One of the world's most influential living management thinkers, Charles Handy, who is 75 years old, has year-after-year been listed alongside business experts including Peter Drucker and Tom Peters in the prestigious Thinkers 50 list.  His views on management and life have inspired others for decades. In his latest book Myself and Other More Important Matters, this best selling author of books, including The Age of Unreason and The Elephant and the Flea, shares his special blend of wisdom, giving readers uncommon insight into business and careers.

After a career as an economist at Shell International, Handy ran the first graduate school business program in London. He was a full professor at the London Business School. He also served as Warden of St. George's House in Windsor Castle, a private conference and study center concerned with ethics and values in society. Many British know Handy for this 'Thoughts for Today' on the BBC's Radio Today program.  His articles have appeared in the Harvard Business Review.

Enterpriseleadership.org recently spoke with Charles Handy to discuss everything from how the corporation of the future will look like to what does it really mean to manage.  Here's what he had to say:

EL: In your book, Myself, you write that people say they manage something when they're really coping with it.  So what does it mean to manage? 

CH: In English, if you ask someone if he or she has managed all right today, you don't actually mean that the person went around motivating people and drawing up strategy plans and so forth. You mean did you get by or did you cope. That's the interesting thing.  Applied to people, manage doesn't have a nice connotation. For instance, transport managers don't think of themselves as managing people, but managing the transport function. People don't like to think of themselves as being managed because they associate it with being manipulated or controlled. They liked to be led. In some industries, such as the film business, people who look after others don't have the title of manager. They're called agents, partners, or directors. I try to avoid the word.  People in companies get by.

EL: People have called you the European equivalent of Peter Drucker.  How do any of your beliefs about management differ from Drucker's?

CH: I'm pleased by it. I don't think my beliefs about management differ from his.  Whenever I've had nice insight about something, I'd discover that Drucker had the same insight five years earlier. That always irritated me. We thought along similar lines. We talked not just about the organization and what goes on inside it, but we also talked a lot about society. We're both social philosophers as well as organizational thinkers. That's the similarity. Of course, some things divided us. He was more accepting of the North American capitalism model. I find it a bit cruel and greedy. He wrote more books and they continue to sell better than mine.

EL: Why do you consider yourself a social  philosopher?  Why do you take issue with people calling you a management  guru?   

CH: I don't want anyone calling me a management guru, which I find an irritating expression. Peter Drucker once said they only call you a guru because Americans can't spell management theorist. I have a broader perspective than most so-called management gurus. I'm interested in the way work defines our lives and the way organizations define work. I'm interested in looking at the kinds of lives we've all been leading and the kinds of the values we bring to those lives. That's all tied up with work and organizations. I'm speculating about what's life all about.

EL:  How do you feel about people who run their lives by technology?

CH: It's great if it's your servant. The danger is that it seduces you. In turn, you spend your time surfing the Web trying to find some bit of fascinating information. It's not a good thing. You wind up letting the computer start to run your life.  Computers control organizations, which is also very dangerous. George Orwell's 1984 presented the grime scenario of people being watched by devices similar to computers.

EL: What were some of the valuable lessons you learned in Borneo during your management apprenticeship with Royal Dutch Shell?              

CH: In those days, Borneo was a primitive place. The country had only 30 miles of road. You got around by boat or tiny airplanes. It was scary at times. However, one important event stands out. When I got there, I learned that we had no telephone line to the head office in Singapore. In those days, we didn't have any email or anything like that. If I wanted to communicate with my boss, I had to write him a letter. The letter took a week to get there, and my boss took a week to get back to me. I quickly realized I was on my own. If I made a mistake, I could correct it. No one needed to know I made a mistake. I didn't have to endure the disgrace of being reprimanded for something I did wrong. I also had a very loyal staff.  I, however, learned from my mistakes. That's what worries me about computers. You can't make mistakes without people knowing about them. It's difficult for people to learn from their mistakes. You learn by experimenting and experiments don't always work.

EL: What first inspired you  to create a graduate school for Britain’s managers? 

CH: When I left Shell in the mid 1960's, I was looking for something to do. The longest formal program for any manager included one day. Can you believe that? I concluded that Britain had three occupations that didn't require decent people to have any formal training or formal education. These occupations included being a politician, a parent, or a manager. We couldn't do anything about being politicians or about parenting. We could do something about being a manager. I noticed that the armed services provided formal training for many of its top jobs. People attended a staff college for one year.  No other organizations provided anything close to this. I discovered that the London Business School wanted to offer a one-year Sloan program. I introduced myself to the principal who was looking for someone to run the program. After I got the job, I went to the U.S. to learn how business schools operated and then returned to London.

EL: In 2007 in Boston, at the Summit on the Future of the Corporation, you gave a historical perspective on the evolution of the corporation, its purpose and its future design. Can you briefly describe the future design of the corporation?

CH: When I joined Shell, it was one big company. The future organizational structure of the corporation will resemble a spread eagle. It's a federated structure.  It will consist of a collection of different entities, some wholly owned. These entities will fan out across the world to provide a global reach. They can't be totally controlled from the center. The corps of people in the middle will provide the strategic direction of the corporation. They will also decide how money will get spent, and select who will run each business bit. The bits will have to be largely independent and autonomous. That's a new kind of challenge because you just can't tell people what to do in a federated organization. You have to negotiate things. You also need to have some type of constitution that protects the rights of the different bits of the organization.

EL:Isn't this  structure going to be difficult for people to cope  with?

CH: Yes! Managing will become difficult. You'll need to manage by values.  People will need to have a sense of what's the right thing to do and what direction they should go in. Technology will help enormously because it will keep people in touch with each other. The great thing is not to let them take away your being a master. People are going to have to rely more on their own initiative. No one at the center of these spread eagle things can tell you what to do. They're probably on the other side of the world. And you've never met them.

EL: In Myself you talk a lot about people needing to adapt the mindset of an independent agent.  Will this attitude work better in the organizational structure you described?

CH: Absolutely! Each unit of the organization will have its core staff. However, these units will increasingly use independents and smaller operating companies to help do their task. These organizations need to be incredibly flexible in this world because it is changing so fast. If you try to employee everybody to do everything you want them to do, you're stuck with these people. They might not be the right people and might not be able to change fast enough. You might need extra resources, which you can't afford because you've stuck with the old ones. It makes sense to have partners around the place. Some of these partners don't need an office or to be put on the company's pension scheme. You can easily get rid of them when you no longer need them.

EL: One of the quotes attributed to you is "Profit is secondary to their real purpose, which is to make a difference in the world." Can you explain this further?

CH: Most of the enlightened businesses would agree with this. A pharmaceutical company might perceive its mission to be curing sick or be providing medicine for needy people about the world. They, of course, have to make a profit because they have to pay dividends to investors. They have to make money to invest in the future.  You feel energized and excited if you're working in an organization, and if you're feeling you're doing something useful, not just working for the shareholders. I wouldn't want to wake up in the morning and say, 'I'm going to make some shareholder richer today.' I'd rather wake up and know I've customers whose demands I need to meet.  I really wanted to make a difference in my little world in Borneo. I wanted people to have a good life.

EL: Are there any companies or entrepreneurs whom you admire?

CH: Every time I mention a company I like, it runs into trouble.  I'd rather not comment. I do, however, admire Richard Branson, He set out to do something better than other people were doing it. He started an airline. He hated being treated like cattle when he traveled. He wanted his airline to treat people as people. He had to make money to keep it going. Making a difference underscores all the stuff he does.

EL: How do you stay active in management today?

CH: I act as a coach to people in business. I have this interesting process. People who've read my books, can call us when they are in London. If I'm going to be free the next morning, they are welcome to join my wife and I for breakfast at our home in Putney from 8:30 to 9:30. We've had everyone from religious monks to young people who want to test their ideas for a business.

Author: Elizabeth M. Ferrarini - She is a technology writer  from Boston, Massachusetts. Reach her at elizabethferrarini@yahoo.com.