Myself and Other More Important Matters

Myself and Other More Important Matters

Summary

Charles Handy is perhaps best known outside the business world as a wise and warm presenter of Radio 4's 'Thought for the Day'. Long recognised as one of the world's leading business thinkers (over a million copies of his books have been sold around the world), in Myself and Other More Important Matters he leaves the management territory he has so effectively and influentially mapped in the past to explore the wider issues and dilemmas - both moral and creative - raised by the turning points of his long and successful life.Here he investigates the big issues of how life can best be lived as they have emerged from the unfolding of his life and his unique and influential understanding of what really matters.

From supplying oil by boat to an area larger than England as a bullish young Shell executive in Borneo to realising that there was a big difference between describing the development of a 'portfolio' life (made up of a variety of activities for a range of purposes and pay) in theory and actually himself leaving behind full-time employment, from helping to start up the London and Open business schools to listening and talking to people all over the world about how they want to manage their lives, Handy's telling of his experiences proves both revealing and significant.

Reviews

  • [Goes] deeper into the heart of business than almost any book that tackles the subject head on ... A compelling, touching and finally inspiring journey ... To paraphrase TS Eliot, his remarkable achievement is to bring us back to our starting point - but allow us to recognise the place for the first time
    Observer

About the author

Charles Handy

Charles Handy is an independent writer, broadcaster and teacher. He has been an oil executive, an economist, a professor at the London Business School, the Warden of St. George's House in Windsor Castle and the chairman of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce. He was born in Co. Kildare in Ireland, the son of an archdeacon, and educated in Ireland, England (Oxford University) and the USA (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). His many books include The Empty Raincoat, Understanding Organizations, Gods of Management, The Future of Work and Waiting for the Mountain to Move.
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