In the 30 years since, downtowns have transformed. They have become vigorous cultural hubs. But now the “Homers,” those that refuse to return to the office, are robbing urban downtowns of the oxygen they need to survive, thereby rendering them “soulless.”

Returning to the office is a key to recovering from the pandemic. This is especially so in urban areas, where downtown life are cultural and economic hubs. They represent the backbone of urban landscapes. Office occupancy is well below pre-pandemic levels worldwide. But the nation’s capital, brimming with museums and clubs and tip-top restaurants and 24 million visitors from around the world each year, has only one in four people back in the office? That is not sustainable.

As the COVID-19 pandemic winds its way, Americans are contemplating how best to return to some semblance of normal in their personal and professional lives, and how they’ll be able to shed the anxieties of the pandemic to handle the stress of resuming work in an office.

At this week’s Milken Institute Global Conference, CEOs from five of the world’s most respected companies discussed how to navigate a changing world filled with volatility and uncertainty. The executives represented companies that are not the hothouse disruptors of the technology industry, but some of the world’s largest corporate titans — EY, Goldman Sachs, General Mills, Siemens USA and Viacom. And that’s what made these CEO’s responses all the more interesting.

Women’s issues in corporate America are on center stage. Topics such as the number of women among senior executives and pay differences between genders are news stories that resonate have become the subject of policy debate. But “big law,” an industry nickname for the nation’s hundred largest law firms, largely has avoided this attention.

In the 1999 film The Matrix, the sage Morpheus offered the neophyte Neo a bargain. He presented two pills, one red, one blue. One brought enlightenment, one obliviousness. In the political landscape of today, it seems as if everyone has accepted that bargain and swallowed one or the other pill. Whether red or blue pill is incidental. It’s irrevocable. There’s no turning back.

The World Economic Forum’s annual Davos gathering—the most celebrated of all the international policy conferences—is so coveted an invitation that it is on the bucket list of almost every industry executive and government leader with global ambitions.

Inevitably and rightly so, a New Year summons reflection. What happened, why it happened, and what can be done about it will be a prevalent theme. The focus is typically on specific events, as specific events allow for clear diagnoses, prognoses, and prescriptions....

Advice on how to improve one’s self is everywhere. It accounts for about 2.5% of all book sales in the United States. Add in speeches, training programs, TV programs, online-products, coaches, yoga, and the like, self-help is a $10 billion industry per year, and...

We like our leaders flawed, just like we like ourselves.