Empty raincoat (Harvard Business School Classics Translation Series · Masterpiece Series)

Author: Charles Handy
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: In the rapidly changing world we live in, competition is becoming increasingly fierce. Organizations, represented primarily by businesses, are busy struggling for survival in this intense competition, becoming more mechanical, less humane, and forcing employees to work long hours. Individuals, on the other hand, must constantly rush to survive and thrive in this fierce competition. Many people practically have no free space outside of work, even spending their weekends and holidays at the company. To them, life is simply completing one endless task after another. When organizations or individuals are constantly busy, lose themselves, and forget their original roles, seeing themselves only as necessary elements of social progress—such as nameless work roles or statistical figures in government reports—they have essentially become pure work machines. Life holds no other meaning except for work, like an empty raincoat. So, what makes us turn into empty raincoats? In this book, Charles Handy not only reflects on the possibility of organizations or individuals' lives becoming empty raincoats but also further explores the profound reasons behind it. He attributes it to the existence of "paradoxes." In this book, Charles Handy lists nine paradoxes—I believe these paradoxes also exist in Chinese society. Moreover, if you pay attention and are willing to think deeply, you are bound to find even more paradoxes.