I participated in the seminar entitled “How global agenda are set” as a part of Global Agenda Series at Roppongi Academy Hills. We usually have this type of seminar reporting topics and discussion at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum held in January, much earlier in the year. (I believe we had one in late February last year.)
This year, however, we decided to wait until now, as we had earthquake,tsunami and nuclear emergencies which transformed our thinking and notion about many things including risk, AND we also wanted to report the Risk Response Network initiative at the WEF.
Akira Tsuchiya, head of Japan Office of the WEF made the introductory remarks on Annual meeting at Davos in January, how agenda for the meeting are set, as well as the Global Risk Workshop in Tokyo in May. Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa and I made some comments about our experience and impression of the AM in January. Our brief talk was followed by more comments by some Young Global Leaders (YGLs) from Japan who were present in Davos, including Messers. Furukawa, Funabashi, Takashima, Nishiyama and Ms. Fujisawa. We also heard from other YGLs about their impressions and experiences of their involvement with the WEF.
My main takeaway from the talk (recently I have been involved with some related initiatives, and thus probably tend to focus on it too much) was
1)we need to understand the process of selecting agenda for this type of international conferences
2) we need to actively participate in shaping the agenda AND
3) it is now a great opportunity for Japan to do so, as the world is watching us and we have urgent need to communicate to the world our experiences from the natural disasters, our lessons learned from it so that the world can benefit from our experiences.
I then moderated the Q & A session. Questions from the participants (it was full!) were handled by Dr. Kurokawa, myself and other YGLs, together with Mr. Tsuchiya. Q & A session was quite lively and gave me a lot to think about. It was different from the Executive Ed session I taught earlier in the day where only few questions were squeezed!–I felt like I was pulling teeth!
Some of us (including me) explained the initiatives we are launching and asked for support and help. After the seminar, some people came up to me to offer help AND/OR to ask for help.
It was a long day for me (I participated in another session on TEDxTokyo/Impact Design in the morning), but was very valuable. Our challenge is how to get them coordinated and move on to get tangible results.
Yoko Ishikura is a Professor at Hitotsubashi University ICS in the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy in Japan. She has held positions as a professor at the School of International Politics, Economics and Business of Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, as a consultant at McKinsey and Company Inc. Japan and a visiting professor at Darden School.
Professor Ishikura is a consultant to a number of multinational companies and has been a frequent speaker at management conferences, seminars, and workshops throughout the world. She was a member of the Regulatory Reform Committee for the Japanese government and the International Competitiveness Commission for METI. She is currently a Forum Fellow of the World Economic Forum.
She is the author of Strategic Shift from OR choices to AND paradigm, Building Core Skills of Organization , and the co-author of the following publications: Managing Diversity in the 21st Century, Strategy for Cluster Initiatives in Japan , and Building a Career to the World Class Professionals – all in Japanese. Her books in English include: Asian Advantage, Hitotsubashi on Knowledge Management and Trust and Antitrust in Asian Business Alliances.
Professor Ishikura’s current research interests are focused on global competition, innovation, and knowledge management. She received her BA from Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan; MBA from Darden School, University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia; and DBA from Harvard Business School.
