Charles Handy
Charles Handy
Charles Handyis an Irish author/philosopher specialising in organisational behaviour and management. Among the ideas he has advanced are the "portfolio worker" and the "Shamrock Organization"...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionAuthor
CountryIreland
success believe insecurity
I believe that a lot of our striving after the symbols and levers of success is due to a basic insecurity, a need to prove ourselves. That done, grown up at last, we are free to stop pretending.
teaching long may
Most of us prefer to walk backward into the future, a posture that may be uncomfortable but which at least allows us to keep on looking at familiar things as long as we can.
leadership teacher talking
Presidents, leaders, to be effective have to represent the whole to the parts and to the world outside. They may live in the centre but they must not be the centre. To reinforce the common sense they must be a constant teacher, ever travelling, ever talking, ever listening, the chief missionary of the common cause.
real mean rights
Forget land, buildings, or machines-the real source of wealth today is intelligence, applied intelligence. We talk glibly of "intellectual property" without taking on board what it really means. It isn't just patent rights and brand names; it is the brains of the place.
school people tasks
We should see schools as safe arenas for experimenting with life, for discovering our talents... for taking responsibity for tasks and others people, for learning how to learn... and for exploring our beliefs about life and society.
government example states
There is as far as I know, no example in history, of any state voluntarily ceding power from the centre to its constituent parts.
winning healthy competition
Competition is healthy ... but there is more to life than winning or we should nearly all be losers
responsibility sorting substitutes
The market is a mechanism for sorting the efficient from the inefficient, it is not a substitute for responsibility.
heart people fortune-cookie
Purpose, pattern, and people, the three P's at the heart of life.
mean promise progress
If economic progress means that we become anonymous cogs in some great machine, then progress is an empty promise.
children knowledge learning
Instead of a national curriculum for education, what is really needed is an individual curriculum for every child
running communication worst-moments
Some of my unhappiest moments have been in organizations. Somehow it seems to be quite respectable to do things in organizations that you would never do in private life. I have had people insult me to my face in front of colleagues. I have had my feelings rammed down my throat on the pretext that it would do me good. I have been required to do things which I didn't agree with because the organization wished it... In my worst moments I have thought organizations were places designed to be run by sadists and staffed by masochists.
change water behaviour
I like less the story that a frog if put in cold water will not bestir itself if that water is heated up slowly and gradually and will in the end let itself be killed, boiled alive, too comfortable with continuity to realize that continuous change at some point may become intolerable and demand a change in behaviour.
change growth synonym
Change is only another word for growth, another synonym for learning.