People the key to success

By JOHN HOOD*

Assemble any group of people to discuss a problem or an opportunity, and they will have little trouble identifying the issues.

Whether identification of the issues subsequently leads to action is far less certain.

Responsibility for taking action falls to leaders. Their skills and attributes are as necessary to running community and educational organisations as they are to running major corporations or countries.

While it may be fashionable to think that leaders are born, not made, the reality is that leadership succeeds where its importance is recognised and nurtured. When leaders are given the chance to interact, learning from one another's experiences and finding their common connections, a society can quickly grow its collective capacity for action.

These are among the thoughts behind "Knowledge Wave 2003 - The Leadership Forum", which the Knowledge Wave Trust is hosting in Auckland this week for 450 leaders, New Zealanders living here and abroad who are participating in the social, political, commercial or educational spheres.

A key element of the forum will be 100 emerging leaders, each of whom is making a unique mark in his or her chosen field of endeavour.

The 2001 Catching the Knowledge Wave Conference focused on concepts of "knowledge society" and what these might mean for New Zealand's future development.

From that came a wide range of new ideas, projects, policies and aspirations around the themes of growth, knowledge and community.

Today, there appears to be a welcome political consensus about the one-decade aspiration of returning New Zealand to the top half of the OECD in terms of economic performance and other measures of social well-being. But the challenges for New Zealand remain immense.

We need an early and sustainable increase in economic growth, as measured by GDP per capita, of 1 to 2 per cent every year, and we need urgently to redress many disturbing social and educational trends.

Recent OECD statistics showing New Zealand's very high rates of youth suicide and juvenile crime are but two examples; the 20 per cent of school leavers, strongly correlated with lower socio-economic deciles and ethnicity, who depart without a qualification, is another.

The 2003 forum focuses on the three emergent themes of economic growth, knowledge and community, and on an additional, enveloping theme - leadership.

This gathering is an attempt to facilitate the development of deeper networks among colleagues from similar and different sectors. It is also designed to encourage open and private dialogue, as a venue for sharing of differences of view, and as an opportunity for leaders from across the community to reflect on the leadership challenges that face this nation.

If New Zealanders are to achieve the economic and social well-being that our political and other leaders are articulating, we need rapidly to move past the superficialities, ideological entrenchments and defensiveness that all-too-often characterise our public discourse, and seek instead open, robust debate in an environment of mutual trust and respect.

"Knowledge Wave 2003 - The Leadership Forum" will be successful if it both aids these processes and inspires those whom it touches, attendees and the wider public, for their future activities and contributions.

* Dr John Hood is the chairman of the Knowledge Wave Trust.

Herald Special Report - February 18, 2003:
Knowledge Wave 2003 - the leadership forum

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