Books by Charles Handy

Organizations are a part of everyday life, whether in schools, hospitals, police stations or commercial companies. In this classics text, Charles Handy argues that the key to successful organizations lies in a better understanding of the needs and motivations of the people within them. Understanding Organizations offers an extended 'dictionary' of the key concepts -- culture, motivations, leadership, role-playing, co-ordinating and consultation -- and then shows how this 'language' can help us find new solutions to familiar problems. Few management writers have been as consistently challenging and influential as Charles Handy. Firmly established as one of the core business texts, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in organizations and how to make them work better.

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.

Offers a glimpse into the future and shows what challenges and opportunities lie ahead. The author looks at the trends in capitalism and asks whether it is a sustainable system. He explores the dangers of a society built on credit, and challenges the myth that remorseless growth is essential.

Who are the new philanthropists? And how is their philanthropy 'new'? This book portrays a new generation of practical philanthropists, men and women who help actively, working on the spot with the very people who need their aid, ensuring that the initiatives are sustainable in the longer term.

Charles Handy's reflections on work and life have earned him legions of fans throughout the world. His previous books have together sold over a million copies. And his "Thought for the Day" series on BBC radio is celebrated throughout the U.K. Now Handy's fans in America-present and future-can sample what his BBC listeners have enjoyed for so long. Waiting for the Mountain to Move includes sixty-five of this gifted commentator's best essays, culled from ten years of radio broadcasts. Often scripted to fill the three-minute slots allotted those broadcasts, each essay is a brief but brilliant flash of wisdom and inspiration that illuminates and explores questions we all grapple with (or ought to) every working day. With titles including "Life Is Not a Dress Rehearsal," "Trust and the Plumber," and "Learning from Misdoing," these writings wring poignant lessons from common occurrences and cause us to examine our lives, our institutions, and our society in a different and revealing light. The essays--sometimes sober, sometimes humorous--touch on a wide range of subjects, but Handy's pervasive goal is to help others find meaning and purpose in life by bringing their selves and their work, their "being and doing," closer together. Through these essays, it's easy to see why Charles Handy is often regarded as the most influential business author and social philosopher of our times.

Charles Handy is perhaps best known outside the business world as a wise and warm presenter of Radio 4's "Thought for the Day". Here, he leaves the management territory he has so effectively and influentially mapped in the past to explore the issues and dilemmas - moral and creative - raised by the turning points of his long and successful life.

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.

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.

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.

Charles Handy may well be Britain's only world-class management guru (Director Magazine) but his thoughts about organisations and the role of the individual involve thoughts beyond pay and display.

With his characteristically very personal anecdotal style, Charles Handy analyses how materialistic capitalism is self-limiting, how efficiency may be the enemy of a cohesive society, and examines the false certainties of science and religion.