Corporations Are Social Institutions
06.29.2007 | Chris Bailey | Focused on Business
I don’t know if there’s a secret magic pixie reading WorkPlay, but I found a nice one-year subscription to Harvard Business Review waiting for me in the mail today. Thank you secret magic pixie, whoever you are.
From the latest issue of HBR, here’s some juicy thinking from Henry Mintzberg. It falls under the article title of Productivity Is Killing American Enterprise. Consider that our organizations are organic systems. They exist only because of the people who operate within these systems.
Here’s Professor Mintzberg’s advice:
Treat the enterprise as a community of engaged members, not a collection of free agents. Corporations are social institutions, which function best when committed human beings (not human “resources”) collaborate in relationships based on trust and respect. Destroy this and the whole institution of business collapses.
Take care of the organizational relationships that drive and sustain your business. It’s your people, not your profits, that will define your organization’s success.
5 Responses to “Corporations Are Social Institutions”
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You know, now that I think about it, I SHOULD have done this for you. But I didn’t! Hats off to the magic pixie, but I promise to still weigh in on HBR topics for you
Tell ya what…next time we get the chance to get together, I’ll bring the single-malt and we’ll both have one heck of a dialogue about our HBR reading. Cheers
Hi Chris. I found you via annette clancy’s blog. this is my first read. i look forward to having time to sample you for longer.
Hi Paul, darn glad Annette could hook us up. Good to have another Irish connection. I’ll be keeping up with you, as well. Might even take a bit of inspiration from your blogging editorial policy…at least give a bit more details about what *I* am all about. Come back soon.
[...] Henry Mintzberg makes some highly civilized suggestions about how to improve organizational functioning: “Corporations are social institutions, which function best when committed human beings (not human “resources”) collaborate in relationships based on trust and respect. Destroy this and the whole institution of business collapses.” Chris Bailey agrees. [link] [...]