From Control to Reflection in Management

Abstract

Not only did the crisis at Intel lead to the transformation of Intel, it also led Grove to rethink his understanding and practice of management. Whereas prior to the crisis, he had assumed a rational understanding of the theory and practice of management, through the crisis, he became acutely aware of the non-rational dimensions of management. This includes the role of judgement, intuition and emotion in being a manager. In times of crisis, he maintains that managers have got nothing more than their intuition and judgement on which to rely. Rather than analysis, they need to rely on their ability to read situations. This leads him to conclude that rather than seeing management as primarily a technical activity, it needs to be seen as an activity which involves the person as a whole, that being a manager presupposes being a well developed and well rounded person.