Article by Charles Handy on the importance of making employees citizens of the organizations they work for, and how individuality and togetherness complement and need each other to work. Handy begins the article discussing the developing new mantra in modern corporations, which states that employees are no longer guaranteed a future by their employers. Instead, workers are only guaranteed opportunities to develop their skills and experiences. Handy then discusses the thought of philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, and how he is concerned about the privatization of society, specifically, the fact that people now increasingly belong to, or are committed to, their own self-interests and only minimally to the organization. Handy proceeds to reflect on the importance of responsibility, commitment, and morality in society, and how taxes are being used as a substitute for actual involvement in one’s community or culture for its betterment. He declares that such an arrangement makes for a lonely world, where the neighborhood becomes a jungle to be watched, the stranger a beast, and home a privatized prison. Although mentioning that Bauman offers a solution to this modern problem of self-interest and alienation in advocating a return to the Greek polis community, Handy indicates that he is skeptical about communities, which he believes are increasingly like ghettoes, and instead sees hope in businesses and a change in their mantras. He supports businesses having a cause bigger than themselves, in which all concerned can take pride and have a passion for, and this can be brought about through people becoming citizens of organizations and therefore having a shared responsibility for the future of the organization. As Handy understands that lifetime membership in an organization is unrealistic, he recommends fixed-term citizenship, a total commitment, for ten to fifteen years.
Handy, Charles B New York Times Handy, Elizabeth Bauman, Zygmunt, 1925- Frisch, Max, 1911-1991 Privatization Responsibility Morality and society Commitment (Psychology) Contracts Uncertainty Alienation Communities Organizational change Organizations Industrial management Industrial productivity Industrial relations Employment (Economic theory) Adam and Eve Greek civics
Source
Article by Charles Handy on the importance of making employees citizens of the organizations they work for, and how individuality and togetherness complement and need each other to work, 1996; Charles Handy Papers; Box 20, Folder 11; 1 page
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