Corporate Machinery For Hearing And Heeding New Voices: A Panel

Abstract

MR. RICHARD J. FARRELL: First of all, as moderator of this panel, I am going to presume to respond on behalf of the panel in its entirety to your introductions, and remind them, after those rather generous references you have made, of the fellow who was basking in the warm reflected light of his introduction at an after-dinner speech, and, on the way home, turned to his wife and said, "Dear, you know, isn’t it striking that there are so few leaders in this business of ours!". And she said, "Yes, my dear-and there’s just one fewer than you think!" This subject, as we have been reminded a time or two today, is one that's caught the public fancy. It seems a very current thing, yet it has been commented on many times before. I was struck recently, in finishing a book I'd been at for some time, with some of the concluding observations made by Sir Kenneth Clark in his work on "Civilization." I think many of you saw it produced on our NET television, although it was earlier popularized on the BBC. In the concluding paragraphs of his commentary, Sir Kenneth says two things I thought were worthy of quotation, here: "Well, one doesn't need to be young to dislike institutions. But the dreary fact remains that, even in the darkest ages, it was institutions that made society work, and if civilization is to survive, society must somehow be made to work."