Article by Charles Handy on not taking for granted one's ability to choose a meaningful career in life and continue beyond retirement, and the importance of valuing the relationships and feelings of those around you. Handy begins the article discussing how Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, suffered a stroke and slipped into a coma. He proceeds to note how Bauby successfully dictated a book despite his condition, and wonders why people that have so much more, so often waste what they have on the trivialities of life. Handy then compares working some kinds of jobs to a kind of comatose, in which workers are locked into positions as passive role occupants with no possibility of influencing their immediate environment or making a difference in the outside world. He warns that this arrangement for the worker in the organization, in which communication is non-existent for the worker, creates a scenario in which others are invited to forget the worker exists, effectively saying that the worker does not count. Handy concludes the article stressing that the important aspects of life, such as the love and affection of one’s children and friends, should be appreciated in the present, while there is still time, instead of being taken for granted as they so often are.
Handy, Charles B Management today series Sieff, Jeanloup, 1933- Bauby, Jean-Dominique, 1952-1997 Stroke Handy, Elizabeth ELLE (Magazine) Coma
Source
Article by Charles Handy on not taking for granted one's ability to choose a meaningful career in life and continue beyond retirement, and the importance of valuing the relationships and feelings of those around you, 1997; Charles Handy Papers; Box 20, Folder 12; 1 page
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