Want to change the world? Create jobs

As I write this, I am on an airplane watching “Across the Universe,” a musical set to Beatles songs. It tells the stories of the ’60s and ’70s: war, race, a debate about the best way to cause change (art, music, protest), and love. For those of us who grew up with this music, it is like going home. Maybe no song more than “Dear Prudence,” a comforting invitation to start again. It is a welcome respite after a week around the world.

It started with a few days in Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum brought together the usual suspects to talk about the state of the world and what can be done to make it better. From a distance, Davos is easy to make fun of. Close up, it is less so: Why oppose those who want to get together to talk about making the world a better place? They should. We should.

While much has changed since those Beatles days, we are still troubled by war, confronting far too basic questions about race and, still, debating how to cause change.

I leave Davos with a conviction that the most powerful agent of constructive change is the opportunity to have a job. Not just any job, but a job that is reasonably secure, entails fair compensation and ideally encourages both a chance to take pride in what’s accomplished and to grow.

I leave Davos with a conviction that the most powerful agent of constructive change is the opportunity to have a job.

That this kind opportunity is a distant dream for far too many came home powerfully in a session called “Struggle for Survival,” a simulation of what it is like to try to live in an urban slum at $2 per day. The folks at the Crossroads Foundation who put the seminar on did a remarkable job creating at least a hint of that world that well over a billion people on the planet occupy.

The lives of these people would be utterly transformed by a job.

After Davos, I headed to India, precisely the place where many struggle for survival on incomes that are unimaginably low. President Obama commenced meetings with the new Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, just after Davos ended and I went as well, to participate in a US-India Business Summit.

India is a country I absolutely love. It is one of the most exciting places on earth — a riotous mix of color, sound and scent. Democratic, but extraordinarily complex, it makes U.S. politics look simple.

Our discussions in India were about what the US and India — as countries, people and businesses — could do together. While none of the actors in these discussions is selfless, the agenda was always about driving opportunity for the hundreds of millions of Indians with too little opportunity.

In our business, the opportunity we can extend is through new hotel jobs, which we are creating in India and around the world. Having even a small hand in this is the best part of my work.

As I step off my flight, I can’t help think of those words From “Dear Prudence,” … “Meet the brand new day.”

This article is published in collaboration with LinkedIn. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum. 

To keep up with the Agenda subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Author: Arne Sorenson is President and CEO at Marriott International.

Image: A boy touches a 45-metre (148-feet) long wall lighted by colour rays at an exhibition hall in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei province May 1, 2007. Picture taken May 1, 2007. REUTERS/China Daily (CHINA) CHINA OUT