Gods of Management: : The Changing Work of Organizations

Citation

Smith Hall, T. (1998), "Gods of Management: : The Changing Work of Organizations", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 81-83. https://doi.org/10.1108/jocm.1998.11.1.81.4

Few in the fields of management and organization are unfamiliar with the prolific works of Charles Handy. From The Age of Paradox, to The Age of Unreason, to Beyond Uncertainty and Understanding Organizations, many have come to rely on Handy’s thoughtful and insightful commentaries on the world of work and organization.

Thus it might come as some surprise that we in the USA have not had the privilege of becoming familiar with one of his earliest works, Gods of Management: The Changing Work of Organizations, until its recent American edition, published in 1994. The original edition, published by Souvenir Press Ltd in 1978, went on to be updated and revised twice more, as well as translated into numerous other languages, prior to this edition. Of particular interest is the fact that Handy identifies this as his favorite book. He states in the new preface:

Reading the book again in preparation for this edition, I realized somewhat to my embarrassment, that everything that I have written about subsequently, particularly in The Age of Unreason and The Age of Paradox (both published by Harvard Business School Press), were foreshadowed somewhere in this book. I was reminded of the saying that every author writes only one book in his or her life, that every subsequent book is only a variation on that first theme. If that be so, then this is that book.

On this note, Handy’s point is instructive. For those readers who are familiar with his other works, Gods of Management may not reveal much additional insight. However, for those who are not familiar with them, or for those who would enjoy learning more about the roots of his thinking, Gods of Management is an enjoyable read. The book is not designed to be a “how to” book, but rather an “aha book,” as Handy suggests in the preface. In this regard, I believe he is successful in achieving what he set out to do.

Handy states that the purpose of the book is to “demystify organizations, make their ways and their assumptions more understandable to ordinary mortals, and cause more people to think about the way in which they work and the ways in which they might have to work.” He achieves this purpose by using four ancient Greek gods to represent different work cultures in modern organizations. By describing the various patterns symbolized by each of the representative gods, he sets out to create a “theory of cultural propriety,” and defines it as a theory of “getting the right culture in the right place for the right purpose.” He does not suggest that his theory should be rigidly applied. Instead, he encourages the manager to find insight from the theory, and practical application when possible, but he understands that each manager must find his or her own way in the world and use those techniques that best apply at any given time. Handy’s refusal to be rigid about the roles and symbolic representations of the four gods and their usefulness in every situation makes the reader more comfortable with his prescriptions. As one might imagine, in today’s complex world, organizations require a mix of what the gods represent. The trick is in knowing how to pick the appropriate gods and balance their usefulness in a given work situation.

The first god, Zeus, represents “club cultures,” or those cultures in which strong patriarchal traditions often exist, combined with an internal communication style that emphasizes speed of decision based on empathic relationships. This work culture is often exemplified by small entrepreneurial organizations in which a charismatic individual runs the business along with a cadre of apprentices or personal assistants. “Who you know” determines your position in the organization. Understanding the internal organizational politics and relationship between the key players is paramount to the functioning of a Zeus culture.

The second god, Apollo, represents “role cultures,” the type of culture most readily typified by order and rules. Bureaucracies in both the private and public sectors are typically Apollo cultures. In these cultures, it is assumed that man is a rational being, that efficiency, stability and predictability are necessary coefficients and that change is abhorred. Individuals are considered to be human resources that are exchangeable. To change this system requires a wholesale changing of its structure and procedures, not its people. Those who have worked in most areas of government are very familiar with this model.

Athena, the third god, represents “task culture” and is based on individual expertise linked by common projects. Groups of experts work together to achieve goals and use their knowledge to contribute to the work of the team. In this culture, self‐development is encouraged and the ability to define the problem can become a base of power.

In contrast to the previous cultures, in which the people exist to serve the purposes of the organization, the last culture, represented by Dionysus, provides a setting in which the organization exists to help the individual achieve his or her purpose. Associations of doctors and lawyers are good examples of the culture of Dionysus. Individualistic to the extreme, no boss exists, per se, for Dionysians. They are also well known for prizing their freedom of time.

For those interested in determining the presenting culture of their own organization, Handy provides a useful checklist at the end of Chapter 2.

As the book progresses, Handy builds on his early descriptions of the gods, and significantly deepens the applications of his basic theory. I often found myself silently asking a question about how the gods might be applied in a given type of situation only to have it answered at a future point in the book. As a result, it often feels as if Handy is anticipating many of the reader’s thoughts and reflections about his theories. Not only does he discuss the basic characteristics of the gods and their cultures, but he goes on to apply them to different types of organizations, e.g. academic institutions, large corporations, and nonprofit institutions. Handy also discusses a wide range of influencing forces that lend themselves to specific cultures, such as organizations with short life cycles lend themselves to an Athenian culture. As might be suspected, larger organizations lend themselves to acquiring the Apollo culture characteristics of bureaucracies.

Handy peppers his chapters with friendly references to similar work done by other academics and contributors to the popular press on management and organizational change. He often recommends that readers delve further into the works of these other writers in order to more fully understand various related topics and their application to the reader’s own situation. In this way, Gods of Management is a very useful source of references. But it is on this subject that I rest my major criticism of the book. None of the references in the new American edition are more recent than 1984, at least ten years prior to this publication. A great deal has happened in this area of literature over the past decade. Given Handy’s delight in having the book made available to the American audience for the first time, it would seem that some effort could have been put into reviewing and updating the references with more recent and related literature. Examples of these include: Interpreting the Cultural Styles Measured by the Organizational Culture Inventory: Organizational Culture Inventory Leader’s Guide, by Robert A. Cooke and Janet L. Szumal (1989); Discontinuous Change: Leading Organizational Transformation, by David Nadler et al. (1994); and High‐Velocity Culture Change: A Handbook for Managers, by Price Pritchett and Ron Pound (1993). But, as Handy notes, the major purpose of his book is not so much to be practical as it is thought provoking and theoretically helpful.

The last chapters of the book reflect Handy’s early gift for having insights into the future of work and its changing organization. He engages the reader in a deeper examination of Zeus culture because it tends to dominate our large organizations and institutions in America. In doing so, he identifies alienating Zeus conditions and suggests that we must learn to “treat people as individuals rather than human resources” and that we need to “humanize” Apollo. It remains to be seen whether our large institutions have the capacity to do as he suggests. In another insightful moment, Handy states that the government bureaucracy’s role in the new order will be to “inform, not to control; to serve, not to master.” These words echo much of what we hear concerning the restructuring and “reinvention” of the US government.

In short, Handy has a great talent for understanding complex issues, identifying the future trends of organizational life, and supplying us with an easy to read analysis of where this all might lead. The fact that he wrote the first edition of this book nearly 20 years ago speaks of his capacity for seeing into the future as so many of his predictions have come true.