Charming. Energetic, charismatic speaker. Throws energy out.
Speech begins here …
I¹m overwhelmed by the kindness of the introduction Š and the citation for
my award. It¹s amazing after you leave office how nice people become to
you.
Leadership in the context of negotiations.
I was just recalling that that time when I came to power in may 1, 1997,
and I actually went into Downing street for the very first time, and Ijust
before that, I don¹t know whether people have ever seen there was a film
that Princess diana Š there¹s a scene in the film and I will tell you
what is the real story behind it. Which is that when you become prime
minister, the first thing that you have to do is Š see the queen, kssing
hand Š uutnil you do that, you¹re not PM.
There¹s a very tall English genrleman who is one of the members of the
court. Now Mr. Blair, you¹ve heard about the ceremony of kissing hand.
You don¹t exactly kiss the queen¹s hand, you brush them gently with your
lips. This is what centuries of aristocracy has done to you.
I trip on the carpet and I don¹t kiss nor brush her hands as much as fall
upon it!
You come in with these huge expectations, and right now, of course
President Obama in the United States is trying to deal with the great
expectations that come upon leaders.
Ten years as leader. You learn a lot. You learn about the business of
government. You learn a lot about yourself and about the lessons of
leadership.
1) if you want to understand the world, then you have to analyze it as it
actually is not as you might like it to be. And if you want to change the
world, you first of all, got to understand it. And I would say that the
chief characteristic of the world we live in today is that it¹s
interdependent and interconnected in a way that has never been before.
If you look at the economic crisis Š that lack of confidence begins in one
country but it spreads like contagion across the world.
So the world in which we live is interconnected. The era in which we live
is an era of globalization and the consequence of both those things is that
the world moves and it moves fast.
It means we live in an era of low predictability.
This is a time which is hard to predict. And the other point about it is
that if it wasn¹t enough that we have all these challenges Š. There¹s
something else happening that¹s very relevant to this region. Power is
shifting to the East. You cannot understand the world today unless you
understand China and other nations.
That shift of power to the East is profound and its consequences is
sometimes hard for us in the West to comprehend.
Europe. Then 20th century America emerged as superpower. But by the end
of this century, there will be more than one superpower.
So power is shifting ot the East, and it¹s shifting fast. We live in an
interconnected world, and what that means is as that world changes, so must
we.
2) Countries, companies and people have to be prepared to change
themselves.
There is no room for sitting back.
Change is the toughest thing to do.
People don¹t like change. Everybody¹s in favor of change in general, but
not in particular.
When you propse a change, everybody tells you it¹s the end of the world.
When you¹re making the change, everybody hates you. But when the change is
done, everybody thinks it¹s always been like that.
Right in the middle fo the most controversial reform, I had to go into
hospital for an operation. I¹m lying on the hospital bed, and in comes the
anesthetist Š ³I may not get another chance to tell you this, Mr. Blair.²
Not a great start, is it? I just want to tell you, ³I¹m against your
health reform.²
Once you¹re making the change, it¹s always difficult.
We have to be prepared to reform, adapt, and adjust almost in a state of
perpetual or permanent revolution.
3) Leaders have to make decisions.
Thing about leadership is that the leaders stand up.
It¹s about deciding first that you¹re going to take that mantle of
responsibility on you and that you¹re going to have the courage to
discharge it. And here¹s the thing, people don¹t always like you for it.
If you want to be popular, then avoid the leadership thing.
After Sept 11, I had to decide whether we stood with America or not, and I
decided we should.
War or peace, environment, poverty in Africa, in terms of many changes we
were making in Britain.
And those decisions are difficult.
4) What is forgivable is the failure. What is unforgivable is NOT to try.
Be prepared in a situation of leadership to be knocked back. You don¹t
always succeed. Sometimes you find it¹s too tough.
If you aim for the sky, you have a chance of hitting the ceiling. If you
aim for the ceiling, you end up on your back.
That is particularly the thing to do when you come to think about peace or
the peace negotiations.
The truth is each situation is different. Each situation has its unique
contours.
But on the other hand, there are certain characteristics that at least I
learned in Northern Ireland and now am trying to apply in the midcdle east
peace process.
a) you¹ve got to focus
virtually everbody I know said in the beginning it would not work. But we
focused on it all the time. Solve it if you can. Manage it if you can,
but always have a focus and a grip on what is happening.
b) Agree on principles, but understand there will be compromises. And you
will be attacked on all sides.
Agree on framework and principles but be prepared to make compromises to
ahceive your aim.
c) We managed to get the Good Friday agreement a plan for the peace. And
for the middle east now, what is missing is the plan. These things can¹t
be done unless you have a plan for achieving with clear milestones.
At the heart of all these conflicts is usually a strong disagreement. We
drew up a plan that had a basic set of principles in it
So that even if the disagreements still remained, nonetheless, we had a
basis for proceeding that allowed people to come together.
d) There are going to be attempts to destabilize whatever you agree.
The worst terrorist incidents happened after the Friday agreement. But
here was the decision we had to take. The question was when that happened
and the purpose of thet error was to destabilize the agreement. We had to
take a decision. Did I say the whole thing is hopeless or did we say
that¹s why we need peace.
Fortunately, we decided that we were going to say you are doing this to
destabilize this peace process. We are refusing to be destabilized.
And we succeeded. But it was acritical moment. And one of the thigns I
constantly worry about in context of middle east is that you¹ll often hear
people say well that shows you the whole thing¹s hopeless. That attitude
will never succeed in bringing about peace.
e) You can only have peace if both sides want it. But usuaully there is
always a possibility of finding a context in which they both want peace.
And therefore what you must do is never give up.
So you focus on it, you get your plan. You overcome attempts to
destabilize. But the bottom line is you never give up.
In the end, despite all the difficulties, we managed to do it. We managed
to do it in a way too that has meant there is now an economic progress that
comes along with the peace.
Because very often with conflict, it¹s not just there¹s a political
dispute, but very often development has been held back. It¹s often a
breeding ground of frustration and anger that is born partly out of
politics but also the failure of having prpoer living standards for people.
Leadership. How you have to understand the world. How you have to change.
How you have to standup and make decisions. How you have to be prepared to
try.
The econolmy and development matters of course it does. And part of our
mission is to rid this world of economic poverty that deprives so many
people.
But in the end, our lives and our life purpose is not just material. Of
course, ti¹s about the economy, but it¹s also about values.
And in that how the world fo faith interacts with our society matters
prfoundly.
What are you now going to do? You¹ve been PM for 10 years. And I said the
first thing I¹d like to do is I¹d like to bring about peace in the middle
East. I¹d like to bring about the faiths in the world
Part of understanding the modern world is to understand how the world of
Faith interacts with it.
I also want a world that has a strong sense of the values that I believe
in. values of solidarity on the basis of a universal appeal and
affection between different parts of humanity.
And I was thinking when I was standing at your memorial to Jose Rizal
yesterday. That here was a leader who of course, stood for a strong
political campaign and had a huge stense of political msision, but actually
as a person and the reason why he still gets such respect, is that he
stood for something more than that.
He stood for humanity the rights of people to live as equal members of
human society.
So when I reflect on leadership.
Our world today has need of leadership perhaps more than ever before.
I hope I can give something still to a world that is beset by so many
problems.
The other thing about leaership is that every leader has their day but
things move on.
The day after I leave office, I get my first mobile phone! My first text.
But I didn’t know that your name doesn’t show up. So I texted my friend,
“Hi, how are you?” He responded.
³Sorry, who are you?² And I¹m sitting there thinking, it¹s been 24 hours.
The lesson in that is you can learn a little bit of humility as a leader.
