Biography
Charles HANDY2003 ranking: 5
The genteel, civilised voice of management, Charles Handy (b. 1932) is a British oil executive turned academic and, in a glorious third career, populist social philosopher.
Irish-born, Charles Handy worked for Shell until 1972 when he left to teach at London Business School. He spent time at MIT where he came into contact with many of the leading lights in the human relations school of thinking including Ed Schein.
Handy's early academic career was conventional. His first book, Understanding Organizations (1976), gives little hint of the wide ranging, social and philosophical nature of his later work. His later books include The Age of Unreason and The Empty Raincoat. These explored ideas such as the shamrock organization and federalism in an engagingly accessible way. Not a case study in sight.
Handy now sets a limit to his audiences of 12 and has become a one-man emplar
of the new world of work he so successfully and humanely commentates on. At
a personal level, he appears to have the answers. Whether these can be translated
into answers for others remains the question and the challenge. Never short
of an intriguing title recent books include the autobiographical The Elephant
and the Flea: Reflections of a Reluctant Capitalist, and the coffee-table
tome, The New Alchemists: How Visionary People Make Something Out of Nothing
(1999).
Sponsors & Media Partners
Here is a selection of some of our media partners and sponsors. If you’d like to sponsor the Thinkers 50, please click on the link below.
