Question 1:
“What has developed, in the business community as in academia, is a preoccupation with a false and shallow concept of the professional manager, a ‘pseudoprofessional’ really—an individual having no special expertise in any particular industry or technology who nevertheless can step into an unfamiliar company and run it successfully through strict application of financial controls, portfolio concepts, and a market-driven strategy.”
Question 2:
• Mintzberg said the organization – its design, its culture, and its power games – all co-shape its strategy, not the other way round
• The head (top management) was held hostage by the body (the organization) and its politics:
– Strategy is a grand narrative that local interests can seek to articulate to further whatever it is that they most desire to do
– Often such desires are quite parochial: to gain influence, belittle their enemies in the organization, forge alliances with their preferred friends or the enemies of their enemies
– Strategy is useful because it provides a rationale, a kind of camouflage, for doing these things.