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Transcript:
In Davos this week there's a lot of focus on so-called multi stakeholder capitalism.
The idea that we need to focus on the interests of all stakeholders rather than just shareholders.
But I think this is a helpful construct because in a sense thinking about companies as economic islands that can maximize their profit locally has sort of created the externalities that create climate change and species loss and the other problems that got us to where we are today.
This particular focus on metrics the idea that if we measure the right things in the in the construct of multi stakeholder capitalism that we can somehow reunite the individual company interest with the broader social interest.
However in the different sessions this week I think there's a lot of tension around that concept and there were also many of the thought that we needed a broader concept. One that actually reshapes the system itself rather than measures things within the construct of the current system.

At dinner last night with business leaders I had a very fascinating discussion about what we can learn from history – from the few examples where many people came together to solve a massive challenge in a short space of time.
And I'm thinking about things like putting a man on the moon, or the Manhattan project, or the reconfiguration of the industrial base in the USA, the preparation for World War 2. And we discussed what are the common elements of that.

And the preliminary hypothesis was that the ingredients were:

• a big inspiring mission,
• a time constraint in a sense of urgency,
• and inspiring visionary leader that can communicate and motivate on that construct,
• a common enemy

and most certainly I think a project or program management structure that allows for Top down direction and inspiration, bottom up innovation and iteration, and also the coordination of many parties in a smooth manner, that doesn't tie itself in bureaucratic knots.

So this week in Davos I’m particularly interested in thinking about what are these special governance structures and what's the system Re-Engineering formula that can move us forwards.