Managing without soul has become an epidemic in society. Many managers these days seem to specialize in killing cultures, at the expense of human engagement.” That’s what management guru Henry Mintzberg recently wrote about the current state of corporate culture on his blog.
Too make matters even worse, he points out that many executives are actually trained to operate that way at MBA programs. While business schools teach technocratic skills, such as finance, optimization and resource management, they do very little in the way of strengthening souls.
Sadly, corporate culture discussions usually devolve into buzzwords, like “authenticity.” And while Mintzberg says that after a half century of studying organizations he can get a sense of an one’s soul “in an instant,” he offers little guidance how to develop one. The truth is that you don’t find your soul inside yourself, but by finding your place in the world.