I moderated a CEO salon dinner with about three dozen leaders last night to discuss what they’re seeing and doing when it comes to building trust. Before the dinner, I asked Edelman what he’d like to see this year, after 26 winters of highlighting the erosion of trust. “Urgency,” he said. “A sense that time is running out.”
Still, the mood was somewhat subdued, with a sense that there’s no easy fix to building trust. As one CEO pointed out, rarely have leaders faced such a confluence of geopolitical crises, tech shifts, economic divides, disinformation, job disruption, and wicked problems. And as much as Davos is a great gathering ground to talk through all of these problems, the fact is the problems will all still be waiting once these CEOs return from the mountains.
