Myself and Other More Important Matters Paperback – International Edition, 3 May 2007

Good book

While nearing the end of my own working career some five years ago this book came along at an appropriate moment for me also to reflect on my own life of work and play. This was one of the last business management books I read having got a bit fed up with all the ambition posturing and office politics of earlier work life. Having left full time employment just before 2000 with organisations and set up on my own I quite enjoyed looking into other organisations at these scenes still being played out. I often think to be successful in business one has to be a good actor. I recommend Charles Handy's book strongly to those in a similar stage in their lives. As in his other books opinions good and bad are given openly and honestly. I took his advice from 1990 on portfolio working and living perhaps overlooking the fact that one does need to put a limit in any portfolio especially when one slows down with that horrible thing called aging. I often wondered why my father used to get so frustrated with life at my age and I now know having reached the same age. I have read this book twice and perhaps need to read it again.

Absolutely fascinating. Charles Handy, often called the "Peter Drucker of the United Kingdom," (though he's much more than that) has penned a page-turner autobiography. If you're over 50, it's must-reading. In between his short, crisp management meanderings, he dispenses wisdom on the "portfolio" life--why your middle and later years might be better invested on your own versus at the whims of an organization. (Attention all wanna-be consultants!)Under 50? Then I'd suggest it's required reading. You'll be shocked--and educated--when you discover that Britain had no books on management in the 1950s (none). And no business schools until he co-founded the London Business School in 1967 (after a year at MIT's Sloan). "Business...was long seen by the British as a lower status occupation, definitely inferior to the armed services." His thoughts about America, flavored with his peculiar "cultural Christian" insights (his father was a Church of Ireland minister) will intrigue you.While paradigm-changing concepts like the shamrock organization, the sigmoid curve, "doughnuts," and the "portfolio worker" elevated him to management guru status, his humility is remarkable. He said that Drucker "once quipped that journalists only came up with the word [guru] because `charlatan' was too long for a headline."Handy's written 14 books, including his classics Understanding Organizations, The Future of Work, Gods of Management, and The Age of Unreason. While this book is autobiographical, his professor/consultant bent pops out on every page. His early employer, Shell, became big fans of Douglas McGregor's 1960 book, The Human Side of Enterprise. Of McGregor's two styles of leadership, Theory X (people need to be told what to do) and Theory Y (people can act responsibly on their own initiative), Shell decreed that "they would be a Theory Y organization, unaware, presumably, of the confusion they caused by using Theory X to implement Theory Y. Old habits die hard." That's just one anecdote in a feast of memorable management stories, with wisdom and dry wit thrown in at no extra charge.I can't resist adding one more. Later in life, he limited his speaking engagements to five per year for fees and five for expenses only (never in the summer). Handy's wife, Elizabeth, handled his bookings. When asked to speak in Calcutta for the British Council, the proposed fee was minimal. "Pay him nothing," Elizabeth suggested. "But you must have all the right connections, so could you arrange for us to have an hour alone with each of the four most interesting people in Calcutta?" The result?"So it was that we met privately and personally with the chief minister, who turned out to be a jovial Marxist, with Mother Teresa, surrounded by her nuns, the vice-chancellor of the university and a prominent local artist. Money can't buy that kind of experience."

Ich hoffe Charles Handy hat andere Bücher veröffentlicht, die mehr Inhalt haben. Kaum Inhalt und viel Geschwafel. Von den vielen guten Wirtschaftsweisheiten, die seinen Namen bekannt und wertvoll machten ist in diesem Buch kaum etwas zu lesen. Schade.

A weekend's 5-6 hours is all it took me to read this book. I think that says something about the easy pace of the book, the vivid writing style of the author and the imaginative weaving of tales by the raconteur Charles Handy. Having recently read two American autobiographies, I was pleased to note that this one is different, perhaps because Handy is not American. There is no pomposity, no grandiose claims, no hyperbole. Handy does not forget to give credit for his achievements where it may be due, whether it is his education, his wonderful wife or his late father's colleagues. Nor does he go on about I, me, myself although he could have done so, this being his autobiography. His life was clearly not lived in isolation. Highlighting this allows a better understanding of how he discovered opportunities and how he made his decisions about taking them on. One can paint a fairly full picture of his life, with all its characters. That he is well-read is apparent throughout the book, and in his approach to management issues, I think he may be the closest thing we may have to Peter Drucker, who now sadly is no more.Why 4 stars? Well, a note about proof-reading in the book: I do not know if this vexes many people, but it irritates me because poor spelling, missing words and malapropisms can distract from a perfectly engrossing piece of writing. Why do editors let authors down like this? If I were 12, I would find 'pubic' instead of 'public' funny, but no more.