Katana VentraIP

Charles Handy

Charles Brian Handy CBE (born 25 July 1932) is an Irish author/philosopher specialising in organisational behaviour and management. Among the ideas he has advanced are the "portfolio career" and the "shamrock organization" (in which professional core workers, freelance workers and part-time/temporary routine workers each form one leaf of the "shamrock").

Charles Handy

(1932-07-25) 25 July 1932

1956-present

He has been rated among the Thinkers 50, a private list of the most influential living management thinkers. In 2001 he was second on this list, behind Peter Drucker, and in 2005 he was tenth. When the Harvard Business Review had a special issue to mark the publication's 50th anniversary Handy, Peter Drucker, and Henry Mintzberg were asked to write special articles.


In July 2006 Handy was conferred with an honorary Doctor of Laws by Trinity College Dublin.

Marketing executive, Shell International Petroleum Company 1956–65

Economist, Charter Consolidated 1965–66

International faculty fellow, 1966–67

MIT

1967–95 (professor 1978–94)

London Business School

Warden, St George's House, 1977–81

Windsor Castle

Writer and broadcaster, 1981–

Ideas and style[edit]

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."[5]

Personal life[edit]

He was married to Elizabeth Handy, a photographer, with whom he collaborated on a number of books including The New Alchemists and A Journey through Tea. Elizabeth (aged 77) died in a car accident in England on 5 March 2018.[6] Their son Scott Handy is an actor who has performed with the RSC and their daughter Kate is an osteopath.

Understanding Organisations (1976) –  0-14-015603-8

ISBN

Gods of Management (1978) –  0-09-954841-0

ISBN

The Future of Work (1984)

Understanding Schools (1986)

Understanding Voluntary Organisations (1988)  978-0-14-022491-7

ISBN

The Age of Unreason (1989) –  0-09-954831-3

ISBN

Inside Organisations (1990)

The Empty Raincoat (1994) –  0-09-930125-3, US printing under title The Age of Paradox (1994) – ISBN 0-87584-425-1

ISBN

Waiting for the Mountain to Move (1995)

Beyond Certainty (1995) –  0-87584-763-3

ISBN

The Hungry Spirit (1997) –  0-09-922772-X

ISBN

New Alchemists (1999) –  0-09-179995-3

ISBN

Thoughts for the Day (1999) –  0-09-940529-6 – (first published in 1991 as Waiting for the Mountain to Move)

ISBN

The Elephant and the Flea (2001) –  0-09-941565-8

ISBN

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 –  0-434-01346-3

ISBN

The New Philanthropists (2006)

21 Ideas for Managers (2000)  0-7879-5219-2

ISBN

The Second Curve (2015)  1-8479-4133-8

ISBN

Handy is the author of the following books:

BBC Biography of Charles Handy

Archived 28 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine

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

Frances Hesselbein, Paul M. Cohen (eds.), Leader To Leader (Jossey Bass, 1999)  0-7879-4726-1

ISBN

Charles Handy. The Elephant and the Flea  0-09-941565-8

ISBN