WORK
Rebalancing Society
Mintzberg's 2015 structural argument that healthy societies — and healthy organizations — require the continuous rebalancing of three sectors and three managerial components (art, craft, science) against the gravitational pull of whichever component the age has perfected.
Rebalancing Society (2015) was received as political argument — a case against the tilt toward the private sector at the expense of the public and plural sectors. It was political. It was also, at its foundation, a structural argument about the conditions under which complex systems remain healthy. Rebalancing is not balance. Balance suggests static equilibrium; rebalancing suggests a dynamic system that has tilted and requires continuous correction against forces that continue to operate. The structural equivalent in organizational life, acutely visible in the AI era, is the tilt toward one component of the managerial role at the expense of the others. Management is a blend of art (vision), craft (practice), and science (analysis). The tilt was toward science long before AI. AI perfects science and intensifies the tilt. The remedy is deliberate rebalancing toward craft and art.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The tilt's mechanism is self-reinforcing. Science produces measurable results. Measurable results justify budgets.