On the General Manager
Topic: 1) General Management
I was leafing through my copy of "Process Consultation (Volume II)" by Dr. Edgar Schein, Sloan Fellows Professor of Management in the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Edgar Schein website) ... I find it useful to review core foundation works from time to time.


In any case, in that book Dr. Schein summarizes the role and relative position of general managers very well. He writes, "As for general managers, whose responsibilities cut across the various business functions and who manage complete organizational units, in many functions the subordinates are often each more expert than their boss. It is in such situations, where the boss's job is to integrate, coordinate, and blend the expertise of others for coherent decisions, that the skills of helping become most relevant. Such decision processes often occur in groups or involve the interaction of a number of people whose contribution must be orchestrated."


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com