Notes from Beijing

Landed in Beijing yesterday, January 24. The Top Human conference here has a much larger scope than what I expected and than what I've seen done by any other training company... not in size ... rather in scope. Eva Wong (Chairperson & President) and Lawrence Leung (CEO) of Top Human are hosting their Third Eastern Summit for Corporate Social Responsibility and Branding.

The conference opened this morning with Eva and Lawrence delivering the keynote presentation, outlining Corporate Social Responsibility as the path of best practice for businesses here in China and throughout the world. Their presentation set the tone for 48 CEOs, business owners and executives representing 48 companies from throughout China in attendance - stressing an alignment of western business thinking with ancient Chinese wisdom & values (Ru) by creating a central code of trust between business leaders and their stakeholders - employees, shareholders, customers, community and partners. (So ... without saying "bushido" that's what they declared the conference would be about ... very conscious of the impact that leaders have on people and the environment.)

Their presentation was followed by Dr. Li Han Jun, CUFE and then by Dr.Li Zhi Neng, of the Research and Development Centre for State Council. These were followed by Corporate Social Responsibility case studies delivered by Ms. Kelly Lau, CSR Director for Nike (China) and Ms. LiuXiaowei, Director of Communications, Shell Oil (China)

Tomorrow ... Friday morning before lunch ... Mr. Esmond Quek, CEO, Hill & Knowlton, China will deliver a presentation on CSR and Branding; andMs. Erika Helms (Executive Director) and Ms. Zhang Zhe (ProgramDirector) both of the Jane Goodall Institute of China will deliver a presentation on Environmental Conservation.

Then for the next five hours Andre' Wai and I will deliver the SamuraiGame® as the conference's experiential centerpiece to raise awareness of leadership, responsibility, trust, warriorship (battlefield =marketplace), honor, respect for people/planet, etc.

Saturday morning following our reflection piece tieing participant experiences from the Game to concrete practices within their organizations, the conference will again revert to "stand up" presentations... as follows:

Saturday Dr. Chen Tian Quan, Party Secretary at Renmin University will present on Confucianism and Management.

William Valentino, GM, Corporate Communications for Bayer China will present a case study on Corporate Responsibility; andForrest li, Managing Director of Debt Capital Markets, China will present a talk on Debt Financing.

Sunday the Summit will end with remarks again from Eva Wong and Lawrence Leung.

This conference is a huge leap from what I have seen other training companies doing in general and vis a vis the Samurai Game. In fact it is quite a spectacular leap for the Game (here called The Warrior Game for cultural & political reasons) as it has taken a place as an experiential tool for organizational awareness and leadership with a focus on how both impact real human beings and the environment (i.e. our planet) especially for the 48 senior executives attending.