When management gurus were all the rage in the later years of the last century and the early years of the current one Charles Handy was a rarity. Not only was he unusual for not being an American, he was also noteworthy for avoiding hyperbole and quick fixes.
Now in his 80s, the Irish-born thinker and writer still stands out. For, while many of his one-time peers are not as prominent as they once were, he remains in demand. Indeed, it could be argued that, now that many of the things he predicted are coming to fruition, he is more relevant than ever. Accordingly, it was only fitting that he should have been a prominent presence at the tenth anniversary WORKTECH conference held in London earlier this month.
Long before technology enabled the development of the virtual corporations and flexible working that are at the heart of the WORKTECH agenda, Handy forecast that organizations would evolve into less rigid entities, comprised of core workers and others who were part-time or otherwise on the fringes. The phrases he uses to describe these changes include the “shamrock organization”, the “doughnut principle” and the “portfolio career”.
The first two cover similar ground in that they refer to organizations’ move towards having a core of professional workers, supported by freelance experts and a more general workforce employed when needed. The third describes how workers who are not seen as central to the enterprise have to develop networks of assignments in order to make up for the end of the job for life.
Handy’s arguments are clearly as valid as ever. Indeed, he believes that this “second information revolution” (the first came when people outside the priesthood learned to read) is taking power away from the centre. “Suddenly, everybody can know everybody and talk to anybody,” he said of the development of modern communications technology.
In a world where the connections were as intricate and unpredictable as the lines in an abstract work of art, it was not possible for leaders to make all the decisions, he added. Instead they needed to adapt the (English) doughnut principle, which he now prefers to the shamrock concept. So business units became cores filled with like-minded people who were set a task and left to get on with it. Their budget was indicated by the outer ring and the gap between the core and the outside was to be filled by their initiative.
Of course, as Handy pointed out, such an approach could only work if the people in the doughnuts were totally aligned with the values of the organization. Setting those values was – along with such activities as deciding on strategy and assigning resources – a job for the people at the centre. In other words, the leadership served the organization rather than the other way around.
An essential piece in the puzzle was trust. Handy told his London audience that “one of the troubles with new technology is that it’s too easy to do ‘helicopter parenting’, and the trouble with that is the child never grows up.”
Nor was it just the individual that suffered from this approach. In the modern business environment, relying on detailed direction from executives was just too slow. In a “bottom-up world”, organizations had to find a way of encouraging innovation and creativity.
