Category: Leadership

  • WICKED7: Where do the US Presidential candidates stand on solving the world’s most urgent problems?

    WICKED7: Where do the US Presidential candidates stand on solving the world’s most urgent problems?

    BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR and PHILIP KOTLER Which candidate offers the best chance of actually working on the world’s most urgent problems? Which candidate would make things worse? Let’s give the US Presidential candidates the Wicked7 assessment – clarifying their positions on the seven most urgent problems facing us today. Wait, what is the Wicked7 assessment?…

  • Death of Nature: Biodiversity Loss

    Death of Nature: Biodiversity Loss

    By LAURA GALDI The loss of global biodiversity has reached historic levels and it is continuing to accelerate — due to increased pressure by five direct drivers strongly interconnected to each other. With more than 1 million species at risk of extinction, we are witnessing a biodiversity crisis, inextricably linked to and directly affected by…

  • F-minus: A new report card for Lobbyists

    F-minus: A new report card for Lobbyists

    By CHRISTIAN SARKAR Launched in July 2023, F Minus has built a revolutionary database of state-level lobbyists for upstream and midstream oil, gas, and coal interests to demonstrate the extent to which these lobbyists are also representing people, schools, communities, and businesses being harmed by the climate crisis. This is a problem, not just for…

  • Steel Pulse: “Only One World (Wicked Problems)”

    Steel Pulse: “Only One World (Wicked Problems)”

    On this, the last day of COP26, Grammy-winning legends Steel Pulse have a message for us: we must come together to tackle the world’s wickedest problems – because there is no Planet B. What can we do to bring people together in our communities? How can we unite across the walls of hate and mistrust…

  • Webinar: Population & Migration

    Webinar: Population & Migration

    With us for the webinar – a group of dynamic Palermitans: – Leoluca Orlando. As Mayor of Palermo, Orlando’s extraordinary vision and courage has changed our understanding of immigration, tolerance, and the fight against corruption. – Claudio Arestivo. A co-founder of Moltivolti – a unique regenerative business – which serves as an example for the…

  • Hate & Conflict – The Business of War

    Hate & Conflict – The Business of War

    By Karthiga Ratnam There are people dying If you care enough for the living Make a better place for you and for me… Hate, Conflict, War, Genocide. Have you ever stopped think why they exist? Who profits from it? There is such callousness to war. People casually say things like “war is men dying and…

  • WEBINAR: “Work & Tech”

    WEBINAR: “Work & Tech”

    Our webinar on the issues facing the future of work and tech >>

  • The Death of Nature: Deforestation

    The Death of Nature: Deforestation

    The problem of deforestation mapped out by Laura Galdi and Chiara Falvo. Details here >>

  • WEBINAR: “Power & Corruption”

    WEBINAR: “Power & Corruption”

    REPLAY >> Join our guests as we discuss – “Power & Corruption” with: Obiageli “Aunty Oby” Ezekwesili, a former vice president of the World Bank (African Region), co-founder and founding director of Transparency International, co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls movement and has also served twice as Federal Minister in Nigeria. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, the Founder and Honorary…

  • How do we stop the cycle of intergenerational hate and conflict?

    How do we stop the cycle of intergenerational hate and conflict?

    By Aryssa Yoon, David Sehyeon Baek and Karthiga Ratnam Two households, both alike in dignity (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean -Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare This prologue of Shakespeare’s infamous love story about the star-crossed lovers – Romeo and…

  • The Lost Children of the Philippines

    The Lost Children of the Philippines

    BY KARTHIGA RATNAM, EMERALD PASFIELD, AND ARYSSA YOON “She listened to the silence. Her first thought was relief. He’s gone. Her second thought was utter devastation. He didn’t kill me.” ― Catherine Brusk, What Love Washed Up Have you ever been stuck in an elevator for a few minutes? You must have experienced a feeling of helplessness,…

  • G7 is more united but not effective enough to tackle the world’s biggest problems

    G7 is more united but not effective enough to tackle the world’s biggest problems

    BY Natasha Lindstaedt, University of Essex When the UK hosts the G7 summit in Cornwall between June 10 and 12, it will be the first intergovernmental meeting of the world’s seven wealthiest democracies since before COVID. Playing host for the seventh time, the UK is in a slightly stronger position than in 2019, due to…

  • WEBINAR: “Hate & Conflict”

    WEBINAR: “Hate & Conflict”

    Hate is taught. What can be done to unlearn hate and build a just society? Join Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar with special guests Siyabulela Mandela and David Hinds (of Steel Pulse) as they discuss the third Wicked Problem – Hate & Conflict. Members of the Wicked7 Working Group will help us with the discussion.…

  • The Movement of Movements: A Last Chance to Save the Planet?

    The Movement of Movements: A Last Chance to Save the Planet?

    BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR, KARTHIGA RATNAM, & PHILIP KOTLER On this, the 90th birthday of Philip Kotler, we ask the world to come together to save the future. One way to do this is to build a “movement of movements.“ It’s time to put aside our toys – our ideologies and guns – and look at…

  • Today: Webinar on Inequality

    Today: Webinar on Inequality

    Join Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar as they kickoff the second challenge: Inequality. The webinar includes a special presentation by Karthi Ratnam and Aryssa Yoon on Gender Inequality and Climate Change.

  • Plastics and The Death of Nature

    Plastics and The Death of Nature

    BY SUSI WEISENEGGER Interested? Here’s how you can participate >>

  • The Impact of the Death of Nature on Gender Inequality

    The Impact of the Death of Nature on Gender Inequality

    BY KARTHIGA RATNAM & ARYSSA YOON Climate Change. Environmental Degradation. Extinction Emergency. We have all heard the terms. The problem with climate change or the death of nature is that it’s usually tightly integrated with a host of other problems.  We are focusing on the impact of climate change on gender inequality. To understand gender…

  • The Powerlessness of the UN

    The Powerlessness of the UN

    BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR The only power the United Nations has is the “power of persuasion” – and that doesn’t seem to be working too well. Here’s a profound interview with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about everything from climate change to vaccine nationalism (h/t Naveen Srivastava): Besides powerlessness, a second powerful idea we hear about is…

  • Webinar: How Jobs-to-be-Done can help solve the unmet needs of society

    Webinar: How Jobs-to-be-Done can help solve the unmet needs of society

    Here’s the replay of the webinar ‘How Jobs-to-be-Done can help solve the unmet needs of society’ with Strategyn’s Tony Ulwick:

  • Mapping the World’s Wicked Problems. Kickoff – April 1, 2021

    Mapping the World’s Wicked Problems. Kickoff – April 1, 2021

    The Wicked 7 Project is mapping the World’s Wicked Problems to understand the causes and then see how we can work together to find solutions. We have divided the World’s Wicked Problems in to seven categories – Death of Nature, Inequality, Hate & Conflict, Power & Corruption, Work & Tech, Health & Livelihood, and Population…

  • The Unmet Needs of Society: Introducing Multi-stakeholder Jobs to be Done

    The Unmet Needs of Society: Introducing Multi-stakeholder Jobs to be Done

    BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR, ANTHONY ULWICK and PHILIP KOTLER In his e-pamphlet — Rebalancing Society — Henry Mintzberg points out that a balanced society can be thought of as “sitting on a stool with three sturdy legs: a public sector of respected governments, to provide many of our protections (such as policing and regulating); a private…

  • The Moral Intelligence of Ruby Bridges

    The Moral Intelligence of Ruby Bridges

    BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR The Moral Intelligence of Children by Robert Coles. Still relevant today. By refusing to face history, we are forced to live it again. How do children learn right from wrong? How do we teach values in a world that prizes profit over all else? It may just come down to a “questioning…

  • The 4th element of category creation

    The 4th element of category creation

    BY KARTHIGA RATNAM With great power comes great responsibility — Stan Lee I love watching superhero movies. When I watched Spiderman 2002, the phrase that stuck with me was Uncle Ben’s quote — “with great power comes great responsibility.” Doing a bit of Googling I found out this quote is also called the “Peter Parker…

  • Latin America: inequality and political instability have lessons for the rest of the world

    Latin America: inequality and political instability have lessons for the rest of the world

    BY DIEGO SÁNCHEZ-ANCOCHEA, University of Oxford In a landmark speech about social mobility in 2013, the then US president, Barack Obama, warned against the problem of growing inequality in the starkest possible terms: The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to … our way of life. He was talking…

  • It’s Time to Depoliticize Decision-Making

    It’s Time to Depoliticize Decision-Making

    BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR & PHILIP KOTLER UPDATE: On the day we published this article, Texas Governor Gregg Abbott lifted Texas’ mask mandate – declaring the state 100% open for business. Health experts warned it was too soon. Texas Was Warned a Decade Ago Its Grid Was Unready for Cold reads the headline in Bloomberg Green…

  • Learning/Unlearning

    Learning/Unlearning

    BY JOHN SEELY BROWN “Learning how to learn-in-action” can be thought of as: Learning how to find and put yourself into the action where you can learn fastest (how to step into the problem) Learning how to notice what is interesting and relevant (how to open your mind)  Learning how to make sense of what…

  • What is Food Insecurity?

    What is Food Insecurity?

    BY CAITLIN CASPI, University of Connecticut Among the many striking images from the pandemic is an aerial photo showing cars in seemingly endless rows lined up at a food bank in San Antonio, Texas. A jarring awareness of food insecurity in the U.S. has accompanied the health and financial concerns brought on by the COVID-19…

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