Picture of Edgar Schein

Edgar Schein

Society of Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus and Professor Emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management

Edgar Schein is the Society of Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus and a Professor Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Schein investigates organizational culture, process consultation, research process, career dynamics, and organization learning and change.

Edgar Schein

Society of Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus and Professor Emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management

Edgar Schein is the Society of Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus and a Professor Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Schein investigates organizational culture, process consultation, research process, career dynamics, and organization learning and change. In Career Anchors, third edition (Wiley, 2006), he shows how individuals can diagnose their own career needs and how managers can diagnose the future of jobs. His research on culture shows how national, organizational, and occupational cultures influence organizational performance (Organizational Culture and Leadership, fourth edition, 2010). In Process Consultation Revisited (1999) and Helping (2009), he analyzes how consultants work on problems in human systems and the dynamics of the helping process. Schein has written two cultural case studies—“Strategic Pragmatism: The Culture of Singapore’s Economic Development Board” (MIT Press, 1996) and “DEC is Dead; Long Live DEC” (Berett-Kohler, 2003). His Corporate Culture Survival Guide, second edition (Jossey-Bass, 2009) tells managers how to deal with culture issues in their organizations.

Contributions to The Starling Compendium

External Materials

Humble Inquiry
Humble Inquiry

The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling

Communication is essential in a healthy organization. But all too often when we interact with people—especially those who report to us—we simply tell them what we think they need to know. This shuts them down. To generate bold new ideas, to avoid disastrous mistakes, to develop agility and flexibility, we need to practice Humble Inquiry.