♪ >> you are watching booktv on c-span2 with nonfiction books and authors every weekend, book tv television for serious readers. >> hi everyone, thank you so much for joining us this evening, i am caitlin the event quarter coordinator for madison street books i have posted where you can order convergence and it will link you to the best book imagine a forward we are super

excited to be hosting deborah this evening with the launch of her book convergent, it's way to be a great conversation if you have any questions please put them in the ask a question box down below. i'm going to introduce our moderator for the evening, advise senior government officials and fortune 500 business leaders on strategic planning, risk management and innovation policy as it pertains to the procured and protection domain. his clients a defense critical infrastructure aerospace and entertainment and hospitality industries rely on him to push their strategic thinking and position them to capitalize on emerging opportunities. he readily presents executive audiences on security, critical infrastructure and risk. building adaptive leadership models and developing innovative culture. with that i'll give it over. >> thank you, no one wants to

see me soon going to turn over to a panelist and i will introduced beth comstock an author book director and advisor of nature conservation, the storyteller, marketer and innovation champion as ge first female vice chair rest chief marketing and commercial office. she was president of integrated media at nbc universal as her journey through media and the director at nike, a trustee at society and partner in climate real impact corporation, thank you for joining us. >> think you, thinking to be here. i will now turn to deb, let me introduce you although i probably introduced in a lot of different ways, and the pleasure of working with deb for 15 years. deb westfall's career spanned 30 years and 1999 in one of the founding members of the

consulting firm. a lifelong learner she guided government corporate leaders to challenge biases, ignite ideas and resilience first for secure future, with that i'm pretty excited i have a hard copy of the book convergent and i know what a journey this is for you, i want to explore that for a second, the title the book convergent, that highlights the convergence being the power of can. in the first chapter you talk about the location of the goal off the piss island where three ocean currents collide that is very meaningful and tell us what convergent and and what it means to the future of business in society. >> thank you from madison street books for having this in hosting this. this is awesome, thank you for

asking about the analogy of the galapagos island, people that don't know much about the island there an incredible place. it is west of ecuador, very special, has incredible plants and animals, you cannot find them anywhere else in the world. what is really interesting it is the location of the three major ocean currents that are converging, one comes from the south, one comes from the north another one comes from the west, each one of them has the role in creating an amazing balanced ecosystem for these plants and animals to exist and i use that analogy because if anyone of

those currents get stronger that it would probably be the destruction of the area, in today's environment technology, human in the future purpose of business are represented by those currents, it is the same thing, if anyone of the technology or humanity or the purpose of business gets stronger than the other two it will create an imbalance is not conducive to business. we need to get those back in balance and that's why use the analogy of the galapagos islands. >> i like that in the galapagos had such a place in the environment as well as the storytelling of history of how we talk about the environment, i used your comments of the

convergence being about and in the importance from years of responsive in ensuring that with your team, how do you see the idea manifests itself in this book. >> i think that's what she has done so well, she created a handbook if you will for leaders it gives them afraid work of how do we think about the future, if you leading a company or a team you are leading yourself you have to be focused on the future, i'm a big believer in future focus thinking, i title my book imagine it forward partly because i worked so much in corporate life and i had seen there were not enough people comfortable thinking about the future, they delegated into a strategy team where we would hire top associates to come in

and think about and of course you need that help but most people don't think it's something we need to do regularly i hope coming out of covid a good thing if there are any good things that it's reese minded business teams that they have to be much more adapt at looking at where are the trends converging around them, covid reminded us of that. it is timely in putting their head up and i get it now, where do i go there is to convergence to help with that. >> i like that you talk about the importance of leaders taking this responsibly on for themselves, thinking about the future is not something you outsource the idea of leadership comes through a lot, i like the

fact that use the word handbook it's not quite a handbook but it's innocence of a guide for anyone in the leadership position. you talk about the importance of leaders in dealing with change it can be uncomfortable but what are the important first steps you think leaders need to take anything about conversions and what the future's going to be. >> one of the first steps leaders need to take is internal to themselves and they need to be much more self-aware and understand where they come from as farmers understanding what the purpose of business and what they believe about business and what they believe about their market and what's in the market and the changes that are happening, that's where the work starts internally. the understanding of the convergence in the future focus,

it starts with understanding the human system, that is driving pretty much everything that we think about the business system, our economic system, our financial systems but there's a human system out there that is incredibly powerful and it's been empowered by technology and communication technology. we are 3 degrees of freedom from any person on earth assume to be 1 degree of freedom that is crating a real power for people to connect to communicate to find commonality to raise their voices and make demands and share ideas, i think that is the first step to understand the human system in that human

system is really ubiquitous overall and where we need to start. >> again i want to pull the thread on the human system like you and i would joke about the problems and issues with change and people tend to be the problem because there embedded in their own way and they don't understand and think forward but i really like what you do in the book in terms of storytelling and i want to see if you could talk more about it in the chapter serving the needs of every market you share a story of your experience in uganda, can you tell little bit more about that story especially for the folks in cyberspace and how that illuminates your points about the human system and its relationship with other systems. >> i use that to really describe

from a business perspective as businesses are trying to do things with a human system some of the considerations that they need to make, and open the aperture, i went to uganda and traveled there to go see mountain gorillas but the important part about this i've been in the space business for 30 years and have been watching amazing satellite communication companies try to connect the other 3 billion people on the planet that is an amazing goal in so many things could happen if they do that, the possibility of education or telemedicine or economic growth if people bring the internet to the half of the population. when i traveled to uganda it was

eye-opening because it's an emerging country it is very hard to get to getting to where the mountain gorillas are is a couple days worth of driving in jeeps and bumpy roads, amazing sites where there's women walking 10 miles to get freshwater and you wonder the business is trying to bring goodness into the areas, are they thinking about the broader human system, the people trained to connect to the internet don't have freshwater they don't have consistent electricity, they don't have the ability to buy things, they don't have computers even if they had money to buy computers which they really don't they don't have the memes to get those to run them.

so opening an aperture to the human centric is what i would say is a business responsibility if you're trying to create the future market to meet people where they are at and understand where they're at. satellite communication companies probably cannot all those problems on their own they will need new partnerships or business models, or relationship with the government somehow but that's what's being a human centric having the human centric perspective to solve those problems in innovative ways. >> let's turn to beth you talk about imagine with your experience in your storytelling in connection if you run a business and innovation of every level throughout your career but

that idea of connection and human centric is really difficult you in yourself talked about your experiences with the line employees with the vision that they're trying to do in terms of the jet engine and other things you pulled together but why is that so hard for readers human centric perspective so difficult and how can convergence help them to change the mental model how would it shape a mental model for any level of leadership. >> often what happens in business we think it's about logic and numbers and getting to action and all of those things are important but we often decided its humans as much as a.i. and other machines, there is no human behind that. we work as humans and connect as humans, one of my favorite quotes of business is the basic

without a customer there is no business and that means that we have to be good at connecting with people and listening mother with our teams or markets and i think as your certainly looking at your career and your trying to set up a convergence is to get behind the trend and understand what people are saying and behind that is there need and as a marketer the best question you can ever asking business is what problem are we trying to solve, what need needs to be addressed. i think that's why convergence is approaching us in a way that feels very now may be different than what people thought this is not something normally taught in business schools or reinforced in your business operation into often we write it off, deb is

making a case it's essential, i believe that. part of your brain if you're really anybody in the world today, let's talk about business, part of your brain has to have a piece of thinking in the future. you need to have a different perspective, to go places, see where these things are converging you actually have to understand it, i think leaders need to call for that and it starts with the human factor in recognizing that humans get overwhelmed by complexity and deb is putting that out and convergence, this is complex. it is so much easier the world is getting more complex there's a whole conversation we can have about the difference between being complicated and complex, it is both in technology makes

it more scary, later on that geopolitics and layer on that natural human dynamics and you could go crazy. but there are ways to think about that and you must think about that and that's what i think the deb is trying to do with convergence is so helpful. elizabeth: i want to add to that, there is a really important in the third current or their choice stated as a balance is the purpose of the business. what they said we don't learn this in business school, what we learned in business school is the sole purpose of a business to maximize shareholder profit. that shareholder profit is for the few, the few shareholders it is not for the many. there is a movement with larry fink and blackrock in organizations such as conscious capitalism, the social investing

momentum that says we've got to go back to serving stakeholders and stakeholders being our customers, our employees, our communities that we operate in, our suppliers and get back to where capitalism started at the very beginning, if we don't take care of all of the other stakeholders we will not have a future market and what i talk about expanding the human centric part if you go broader, there is problems that we have across humanity that don't reside in one community they reside in thousands of communities, think climate change or clean water, the size as some of the companies we have they operate in hundreds and thousands of communities across the globe and they have power

inside to innovate to research and develop into come up with solutions. i think what beth said, you start with meeting people where they're at some of these problems would gotta meet people where they're at in business has a role in solving that, is no longer good enough to hide behind, were here to maximize shareholder profit. i think there is pressure mounting and momentum gaining to really open that to human centric behavior. >> all pressed that point before i jump further, there can convergence you made a very strong point about the leaders of yesterday are not going to look like the leaders of today or tomorrow as we move forward, when you think about those

strengths and what makes a strong leader deal the role of convergence how is it different from the best point in business school in the 70s, 80s and 90s is there a different mental model we need to think about when we point and say i am a leader. >> leadership can be found everywhere it's not at the top of the organization. anybody that brings the best out of themselves as well as a group of people there around that's what a leader does. i do think the attributes of leaders for convergence or human centric are very different, it is not command-and-control, the vulnerability, authenticity, it is saying i do not know it is building trust, it's reaching out collaboration, those are

things that are very different, it's a very human aspect, i went to business school quite a few years ago to and we did not learn these things we learned about structure and process and we learned about control and how to move levers to get output into get performance but in a human centric world where we have to solve hard problems it is going to take our guard down and become ourselves more human if you would which means being real and coming out from behind the organizational structure if you would. elizabeth: i'm glad you said that, that is something in the conversation of reading, you

talk about the business school and what we learned in your hide highlighting that but it does seemed like what you're talking about with a leadership perspective and i liked what you said what convergence really lays out is those soft things of what we call soft will be essential moving forward understanding the current metaphorically and literally around the galapagos is not a hard skill at the softer scale to understand what the ecosystem looks like what convergence to a phone from me was taken the big picture stepping back and looking at the holistic system and in chapter six i like the quotation you remind anyone who wants to be a leader transitioning to human centric perspective has a higher probability of positive impact in the long-term on profitability, growth and performance and not to shareholders. bring it back to the comment

about shareholder and stakeholder that is the juvenile thing, when you think about that from a business perspective, how do you see that human centric perspective being critical to success in the future for leaders and businesses, what is that magic thing that drives profitability. >> beth can talk about this from her experience but one of the things you will look at is brand, do people feel connected to your brand, people are smart, if you are not living, if your company is not living out what do you say are your values, people are smart and you cannot whitewash it. that is a big part of it. i think another big part humans

is where innovation resides in energy and ideas and commitment and if you don't tap into that as a leader then you're missing a big aspect haunts you started with the story you hear it all the time from clients the same people are the problem and i did have a turning point in all home moment with the senior vice president of aerospace and i sat down and as she is moment tina about the growth of her international business and its people she said they're just not innovative anymore and they're not hiring good people. and i really challenged her on

that notion because we had worked with them for a long time and i knew that they had owners that took out any kind of innovation from their people. that is the call inside of the book you gotta rewire your business, you have to take that structure in those processes and blow them apart and remake to include a human centric perspective because the numbers show 80% of your human capital inside of your business is not pulling for you, they are there and they're doing what you asked them to do but they're not bringing other energy and innovation. how do leaders tap into that, that is the human centric perspective of how to capture

that and that drops down to profitability. >> it looks like jeff and julie would agree to the idea about soft versus hard and we need to reframe the human centric and human skills thanks to everyone engaging in the lively chat. i want to follow up on chapter six and pull the thread leadership reboot was something that resonated with you as well, talk to me what is different with the role of leaders in the future and how do you see conversions check capturing the what is going to be different from leaders as we look forward. >> you want to see what's happened in the chat the comments are so right human skills and soft skills, we've lost our perspective and were trying to do something other than human, i think it's

authenticity is what deb is making a case for, what good leaders do they prepare for the future and you have to inspire others to do that, that is a part of it and to tell a story not just to because i said so here is the change that is coming, here's why we have to be ready inner customers have to be ready, i built a career in business but i actually study biology and i feel that my biology study was the best framing and you appreciate stairs nature it is a convergence, that's what ecosystems are about it's the help of everyone moving forward together. i think that is what deb is talking about the leadership

that is required is a recognition that they've always been converging and we have to deal with them and is putting people at the center, these are so basic it's embarrassing we have to call it out but we do anyway i'll put that in there. >> i think it's right, i think it's an interesting point because of the fact i think it's interesting that you highlight the fact as a trained biologist by education and you offer for success, your enjoyment and exploration in finding how the world around you taken the

business ideas that are there, really said this is more than a business, this is a human business, human centric system i really like it because of the 15 years you've done a lot of work with leaders and thought what leadership is going to be in the future, what is your advice for new, middle, wherever you sit on the leadership ladder building, leading and management teams to take advantage of, what advice would you give to the leaders no matter where they are. >> i think it's important in the future is important but you also need to look at the past and see where we came from, for those

leaders going forward it is understanding the human system, that is the first thing. i do think they are recognizing the gap of where we have been and where we are and where we need to be our organizations today are not organized for the future. they are organized so much for something in the past, it was a very industrial time people have to fit in the factory and we have created the hr processes that we have around what people can do and what people can't do, how you described, what your job is, that came out at a different time so recognizing that we have a gap in where we are with our organization and where we need to be which means we are going

to have to re-create and break some of that down. to do that we have to disrupt decision-making. what do i mean by that, inside an organization there is so much momentum to keep doing the same thing over and over and over because that's how we do it and what our processes say, if you just even consider the weekly performance check ins and you look at most companies or even government organizations will have how much revenue, how much sales and backlog, nowhere on that performance platform doesn't say anything about the human system, it doesn't talk about the other stakeholders or the hard problems are trying to solve for humanity, those are the kind of things that you have

to root out as you lead your teams. that is what we call knowledge. there is obsolete knowledge of what we know, how we do things, what we believe about our market and ourselves in our biases and belief systems and everything around business, we have to determine what is obsolete, what we need to shed and re-create for the future, lastly full circle, is the future focus leader that takes practice and asking what if in doing all the things that we talked about, rooting out the obsolete and where we are and where we need to be. >> i think that is interesting not just because i love the term

but this idea the perspective but to learn as we move forward. and what we need to learn and move forward and learn in a positive sense. you bring your own books and you written a forward book in looking broadly what is your takeaways from this book to any reader whether in a leadership role or with the future. >> you're exactly right, hopefully everyone feels some part of their existence to understand what the future may hold. you can't spend your whole life and that but this is a good place to start. you can make the argument that

it boils down as resilience, i love the comments here and she says you can point to the skills, human skills of design and should survive in the months of covid. i am optimistic that leaders are coming back not people away from work but coming back a bit more tuned into the fact that they need different things to navigate the convergence of the unpredictability into see, jeff talks about the horizons have narrowed and people have to come into this understanding that change is accelerating exponentially, for me that was a great thing and i started to write a book because in a large organization and small ones and especially if you been successful you could outrun change, you realize that you

can't and you thought that was going to come here, it's here today we missed it in part it's thinking about the future making room for discovering what is changing and it becomes a practice and that q2 started here in a powerful way. >> even personal to that i find it interesting reading convergence, the convergence i thought of is a convergence of business and personal, the human aspect, we do a lot of these things quite well in our home life and what's easier to happen when my family, what would i do and how would i react and how might i plan, we go to work and say that's not my responsibility. what struck me about the convergence the metaphor for somebody parts of what the future is going to look like.

i think you do that very well in highlighting how the convergence is relative no matter your position and where you stand in your career, you mentioned why you are imagining forward, before we opened it up for questions i would like to pitch to you your own and it's a lot of work to put the stuff together and i congratulate you on accomplishing it. what made you take on that challenge. >> it's a lot of work, i wanted to be a part of the dialogue, i wanted to bring my energy in my voice and in my passion and add it to the growing list of people, growing number of voices

calling for change. you are right the convergence, there is somebody different convergence and so many what-ifs in somebody think that we've got a look at in question and ask ourselves is this a direction that we want to go or do we need to make changes. i wanted to write the book to be able to stimulate the dialogue, it's not a how-to book my hope is that people read it in the ask questions and what if and their motivated to talk with each other and do research in wonderment about some of these issues. that is why i wrote it.

>> we started the dialogue in the chats, that has got to be a good site already. i will say i'm going to open it up for questions, if you click ask a question, asked people thinking about what they want ask i have a couple of folks that are using the magic of technology send me a few questions ahead of time, going to go up the questions the cayman most of what we think about convergence, how is this different than corporate response one of the aspects of convergence as it differs from the emerging corporate responsibility and all these other things that are out there now. >> i think corporate responsibility, there is some good that it's in there but i think it's a notion in a function inside of organizations that outlived their usefulness, they are very so piped and

controlled into what they're going to do and what they're not going to do, and some companies corporate responsibility programs have become checkwriting to highlight look how good we are we just gave a check for a thousand dollars or hundred thousand dollars to this organization the question is did you solve any problems and i think that is what's different in corporate responsibility also if you look at inside of a business it is a function in an office, usually an office that is underfunded it has very little to do with the larger purpose of the company, what i'm talking about is not an overly, maybe i'm too harsh with corporate responsibility but what i'm talking about is the

need for the organization to truly define itself by its purpose and not to assign it to a small organization off to the side to write a check. >> beth can add to that. >> what are your perspectives on that. >> they are different in some respects, corporate responsibility, esg where i spent a lot of time on the past year or so, they're all good movements in their starting to understand that these trends are converging it's not just one thing you have to look at all of these in the environmental state

and people are investing more in the space and recognizing it's not enough to be good in one we've done well on the environment but what are we doing in the social governance for example. in this recognition that these things are converging makes that the case. in your talking about the convergence of many different forces in esg social responsible to whatever you want to get in is delegated like people delegating the future which is delegating someone else to deal with. >> there was a really interesting -- i am very hopeful for the esg movement because of the talk of turning it into of who gets money, funding, how will we report this, there was

an interesting article in the wall street journal a couple of days ago about warren buffett and larry fink, they are pushing very hard to show that responsibility and warren buffett is not to remain time. i am very hopeful that esg movement, the social responsibility continues, what that is going to mean is bigger changes inside the organization to report that and embrace it versus what a corporate responsibility office was in the past. >> another thing that you're making me think of being aware of the world outside you and in organizations we said people set

up functions or responsibilities in what deb is making the case for, you have to look outside of yourself and organize yourself for the way the world is flowing and be organized in a can't compartmentalize so much that we have historically and you can't throw money at the problem and assume it's going to be solved. >> absolutely. >> how do you balance or suggest one balance with the long-term and short-term, we talked about the metaphor and other metaphors of what were doing. a lot of companies may want to look over the horizon but it has to be quarterly target another short-term stakeholders. other others that you can consider or advise folks that have the longer perspective were built that in from their leadership. >> they're not going to be able to solve everything and pick

everything, pick the one thing that you want to make a big impact, for example, water. water is important to all of us and important to every company that makes everything whether it's pharmaceutical companies or food or fabric, faction water is sustained manufacturing companies and it will not just manufacture companies, energy and everything. plus it's needed by all humans on the planet you don't get reported for water management strategy or leader of the company today but if we do something to destroy our water sources and not take care of our water, you will not have a market for the future.

that is leadership to say it's the right thing to do i cannot leave this problem or add to the problem for my successor i cannot get in there and get my peace of the reward and leave it to be somebody else's problem. pick the problem that you want to focus on and really commit to that, i think that is where you start, that does bridge short-term and long-term. >> i have two questions i'm going to throw them in from the audience, the first question how can we apply these principles to organizations that are not set up like a corporation that is a university or research institution whose goals is human well-being. >> i think they all apply if you

look at the human system, you understand your organization and i would say those organizations have been created for something in the past and not the future and root out the obsolete and throw out the decision-making internally to pivot towards a human centric behavior, i think they apply whether you're a profit business or in the government which are trying to achieve a mission, all of these apply. >> i've a question for deb and beth and all that you jump it as you see fit, two years after the statement how would you assess its impact in the performance and following through on their commitment. >> i'm assuming that the business roundtable and the

question to the shareholders. >> i think they're making progress and i do write about that in the book, they signed it and there was a big celebration and we are no longer the sole purpose of the business to only focus on shareholders but to a broader stakeholder, i think in some cases covid threw a wrench in things and they want to make that pivot, in some cases those organizations they behave in a way and accelerated their on their momentum, the debates that are happening now, they are broad and they are wide,

bloomberg had a climate change summit a couple of weeks ago and they were leaders of the business roundtable there talking about this. they are trying to figure out how do we measure our progress and report our progress and their common measurement across the businesses to talk about the progress. i do think there is no instinct but the journey that they are taking is in a positive direction i believe. it is hard we spent decades operating the way were operating now, it's not good to take two years to make this pivot but what we need to look at and be future focused about is what are

the activities that are pointing towards a positive in the future. >> i agree with deb it is very positive i hope that it continues to accelerate, it's back to good leadership, good leaders realize that they have to think of all stakeholders but is not to shareholders and it is changing in one of the great things happily now is a lot of employee activism reminding companies that employees count, customers always have the ability for activism and they don't have to bribe your product peter was a customer there and they'll have to do business, i do think the best company for the leaders that appreciate these convergence aspects and get ahead of the trends rather than waiting for legislation or

somebody to tell them that's what they have to do, look at what happened for corporate board and you know have california and knight have it in the u.s. california mandating the amount of women and they need to be on corporate boards. we needed to come to this, we have, there haven't been enough. and before they are forced to do it because they realize it's the right thing to do. >> i have one last question i think we have time for. can the national science foundation user convergence elevator to help them combine successful proposal to go through convergent trading as they are developed into

represent some of the things you are seeing have you seen that anywhere else? >> i am not sure what the national science foundation is doing on this, sounds like a multidisciplinary review of the proposal which is fantastic. >> it depends on who that multiply mary disciplinary is. i think if it's in the broadest sense, i think that is really great is not just a disciplinary look at the problem and it's also the temporal from a time aspect catch the future in

today. and how are we making that consideration and i think that's really important. >> were wrapped up in getting close to time are there any other questions that are out there, thank you for joining us it was wonderful to see you again after couple of years and have a conversation but most importantly deb, thank you very much on a personal level i couldn't be more proud to have a hard copy of your book in my hand and i would encourage everyone to buy lots of copies and other friends and colleagues in color workers, don't forget to click the button at the bottom. thank you so much for taking time and congratulations. >> congratulations it was great to be part of this thank you for supporting this is been fantastic, thank you. >> thank you all for joining us, congratulations on the book,

just a reminder you can purchase copies at madison street books we have signed books that will go in each of the copies that you can pick up in chicago which is were relocated, thank you so much for joining us everyone have a great rest of your evening, goodbye. ♪

>> book tv in primetime starts now history professor christopher elias provides a history of political gossip through the lives of j edgar hoover, joseph or carthy in cohen, the neuroscientist russell describes what happens in the human brain that makes habits hard to break. also tonight former new york city police department commissioner bill bratton reflects on his three decades in law enforcement and offers his thoughts on policing in america. yale university history professor elizabeth hinton examines police violence and social unrest stephen under former secretary of the department of energy during the obama administration argues that the science behind climate change is not settled in leading

to bad policy. find more information at booktv.org or consult your program guide. here is christopher elias on the history of political gossip. >> good evening welcome to the facebook page and youtube channel my name is andy the event coordinator which is an independent bookstore in minneapolis the first virtual event with us, thank you for being here into needed, it is not your first, welcome back, thank you so much for your continued support of our events program even as it switched over to the virtual event era it is been really fun talking to authors is way over the past year and we are really excited to be able to talk to authors

ch