The Global Drive for Talent - Clip 9: Transcript

PAUL TAGLIABUE

To the extent that access to education is dependent upon resources - and the student doesn't have to provide the resources - public education has to provide the resources - I think obviously a divide in society is disqualifying some talented people from having the opportunity to develop their talents. That is a big negative. You know, I think every country that I'm aware of in the world, with very few exceptions, is facing the issue.

I think that in another area, namely health care, the divide is a big factor. We had an owner in the NFL who made a 200-million-dollar gift to a medical school, and he said publicly that his reason for making the gift was to help those who didn't necessarily have the economic means to access health care, access health care.

And a reporter said to him, do you mean to say that you think that health care in America depends upon whether you're wealthy or not wealthy? And this owner said, yes, and if you don't believe that, you've either never been sick or you've never been rich.

So, and that's a big issue for our society because we're looking at health care as being more than 15 percent of GDP, and growing. And we're looking at obesity being an increasing problem for parts of this society.

So I think the answer is, yes, that disparity, to the extent it affects education, health care and probably other things, is going to affect the depth of our talent pool and will affect our competitiveness in addition to whatever inequity there is, or social inequity.

But the other countries are going to be facing the same issues, and maybe even in a more extreme form. You don't have to look very far to see where those places are.

GARRICK UTLEY:
All right, We're going to wrap this up now. Richard, any final thoughts, Valerie?

[OVERTALK]

RICHARD EDELMAN:
Just a quick comment: To extrapolate from your specific question, I think that it's now the responsibility of business to take a bigger role in fixing social ills, that if the sandbox is sort of set out, if that's government's role, to just arrange and then let business compete within; I think the expectation of business is higher, whether it's on environment, whether it's on a social living wage or any of a number of other issues. If you fail to do that, then you will find a wave backward, where there will be much more government intervention and what-not.

The confidence in business is higher than government, the widest gap we've ever seen - we do a trust barometer every here - the widest gap we've ever seen in eight years. Government here, business quite high. And that's because companies are taking on these bigger issues. Without it, you don't have that confidence.

GARRICK UTLEY:
And Valerie, could I just turn the question a little bit? We're talking about New York City but also the nation, our competitive position in the world. You deal with it at the talent level. What is the greatest obstacle that we face in New York City or in the United States today in terms of competing in the world? You touched on some of them, but if you -

VALERIE GERMAIN:
I think it was actually said very well earlier. We run the risk of becoming complacent. We run the risk of not recognizing that the world is changing far faster than we are. If you look today at the average lifespan of a senior executive in their role as CEO, it is substantially shorter than it was even five to ten years ago.

And the reason for that largely is because the world is changing faster than senior executives [LAUGHS] can change with them.
[LAUGHTER]
So we all have a challenge, the city has a challenge, our country has a challenge, to continue to evolve and transform, to continue to be curious and to seek innovation and to seek what that next generation is going to look like. And I don't mean next generation of talent. I mean next generation of anything.