Charles Handy has been one of the few writers who has really touched and inspired me on my journey of the past 40 odd years.
It’s not easy to describe his
appeal - since he is best known as Britain’s most eminent management guru and
such people are normally publicity-seeking charlatans (see Huczyinski (1993) and
Micklewait and Wooldridge)
Handy’s first book “Understanding Organisations” (1976) was written after 5 years’ experience of helping establish the country’s first business school and was indeed one of the few books on management available in Britain at the time. When the huge new Strathclyde Region set up a small group to review its departmental structure, the Chief Executive gave us a Peter Drucker paperback to give us ideas – it was the only paperback on the subject available…. “Understanding Organisations” was written for the practising executive – management “students” didn’t exist then! There is an artificiality and technical smartness in the writing of management textbooks – but a humility and moral power in Handy’s writing.
His next book - “Gods of Management” (1978) – was a shorter one which told the story of the 4 types of organisational culture. It was a superb read and was reflected in presentations I subsequently did in Central Asia in the early 2000s to help officials set the “one-man management” principle they were familiar with against alternative systems….
And Handy had a rare knack for anticipating the future – somehow he’s able to peer into the tea-leaves and help us make sense of the new worlds are emerging and to do so in the most crystal-clear and elegant of language. He did this first in The Future of Work (1984) when he coined the phrase “portfolio work” to describe how our careers in future would be a mixture of time-limited projects and also invented (in "The Age of Unreason” 1989) the phrase “shamrock organisations” to describe the form the organisations of the future would take – the (small number) of core workers; those on contract; and part-time workers. His books have had an increasingly chatty approach – helped probably by his experience of doing a lot of “Thought for the Day” pieces for the BBC which taught him, he says, to compress his thoughts into 450 words or so. For a very graceful assessment of Handy’s role and significance see this article
He’s reached the advanced age
of 88 – and I was delighted to discover, on a recent visit to the little English
bookshop in the nearby park, that he produced last year a little book 21 Letters on Life and its Challenges.
It takes the format of short epistles for his grandchildren - summing up what
he feels he’s learned about life.
It’s such a delightful read that, for my own benefit, I felt I needed to make a note of the main points of each of the chapters
Chapter Title |
|
Things Will Be Different |
List of some key words whose
meanings have changed dramatically in a lifetime (“chip used to be piece of
wood or fried potato”) and the scale of change in that period – not least
work. We are now “Creatives, Carers or Custodians” |
The Human Imperative |
But the really big issues and
questions don’t change. “Trust but verify” |
Life’s Biggest Question |
Emerson’s advice – “To
laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the
affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure
the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in
others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden
patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has
breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded” Doing the best you can with
what you’re best at |
God or What? |
In the new diversity, can we
tell right from wrong? Aristotle has twelve virtues: 1) Courage – bravery and the willingness to stand up for what you think is right; 2) Temperance – self-control and restraint; 3) Liberality – kindness, charity and generosity; 4) Magnificence – radiance, joie de vivre; 5) Pride – satisfaction in achievement; 6) Honour – respect, reverence, admiration; 7) Good Temper – equanimity, level-headedness; 8) Friendliness – conviviality and sociability; 9) Truthfulness – straightforwardness, frankness and candour; 10) Wit – sense of humour; 11) Friendship – camaraderie and companionship; 12) Justice – impartiality and fairness |
Everyone Can Be Wrong |
Closed and open answers; Galileo and Copernicus; Handy’s portfolio/clover idea – and the initial reaction against it |
Curiosity Does not Kill the
Cat |
Travel with curiousity in
your backpack |
How Clever Are You? |
Different ideas on the
subject (Howard Gardiner). Schools have a strange notion “I keep six honest
serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why
and When And How and Where and Who” (Kipling). |
Life Is a Marathon not a
Horse Race |
Defects of competition; Be your own master |
Who You Are Matters more than
What You Do |
His wife photographs subjects with 5 objects to illustrate their different identities. Idea of “street wisdom” |
Keep It Small |
Edmund Burke’s “small platoons” Robin Dunbar’s organisations of no more than 150 and key groups of 5, 15 and 45. Federal systems best |
You Are not a Human Resource |
Pity Drucker used the management word –
“work should be organised; things managed and people led” |
You and Society |
Complicated letter –
suggesting we have excessive regulations; that rep democracy should be upheld
|
Life’s Changing Curves |
We should start afresh before
we are forced to |
Enough Is as Good as a Feast |
The Bushmen had a 15 hour
week – the money poisoned everything (Rousseau) Handy separate NEEDS from WANTS
(concept of free work) |
It’s the Economy, Stupid |
His father’s “stipend”; His wife’ separation of “investment” from “consumption” “Money and fulfilment are uneasy bedfellows” |
‘We’ Beats ‘I’ all the Time |
If there is a common purpose; Never take friendship for granted |
When Two Become One |
He confesses to selfishness
in how he treated his wife |
What You Can’t Count Matters
More Than What You Can |
“McNamara fallacy” means that
mush of life gets pushed into 3rd or 4th place.. eg
love, hope, kindness, courage, honesty and loyalty |
The Last Quarter |
future generations can look
forward to last 25 years of their life being free of financial worried |
You Are Unique |
We have 3-5 identities |
My Last Words |
What he recommends for his
grandchildren - Learn a foreign language, a musical instrument, a sport (individual
better); write a diary and fall in love |
Handy's little book inspires me to go back and look again at my draft - since the last version is from June...and is clearly too abstract and impersonal....it's subtitle "a bibliograph's notes" say it all!