Novartis chief executive Joseph Jimenez is working with Google on vision technologies. Source: Supplied

At the Wall Street Journal’s annual CEO Council forum in Washington, more than 100 of the nation’s top chief executives were divided into six taskforces to debate and identify the most urgent priorities, risks and opportunities facing business, government and the economy.

The topics of discussion were: the China market; the corporate life cycle; the future of healthcare; disruptive technology, rethinking energy and the environment; and the agenda for growth.

But when a vote was taken on the top issue to emerge from all the recommendations made by each taskforce, managing the “21st century workforce” came out on top.

“This was the priority that produced the most passion,” said Agenda for Growth session co-chair Deanna Mulligan, who is CEO of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, one of the largest mutual life insurers in the US.

“We all have education initiatives. But how can we take these experiments or these small projects we are all running to develop a more broad comprehensive program?” she asked, noting that businesses needed to be more involved in all parts of the education system, including curriculum development.

“We want to help students prepare for jobs and opportunities that are actually available. And we want to encourage students and their parents to get involved with programs that engage the business community.”

In this context, Edward Forst, CEO of commercial real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield — a co-chair of the disruption panel — said it was important to create “lab environments within organisations”.

Mr Forst quoted an example put forward by PwC global chairman Dennis Nally, where the accounting firm sends four of its rising stars to Silicon Valley each year and asks them “to come back and make us a better organisation free from the burden of your day job”.

“If you look at your management groups, there tends to be a certain vintage that is represented in the room,” Mr Forst said. “For disruption we need to get beyond that vintage ... We tend to repeat what happened yesterday, we tend to be orderly, we tend to be a bit comfortable. How do we change from within and create bridges to the outside organisations that may help us?”

Joseph Jimenez, the CEO of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, used an example of how the firm was working with search giant Google to bring together ­biology and technology to solve some of the biggest unmet medical needs in the world.

“We have a very large vision care business and there are millions of patients that today use bifocal lenses. One thing would be to have your eye autofocus like a camera. We had a project going on that for three years. We are partnering now with Google who has developed a technology ... that has allowed us to potentially have a breakthrough,” he said.

“That is a great example of how partnering can result in great disruption.”

But fostering a 21st century workforce and the culture to create disruption also requires a mindset change, according to Frank D’Souza, who is among the youngest CEOs in the global software services sector. The CEO of Cognizant Technology Solutions, who is also on the board of global conglomerate General Electric, said companies must be willing to accept — and even celebrate — failure.

“Where those failures are for the right reason, not the wrong reasons, is a really important cultural tenet to build within an organisation that truly wants to embrace disruption and innovation,” he said.

Mr D’Souza quoted an example given in the disruption session by the CEO of a global gaming company which summed up the difference between good and bad failure.

“He said if we create a great game that isn’t accepted by the market, that is acceptable. That is an acceptable failure,” he said.

“But if we deliver a bad game because it is badly designed and done incorrectly, that is not acceptable.”

Following the Australian and New Zealand experiences of securing free trade deals with China, China session co-chair and Boston Consulting Group CEO Richard Lesser said there needed to be more dialogue between the US and Chinese governments on trade to foster investment.

“Recognising that on the investment side, the more there can be direct bilateral discussions that support investment, that foster transparency, foster partnerships is really important,” he said.

Lesser’s co-chair, Tyson Foods CEO Donnie Smith, said food security issues would also present an opportunity for US and multinational companies, “leveraging that desire of Chinese companies to invest outside of China”.

“Food is a huge issue in China. And being able to leverage their desire to make sure they have an adequate food supply for 1.2 billion people and growing, as the middle class continues to emerge. Giving us the ability to take advantage of that on the ground there,” he said.

When the various CEO Council Working groups pooled their recommendations and the Council attendees were then asked to vote on their top five issues of concern, infrastructure also emerged as a core issue.

A US infrastructure bank was proposed. It could be an American version of the Australian-led Asian regional infrastructure hub that is being set up “to increase the citizen’s confidence that there was a good ROI (return on investment)”, said “An Agenda for Growth” co-chair Donald Layton of the priorities for the new bank.