-: Greetings from sunny Davos.
We are wrapping up a productive and busy week here in Davos,
and we wanted to share a few reflections with you.
I'm here with BCG's Global CEO, Christoph Schweizer.
-: Good morning, Mai-Britt, how are you?
-: Great, it's been a super week.
-: Yes, and it's even nice and sunny now.
How is that?
-: Very different from winter Davos.
-: Totally, yes.
-: Christoph, you had a quite packed agenda
and you met with so many CEOs, what's top of the agenda?
-: Well, not surprisingly, top of mind is the question,
how is the situation in Ukraine going to develop?
What is the path forward?
What are the scenarios?
How likely are they?
And then, how can we mitigate
the many secondary and tertiary effects?
The global food crisis that is not a risk,
it's a reality that is happening as we speak,
the raw material and energy shortages,
the supply chain disruptions,
that is top of mind for any leader
whether government or business, doesn't matter.
Other than that, I found this an interesting week
because compared to some years ago
where everyone started to talk about climate
and sustainability and make nice pledges,
I think we are at the point
where the innovative and bold CEOs
are now moving from pledge to action.
I'm stunned by the magnitude of some of the investments,
in particular, in the renewable energy sector,
in the hydrogen space.
I think there's definitely a new phase
in that whole journey and that's exciting.
Of course, we need to be fast
and a lot needs to be done, but I do feel there's progress.
-: It's great to see how we've moved from pledges
also in 2020 - the last Davos in person - to action.
What else was on the agenda?
-: Well, I think the topic that we've all been going through
for quite a while now is the shortage of talent,
any talent, anywhere in the world.
And I think that was, yet again, a big theme here in Davos.
How do you attract the people into your organization?
How do you develop and retain and excite them?
A lot of conversation about purpose,
about the employer value propositions,
about flexible work models, etc.
Speaking of those, you were on a panel
about the future of work and in particular also flexibility.
What are your takeaways, Mai-Britt?
-: Yes, my big one line takeaway is that
nobody has the answer yet.
(both chuckling softly)
So by taking a step back,
I had a very great panel discussion,
and I think it's very important
to distinguish between different job types,
because if you work in the frontline, retail, construction,
in a manufacturing site, flexibility and the discussion
is very different compared to
if you are a knowledge worker in an office.
But let's zoom in on the knowledge worker,
which is also the business we are in.
I think we need to experiment.
We learned in the pandemic
that we can work in a different way,
but in order to make that work,
we are still in the laboratory phase, I would say.
So we are adopting a growth mindset.
I didn't meet any leader here who knew the formula
for how this is going to work.
But the one thing I would say is from a DE&I perspective,
we need to make sure that men and women
embrace these opportunities in the same way.
-: You're spot on.
I don't think there is going to be any good answer
for any employer without also over indexing
on the whole diversity, equity and inclusion side,
and I think that was, yet again,
one of the overarching themes here.
-: Absolutely, now to wrap this up,
the most surprising moment for you or the biggest insight,
what was that, Christoph?
-: During the week, a number of studies got published
on the whole question of trust -
which institutions carry trust and which don't?
And what you see is that
there's a steady erosion of trust
in basically all societies, in their government,
in political parties, in even the church,
pick your favorite, which is a tricky thing.
The flip side of that is that more and more,
the leaders of the corporations, the companies, matter.
It's interesting that the corporations
carry a lot of trust and CEOs do that as well.
That's a good thing, but, of course,
it's also a huge responsibility.
And what I took away from this week is - it is top of mind
for so many CEOs,
how do you build the trust with your consumers,
with your staff, with the potential recruiting pool,
with governments that surround you?
I think it's front and center,
and I do think it needs to be top of mind for every CEO
who leads an institution.
It's certainly also top of mind for me at BCG.
I think we have come a very long way
and we are definitely going to build on that.
And on your end,
the surprises you took away? -: On my end, yes.
I want to mention the metaverse
because there were a lot of panels on the metaverse,
and I spent quite some time in trying to understand
how the metaverse can change education
and can change learning and development.
And if we take the corporate angle,
seeing how you can use the metaverse at scale
in global organizations to drive onboarding
to upscale your workforce
and we know we need to upscale much more frequently.
And I think the metaverse,
used in a responsible and safe way,
will be a key strategic tool for many leaders.
But, of course, nothing beats - like we've seen this week -
being together in person.
-: Definitely so, and even more so on a sunny morning.
Mai-Britt, it's great to see you.
-: Great to see you, Christoph. -: Take care.