A Handy view of the future workplace

"I looked in the mirror. That was definitely an old face. Did it belong to me? I did not feel that way. A few weeks before, on the Tube in London, a beautiful, elegant young Ethiopian - or was she Sudanese? - lady had caught my eye and smiled. 'Ah!' I thought, 'Thank goodness, I've still got some of the old spark left, it seems.' Then I realized that she was offering me her seat."

You have to love the guy who'd tell that story. That guy is business writer Charles Handy, writing in his autobiography with the equally self-effacing title "Myself and Other More Important Matters."

I think of Handy as the British Peter Drucker; however, there is a difference between the two: Although Drucker could write stunningly brilliant sentences, I always found his books unreadable, while Handy can write a sentence and knows how to tell a story.

Indeed, Handy has long been one of the most observant business writers on the planet, including the ability to see the future. Thirty years ago, for instance, he coined the term "portfolio life," seeing the rise of a new class of workers who pieced together a career for themselves - the consultants, freelancers, part timers, and the like.

In this book he reports that he has also seen the future of the workplace: "The office of the future will often be more like a traditional city club." Handy, being British, may well think of the city club, whereas in the United States we might think of the country club. However, I suppose that much of the younger population isn't familiar with those either. If not, think of it as a members-only version of the first couple of floors of a downtown hotel - bar, restaurant, lobby, meeting rooms.

Handy uses this analogy to make up for the prediction that there will be no offices, not even cubicles. The work that can be done alone will be done at home. He writes: "Only members and their guests are allowed in, but once in, all facilities are available to them. No one expects to have a private room at the club, but the premises and facilities need to be of a certain standard. What the organization saves on office space it will be able to spend on improving the common services and premises. State-of-the-art telecomm, decent food, and even a gym are essential, but nice furnishings and good art help to make the office a place that people want to come to, even a place they can be proud of belonging to, but no longer will it be a personal home away from home."

The idea of a club seems appealing, but I'm suspicious - these things often smack of the generals who take over the nicest house in town and then hold a meeting in which they compliment the quartermaster for figuring out how to get more cots into the tents for the troops.

So while I smile dreamily at the picture of working in a space that resembles the lobby of a Ritz-Carlton, I fear that after budget-cutting it would end up being more like meeting in the gym-cafeteria combo at the neighborhood middle school. (Which reminds me . . . I once had a famous writer show me his office, halfway up a mountain, with windows on three sides, and saying: "You know how it is - a writer needs a view." I smiled and nodded, but thought of the views from where I often write - the sea of carpet down the airport terminal or the great plains of asphalt of a corporate parking lot. Then again, maybe that's why he's sold so many more books than I have.)

Handy foresees the office qua club because he's picturing the further spread of the "portfolio life." He sees corporate employees as having portfolios of clients or assignments, and working on them at home and in the offices of customers, and only coming into the "club" for conversations and inspiration.

I spoke with Handy about his vision of the new workplace, and he told me of a conversation with a young Irishman whom he'd asked what sort of careers they were creating in their newly rich country. The young man replied, "We don't have careers anymore; we have lives."

Lives, eh? A club and a portfolio - not a bad start. Let's hope that the future is as elegant and engaging as Handy and his prose.

Dale Dauten is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached at dale@dauten.com.