Charles Handy

Charles Handy (born 1932) is an Irish author/philosopher specialising in organisational behaviour and management. Among the ideas he has advanced are the "portfolio worker" and the "Shamrock Organization" (in which professional core workers, freelance workers and part-time/temporary routine workers each form one leaf of the "Shamrock"). Born the son of a Church of Ireland archdeacon in Kildare, Ireland, Handy was educated at Oriel College, Oxford. In July 2006 he was conferred with an honorary Doctor of Laws by Trinity College, Dublin. He has been rated among the Thinkers 50, the most influential living management thinkers. In 2001 he was second on this list, behind Peter Drucker, and in 2005 he was tenth. Handy's business career started in marketing at Shell International. He was a co-founder of the London Business School in 1967 and left Shell to teach there in 1972. When the Harvard Business Review had a special issue to mark their 50th Anniversary they asked Handy, Peter Drucker and Henry Mintzberg to write special articles. He is married to Elizabeth Handy, a photographer, with whom he has collaborated on a number of books including The New Alchemists and A Journey through Tea. Their son Scott Handy is an actor who has played with the RSC.

Career

• Marketing Executive, Shell International Petroleum Company 1956-65
• Economist, Charter Consolidated 1965-66
• International Faculty Fellow, MIT 1966-67
• London Business School 1967-95 (Professor 1978-94)
• Warden, St George's House, Windsor Castle 1977-81
• Writer and broadcaster, 1981-

He was Chairman of the Royal Society of Arts 1987-89.^[1]

He has Honorary Doctorates from Bristol Polytechnic, UEA, Essex, Durham, Queen's University Belfast and the University of Dublin. He is an Honorary Fellow of St Mary's College, Twickenham, the Institute of Education City and Guilds and Oriel College, Oxford. He was awarded a CBE in 2000.

Ideas and Style

A feel for Handy's style can be gained from the opening of his autobiography: "Some years ago I was helping my wife arrange an exhibit of her photographs of Indian tea gardens when I was approached by a man who had been looking at the pictures. 'I hear that Charles Handy is here,' he said. 'Indeed he is,' I replied, 'and I am he.' He looked at me rather dubiously for a moment, and then said, 'Are you sure?' It was, I told him, a good question because over time there had been many versions of Charles Handy, not all of which I was particularly proud."^[2]

Books

He is the author of the following books:

• Understanding Organisations (1983) - ISBN 0-14-015603-8
• The Future of Work (1984)
• Gods of Management (1985) - ISBN 0-09-954841-0
• Understanding Schools (1986)
• Understanding Voluntary Organisations (1988)
• The Age of Unreason (1989) - ISBN 0-09-954831-3
• Inside Organisations(1990)
• The Empty Raincoat (1994) - ISBN 0-09-930125-3
• Waiting for the Mountain to Move (1995)
• Beyond Certainty (1995)
• The Hungry Spirit (1997)- ISBN 0-09-922772-X
• New Alchemists (1999)- ISBN 0-09-179995-3
• Thoughts for the Day (1999) - ISBN 0-09-940529-6 - (first published in 1991 as Waiting for the Mountain to Move)
• The Elephant and the Flea (2001) - ISBN 0-09-941565-8
• A Journey through Tea - with Elizabeth Handy
• Re-invented lives (2002)
• Myself and Other More Important Matters (2006) - an autobiography and further reflections on life - ISBN 0-434-01346-3
• The New Philanthropists (2006)

See also

• Organizational culture

External references

• BBC Biography of Charles Handy
• Biography at the Thinkers 50 2005
• The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management
• An Interview with Charles Handy (Part One), by C Honore, Ivey Business Journal, 2000
• An Interview with Charles Handy (Part Two), by C Honore, Ivey Business Journal, 2000
• An interview with Charles Handy, by Stephen Bernhut, Ivey Business Journal, 2004
• "The Shift to Non-Standard Employment" on British Columbia's Workinfonet

References

1. ^ The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management. BBC. Retrieved on 2007-05-01.
2. ^ Myself and other more important matters p1

see also

• Frances Hesselbein, Paul M. Cohen (eds.), Leader To Leader (Jossey Bass, 1999) ISBN 0-7879-4726-1
• Charles Handy. The Elephant and the Flea () ISBN 0-09-941565-8de:Charles Handy