In the Room before the Decision

 

We have never been more connected, or more alone with our decisions.

Leaders carry more information and fewer real conversations than at any time in memory. Loneliness has become a global health concern. Engagement at work is falling. Trust is narrowing to people who think alike. And across much of the world, the space for free, open thinking is shrinking.

The tour answers all four with something simple and old: leaders in a room, facing one another, thinking together before they act.

 

The problem the Salum Tour solves: important decisions made alone, in a hurry, inside narrowing circles.

The answer to the problem: a curated gathering where leaders meet across circles, think out loud with people they trust, and leave with a clearer decision and stronger relationships.

 

One city. Two to three days. Four rooms.

A City Stop is a complete visit by Carlos Salum to one city, built with a local host. Each activity has its own room, its own size and its own purpose. Together they move people from an idea, to a creative conversation, to a team decision.

 
 

Room 1 - The Talk

A story from forty-five years beside sports champions, executives and family legacies, and one idea that changes how a decision looks.

30 to 300 guests

 

Room 2 - The Play/Learn/Create Factory

A hands-on session with simple materials and a real challenge. The team leaves with a written decision and a prototype.

12 to 30 people from one company or team

 

Room 3 - TheSircle Dinner

One table, one governing question, one evening. A curated dinner series held in Europe and the United States since 2009.

8 to 12 guests

 

Room 4 - Private Decision Sessions

Confidential consultation before a decision that cannot be undone.

Private conversation. 90 minutes

 

Activities a City Stop host can add:

  • A standalone keynote for a conference or company event

  • Full-day Play/Learn/Create Factory for a leadership team, with two challenges and a deeper debrief

  • A film of the Factory session, for the host's own use

  • 90-Day Decision Review, a virtual session that tests what the team decided

  • Event Week, a stop built around a major sporting or cultural event and its hospitality

  • Signed books for every guest

 

Benefits for the Participants

  • Clarity before commitment: A decision examined from every side before it becomes irreversible

  • Real conversation: Time to think out loud, listen and be heard, without screens

  • New and lasting relationships: Peers met across industries, generations and borders, around shared questions

  • Renewed energy: A break from the urgent to work on the important, with full attention

  • A practical result: A written decision, a prototype or a next step, in hand before they leave

  • A private hour: A confidential conversation about the choice that matters most to them

 

Benefits for the City Stop Hosts and Sponsors

  • A gathering your guests remember: A complete experience, designed and delivered for you, that sets your organization apart

  • Deeper client relationships: Your most important people spend an evening and a day with you on what matters most to them

  • A visible commitment to leadership: Your name attached to clear thinking, courage and responsibility

  • A team that decides better: Your own people practice deciding together, with a result they can use the next morning

  • Insight into your market: A closing report on the questions and decisions your guests brought to the room, kept anonymous

  • A platform that returns: One stop a year in your city builds a tradition your clients expect

  • Simplicity: One date, one agreement, one partner who handles the content and the room

 

The Purpose - Theme by Theme

The tour rests on nine ideas. Each answers part of the question: why gather leaders in a room, and why now?

  • Human connection protects health as surely as diet or exercise, and its absence is now measured as a public-health risk. A City Stop puts people in the same room, at the same table, on purpose.

    The evidence

    • The World Health Organization reports that loneliness affects 1 in 6 people worldwide and is linked to more than 871,000 deaths a year, about 100 every hour [1].

    • The 2023 US Surgeon General's advisory found that about half of US adults report measurable loneliness, and that a lack of connection carries a risk of early death comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day [5].

    • A meta-analysis of 148 studies and 308,849 people found a 50% greater likelihood of survival for people with stronger social relationships [6].

  • Conversation is where people discover what they think. Screens interrupt it. The TheSircle Dinner protects it: one question, one table, full attention.

    The evidence

    • In a survey cited by MIT professor Sherry Turkle, 89% of Americans said they took out a phone during their last social interaction, and 82% said it made the conversation worse [7].

    • Turkle's research links face-to-face conversation to empathy and intimacy, and the presence of a phone on the table to weaker connection between people [7].

  • Leaders run out of energy before they run out of time. The tour borrows from the science of elite performance: work with full attention, then recover. Every part of a City Stop asks guests to be fully present.

    The evidence

    • Gallup finds that only 20% of employees worldwide were engaged at work in 2025, down from 23% in 2022 [2].

    • Manager engagement fell to 22% in 2025, and Gallup estimates that low engagement cost the world economy about $10 trillion in lost productivity in 2024, roughly 9% of global GDP [2].

  • Friendship is the relationship most leaders neglect first and miss most. TheSircle has gathered people around a table since 2009 because friendships grow from repeated, meaningful time together.

    The evidence

    • Americans reporting no close friends rose from 3% in 1990 to 12% in 2021; those with ten or more close friends fell from 33% to 13% [9].

    • The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has followed its participants since 1938, finds that the quality of relationships predicts health and happiness across a lifetime [10].

  • The most valuable introductions come from beyond our own circle. A City Stop brings together people who would not otherwise meet, around a shared question, so the connection has a reason to last.

    The evidence

    • Sociologist Mark Granovetter showed in 1973 that new information and opportunities flow most often through “weak ties”: acquaintances outside our closest circle [11].

    • A 2022 study in Science, covering 20 million LinkedIn members over five years, confirmed that moderately weak ties produce the greatest job mobility [12].

  • The quality of an organization's decisions rests on the quality of its leaders' thinking. The Factory and the Decision Sessions train that thinking on a real decision, in real time.

    The evidence

    • In a McKinsey survey of 1,228 managers and executives, 61% said most of their decision-making time is used ineffectively, and only 20% said their organization excels at decision making [13].

    • Gallup's 2025 data show manager engagement at 22%, down nine points since 2022: the people expected to lead others are running low themselves [2].

  • The question for leaders has widened from “how do we win?” to “what do we leave behind?” Every City Stop closes with that question: what would it mean to be the best for the people and places you serve?

    The evidence

    • The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer finds that 78% of employees trust their own employer, more than any other institution, and 64% of people trust business [3].

    • That trust is a responsibility: people now look to the leaders closest to them, at work and in their communities, to act well.

  • Leaders who cross borders, languages and industries carry ideas and trust with them. The tour travels between the United States and Europe in two languages and asks every guest to become an ambassador for what they learned.

    The evidence

    • Edelman's 2026 research finds that about 7 in 10 people are unwilling or hesitant to trust people with different values, views, backgrounds or sources of information [3].

    • Edelman calls this insularity “the next crisis of trust.” Gatherings that bring different people to the same table work directly against it [3].

  • The Renaissance began in rooms where merchants, artists, scientists and thinkers met and argued freely. Free societies depend on that habit: people who think for themselves and talk openly with people unlike themselves. The tour is a small, deliberate contribution to a new renaissance of independent thinking.

    The evidence

    • V-Dem's 2025 Democracy Report counts 91 autocracies and 88 democracies, with 72% of the world's population living under autocratic rule [4].

    • Freedom House reports that global freedom declined in 2025 for the 20th consecutive year, with 54 countries losing ground and 35 improving [14].

 

Four Ways to Participate in the Organization

  1. Host Partner - A well-connected individual: an entrepreneur, a board member, a private banker, a club leader. Open your network, choose the guests with Carlos, help find the room. You receive a share of the stop fees and a seat at the head of the table.

  2. Host Organization - A bank, an insurer, a company, a family office, a club or an association. Bring the City Stop to your clients, your leadership team or your members. You develop a complete client or leadership experience on one date and one agreement.

  3. Title Sponsor - A brand or firm that wants its name beside serious conversations with leaders. Support a regional tour of three or more cities. You hold the branding of the tour, seats at every dinner, a private client dinner and receive a closing report.

  4. Promoter or Agent - A speaker bureau, an event organizer or an independent promoter. Present and organize City Stops and keynotes with your clients. You receive a commission on every stop and keynote you originate.

 

Questions & Answers

  • How long is a City Stop? Two to three days, built around your calendar.

  • Can we choose only one part? The City Stop works best as a whole. A standalone keynote is available on request.

  • Where does it take place? Your offices, your club, a hotel or a venue we choose together. The Factory needs one open room and a few tables.

  • In which languages? English or Spanish. All other languages require Simultaneous Translation.

  • What does it cost? It depends on the city, the season and the format. Founding stops in the first half of 2027 start at USD 6,500 plus travel. We share full details in the first conversation.

  • Who owns the content? You keep your decisions, your prototypes and your film. The method, the talks and the materials remain with Salum International Resources.

 

Bring the Tour to Your City

Let’s start the conversation. Tell us your city, your month and the audiences you have in mind. You will receive a reply within two working days.

 

SOURCES OF CITATIONS

  1. World Health Organization, “Social Connection Linked to Improved Health and Reduced Risk of Early Death,” report of the WHO Commission on Social Connection, 30 June 2025. Source

  2. Gallup, State of the Global Workplace, global press release, April 2026 (2025 engagement data; 2024 cost estimate). Source

  3. Edelman, 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer: Society Slides into Insularity, January 2026. Source

  4. V-Dem Institute, Democracy Report 2025: 25 Years of Autocratization, as reported by Ara, 19 April 2025. Source

  5. US Surgeon General, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, advisory, May 2023, as reported by NPR. Source

  6. Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., and Layton, J. B., “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review,” PLoS Medicine, July 2010. Source

  7. Greater Good Magazine, UC Berkeley, “How Smartphones Are Killing Conversation,” interview with Sherry Turkle, 2015. Source

  8. Loehr, J., and Schwartz, T., The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal, Free Press, 2003. Book reference

  9. Cox, D. A., “The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss,” Survey Center on American Life, 8 June 2021. Source

  10. Waldinger, R., interview on the Harvard Study of Adult Development, NPR. Source

  11. Granovetter, M., “The Strength of Weak Ties,” American Journal of Sociology, 1973. Journal article

  12. Rajkumar, K., Saint-Jacques, G., Bojinov, I., Brynjolfsson, E., and Aral, S., “A Causal Test of the Strength of Weak Ties,” Science, September 2022, summarized by MIT IDE. Source

  13. McKinsey & Company, “Decision Making in the Age of Urgency,” 30 April 2019. Source

  14. Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2026: The Growing Shadow of Autocracy, 19 March 2026. Source