NZ Job Summit in Auckland
February 25th, 2009 | by noel |The NZ Government Job Summit this coming Friday seems to be a step in the right direction when it comes to creating work opportunities for New Zealanders in these changing times – or is it?
Some things to consider:
1. The viewpoints may be too narrow
There has been some criticism of the guest list – and the critics have a point.
The guest list (See: http://www.beehive.govt.nz/feature/summit#attendees) is not all-encompassing.
And the majority of the private sector attendees are in fact representing the capital and assets owned by multinationals – i.e. not New Zealanders.
Indeed, a cynic could say that the “usual suspects” will be meeting to discuss ways of continuing to do what we have always done while all the time expecting different results.
2. The objectives may not be clear
Complicating things even further is the fact that each person at the summit will all have a different view of the scale of the economic problems we are facing.
Much depends on how attendees react to the question “Are we facing a Recession or a Depression?” .
Someone who thinks the financial meltdown will be “over by Christmas” will have a very different perspective to someone who thinks we are looking at longer term problems.
The optimists will be looking at “rearranging the deck chairs”. The pessimists will be thinking that our economic ship has hit an iceberg and is sinking fast.
If the optimists prevail then we could be looking at strategies which are “too little, too late”.
If the pessimists dominate, then there is a very good chance that overseas investors, who own 75-80% of our publicly traded companies AND the NZ banking system, will panic and want to take their money home.
So, in many ways the NZ Job Summit in Auckland is a “damned if you do, and damned if you don’t” situation if the conclusions from the Summit are too different to status quo thinking. Irrespective of who is attending.
3. Can it really avoid being a “talk-fest”?
Prime Minister John Key has said he does not want the Summit to become just another talk-fest. I think everyone supports that idea.
However, unless there is a mechanism in place to manage the process (such as Connecting Communities – see: http://www.remarkable.co.nz/connecting_communities/index.html), then it is difficult to see how 200 or so high-performing people, the majority of who one assumes have strong personalities and are used to being leaders, each with their own perspective on things, can turn into anything else.
I guess the results will speak for themselves.
I hope it goes well for all concerned and the Job Summit is a huge success – despite my concerns.
