| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
This classic text offers an illuminating discussion of key concepts of concern to all managers: culture, motivation, leadership, power, role-playing and working in groups. Ever mindful of actual business practice, Handy directly addresses how managers can translate the six main concepts into invaluble tools for effective management. He discusses how all organizations need to select, develop and reward their people; to structure and design their work; to resolve political conflicts; to lay down guidelines for their managers; and to plan for the future. In each case, the approaches and techniques described here are invaluable.
Equally important, Handy excels at presenting his ideas in colourful, immediately accessible ways, filling the book with illuminating examples and inventive metaphors that range from Tolstoy's ideas on the concept of self, to the many meanings of "good morning," to the conversations that occur in a stopped elevator, to the proper size for a vineyard or an elephant. He shows, for instance, how an optical illusion experiment sheds light on interdepartmental relations, and how the way schoolchildren are typecast by their peers helps explain corporate hierarchies. And along with case studies, graphs, charts, and questionnaires, Understanding Organizations is peppered with boxed sections that offer advice and stimulate thought, brimming with provocative quotations from business wizards such as Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, Warren Bennis, Alvin Toffler, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter, as well as from Aristotle, Shakespeare, Gilbert and Sullivan, Gail Sheehy, and Joseph Heller.
What the successful manager knows intuitively, Charles Handy puts into words. His powerful interpretive schemes will help managers grasp the underlying dynamics of their company, make sense of its past, and assess--and shape--its future. --Jake Bond
Product Description
Organizations are a part of everyday life, whether in schools, hospitals, police stations or commercial companies. In this classics text, Charles Handy argues that the key to successful organizations lies in a better understanding of the needs and motivations of the people within them.
Understanding Organizations offers an extended 'dictionary' of the key concepts -- culture, motivations, leadership, role-playing, co-ordinating and consultation -- and then shows how this 'language' can help us find new solutions to familiar problems. Few management writers have been as consistently challenging and influential as Charles Handy. Firmly established as one of the core business texts, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in organizations and how to make them work better.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
I came to the study of people in organizations expecting certainty and absolute knowledge in the behavioural sciences. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply one of the best management books around,
By A Customer
This review is from: Understanding Organizations (4th Edition) (Penguin Business) (Paperback)
I first came across this book when studying for my MBA.Later I started teaching management classes(1992);the official reading lists for the courses I taught were long and full of difficult to read texts. Some of the students asked me to recommend an easy to read text; I recommended this book because I had found it so easy to handle. I've recommended it ever since. Over the years it has been revised and improved so it still remains fresh and stuffed with current management thinking. The summaries of different theories are really useful for struggling students.If you are a first year BA or a CMS/DMS student - buy it!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great place to start learning about organisations,
By Stephen Parry "Author of Sense and Respond" (Lean Service Transformation Designer London) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Understanding Organizations [Fourth Edition] (Mass Market Paperback)
Charles Handy has been very influential shaping my attitudes to work, life styles and the management of organisations. This is a great primer for new students. I also highy recommend reading all his books and listening to his audio recordings.
His later works outline succinctly the demands changing corporations and globalization place on individuals and society. A very inspirational and thought provoking commentator, he positions the world of work in the larger context of ethics and morality. He also explores the human struggle to maintain individuality, spirituality, choice, freedom and dignity
34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Really a management essential! No question!,
This review is from: Understanding Organizations [Fourth Edition] (Mass Market Paperback)
This book draws upon and analyses most modern management theories, and gives Handys well informed perspectives. The work does indeed contain pearls of wisdom, and should be essential reading for any open minded manager. The work is intended as a diagnostic tool, and would be essential for any of us prudent enough to use it as such. It is also well written enough to make a stimulating and interesting read for any intellectual person, something that cannot be said of many management books.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192198663_.gif){kind=small}
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Business, Finance & Law > Biographies & Histories > Business & Economic History
- Books > Business, Finance & Law > Biographies & Histories > Company Histories
- Books > Business, Finance & Law > Management > Management Skills > Negotiation
- Books > Food & Drink > Reference & Gastronomy
- Books > History > Cultural History
- Books > Science & Nature > History & Philosophy > Reference
- Books > Science & Nature > Reference > Psychology & Psychiatry
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
