Mintzberg, a long time critic of management practices, offers some more insights in his latest book.
After observing 29 managers in different organizations, he makes the point that management has not really changed over the last 100 years. But the biggest change, he says, is email and he's not entirely sure that's been a good thing.
Has email changed management? The answer, says Mintzberg, is yes and no. In many ways, it reinforces the fragmented nature of management which is full of interruptions and constantly on the edge. While people like Drucker have argued that the manager is like the conductor of an orchestra, Mintzberg says it's more like conducting an orchestra that's rehearsing.
The positive side of email is that managers are better informed and able to keep in touch with people around the world in ways that were unthinkable not even 10 years ago,'' Mintzberg writes. "The problem, however, is that it might stop them thinking."
"Like conventional mail, email is restricted by the poverty of words alone: there is no tone of voice to hear. no gestures to see, no presence to feel – even images can be a nuisance to create,'' Mintzberg says. "Email may simply limit the user's ability to support emotional, nuanced and complex interactions. Managing is as much about all these things as it is about the factual content of the messages.
"The danger of email is that it may give a manager the impression of being in touch while the only thing actually being touched is the keyboard. This can aggravate a long standing problem in managing: allowing a fancy new technology to give the illusion of control…Relying on the rapidity of email is fine, so long as the manager is not fooled into believing that he or she understands a situation because some words have popped up on a screen…So does the Internet make managers better connected or less? Take your choice for now – we don't yet know the answer. But we had better be asking the question."
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