The Drucker Global Forum, held this month in Vienna, engaged more than three hundred people in envisioning Capitalism 2.0, redefining roles, responsibilities, and management to better address the 21st\u00a0century. By the end, I felt more optimistic about business and social enterprises than I ever have.<\/p>\n
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We pondered the basic question that Peter Ducker often asked when he worked with managers: \u201cWhat is needed?\u201d And we took on the tougher question that Drucker used to close every conversation: \u201cWhat are we going to do about it?\u201d<\/p>\n
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What is needed?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n No matter what their ages or backgrounds, participants agreed that the foremost challenge around the globe is youth unemployment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lynda Gratton\u00a0 of the London School of Economics\u00a0 arrived in Vienna from the World Economic Forum in Dubai, where experts\u00a0 warned of daunting jobless numbers. \u201cIf you have youthful unemployment in Spain or Greece\u00a0 rapidly coming north of 40 or 50 percent,\u201d Gratton said, \u201cthere is unrest.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We can prattle on about the spread of democracy in the world, but if we don\u2019t address youth unemployment, democracy will retrench.\u00a0\u00a0 Indeed, we risk more autocracies and extremist governments to deal with the rising tide of disaffected teens and 20-somethings.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, described witnessing a haunting scene upon returning to Newcastle, a city built on steel and coal:\u00a0 \u201cFor the first time in my life, I saw second-generation unemployment.\u201d He explained that this generation of young people had never seen their parents work. In fact, the only path out of misery they could see was having a baby \u2013 because that, at least, seemed a tangible possession.\u00a0 Yet as young, jobless parents, they found themselves further mired in poverty.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThat galvanized me to do something more than have a brilliant career and make a lot of money,\u201d Polman said. The challenge, he conceded, is enormous.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The angst of \u00a0young people was evident in the forum\u2019s annual\u00a0 student essay competition.\u00a0\u00a0 Of the 101 essays submitted, more than 90 focused on the lack of jobs.\u00a0 Most also called on the youth themselves to invent jobs and start businesses, yet\u00a0 lamented that such skills aren\u2019t valued by their parents or taught in school.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All across the conference center, in a babble of English, German, Mandarin, Korean and other languages, participants grappled with the implications of youth unemployment.\u00a0 The biggest issue the world faces now is not sustainable growth, the troubles with the euro, or indebted countries with no reserves. It is the rift between the youth and the rest of society, which stands to tear apart the social fabric.\u00a0 And we have no solutions, not even realistic hypotheses for ending the unemployment of the next generation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ironically, this is the same issue Peter Drucker wrote about in his first book, The End of Economic Man<\/em> \u2013 \u00a0the issue he credited with enabling Hitler\u2019s\u00a0 rise to power.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n What are we going to do about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Creative thinkers and doers\u2014from chief executive officers of multinationals to unknown masters of start-ups, from students to social enterprise champions\u2014proposed solutions in Vienna. There was a resolute sense of \u201cwe\u201d in every conversation. Again and again, they called for abandoning\u00a0 tired traditions and charting new ways.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The large corporate CEO<\/strong>:\u00a0 On his first day as Unilever\u2019s CEO, Paul Polman stopped quarterly reporting to analysts.\u00a0\u00a0 That may sound counter-intuitive for one of the world\u2019s leading publicly-held companies \u2013 one that is beholden to shareholders \u2013 but Polman\u00a0 wanted to send a strong signal about priorities.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI have better things to do with my time than report every 76 days about the weather impact, et cetera,\u201d he said. Unilever has set as its goal doubling revenue and halving its carbon footprint over the next five years. The two are working together. Unilever has been able to modify its outdated, bulky pension system to invest money in youth training and cross-internships with not-for profits including Oxfam and \u00a0Forum for the Future, and so on.\u00a0 Unilever also started an apprenticeship program based on the German model, offering a combination of jobs and training.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The result? Young people are learning from internships, apprenticeships, and training programs, positioning themselves to participate in the business world. Stockholders are having conversations about the long-term, for the company and for society. And consumers like what Unilever is doing and are buying more products.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Martin Curley, director of Intel Labs Europe, described the impact of opening Intel\u2019s\u00a0 innovation process to universities and other companies:\u00a0 \u201cWhen we let youth participate, they not only gain experience interacting with a corporate organization but also have an impact on results.\u201d This more open innovation process with student input drove growth at what had been a flat company for years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Social entrepreneurs. <\/strong>Bill Liao was one of many social entrepreneurs <\/strong>who spoke passionately about how people around the world are using well-crafted business practices as a force for good. For example, there\u2019s a need for talented computer coders. One of Liao\u2019s firm\u2019s projects, named CoderDojo, is a movement that enlists volunteers to teach children to understand computers and code.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since coding is a language skill, children who learn early become what Liao dubs \u201ccoder poets,\u201d\u00a0 who can get more impact from fewer lines of code. Society gains adept, top-notch coders, and the children gain a foundation for marketable skills. \u201cEverything is free on every level,\u201d Liao marveled.\u00a0 \u201cWe don\u2019t work for money, we work for impact, and it works!\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s not kidding.\u00a0 Because CoderDojo is a movement without administrative fees, salaries, or costs of any kind, it doesn\u2019t even have a bank account.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Academics. <\/strong>Nobel Laureate Dan Schectman of Technion Israel Institute called for sophisticated training to start early. He teaches kindergarten students physics:\u201cThis is the age they can learn. This is a language they understand and will grow with them.\u201d He also teaches engineering students entrepreneurship\u2014a class that is continually over-enrolled.\u00a0 He talked about the need for entrepreneurs to recognize that ideas are not enough\u2014they need to be managed.\u00a0 He is helping kids be entrepreneurs and job creators.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Startups. <\/strong>Speakers talked of startups building businesses, all on the new model of cross-organization resources seeking high impact.\u00a0\u00a0 For example, Etventures is a place for large corporations to take their ideas to be nurtured and built up as innovations.\u00a0 Qwalify is a site for individuals to find their strengths and be matched with organizations that need those skills \u2013 a matchmaker for employees and employers. Young thinkers are powering these developments, and every success grows the economy and the employment base.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Engaged citizens. <\/strong>Citizens, led by the young, are playing vital roles in creating\u00a0\u00a0 social change, such as fighting corruption.\u00a0 They\u2019re harnessing the transparency offered by the web and social media. John Quelch described a video of a man destroying his defective refrigerator, which has been seen 170 million times in China. He spoke of a fatal train derailment that could not be obfuscated by the authorities because images went viral on YouTube. Efforts like this motivate young people to participate in organizational life and sharpen practical skills.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Consultant Tammy Ericson described how, in these times, everything is visible to everyone, which brings to mind another Drucker quote: \u00a0\u201cI just look out the window and see what is visible\u2014but not yet seen.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What is visible but not yet seen is the power of ordinary Chinese college students to thwart corruption. . . of young entrepreneurs crossing organizational boundaries and building bridges to what used to be unimaginable. . .\u00a0 In short, organizations and citizens, young and old, are creating a new social contract, which will form the basis of Capitalism 2.0.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n AUTHOR:<\/strong><\/p>\n Elizabeth Haas Edersheim , author and consultant, is founder of NYCP – a management lab –\u00a0 and architect of The Elements of Management Effectiveness, ThEME, available as an iPad app and in a customized version reflecting quotes and ideas from the Forum<\/a> .\u00a0 She worked with Peter Drucker in the last years of his life and authored The Definitive Drucker<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Drucker Global Forum, held this month in Vienna, engaged more than three hundred people in envisioning Capitalism 2.0, redefining<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[33,17,34],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}