We need a mindset shift in the next generation of global leaders, a global business leader has said.
Paul Polman, former chief executive of Unilever, was speaking to an audience of leaders from business, politics, academia, and civil society as he opened our Business School’s new Waterside facility.
Mr Polman called on business leaders to move from asking ‘how do I do less harm?’ to ‘how can I do more good?’ – what he called the ‘net positive’ mindset.
He said the world was living through ‘extraordinary disruption’, of the like he had never seen before, and leadership had never been so tested.
“I would argue we are short of the right leaders we need to succeed – and that’s where you come in,” he said. “It’s in the rough seas where you learn leadership.”
Mr Polman commented that the world was living in ‘VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) with a side of whiplash’ and leaders need to have more than strategy – they also need agility, and a sense of humour.
He called climate change and biodiversity loss the greatest challenge the world faces, painted a picture of a world with global warming of three degrees Centigrade: with extinction at 100-1,1000 times current levels, 40 per cent of the world’s economy wiped out, many areas uninsurable, coastal cities disappearing, and more than half the world’s population regularly exposed to extreme heat.
He bemoaned ‘greenhushing’ – where companies deliberately downplay their climate actions, and called rather for an acceleration of action.
Addressing public reaction against globalisation and the green transition, Mr Polman said that while huge numbers of people had been lifted out of poverty in recent decades, also huge numbers of people had been left behind – creating ‘islands of prosperity in a growing sea of despair’, and leaving many people feeling excluded.
But, in the midst of despair, he found cause for hope.
Calling recent developments a ‘reset, not a retreat’, he saw a ‘moment of truth’, where credibility and values would be tested, and leadership was needed more than ever.
After leaving Unilever, Mr Polman wrote the critically-acclaimed book Net Positive, and he drew on this theme to rally his audience to action.
Here at Durham, you already punch above your weight. You are among the elite one per cent of business schools globally to be triple accredited. You’re a world top 100 business school. A powerhouse of world-class research, from finance to leadership, to sustainability. You have nearly 400 business partnerships. And now, with the opening of this wonderful Waterside building, you are setting yourselves up very well for success.
Closing his address, Mr Polman quoted the 13th Century Persian poet Rumi: “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
Finally, the late Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize: “There comes a time when humanity is called upon to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. That time is now.”
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