The new century entered the stage with a fair share of anxiety, uncertainty and potential, casting open broad avenues of future exploration, but also imposing limitations that are yet to be properly assessed and addressed.  As the modern era unfolds before our eyes, policy and decision makers begin joining the race to acquire the tool box that is best suited to answer the emerging threats and capitalize on nascent opportunities.  In this tangled web of new, powerful forces that are shaping our times, a few seem to come to the fore with greater stamina.  It is, first, the issue of climate change that, even though heavily contested as to its true size and impact, forces businesses to include environmental concerns in their equations.  Second, it is ongoing globalization that generates intense networks between nations, companies and individuals, fueling their growth, but at the expense of increased intricacy and unpredictability of relations.  Finally, it is the rise of the Internet and its rapid expansion in multiple directions, well beyond the role of a supplier of information.  Any well-meaning executive training program with aspirations to capture the essence of the early 21st century must consider these trends.

In fact, it is not only a question of being well informed or being updated on the latest developments in critical areas of business.  Rather than teaching leaders flat facts, however alarming or appealing they might be, attention and resources should be directed toward building three key skills that are intrinsically related to the sweeping trends of climate change, globalization and the evolution of the Internet.  Their successful acquisition may mean all the difference between passive knowledge and active application, with the latter being the ultimate goal of every effective executive training program.

What are these skills then?  Climate change problems, with their focus on a changing and threatened environment, should be nothing less than a deep exercise in understanding and using business context, or the environment, to their advantage.  In practice, it translates into improved risk assessment, enhanced understanding of the market conditions and competition or developing emergency readiness.  The ever-present globalization issues should be creatively translated into skills that help manage change and complexity on both a small and large scale.  Due to markets drifting closer together, the degree of entanglement leaders have to contend with has never been greater.  The advance of the World Wide Web has created interconnectedness – hyperlinks that bind market participants together stronger than ever.  The ability to navigate through this variously interdependent business reality must not be missing from any efficient executive training program.