The Elephant and the Flea

One area not covered in this book is the rise of small knowledge based companies that create virtual networks. This is the major challenge to large companies and Nokia is one company that has responded to this challenge. Overall an interesting book, but it creates more questions than answers. It does provide the basis for a study that looks at the contents of this book and the wider issues that could act as a guide for future trends in business. Brian Burrows

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The Elephant and the Flea By Charles Handy, Hutchinson (2001). 233pp. £17.99

What is the future of capitalism, what is the meaning of a person’s life, and what do the answers to these questions mean for today’s workforce? So beautifully interwoven are these subjects in The Elephant and the Flea that it may be only in hindsight that one realises the artful blending of these distinct topics that takes place within its pages. Handy weaves together a thought-provoking and delightfully readable book sharing lessons from his personal life and years of work experience at Royal Dutch Shell, London Business School, and as Warden of St George’s House in Windsor Castle. Those familiar with his prior writings, including Inside Organisations, The Gods of Management and The Age of Unreason, will recognise this work as simply the next step in the evolution of Handy’s thinking on the business of life. The first portion of the book, titled The Foundations, includes material from Handy’s upbringing in a vicarage west of Dublin. One of the most touching passages of the book is the tale of his return to Ireland for his father’s funeral. “As I stood by his grave, surrounded by the people he had helped to marry, whose children he had baptised and then seen marry in his church in their turn, as I saw the tears in the eyes of the hundreds of people who had come from everywhere to say farewell to this ‘quiet’ man, I turned away and began to think.” Disappointed with his father because of the simple life he had chosen and its attendant paucity of material comforts, Handy, like many with modest childhoods, spent his adult life up to that point vowing “never to be poor again.” As a result, he had eagerly signed up for guaranteed security and status by becoming an organisation man. Coming face-to-face with one’s own mortality; recognising the inescapable influence that our parents have on our lives; discovering that ‘the organisation’ offers neither per-

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manent security or status—these are inflection points for Handy that have relevance for all of us. Educated in the traditional English system, Handy criticises its rigidity and lack of innovation. (Paradoxically, it is the knowledge and tools gained from it that he so elegantly puts to use in his writing.) The primary failing of education in his view is that it fails to balance the necessary requirements of order and discipline with the curiosity, initiative and experimentation that spur true learning. He finds satisfaction in a course he designed for the Open University which forced students to relate learning to their ongoing work experience. In contrast, he finds deficient the full-time study approach he brought to London Business School at its founding. As a current student in the Sloan Masters programme at London Business School, I was left wondering how he might redesign today’s curriculum if given the chance. In another brief, but inspiring passage, Handy describes the process by which he received a ‘golden seed’ from a boarding school teacher who expressed a belief in him and his potential. The strong positive impact it had on him was considerable. He believes that planting a ‘golden seed’ should be the central aim of teachers (and indeed each of us) to encourage others’ selfesteem and greatest learning. Compared to the inward-looking opening, the second part of the book, Capitalism Past, Present and Future, looks at the state of utopia known as the free market and the implications for mankind and organisations. Touching on some of the issues raised in books such as John Gray’s False Dawn, Handy identifies the spreading erosion of social capitalism as one of the most serious costs of capitalism affecting mankind. Increased global competition, growing inequality, and other political and social forces that unfolded over the last several decades have led to a diminished sense of community and a dearth of spiritual meaning. Handy is a keen observer of capitalism’s negative attributes and pulls no punches in pointing out its shortcomings. An important factor to its future will be the redefinition of success. Combining the best characteristics of Singapore (a disciplined determination to build a better future), Kerala, India (charm and friendliness) and America (energy and self-confidence) would, in Handy’s opinion, result in the best possible future of capitalism. The key is a definition of success that embraces varied individualism in which being different rather than better is the focus. With the massive changes in today’s work environment as a backdrop, Handy introduces readers to the concept of elephant organisations and the flea workforce. He warns that the days of predictable, lifelong careers with companies are not just numbered, they are over. The increase in outsourcing and layoffs, and an ever-growing focus on efficiency and flexibility are widely documented in countless articles in a variety of publications. Almost every day we read about another major corporation laying off thousands of workers and slimming down from top management to the frontlines in an effort to adapt. 322

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Elephant organisations have a choice: change in order to survive in this new setting or face extinction. It is here that Handy introduces the 1/2×2×3=P formula, the aim of which is to achieve three times the productivity/profit by one-half the number of people working twice as hard! The other half of the workforce ‘freed’ from organisations that follow this formula are potential fleas—individuals who are employed or have a work arrangement other than a conventional full-time job. Organisations that want to survive in this changed marketplace must effectively address four key challenges: 1 2 3 4

How to grow bigger, but remain small and personal. How to combine creativity with efficiency. How to be prosperous but also socially acceptable. How to reward both the owners of ideas as well as the owners of the company.

Their ability to meet these challenges will largely determine the success ‘and continued survival’ of these evolved elephants. The final part of the book, The Independent Life, illustrates the nature of fleadom by way of Handy’s own experience. Being a flea entails a self-responsibility for which those who are laid off are neither well-prepared nor enthusiastic. Unfortunately, they’ll have no choice in the matter. This book holds little guidance for those who are predisposed to resist change at all costs. But for those who are of a nature to adapt, the book can serve as a ‘How To’ guide for coping with ‘accidental’ freedom and provide an idea of the unique opportunities it can offer. The primary tensions they must learn to deal with as a flea include: 1 2 3 4

Lack of community Need for passion Need to keep learning/growing Come to terms with doubt.

The key difference between life within an elephant and life as a flea is the need to plan one’s own life. Handy cleverly refers to assembling his own portfolio of activities as ‘chunking the work.’ This amounts to allocating one’s time as carefully as a conscientious saver budgets his or her personal finances. In his case, 100 days are dedicated to study (writing and preparation); 150 days are allocated to do paid (income-producing) work; 25 days for giftwork; and the remaining 90 days of the year for homework, holidays and leisure. Even less familiar than the need to consciously budget one’s time is ‘chunking our lives,’ the subject of another chapter. Here, Handy explains the need that arose following his becoming a flea to modify the workings of his marriage. His wife, Elisabeth, it should be noted, plays the essential role of agent for Handy’s paid work. (And the references to their relationship are a wonderful aspect of this book.) Using theories developed from earlier research into the balance of work and marriage they have ‘chun-

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ked’ their lives into six-month seasons. Alternating roles every season, the work of one person takes precedence and the other plays a supporting role. For those couples capable of managing such an arrangement it seems ideal, though Handy acknowledges that it is not without its challenges. At its core, The Elephant and the Flea is about a model for a different lifestyle. It is likely to be most greatly enjoyed by those who are least afraid to experience life as a flea or, in Handy’s terms, fear the possibility of “an early death after a boring life.” While only time will tell the actual future of capitalism and the workplace, Handy’s insights provide a useful and thought-provoking image of what may lie ahead. For those interested in exploring the meaning of life, and developing their own definition of success, it may be a useful starting point. Nancy Gille

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Twentieth Century Thinkers in Adult and Continuing Education (2nd Edition) By Peter Jarvis, Kogan Page (2001). 325 pp. £45.00

At a time when education in the UK is being accorded the highest of priorities yet is beset by pseudo dogma, paradox and muddle, this book is a timely reminder of some of the heroes of education’s recent past, and one that generates thoughts about who might help us out of our present troubles and how they might do it. But it is an odd selection. If the dominant issues of today in this field are about life-long learning; self-managed learning; learning methods and styles; and distance learning, to include in this volume Mansbridge and Tawney and their struggles for the Workers Education Foundation, serves only to remind us in these days when most of us are middle class, how heroes are only heroes of their times. And to fail to include anything, for example, about the pioneers of Neuro-linguistic programming, or of the Open University and distance learning, or of Kolb’s work with learning styles, or Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, seems odd. Peter Jarvis, as Editor, in his concluding chapter, recalls how big a part religious movements have played in this field, and the extent to which utopianism, the desire for social equality and self-actualisation, have inspired the field. But at the same time as he encourages us to look once again for the values that so often have inspired progress in this field, he acknowledges that education has indeed become a global market. Ours is not the only country in which education has got into 324

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