Customer Reviews

The Elephant and the Flea

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Charles Handy, a former oil company executive who recast himself as a freelance writer/thinker, desires success both ways.

While he celebrates the life of what he terms "the flea," --flexible, independent creative types -- he warns their life "is an invitation to selfishness and a recipe for a very privatized society."

Life, he says, requires a commitment to others. Something, he appears to believe can only be achieved by large organizations - the "elephants" of the world.

I found chapter entitled "The Problems of a Portfolio Life" particularly interesting. In it he describes three tensions which emerged from his decision to opt out of his organizational life for independence:

1. A lack of community.
2. The need for a driving passion.
3. The need to keep learning and developing.

He was particularly surprised by the first two points.

This is a book to be savored slowly; a book that explores three threads - the individual, the organization and society - and their interaction. When Handy publishes his treatise on how they should peacefully co-exist, I want to be first on line to purchase it.

Mr. Handy's book sets forth some very original insights on democracy and the current challenges facing large organizations. Most significant to me, as a newcomer to "Fleadom" the book encouraged me to revisit my thoughts from a personal, family, societal and professional point of view. Mr. Handy's book was both inspirational and pragmatic.

Not enough practical information can be found in. There is too much triviality.
If the author could omit the needless words, the book would be the quarter of the whole.

It can be good for a very beginner flea. In other case keep looking for other books in the theme or from this author.

You may think that here is yet another business book designed to sell the authors tapes, lectures, consulting services, etc. You may be right.

You may also find that reflection on a life lived for decades can provide insight and inspiration that you cannot find in your mile a minute world.

I first encountered Handy in a Fast Company article. He was discussing his fathers life and his fathers death.

I won't spoil the lesson he learned (it is worth reading for yourself) but at the end of the day it poses a question...., "How many lives can one person affect at a truly deep and meaningful level, while never straying more than a few miles from home?"

The answer may surprise you and cause you to reflect on your own lifes purposes and meaning.

A worthwhile read.

Cheers!

Handy continues to be a business writer who's candor and direct writing style makes his books a delight to read. Much like Drucker, his subject matters address common, shared lessons that apply both at a macro and micro level. In this read, Handy delivers personal lessons from his youth onto the present day. For those who appreciate he's previous books (especially empty raincoat and the hungry spirit), this is well worth the read.

Mr. Handy has expanded on some of his thoughts from his earlier books plus some updates. It is a good documentation of his life experience and in the process gave a roadmap for those who wants to have a portfolio life, entrepreneur or have to work as an independent as organisations downsize or go bust.

As always, his thoughts are profound. Some trends are some way yet and some among us may wish it does not happen. Only time will tell. What is instructive is that it gave us a peek and perhaps prepare and arm us for the eventuality.

A nice read over the weekend if you seek inspiration to become your own employer.

I recently re-read this book as well as Charles Handy's later work, Myself and Other More Important Matters, and thoroughly enjoyed both even more this second time around than I did when they were first published. Each is part memoir, part autobiography, and part social commentary. Immediately, Handy establishes and then sustains a direct and personal rapport with his reader. The tone is conversational. With regard to the title, Handy observes: "Elephants and fleas is an odd metaphor, equally unflattering to both groups. I hit upon it by chance when looking for a way, in a public lecture, to explain why large organizations needed irritant individuals or groups to introduce the innovations and ideas essential to their survival. After the lecture I was struck by the number of people who came up to me, either proclaiming themselves to be a flea or lamenting the ponderous gait of the elephant where they worked. The analogy, it seemed, had caught their imagination, so I persevered with it. Like all analogies, however, it should not be pushed too far. Useful for attracting attention, it is not in itself a recipe for solutions, but as a broad description of one divide in modern society it serves its purpose. It is, for instance, the elephants who get all of the attention while most people actually work as fleas or for a flea organization."

These comments are especially relevant to Handy at one point in his career (in 1981) when he embarked on a transition from being an "elephant inhabitant to independent flea," hoping that there would be greater value in the freedom of independence "over the dubious security of employment." He did not then and has not since viewed himself as a role model for others. He asks his reader to "regard this book as an encouragement to wrote your own script for a part in the very different world that lies ahead of us." Some readers may find it difficult to follow Handy's line of thought as he moves from one subject to the next, indeed from one period in his life to another, without regard for chronological or even logical sequence. To repeat, he offers an immensely personal narrative that combines spontaneity with rigor. He is a very clear thinker but his thoughts are seldom developed in a linear pattern. Over the course of the ten chapters, the reader shares Handy's reflections about his childhood and youth in an Irish vicarage, his education at Oxford, his executive assignments to the Far East within the Royal Dutch/Shell organization, and his chairmanship of the Royal Society of Arts. Only later in his life did he gain increasing attention and renown as a social commentator and business thinker.

Of special interest to me is what Handy discusses in Part II, "Capitalism Past, Present, and Future" (Chapters 4-6). For example, after suggesting how the "new elephants" will differ from their predecessors, he identifies four challenges they will face and each suggests a paradox of direct relevance to both elephant inhabitants and independent fleas: (1) How to grow bigger, but remain small and personal, (2) How to combine creativity with efficiency, (3) How to be prosperous but socially acceptable, and (4) How to reward both the owners of the ideas as well as the owners of the company. Handy discusses each of these four challenges in Chapter 4, then in the next chapter shifts his attention to a so-called "new economy" that really isn't, citing a survey of e-business conducted by The Economist magazine that identified ten skills needed to manage the new businesses of the e-world. "I was underwhelmed by the list. [Please see Page 93.] The order might have varied a little, but it was the same list that I had been urging on organizations and managers for thirty years." Handy notes that the "elephantine" organizations are still around but have become much slimmer "and are surrounded by a multitude of fleas" both within and beyond their areas of operation. "In what seems, at first glance, to be the world of elephants, the fleas, surprisingly, may be the winners." As I shared Handy's thoughts about "The Varieties of Capitalism" in Chapter 6, I was reminded of several opinions that Warren Buffett shares in essays he wrote for Berkshire Hathaway's annual reports. Yes, Handy views himself as a "reluctant" capitalist, an adjective that Buffett would summarily reject if applied to him. However, both men agree (or so it seems to me) that capitalism is the best of all possible economic systems and offers more and better opportunities now than ever before as "elephantine" organizations become more accommodating to "fleas" and as fleas gain greater power through their independence.

When concluding this book, Charles Handy reaffirms his determination to live what remains of his life the way he thinks it ought to be lived. He urges others to do the same. As the years pass, "ambition fades and life acquires new and gentler tones. Meanwhile, there is an old Chinese saying that `Happiness is having something to do, something to hope for and someone to love.' I plan to be happy." As his more recent activities suggest, he is.

Charles Handy has been an oil company executive, a university lecturer, and a much sought after convention speaker.

A 48 year old advertising executive was complaining to Handy that there were no longer any jobs in the ageist advertising world for people like him. While he was talking, the electrician repairing the wiring in Handy's home put his head round the door to say he would be back in a week. "I'm sorry," he said, " but I've got too many jobs on at the moment."

"That was the future," Handy told this his account executive; lots of clients for the independent worker, but fewer and fewer jobs for full-time executives of large organizations.

The employee-oriented society of the twentieth century had delivered so much that was good. It had replaced the world of the individual farmer/craftsman/merchant. The new flea-oriented world that Charles Handy sees is "fraught with insecurity, uncertainty, and fear."

`We don't want that sort of world' people say.

Handy is sympathetic. "I, too, didn't much like the worst of world that I saw emerging, but wishing it away was not going to help."

In 1996, 67% of British businesses have only one employee, the owner. In 1994, employees with less than five people represented 89% of all British businesses.

This is a book about how to survive as a flea and in world of few elephants and many fleas.

It is written in typical Charles Handy humor and insight. It is also his most personal book to date.

ELEPHANT AND THE FLEA is easy to read and too important to ignore.

BOARD OPTIONS
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Most business books are statement of the obvious; this takes the cake. This is my first Charles Handy book, so I wonder if his other books are also so touchy-feely, and if speaking from the guts (in other words, full of personal anecdotes but short of coherent abstraction) is the future of business books.

I took pleasure in Handy's celebration of his 'flea life', but did not understand his point at the end when he stated that that kind of living is the undoing of communities. It was a wishful thinking on his part that more affluence and more leisure would benefit the communities, but that clearly did not materialize. My expectation was that he would give an outline of a workable life that can be happily lived in sync with capitalism; not just state the obvious that the current severe individualism is not working.

I felt that there is more to an author like Charles Handy than apparent in this book, so I will read another of his book (most likely 'The Age of Unreason'). I hope that that one would have more to offer.

Handy follows up on his previous works with a story of his own journey, in theory to offer insight into the 'hows' of survival in the modern capitalist era. I'm sorry, I found myself comparing Handy to Peter Drucker, and Handy comes out a lite-weight matched against a super heavy-weight. Was it worth reading? Yeah, but from a communal resource like your local library. Don't worry, there will copies available.