Managing

3

A Model of Managing

A good theory is one that holds together long enough to get you to a better theory.

Donald O. Hebb (1969)

In search of a better theory, we turn now from the characteristics of managing to its content: what is it that managers actually do, and how?

We begin with the gurus, most of whom have seen the job in its component parts, not its integrated whole, and the academics, who have seen the whole as lists of disconnected parts. This chapter proposes a model of managing that positions the parts within the whole, by depicting managing as taking place on three planes: information, people, and action, inside the unit and beyond it. A final section describes the “well-rounded” job of managing as a dynamic balance.

Managing ...