Falconer Mitchell and Hanne Nørreklit
Understanding how managers take successful actions is a prerequisite for explaining and providing guidance on how successful management performance can be achieved. This text has shown how a particular philosophy of human action taking can fulfill this basic role. It has demonstrated that the managerial processes underlying successful practice can be identified and used to provide the guidance that can lead to successful management that can also be improved over time. Managerial action is founded on the four key dimensions of the reality of the “world” in which the manager operates: facts, action possibilities, values to be attained, and communication. The success of managerial action is dependent on these dimensions both corresponding to the reality of the situation and whether they are integrated coherently with each other. Identification of relevant facts and the action possibilities deriving from them provides the situational reality of the manager. Action possibilities thus selected will then have to fit not only with the identified facts but also meet recognized managerial and organizational values and intentions. To achieve this, they have to be derived from and disseminated through strong communication systems that build, test, and reflect on managerial beliefs about how “things” work in their organization.
This philosophical approach requires managers to be both people centered and reflective in their work. Without people, organizations do not function, and managers will therefore have to hold sound beliefs about how employees will react to their actions. These beliefs are developed as part of a learning experience as managers act and reflect on the impacts of their actions in ways that will strengthen their organizational beliefs. Reflection is also necessary upon the following: (i) selection of facts deemed relevant to issues under consideration by management, (ii) identification of action possibilities created by identified facts, (iii) ascertaining the values achievement inherent in possible actions, and (iv) undertaking the communications needed to design and initiate action. Through such reflection, managerial beliefs can become more accurate, and, consequently, managerial action becomes more successful over time.