Charles Handy, The Age of Unreason (1989)
Irish oil executive who became a London Business School professor and renowned
business philosopher (pictured right).
See also...
Charles Handy in the Management
Gurus section.
Book summary
What is discontinuous change?
Where the future bears no relation to the past because of
radical change
This is happening now in the Age of
Unreason.
How to make
change happen
a) overcome resistance to
change
Welcome change so that you can use it to your
advantage.
b) challenge yourself and get out of the
comfort zone
Avoid the boiled frog syndrome
(pictured right) where the frog dies when slowly heating it in cold water.
c) upside-down
thinking
(see below)
What is upside-down
thinking?
1. Challenging the status quo.
2. Thinking the unlikely and doing the
unreasonable.
3. Turning conventional wisdom upside-down.
The results of upside-down
thinking
1. New ideas.
2. New rules for living (e.g. valuing time, not money, work-life
balance)
3. New language (e.g. house-husband, single parent
families)
Future
organizations
1. Shamrock
organization
This has three parts (or leaves, pictured right):
The emphasis is on flexibility -
a) working at home
(so that the office becomes a social meeting place)
b) quickly responding to customer requirements.
2. Federal
organization
This is a mixture
of:
(similar to Peters and Waterman's loose-tight
organization)
People are given the power to make their
own decisions (the principle of subsidiarity), so authority over others must be
earned.
3. Triple I
organization
This has:
4. Caring
organization
This is an
organization which cares for individual employees and their learning and development.
Future careers
- portfolio living
In response to shorter
careers in full-time employment, people must embrace portfolio living where people have five different types of
work in their lives:
1. Wage (or
salary) work
(paid for time
given).
2. Fee
work
(paid for
results).
3.
Homework
(all the jobs for home
and family).
4. Gift
work
(work done for free
like charity work).
5. Study
work
(education and
training).
Conclusion
Your future is what you make it, so live the dream.
Key quotes on
change
The times are changing and we must change with them.
In an age of unreason there can be no certainty.
Key quote on the past,
present and future
We are all prisoners of our past.
Key quote on management and
leadership
Trust has to be earned, but in order to be earned, it must first
be given.
Key quote on learning and
creativity
Thinking the unthinkable is a way of getting the wheel of learning
moving.
Learning...is solving our own problems for our own
purposes.
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