There are only a few modern management thinkers that are worth reading and Charles Handy is one of them. His book, the "New Alchemists" features 29 London-based "alchemists" and is an attempt to study how these people have managed to create something out of nothing. The book targets anyone with genuine interest in people and management.

About the Author

Charles Handy was born in Kildare, Ireland in the year 1932. He was educated at Oriel College, Oxford and was conferred with an honorary Doctor of Laws by Trinity College in Dublin. His business career started on marketing at Shell International. Soon after, he entered the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he met the likes of Warren Bennis and Chris Argyris who influenced his interest in organizations and how they work.

He managed the Sloan Programme at the Graduate Business School in London and eventually became a full professor at the school specializing in managerial psychology. He also worked at a conference and study center in Windsor Castle that concerns itself with ethics and values in society. He became the Chairman of the Royal Society of Arts in London and holds honorary doctorates from several British universities. Handy is popular in Britain due to his segment on the BBC Radio Today program.

Handy's main concerns lie on the dramatic changes which technology, demography and economics are bringing to the workplace and its implication for the society as well as individuals. His books are predominantly about these themes. He has advanced several relevant ideas including the "portfolio worker" and the "Shamrock Organization".

He is the son of an Archdeacon and is married to Elizabeth, a portrait photographer who is also his business partner, with two grown children and a home each in London, Italy and Norfolk. He and his wife live the "portfolio life" which is essentially the balancing of skills and time to make the most out of independent careers. He has been rated among the Thinkers 50 which is an elite group of people considered to be the most influential living management thinkers.

The books he has authored like the "The Future of Work" and the "Age of Unreason" among others, have forever changed the thinking and practice of organizations internationally. Whole generations of employees have been encouraged to re-consider their relationship with employers towards more flexible working, portfolio careers and consultancy roles. Handy was the first to identify that there are other options besides having careers for life as seen on the trends and changes manifested on a global and fundamental scale.

Charles Handy is often called an organizational development guru. His motivation calculus is based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. However, his version attempts to answer for complexities and variations in people's situations which are beyond the reach of the original model.

Globally recognized for his managerial insights and wisdom, Handy is often invited to speak at business conferences and other venues to let his influential voice be heard worldwide. The conference organizing committee of the IT@Cork conference has specifically selected Handy to speak at their affair. They believe that he would do justice to the event as he shares his expertise on enhancing entrepreneurship and innovation capacities in the technology sector for Irish companies. Handy is a management scholar and radio commentator aside from being a best-selling author but he sees himself primarily as a social philosopher.

About the Book

"The New Alchemists" is a fascinating investigation of the creative and entrepreneurial process. Stories of ordinary people who have gone on to do extraordinary things fill the pages of this book. Some personalities featured are relatively known but most can be considered famous only within their chosen spheres.

Handy believes that alchemy thrives in a culture of experimentation where clusters of creative people who are found in close proximity manage to infect each other with a specific quality. He sees the need to provide the conditions that would allow alchemists to discover and grow their talents. He believes that children are better exposed to a wide range of experiences to provide opportunities for them to discover what they are good at and to realize that mistakes and changes are not necessarily fatal.

The personalities featured in the book can only demonstrate how they do it and lets Handy describe and articulate it. From the combined feedback gathered from these alchemists, there seems to be a "recipe" to produce one. Probable alchemists are those that have extensive exposure to different situations and experiences, regular interaction with a wide variety of stimulating people, large doses of encouragement with experimentation and risk taking as well as the appreciation of people's innate differences.

The book looks like a coffee table book which is made more interesting by Elizabeth Handy's intriguing and perceptive photographs. It contains a series of interviews that offer interesting insights into events that triggered the changes in the features persons' lives. There are also summary chapters that provide some useful generalizations about the causes of success. The articles would make the readers consider their own motivations in relation to how other people make things happen.

New ideas, products, associations, initiatives, art and design seldom come from established organizations. They come from individuals like the alchemists. Handy knows he has found 29 of these individuals and decided to tell their stories.

Charles Handy equates modern day entrepreneurs with the new alchemists. Their ability to create something out of nothing is likened to the ability to turn base metal into gold, an ability which was attributed to alchemists of medieval times and looked upon with awe by society. Entrepreneurs as the new hero of a free enterprise society capture the public imagination in a way that career managers can never do.

The photo stylings of Elizabeth Handy combine different aspects of the subject's life and are able to reveal more about the subjects than their own words. The pictures provided work to complement the text and help define the nature of the book. The articles are uncritical and self contained which results to a book which is both upbeat and inspirational.

Handy has taken the pains to select people from different areas of life as well as different ages and backgrounds. He is able to demonstrate that alchemists are quite diverse despite the obvious similarities. Like medieval alchemists, the new alchemists worked long and hard to be able to "transmute base metal into gold". Their driving force then was their passion and their all consuming quest for the best. The new alchemists have their dedication, doggedness and difference. They just needed just a little help in finance, encouragement and a dream that badly needed to be converted to reality.