Fewer than a third of young people who will be business leaders in the next few years believe that today’s executives are making the changes needed for a sustainable future. At the same time, nearly nine out of 10 members of this past generation (50-year-old managers working in companies) believe that the necessary steps are being taken. Conversely, younger people are more likely than older people to indicate the need for change in the economic and political system.
Conclusions arise from the report Voices of Tomorrow’s Leaders (Voices of Tomorrow’s Leaders), its 2023 edition included responses from 762 young people under the age of 35 and 300 executives aged 50 or older. Report, this Reveals intergenerational conflicts over the urgency of problems and their solutions, Presented at the last St. Gallen Symposium, a forum held annually at that Swiss university.
According to survey results, Only 27% of young people believe that the older generation is doing what is needed for a sustainable future. 87% of those in that group think they do. At the same time, 57% of young people believe in the need to change the economic and political system, while only 20% of today’s leaders agree. Even 47% of young people think it is okay to break the law to speed up the necessary change. Only 8% of current leaders agree with that slogan. The big coincidence is that 69% of young people and 90% of older people believe that more regulation will help shift towards sustainability.
Three Argentines were invited to participate in the meeting: Pilar Ruiz Orrico, economist at Torcuato Di Tella University (UTDT) and PhD at San Andrés University, who works as a researcher at the World Bank in Washington; Juan Pablo Filippini, also an economist at UTDT, works at Pompeau Fabra University; and political scientist Inés Palacios, graduated from UTDT, lives in San Miguel de Tucumán and is an Obama Foundation Fellow at Columbia University, and founder of the Saca organization that promotes the economic activities of low-income women. resources.
Increasing levels of social inequality, environmental degradation and high-impact geopolitical events have shifted the intergenerational balance in recent times. “We must simultaneously address immediate crises and pursue long-term changes. Until now, it has rarely been possible to bring the two perspectives together. A lack of future-oriented decision-making will affect current and future generations,” said Mambela Rampele, co-president of the Club of Rome.
Along with that, Technological acceleration, especially artificial intelligence, raises more unknowns than certainties. Differentiating between the real and the unreal is a big challenge. “A few seconds of video and audio is enough to create images of people,” said Airbus President Rene Obermann. In the context of escalating geopolitical conflicts, there is a “poisonous mixture”.
In a panel where the results of the aforementioned report were discussed, Andreas Neuss from the Nuremberg Institute explained. Young people raise the issue of lack of performance in today’s generation, blaming lack of will rather than lack of ability. And 60% believe a new system is needed, one in which sustainability is more relevant than individual rights.
Argentinian team member Ines Palacios and Switzerland’s head of human resources Cathy Desquez both proposed. Dialogue and collaboration to bring levels closer together. Desquesses said that because young people today are less committed to the companies that employ them and there is more labor turnover, the relationships are less enduring.
In 2022, the University of St. Gallen joined forces with the Club of Rome to implement joint projects and take concrete steps to respond to young people’s proposals. One of them Young leaders on board, An initiative to encourage inclusion of youth on corporate boards. His role is to mediate between companies interested in the project and top young talent.
Lin Yue, CEO of Goldman Sachs, told the long-term panel, “Our companies are designed for middle-aged white people, not people with dependent children. [por ejemplo]”. And I add: “It’s very important [los jóvenes] Sit at the table [de toma de decisiones de las organizaciones]But more important is changing the table”.
