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Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing. T. S. Eliot writes in one of his poems, “We had the experience but missed the meaning.” Reflection is about getting the meaning.

— Henry Mintzberg Managers Not MBAs (2005)

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More quotes by Henry Mintzberg

Data don't generate theory – only researchers do that.

The structuring of organizations (1979)

Effective managing therefore happens where art, craft, and science meet. But in a classroom of students without managerial experience, these have no place to meet — there is nothing to do.

Managers Not MBAs (2005)

Anecdotal data is not incidental to theory development at all, but an essential part of it

Managers Not MBAs (2005)

Theory is a dirty word in some managerial quarters. That is rather curious, because all of us, managers especially, can no more get along without theories than libraries can get along without catalogs — and for the same reason: theories help us make sense of incoming information.

Managers Not MBAs (2005)

Strategic planning is not strategic thinking. Indeed, strategic planning often spoils strategic thinking, causing managers to confuse real vision with the manipulation of numbers.

All Henry Mintzberg quotes →

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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

G. K. Chesterton

There is the love of knowing without the love of learning; the beclouding here leads to dissipation of mind.

Confucius

Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.

Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Henry Mintzberg (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.