R E S E A R C H I N A C T I O N
The Yin and the Yang of
Managing
HENRY MINTZBERG
It has been said that there are two kinds ofpeople in this world: those who believe
there are two kinds of people and those who
don’t. Few will deny, however, that there are
men and there are women. Might they sym-
bolize two faces of managing?
One face can be described as more ag-
gressive, more interventionist, more like
medical cure. That face has become even
more dominant in recent years, especially
in popular depictions of the great leader.
We can call it the yang face of managing,
masculine in style, but practiced by a
goodly number of women too. The other
face is more engaging, more inclusive,
more like nursing care. It is the yin, or
feminine face, but practiced also by many
men.
A day in the working lives of two man-
agers is described below. Both were head-
ing up small, rather well known organiza-
tions in Paris. But that is where the
similarities end. One preferred to race
around Paris on a motorcycle; the other
was inclined to glide through it on a
scooter. The rest will similarly speak for
itself.
A DAY WITH RONY BRAUMAN,
PRESIDENT, ME´DECINS SANS
FRONTIERS (FRANCE)
Rony Brauman, not coincidentally a physi-
cian, had headed up Me´decins sans Frontiers
(MSF, or Doctors without Borders) for 11
years when this day of observation took
place. In France he was the highly visible
leader of a highly visible organization, deeply
embroiled in some of the most intense political
issues of the day. MSF is itself interventionist
in nature: it sets up health care services in
trouble spots around the world.
This “day” in fact began the evening be-
fore, at Brauman’s suggestion. He had called
a press conference to explain why MSF had
decided to pull its people out of Somalia—
partly because of the danger to them, but
also to express its opposition to the United
Nation’s role there. After spending about a
half-hour briefing the 10 or so journalists,
mostly from African-related publications,
Brauman took questions, almost all about
Somalia rather than on MSF. The press con-
ference ended after about 80 min, at which
point Brauman gave a taped interview to an
African radio journalist.
Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 306–312, 2001 ISSN 0090-2616/01/$–see frontmatter
© 2001 Elsevier Science, Inc. PII S0090-2616(01)00035-3
www.organizational-dynamics.com
306 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
I arrived again at 9:30 the next morning,
as suggested, at Brauman’s small office in
MSF’s own small but modern building, just
off the Place de la Bastille. Like most every-
one else there, he was dressed casually—in
jeans and an open shirt—but a tie and jacket
hung in his office. Dr. P., the director general
who dealt more with internal matters, was in
Brauman’s office when I arrived, informing
him about the safety of the MSF staff in So-
malia, including the problem of snipers on
the roofs. “Et alors, decision quand?” Brau-
man asked, concerning the sending of some-
one to assess the situation, to which he re-
ceived the reply, “Decision hier!” [“So,
decision when?”. . . “Decision yesterday!”].
At 9:55 a.m., Brauman joined the meet-
ing he was to have attended at 9:30, of eight
people, the main headquarters management
group, all with their agenda books open,
scheduling. The meeting then moved into
the agenda items, ranging far and wide—
sending people to the former Yugoslavia, le-
gal issues, the plans for a management re-
treat, a new AIDS treatment, the spread of a
new wave of tuberculosis in France, a visit to
Paris by the U.N. Secretary General, and so
on.
People came and went, or periodically
ambled to the door to light a cigarette and
blow the smoke into the hall, Brauman in-
cluded. He mostly listened, occasionally took
the lead, and intervened a few times to ex-
press opinions or values—for example, that
the plans for the retreat be kept loose. At
12:20 p.m., he moved toward the door to
leave, stood there for a few minutes listening
(and smoking), and finally left.
“I hope you don’t mind riding on a mo-
torcycle—it’s the quickest way to cross Par-
is,” he said as he grabbed his jacket en route
to his next meeting, a live interview on
French television. “Don’t worry, I’m care-
ful,” he promised to someone who had been
watching French motorcycle maniacs for
years. (To make up for being late, he drove
on the other side of the concrete abutment
several times, into the oncoming lane, before
tucking back in “just in time” at the next
light.)
Henry Mintzberg is Cleghorn Professor of
Management Studies at McGill University in
Montreal, Canada, and Visiting Scholar at
INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France. His research
has dealt with issues of general management
and organizations, focusing on the nature of
managerial work, forms of organizing, and the
strategy formation process. He is the author of
ten books, including The Nature of Managerial
Work (1973), Strategy Safari (1998) and the re-
cently released Why I Hate Flying. His manage-
ment articles number over one hundred, includ-
ing two Harvard Business Review McKinsey
Prize winners. Mintzberg received his doctorate
and master of science degrees from the M.I.T.’s
Sloan School of Management and his mechan-
ical engineering degree from McGill. He has
served as president of the Strategic Manage-
ment Society and is an elected fellow of the
Royal Society of Canada, the Academy of Man-
agement, and the International Academy of
Management. He was named Distinguished
Scholar for the year 2000 by the Adademy of
Management.
SPRING 2001 307
A woman met us at the door of the
France 2 television station and rushed Brau-
man into a makeup room and then into a
studio, to be briefed by the host before being
seated—jacket on above the jeans under the
table. The host read the news and then ques-
tioned Brauman on the situation in Somalia
in general, more than on MSF in particular.
This lasted about two minutes, and then it
was back to remove the makeup, while a
journalist friend from the station dropped in
say hello and discuss various issues. We left
at 1:35 p.m.
After a fast trip back to the office, and a
check with his secretary (“nothing urgent”),
Brauman looked around for people, found
no one, and headed over to the nearby bistro
to join a group of three MSF people at a table.
The discussion was general at first, but then
focused on a book one of them had been
asked to prepare for a publicity day. Brau-
man guided him through the outline and
explained what he wanted, while the other
two people at the table took notes. “So,
you’ve got the idea?” he asked near the end.
At 3:07 p.m., the secretary of a relaxed
Brauman came in to ask if he had forgotten
about his 3 o’clock appointment with a jour-
nalist from l’Humanite´, and with that the hec-
tic pace resumed.
For a half-hour, there was another inter-
view about Somalia, with a photographer
shooting pictures. Then, for the first time
(short of shouting between helmets), I had a
few minutes to chat with Brauman. “A hu-
manitarian organization has to go against its
own interests sometimes,” he said in refer-
ence to his lobbying activities on public is-
sues. He described MSF as being in its own
niche, although others have joined it, in ad-
dition to having become “intervenants pub-
lics” (public activists).
Soon the pace picked up again. (In per-
fect French fashion, only lunch turned out to
be really relaxed.) For the next 60 min, callers
came and went, encouraged by the open
door next to the glass wall of his office. Dr.
P., the director general, dropped in about a
scheduling matter and a direct-mail cam-
paign; an administrative person came by to
clear a letter that Brauman found not suffi-
ciently explicit; and then he looked over
some other MSF outgoing mail while a com-
puter guy came in to fix his machine. Various
telephone calls followed, including one for
an invitation to a public debate. After that, it
was off to the director general’s office for a
minute before entering (at 4:40 p.m.) a sched-
uled meeting already in progress. A number
of the younger staff was being briefed on the
situation in Somalia. Twenty minutes later,
Brauman, having listened, left.
Then, a few minutes after 5:00 p.m., it
was back to telephone calls (about requests
for meetings and the pullout from Somalia),
scheduling with his secretary, and looking
over more correspondence. There followed
another race across Paris for a 6:00 p.m. ap-
pointment for a live interview on the France
Inter radio station. (I did manage to say,
“Good thing you’re careful,” only to be mis-
interpreted with the reply, “Yes—better to
TABLE 1 YIN AND YANG IN MANAGING
Yin Yang
Conservationist culture:
engaging, inclusive
Interventionist culture:
aggressive, intrusive
Leadership like nursing care Leadership like medical cure
Communicating by image, feel Communicating by
s, drama
Working more inside the organization:
doing, detailing
Working more outside the organization:
networking, promoting
Yin stands for dark, mysterious, passive, so: Yang stands for overt, clear, active, so:
Balanced management.
308 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
arrive late than injured.” We arrived unin-
jured at 5:58!)
There were a few free minutes before the
interview, and I asked Brauman what he
does when in Somalia. Meet his own people
and others, he said, including United Na-
tions personnel, mostly to help his team for-
mulate their problem and reorient their mis-
sion if necessary, but also to develop
teamwork and get himself informed.
Then he went on the air, answering more
questions about the situation in Somalia, this
time at greater length and with more chal-
lenge. That ended by 7:00 p.m., and we then
made our way through rush-hour traffic
(which proved no problem on a motorcycle,
as we threaded between the stopped cars at
up to 70 kph while I imagined what life
might be like without kneecaps).
Back at the office, we had some time to
talk about the structure of MSF, fund raising
(in which Brauman claimed to be not much
involved), his writing of articles and books
on political issues, and his trips to the trouble
spots—which have to last a minimum of a
week, he said, and take up to three months of
his year. Picking up on what I had heard
during the day, I asked why at the very same
time that he was announcing the MSF pull-
out from Somalia, which happened three
days earlier, the organization was now, in
fact, sending some of its people back in.
There was a new outbreak of fighting, he
said; violence was up and the injuries had
begun again.
Brauman was supposed to leave at 7:30
p.m., but when I left at 8:20, he was just
going to have a final look at what was hap-
pening in Somalia.
A DAY WITH CATHERINE JOIN–
DIE´TERLE, CONSERVATEUR EN
CHEF, MUSE´E DE LA MODE ET
DU COSTUME
In a large white room, a tiny piece of cloth is
being dried on a glass table. Light shines up
through it, so that the weaving can be lined
up with the marks on the table. This cloth is
part of a newly received fashion garment
that was donated, or else bought for as much
as $15,000. It will take from four hours to
four days of full-time work to clean this gar-
ment. Then it will be put in a special cloth
bag and stored in a brand new, temperature
and humidity-controlled underground facil-
ity. Later, it may become part of an exhibi-
tion, in which case someone will spend at
least four hours arranging it on a manne-
quin.
This is the Muse´e de la Mode and du
Costume (Museum of Fashion and Dress),
guardian of the legacy of high French fash-
ion. It pursues a unique mandate with a
sense of detail and attention that is rare in
contemporary society. Its director for many
years, Catherine Join–Die´terle, not only
championed that mandate, but also reflected
it in her own style of managing, including
her concern for the institution. Her title,
“conservateur en chef,” was most appropri-
ate.
The museum is housed in the elegant
Palais Galliera, built as a palace for a duch-
ess, and owned, together with the museum,
by the City of Paris. Its administrative offices
are there as well as its exhibition space, li-
brary, and offices of graphics and photogra-
phy. The collection of 30,000 costumes (plus
another 40,000 accessories, including hats,
shoes, gloves, even umbrellas and canes) is
housed in another part of Paris, where the
cleaning and restoration of garments also
takes place.
I arrived at 8:50 a.m. Join–Die´terle had
asked me to come at 9:00, but she was al-
ready in her small office, tucked under the
roof of the museum, organizing her day. We
chatted until 9:15 about the museum and its
founding in 1918. In France, painting comes
first and sculpture second, she said, although
clothing is most personal, “the relationship
to the body.”
At 9:15 a.m., a fax was brought in, and
then we left briskly for the basement, with
me carrying a Christian Dior bag full of
clothing to be turned over to someone for
initial preparation (including sewing over la-
bels to discourage stealing). As we walked,
SPRING 2001 309
Join–Die´terle encountered various people in
the halls, discussing clothing donations, the
need for a child mannequin, and a Givenchy
dress.
Back in the office at 9:30, her assistant,
Sylvie (“my right arm”) called and came in.
They discussed the retirement of a staff
member, and a pile of administrative papers
was turned over to her. Then Join–Die´terle
was on the telephone to the staff member
about a date for the retirement, before the
press attache´ appeared to show her some
clothing given her by a friend. She and Sylvie
then discussed meals for a visiting group,
flowers for an evening reception to honor the
donor of a collection of fashion photographs,
what kind of person she wanted for the
switchboard job, and an individual who had
offered his candidature for a post in the mu-
seum. “Oh, no, I know this guy. I don’t want
him,” she said, to which Sylvie responded
quietly that perhaps she might wish to meet
him anyway. They continued on a range of
issues, including Join–Die´terle’s request for
someone to clean the glass at the entrance.
At 9:57 a.m., someone brought in the
mail, which was reviewed immediately with
Sylvie: bills, invitations, catalogues, “another
woman who wants to sell a wedding gown
—I’ll call her.” There followed some sched-
uling, then a series of telephone calls: about
a child mannequin, someone to take catalog
photographs of a show going to Japan; to
Sylvie about having lined up the photogra-
pher, and so forth.
At 10:35 a.m., we left to take the Metro to
the other facility. (Normally Join–Die´terle
would go on her scooter, she said, but as it
had no place for me, she left it at home.) We
arrived at 11:00 to find a number of people
milling about outside. Join–Die´terle gathered
the group, about twenty-five people in all,
who were there for a scheduled public tour
of the facilities. For about ten minutes she
explained the nature of the museum and of
the tour that was to take place, before turn-
ing it over to Jean–Franc¸ois, the press atta-
che´. He took the group from room to room—
“restoration,” cleaning, the actual storage
facilities, and so forth. Join–Die´terle mostly
stayed with the group, interspersing her
comments periodically (e.g., describing a
particular dress being cleaned on a table and
saying that it was about to be sent to an
exhibition in Japan, or explaining that the
lights were low because strong lighting can
burn the materials). She also slipped out
from time to time, using the occasion to
make contact with her operating staff on a
variety of issues. When the group went
down into the storage facility (“50% humid-
ity, 20°C”), one of its members was afraid of
taking the elevator, so Join–Die´terle accom-
panied her down the ramp. The tour contin-
ued, but at 12:37 p.m. she decided to leave,
and we found a small restaurant nearby to
have lunch and talk.
“Everything is in the head,” she said.
“You have to get it out.” She said her door
was always open, and considered herself
there to be interrupted (although sometimes
she had to go to the library to get things
done). She took charge of a number of the
exhibitions herself and handled contacts
with the municipal government, while she
tried to leave more and more of the internal
administration—such as hiring—to Sylvie.
In the evenings, she did what she called her
“scientific work”: giving courses (e.g., on the
history of fashion), and preparing catalogs
and the like, while trying to avoid telephone
work. (Her son was nine at the time.)
Back at the office at 2:05 p.m., Join–Die´t-
erle met a woman coming in the door (“a fan
of clothing”), checked for messages at recep-
tion, and made several telephone calls, in-
cluding one to find someone to write the text
for a German show. Then the information
technology person came in with some draw-
ings: “I need some information: is this the
16th century?” She thought not—too bad, be-
cause that would have made it the oldest
document in the place. “Why not mark it
with a question mark?”
After some other brief comings and go-
ings in her office, Join–Die´terle went down-
stairs at 2:40 p.m. to meet a man who wished
to donate some prints and invitations to the
museum. She took them and had him sign a
document acknowledging the donation. She
310 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS
was back in her office inside of ten minutes,
at which point she turned to her paperwork,
interrupted by telephone calls about a num-
ber of small issues.
Sylvie came in with a man at 3:17 p.m.
Join–Die´terle explained the job to him (in-
cluding the fact that he needed muscles to
carry boxes—“We’re all women here!”), and
told him about the rules of the system, in-
cluding the need to call in when sick. When
they left after about fifteen minutes, I asked
how she could have just agreed to hire the
very person she was so negative about in the
morning. “He’s been through a hard time—
had to give him a break,” she said. She didn’t
need to add that she had enough trust in
Sylvie to accept her advice.
At 3:40 p.m., as she was about to take me
on a tour of the museum, Jean-Franc¸ois ap-
peared, and Join–Die´terle began to tell him
how she wanted a particular garment dis-
played in a window. Another call followed,
to an expert about storage conditions for the
photography collection being given to the
museum, so that she could discuss it with the
donor that evening. Or, at least as she put it
to Sylvie, who walked in during the call,
“This way I have something to say to him
about it” (which followed: “Bon, j’ai fait mon
boulot”—“Good, I’ve done my duty”). Syl-
vie had come in with the flowers for the
evening, and they discussed the detailed ar-
rangements.
At 4:07 p.m., we finally left for that tour,
spending almost an hour seeing the facilities
and the current exhibition. Along the way,
Join–Die´terle met a woman in the foyer who
wanted to sell some clothing to the museum.
They went behind the entrance, where she
examined the garments. She couldn’t use
them, but feeling sympathetic to someone
who had obviously fallen on hard times, she
gave her the names of other possible buyers.
Back in the office at 5:00 p.m., Join–Die´t-
erle worked on a proposal for an exhibition
in the spring. There were some other calls
and mail, and then we had come time to talk
before the reception.
There is no board of directors, Join–
Die´terle said. She reports directly to the cul-
tural affairs directorate of the City of Paris.
Particularly important, she believes, is the
city’s perception of the museum, which is
formed directly by the people who attend the
shows and indirectly through the way the
museum is reflected in the press. This par-
ticular evening, a politician was to do the
speaking, but Join–Die´terle had written the
comments for editing by his staff. She would
be there, circulating.
I left at 6:15 p.m., so that she could
change into an elegant garment of her own
for the 6:30 reception.
THE TWO FACES OF MANAGING