Dr. Henry Mintzberg - What's Dumbing Us Down?

Dr. Henry Mintzberg is a name known to many. He’s a writer and educator - most of his work focuses on managing originations, developing managers, and rebalancing societies (which is where his attention is currently focused).

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from McGill University in Montreal (1961), working in Operational Research for the Canadian National Railways (1961-1963), and doing his masters and Ph.D. at the MIT Sloan School of Management (1965 and 1968), He made his professional home at McGill. He’s had extensive visiting professorships at INSEAD in France and the London Business School in England.
He's authored 20 books, including Managers not MBAs, Simply Managing, Rebalancing Society, and Managing the Myths of Health Care. He also authored 180 articles plus numerous commentaries and videos.
He publishes a regular TWOG (TWeet 2 blOG), as “provocative fun in a page or 2 beyond pithy pronouncements in a line or 2” (@mintzberg141 to mintzberg.org/blog).
A collection has recently been published under the title Bedtime Stories for Managers, and following that will be Understanding Organizations...Finally (a revision of his book Structure in Fives).
He’s also an outdoorsman and collector of beaver sculptures.
A Few Quotes From This Episode

• "There are 23 countries that are now full democracies. With a couple of exceptions, I think most of those are models of balance, particularly the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Sweden), New Zealand...Canada's number five, which is the first middle-sized country...most of them are tiny...you could say that The Economist is claiming that about 175 countries in the world are not balanced in all kinds of ways."
• "The question I keep asking myself is 'what's dumbing us down?'"

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

• Website: Rebalancing Society
  • Seven Basic Points
  • The Declaration of our Interdependence
  • Donald Trump is not the problem - five-part essay on the roots of the imbalance
• Article: The Economist - Global Democracy Has a Very Bad Year
• Book: Sapiens by Harari
• Book: 21 LEssons for the 21st Century by Harari
• Podcast: Interview with Robert Kegan

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals with a keen interest in the study, practice, and teaching of leadership. Plan now for ILA's 24th Global Conference Online October 6 & 7, 2022, and/or Onsite in Washington, D.C., October 13-16, 2022.

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