World Leaders at Forum 2000 and Your Career

Today marks the beginning of former President Vaclav Havel’s annual conference at which world leaders in politics, intellect, business and religion gather in Prague to discus issues and conflicts facing civilization that have ethnicity, religion, race, national origin or political beliefs at their core. This year, however, is a special year for the conference. It is President Havel’s 70th birthday and it is the tenth anniversary of the conference itself, which is known as Forum 2000.

I have been honored to serve as an advisor to President Havel’s foundation for the past two years and work closely with Oldrich Cerny, Executive Director, and Jakub Klepal, Deputy Executive Director, of the Forum 2000 Foundation. In this role, I have had the opportunity to meet Mr. Havel and many of the people with whom he made history during the Velvet Revolution, as well as some of the world’s most prominent thought-leaders. Aside from being a very humbling experience for me personally, it has been an opportunity to learn and reflect on the lessons that transcend the meeting itself—that’s where your career comes in.

Over the years I have written a lot about mentoring and its importance in one’s personal growth. There is no question about it. If you pick your role models well—the people you choose to emulate—you will progress more quickly and to a higher level than you could on your own. I believe that we all need more than one mentor, or person from whom we seek guidance. For example, the mentor you have for business may not necessarily be the one you have for your personal life. Further, you may have a mentor for your persona, i.e., how you present yourself to people in the way you dress and the way in which you carry yourself. You can see that there might be several mentors one could have throughout a career and lifetime.

Contrary to what many people believe, though, I do not believe that you actually have to personally know and interact with all your mentors. Some are powerful guides by their example alone—by how they do and say things, which can be observed by any intelligent person who studies them. There is nothing new or revolutionary about this. It’s how animals in the wild learn to act and it’s how smart young executives fine-tune everything from their personal style, how they approach conflict, how to conduct a successful meeting, to how to speak before a group and any number of other critical things for a young professional to learn and to master. This concept of emulation can be a very powerful positive force in one’s development.

For example, during the Forum 2000 Conference today, former presidents, prime ministers and Nobel Laureates will be moderating discussions and presenting opening remarks to various panel events. One could learn a lot from them about public speaking and how to conduct a meeting just by closely observing how they do it. Another key element to an executive’s development is how to present ideas, how to structure what it is they want to say and how to actually do it. There will be many examples of world-class leaders who will be making compelling presentations at the Forum 2000 Conference today. But, my personal favorite observation in a group like this is how people of this stature present conflicting ideas and disagree with each other. This is perhaps the most difficult thing to do for most of us in a public setting—even in private for that matter. To be able to disagree with someone without getting personal or emotional and to be able to present a compelling rebuttal is an art, and there are only two ways one can learn to do it: observe a talented practitioner of the art and then practice it yourself. There will be no better place in Prague this year to observe this art being practiced than at the Forum 2000 Conference today.

Of special interest to business professionals will be the panel discussion taking place at Laterna Magika from 14:00 to 16:30. It will be a panel discussion addressing the topic of the responsibility of global business. It will be chaired and moderated by a truly compelling speaker, former Prime Minister of Canada, Kim Campbell. Members of the panel will include a bank CEO from Russia, the former CEO of Shell UK, a senior executive from Microsoft, one the most successful and respected businessmen in the Czech Republic along with one of the foremost executive coaches and corporate ethicists in America.

I urge you to invest the time in your own development to come see these world leaders, hear what they have to say and, just as important, observe how they say it.

Good luck on your way up!