The theme of training, which has produced copious and often "useless" literature over the years, would have in this historical moment even more strategic value than the past due to the epochal challenges that the pandemic has accentuated and made no longer postponeable, not to mention the now widespread revolution technology and ecological transition.
The training of the ruling class: indispensable today more than ever
Never before would it be essential to give concrete implementation and substance on this issue to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the well-known Pnrr. A commitment that also requires a ruling class capable of the numerous and complex objectives to be achieved; a leadership also suitably trained, possessing managerial, administrative and managerial skills, capable of responding to the historic opportunity offered to our country for a concrete and sustainable economic, social and environmental reconstruction.
The absence of a class of this level is a theme that is also taken up in the various journalistic and television debates, only to be then placed in the drawer and taken up again from time to time as it already happened years ago, after the economic crisis of 2008.
When, in the face of that serious crisis, we decided with Luiss to deal with this problem with an annual report entitled: "Generating the ruling class", we set off with great enthusiasm and enthusiasm, so much so that in the first three or four years we reached a thousand participants in the Rome Auditorium at the presentations of the first Reports. As the crisis receded, interest in this great need to promote a new and more competent ruling class also receded, so much so that after 9 years of ups and downs we closed that experience before developing an adequate training program.
A program that should have been aimed above all at the responsibility functions of the future leaders, consistent with the many results to be achieved, and then extended to all that human capital that makes Italy a real "Skills Factory", to paraphrase the title of my previous book (Luiss University Press 2020) already significantly subtitled "How culture and experience can restart growth”, written during the pandemic in an attempt to renew some interest around the age-old problem of the absence of a real ruling class.
The formation of the ruling class: why a new book
In recent years, with the proliferation of a vast populism, not only in our country and a new, more serious crisis, the shortage of the ruling class has once again emerged and increased and even if, to tell the truth, there is no talk shows or television debates that do not deal with this theme, the various problems and contents of training are never studied in depth, without giving it due prominence and considering competence as a true value.
For this reason, after a professional life in the public and private sectors dedicated to training, including management, I decided to write "The barriers of Parliament Square. Culture, values and skills of tomorrow's executive class (Luiss University Press 2022)” which, on the basis of my long managerial experience, as well as doctrinal elaboration, could still address, albeit in a new, simpler and more fluent way, the issue of skills and the generation of a new managerial class, with a interconnection between theory and practice, between knowledge and experience, between young and old.
The title of the book comes from the manifest incapacity of the current political ruling class to guarantee even the slightest decorum of the institutions, and to take responsibility.
As the responsibility of the function, which requires the integration of professional skills with indispensable moral values; respect for others, which implies the continuous implementation of the principle of correctness and solidarity in politics, in society, at work; the value of simplification, which involves the ability to synthesise, communicate and make decisions quickly; there alliance culture, which embodies organizational intelligence, attractiveness and attention to results.
Training remains relegated to a supporting role
Unfortunately, however, even in a phase of profound labor market crisis such as the one we are experiencing, training remains relegated to a "secondary" role, a need evoked and never formally and concretely imposed except in the rigidity of both the to which its use is subjected, and of the controls.
After one is worth one, the pandemic and the most recent political crisis, there are not many ways out. The deterioration of human capital continues, inexorable, and I don't seem to see much interest in the topic I am dealing with once again in an attempt to solicit some valid interlocutor who, truly believing in the value of investment in training, does not only make it an object of an unidentified "transversality" that risks losing its fundamental importance and every precise purpose.
We need a ruling class seriously committed to this matter who, through an alliance between public and private (choosing the best and most enthusiastic experts in the world of work, business and above all in universities), can accompany each of the works envisaged in the Pnrr with appropriate training interventions.
Generating a ruling class: here are some proposals
The tragic crisis caused by the Covid has shown us that there should no longer be room for improvisation and lack of professionalism either at a political level, or in the health sector, or in any other area, because sacrifice, commitment, study, experience on the field, expertise are the only weapons we have to express our value. And to make our country grow both in prestige and in economic terms. But it is necessary to possess modern skills, the result of a necessary mix between theoretical knowledge and practical experience, between what has been learned in books and what has been acquired on the job.
Our country, which has always been capable of "manufacturing" unparalleled skills, paradoxically is no longer able to generate human resources worthy of its history and the challenges that await us. A serious shortcoming, which risks complicating the precarious balance of the present and further weakening the prospects for tomorrow's social and economic life.
We all agree that it is necessaryGenerate a ruling class”. Pragmatically, one could start from the proposals contained in the book, which reflects on the causes of the widespread lack of merit that is rampant in our country today, analyzes the characteristics that a future ruling class must possess and identifies the basic elements of which it should be composed and characterized which it is impossible to ignore. It is an attempt to bring even those young people who will be the new ruling classes closer to reflecting on these complex issues, so that they can prepare and train to build the Italy of the future with competence, ability, determination, commitment and a lot of passion. Instead, the responsibility of us adults is to create the conditions for young people to have full access to education and high-quality theoretical and practical training, complete training that knows how to connect knowledge and skills, generating opportunities for development and growth for the individuals and the systems in which they act, in a sort of generational pact with a healthy turnover based on merit and skills that can put an end to educational poverty so far too often encountered and accepted.
