Making Sense Of Management

In this unique and personal book an experienced and successful manager uses the story of his own career -- and decades of experience teaching - to share a lifetime of insight into how groups of people get things done.
Formally trained in the then-new field of public administration, Stanford went into State government in California as a civil servant amid the energy and explosive growth of the post-war boom, and worked his way to the upper tier of public service, and beyond. His curiosity and drive to face new challenges led him through two decades of wide-ranging management roles. Whether fostering architectural innovation on state construction projects, immersing himself in the state's labyrinthine budget process, skillfully defusing outrage over a public art project, or organizing a statewide program on Good Design, each expanded his understanding of management. Teaching at night helped him to constantly examine and update his ideas.
These real-life adventures in problem-solving, each keenly observed, deeply understood, and artfully told, chronicle the evolution of a manager.
A remarkable combination of textbook and autobiography, this is also an inspiring lesson in how to learn one's way into, and all the way through, an immensely rewarding career.

• Managing is not something you suddenly start to do when you finally reach a certain rung on the ladder. Getting things done in organizations (which is what managers specialize in) is something everyone does to some extent.
• All of us can learn to do it better.
• How routine matters are handled is too important to be handled in a routine way.
• When it works the best, your role is likely to be at least low-profile and perhaps invisible.
• Even if it looks like a manager and talks like a manager and thinks like a manager, it may not be able to manage.
• A mentor can be very helpful, but may also want to keep you in what the mentor thinks of as "your place."
• There are two parts to making a transition: the leaving and the arriving.
• In complex situations, honesty can be a most effective - and surprising - strategy.
• I was managing in a beleaguered university system - one still propelled by growth and the excitement of innovative new campuses, but under attack from student activists as the handy symbol of establishment repression and from Governor Reagan as the handy symbol of misguided liberal tolerance.
• I still believe that the future can be better than the past and the present - if we can manage to make more use of what we know.
• My suggestion is that, to the extent you can, you look neither to your work nor to your personal life for your self-esteem and satisfactions. Look to both. Use whatever choices you have to integrate them. Be a whole person with a whole life.

JOHN HOWARD STANFORD was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and grew up in Ontario, California. After graduating from UC Berkeley he got his masters in Public Administration at Syracuse University, then served during WWII in the Air Transport Command. He began a twenty-year career in California State government in 1947 as an analyst in the Finance Department, and served in a variety of roles in Highways, Public Works, and General Services, where he served as Deputy Director. In 1967 he moved to statewide administration of the University of California, serving as Assistant Vice President and Controller. Throughout his career he also taught management and administration, primarily to working students, and after retiring from UC he taught at and served as Dean of the JFK School of Management in Orinda.
He is an accomplished pianist. He and his wife Betty live in Berkeley, California. They have three grown children and six grandchildren.