Charles Handy Books

His work on broader issues and trends - such as Beyond Certainty and The Second Curve - has changed the way we view society.In his new book, Handy builds on a life's work to glimpse into the future and see what challenges and opportunities the next generation faces.

Thoughts about life and business as heard on Radio 4's Thought for the Day.

An analysis of the author's philosophy of organizations and the individual in a changing social, business and political environment. It shows how materialist capitalism is self-limiting, how efficiency may be the enemy of cohesive society, and examines the false certainties of science and religion

Charles Handy's best-selling new book looks at how individuals (the fleas in his analogy) relate to multi-national conglomerates (the elephants). In addition to addressing how and why we work today, he covers a wide range of preoccupations and issues including the increasing fear of big business-'it is easy to see why many observers think that the big corporations are now both richer and more powerful than many nation states. They worry that these new corporate states are accountable to no-one ... that their financial clout makes governments beholden to them ... The elephants, people feel, are out of control.'

"Ultimately his thoughtful questioning of his own life is designed to inspire our own - what do we really value? Is it money? Time? Family and community? What is the role of work in our lives? What do we find fulfilling? In his wonderfully engaging and drily witty telling of his own story, Charles Handy provides us with the opportunity to learn life-lessons from one of our wisest contemporaries - and ultimately to inform and influence our own making of life's major decisions." -- BOOK JACKET.

In this extraordinary, life-affirming book, Charles Handy reaches for a philosophy beyond the impersonal mechanics of business organizations, and beyond material choices. He presents a powerful alternative vision, where life and work are regrounded in a natural sense of continuity, connection and purposeful direction. 'The empty raincoat is to me, the symbol of our most pressing paradox. If economic progress means that we become anonymous cogs in some great machine, then progress is an empty promise. The challenge must be to show how paradox can be managed.' from 'The Empty Raincoat'

Handy reaches here for a philosophy beyond the mechanics of business organisations, beyond material choices, to try and establish an alternative universe where the work ethics can contain a natural sense of continuity, connections and a sense of direction.

A collection of essays on work and organizational life in which the author shares his reflections on a changing world. He advocates compromise as the path to progress, and urges organizations to give more freedom to individual employees, to maintain a balance of commitment and creativity.

In an era when change is constant, random, and, as Handy calls it, discontinuous, it is necessary to break out of old ways of thinking in order to use change to our advantage. Handy examines how dramatic changes are transforming business, education, and the nature of work. We can see it in astounding new developments in technology, in the shift in demand from manual to cerebral skills, and in the virtual disappearance of lifelong, full-time jobs. Handy maintains that discontinuous change requires discontinuous, upside-down thinking, and discusses the need for new kinds of organizations, new approaches to work, new types of schools, and new ideas about the nature of our society.