Showing posts with label Davos. Show all posts
Business Meets Goodwill at the World Economic Forum
That is: Supply Chain Management. It might sound scary (that's many times what business jargon does: scares us) but it’s actually quite basic.
It starts with a simple question: How do we get aid from the Have’s to the Have Not’s? It’s best to use an example – let’s use the AIDS epidemic in Africa. On the one side, pharmaceutical companies make drugs to combat AIDS. On the other side, millions of Africans are infected with AIDS with no access to the right drugs. How do the right drugs get to the people who need it? Then, we identify what the supply is – either a product or service – in this case, pharmaceutical drugs. (We could even talk about people (that is, doctors) in the recent case of Haiti). Next, we break down, into discrete pieces, the points through which the supply is taken: (1) Pharmaceutical company, (2) Shipping company, (3) Port, (4) Village, (5) Individual. That is our “supply chain.” (The supply chain can look quite different than this – and get complicated pretty fast – depending on context). Finally, we determine how we get from one chain to the next, which is usually a question of who. Who is responsible for moving supply along the chain? The answer, in a lot of successful cases, is “Private-public partnerships.”
In the case of AIDS in Africa, for the most part, big US pharmaceutical companies (#1) have been responsible (sometimes with US government help) for committing a certain amount of drugs to ship (#2) to the appropriate African port (#3). At that point, the private companies’ expertise typcially ends. Another group must pick it up from there. NGO’s (sometimes with UN help), with their local expertise, are typically the best to distribute aid once it’s “on the ground.” From the port, they transport it to the right villages (#4), then get it to the right people (#5).
As a stark reminder of the importance of the supply chain as well as organizations’ roles along it, Jeffrey Sachs, at an intimate panel discussion, recanted that ten years ago, pharmaceutical companies started to realize that their drugs just sat in boxes at major African ports. They weren’t reaching those in need because there was no infrastructure in place to get the drugs to villages. Many died as a result. Some on the panel (which consisted of the CEO of Manpower, Executive Director of UN Global Compact, Deputy Chairman of KPMG, and President of Global Hand) nodded as Sachs mentioned that it was at Davos, that same year, that “Big Pharma” highlighted this challenge. They connected with the UN and international NGOs to link the last few supply chains together, ultimately ensuring that the drugs reached those in need.
It’s exciting to see business and humanitarian causes work handed-in-hand, not just “on the ground,” but also in concept. Transferring knowledge from one sphere to make the other better (in this case, the framework of supply chain management) is one of the World Economic Forum's biggest strengths. Where else do the "rulers of the universe" gather, in such quality and quantity, with so much focus and thought dedicated to combatting some of the world's greatest challenges? We have our criticisms of the World Economic Forum (many do), but it's worth highlighting the great good it serves as well.
Live from Davos: The World Economic Forum
Nestled in the snow-capped Alps of eastern Switzerland, Davos is home to one of the most high-powered events of the year: The World Economic Forum. Attendees are the world's most influential business and political leaders. French President, Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured at right), opened the meeting with a call for international banking regulation.The feel here is exclusive, yet the Forum's aim is rather inclusive. That is, how to solve the most pressing concerns of our time, chief among them, health and education challenges facing the world's most needy. Also on the agenda: the direction of the global economy, climate change, and international security & coexistence.
We will be covering the Forum through its close on Sunday, Jan 31. And, as is now typical, we will finalize our coverage with a post mortem analysis.
You can also follow real-time action on Twitter, either by using the #WEF hashtag or following the Forum tweeter @Davos.
Additionally, we recommend checking out:
- Live streaming video of the World Economic Forum
- YouTube's World Economic Forum channel
- Wall Street Journal's World Economic Forum coverage hub
Bill George: Play Your Game, Not Theirs
We recently spoke with Bill George, widely known for his classic book on leadership, True North: Discover your Authentic Leadership. He's also a Harvard Business School Professor and the former, storied CEO of Medtronics, the world’s largest medical technology company (think pacemaker). You can see him at the World Economic Forum in late January as a panelist on leadership.Bill is not your typical CEO or Business School Professor. He doesn’t shy away from ideas of vulnerability, self-reflection, or even counseling. In fact, he sees them as sources of power, not weakness.
Bill preaches about the importance of knowing who we are (awareness), being open about it (vulnerability), and sticking to it (commitment) in the choices we make in life and as a leader. It’s when we do these things that we’re strong enough to resist temptations of “short-termism” – that is, the temptation of immediate gratification over the more sustainable long view.
Take the recent economic meltdown. Bill believes it was caused, not by sub-prime mortgages, but by “sub-prime leadership.” Too many people got caught up in the short term, more concerned about keeping up with the corporate Joneses and meeting Wall Street expectations than with the long-term health of their own companies. Bill is convinced that “if you play Wall Street’s game, you will destroy your company.” Look at Citibank, AIG, and countless others.
That said, it’s difficult to not play the game. Does a leader really even have a choice? What can one leader do in the face of such powerful forces as competitive pressure, fiduciary responsibility, and Wall Street expectations?
Bill’s response is simple: “Just don’t play [the game]. Just say no.” Simply say “we are in the business of building long-term shareholder value” and go about doing it. That’s what he did at Medtronic. And the long-term health and strength of the company has benefited greatly. Not right away, but in the end, when it matters.
There’s a personal parable in all of this. In our career choices and lives in general, we’ve got to be strong enough to take the long view over the short one. We’ve got to know who we are, be honest about it, and make decisions from there, decisions that lead to sustainable personal growth, not dramatic falls.
Taken together, Bill’s philosophy is a virtuous assault on conventional wisdom, a wisdom – propagated by mainstream media and corporate culture – that tells us to “[try] to make a good impression and not show them who you really are.”
He is not naïve, however, about the difficulty of defying conventional wisdom. In fact, he says, “If you share your vulnerabilities and weaknesses, you figure you won’t get hired. And maybe you won’t. I think that’s the problem."
So how do we overcome this problem, the powerful forces against being who we are? Unfortunately, the answer isn’t clear. It’s a matter of personal choices and values. Bill admits that we can reach success if we play the short-term game or hide who we are. But the chances of it being sustainable are slim. It will likely lead to a fall, more precipitous and more probable than if we played it right.
Bill’s view on failure is similar to that of luminaries we’ve already spoken to – it’s more a blessing than a curse. The key is whether we learn from it or not. Bill believes, “early failures are one of the greatest learning tools you can have.” We try hard not to fail early in our lives and careers. But the earlier we fail, the earlier we learn and the more we avoid self-destructive behavior later on. Bill reminds us that “the greatest failure of all [is] the failure to take risks to be who you are.”
When we do fail, Bill implores us to not simply blame others and move on, but rather, look internally. Own it. Make the necessary changes. And then move on. Stronger.
Listen to our full interview with Bill to find out more about him, including:
- His personal epiphany
- His relationship to luck
- His view of social media
- His take on Bill Clinton and Sandy Weill
World Economic Forum: High Profile Thought
1. “If you['ve] got enough self confidence in who you are and what you believe in, you ought not to be scared to talk to anybody.”
2. “Insurance losses from natural disasters in the last decade are three times [larger than in] any previous decade, in common constant dollars, which is another argument for the reality of climate change.”
3. “Not every failure is a defeat.”
Time and time again, the successful people we talk to and hear from frame failure positively. Bill Clinton is no exception. At the World Economic Forum, he cited his efforts to reform healthcare not as failure, but as necessary trail-blazing for the next attempt at fundamental reform to be successful. Pat Lencioni talked about failure as a necessary course-adjuster and character-builder, that thing which guided him to his rightful path. The examples go on.
4. “America always does the right thing - after exhausting all other alternatives.”
Citing the humorous Winston Churchill, Clinton propagated the view that America is a source of good in the world, even if we don't get it right the first time, all the time. Hearing this in the wake of Iraq and amidst the current reality of Afghanistan makes Churchill's words particularly resonant.
5. "There is nothing so difficult in all of human affairs than to change the established order of things."
Clinton used Machiavelli's words to call out reality in blunt terms. What interested us even more than Machiavelli's quote was Clinton's follow up as to why changing the status quo is so difficult: "... because the people who will lose are certain of their loss and those who will benefit are uncertain of their gain." Certainty. We know that financial markets place tremendous value in it. But so too do political ones.