Journal Article

Managing Exceptionally

Mintzberg, Henry

2001

Overview

This paper is about two managers of Red Cross refugee camps in Tanzania who manage by exception in rather exceptional circumstances. Using a model of managerial work that delineates roles carried out at the information, people, and action levels, inside and outside the unit, these managers' activities concentrate especially on communicating and controlling a chaotic situation in a steady state, at least temporarily. While many other managers appear to be moving away from conventional forms of managing—to more linking instead of leading and convincing instead of controlling, etc.—here are two managers who seem to be going the other way, precisely because their situation is so unconventionally risky. Ned Bowman's great contribution has been not just about risks and options per se, but in the risks that he himself took and the options that he himself exposed. In this spirit, the paper concludes with a plea for the opening up not simply of content, but of context.

• Publisher: INFORMS,Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
• Subject: Automobiles / Business management / Camps / Case studies / Communication / Cross cultural studies / Desks / Developing countries / Employment / Exception principle / Financial management / Focused Issue: Risk, Managers, and Options in Organizations / Food distribution / LDCs / Leadership / Management by Exception / Management theory / Managers / Managing / NGO / NGOs / Non-governmental organizations / Nongovernmental organizations / Nonprofit organizations / Occupational roles / Organization theory / Organizations / Process management / Refugee camps / Refugees / Risk / Tanzania