Book Notes - The Empty Raincoat

The Empty Raincoat by Charles Handy [1988]

Summary:
Alas typing this up 2 months after I took the notes so can’t really remember an overarching narrative or point to the book. Note to self: If I read it again think about a synopsis.

Notes:
Page 23: Handy sees intelligence as an assets, at least as important as owning a home.
Page 25: We should pursue increasing our intelligence quotient as avidly as we pursue owning a home. In fact the more intelligent the society the less home ownership there is.
Page 33: You should be able to build up a “time bank” annual leave over years.
Page 36: Time is Money. Small businesses trade their time for busy people’s money.
Page 50: Concept of a sigmoid or s-curve, (see TRIZ theories of evolution). This may explain the companies I have worked for, they have all been at the top of the s-curve when I started with them and only those that have found the next curve have prospered.
Page 50: When things are going well it is time to change.
Page 53: You can see s-curves everywhere from personal relationships to empires.
Page 59: The past is a poor predictor of the future.
Page 68: You should strive for a balanced donut in your life: The centre represents your core responsibilities and the outside is discretionary things that you can do. If the centre is too large you get bored, if the outside is too large you never reach a target. There should be a balance of freedom and responsibility.
Page 69: A Type 1 Error in business is getting something wrong and a Type 2 error is missing an opportunity. Think of a way to relate to Goldratt’s DollarDay metric in Beyond the Goal.
Page 76: Ricardo Semler used a donut structure for Semco.
Page 79: The core of the donut is what people rebel against. E.g. Non-smoking offices.
Page 104: “The £5 Note Auction” to illustrate the importance of communication in generating win-win solutions. Pick two people at random from opposite sides of the room and make them bid on 3x £5 notes, they will both end up bidding to around £5 and possibly more on the last of the 3. Exhaust all possible permutations of this to prove that people are stupid. Then pick two people sitting next to each other (preferably who have been talking) and repeat. They should have an agreement that is mutually beneficial to both of them and they will fleece you.
Page 115: Subsidiarity – Reverse delegation, leaving all decisions that can be made locally local. Handy suggests that people have a moral right not to be interfered with.
Page 146: Highlights the J&J Credo as a good model; primary responsibility to customers, then employees, then environment and finally to shareholders. Makes mention of the Tylenol crisis.
Page 172: Head of Nissan UK comparing the different management styles of western and Japanese companies. Western companies have rigid interfaces and departments like facets of a crystal, Japanese companies are more like mud, fluid flowing able to respond.
Page 205: Different types of intelligence: Factual, Analytic, Linguistic, Spatial, Musical, Practical, Physical, Intuitive, Interpersonal.
Page 261: Chapter on “A Sense of Direction”.
Page 262: People want entertainment, too little and they get bored but they also don’t want too much as it becomes harrowing. There is a suggestion that the first world war was caused because the middle classes in Europe were bored but they got more excitement than they really wanted. We have the same problem now, there are no ‘great causes’ that universally inspire a country, most people are content to live their lives amass wealth and possessions and not rock the boat. This is not enough.

Quotes:
Page 19: “There are kings and prophets, I was always told, the kings have the power and the prophets have the principles.” – Tony Benn
Page 26: “If work were so great the rich would have hogged it all long ago” – Mark Twain
Page 27: “Slack always costs money. It is just a matter of who pays for it”
Page 38: “When intelligence is the primary asset, the organisation becomes more like a collection of project groups.”
Page 43: “No-one can do much about the brilliant, they will be miserable anyway.” – Michael Young
Page 59: “The world belongs to the discontented.” – Robert Woodruff [Coca Cola]