When asked to define where he feels his expertise lie, Professor Henry Mintzberg’s answer is perhaps surprising. “Reframing,” he says. “I discovered recently, or thought about recently, that my business is really in reframing.” 

Usually more synonymous with the word “management”, Henry Mintzberg’s name has existed firmly amongst the most renowned authorities on the subject for more than half a century – an impressive length of time during which he has remained on the faculty at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Canada, which is also his alma mater.  

Whilst he humbly refers to himself as a writer and educator on his own website, to many Professor Mintzberg is commonly referred to as nothing short of a management guru.  

It’s not hard to see why. During his illustrious career he’s carved out a prominent niche in challenging the status quo across the entire practice of management. 

From consulting organisations across Canada, Europe and the USA to founding and running his own coaching business CoachingOurselves.com, in his research and the publication of more than 20 books, the common thread that ties his work together is the ability to reimagine – or reframe – what it means to be someone who holds a position of power and authority, and how to wield that power beneficially. 

Making managers, or simply managing?

Arguably, the most notable of his published works, 2004’s “Managers Not MBAs” threw down the ultimate gauntlet to every business school to take a good hard look at its MBA offering and consider whether what they were teaching to students was truly management acumen, or simply a checklist of skills. 

Not content with only highlighting the flaws in modern management practice, Professor Mintzberg’s work has also consistently sought to propose new ways of thinking and acting.  

This became even more evident in the formulation of his own management education programmes. The International Masters Programme for Managers (IMPM) was founded on the principle that good managers are not just those who can do but are those who can understand why they’re doing it and, perhaps, do something different. Through a curriculum of self-reflection, expanding perspectives and cultural immersion (the programme is ran at McGill in partnership with four other leading global institutions), the IMPM has been cultivating a global network of better informed, better acting managers for the last 25 years.  

The programme’s success led to the formulation of the International Masters for Health Leadership, ran via the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University which takes these same core management mindset principles and brings them to tackle the biggest challenges facing the global healthcare sector.  

The aim is to not only enhance leadership capabilities across the board, but to bring positive change to society – another mission close to Professor Mintzberg’s heart. 

His work has won him many accolades, including receiving the Management Lifetime Achievement Award from Thinkers50, earning a number of Honorary Degrees alongside his PhD, and an appointment to the Order of Canada and L’Ordre National du Quebec as well as the Royal Society of Canada. 

Today, he holds the position of Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at the Desautels Faculty of Management, and has authored more than 20 books – the latest of which “Understanding Organisations… Finally! Structure in Sevens” publishing just last year. 

And, by his own admission, he’s also a re-framer of the world. 

It is with this same open-minded, objective and unflinchingly honest focus that he has reflected on his career in discussion with BlueSky Thinking’s Editor in Chief, Matt Symonds. 

Here we find out more about what he believes are his biggest ideas, delve into his focus for the future and discover who his inspirations are.  

Q: Looking over your career, what would you say are the three biggest ideas that you’ve given to society? 

My business has really, always been in reframing. I reframe managerial work away from planning, organising, coordinating and controlling to taking action. 

1. Reframing Organisations  

I reframed the structure of organisations by coming up with different forms of organisations, which I improved on in my newest book; “Understanding Organisations… Finally! Structure in Sevens.” In it, I reframe how we view organisations from “one best way” to many different ways.  

I think one of the major wants was reframing strategy as emergent rather than deliberate – promoting the idea that we learn strategy, we don’t plan strategy. 

2. Reframing Management Education 

I’ve also, with this lens, reframed management education, with the structure, focus and ethos of the IMPM as an alternative to the MBA. The structure of the programme encourages managers to reframe their perspective on their work in the wider context of the world around them.  

On this programme, our participants explore management mindsets and contexts as opposed to topics and sectors. We spend much of our time harnessing the benefits of reflection; managers consider their past actions and perspectives, reflect on what they’ve learned during each module – each experience – and share these insights with their classmates.  

3. Reframing Society 

And then, in my work on the topic of rebalancing society, we explore the reframing of politics worldwide. Most recently I’ve been exploring how agonistic superpowers corrupt absolutely. It’s an important and undiscussed reality of the world we live in.  

Perhaps I make my way by describing the obvious. My biggest hero is the little kid in Hans Christian Andersen’s story, The Emperor’s New Clothes because he not only had the courage to say the emperor was wearing no clothes, he saw it in the first place. Many people in society lack the courage to see the problems in front of them – never mind the courage to voice them. 

I have this proposal about smaller powers; that the truly democratic organisations in the world (most of them are tiny) should be getting together as a countervailing power to globalisation and superpowers. 

Q: Can you share one idea or a theory of somebody else’s that you admire?  

In my own field, Herbert Simon stands out. Above everyone else, he changed the whole thrust of management education, or really business education, because it wasn’t about management, it was about teaching business. He put the business schools on a solid footing, compared to where they were before.  

Worldwide, who do I admire? There are so many people who have the courage to say what they think. But the really courageous ones are not me sitting in my basement, they are instead sharing their views and pointing out problems in less secure, less safe locations. Those are the truly courageous actors in our societies because they’re paying heavily for their opinions. 

Such people can only rise with community support. Community movement and action drives change – whether we’re looking at social change, organisational issues or political progression. People come out if they’ve got a cause.

Q: Is there one idea you have yet to put out into the world? Or something that you would love to see developed more? 

The one idea I have about rebalancing society is how exactly does true social change proceed? How do these things actually take root? What’s the spark that gets them going? And why is there a particular spark at a particular time?  

In other words, how do we understand and encourage this kind of change now? That’s the one issue I’ve got kind in mind for continuing my work in rebalancing society. For me, this is the most important thing I’m trying to do. How can we understand what prompts these individual movements and how can we use this knowledge to encourage progress?  

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