Empowerment is what managers do to people. Engagement is what managers do with people.

Technologies tend to undermine community and encourage individualism.

Basically, managing is about influencing action. Managing is about helping organizations and units to get things done, which means action. Sometimes, managers manage actions directly. They fight fires. They manage projects. They negotiate contracts.

The prime occupational hazard of a manager is superficiality.

Management and leadership are not separate spheres. The two skills work together in the larger realm of “communityship.

I describe management as arts, crafts and science. It is a practice that draws on arts, craft and science and there is a lot of craft - meaning experience - there is a certain amount of craft meaning insight, creativity and vision, and there is the use of science, technique or analysis.

What I have against M.B.A.s is the assumption that you come out of a two-year program probably never having been a manager - at least for full-time younger people M.B.A. programs - and assume you are ready to manage.