Davos: Changing the culture at the top

Most people will only change if they see that others around them are changing too.

During the meeting we saw quite a few role models:  Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff explained how he fought to get legislation passed in San Francisco that would tax 0.5% of revenue from some of the largest companies – including his own company, Salesforce – in order to fund solutions to the homeless crisis in the city. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern shared how New Zealand is changing its financial system to include societal well-being, not just economic well-being. This means that her government will use well-being budget to gauge the impact of policy on the quality of people’s lives.

Most people will only change if they are told what to do in a clear and compelling way.

There were many compelling stories, including a cross-generational cry for climate action. From sixteen-year-old activist, Greta Thunberg, who treated the assembled leaders with: “I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic … and act as if the house was on fire” to 92-year-old Sir David Attenborough, who said The Garden of Eden is no more. Many attendees were touched by a plea for a future by Somalian refugee Mohammed Hassan who spent the last 20 years living in a refugee camp in Kenya. The Young Global Shaper community launched Voice For the Planet, a platform where people around the world can “raise their voice” for nature.

Most people will only change if there are structures, processes, and measurements that hold them accountable.

On this dimension, we saw the launch and growth of many initiatives, including:

• Members of the newly launched Partnership for Global LGBTI Equality agreed to operationalize the UN’s LGBTI Standards of Conduct worldwide across their business by 2020. The Partnership plans to enlist at least 50 other member companies by 2020.
• The Closing the Skills Gap Initiative, launched in 2017 with a target to reskill or upskill 10 million workers by 2020, secured pledges for training more than 17 million people globally, 6.4 million of whom have already been re-skilled.
• Valuable 500 is a new campaign aimed at realizing the social and economic potential of 1.3 billion disabled people. This campaign aims to sign up 500 global businesses to commit to putting disability on their board agendas in 2019.

If we want people to change, they need to possess the skills to do so.

Building skills typically takes dedication and time and time is what’s lacking for the leaders attending Davos. This might be one of the reasons why there is little emphasis on building the leadership skills that are needed today. There were some moments to learn though, like from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on how Japan was able to boost the economy by not being afraid of robotics and by attracting women into the workforce. At a dinner in the dark, leaders could experience blindness and learn how to listen better.