific issues rather than abstract issues, and they rarely participate in abstract discussions and comprehensive plans. It can be said that the work of managers is "pragmatic and not pragmatic" and "urgent and not urgent".
(4) Love to speak orally. The manager spends most of his time talking with people. According to the statistics of Lawler and others, 57% workshop directors talk to people, and 89% are middle managers. Mintzberg's own statistics show that conversations account for 78% of managers' working hours and 67% of activities. For written mail, it is handled rudely, and most of it passes at a glance. According to the nature of written documents, less important documents account for 36%, and general important documents such as routine reports, ideas and internal business information account for 5 1%. The manager's response to these documents that are not "the most concerned business" is only slightly doubled. However, only 13% of documents have clear immediate requirements. Telephone calls and impromptu meetings are more important. Generally, it takes a short time, averaging 6 to 12 minutes, but it accounts for 2/3 of the general manager's total oral contact time. Including the subordinates of the general manager, they also prefer to talk to their superiors rather than use the phone. Interestingly, even formal meetings are often interspersed with some "incidentally mentioned" affairs and information, which may be more important than formal topics.
(5) Being in the "bottleneck" of the organization's contact network with the outside world. Mintzberg called it "the neck of the hourglass". Managers are in contact with three aspects, one is the superior (the superior of the general manager refers to the director), the other is the outsider, and the third is the subordinate. Mintzberg's statistics on the general manager are as follows: the distribution of contact time is 7% with directors, 48% with subordinates and 44% with outsiders; The distribution of characters is 2% for directors, 0/%for subordinates, 55% for subordinates, 39% for outsiders and 43% for outsiders. Roger that, 60%. The general manager's contact with outsiders mainly includes customers, friends in enterprises, suppliers, peers with equal status, government officials and business associations. Workshop directors also have extensive contacts, and the number of speakers is often not less than 50, dealing with various relevant departments, especially the "diagonal" relationship of suggestions or advice, rather than the relationship between orders and obedience. Management literature exaggerates the role of job rank. In fact, the importance and complexity of nonlinear relations are the characteristics of managers' work.
(6) mixed powers and responsibilities. Suni Carlson once vividly said that people often regard the general manager as the conductor of a band. In fact, the general manager is more like a puppet, and hundreds of people manipulate him to act in one way or another behind the scenes. According to the survey in mintzberg, passive activities of managers account for 42%, active activities account for 365,438+0%, and activities that are neither active nor passive account for 27%. However, the manager has two important autonomy. One is that he can make many preliminary decisions, and the other is that he can carry out his will through control or information contact. If the manager is a puppet, then a good manager can decide who is behind the scenes and how to manipulate them.
Ten roles
Ten roles can be divided into three categories. The formal authority and status of the organization produce the interpersonal role of managers; The function of interpersonal relationship will make the manager become the information center, and the communication with the outside world will bring external information, and the internal information will be concentrated on him, resulting in the information function of the manager; Mastering the unique position of information and the power position given by the organization makes managers in a central position in decision-making, especially in strategy, and produces the decision-making role of managers. Ten roles in three categories are observable and form a whole, and each role does not exist in isolation. "People can't cancel a character at will and hope that the rest of the characters are intact. For example, a manager who doesn't act as a liaison can't get external information, so he can't spread good information or make effective strategic decisions. " (The Nature of Managers' Work, P78. )
(1) as the front manager. Due to the formal authorization of the organization, the manager must perform some formal duties, such as etiquette activities, daily work, signing documents and attending inspiring ceremonies. All these roles do not involve important information and major decisions, but they are indispensable in the organization, because they often represent legitimacy, social status, external influence and so on.
(2) Managers as leaders. The role of leaders is the most talked about in management literature, and its connotation is guidance and encouragement, which determines the working atmosphere of the organization. The role of leaders is first of all personnel work, including employment, training, evaluation, remuneration, promotion, dismissal and so on. , followed by induction and encouragement, and then the exploration and intervention of subordinates. The essence of the leader's role is to combine personal needs with organizational goals, which can best reflect the power of managers.
(3) The manager as the contact person. The function of contact does not include the vertical contact of the organization, but refers to the horizontal contact of the organization. The specific content is to build a network for managers and maintain relationships with individuals and groups outside the organization. Managers are in a unique position in accepting external information, which determines the information source and social status of the organization.
(4) As the monitor's manager. The so-called monitoring refers to the information that information processors and managers can receive, including internal business, external events, analysis reports, various opinions and tendencies, pressures, etc. From the source of information, the main information is not from words, but from words; In terms of importance, the information from formal channels is far less than that from informal channels. What can help managers is not a summary or a survey, but a specific piece of information. Managers rely largely on playing information puzzles to grasp the details of related events.
(5) Managers as communicators. The position of manager enables him to pass external information to the inside of the organization and spread internal information from one subordinate to another. This kind of information includes both information about facts and information about value. Authorization in an organization is directly related to information dissemination.
(6) The manager is the spokesman. The role of the communicator is to face the inside of the organization, and the role of the spokesperson is to face the outside of the organization. Managers must transmit information to two groups, one is the people who have an important influence on the organization (such as the superiors or middle managers of the board of directors), and the other is the public outside the organization (such as customers, peers, government, media, etc.). As a spokesman, the manager must be an expert, such as the medical opinion of the hospital president, the product knowledge of the enterprise manager and so on.
(7) As an entrepreneur's manager. The role of entrepreneur requires managers to be the initiators and designers of most controllable changes in the organization. The essence of this role is to use every opportunity to solve various non-urgent problems. Entrepreneurs begin by inspecting organizations, finding problems and looking for opportunities, making decision-making designs and adopting improved schemes.
(8) As the manager of the troubleshooter. Problem solvers are just the opposite of entrepreneurs. He had to deal with involuntary or unexpected changes. Entrepreneurs are trying to realize their wishes, while problem solvers are trying to overcome what they don't want to see. In general, failure is rarely reflected in conventional and formal information, and it is often sudden. Managers are usually superior to other activities in troubleshooting. When dealing with faults, the manager is more not considerate, but cut the gordian knot. Troubleshooting often forms relevant precedents and affects the strategy.
(9) As the manager of the resource allocator. Organizational resources include people, money, things, time, reputation and so on. The main practices of managers include arranging time, arranging work and approving decisions made by others in the organization. The arrangement of time determines the priority of organizational affairs, and the arrangement of work determines the operation of the organization. Recognizing other people's decisions can eliminate obvious conflicts between decisions, make decisions interrelated and complementary, and promote the consistency of decisions and strategies.
(10) The manager is the negotiator. Negotiators must deal with conflicts between organizations and individuals, conflicts between this organization and other organizations. Negotiation is inseparable from managers, because the nominal head role of managers can increase the credibility of negotiations, and the role of spokespersons can express the information and value system of organizations, especially the role of resource allocator can adjust resource allocation on the spot. The essence of negotiation is on-site resource transaction.
Eight types
In reality, managers are in a state of internal and external differences. External factors, different environment, different status, different industries; In internal factors, different job levels, different business nature and different personnel combination status; In terms of time, the periodicity of managers' work is different, the distribution of stability and change is different, and the length of time as managers is also different; These factors will affect the manager's work. According to the contingency model, ten roles of managers can be combined into eight job types under different influencing factors.
(1). Contact managers spend most of their time outside the organization, and their key roles are liaison and nominal person in charge. Many sales managers and general managers in service industries belong to this type.
(2) Political manager. This type of people spend most of their time outside the organization, but their main roles are spokesmen and negotiators. The managers of most government departments and institutions belong to this type.
(3) entrepreneurs. This type focuses on finding opportunities and implementing reforms in enterprises. Their key role is entrepreneurs, and they also spend more time on the role of negotiators. Generally, it is common in the drastic changes of small and young enterprises or large enterprises, but it often lasts for a short time, and the development direction is to be the masters of the country.
(4) in charge of the family. The main task of this type is to maintain the smooth operation of the internal business of the organization, and the time is mainly spent on establishing institutions, training subordinates and supervising business activities. Their key role is resource allocator. Small business owners also need to consider the role of leaders. Usually the business manager or production manager in the middle and senior level is this type, and the second-in-command of the two-person leadership system is often this type (the top leader is the contact person).
(5) Real-time manager. This type is similar to housekeeping, and its main task is to maintain internal operation, but the time scale and problem orientation are different. They focus on specific business rather than operational specifications, and their key role is troubleshooting. General grass-roots front-line leaders (such as workshop directors) or heads of small enterprises, and organizational leaders facing crisis and high-pressure environment all belong to this type.
(6) Coordination manager. This type is also internally oriented, but mainly focuses on internal cooperation and unity. Its key role is the leader, which often appears in places where high-tech experts collaborate, such as the coach of competitive sports team projects, the director of complex planning projects, and the head of R&D teams.
(7) Expert manager. This type is a mixture of managers and experts. Its main task is to collect and publish professional information and play a role in nonlinear relations, such as making work suggestions to other managers and consulting on professional issues. It has a certain research nature, and the key roles are audience and spokesman, which are common in the heads of staff departments.
(8) new manager. Refers to the manager who has just taken up a new position. His main task is to establish a contact network and information base, and his key roles are liaison and audience. After gaining a firm foothold, this type of manager will generally turn to the role of entrepreneur, and then turn to the regular type of manager.
Mintzberg's research conclusion
By studying the six characteristics, ten roles and eight types of managers, mintzberg put forward some new ideas different from the past and drew corresponding conclusions. In the book The Nature of Managers' Work, he summarized his research conclusions into ten aspects:
(1) The positions of managers are very similar. Workshop directors, general managers, government officials and other managers can all be described by ten roles and six characteristics. Therefore, the theory of manager's role grasps the essence of management.
(2) The work of managers is different, but this difference does not exclude the same role and the same characteristics.
(3) The work of managers is challenging and planned, but every manager has normal general work, especially transmitting information and maintaining posts. Managers have a lot of specific tasks to do (such as receiving customers and negotiating contracts), which are often regarded as non-management tasks. This view is somewhat arbitrary. The work done by managers, even some obviously "non-management" work, will eventually involve their role as managers.
(4) Managers are both generalists and experts. For his organization, he is the center of information and dealing with chaos, and he is a generalist; For the position of manager, he needs the skills of a specific role and is an expert, but the management often knows little about these skills, and the school of management doesn't teach much.
(5) A large part of the manager's power comes from the information he has, some of which is exclusive to him, but quite a lot of information is oral and lacks effective transmission methods, so he must take full responsibility for the strategic formulation of his unit.
(6) Managers' work is too heavy and time is too hasty, so most problems are dealt with superficially. The position of manager is not suitable for thinking planners, but for adaptable information processors. Managers' behavior patterns tend to be "stimulus-response" rather than "hesitation-choice".
(7) Managers are unscientific and rely on oral information and intuition to deal with problems. So far, management scientists have hardly had any influence on the way managers work.
(8) Managers are in a "vicious circle". The pressure of the position makes it difficult for him to accept the help of management scientists and make his work superficial, which in turn leads to greater pressure, especially for the top managers of large institutions.
(9) Management scientists can help managers break this "vicious circle", but they need scholars to understand managers' work and get close to managers' oral information base. Management scientists mainly help managers in formulating strategies and information processing.
(10) management is very complicated, which is much more complicated than that described in management literature. Don't be satisfied with a simple prescription to solve difficulties. Only after you have a clear understanding of management can you make important improvements.
Review on the Theory of Managers' Role
If we really want to master mintzberg's theory of manager's role, we must not separate the ten roles he proposed. These ten roles are an interrelated and inseparable whole. In any case, interpersonal, information and decision-making are inseparable. From the organizational point of view, the manager is a comprehensive person in charge, but in fact he has to undertake a series of professional work, both as an expert and a generalist. To improve the work efficiency of managers, mintzberg believes that the following aspects need to be done: sharing information with subordinates; Consciously overcome superficiality in work; On the basis of enjoying information, two or three people share the position of manager; Make full use of various responsibilities to serve organizational goals; Get rid of unnecessary work and make time to plan the future; Focus on adapting to the specific situation at that time; We should not only grasp the specific plot, but also have a global view; Fully understand your influence in the organization.
Mintzberg's theory is a subversion of classical management. His academic acumen pierced all aspects of various management theories. According to Taylor's method, "let every worker's actions reach a scientific state." The expected effect of this scientific management paradigm is that managers can use power and rules to supervise the operation of enterprises. Mintzberg criticized this: this seemingly wonderful idea will logically develop a scenario-"The future factory will only have two employees, a man and a dog. The person is responsible for feeding the dog, and the dog is responsible for watching this person not to touch the automated production line of the factory. " Similarly, since Fa Yueer left his general manager's office, his management theory has been abstracted. Almost all books are based on Fa Yueer's management process theory. Especially after Gulick defined the management function as POSDCORB (planning, organization, personnel, leadership, coordination, reporting and budgeting) on the basis of Fa Yueer, this theory almost dominated the management academic circles. However, mintzberg sharply questioned that if a manager was told that a factory had just burned down, he would immediately send someone to see if any temporary arrangements were needed. What is the manager doing at this time, planning, organizing, coordinating or controlling? Obviously, the words such as planning, organizing, directing, coordinating and controlling can't tell us what managers are really doing, but at most point out some vague goals in the process of managers' work. Fa Yueer system, in mintzberg's eyes, has become an "old routine" divorced from management practice. In Simon's decision theory, managers are rational. Although Simon admits that rationality is limited, giving up rationality completely will make Simon's theory a castle in the air. Mintzberg almost totally denied the research path of rational people. He emphasized that managers in reality make quick decisions when dealing with specific work, relying more on intuition and experience than thoughtful analysis. As for Weber's bureaucratic organization, in mintzberg's view, it is more like a pure logical deduction. In reality, we can't find that kind of hierarchical and standardized bureaucratic organization. Managers are faced with numerous horizontal connections, more of which are temporary information, and take detours in irregular organizations. Mintzberg believes that all these management theories are divorced from reality, so they are irrelevant. In an organization, the object of management is people, and the organization composed of people full of personality is a complex mixture. Managing it is very difficult and subtle, and you need to understand the mystery there.
The question is, if we accept mintzberg's theory, should other management theories be abandoned? I'm afraid not. Many MBA students are troubled by this "struggle" between theories, and real managers often feel at a loss. In fact, this situation is very common in academic research. No theory can be said to have exhausted the "truth", and science can only advance in constant "falsification". As Burns said, "Man's knowledge of management begins when he realizes that there is no most effective management method." Mintzberg's value is unique, which is reflected in the development of management theory. Learning management theory is not only to master relevant viewpoints, but also to master the thoughts and spirit reflected by relevant theories. Qi Baishi, a master of Chinese painting, once said to his disciples, "If you learn from me, you will live like me." Although it is about painting, it is similar to academic research. Applying this to mintzberg, we can say: "The person who understands mintzberg is alive, and the person who copied mintzberg is dead." If we accept mintzberg's theory completely without thinking, many management masters are "knocked down" according to his statement, which is only a blasphemy against mintzberg.
Might as well take this opportunity to say a few more words. Mintzberg's criticism of various management theories before and at that time was based on careful combing and thinking of these theories. Just as Lu Xun advised young people not to read China's books, only by reading China's books can they express their feelings and indignation. If we really don't read China as Lu Xun said, we will only be ignorant. There is a joke to illustrate this situation. Famous surgeons perform beautiful operations, especially wound suture. Someone praised him, and he said, "Actually, it's nothing, just like sewing sacks." And a butcher who was not convinced by the doctor also said, "What's the big deal about sewing a wound? This is similar to sewing sacks. " In the same language, the former is called humility and the latter is called arrogance. Mintzberg dares to challenge his predecessors in many management fields, based on his profound knowledge and solid empirical research. Those who don't have this ability will only be out of date if they sing with this tone.