UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO
COBA
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
MAY 8, 2009
Dean Gutteridge, distinguished faculty, alumni, honored guests and most especially ….. those who are graduating here today.
When Dean Gutteridge asked me to be this year’s commencement speaker, I felt deeply honored and somewhat daunted on several counts. It is a privilege to be associated with a list of very eminent UT College of Business commencement speakers over the years. As a 1966 graduate of this very university, I have no idea who delivered my commencement address and I have little hope that you will remember me 40 years from now – or 20 or 10 for that matter. I do hope, however, that you will remember some of my thoughts and comments and if they help any of you get through tough times or achieve greatness in your chosen field, then I will have succeeded.
So I feel the usual weight of a commencement speakers marching orders, to Challenge, to Inspire and to Encourage the pursuit of excellence. Most of what I will be talking to today will revolve around two major points: The curse of normalcy and leadership. In my over 40 years in the business world, these 2 points have reoccurred over and over and I expect you will all have to deal with these as well.
Let me start with Masco Corporation. I would guess that most of you have never heard about Masco despite the fact that it is the largest provider of goods and services to the home building and remodeling industry. One way or another, with goods or services, we are in over 50% of all houses that are built in the U.S. and also are present in over 54 countries around the world. Before the current economic slowdown, we had over 65,000 employees with manufacturing plants in 13 countries – including Europe and Asia. But who or what is Masco? While Wall Street knows us well, the average consumer knows our products – but not under the Masco name. We are the largest kitchen cabinet manufacturer in the world with brand names such as Merillat, KraftMaid and Mills Pride. We are the largest plumbing manufacturer in the world with brands such as Delta Faucet, HansGrohe, Hot Spring Spas, Aqua Glass tubs and Alsons shower heads.
We are a leading window manufacturer on the West Coast with Milgard Windows and we own Liberty Hardware and Arrow Staple Guns. Perhaps you’ve heard of Behr Paint and Kilz brand primer or MasterChem.
And under Masco Contractor Services we do the installation of insulation in over 50% of all homes being built in America.
No education by itself can prepare you to run a company of this magnitude, but learning to juggle more than 1 ball at a time, understanding what you know and what you need help with, learning how to work with all types of different people – are all things that I can trace back to my days at this university.
Which leads me to my first point … new personal challenges will keep coming at you. They will multiply exponentially. Some will be bigger than any you have yet faced. Some you will win, some will be a draw, and some will be a character-building experience. These real day-to-day challenges are the building blocks of a meaningful life… personally and in your career.
If you went to the library and read 1,000 commencement speeches, you would find many talking about the state of international affairs, or the state of the economy. Graduates are urged to participate in the good fortune of boom times or to swallow hard at the dim prospects of recession. They are reminded of a grim outlook on the internal front … of war or the threat of war … of instability in one region or another, and of the great promise or threat, depending on the speaker’s view of “globalization”.
Let me say right up front, it is not my charge to discuss what impact foreign affairs will have on the United States, on Ohio, on your communities, or on today’s University of Toledo graduates. Nor does it make any sense for me to read economic tealeaves seeking to forecast your unique career prospects. We all care about the world scene. We all have intellectual curiosity. We all wish to be informed … we are all aware that September 11, 2001 our world changed in profound ways … but unless we are wearing a uniform on the front lines, or negotiating a new trade treaty, these are not day-to-day personal challenges we can address head-on.
I will say this about life since September 11, 2001. Those horrible events have made us a nation united in many important ways …. ways I had never experienced, not since my own graduation during the Vietnam War, when we were a nation sorely divided. Our great nation will prevail, and I believe one reason is that we are a democratic society … in which each of us focuses on day-to-day challenges where we can make … where we are allowed to make … an individual difference. That is why we are a nation that is greater than the sum of its parts. And that is why the business community is such a vital part of the equation.
There will always be good times. There will always be bad times. Don’t ride with them. Get behind the wheel and see how much mileage you can get out of either. Don’t let chatter about a soft economy or the realities of a war on terrorism impair your vision … your dreams of entrepreneurship… or your endless focus on professional excellence. Those dreams and that quest for excellence are where you’ll find daily personal challenges you can meet head-on. The enemy, the terrorist enemy of the moment and the timeless enemy of goals set too low, would have you focus elsewhere.
Your dreams … your aspirations … your dedication … and sacrifice … symbolized by the diplomas that will be awarded here today, cannot be tainted by gloomy economic forecasts or an uncertain world. When you examine where you would like to be 20 to 30 years from today … what does any such foreboding have to do with finding the best path to your vision? How many economic upturns and downturns do you suppose will occur during this future you are so carefully preparing for, and in which you plan to build a good life? The economy or world affairs might impact your strategy … but cannot be an excuse for deferring your dream. You need to find the path that best suits you. For sure there will be forks in the path and decisions to be made. That is where leadership begins by leading yourself.
Now that I have assured you that economic gloom and global conflict are no excuse for bad performance, what can I say that will help you meet those challenges where you can make a difference?
If you want your audience to remember something from a speech, perhaps even years down the road … then it had best be one phrase. Lucky for me, one phrase kept coming to mind as I prepared these remarks. I mentioned it at the outset … what I call “the curse of normalcy”.
This curse applies to any organization or company or individual who says, “well, this was working yesterday, it seems to be working today, so it will probably work just fine tomorrow”. Wrong!!! Sooner or later, and probably sooner, it will not work. For certain, it, whatever “it” might be, can be done better. Better results. Better cost-efficiency. Better employee satisfaction and therefore better productivity in the shop. Better client satisfaction and therefore more business. Even before the status quo stops working, someone else will come along and do it better … meaning normalcy is unavoidably cursed.
Expertise and skill are, of course, a requirement to defeating the curse of normalcy. For example, I am an accountant and a businessman and happen to live in the greater Detroit area. As such, I would have had no idea, lo these many decades, of how to lift the curse of normalcy from the Detroit Lions.
Given skills and expertise, the very thing you came to the University of Toledo to acquire, one is equipped to set course on rejecting the curse of normalcy. This quest, I believe, lies at the heart of the entrepreneurial spirit. Note, I am not suggesting that all of you will become entrepreneurs in the dictionary sense of the word. Rhetoric to the contrary, not everyone in this country will wind up owning the shop. But all of us can be entrepreneurs in the more important meaning of that word. As a successful entrepreneur in the non-traditional sense, let me assure you that my most valuable employees, my most successful employees … are also entrepreneurs. How can that be?
They do not befriend the status quo. They have no impulse to find a path that merely leads them through the day, with an eye toward the clock … instead of toward improving whatever skill or process they contribute. They do not merely work hard at their assigned tasks. They strive to understand how their work impacts the bigger picture; because that’s the only way they can contribute meaningful innovation. Meaningful innovation is, of course … the whole card that trumps the curse of normalcy.
It’s philosophically interesting that these employee attributes are the very same attributes of successful entrepreneurs who do own the shop. Perhaps more interesting to someone who has just completed a hard-earned degree is this: entrepreneurial spirit on a payroll is rewarded. Unless, of course, you are working for an organization that is doomed by the curse of normalcy.
If you were to go home tonight and put together a time capsule of items that will tell the story of the environment in which you received today’s diploma … a capsule you could open 20 to 30 years down the road to remind yourself where your journey began … one item you might want to place in that capsule would be the number one business cliché of the day. I would suggest this one: “thinking outside the box”.
Let me say three things about that cliché.
First … business clichés do not arise from nowhere. They have meaning, a basis in reality. You hear pleas for “thinking outside the box” because that’s exactly what’s needed.
Second … successful companies and successful entrepreneurial ideas have always involved “thinking outside the box”. The reason it has become a cliché is simply that technology and other forces for change mean the curse of normalcy takes its toll a whole lot quicker than it used to. You have to think outside the box; otherwise you’re liable to be inside when it collapses.
And third … “thinking outside the box” doesn’t mean barging into a room and throwing some new ideas on the table. It first means understanding in great detail the box that you are thinking outside of. That means skill and experience. If it works, you can fix it. But first you need to understand how it works. Better yet, be responsible for making it work today AND tomorrow.
I don’t think “the curse of normalcy” is going to become a cliché anytime soon. But I hope some of you will retain that phrase over the years to remember exactly why you are thinking outside the box.
What you must remember is that today really is the commencement of something that never ends … skill-building … enhancing your ability to think independently … and ultimately defeating the curse of normalcy … lest it defeat you. These are hallmarks of innovation and of leadership.
What am I leaving out of this little formula? Only the most important parts of life. Mark my words, however. Family and community are well-served by a successful career. And a successful career is well-served by a vision and a pursuit of excellence that does not lose focus on the reasons that career is meaningful outside yourself. The engineers tell us the tripod is the most stable support system because it will balance on rough terrain. Family, community and career are the tripod our lives stand upon. You can count on the rough terrain.
Family speaks for itself. It is the basic glue of life that is there before our career begins and is there when our career ends. As for community service … let me give not just a plug … but also a sincere observation I have made about the entrepreneurial spirit and … the business world.
When we speak of a personal vision, when I speak to you as business graduates … of course, we talk about achieving success. And financial success is usually the first thing that comes to mind. It has been my experience however, that if one looks at what one wants out of life … and if one is driven merely by the desire to make money … then one probably will not be successful.
Success arises neither from cruising through the day and accepting the curse of normalcy, nor from a round-the-clock pursuit of the profit motive. Time and again I have seen people who give of their time and resources for community-building activities become the most successful of all. There are reasons for this. I think people who innately possess or who develop attributes that make for valuable community service, are people who learn to understand other people better … who learn how to solve problems better … who learn how to negotiate better. They are people who get outside the box of their career and think!
Finally, because you are about to become University of Toledo graduates, most of you will become leaders. I have talked some about leadership. How it starts with leading yourself … with independent thinking … with a refusal to let the curse of normalcy dull your career. There is one thing you must know when you find yourself in a position to lead others. It is an immutable, absolute truth.
When you seek to lead others toward independent thinking … toward innovation … toward thinking of goals and improved processes rather than cruising through the day … toward contributing to the community you share … then you must never ask for any effort that you do not expend yourself, visibly … constantly … resolutely. Otherwise you will not be a leader … but merely a boss.
My final thought for you today. I know it took awhile, but I’m finally there. If you remember nothing else I have said, please remember these final words: Common Sense and Ethics. They have guided me through life and have always served me well.
Life is full of shortcuts and temptations. Do the right things and you will be rewarded.
It sounds simple, but there have been too many careers and promising futures thrown away by people taking short-cuts and not doing the right things.
My sincerest best wishes for great success to the University of Toledo College of Business’ newest graduates. Whatever paths you may choose … the history of the University of Toledo says you will do well. Congratulations.