Dr. Darin R. Molnar
Who wrote this, and where it came from.
“I have BA and MA degrees in Anthropology (Archaeology) and a PhD in Organization & Management with a specialization in Leadership. I probably have no business building harpsichords at all.”
Where Middle Way Management came from
Middle Way Management began in March 2009 as a written argument, published in the open, one essay at a time. It set out to answer a narrow question: what does it actually take to lead people well inside an American-style organization, when the prevailing answer treats people as resources to be exploited?
The answer it arrived at is compassion — not as sentiment, but as a daily managerial practice with standards attached. The framework holds that suffering exists in organizations in two forms, individual and organizational, and that managers carry a special responsibility to relieve both.
It was tested, not just asserted
Between 2009 and 2010 the framework was put through a mixed-methods study: a Delphi panel of working leaders and managers reduced 100 candidate items to 25, followed by a limited field test for validity, reliability, and internal consistency, then a full-scale administration and statistical analysis. The result was the Middle Way Management Assessment Instrument — the MWM-AI — which was administered at the start of consulting engagements and again once organizational members had worked the methodology.
The writing
The essays ran from March 2009 to June 2013 and are republished here in full, in the order they were written. Nothing has been cut. The original blog remains at middlewaymanagement.blogspot.com.
Other work, including books, is at darinmolnar.com.