What I learned about human development from Charles Handy (1932-2024)

Charles Handy has died in London at the age of 92, and I would like to commemorate the passing of a great management philosopher, who I knew and learned from.

Uplifting business with humanism

Charles Handy was a major influence on the development of European management as an educator and author of management and social philosophy. He was also a keen observer of Asia, which began in 1956 when he took a job with Shell after his studies at Oxford. One of 14 trainees in Shell’s three-month induction course, he recalled that each trainee was handed an envelope at the end of the program. Handy’s envelope said Kuala Lumpur although, he admits, he had then no idea where it was. In his second year, he was transferred to Singapore when his boss said, "London have asked us to appoint an economist for South-east Asia: and you're it."

Having done that job, thinking over what he wanted to become, Handy eventually decided to leave his career at Shell to become a management writer. He was also the first professor of management development at the London Business School and authored 20 books on management and social philosophy, continuing to publish until the age of 90 (which gives me hope of a bright future as a writer at age 76).

I read and admired Handy's writing, especially "The Age of Unreason" one of the top selling management books of the 1990s. I found that an idea in that book, that you manage your career as a portfolio of activities, made great sense and used it to manage my own life. Throughout his writing Handy uplifted business theory with a humanistic philosophy of what's important in business and the purpose of organisations and the experience of work. Many of my friends in business, consulting and education knew and admired him.

I got to know Charles in the 1990s while living in France, writing a newsletter on personal development. To my surprise, I received a note from him: "Do you write this yourself?" A few months later I had lunch with him and his wife with my daughter Charlotte who was in London at the time.

For my readers in Asia, what matters is a conversation with Charles ten years ago about human development and the future of ASEAN.

Which Management Model for ASEAN?

Ten years ago, I was leading a project to write a white paper on ASEAN management for the European Chamber of Commerce in Singapore in partnership with the European Foundation of Management Development (EFMD). For the project, the EFMD invited me to attend their conference in Brussels and I immediately accepted because I saw that Charles Handy was the keynote speaker and I had a burning question I wanted to ask him.

At the end of the EFMD speech, I asked Charles if he would have time for a conversation about ASEAN. He kindly invited me to see him at home in London for a chat.

My question was this. As the ASEAN community is becoming more mature, what should the ASEAN model for managing business and people be? Had Europe made any mistakes in creating its own model?

Over tea in his London apartment, Charles told me about his own experience as a European management thinker.

Management was considered at that time to be an American product. When I first began writing management books, people thought that I must be American and they would ask me how long I intended to live in London. With European integration we failed to produce our own international gurus and thinkers to balance what the Americans were producing. We didn't link capitalism and business with what Europe was creating in other areas such as science, culture and social innovation.?

When I turned the conversation to ASEAN, Charles said that for ASEAN business to become globally respected, it would be important to attract the brightest and best leaders with the idea that they will be the ones who build companies to work for the greater good of all.

To my question about adopting the European model, he said that he believed ASEAN should create its own model rather than copying a model imported from somewhere else. What are the challenges in doing this in ASEAN?

You have to make business leadership prestigious and valued for the ASEAN region by meeting the challenges of society. As for education, universities and business schools should encourage and support ASEAN business gurus and thinkers who can project leadership to the wider world.

I noted all this down and thought about it for my white paper.

At first, I thought it an easy thing to say - create your own model. But the more I pondered what to say in my white paper over the next few days, the more I realised that creating an ASEAN model would be the central challenge of management and leadership for business in the region. That went into the white paper.

That idea also became a personal challenge for me. I decided that it was something I wanted to spend my time doing not only in the area of business but in the broader human development domain -- in the public and private sector as well as in higher education and ASEAN policy.