Looking past the future: missed opportunities of the last millennium & the leadership odyssey of 2001.

Now that we're into the new millennium, perhaps it's a good time to look back at some of the what things we should have done rather than focus on what was done. Where could we, as communicators, have made a difference? Here are just a few areas where we might have missed an opportunity to influence outcomes.

Y2K 

The anticipation as we raced down toward the end of 1999 was palpable: the most memorable New Year's Eve in a lifetime, offset by dark visions of airplanes falling from the sky, massive power failures, and horrendous technical glitches causing chaos in the financial markets.

Like most doomsday prophecies, the effects of this one had been wildly exaggerated and unrealistically anticipated, and events ultimately played out with such precision that all spontaneity had been drained off by August. By October a certain ennui had set in. Then when New Year's Eve, 31 December 1999, finally arrived, there were spectacular fireworks, the pop of champagne corks and the inevitable morning after, but no cataclysms -- only a few manageable glitches. In other words, an anti-climax.

Remarkably, today things seem strangely stagnant. Are we moving forward or is our screen frozen in the 20th century? As communicators, responsible for articulating the vision of our companies and organizations, what should our agenda be for 2001?

The Voice of Leadership

As we move into the new millennium, power is increasingly shifting from governments to business, and through the Internet to individuals. Now even a single voice; such as that of Jody Williams and her International Campaign to Ban Landmines, can have a major effect. Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her e-mail campaign that effectively cajoled and exhorted 'diplomats and political leaders around the world. It helped her stay in touch with 700 humanitarians and non-governmental groups in 40 countries, thus keeping her issue at the forefront of international attention.

Yet power isn't leadership, and what is missing, particularly in U.S. business where Wall Street continues to rule, is a willingness to take one's eye off the bottom line to focus on social or environmental issues.

According to a recent study by New York compensation consultants Pearl Meyer & Partners, and reprinted in the Wall Street Journal, "38 of the 200 largest public companies in the United States replaced their CEOs since January 2000, up from 23 in all of 1999. Xerox Corp., Campbell Soup Company, Aetna Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., Mattel and Hercules are just a few of the companies looking for new leadership this year. Boards of directors, shareholders and Wall Street expect continued strong financial results that meet projections." With U.S. corporate leaders so focused on their stock prices, it is the British and European companies who are currently addressing the environmental, social and human rights agenda.

This summer, the secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, held a meeting of business executives at the United Nations to discuss the "Global Compact." The Compact, intended to promote responsible corporate citizenship in support of universal values and broad United Nations goals, is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labor Organizations core labor standards, and the Rio Principles on the Environment (www.unglobalcompact.org). Of the companies who participated, only five were American.

"Leaders," Max DePree has said, "are those individuals who provide and maintain momentum. It is a feeling among a group of people that their lives and work are intertwined and move toward a recognizable and legitimate goal."

Exploration: A Space Odyssey

2001 is a year that resonates with many of us because it is the title of Stanley Kubrick's epic film "2001: A Space Odyssey." In Kubrick's film about a journey into space aboard a magnificent flying machine, one of the main characters is a computer with a human personality and voice. This character controls and monitors most of the spaceship functions. His name is HAL.

In the 1960s, when the movie was filmed and released, the U.S. space program was thriving. The U.S.S.R. had been successful in launching Sputnik, and President Kennedy had declared that we would "put a man on the moon." So it made sense that an imaginative and brilliant movie director would think about how artificial intelligence and exploration beyond the boundaries of the planet would change our perception of living on earth.

However ironic, the reality is that by 2001 Americans have lost their ability to go to the moon -- and beyond. According to Dr. Kathy Sullivan, who flew two Challenger missions and was the first U.S. woman astronaut to walk in space: "We currently have only two crafts that can be sent into space and we no longer have the capability to go to the moon. For one reason, before the end of the Cold War, the space program was critical in surveillance as a security measure. Today, this is available to anyone who can afford a commercial satellite. And as time has gone by, space has become more expensive.

"Work is, however, proceeding, at a glacial pace, on advanced launch vehicle concepts that promise to reduce the cost of access to space. And perhaps if business had a clear idea of the payoff for going to space for industry they would push harder."

Richard Wilde, one of the engineers who designed the original space suit, comments: "The shuttle travels at 17,500 miles per hour and it takes 25,000 miles per hour to get out of orbit and into space beyond the earth. The drawings for the Saturn Five Rockets, used in trips to the moon in the U.S. space program, have been lost or destroyed."

International space projects are now in place, and they should be encouraged and supported. On October 31, one American and two Russian astronauts were sent into orbit to work on the U.S. $60 billion international space station, which is a joint venture project among the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, Brazil and 10 members of the European Space Agency. As a major player in the largest technological enterprise ever undertaken on global scale, NASA expects to finish the station in 2006 and use it for scientific research for at least a decade.

Part of that research will answer questions relating to how well human beings are intrinsically suited to long space voyages, and what counter-measures may have to be developed for radiation exposure, lack of gravity, and the psychological effects of isolation and separation from e arth. These are vital issues that will determine whether humans can become spacefarers or not in the foreseeable future.

The Living Company -- Sustainable Development

The goal of sustainable development, as defined by the Brundtland Commission (1987), is to meet the economic needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and to protect the environment in the process.

For example, it is estimated that the earth can hold 60 billion people. We currently have 6 billion, projected to reach 10 billion in 2050 and the outer limits of the planet by the year 3000. Although we may not have the ability to think about life in the year 3000, 2050 is possible.

Michael Gallis, an urban strategist who has undertaken projects designed to incorporate sustainable development into urban planning projects, comments: "The purpose of urban strategy should be to achieve new levels of efficiencies in the transportation network and to think about the coordination of public, private and institutional policy and resources to ensure economic vitality, and at the same time to enhance our quality of life. Fragmentation is the biggest evil facing major metropolitan regions. Cities are physical artifacts, and they can be managed and designed."

Gallis talks about moving people, as well as goods, to sustain the global economy. He suggests that this requires new kinds of multi-modal ports designed for air, sea, rail, roads, utilities and communication. Gallis is currently working with business leaders to develop a national urban policy with the Committee for Economic Development.

BP and Royal Dutch Shell are two companies that have the issue of sustainable development high on their respective agendas. A visit to the Shell web site (www.shell.com) provides an overview of how one corporation is approaching the issue.

It is, in fact, the European social democratic culture that is more comfortable with thinking about social, economic and environmental efficiency. As Americans we tend to think predominantly about economic efficiency. Brad Allenby, Ph.D., one of the pioneers in industrial ecology or "earth sciences engineering," observes, "In a connected world that is dominated by human activities, what is happening is the result of millions of unplanned independent actions. And many of the decisions have an impact-on global systems, so we should, at least, begin to develop the ability to think about issues of sustainable development in a way that makes sense."

The Digital Dividend or the Digital Divide?

The Postmaster General of the United States Postal System has announced that the U.S. Postal Service is close to creating a secure e-mail address for each person in the country. The address would allow citizens to track and re-route their regular mail over the Internet, be notified by e-mail about an incoming package or a bill, or have mail redirected to different addresses through the Internet. The address would include the person's initials, followed by the nine-digit zip code and the last two numbers of the street address with usps.com tagged on the end.

Although this is an admirable endeavor, a related issue to consider is literacy. According to the Literacy Volunteers of America, very few American adults are truly illiterate. The National Adult Literacy Survey does, however, put between 21 and 23 percent of the adult population, or approximately 44 million people, in Level 1. People in this category can read a little but not well enough to fill out an application, read a food label, or read a simple story to a child.

If we are, as Eric Benhamou, the chairman of 3Com, has written, "to bridge the Digital Divide and realize the promise of the technology revolution, the technology itself must be functionally rich yet radically simple enough for everyone to use. Only when people are able to use the technology will they really want to use technology." 3Com has recently undertaken what it calls "The Planet Project." This is the first and largest interactive Internet-based poll. The Project hopes to compile comprehensive information that can be shared about personal experiences relating to what it is like to be a human being at the start of the new century (www.planetproject.com).

U.S. business can focus on the benefits of technology for society and the role it can play in educating those who do not have the skills to understand the technology.

War & Peace - the Role of Conflict Resolution

In April 2000, on the first anniversary of the school shooting at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado, the media focused on the violence and replayed videos of what had happened. Was this a lost opportunity to think about the role of conflict resolution training in reaching us how to live together?

The skills that are used in understanding and dealing with conflict include communication, negotiation, mediation and arbitration.

Ambassador John McDonald of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy in Washington, D.C., has traveled around the world mediating and facilitating situations involving conflict. To demonstrate the power of training, he recalls "the $60 million that was spent in South Africa in 1991 to create a National Peace Institute and to train 20,000 South Africans, many in villages, with conflict resolution skills. When problems arose, the individuals in the community who were trained with conflict resolution skills were approached to solve the problem."

If we had more conflict resolution training in schools, institutions and businesses around the globe, it would be easier to facilitate dialogue and negotiate through situations that have a long history of hare and conflict that escalates into violence.

The Agenda for our Leadership Odyssey includes leadership, exploration, sustainable development, the digital divide and conflict resolution training. These are the issues that our corporate leaders should be tracking. And these are the issues that communicators should be writing about and incorporating into the programs we develop for our employees, for our customers and shareholders, and for opinion leaders. During the 1990s we were all lost in cyberspace -- enthralled with the adventures on the screen decorating our desktops. Now it is time to stand up and look around at the world -- walking on the ground with our eyes open and our minds clear.

Elizabeth Howard is a principal at THe Dilenschneider Group.