Davos Speaks

The full report (PDF) of yesterday's Town Hall meeting is now online. Check it out and let us know your reaction in the "comments" section.

Comments

[Anupam Saraph]

I think the overwhelming expression of lack of confidence in today's leaders at this meeting symbolizes not the failure of the leaders, but of the failure of sustained leadership.

So much of being a leader is filled with the pressures to succeed as a leader, not in the leadership of the cause. Succumbing to this pressure, alas, is the failure of the leader.

When we focus on the leader and not the acts of leadership, we often inhibit the potential of the leader to rise larger than life in the acts of leadership.

Those like Gandhi sustain as leaders because it is their success at leadership and not as a leader that drives their leadership.

Missions, not issues or symptoms, are the most clear ways of identifying cause. They enable sustained leadership.

It is interesting that the forum listed a set of priorities for voting. Interestingly this list is a mixture of symptoms, issues, problems, and structures. Should world leaders address symptoms? Is this list what will drive sustained leadership and accomplish success?

Is it a priority list that a world forum should seek? Or should it seek a mission? Can priorities unify a global village, find common ground, help make universal progress, create a common direction? Are we to still keep tinkering with symptoms?

In fact many world leaders, Narayana Murthy, Charles Prince, Danel Vasella, articulated very well that we were not even addressing the complex issues facing the world.

Isn't building a global civilization on earth is a single **common** mission that underlies everything that has been said at Davos? Can that actually serve as the unifying mission? That can help focus on more positive contributions to design and enable such a civilization?

[Douglass Carmichael]

The list of issues done by vote does not map well into the comments by the speakers. For example, Charles Pierce of Citicorp said we lack capacity to deal with complexity. The list of issues proceeds as if they can be done one by one, in isolation from each other.

Prioritizing is a bad method for design: which part of the airplane are you willing to leave off? Is a list of priorities a good way to proceed?

The complex issues are more likely to lead to looking at governance, wealth, social belief and technology choices, population and environment, taken together as a single issue.