The Elephant And The Flea

by Charles Handy (Author), Charles Handy (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $3.42

  'We are faced with a tug-of-war between our desire for a separate identity and our need for combination. We want to be ourselves, but, to survive in a bigger world, we also need to be part of something bigger. Fleas need elephants, just as elephants need fleas to keep them alert and dancing. 'This applies to my own life story, as I found elephants too imprisoning to my eventual freedom as a flea. But the idea also applies to economies who need both, to business which has to structure itself to allow fleas to co-exist with the elephants, to society which needs to encourage individualism but needs the conformity of the elephant, to education, to religion, to marriage and other relationships, and to all people seeking to structure their lives.'

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.71

  Bookseller Charles Handy's best-selling new book looks at how individuals (the fleas in his analogy) relate to multi-national conglomerates (the elephants). In addition to addressing how and why we work today, he covers a wide range of preoccupations and issues including the increasing fear of big business: 'it is easy to see why many observers think that the big corporations are now both richer and more powerful than many nation states. They worry that these new corporate states are accountable to no-one - that their financial clout makes governments beholden to them ...The elephants, people feel, are out of control.'

• New

  Paperback
  2002

  $16.93

  Bookseller Charles Handy's best-selling new book looks at how individuals (the fleas in his analogy) relate to multi-national conglomerates (the elephants). In addition to addressing how and why we work today, he covers a wide range of preoccupations and issues including the increasing fear of big business: 'it is easy to see why many observers think that the big corporations are now both richer and more powerful than many nation states. They worry that these new corporate states are accountable to no-one - that their financial clout makes governments beholden to them ...The elephants, people feel, are out of control.'