Product Description

Charles Handy s four gods symbolise the different styles of management to be found in businesses and organisations today. Zeus is a dynamic entrepreneur who makes snap decisions. Apollo is the god of order who defines staff through their job description and not personality. Athena is the goddess who recognises expertise and creates a task culture. Dionysus creates a culture where staff owe little allegiance to a manager. Each god represents different values and creates a differing culture. To be successful a leader, or manager, needs to be aware of the culture within their organisation and to be able to work to its strengths to create a productive and satisfying workplace.This is the essential handbook for understanding management styles, an essential analysis of the changing patterns of business.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34997 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
Handy s jargon-free observations pack more power because of their clarity and prescriptive nature. --'Fortune'

A man with a lifetime s experience... One of the more stimulating books on management. --'Financial Times'

This is a serious book, while improving on the majority of managerial texts by being entertaining as well as instructive. --'Management Today'

About the Author
Charles Handy started his career at Shell and was a co-founder of the London Business School (where he was a Professor between 1978-1994). He has been rated as one of Thinkers 50, the most influential management thinkers.

Customer Reviews

A Handy guide to the gods of management
Charles Handy is an eminent management guru who has delivered insightful and humorous analysis of the management task for many years. Highly respected, his "Gods of Management" has delightful, tongue-in-cheek moments. Handy can intellectualise, can carve open an organisation with surgical precision, but he does not suffer fools gladly, does not tolerate pretension, and can enliven intellectual analysis with wit and a down-to-earth, down-to-work approach.

Handy here looks at the management culture of organisations. He sees the typical bureaucracy as having a 'role culture', where everyone knows what job they do and gets on with it. Dynamic organisations he sees as often run by a 'club culture', where quick, intuitive decisions are possible. Then, there's the craftsmanship culture where everything is organised around the task. And, finally, he identifies an artistic, anarchic culture where people are committed to being creative and have little time for allegiance to anyone or anything else.

Handy's is a stimulating analysis and a vital tool if you are to give yourself enough distance to sit back and try to evaluate precisely how your own organisation works. What sort of culture does its management sustain? Could it be improved upon? A highly useful and stimulating analysis which I commend to anyone trying to understand how organisations work.

Find your god.
I like Handy's writing style and have read most of his books, what I particularly like about this publication is that its not his usual commentary about the way the world of work is changing, rather it provides a framework for most managers, particularly new managers to understand the cultural dynamics of their organisation.

Each type of organisation is characterised by one of the Greek gods, its a useful analogy and he is quite playful with the portrayal of each god type.

Identifying the 'god' type operating within your organisation, then understanding its character allows any manager to position their work in way that would be understood and accepted by the hierarchy. It also helps a manager steer clear of incurring their wrath.

I recommend this book as a great primer for anyone learning about organisational dynamics for the first time.

It was simply a joy to read and very useful, Excellent.