Managing

4

The Untold Varieties of Managing

Not chaos-like together crush’d and bruis’d But as the world, harmoniously confus’d: Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree.

Alexander Pope, “Windsor Forest”

Spend a few hours with a variety of managers, and you will likely be struck by how varied this job can be: a bank chairman visiting branches; a Red Cross delegate on the lookout for tensions in a refugee camp; an orchestra conductor in rehearsal and then performance; an NGO head engaging in formal planning while fighting off a political challenge. Managing is almost as varied as life itself, because it is about so much that happens in life itself.

The last two chapters looked at the common characteristics and ...