The Elephant and the Flea: Looking Backwards to the Future Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Elephant and the Flea: Looking Backwards to the Future Book

Charles Handy is always a delight to read, and The Elephant and the Flea--his autobiography-laced analysis of business over the past two decades--is no exception. In his 13th book, the United Kingdom's pre-eminent sage on commercial and industrial matters looks within and at education, marriage, religion and society in order to assess the changing nature of employment. His literate and knowledgeable tale begins in 1981, when Handy decided to exchange a safe but stifling life with a corporation (the "elephant" of his title) for the riskier but potentially more rewarding existence of an independent (or "flea"). Mixing diverse experiences with cogent observations on the evolving workplace, he sets the scene for plausible projections about where we might yet be headed. "Just as the signs were there 20 years ago for those who wished to see them, so I believe we can glimpse the shape of the new capitalist world even if it may take another 20 years to develop," he writes. "We may not like what is coming but we would be foolish to think that we can plan our lives, or our children's lives, without giving some thought to the shape of the stage on which we and they will be strutting". Intensely personal yet remarkably universal, the result is another provocative, illuminating and enjoyable book from the oil executive turned bestselling author.--Howard RothmanRead More

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  • Amazon

    Fleas need elephants, just as elephants need fleas to keep them alert and dancing. This idea also applies to economies who need both, to business, which has to structure itself to allow fleas to co-exist with the elephants, to society, which needs to encourage individualism but needs the conformity of the elephant.

  • Foyles

    Bookseller Charles Handy's best-selling new book looks at how individuals (the fleas in his analogy) relate to multi-national conglomerates (the elephants). In addition to addressing how and why we work today, he covers a wide range of preoccupations and issues including the increasing fear of big business: 'it is easy to see why many observers think that the big corporations are now both richer and more powerful than many nation states. They worry that these new corporate states are accountable to no-one - that their financial clout makes governments beholden to them ... The elephants, people feel, are out of control.'

  • ASDA

    Fleas need elephants just as elephants need fleas to keep them alert and dancing. This idea also applies to economies who need both to business which has to structure itself to allow fleas to co-exist with the elephants to society which needs to encourage individualism but needs the conformity of the elephant.

  • 0099415658
  • 9780099415657
  • Charles B. Handy
  • 7 November 2002
  • Arrow Books Ltd
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 288
  • New edition
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