Scenarios Come to Davos - World Economic Forum

Scenarios Come to Davos 

A GBN Conversation with Ged Davis 

As one of the masterminds behind the World Economic 

Forum’s annual Davos gathering, this seasoned Shell 

scenarist is once again poised to help global business 

tackle the world’s problems. 

Interview conducted by GBN Knowledge Developer Peter Leyden 

March 2004

Table of Contents 

Scenarios Come to Davos..........................................................................................................1 

A Systemic Scenarist’s Beginnings ............................................................................................2 

The Shell Years and Innovating New Scenario Techniques..........................................................3 

To the World Economic Forum and Davos .................................................................................5 

Bringing Scenarios to Davos......................................................................................................6 

The Future of Scenarios.............................................................................................................7 

Balancing Long-Term and Short-Term Thinking.........................................................................8 

Shell’s Current Troubles............................................................................................................9 

Business’s Broader Global Responsibilities .............................................................................. 11 

Building Exceptional Networks of People................................................................................. 12 

The Politics of Davos .............................................................................................................. 13 

Don’t Dismiss the World Social Forum .................................................................................... 14 

Davis’s Next Focus: China and the Middle East........................................................................ 15 

Rising to the Challenges of This Century.................................................................................. 16 

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Scenarios Come to Davos 

Ged Davis is one of those rare people who has a mastery of both craft and content. His craft is 

scenario planning, which he has been practicing nearly since its inception. In 1972, Ged joined 

Royal Dutch/Shell, where he worked alongside Pierre Wack, the godfather of scenarios, as well 

as GBN’s own Napier Collyns and Peter Schwartz. He later became the head of scenario 

planning at Shell, and over the course of his career spearheaded many innovations in the form. 

At the same time, he developed deep knowledge about energy, climate change, sustainability, 

and global social problems like the spread of HIV/AIDS. In many ways, Ged epitomizes the 

wise, socially responsible European business perspective—which is one reason he was 

recently chosen to head the World Economic Forum’s new Centre for Strategic Insight, the 

entity now responsible for setting the agenda for the Forum’s prestigious annual gathering in 

Davos. 

In the following interview, Ged reflects on his 30 years at Shell and what he learned in his 

various positions in different parts of the company and the world. He does not shy from 

commenting on the source of some of Shell’s current troubles. But mostly he talks about 

scenarios and the incremental evolution in their use—as well as the understanding of their 

limits—over the years. He describes some specific innovations he has made in the form, 

particularly in adapting the scenario process for use with large groups of 60 or more people. 

And he shares the rule that he uses to determine how long a particular set of scenarios will be 

useful to an organization, which he calls “the rule of seven.” 

Ged also shares his vision for the new Centre for Strategic Insight that he heads and for 

Davos, at which the global business and political elite congregate each year to discuss the 

state of the world. Not surprisingly, scenarios will be coming to Davos—as well as to the other 

regional events for which the Forum and Ged’s Centre are responsible. And Ged also talks 

about networks—how his Centre recruits and manages the networks of thinkers who form the 

heart of Davos, and how he hopes to form a network of institutes that can develop scenarios, 

particularly in regions that are currently not well enough understood, like India and China. 

Ged’s intellectual curiosity and love of learning suffuse this interview. Indeed, he considers 

himself on a lifelong quest to make sense of the world, and demonstrates a palpable 

excitement for the journey. Another theme that Ged says drives his life is the desire to make a 

difference by identifying problems early and getting groups to engage those problems faster 

than they might otherwise do on their own. He did that throughout his career as a scenarist in 

Shell, and he is poised to do it again with his new mission to help set the agenda for the 

enlightened global business community each year at Davos. 

GBN Global Business Network • Scenarios Come to Davos: A GBN Conversation with Ged Davis 1

A Systemic Scenarist’s Beginnings 

GBN: How would you describe yourself and what you do? 

Ged Davis: I find it useful to start by looking back to when I was a kid. I had a reputation as a 

daydreamer; I was fascinated by all sorts of ideas. I would say that my real interest is trying to 

make sense of the world. It’s more than that, though. Over the last few decades, I’ve become very 

interested in the notion that we can make a difference not just as individuals, but collectively: as 

groups, as teams, as communities. I’m absolutely fascinated with trying to understand how you can 

help large groups make a difference. And making a difference, for me, is about helping people 

identify problems and helping them come to terms with those problems faster than they otherwise 

would. 

One of the most important things we can do is to define problems clearly. And that got me, from a 

fairly early age, thinking about systemic issues. I became fascinated with systems thinking in my 

late teens. People who know me say that I tend to focus on the big picture. I’m always interested in 

the context in which different groups have to make decisions. How do we access that context? How 

do we ensure that it’s refreshed and new and alive? 

I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with strategic planning. It tends to be a very rational and 

structured approach. Much more interesting for me is to know the strategic context, but this isn’t 

easy. You have to know it in a way that is somewhat detached from who you are. If you know it 

well, you are much better positioned to make intelligent decisions. Change the context, and you’ll 

change the decisions people make. Change the understanding of the context, and you’ll change the 

decisions. 

GBN: What are some good ways to get to know the context? 

Davis: One way is to try to see the world through the eyes of a child. This means that when faced 

with a new set of issues, you push back against a very easy de finition of what you’re facing and 

open yourself to many different perspectives on the problem. Seeing a situation as a child means 

for me seeing it without the benefit of our standard disciplines, for example economics and 

political science. It’s seeing it without all of the premeditated structures that we have to bring to 

bear when we get involved in analysis. Indeed, it is as important to get the design of a project and 

the perspectives on an issue clear in your mind, as it is to do the right analysis. 

GBN: How did you go from being a teenager interested in systems theory to where you are now? 

Could you give a quick timeline of your career? 

Davis: As a teenager I was extremely keen on traveling. With that in mind, I started studying 

mining engineering, which gave me the opportunity to go to South Africa in the early 1960s. 

Working down in the mines was a real eye-opener, and being in South Africa at the height of 

apartheid was quite a shock. 

After completing my studies in London, I got an offer to go to Stanford University. I found 

California rather liberating, with many interesting ideas developing. I was very interested in 

economics, and soon got an offer to go to the London School of Economics. So by the mid-‘60s, I 


was already working to understand the world. I had developed a strong fascination with 

international issues, and spent the summer of 1966 in Geneva with the United Nations. 

After LSE, I was offered a job at Stanford Industrial Park, and while I was working there got 

heavily involved in studying engineering economic systems at Stanford. It was also there that I met 

and took courses from Willis Harmon. In 1969, I remember well a course, which he ran, in which 

we looked at the world’s problems as a whole —that was my first real experience in handling global 

issues from a holistic perspective, in a way I would later do with scenarios. 

By the end of the ‘60s, when I was in my mid- to late-20s, all the things that really interested me 

one way or another, and that I’ve been doing since, were out there on the table. 

The Shell Years and Innovating New Scenario Techniques 

GBN: From there you joined Shell? 

Davis: I left Stanford in the early ‘70s to join Shell, and almost immediately began to work on the 

very first scenarios that were being developed. Actually, I was working directly for a young man 

named Napier Collyns [later a cofounder of GBN]. I was working as an economist, and we were 

looking at what might happen if oil prices rose twofold or threefold. I was working on the impacts 

on the European economies; this was really fascinating stuff. 

I joined Shell in the new enterprises division, and then spent time in the coal business. Much of the 

next decade was in business positions—in business development, market development, technology 

development, setting up and running a trading company in Asia. So I got quite a good feel for 

business. And I had the opportunity to travel the world, initially focusing on North and South 

America and then living in Australia, spending a lot of time working across Asia. 

By the end of the ‘70s, I had gotten to know Pierre Wack quite well. He asked me to go back to 

London and join his team as head of energy scenario development, and it was then that I got 

absolutely and totally involved in scenario work. The main emphasis of the work was on energy 

and oil issues, economics and geopolitics, but that was just part of the story. By the early ‘80s, 

we’d started to look at the importance of societal and broader technological issues. 

Working with Pierre was a richly rewarding experience. I was involved in hard-headed issues of 

business, yet at the same time there was a fair degree of freedom to think about the world in the 

broader sense. I thought this was an absolute dream situation. It was hard work, but that was 

probably a measure of the fact that people were passionately interested in what was going on. 

Our work was about real issues facing Shell’s businesses; we believed that we were genuinely 

helping people make a difference. What you said had to be useful and it also had to be very 

honest—there is no point in fooling yourself about your understanding of the world. So along with 

intellectual integrity you needed relevance. Working in a company, you’re forced to be relevant, 

but it’s not always easy to put the two things together. 

GBN: You spent 30 years in Shell. What did you do in your later years there? 


Davis: In 1986, having previously been head of Shell’s planning in Europe, I was invited by Peter 

Schwartz, who was then in charge of the Shell scenarios team, to head the energy side of the 

activities. I headed the global energy team for four years. That was, for me, a rather fruitful period. 

I led a number of scenario projects and really started to get my head around issues like climate 

change and sustainable development, long before they really became central to the business 

agenda. 

I then spent four years heading Shell’s investor relations activities, dealing with Wall Street and 

with investors. When you work closely with Wall Street, it opens your eyes to the reality of how 

the market operates. I actually enjoyed working with the analysts and needing to explain very 

complex situations simply and clearly. But immediately you can see the problems and the potential 

for spin in situations like that. 

I came back into the scenario team in 1994, looking after geopolitics, technology, and society. And 

then I headed a new unit working on new scenario processes and applications. I had started to 

develop something different from what Shell was doing—namely, techniques that would allow 

groups of 60 or so people to develop scenarios. I tried these methods out with a project for the 

World Business Council for Sustainable Development on the future of sustainable development, 

which turned out to be a surprisingly successful project. The scenarios had considerable impact, 

largely, I think, because the techniques we developed almost forced ownership. So I got very much 

involved with the question of how you build scenarios that are owned by larger groups of people 

with a capacity to act. For me, that was an important step in my own thinking. 

GBN: When you say “new techniques,” are you talking about new ways to facilitate groups, or 

new approaches to creating scenarios? 

Davis: The techniques we developed were for working with quite largish teams. Before I got into 

this project, my general view was that I really didn’t want to work with more than 20 people. 

Working with groups of 50 to 60 people to build scenarios is quite problematic. But because there 

was such a demand, we actually worked with that number. 

Just before I left Shell, I produced a booklet called “An Explorer’s Guide to Scenario 

Development.” It actually outlines the processes we’ve used. These are long-duration processes 

that last nine months to a year and involve a minimum of three workshops. The first one defines the 

problematique (which is a fancy word for something that’s slightly grander than just a problem). 

The second one is building the scenarios; and the third one is affirming the scenarios. The 

workshops themselves run three to five days, so they’re quite full. 

GBN: What do you mean by “affirming the scenarios”? 

Davis: Initially, we select and work with a group of people, ideally stakeholders of the problem, to 

define the problematique. We bring a lot of material and many different perspectives together. 

Next, we lay out the basics for a research program. Then we do the research, and then we come 

back to build the scenarios in a four- or five-day workshop. 

The scenarios are built by the 50 to 60 people in the workshop, and we facilitate that. Then we take 

those scenarios away, develop them in detail, and bring them back for what we call an 

“affirmation” workshop. We seek their endorsement and ownership of the detailed scenarios that 

were developed. Normally, that’s a very tough meeting. 


To the World Economic Forum and Davos 

GBN: When did you retire from Shell and move on to your current position? 

Davis: I retired from Shell in the middle of last year. I’d been working on the UN AIDS project 

(the future of HIV/AIDS in Africa) for a year and transitioned out of Shell as director of this 

project. I was also doing some work on the redesign of a new strategy for the World Economic 

Forum, and through that got involved in the design of what’s now called the Centre for Strategic 

Insight. I was offered the opportunity to head that new entity at the end of last year. We formally 

launched the Centre in March 2004. 

GBN: Could you say more about how that opportunity came about? 

Davis: I had contact with the World Economic Forum before I left Shell. I was involved in their 

discussions on the new direction the organization might want to take, and I found them an 

interesting group of people with very broad interests. They are probably best known for Davos, but 

the World Economic Forum is much more than that, with many different initiatives. It has a very 

interesting philosophy that is closely aligned with my own, which is that they want to ensure that 

the world community identifies and moves forward on relevant issues and problem areas as quickly 

as possible. 

My interest is really in what set of tools and what sort of approaches and processes we can bring to 

bear to allow us to address these concerns more quickly, more successfully, and more effectively. 

The Centre is anticipatory in nature. It’s dedicated to trying to understand the new agendas of 

government and business, with an eye to the next two years. This allows me to bring in many of the 

tools that I’ve been working with and ways of thinking I’ve used and seen used by others into the 

Centre. And it’s designed to do that. 

We have a small scenario team and will develop industry strategy processes. We’ve got a capacity 

to design interventions—workshops, roundtables, scenario projects, vision projects—within the 

Forum. That’s the capacity we’re building. 

GBN: How does the Centre for Strategic Insight relate to Davos? 

Davis: The Centre is responsible for the content of Davos and for designing the regional summits. 

Davos is designed not as a conference but as an overlapping set of meetings to further the global 

agenda. It’s quite difficult to get one’s head around Davos. It’s 225 main sessions and 800 private 

sessions; it’s got quite a complex architecture. The Centre for Strategic Insight is responsible for 

that design. It has inherited what was the global agenda team in the Forum and the team that does 

the global competitiveness work. 

GBN: Does your group design the “meta” theme of Davos? 

Davis: Not only the themes, but also the formats, the people, the way the questions are framed, and 

so on. We’re involved in the regional work as well. In fact, we’re developing some new ways of 

doing regional work, because issues at a regional level both contribute to and are a reflection of 

global issues. 


GBN: How big is the Centre? 

Davis: Not large—25 to 30 people. The whole of the Forum is not particularly large; it’s in the 

order of 160 people, and it’s based in Geneva. 

Bringing Scenarios to Davos 

GBN: Is it safe to say that Davos will be doing more with scenarios? 

Davis: At the moment, we’re just beginning to initiate our own scenario work, and we have only a 

small capacity within the Forum. But I’m looking to work with different groups around the world. 

We intend to do much more regional work, in particular from an Indian perspective or a Chinese 

perspective or an African perspective, rather than just a European or North American perspective; 

we tend to get embedded in our own perspectives. I’m interested in putting together a network of 

institutes that will assist in our regional work and participate in the development of global 

scenarios. We’ll probably kick off with work on the future of India. 

GBN: And how would that get drawn back into Davos? 

Davis: The platforms for both presenting and examining the implications of the scenarios could be 

either the regional summits or Davos. In fact, there was some scenario work in Davos last year; I 

was in a number of sessions in which scenarios were touched upon. But my aim is to bring the 

skills and knowledge that I’ve developed in my career to the broad service of the Forum and its 

members. 

GBN: Earlier, you said that the Centre is trying to understand the new agendas of government and 

business specifically over the next two years. Usually scenarios consider a much longer timeframe. 

Davis: That’s an important point. The time horizons for much of the work around investment in 

energy are at least 20 years. But when we did the work on sustainable development, we were doing 

50-year scenarios. For climate change, it was 100-year scenarios. For IT companies, five years is a 

long time. The industry you’re in and the nature of the issue and decisions you face determine, to a 

large extent, relevant time horizons. At the Centre, we will do scenarios with long time horizons. It 

may be 10-year work; it may even be 50-year work. 

So why the focus on two years? It comes back to a personal view, which is that whenever we do 

work for 20 years, it’s not about forecasting 20 years ahead—it’s about using what we learn about 

what might happen in the coming 20 years to shape policy in the next one or two years. 

Normally, when you finish scenario work, you have a very short window in terms of application. I 

have a personal rule, something I’m quite prepared to share with people —it’s called “the rule of 

seven.” If you take the time horizon of a piece of work and divide by seven, that probably gives 

you some idea of how long these scenarios will remain credible and be used. In Shell, for example, 

20-year scenarios are renewed every three years; nobody is terribly interested in the 20-year 

scenarios you did three years ago. So it’s not a hard and fast rule, but the important point is that 


we’re not talking about scenarios being used for the full time horizon, but about a seventh of the 

time horizon. Their value, over time, diminishes very quickly. They become historical relics. 

In scenario work, you’re continually asking yourself two quite different things: (1) how will the 

world develop over a fairly lengthy period and (2) how can I use the results of that work in the 

coming one or two years. I’m interested in how you take any study of the future and bring it back 

in a way that can be used to make decisions in the short term. 

GBN: So the two-year timeframe for the Davos forums will be informed by longer-term thinking. 

Davis: It will be informed by any relevant piece of work. If we’re talking about scenarios, it could 

be informed by scenarios that are 10, 20, 40 years ahead. I was not involved in the design of Davos 

this year. But Peter Schwartz, for example, had a series of sessions about the world in 2014; just to 

push people’s thinking. 

So what’s the relevance of that to decision-makers? Well, they might take away some new ideas. 

And they will ask themselves, if they’re really interested, “How can I use that to sharpen my 

decision-making or policy-making, and do I have the right things on the agenda or not?” 

The Future of Scenarios 

GBN: You’ve been involved with scenarios really since their inception. Are scenarios becoming a 

mainstream business tool, or are they still received as a very new way of thinking? 

Davis: Well, let me just roll out my hobby horse here. First, I get quite angry sometimes when 

people say they want to do scenarios. Frankly, I’m not interested in doing scenarios. I’m interested 

in understanding some of the critical uncertainties we face as organizations and figuring out how to 

better position ourselves. And I can’t always tell if scenarios are the right tool for that until I start 

studying the problem. 

Second, you can learn scenario processes within a day; at GBN, you do a very good course within a 

week. Many people go off and do scenarios based on that, which I think is fine. But if you’re 

dealing with really complex issues, you have to approach them with the eye of an architect or a 

designer. You have to say, “Look, we’ve got a whole range of ways of getting people to interact. 

We’ve got many different formats we can use. We’ve got to be meticulous in our selection of the 

people who should be involved in shaping and making scenarios.” Scenarios are an important 

tool—a fundamentally useful intervention—when we’re dealing with problems where there is a 

lack of clarity around the problem area and fundamental uncertainty in outcomes. But I think the 

tools themselves are not always easy to use successfully. There is a long list of organizations that 

have tried scenarios and said, “This doesn’t work for us.” 

GBN: Why is that? 

Davis: One of the reasons is that the people don’t invest in it. They expect quick results. You have 

to be a brave organization to spend significant money, maybe in excess of a million dollars, to get 

into a project without knowing clearly how to use the results. And many of those who have reached 


top management positions have been successful in managing operations and have been less 

interested in strategic context. 

I personally believe scenarios, or certainly scenaric thinking, can help us to think clearly about the 

problems and the risks we face. And I would argue that assessing risks and being attentive to the 

right risks is a fundamental responsibility of anybody in a leadership position. In general, the tools 

that have been developed across the set of practitioners who do scenarios can aid many people. But 

they’re not everybody’s cup of tea. 

GBN: Are you confident that other tools for systematically understanding future options will be 

innovated in the next 10 years that will either complement scenarios or succeed scenarios? 

Davis: I think scenario practitioners are very conscious of the need to have a wide suite of tools. 

Both those that allow them to develop useful scenarios quickly and also tools and processes that 

push the frontiers on larger and more complex long-term projects. These can last a year or more, 

especially if they involve multi-stakeholder groups. 

The projects that most interest me are ones that involve working with a set of leaders in an area, 

who sometimes don’t know each other well, and using scenario development as a medium for them 

to better understand the bigger picture. Done well, this can lead to identification of new policy 

issues they should consider and better understanding of the risks they face, and can lead to new 

ways of collaborating. And that is something I would like to do more of in the Forum. 

Balancing Long-Term and Short-Term Thinking 

GBN: From 1990 to 1994, you were head of Royal Dutch/Shell’s investor relations activities 

worldwide. That made you the point person for dealing with stock market analysts in the United 

States. What are your thoughts about the pressure of the market to focus on the short term over the 

long term? 

Davis: I was always struck by analysts’ arguments that they do look longer term. However, their 

notion of the longer term is somewhat shorter than mine. Their argument is that if you really want 

to assess a company, you’ve got to understand the quality and integrity of its management and the 

quality of its investments and its assets. You need to be convinced that over the longer haul, it’s 

going to deliver the income levels it promises. Thus the need to think through the longer term. But, 

of course, information about a company is being revealed all the time. Thus present events will 

change views of longer term developments and will from time to time significantly impact 

valuation of the company and share prices. 

When I discussed the longer-term scenario work I did at Shell with investment analysts, my aim 

was to help them better understand the strategic context of Shell’s investment program. This gave 

them a better understanding of where Shell’s future and the source of its future income lay and the 

attendant risks. However, there is a limit to their interest in the longer term because it’s the nature 

of financial analysis to discount the future and be interested in present value. So they have less 

interest in the future than someone interested in global systemic issues, which may only be 

resolved over decades. 


I was talking to a fund manager once about work out to 2050. He said, “Look, in my business, if 

you want to talk about 2050, come to me with your money in 2049 and I’ll tell you how to invest 

it.” In managing liquid assets you will be interested in short-term profitability, portfolio resilience, 

timing issues, exit strategies, and so on. 

If you’re in other lines of business, in many cases you’re dealing with assets that, once they’re 

placed, can’t be moved—it’s a refinery in Japan, or it’s a lubricants plant somewhere in India, or 

it’s an offshore rig. One of the reasons Shell has been most active in the use of scenarios is that you 

can’t avoid the fact that there are fundamental political, economic, regulatory, and environmental 

risks to virtually every sector of your business. And you better make sure you understand them 

before you invest. That’s what prudence would tell you. Some industries naturally have long-term 

horizons for investment; the energy business is one of them. Others are very short. So I’m less 

critical of the focus by some analysts on the short term than others, perhaps. 

GBN: But the problematiques that you’re talking about are clearly long-term problems that require 

long-term solutions. 

Davis: They’re both short and long term. A good example: Take the work on the future of energy 

and the potential importance of renewables, looking out to 2050. We need to do that work out to 

2050 because only then can we begin to understand what a fully fledged, mature renewables 

industry would look like. It helps us to tease out many of the problems we’re likely to face going 

forward. But you have to bring that right back down to the decision of whether you’re going to 

invest in a solar photo-voltaic plant or whether you’re going to invest in a series of wind turbines 

up and down the coast, and then you’re dealing with short-term issues. What are the current 

regulations? What are the risks around investment in terms of local public attitudes toward large 

numbers of wind turbines? And so on. 

For me, one is always looking at two different sets of scenarios to address a particular subject area. 

The long term provides context and understanding for thinking about the big investments you 

make, and then you make those investments in the short term. The context for short-term planning 

is not the same as that for assessing longer-term developments. That’s one of the reasons we were 

involved in many different types of scenario projects at Shell, because you don’t solve the risk 

issues in a subject area just by doing one set of scenarios. 

Shell’s Current Troubles 

GBN: What is your take on Shell’s current problems? 

Davis: Well, I should emphasize that I’m outside of Shell, so these are just personal reflections. 

But I think I can list some of the contributing factors. The first one is that if you do not have good 

communication with the market, you necessarily will have problems at some point. I think Shell’s 

communication with the market has not been as good as it should have been. Secondly, you have to 

be able to communicate complex issues very simply and with a high level of integrity—and you 

have to be believed. When you’re dealing with important financial issues you’ve got to religiously 

adhere to the guidelines that are set by the SEC, if that’s the relevant exchange commission you’re 


dealing with, and you need auditors to assist you in ensuring a high level of integrity. My own 

experience working in the finance area has been that Shell and its auditors had been exceptionally 

diligent at that in the early 1990s. Thus I am shocked by recent events. 

But what appears to have been the case is that, in this particularly difficult area of assessing how 

reserves should be classified under the SEC guidelines, Shell has taken a very liberal interpretation 

of proven reserves and moved beyond the guidelines. The issue is not that the oil isn’t in the 

ground—the issue is the appropriate classification for the oil in the ground. We have to wait and 

see what all of the investigations indicate, but the fact that Shell took the initiative itself to 

reclassify the reserves indicates that, on reflection, it was not happy with the way that work was 

done locally. 

Now if you’re in a situation where you’ve got a complex and difficult issue to explain and you’re 

not communicating very well, it’s quite possible you’re not going to be heard. And if you’re not 

heard and people don’t understand what’s going on, it’s not unreasonable that some of them are 

going to fear the worst. I think some people are pretty unhappy. 

And then we have the issue of Shell’s governance. It does appear that the greater control given to 

Shell’s businesses post the 1995 reorganization and the weaker central finance control has been a 

contributing factor. 

As a shareholder in Shell, I am not very happy. As somebody whose career has been at Shell, I’m 

also not very happy. But we’ll have to wait and see what the outcome is. We don’t have all the 

information, but it does appear that personal misjudgment at the highest level also played a part. I 

think there will be a deep and searching review and I would hope it is made public. 

GBN: Many people associate Shell with long-term, sustainable thinking. Do Shell’s recent 

problems threaten that? Will some now associate Shell with making tradeoffs and focusing on 

shareholder return? 

Davis: Well, some people may draw that conclusion. But this is not new—in 1998, when the 

company had real difficulties with $10 oil, the view some people had then was that Shell was 

spending too much of its time worrying about sustainable development. The position Shell 

management took—and I believe it was right—was that there is no point in having progressive 

values unless one is financially strong enough to be able to implement them. Thus was conceived 

the notion of “profit and principle.” It’s the old story about walking and chewing gum at the same 

time: you’ve got to be able to be profitable to survive, but be you must be profitable and be honest 

to your principles. If you lose your principles, you have to ask yourself why you are making 

profits. 

I strongly believe that Shell is a principled company. We set out to earn a decent income because 

that’s the only way we can pay our people and can honor the responsibility to our shareholders. 

Many of Shell’s shareholders are long-term holders in Shell shares. There’s no doubt that recent 

events have damaged Shell’s reputation for high integrity, and it’s going to be hard work to get it 

back again. Those people who want to see Shell succeed have got a tough job ahead of them, but I 

think we have to put it in context. We’re talking about the classification of reserves, organizational 

weaknesses, and personal misjudgments—we’re not talking about more than that at the moment. 

But we’ll have to see what happens. It could be that more damage is done to Shell’s reputation 

when we know the full details. 


Business’s Broader Global Responsibilities 

GBN: The World Economic Forum seems to be embracing the long-term approach. Is this an 

encouraging sign of a broader sea change in attitudes coming to all business? 

Davis: The central problem we face—and I can see it at the World Economic Forum—is how we 

can enact our vision, that is, the hopes we have for making the world a better place, and yet ensure 

the shorter-term livelihood of the organization. It’s a classic problem. We have it as individuals; we 

have it as companies; we have it as governments. It comes down to how much time and effort you 

are prepared to invest in ensuring a better world for your children and your grandchildren. 

We have to get that balance right. The real battle—the really interesting divide—is between those 

who think short term and those who think long term. In my view, that is part of the discussion 

about the role of capitalism and its capacity to handle the longer-term problems that we face. 

Capitalism is not necessarily always the best set of ideas for doing that. On the other hand, it offers 

us efficiency, and efficiency is to be lauded. If we’re more efficient, we then have more resources 

to do other things. 

GBN: Do you think business needs to get more involved in finding ways to feed the world—in 

other words, the long-term issue of international development? 

Davis: My interests in international development go back to the 1960s, and I still maintain a direct 

interest through my position on the board of the International Development Research Center. I 

don’t see how business, particularly if it intends to play an important role in poorer countries, can 

do anything other than take on broader responsibilities. 

GBN: Do you think this is a widespread belief in business circles? 

Davis: I don’t know. But it’s certainly been a trend for 30 years, and there’s no current indication 

that it’s reversing. We live in a period where there are some extraordinarily philanthropic 

individuals, of which the star is probably Bill Gates. A large amount of philanthropic money has 

come from business—just look at the larger foundations. Equally, more of the new business 

opportunities lie in some of the poorer parts of the world. I believe the legitimacy of business is 

compromised unless it acts as a good local citizen, and this implies an increased concern with 

development issues. 

I think a lot depends on your fundamental stance on life. I’m a positive person. I think there’s 

nothing more fascinating to understand than the big issues we face, and nothing more important to 

do than to begin to make a dent into them. And the quicker we address these problems the better, 

with goodwill and hopefully with adequate resources. One of the great contributions that business 

has made is to free up resources. There’s no question we spend a lot of resources on some highly 

questionable things, but no, I’m not a complete skeptic about business. 

GBN: And the trend line is in this direction? 

Davis: Well, one has to be careful about trend lines, if you’re in the scenario business. There are 

certainly plausible scenarios in which a concept like sustainable development is brought into the 

mainstream. The work we and others did in ‘96, ’97, laying out possible futures for sustainable 


development, highlighted new forms of social reporting, new alliances between NGOs and 

business and more—all of that has occurred much more quickly than we might have expected, 

though not always successfully. 

I think we need to be careful about drawing hard edges around businesses and NGOs and other 

groups, especially when we are dealing with problem areas where we all have a role to play. What I 

find most exciting is working with people who have different backgrounds on a problem of joint 

interest and finding solutions that we would not have found on our own. If you are trying to solve 

difficult problems, I don’t care whether you’re from Company A, NGO B, Government C, or that 

you’re just Ms. D—as long as you want to make a contribution, let’s see what we can do together 

to find solutions. That is the healthiest way to approach things. 

Building Exceptional Networks of People 

GBN: GBN tries to build out a network of people with diverse viewpoints and different 

perspectives. To what extent is that something you’re doing now with the Forum? 

Davis: I really think your external relations and networks are a measure of who you are. The great 

strength of the Shell scenario team, which was always very small, was the network of people we 

developed from the early 1970s. It’s an absolutely exceptional network. So when you have a 

problem—you want to look at, say, the future of Thailand, or you’re concerned about some new 

business area—you could always put together a challenging and insightful group. 

What intrigues me about the World Economic Forum is that it has probably the most exceptional 

network in the world that I have come across. It has close to a thousand companies. There are some 

1,500 identified people just in our faculty networks. We are also connected to the community of 

religious leaders in the world; the community of NGOs; the community of labor leaders. The 

Forum creates communities—the new young-leaders communities, tech pioneers, and so on. The 

understanding you have of the world really comes out of your interaction with these communities 

and networks. Ideally, in some areas, you’d like to evolve from having a network, which is people 

who are at a distance you can communicate with, into genuine communities of interest and 

purpose, where people are actually participating and creating new initiatives. 

Across the World Economic Forum, we see all sorts of organizations or structures, from networks 

right through to strong communities. Ideally, the individual business groups are organized around 

communities. I think organizations that are well situated at the center of extensive networks, and 

that have a capacity to create new communities, are much better positioned to understand what’s 

going on in the world. And life is much more interesting when you are lucky enough to be at the 

hub. 

GBN: Do you systematically pull these communities together? For example, the young leaders? 

Davis: A lot depends on the self-organizing capacity of the groups. Certainly, young leaders tend 

to have a lot of energy and a lot of vision, and they value enormously the possibility of interacting 

with other young leaders who they otherwise wouldn’t know. And some are very active. We have 

groups in the Arab world, in the Asian world, and so on. Helping people find each other, with a 


positive vision of possibilities in the broadest sense, is a valuable thing. But it’s not new. Many 

other organizations have aspired to that, and some have been very successful. 

GBN: Do you have an approach or system for identifying new people in the network? 

Davis: We have a structured scouting process. For example, for Davos 2005, we will send people 

on scouting missions. Our scouts tend to have subject areas. They’re managing as many as 50 or 60 

people on their own networks, and they have a responsibility to find new people. But there are lots 

of ways to do it. You can talk to people you trust. You can do searches, read books, go to 

conferences. 

The early part of the activity for designing a new Davos is to do scouting to identify new people. 

And, obviously, we do a lot of work to try to understand what the new problematique is, because 

it’s around that that we build sessions and invite people. 

GBN: To make it clear, you’re saying that part of the scouting is to uncover the new problem? 

Davis: At one level, we’re scouting to look for new people. But new people come with new 

perceptions and new ideas. So, in parallel, we begin to think through the design of the next Davos. 

It’s a process not that different from building scenarios. You need to understand the main themes 

and issues that you’re dealing with, and then you have to decide how they’re going to be handled in 

a four- or five-day meeting. 

The Politics of Davos 

GBN: How would you place the World Economic Forum in terms of global politics? What is its 

political role or political view, if any? 

Davis: The World Economic Forum is at pains to point out that it’s not a political organization and 

it does not represent any companies. Our interest is really bringing together relevant parties to push 

debate forward. So one of the most heavily represented groups in the last two years has been 

people from the U.S. government. We had Dick Cheney; last year we had Colin Powell; we had a 

significant number of people from the Bush cabinet. We had also [Iranian president Mohammed] 

Khatami. We had [Pakistani president Pervez] Musharraf. So our prime interest is really to bring 

together people who are involved in shaping events. 

At Davos you can get [British Foreign Secretary] Jack Straw together with Khatami to talk about 

civil nuclear issues or even military nuclear issues. We’re not really here pushing one view. That 

said, not everybody you invite will come, for all sorts of reasons. Therefore what you see at Davos 

is a reflection of the people who, having been invited, have accepted. And even though it’s in 

Europe there are many non-Europeans and non-Americans there, so you’re bound to get a fairly 

wide range of views. 

There’s probably some bias toward the Forum’s mission, if you’re a continuing member or partner, 

that is a commitment to improving the state of the world. On balance we’re concerned with making 


sure issues are laid out fairly and squarely in front of people and that we’re addressing the ways we 

can move forward. 

GBN: I hear what you’re saying about the Forum’s neutral framing. But if you really are engaged 

in making communities and improving the state of world, inevitably the people who are trying to 

do that have to interact or intersect with politics at some level. 

Davis: Yes, politics is always there at some level. I think the easiest way to think about the Forum 

is to look at the range of initiatives it gets into—which, of course, you can say are partly political. 

Take the Global Governance Initiative, for example, which is simply a review, by a working group 

of experts, as to whether governments are on track to achieve the millennium development goals. Is 

that political? Well, it might be for some. But it’s doing something useful, which is to say, “Look, 

all these fine words were said in the year 2000 about where we’re going to be in 2015, and when 

you look closely at what governments are doing there’s absolutely no way they’re going to achieve 

those goals. And so governments had better raise their game.” 

Another example is the Council of 100 Leaders, which consists of leaders from the Islamic world 

and the West with the aim of improving the understanding each culture has of the other and of 

catalyzing support for projects that strengthen intercultural relations between the West and the 

Islamic world. 

So, of course, there is a political dimension to the initiatives that the Forum is involved in. But I 

suspect that many exaggerate this point for effect. This is particularly true of those who wish to 

contrast the World Economic Forum with the World Social Forum, even though they are very 

different in function and form. 

Don’t Dismiss the World Social Forum 

GBN: This year, GBN had representatives at both Forums. It seems that a lot of the organizations 

that are part of the World Economic Forum are very open to trying to do more to address a lot of 

the issues raised in the World Social Forum. The World Social Forum folks tend to be hostile to the 

World Economic Forum folks, but that doesn’t seem to be reciprocal. 

Davis: The views that some critics of the World Economic Forum have about the potential misuse 

of power are very legitimate. You’re dealing with some very powerful companies, and that does 

concern people. There are quite a lot of people in the world who are skeptical about capitalism 

when they see so many poor people and just a few rich. 

The World Social Forum is a different animal. It’s many disparate groups coming together. But I 

don’t discount the energy that is around the World Social Forum, and I think we should be listening 

to what they have to say. It’s not always easy to fully understand what’s being said; some of it is 

clearly ideological. But we should take note of the concern about broad collective issues and 

acknowledge the need to adequately address them. 

GBN: So you’re saying that the anti-globalization, anti-corporate sentiment out there is one to 

really listen to and think deeply about. 


Davis: This was the question we faced when we did the Shell 2020 scenarios in 2000-2001. Many 

people were saying, “Just dismiss the anti-globalization views.” I thought that was a bit hasty. A lot 

of energy and a lot of thought was going on there. They may not always be as articulate as others 

may be, but that’s precisely what happens when new ideas are emerging. We aren’t articulate. 

The notion that we could somehow live without ideological conflict is probably naïve. Some of the 

most fundamental issues are still with us. By that I mean the challenge between respecting the 

rights of the individual and the need to solve problems through large organizations, which therefore 

places constraints on the rights of the individual. It’s a standard problem. We’ve known it for a 

long time. We need to address it with much more sensitivity now. So I think we live in a very 

fascinating world in that respect. There’s still a lot to learn and a lot to be surprised about. 

Davis’s Next Focus: China and the Middle East 

GBN: What issues and themes would you ideally like to push your organization to think about? 

What are your strongest areas of interest right now? 

Davis: I think, in practice, the projects you end up doing are a combination of the ones you would 

like to do and the opportunities to be able to do them. You can’t always do what you want to do. 

That said, I’m particularly interested in the developments in the Middle East. I think it would be 

nice if we could make a contribution there. I’d like to work with groups in the Middle East on the 

political and economic development of the region. It’s a very difficult situation at the moment, so 

it’s an interesting question of what one could do. 

I’m also quite fascinated by the issue of “sustaining security.” What are the rules we need to 

develop to best handle security problems going forward? What sort of global structure is going to 

work? We don’t really know that. Obviously the role of the U.S. in the world is a critical issue 

here. Another issue of concern is global terrorism; finding answers to that issue is going to matter. 

And, of course, I think India and China are extremely important areas to understand well. Like 

many other scenario practitioners, I’ve done a fair amount of work on those areas. But we need to 

understand them in the same way that we understand our own countries and regions. That’s one of 

the reasons why I’m looking to do a lot of collaborative work in those areas. 

GBN: What do you mean by “understand those areas in the same way”? 

Davis: An important part to understanding any region is to cultivate a “knowing from the inside,” 

that is, an appreciation of the internal perspectives. China has 1.2 billion people, enormously 

important and different regions, complex history, and complex culture. How will an increasingly 

remarkable modern economy develop under the guiding hand of the Communist Party? And what 

about energy issues? China is sitting on a large amount of coal, historically has been very 

concerned about its security, and is worried about having to import energy in the form of oil. With 

the world concerned about climate change, this clearly is a problem for China. All these issues 

have to be resolved. Time will resolve them, but individuals will facilitate their resolution. To 

appreciate their mindsets is key. 


GBN: There’s been a lot of interest lately in the outsourcing of knowledge jobs and tech jobs. How 

important is that, do you think, for the global economy? 

Davis: It’s extremely important. It’s just starting, but outsourcing can only work in a world that’s 

prepared to accept more and more integration. One of the big questions is whether that’s going to 

be the case. It’s quite difficult to avoid or to stop some of the outsourcing, but I guess if you 

worked hard at it you could. No, I think outsourcing is something that’s just beginning. It’s been 

extremely important for India, and it will be important for other countries. I think we had better 

learn more about this. 

GBN: What other issues are you looking at? 

Davis: Well, there’s this set of issues around trust that we’ve been looking at for a number of 

years, both in Shell and beyond, and it’s certainly important in the Forum—lack of trust by the 

public of business and government. 

But I think the big systemic environmental issues are most interesting. For example, the 

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment work, a massive project that includes scenarios, will be coming 

out soon. It’s an assessment of the 14 large ecosystem structures in the world and how they will 

develop in the next 50 years. 

GBN: Is that through the UN? 

Davis: It’s got UN support. The work has been going on for two or three years and the studies are 

now at the peer review stage. It will probably go public in 2005—although you can access the 

website now. 

Rising to the Challenges of This Century 

GBN: Looking at these systemic issues brings you full circle, in some respects, back to your early 

passions as a teenager. 

Davis: These have been my interests of the ‘90s: the sustainable development issues; the resilience 

of the planet, the climate change issue; really looking at ecosystems in detail; HIV/AIDS; 

international development issues. These are big, systemic problems. 

GBN: When you look at these problems from your vantage point, do you feel confident and 

optimistic about the future? Or do you feel daunted and maybe a little bit challenged by what we’re 

up against? 

Davis: The notion of a problem is related to the way people frame the environment they’re in. I 

think that each generation sets itself a set of worthy challenges. We don’t have the challenge that 

my parents’ generation had—fighting fascism, the Second World War, rebuilding after the war, 

managing new nuclear weapons threats and the Cold War. We have a different set of challenges, 

and I think we are trying to come to terms with them. We still don’t have many of the tools we 


need to understand how big systems operate or to make intelligent policy from a systemic 

viewpoint. I think that’s one of the great challenges that lie ahead of us this century. 

But I’m not daunted, because I’m honest enough to recognize there are many things I just don’t 

understand. Human beings are always moving from the areas they think they appreciate into the 

areas of darkness. One of the great pleasures of doing scenario work is that it’s a bit like going with 

a group into an area that is initially foggy and difficult to see. Collectively, you begin to build an 

architecture of knowledge, and at some point, some understanding. I find that incredibly exciting. 

That’s why these tools will, in some form, sustain themselves, because they meet a basic human 

need. We want to understand better what’s going on. We need to make sense of the world. It partly 

justifies our existence, or may be the main reason to justify our existence. It gives meaning, by 

definition, to what we do. 

I’m not sure that it’s that special to our age. Why should I be arrogant enough to believe that was 

not true 1,000 years ago or 3,000 years ago? Or that it will not be true in a few thousand years’ 

time, although maybe our machines will be doing things differently? 

So, daunted? Well, in every area I’m ignorant, I want to be daunted. But in every area, it’s possible 

to learn something. And that’s a pleasure. 

This interview was conducted by GBN Knowledge Developer Peter Leyden in March 2004.

Scenarios Come to Davos - World Economic Forum

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