Wisdom (and book promotion) from Mintzberg via WSJ:
Basically, managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping organizations and units to get things done, which means action.
One step removed, [managers] manage people. Managers deal with people who take the action.
And two steps removed from that, managers manage information to drive people to take action—through budgets and objectives and delegating tasks and designing organization structure and all those sorts of things.
Today I think we have much too much managing through information—what I call “deeming.” People sit in their offices and think they’re very clever because they deem that you will increase sales by 10%, or out the door you go. Well, I can do that. My granddaughter could do that; she’s four. It doesn’t take genius to say: Increase sales or out you go.