Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Gray Rhino 20160515

Sais assist up on her book tour. I had the pleasure of traveling with michelle in the uae last fall and hurt about this book, and so its been anticipating it and its an exciting read. I think, through asking the question why we ignore crises that we can see coming until they literally stampede is can i think shes got a new paradigm for thinking about risk, and im excited to hear her discuss some of her ideas and this evening. This book follows two others that i read the one on haitians and dominicans, and i bet put that together. I didnt realize that youre the author of that exquisitely written book she wrote a book on immigration that asks why we get immigration so wrong, even though our prosperity depends on our getting it right. Shes a prolific writer. Shes had a distinguished career in journalism and has also received numerous awards for her leadership, including young Global Leaders aboard for the World Economic forum, and she has also been recognized as a guggenheim fellow, and has been the president of the World Policy Institute among other leadership roles youre welcome, michel. And leading our conversation this evening is dr. Jeff leonard. Dr. Leonard is the ceo of the Global Environment fund which is a private equity fund that invests in Growth Companies that focus on Renewable Energy and environmental cleanup, as well as energy efficiency. He is chairman of a number of boards, including the board of the washington monthly. He also serves on the board of new america, and he is himself a prolific writer. He has produced five books including the awardwinning collusion and the struggle of work product. So we are you very grateful to have him leave the conversation this evening. I hope that all of you will stay and continue it at the end of the discussion and the q a. Were going to have a raffle and raffle off some books that micheles publisher was kind enough to make available to us. So she will sign books and hope you will enjoy the reception and discuss the ideas that were going to talk about this evening. So welcome. Thank you very much everyone for coming. Its great for me as a washington person and to be are at sais. Also i should say we have hired a number of sais people, special people bond has been done to the Financial Program at the Transit Program because the worldliness of a sais in the per is what really made. We have found the big policy pictures and so but also the ability to do what really serious financial skills. Michele, very fortunate because ive been able to come as sort of an idle friend of micheles, we get together periodically. We been often about ideas. And so ive been able to be present since the early part of the the gestation of this book and its very exciting. Its an extraordinarily wellwritten book come at a dont you just say that about policy books or books like this, but its very well written. It unfolds in so many profound layers come and we will only scratch the surface of the gray rhino centrum today in our conversation, but you we could apply, going to try to keep it to Foreign Policy but the book itself, so the richest parts of the book on corporate behavior and on domestic policy. And even down to individual behavior and political settings and so on. So i think its really going to be fun today because we will elicit from you we hope ideas about how to apply this into Foreign Policy. The concept im going to let michele defined for you and then tell us a little bit about how she found her way to it, i just want to say about thirtysomething years ago as a graduate student, i was traveling in what was then yugoslavia. I kept a journal and as i was studying Political Economic system and we wanted to understand socialist economics and what was going on with reform in the social systems, so i traveled all over yugoslavia. I kept a journal. I wrote prolifically about it. I wrote articles and so on but one of the things that stand in the journal, i still have it today, it says everybody i talk to hates everyone else. And i said, this country is going to blow skyhigh when tito died. So thats kind of the gray rhino. Anybody who was present there could see, could feel that this is a country only held together by the force of one man. By 1980 of course he died and then we had bosnia, all these horrors and terrible situations but the gray rhino was so apparent and yet nobody talked about it. So to me that is the epitome of what michele is going to talk about today. So i would like to start may be with you telling us, defined the gray rhino, didnt have to do that tell us how you found it. Sure. And had to say, the praise from jeff is Something Else which is quite an accomplished writer himself. So thank you for that. The gray rhino something thats really big its coming at you, its got a big corn, chili dangerous. As if you think of the elephant in the room, the big obvious thing that nobody wants to talk about and we take for granted that nobody is going to do anything about but it just is kind of standing still. You get the elephant in the room together with the black swan, a book that came out about 10 years ago that said we need to pay more attention to highly improbable, unpredictable, high impact events that as an individual its hard to predict, but as a group happens much more than we think. You get the elephant in the room together with the black swan and the love child is the gray rhino. Its something thats highly probable, predictable within reason of course. You might not know every single contour of the detail but its going to happen. Its a matter of when, not if, unless somebody does something pretty big and dramatic to deal with it. But its not getting attention that it needs. This might not mean it is completely ignored but if something that is not being dealt with properly. Its sort do not resolve. The way i came to the rhino was looking at sovereign debt crises. And a former life i was a financial journalist writing about the merging market and get an assassin by argentina. As many of you remember in 2001 it had a pretty dramatic falling apart. About nine months before that there was a proposal that went around wall street, some very, very smart bankers and academics some direction things are going to do was no way argentina was going to be able to pay its debt if it kept going to same directions as they said 30 proposal, lets write down 30 of this debt and thats what they will take to turn the situation are rounded. Argentina want to save face, so they said no. The banks are doing all sorts of crazy restructuring the wood river expensive and were not really solving the problem. It didnt happen. Of course, nine months later argentina collapsed and the banks lost 70 of face value instead of 30 , which that idea 30 versus 70 was a pretty clear example of a stitch in time saves nine, to me. Fastforward 10 years, 2011, and greece as having the same dynamic happening. And in this case it threatened the entire European Union. I bought a paperback is for the new America Foundation saying basically, greece, you can learn from argentinas example. If you dont, the consequences are going to be bad. It went right down to the last minute i think they were already have a off the cliff and people got together and pulled them back off the edge. The private creditors increase came to an agreement that was not perfect and that everything was all but it certainly helped keep greece from defaulting and turnout the European Union from falling apart. So i started asking myself whats the difference, whats the difference between people who see this big scary thing coming at them into something, and the ones who dont . You said actually not about weak signals. So in both of those cases the signals were there. Its about weak perception or weak action to the signals. I presume thats kind of how when we would distinguish a gray rhino from a black swan. What theres one paragraph early in your book after you defined where you say many of the Biggest Challenges we face in this world today are gray rhinos. It is breathless. Its painting Climate Change can unsustainable debt levels, labor market dynamics. Youth unemployment. On and on and on. So we know of course, if you get a split everything cant explain anything. I want you to help because since his earlier book, the whole rest of the described why it doesnt find everything. Take us through the broad sort of stages of the recognizing india with a gray rhino. And do also healthy, because theres one great point where you say behind every black swan is a crash of gray rhinos. Likely out of the part the book the said our rhino group is called a crash. But, so what is a crash of gray rhinos behind every black swan . Anconventional side recognize te black swan, distinguish it and cope with it. When you see obvious things coming together, when they meet you might not be able to predict exactly how the need for exactly what the consequences are, but it become a nation of predictable things coming together. The 2000 financial crisis is just a classic example of that. You had the subprime crisis. Unit questionable use of derivatives. Unit loses a provision of thanks, a lot of reckless behavior. You also had a lot of warning. A few months, of course everything went into Christine Lagarde said we are facing a financial tsunami. If you do a nexis search of news stories at the time and references to crisis, subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, its very clear that yes, we saw it coming, despite what so many people said in hindsight. The black swan had just come out at the time and everyone was talking about black swan, financial crisis, this is a black swan. Nobody saw it coming. Even though people did. I felt that they misused the black swan concept a little bit. First of all its improbable and unpredictable. So that many you can actually see it coming and imagine it happening, its definitely not a black swan anymore. But then on the flip side using almost perfectly opposite logic, you have people after something happened was a that was a black swan. Perfectly unpredictable, unforeseeable. 2008 really was a crash of gray rhinos. I think that certainly even people who saw lots of elements of that happening probably didnt quite have the sense of exactly how extensive the damage is going to be. But a lot of people knew it wasnt going to be good. I was living in new york city and had an apartment at about the figures earlier and it almost doubled in value. Its a very small example but i sold my apartment. I think there are some of the people who made much bigger bets on the fact that things were going to keep going the direction that they were. The way you describe it though its almost as though people at the beginning stages you talk about denial and then theres a modeling phase, especially sometimes thats benign. People dont want to admit and sometimes its more negative. We have a lot of examples of how institutions systematically fail or dont allow people to call these things attention. I want to give you one example that so striking about 2008. I was the chairman of the board of a merging Market Association of the time and my board was filled with some of the smartest investor people on the planet. We had an off the record dinner one night here in washington, d. C. With the chief economist at standard poors. In 2007. Some of the people on board were just saying what the hell is in this shelter raging . They were pilloried him the whole night. That guy is a present on the second we dont know. We are as weird as your. Are all these comments that made you, these institutions were unaware. They were just praying it would go away. Like that gray right outcome we are praying it turns the other way and not come away. Sooner or later you have to deal with it. Help us out on the. How did it unfold . I think the s p example disaffected when. A lot of people did know what was going on. There were certainly a lot of journalists who wrote about things. This denial is very interesting. Its first stage. When mr. Think about this denial was the first thing i did was go and buy a copy of the book on death and dying. Everybody knows about the five stages of greece. She said it should be a temporary phase. Its so protected that it gives you enough of a cushion that you can start absorbing whats happening. If you absorb it all at once its too much and a lot of people would freak out and break down. Some of the psychological mechanisms humans have for dating with problems are that denial. But we also set up decisionmaking systems, and there are also some unconscious of things that we do. I spent a lot of time looking at denial and seven the Cognitive Biases that we have to get a wacom one of the biggest ones have the with the decisionmaking structure that we set up, a groupthink which is going to get about the people who are some of them have some perspectives, look like them come from the same places, whatever measure is similar to you want to use, when one person says something, its much more likely to choose the all the heads and not all the way around the table. It becomes very difficult to Say Something that is not what people want to hear. And i think that is certainly something that happens in markets. We i very tempted to think that the party issues keep going on and nobody is going to take the punch bowl away. But its inevitable. I look back, some of the people who made this proposal on argentina in 2001 were very much fans. I feel like anyone would ever read charles had to recognize that. Of course, his classic book was rereleased bracelet. The first stage is to know. There are other reasons that i think there were a lot of people who take revenge on this human tendency towards to now. Youve got the monkey, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil monkeys. You get the oscars with head in the sand. This wonderful menage every hanging out with a black rhino, the great writer, a black swan, alvin in the room. But once you go on what you realize people are so susceptible to get you can manipulate that. You look at the tobacco company. You look at some of the testimony thats been coming out about the Oil Companies that new insight very well at the risk were and what were going to happen. Really conceal that. So theres a certain sort of manufactured denial that we can either take advantage of our we can be aware of and question much more actively why are we denying this. Wishful thinking. And wishful thinking. If it just went away it would be a lot better than for me to have to fess up. Up. I think our culture is like that. You look at income inequality today, and you look at the people who look up to certain candidates, millionaires, billionaires, very wealthy business people. You look at the debate over taxes. You look at the debates over trying to address this problem of income inequality, which is affecting growth, which is helping to create the poisonous political climate. Of other people dont want to make some of the hard decision to even people who would benefit from the because i could someday have a big shiny building with my name on it. You cite the role of one of my older professors when you say the crisis takes much longer in common than you think, and it happens much faster than using. This is the challenge in markets come in the financial markets. I can never be a Hedge Fund Manager because her so many times when im right but it takes three years to be right. I remember in the 1990s we went to investors in private equity and we said we think the u. S. Stock market is completely and totally overvalued, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Two years later, three years later they were still saying, the private market, on the Public Markets are outperforming you by 280 basis points every year. We were sure they were overvalued but it was way too early. How do you deal with that . When you arrive and you see this crisis the early but others dont or they are not ready to act, or the institutions are not ready to hear you. Its very common, and in many cases its a matter of win. But exactly when, thats a little, you know, double on your shoulder. Thats were i think you need to come into understanding some of the later phases of gray rhino. Start with denial. I was just so inspired by the book i thought maybe i could have five stages come to. Get it worked out well that way. So the second stage is modeling. Is when edwin is saying this is a problem but they come up with all sorts of reasons not to do anything about it. Muddling. Estate after that i called diagnosing but you could think of it as blaming or bargaining. Its the what do you do . Its making sure you have the right solution. The fourth stage is panic. Its a time when the rhino is just about on top of you and its a double edge sword. On the one hand, you are much more likely to make missteps, make bad decisions. We see that often in financial crisis and Economic Crises when the economy is booming. Nobody plans to cut the budget. Nobody wants to be responsible, and its just on the way down to all want to cut the budget and they treat this Snowball Effect that gets worse and worse. The final stage of course is action. Its when you do something. You should action happens in such a way that a small group of people start acting. You want to create a ripple effect. How do you get these leaders, how do you convince other people that its in their interest to actually do something, to make the hard decisions. Thats a great transition to what you and i both said was the biggest Inconvenient Truth of all, or the biggest elephant in the room, which is Climate Change. The reason i say that is because we are actually 20 years into a more into the diagnosis. So i remember taking a course at harvard in the 70s with roger revell. Because he was talking about Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas effect and so on. But here we are. This year we have is monumental set of agreements. So how do you see where we are with Climate Change and we go in coming years and sort of the schema for framework . Climate change is a great example of all different, all five stages at once. The number of people in denial is a shrinking, happily after many years of very hard work by many people. You hear muddling, diagnosis, what do you do, what do we do. Some of the diagnosing questions become kind of wild. Were going to see that the class. Technology is going to magically solve everything. Theres one in the book that just blew me away in conversations i have moderated a couple of years ago with a company that had created something to literally create plastic out of thick air speed and i had to google that one. They basically come if they Carbon Capture that comes with it but something, i dont know, on top of the smokestacks is how i imagined it although im sure thats not exactly how it happened. They shoot some enzymes added editors into plastic that can be used in a lot of smartphones. So something that takes the carbon count and turns into something good and actually saves whatever carbon might be produced otherwise in creating, thats good you look at some of the renewable technologies. Theres lots of very, very interesting things going on. When i was in the emirates last october, they were doing some very interesting things with clean energy and you see a lot of it across the middle east now, after looking at clean energy technology. I dislike couple of stories about some things that can be done but at the same time you still have huge subsidies of the false if youll industry. You are just now seeing the extent of the efforts theyve made to perpetuate denial of come and we are not come youre not seeing enough of a sense of the risks that Climate Change is proposing to companies. Although some the changes weve seen in oil prices over the last year, in some part, are due to the changing technology. Theres less supplant other factors in that as well, but so you are seeing action, i think some of the dramatic numbers and facts have come out over the last couple of years, crazy receiving of arctic ice. You look at some of those maps and reminds me of the painting. This is the stream, the highest temperatures on record. You see some of these increasingly violent storms, and every time t they havent you gt the predictions other rising sea levels. Its getting harder and harder and harder to ignore. And the more people are affected personally by it, the more interested if a change. That said, i think was amazing that we finally got to paris accord on Climate Change but i dont know anybody who thinks that it was enough. At the anybody who thinks its going to be implemented fully. So thats a real cautionary tale. In most cases of action you see a day late and dollar short that is never quite as far as it ought to be. Right. And it seems to me at least my lifetime weve always been trying to fight predictions, especially thin about every menl problems and related things like tragic death, issued or to cite a number of examples in the book about companies that are taken a leap frog approach to starting out, for environmental that problem of realizing by dressing as long they leapfrog to new technologies that make the business more efficient or change the Business Model or allow them to morph completely and avoid a gray rhino going into obsolescence. I thought about that and in the corporate sector you sort of say what it takes for that is the group of ceos may be, ceo to ceo to start like about these things and share their vision and almost competing with each other. I was struck by the fact utah coal but about the emergence come this last year or two of china and the u. S. Seeming to say that a longterm agenda for leadership in Climate Change. Is that analogous to what you sing in the corporate sector where corporations, pepsi and coke have tried to outdo each other on sustainability issue and so . Absolutely. You really have to see countries working together. I befriended, i have all sorts of arguments with, kind of a friend who is fun to argue with. Might be here tonight. But i remember having an argument with him once about huds. He says im not going to stop drive my suv because i wanted to china is building a new coal plant everyday and theres no point. Is helplessness, this worrying about what the other guy is going to do is a real issue. So you get countries worried about competitiveness. They are worried about people think theyre going to fall behind. One solutions is this idea of transparency. Actually one of the things that came out of paris with this discussion about who is going to hold countries accountable about how closely they meet these targets . When you count something its much, much easier to do something about it. It really helps but as it becomes harder and harder to hide risk, as it becomes harder to get away with doing things. Weve got social media. Weve got the digital outreach, weve got people become more and more vocal on these sort of things they becomes much harder to avoid. So that shine a light of transparency on whats happening is incredibly important. China certainly has pressure from outside as the United States, but has also been treasure from inside. Some of the videos they were going around the protest about the pollution in china, they were heard. You can tell they were being heard. So thats another gray rhino because ive invested in china and we invested in companies that were in the food chain try to keep it from being poisoned, the with air pollution and Water Pollution but one of the things we saw an arkansas in the second assist of china starting five for seven years ago was the were huge demonstrations and destruction, civil disobedience in effect relating around every mental concerns we before they were even for the tibetans or other things like that. Very much so. One of the interviews in the book is of peggy lou who helps promote use of chinese cooperation on clean energy. Shes got all of these very elaborate facemasks for the solution to her facebook profile has a pitcher of her with a mask. Beautifully embroidered. Shes very, very passionate about this, and says look, you know, if you cant have a are that people can breathe, that eventually will be a big problem. Shes had to evacuate her kids sometime. I downloaded the air quality index when i was in china and was amazed. It seems to me in some respects, sometimes we have to have some pretty inky things associated with the gray rhino association. Let me ask you about that. We all remember the confab in the site of late by doing a deal with the devil, but the asking me mujahedeen we created Osama Bin Laden and the circumstance is. Policymakers sometimes called up well but good and covert areas that is the blowback of our secret cia operation. Have a look at that and of course they had to do a post on to defeat hitler. We had many, many issues like that in our Foreign Policy. How can wade like a then its almost like dealing with one rhino crisis, sometimes you have a baby run of the mayor that in the next generation comes back to haunt you. Very much so. Situations like this or you have clashing rhinos and it also got situations where people were assigned very differently. Syria, the quagmire which is one of the types of my nose i call a gordian knot in terms of how hard it is to a pact being i think you have russia and the United States and the solution in extremely different ways. That tells you how important it is to find ways in the Key Stakeholders which is much, much easier said than done. Im not pretending its easy. Descartes and they said is the problem. The other one who can bring order to diametrically opposed ideas. Are you like at the debates over Interest Rates and quantitative easing. They have led to a number of spec lead of bubbles in the markets that have a lot of people thinking in 2008 again. On the other side you have Economic Growth and theyve just a matter of very cheery. And weve got to see mainly by dan had either one i get too heavy with the metaphors. What is the biggest problem. There are times when you create one problem for the number. This one i will let it go. Your book came to me. I preordered it from amazon and it just came two days ago. It is right at the time i went to see the movie eye in the sky which is about drugs and the moral dilemmas of usage. A stunning movie for me anyway. But it made me think a little bit. Your concept of gray rhino is almost like rational selfinterest Great Companies can use it to fit their rational selfinterest. What about making moral judgments . When Collateral Damage is perfectly fine by United States policies in everything. You get to know this girl in the movie and you realize she is the one Collateral Damage. You are just at the thorns of a dilemma. How can we apply gray rhino thinking tomorrow issues . Its very tough. At one point in the book i talk about the charlie problem. The dilemma between coming down a track and is going to run over six feet tall. The question is do you flip the switch their friends over one person instead of six people. It is the active behavior that people have so much trouble with. Like in the movie when their 80 faceless people who were killed by the bombers, but one girl you but one girl you had gotten snow in the movie would be killed if they did they strike. I speak so much to the importance of emotion and policymaking another decisionmaking. Im perfectly happy to walk out with as many numbers and analysis. I rational approach to things. I know rationally that is irrational because thats not how people react to things. You think about the tragic photo of the little boy on the beach. You look at the tremendous reaction to that and it was really hard to say that. Or you look at the reactions people have two People Killed in the terrorist attacks in paris and in brussels and the tremendous reaction there and not as much to the same number of people in places that westerners didnt have as many connections with what they were much more regular attacks. The more attacks there are, the more they lose their residents. I think it speaks to a real balance. These lives worth more than those lives . Its not an easy decision at all. Youve got constituents to answer to. Basically there are going to be tradeoffs and they are going to be harder to make when there are emotional decisions to be made. I just thought of something. You talked about talking about writing tonight and greece and whats difference. The possibility that nationalism or racism above because greece was at least a country in our union that we knew. Argentina was the way the western bankers against them in a way. Is there some of that . It has to do more with the interconnection that the grief was so tied in with european ideals and argentina was way down in south america somewhere. Or fix that up because i want to get to is you talk about engagement, the guys saying how to solve engagement. I thought about the people, my ceo at new america, henry slaughter, joe nye and others to talk about soft power and Foreign Policy. In a sense that is analogous to solving gray rhino problems. The secret is sure us from all over the world get together and talk about cases and legislators talk about being and all of that ties up the United States more and more into a system. We have facilitated china and other countries getting into World Trade Organization and so on the about box more into reserve for the peers of a lot more into the world. Is that an example and problem solving gradualism engagement . Gradualism is the way that change happens as the ideal of a big revolution is in many cases stepbystep. The engagement creates more different tradeoffs. You create different emotional association. It is funny that title i didnt, but they intended nuances. But i think thats a very, very good at National Sort of the icing on the cake. Its the way the metaphor works. The black rhinos and white raynauds. When i finally came up with the image for the both, i was talking to a friend. Someone from the finance world made a black swan joke. It is a black right now. Wait a minute, there is such a thing as a black rhino. Let me go to wikipedia. Something fell obvious that is right in front of you in the premise of the black swan is you cant picture a black swan so it doesnt exist. You are thinking of the white and the black, so its about nuance. What was it that a great swan was called . There so many titles. It is funny in that talk that helps build on the idea of his paired up with william has a fantastic Japanese Technology Crisis Management expert. He had me on ones. You could have so much fun with all the animals. Its actually quite serious. There is a reason that we take animals with so many powerful animals, images. It is coincidence, but its not. We can see things that help his team are clearly what were doing. Maybe we should take a few questions. I would strongly urge everyone to read the book. Shes got one whole page of diagnosing which kind of right now it is. But you really have or can it down to show the different permutations and how to diagnose and how you try to solve it, what do you confront take him around from that, let it slide out of the way. Do you have anything else you want to say before we close enough . Just diagnosing the kind, the most important things to start at taking weather in your company are in the world, i often say what is your top rhino at work and what is your top gray rhino in the world at the citizen planet. You get one of each because if you have too many it becomes very complicated. Youve got to prioritize. And the questions come you ask yourself which one to go after. You do ask is this something that i know how to solve . Do i need to bring in ammunition on this . Do i need to know who needs to be commenced in who has come a long onboard with fixing it. How fast is it moving . How interconnect to visit two other gray rhinos in which direction are those connections . You have something that will affect other Better Things than you prioritize that over the smaller ones. Its not easy. There is no Silver Bullet answer. Starting out asking whats your gray rhino gets you on the path towards thinking more clearly about how to solve the obvious problems in front of you. Give a couple examples of countries, some of the Oil Producers that have tried to create funds for commodity type fun and most of the time the treasury gets trained on before they draw for good purposes. One of the best examples was longterm in the last couple weeks in saudi arabia announced they are creating a 2 trillion dollarsign to bridge over the postoil era. One, the post era of revenue from oil, but second of all the energy trained should they will need to make in the desert. They seem to me that was a perfect example. You probably cannot did seminars. Have not been there yet. You want to . It would be a good idea if you give us your name. [inaudible] great to have you here. Congratulations on the book. Its a great way of looking at the world. We are here in the United States in an election season. I would like you to reflect on whether you think the rise of donald trump is a gray rhino or a black swan number one. Number two, what are some of the biggest gray rhinos you see here in the United States . Thats a great question. If i had a nickel for every time i got it right. It is something that then giving up a lot of thought to. For me, the idea as the reality tv star could become a leader in the primaries, that is simply a black one. I very much the domestic ray rhino. Trump is the embodiment of several gray rhinos that are behind him, the inequality issue than a couple years ago with top of the World Economic forum world risk report and we heard a lot about it, bestseller on inequality. Its got a lot of lip service, but i havent seen much if any progress at dealing with it and with possibly even gone backward on that. You see trumps message. Use the Bernie Sanders message. You see the rise of populist movement in the u. S. And europe is very closely tied to our failure to address the equality. What i see very much of the crisis of agent lee, a feeling of powerlessness. It is a meteor often among people and why they support triumph, why they support standards. The way they are eager to reach out and embrace someone who says he added going to was great certainty that little detail as to how its actually going to happen. On a certain level it comes back to magical thinking. One of the examples from the book is the movie mars attacks, which i loved. And tried to be wacky and not totally serious all the time. These merchants come down and theyve got fish bowls on their heads and they are green and they green and theyre taking over the country in the world to make a way out into the desert somewhere, listening to the radio when they are about to come in the grainy. And this song comes on the radio and it turns out that is the magic thing that makes the green martian heads explode inside the fishbowl. Anyway, i have to go back and watch that. Its the safety of magical thinking. Someone has a magical solution. Its a lot harder than that. Its not easy. The feeling of power, powerlessness to influence government, to make change happen and that powerlessness is particularly powerful. Sarah palin calls it that hope change stuff. When obama came in at the beginning there was so much enthusiasm. I looked at that and ive at that mess that at that mess that ive seen this in latin america before, the charismatic leader comes then, hopes are risen, hopes are dashed. Social media plays into that into an interesting way which we havent begun to see the effect of pure people fill it to have a voice on social media. They can say things, but there is a disconnect between what people are saying and what the government is doing. We are at a time when the u. S. Government is paralyzed. It is extremely polarized. The primaries are increasingly nasty. There is just this lack of civility. Does i think are the bigger gray rhinos. Maybe rhino or ran away feeling chair. These things are so big and heavy and scary and they dont at all what to make light of them. But i also feel like you need to have some sort of levity in the discussion. You need to say hey, this is not impossible. Without being a pollyanna, i think you need to be of the cs there are are things we can do. You are citing the issue of politicians started giving hope that there isnt a solution yet. Dont forget that his Foreign Policy failure here in this country. On two occasions, when arab spring. Obama went to egypt on saturday. I remember a tunisian friend of mine last year when i was there after their revolution had been stunted and said he told us it was okay and youre not there at this now. And Foreign Policy is made of them more damage to her credibility. Letting the rhino out before youre ready to solve the problem. Either your mac speaking at events, we are one week for the anniversary of the gulf oils though. I just had a Huffington Post blog and ill probably get some Rotten Tomatoes [inaudible] talk about how we can speed this up. It increased at a 2 rate out of the bat in 320 billion in energy. We have the environmental movement. 37 states or territories have Renewable Energy standards. So we hated it. 11 people lost their lives. 600 square miles on animals fit the science coming out of it, research. So how do you use a stinky event to speed up action. This diversity come in one of the point and im not the first person is ever said this, but a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. There is not to crisis to create positive change and in many cases the change that happen and you have to to get glasssteagall could one of the chapters of the cassette in calgary after the 2013th floods in the canal that was prompting the resilience measures in several thinking about probabilities of future floods and what to do about it. The panic stage in the book is really a doubleedged sword here to take their place remake bad decisions and pushes action. And im glad to see the Silver Lining coming out of what happened. It can be extremely dangerous to try to accelerate. The pop culture in the boat is one of my favorite tv shows. In one of the early seasons there was the whole plot line around a patient who had a heart problem. And they fiddled with the things in such a way his heart became bad enough to get higher in the transplant list. They had a ready had a surgery, but the surgeon who is supposed to do it shot in the attack in surgery couldnt happen, so he died. This is an example, but of how dangerous it can be to push something forward. At the same time, there are some situations where there are choices to be made. Sometimes people try to muddle through and hide how bad a situation is. Shedding some light that is a benign way of doing that. We are starting to see more and are on the corporate level and the panama papers, for example as a way of saying this is doing something about. It is a problem that affects other situation and goes right back to groupthink and decisionmaking and if it not going to. The very, very small numbers than corporate or is that ceos corporate leadership positions. Its not just women. Its a different day. Its not as much inclusion and different tolerances for risk. And across companies, governments, whatever organizations do not make sure theres a way for people to raise a red flag. This is wonderful. Thank you very much. If you like this is a cheat sheet for problem solving really tough problems. It is fact based, rational and released there is private to. I spent the time in beijing. Its pretty vast. The weather is domestic or international, icy ideology and personal narratives really obstructing problemsolving. In todays world, im a millennial, but i feel that we are inundated with data. It tends to be much higher than that tell you the real number. The micrometers so on and so forth. How do we achieve consensus . Thats a fantastic question and i totally agree with you of ideology get in and away. You look at data go back to mark twain and his lies and statistics. Theres so much data so that you dont just have a haystack in the needle. Theres sent people doing interesting work on that. They have a whole institute of data they had the answers to that. One of the things im hoping that gray rhino can help do is bring together people of different areas of expertise and help them identify the gray rhinos in the industry, in their field meant to work together. The gray rhino on some levels is very simple. Ask yourself what the gray rhino is an everybodys going to have their own take on that. I want that to happen. I really welcome that. It is a conversation and something people can interpret for her personally. It is a matter of gray rhino, although im somewhat skeptical as to how possible it is to have absolutely no ideology, but generally his sons make me very uncomfortable. Even on a certain level, pragmatism realizes there are limits to that. They are not aware of mass the way they see a problem and be able to ask yourself. If youve got a certain view on inflation, you are not going to see the Interest Rate similarly. Its a matter of asking yourself, is your goal is that they can visit measurable, outcome based or ideological. The other point about it is the business culture. For example for so many years. You know how harmful it was and we all didnt admit it. Speed bag thank you again for a wonderful discussion. [inaudible] youve mentioned leadership and the role in this process including the audacity of raising how. How does your thinking about the gray rhino phenomenon makes her like that leadership and what it means to be a greater effect that later. Thats a great question. I love that. One of the conclusions was not a very happy one, unfortunately. But it is really the leadership sometimes being aware that you are going to take a fall. Joan of arc. Get burned at the stake. Youre not always going to get credit for things. Another part of it has to do with listening in the diversity and its been very interesting that a couple of talks at the event, very highlevel groups, but also people getting their job done. When we see a problem, what can we do to make sure the people up top with the power to allow change to happen. How do we get them on board with it . It speaks to leadership really be the ability to hear things you dont want to hear, to hear things from it draws set of people, from all Different Levels in the company, from all different days. I think of not considering yourself to be infallible, its very much about leadership, a leader being willing to say this is big here this is in front of me and i dont have a handle on it. [inaudible] if i play devils advocate and look at the things we talked about before, we identify as one or many huge problems that we know are coming and we have to decide whether we are going to ask or not. But if we act too soon. Germany, they spend a huge amount of money with Climate Change and it wouldve been a lot cheaper. Same at the question of the Carbon Capture. When it becomes a crisis, it becomes cheaper to respond to the crisis in some ways the least psychologically. Again im a doublesided or is, how do we know if we are addressing gray rhinos because and if we are actually right now. Im doing now for dealing with a threat just because its there. I do sort them out . How do you prioritize. One of the things i was trying to do is harness some of the intellectual blocks one day. I dont need to know what the nexus search count is for the Google Search for how many meant in the black swan. Even though people were a little bit misguided in their interpretation of it, the focus was in the wrong place. I dont pretend to say that there are. In terms of cost of responding, theres a bit of a paradox in financial terms or energy to whatever measure you want to use. It often is much or expense is to respond the last minute. Your options generally narrow quite dramatically. Judith rodin and her work on resilience has shown quite extensively how much return you get if you invest in prevention and resilience. It is avoided costs which we dont account for properly. For example, when i went to minnesota to the memorial for the bridge that had collapsed they are. I dont have the exact numbers in my head that there is a book on how much more it costs to rebuild the bridge quickly on no notice plus the cost of lives plus the last commuting times, last business, all of that, i think theres something that needs to be fixed in the longterm versus shortterm saying im sorry we dont have any money in the budget right now to do with this. Weve got to do with this much more urgent thing. Of course when something falls apart because you havent dealt with it early on, that only creates more of a vicious spiral. You think differently about how you account for things in policymaking that i can avoid it cause. The other question and there is this magical pools of money from federal disaster funds. What if we were to instead shrink the federal disaster funds and reallocate some of that towards prevention. And with aid in other countries as well. Stephen covey has this great tool out of the seven habits of highly effective leader. If its urgent and important and he points out how much time we spend in the urgent category, whether or not it is important. There are some things you do need to let go. In business that is called Creative Destruction and it can be a very good thing. Find ways to allocate more time, more budget, more priority, whatever to do things that are important, but not necessarily of media. I think we could do a lot better at every level from policymaking at the global supranational to the regional and local levels to personal life. One of the gray rhinos that comes up all the time his Retirement Planning or saving for college. There are also two things that are very relevant on a personal level. Obviously, those arent the big giant things that affect everyone. For an individual, is pretty darn important. You can be flexible in your definition there. Someone who invests in the areas you are talking about, one of the would have had to reconcile this for many years is to argue that you dont go off and try to invent whole new type allergies. That leads to some wonder problems in all kinds of crazy things especially when politicians do it. They have a capital not been. Energy efficiency, pricing, all of these things. You dont turn up at Nuclear Power plants today. Thats 20 of the electricity. You cant do that. What matters for Climate Changes where we are technologically. By the way, are renewable transmission died common and put 25,000 megawatts of wind. We spent more money than you can imagine we can even say its Greenhouse Gas positive because we have so much standby generation. Policymakers are gray rhinos offers in the way that michelle is talking about. Youve got 20, 3040 years for it to knowledge aside. A 2 trillion facility for example. [inaudible] i think there are situations where you got to say this is just not worth fighting. An example from the corporate world, kodak invented the digital camera and they decided not to run with it because they were afraid that they were going to cannibalize existing to allergies. It didnt work out real well for them. The other thing when i was in minnesota, i was so glanced the bridge memorial was right near the mill museum and all these old flour mills in the area. They were just all they are. Of course when the mill switched from water power to the other sources of energy, they could be anywhere. There i bought it in yesterdays that become obsolete, thats all aside because i resent them better and its important to realize when that is. Brenda said dane follett cited that Something Better come by. Because one of the big points in the book which is how you turn a friend into an opportunity. A very common one is the question of succession and control. You have people say this is a period the older management doesnt want to recognize that it is time for newer energies to come in. So there are definitely times when the right thing to do is say all right, trample me. I want to thank everyone. Michelle is going to stick around and answer a few questions. This is great. I want to thank michelle for writing the book to give a the opportunity. Thanks, jeff. I love talking to him. [applause] [inaudible conversations] the actions of rebels and runways, freedom petitioners in claimant did not lie outside us, but shaped abolition and its gold. For example, i found the british quaker abolitionist call for immediate abolition and 8024, which most historians are aware of. Its the first goal for immediate abolition of slavery. In this pamphlet coupled or call for immediate abolition with a Strong Defense that had taken just a year prior. Most abolitionist, the story of abolition must begin with the struggles of the enslaved. This is particularly true whose impact has not really been appreciated. We have many histories of the haitian revolution and we are aware of the tragic history off the islands to a made worse by the policies of formal colonizers. Though we are really not aware of how profound this impact was, how in fact it was the first instance of immediate uncompensated to slaveholders abolition. The connection between slave resistance in the United States gave abolition is most enduring issue. The fugitive slave provided the move meant that the most dynamic exponents. Fugitive slave abolitionist. We are all aware frederick douglass, many men and women who wrote their narratives in the abolition movement. They also became very effective slaveholders founded difficult to dismiss former slaves and northern appellation is suited nothing about slavery and philosophers. They could oppose and a much broader audience than that slaveholders wanted to propagate, that they are benevolent and took care of their slaves they thundered the abolition movement. Not in front abolitionist together more readily than the fugitive slave desperate fight for freedom. Fugitive slave abolitionist justify resistance to slavery. Said mr. Inside declared per se, but it was essential to the abolition movement. To leave the enslaved is too profoundly missed the part that africanamericans have played in shaping the practice traditions of american democracy. Slave resistance revolutionized discourse and practice and moved abolition into the Northern State courthouses. Rather than liberty laws and attempts to grant fugitives trial by jury and prevent the kidnapping of free blacks in to slavery challenge the extraterritoriality of slave codes mandated by the federal fugitive slave laws. Thanks, folks. Thanks for being here. This is an exciting discussion that kim is going to lead today. We started talk about this a couple years ago and its something ive been interested in for a long time, just a growing intolerance and intimidation from the left. The very first book i ever wrote was called why we whisper in the subtitle is called losing our right to say its wrong. It was all about the growing mi