Milan’s World Business Forum is a must for leaders, directors and manager who want to have a broad vision of the complexity that surrounds us and of the instruments necessary to face it.
Perini Journal
The challenges are increasingly difficult and pressing, say the organizers, but expectations have never been so high while control levels risk paralyzing any initiative.
A condition that rattles the nerves of even the most experienced entrepreneurs and expert managers. So? How can we navigate in the rough waters of the economy of this first quarter-century without risking a shipwreck and living at the mercy of emotional instability first and organizational instability later? The answer seems to be: by accepting the conditions inherent in the turbulences that affect us and using them to our advantage.
The choice of speakers for the 11th edition of WBF (Milan, 28 and 29 October 2014) seems to confirm the theory of the organizers, who proposed a panel of authoritative names representative of the most diverse disciplines and fields. Hence the provocation elected as the stylistic key of the two-day event and embodied by speakers who were able to give life to a project, an idea or a company by going beyond the limits of what would have been allowed.
IT IS BY TRYING TO OFFER DIVERSIFIED KEYS TO READING, often in contrast with one another or non-traditional, that each of us can find a new point of observation from which to analyze the situation and identify the most appropriate strategies in order to face it.
This is what Steve Wozniak, Silicon Valley icon, pioneer and co-founder of Apple, told participants, speaking about the added value of innovation coming from within rather than outside the organization, becoming a shared forma mentis capable of driving people, spurring them not to settle for the easier solutions.
An unexpected speaker welcomed with great interest by the audience was Felix Baumgartner, professional base jumper and parachutist. In 2012 he jumped from over 40,000 meters at the speed of 1,357 kilometers an hour, becoming the first man to break the sound barrier in free fall. His extraordinary experience requires discipline, courage and a far-sighted ability to go beyond what is and that up until that time was imagined as a limit.
THE WINNING MIX OF PROFILES AND EXPERIENCES PROPOSED BY WBF COUNTS ALSO MARCUS BUCKINGHAM, author of bestsellers for the New York Times dedicated to analyzing the factors that yield success. Visionary, consultant to multinationals like Toyota, Coca-Cola, Microsoft and Disney, Buckingham contributed to the introduction of the “strengths revolution” that sustains that individuals are more effective and satisfied when they can concentrate on their better self.
Mohanbir Sawhney, researcher and strategic marketing and new media consultant, spoke about the need to review the concept of digital innovation because, he explained, the net changes everything it touches, from relationships to the media, from education to war, so it is obvious that it also influences innovation which must hence be redefined to adapt to a world characterized by hyper-connection.
ANOTHER GUEST WHO WAS ABLE TO INSPIRE THE AUDIENCE COMPRISED OF OVER 2,500 MANAGERS WAS OLIVER STONE, the three-time Oscar-winning director, smart provocateur, deep connoisseur of society and its contradictions, capable of portraying it with no filters and so to help look at it for what it really is.
Among other WBF notable speakers, Chris Gardner, the millionaire whose experience inspired the film “The Pursuit of Happyness” by Gabriele Muccino with Will Smith; Simon Sinek, leadership expert who had dedicated his career to convincing people to do what inspires them; Steven B.
Johnson, author and leader of XXI-century thought; Oscar di Montigny, creator and disseminator of the principles of economy 0.0; Jacques Attali, internationally-renowned economist, veritable Renaissance man; Jesus Vega expert in human resources; Sandy Carter, Social Business Evangelist from IBM; Oscar Farinetti, Italian entrepreneur, creator of Eataly and Eusebio Gualino, CEO of Gessi and founder and trainer of Gessi Academy.