Management 500 Essay 1

One myth about managing is that we tend to view managers as a reflective, systemic planner (Mintzberg, pg. 19). Many people envision a senior level employee as someone who sits behind a desk and makes calculated and well thought out decisions and maintains a planned schedule. I feel as though this is not the case in most organizational settings because so many unscheduled tasks arise throughout the work week. A manager is someone who is constantly on the go. He/she is checking up on work done by his/her team while responding to various unplanned tasks or projects that get thrown his/her way. Many decisions are made on the go and are a product of thinking on their feet in response to a dynamic work environment.

Another myth is that the manager depends on aggregated information that is best supplied by a formal system (Mintzberg, pg. 25). People tend to envision a workplace where managers simply rely on comprehensive reports and management information from some type of management information system. While managers do typically receive some form of comprehensive report, I feel that this alone does not work well in the workplace. If the manager does not discuss or possess the finite details behind the comprehensive report it will be very difficult to provide solutions or a course of action. According to Henry Mintzberg “managing is between 60 and 90 percent oral.” (Mintzberg, pg. 26). Informal means of communication such as soft information and phone calls allow for the manager to discuss his/her employees findings in manner which allows him or her to better understand the conclusions that were made.

One other myth we tend to hear is that managing is mostly about hierarchal relationships between a superior and subordinates (Mintzberg, pg. 28). Many believe that managers are limited to their unit and rely solely on their team to reach the goals of the organization. I have found this to be a flawed perspective because not everyone in...