Understanding Organizations

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In this new edition of his acclaimed study, Charles Handy solidifies his reputation as a seminal business thinker, offering a wide-ranging look at business organizations. Long a bestseller in the UK, this classic text discusses key concepts crucial for all managers: culture, motivation, leadership, power, role-playing, and teamwork. Handy emphasizes how managers can translate these six main concepts into practical tools for effective management. He explores the need for organizations to select, develop, and reward their people; structure and design their work; resolve conflicts; set guidelines for managers; and plan for the future. Handy presents his ideas in accessible ways, using colorful examples and inventive metaphors, from Tolstoy's concept of self to the nuances of greetings and the dynamics of stopped elevators. He illustrates how optical illusions can reflect interdepartmental relations and how peer typecasting in schools can explain corporate hierarchies. The book includes case studies, graphs, charts, and questionnaires, along with boxed sections that offer advice and provoke thought, featuring quotations from business leaders and literary figures alike. Handy articulates what successful managers know intuitively, providing powerful interpretive schemes to help them understand their organization's dynamics, assess its past, and shape its future.