Myself and Other More Important Matters

Book excerpt: The book was selected as one of STRATEGY + BUSINESS Best Business Books of 2008. The book was also selected by Leadershipnow.com as one of The Best Leadership Books of 2008. One of the worlds most influential living management thinkers, Charles Handy has year-after-year been listed alongside business gurus including Peter Drucker and Tom Peters in the prestigious Thinkers 50 list. His views on management and life have inspired and enlightened others for decades. Now, in Myself and Other More Important Matters, the bestselling author of books including The Age of Unreason shares his special brand of wisdom, giving readers uncommon insight into business and careers...as well as the choices we all have to make in our lives. Handy draws on the lessons of his own experience to help readers move beyond the facts they learned in business school and reflect on their own individual management style. With the philosophical elegance and eloquence Warren Bennis has described as his trademark, Handy discusses how one should develop ones career goals in line with personal values and sense of ethics. Handy entertainingly recounts what hes discovered along his own international journey: from lessons his father taught him growing up in Ireland to what he learned in Borneo in his days working for Royal Dutch Shell to Italy, where he bought and fixed up an old house in Tuscany all the way to America, where recent corporate scandals have shaken our understanding of what is ethical and acceptable. Throughout the book, Handy asks us to look at the role of work in our life, and what we truly find fulfilling. It is hard to imagine a better or wiser guide to work and lifes big questions.