For 15 years, Charles Handy did us the enormous honor of choosing the Drucker Forum as a privileged platform for delivering his message to the world, and particularly to the younger generation in which he had such faith. Following up on our initial announcement of Charles’ passing
Charles Handy (1932–2024)
, we are honored to share a selection of his key contributions to the Forum with our wider community.
Charles’ brilliant keynotes at the Drucker Forum have become legendary. Normally accessible only to members of the Drucker Society, from today they are available as recordings to the wider public for a period of 30 days. At the first centennial
Forum in 2009,
Charles talked about his debt to Peter Drucker while outlining his own fundamental management concepts that he had developed over the years. Two years later, he touched on the ideas of Adam Smith and
demonstrated
how much more to them there was than the celebrated “invisible hand” of self-interest. In his landmark
closing address
in 2017, pursuing a thread developed in his 2015 book
The Second Curve,
he called for a management reformation that would turn it into a tool for the common good – thus drawing the first contours of what we would announce six years later as the
Next Management
. We took to heart his exhortation not to wait for great leaders but “to start small fires in the darkness, until they spread and the whole world is alight with a better vision of what we could do with our businesses”. Management’s “second curve” will be the focus of the “Charles and Elizabeth Handy Lecture Series” in 2025.
Following the loss of his beloved wife Elizabeth in 2018 and a severe stroke, Charles was much reduced in mobility in his last years – but not in his determination to continue spreading his message of hope to the world. He couldn’t participate in person in the Drucker Forum 2022, but he participated in a moving
online interview
with his son Scott, who directed young actors in a short performance of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot by Beckett to illustrate some points.
Charles also contributed valued digital articles for our blog and for Drucker Forum partners. Even during the most difficult period of his life he continued to write and develop his ideas in weekly columns for the Idler magazine. This entailed first memorizing the article, then dictating it and finally reviewing it by having someone it re-read to him – a remarkable feat of memory and determination. The
article
is a jewel and most appropriate for Christmas and the season of self-reflection.
Have a wonderful Christmas, happy holidays and a healthy and prosperous New Year.
