I saw Tom Peters speak recently – yes, Tom Peters the uber-guru – and he said that the greatest influence on his thinking about the role of managers in organizations has been Professor Henry Mintzberg, Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University. He is the author of numerous books including Managers not MBAs and most recently Managing, and  has won prizes from the Harvard Business Review for the quality of his articles.  He’s also the man behind the IMPM: The International Masters in Practicing Management, an alternative take on the MBA, and the founder of CoachingOurselves.com, a company helping managers tap into their own wisdom.

In this interview we discuss:

• How ego trips might be the biggest barrier to Great Work flourishing in organizations
• The difference between networks and communities – and why we need to focus more on the latter
• The inescapable conundrums of managing
• And why we should abandon the term ‘leadership’

You can learn more about Henry at his website

Listen to my interview with Henry Mintzberg

I have two shelves put aside for my iconic Great Work texts. These are reserved for the books and the authors who I think have written something timeless and significant in how we can show up and do the work we should be doing.  Peter Senge’s there.  So is Peter Block.

And both these guys point to today’s guest, Robert Fritz, and say he’s a giant in this field. Actually, he’s a giant in two fields.  He spends some of his time working with large organizations.  And he spends some of that time as a composer and creator in the arts field, both making music and making films.  You can see the dual focus by the titles of his books.  One, The Managerial Moment of Truth.  Another, Your Life as Art.

In this wide-ranging discussion we talk about

• How Robert frames Great Work – be true to yourself – and what that real means
• The fact that organizations are amoral – what that means, and in particular what that means to you as a member of that organization
• Why “problem solving” is so seductive for managers – and how it gets in the way of Great Work
• The fundamental design of organizations, why that matters and what their real purpose is (it’s not “shareholder return”)

You can connect with Robert at www.RobertFritz.com

The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.

Listen to my interview with Robert Fritz