Modern Management:

New Management Model

The Five Minds of a Manager

Thinking globally but acting locally, competing yet collaborating, changing yet maintaining continuity

Managers are told to think globally but act locally, compete yet collaborate, change continuously but maintain continuity. No wonder many are confused. managers actually require five distinct mindsets, according to "The Five Minds of a Manager," by J.Gosling and H.Mintzberg in Harvard Business Review.

1. Reflective mindset

Stepping back and reflecting on experiences allow mistakes to be identified. Reflection may also lead to seeing things in a new ways, e.g., a product as a service or customers as partners (or vice versa).

2. Analytical mindset

Go beyond crunching the numbers. When a decision must be made, analyze the analysis of others to determine the biases they may have had and the data and assumptions used.

3. Worldly mindset.

People tend to think of the world as an increasingly homogenous place but it is really a collection of worlds within worlds, with definite boundaries and edges. Just because a company sells products globally it may not take into account how those products are perceived and used in different cultures. Managers with a worldly mindset spend time in places where products are made, customers served, and environment threatened.

4. Collaborative mindset

Managing collaboratively means managing not people but relationships. Good managers listen more than they talk and ask questions more than give orders. They also distribute management functions so that responsibility goes to whoever shows initiative.

5. Action mindset

We are told that we must change or else. But while this is an age of change, not everything is changing (which we tend not to notice). Managers with action mindsets focus organizational energy on changing what needs to be changed, while carefully maintaining those that don't.

Integrating the mindsets

Successful managers integrate the five mindsets into a single whole. They reflect, act, and reflect some more; realize that collaboration is necessary, for which they must enter the world of others to analyze more data and viewpoints; and then act in an endless cycle.