There is a total lack of high level leadership. I can only assume that the other issues were considered so important that this otherwise high scoring item just had to be relegated when it came to choosing the Main reason for pessimism. Of the five clear major reasons for despondency four are to do with the Survival Path and the remaining one 'lack of High Level Leadership' is an External Agency item. If you haven't accepted y2k as a problem you haven't understood it. So they are saying 'We haven't got enough people to understand, so too few have acted'.
Action is a process that needs to be gone through.
This is the Understanding phase, most of us believe that too few businesses and public organisations really understand the problem well enough that they will move on to the Action phase at a rate which will make us feel that victory is within sight. Clearly not, we must do better, we can do better, we have to do better. We know that without leadership at the highest level within an individual business a Year 2000 plan is a hostage to fortune and a likely failure. Because of Global interdependence it is also required that our political leaders act and respond in a co-ordinated manner. To date these elements have been missing.