Myself and Other More Important Matters

Oct 9, 2024 11:25 PM

Author:Charles Handy

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

Highly readable ... A wise work from which we will all learn

—— Sunday Times

Handy at his best; humane, thoughtful and serious

—— Financial Times

His writing is both spiritual ... and practical: he makes you want to do something about your life, and at the same time convinces that you can, and furnishes you with some good examples of how to go about it ... So much of it will strike home ... Real inspiration ... excellent advice

—— Times Educational Supplement

Charles Handy is a true statesman in the field . . . a wizened dean of faculty for the world of independent thinkers

—— Jim Collins, author of Good to Great

This latest offering is a joy to read. It is one of those rare things, a book by a management author that you want to devour at one sitting.

—— Ambassador

Handy has that rare gift among business writers - able to talk sense and leave out the jargon - This title will appeal to a very wide audience, because it is everything a business book should be - very readable and thought provoking.

—— Business and Computer

This is great for anyone planning a speech or trying to get their message across at work

—— Psychologies

The Heaths push beyond what sounds like it should work and explain why it actually does

—— Time Magazine

... an entertaining, practical guide to effective communication.

—— Publishers Weekly

Smart, lively . . . such fun to read

—— Saturday Guardian

Anyone interested in influencing others ... can learn from this book

—— The Washington Post

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