Out of Office: When The World is Your Workplace With my wife, Yoo Soon-taek, and my team at a roadside service station in Argentina, taking a break on an unplanned all-night coach journey. This post is part of a series in which LinkedIn Influencers and members share their business travel advice and stories from life on the road. Read all the posts here. As Secretary-General, my job is to serve the world’s people – and to do that effectively, I have to travel to where they live, witness their struggles and triumphs, listen to their appeals and aspirations, and bring their messages to leaders and the public at large. That is why I am so often on the road and on the frontlines of United Nations activities to establish peace, end poverty and promote human rights around the world. I typically cross several time zones in one trip – but even more jarring, I move between presidential palaces and refugee camps, wealthy capitals and deprived regions, war zones and areas that enjoy prosperity and peace. The contrasts between the humble shelter of a displaced family and the ornate grandeur of a statehouse are not nearly as important to me as the evidence of our common humanity. Whether I meet with a prime minister or a hospital patient, I find that both understand that the challenges facing our world demand a collective response – and they look to the UN for leadership. We need all hands on deck. I have opened the doors of the UN to many trusted partners – and I cross many thresholds during my travels to forge more productive relationships. In addition to meeting with world leaders and government officials, I seek out grassroots activists, business executives and parliamentarians. I engage closely with UN staff members in our field offices, and I hear from the families they serve: women who receive better health care, communities that gain improved sanitation, children at UN-supported schools. My schedule is hectic; I tend to read more briefs than take brief naps. I use my time on the plane to organize my discussion points. More importantly, I try to reflect on what I have learned, bouncing thoughts off of my aides and delegating tasks so that the fruitful ideas generated on a trip transform into tangible actions after it ends. Thanks to my hard-working team, my travel is usually smooth, but there are always unforeseen disruptions. I have learned to find the silver lining in the cloud – even if it is caused by a volcano. Making the best of an unexpected travel disruption: Outside the coach that took me, along with my wife and team, on an all-night road trip across Argentina. In 2011, I was on a regional tour to boost cooperation with a number of Latin American countries when, like thousands of other passengers, my flight to Buenos Aires was cancelled because of an ash cloud from an erupting volcano in Chile. Travelling hundreds of miles by bus, I found that what might have at first seemed to be an inconvenience turned out to be an incomparable opportunity to see Argentina from a different vantage point. In a sense, this is the purpose of all business travel: to leave our offices, reframe our perspective and gain new insights that will serve us on the journey to our goals. August 05, 2014 출처: ow.ly/zYTTY
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 11:21:20 +0000