Reflection on Manager Lecture -Manus management, Separation of Thinking and doing Our opinion is that one of the most

interesting parts of todays lecture was the discussion about the manus management vs. scientific management, in relation with the separation of thinking and doing. The article was explained good enough, and although the presentation was rushed, we could grasp the essence as we already knew the concepts in-depth. The explanation of different mindsets using the example of the brains image was also important in understanding and visualizing the concepts elaborated. From our personal experience we have to say that we have always seen a combination of thinking and doing, but we still believe that this is not necessarily true. As one of us was working in a company with 1800 employees (only knowledge workers), it was possible to examine the differentiation between manus management and scientific management related to the dualism in a real working environment. As experienced, the level of separation mostly depends on the level of employee in the organizational hierarchy. If we take the example of sales employees, assistants of managers on a lower level are usually told what to do, it is rare that they have to do the real thinking. Direct managers have more freedom, however they are limited by their subordinates. The discussion at some point, lead to an interesting topic regarding business schools and how scientific management is the dominant management form in practice. It was not discussed in great detail and it would be better if it was elaborated more. Furthermore the presenters linked certain theories to the article, for instance the book Thinking Fast and Slow of Daniel Kahnemann. This seemed interesting because they linked the issues neatly with the concepts of judgment and understanding. We believe that some of the people might have taken the taylorist dualism a little bit too literally. Separating thinking from doing does not mean that the thinker only thinks and sits in his chair the whole day, while the doer is some kind of robot that only executes orders. Moreover, it almost never works out clearly within big, multinational organizations. Of course it is not possible to completely separate the two, but it is possible to completely separate the responsibilities. The most important conclusion we can draw from the lecture, is that every manager is doing and thinking. The doing however can differ depending on their role. One example are the top or lower managers, who both do and think, yet the doing is different. A bit thinking is always involved with doing, even when it's tacit and unconscious. There might be situations in which some level of separation of thinking and doing is necessary, but it is usually hard to separate them clearly, as it seems intertwined. In reality both are needed to get the job done. Like Introna puts it: a decision might look irrational to an observer, if the context and circumstances of that decision are not known by the observer. Although manus management and joining thinking and doing might be preferable in highknowledge sectors (the newer sectors and maybe also the ones that will dictate our future), it is not true that scientific management is outdated or will seize to exist.