Harvard Business Review publication featuring a Charles Handy article on how the corporation should be regarded as a community, rather than a shared piece of property. The article begins by discussing how the instinct to look ahead and forecast how things will turn out is a distinctly human trait, and how the five thinkers consulted for the publication have each, in their own way, identified challenges that are less technical and rational than cultural, centering on how to lead organizations that create and nurture knowledge; how to know when to set machines aside and rely on instinct and judgment, how to live in a world in which companies have increasing visibility in the public eye, and how to remain open to learning as individual employees and organizations. Handy begins his portion of the article discussing how Dr. Samuel Johnson referred to language as the dress of thought, and how people are the unconscious prisoners of the language they use. He goes on to discuss how the old language of property and ownership no longer serves those in modern society because it no longer describes what a company really is, stating that it suggests the wrong priorities, leads to inappropriate policies, and screens out new possibilities. This old language and way of thinking is problematic mainly because the people that work in an organization are not recognized as its principal assets, which will result, increasingly, in the best people being unwilling to work for traditional organizations. Handy therefore recommends the language of polity to usher in a new way of thinking about organizations, with public corporations now being regarded not as pieces of property but as a community. Such a change would necessitate the introduction of the citizen contract and cultural change in the organization itself.
Handy, Charles B Drucker, Peter F. (Peter Ferdinand), 1909-2005 Dyson, Esther, 1951- Saffo, Paul Senge, Peter M Harvard business review book series European Union J.P. Morgan & Co Rockefeller, John D. (John Davison), 1839-1937 Siemens, Georg, 1882- Fayol, Henri, 1841-1925 Sloan, Alfred P. (Alfred Pritchard), 1875-1966 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Johnson, Samuel, 1709-1784 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951 Organizational change Organizational behavior Industrial organization Change Harvard Business Review
Source
Harvard Business Review publication featuring a Charles Handy article on how the corporation should be regarded as a community, rather than a shared piece of property, 1997; Charles Handy Papers; Box 20, Folder 13; 12 pages
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