Dean DeBrock, Professors, Proud Parents and MBA Class of 2008: Thank you for that introduction and for inviting me here today. It is indeed an honor to be here to speak to you, especially on the 140th anniversary of the founding of the university. Congratulations to the MBA Class of 2008! Actually, Dean DeBrock just informed me that Kam’s, Brothers and Fu Bar called at 7 a.m. today —out of economic necessity, they are respectfully requesting that the Class of 2008 postpone graduation for another year. I don’t know what that’s all about. . . . For the soon-to-be graduates, I realize that it is incredibly early to be here, your eyes look a little puffy, your cap is a little disheveled, -- you haven’t had much sleep because you have been out bidding a fond farewell to your VERY FAVORITE CAMPUS establishments -- like the library ---- all 37 of them. “The library crawl” I think it’s called. I am keenly aware that you have had a hard night and that I am the one thing that is keeping you from proudly crossing the stage and receiving your well-earned graduate degree. You are thinking, “Now my life really begins.” Congratulations! You have made great decisions in your life thus far. You achieved a high undergraduate grade point, aced the GMAT and did all the right things in order to be admitted to the University of Illinois and then you put in the hard work in order to graduate. You are doing very well indeed! The University of Illinois is a very special place—a place where the academics are second to none—so you have been well prepared for your life’s work and life in general. But the University also has special values—core values of high ethics, kindness and decency. The combination—top notch education and core values –make Illinois the best place to get a business education. As you heard in my introduction, I have an MBA from Illinois, my husband also has an MBA from another unnamed school, my older daughter has a business degree and my younger daughter is now working on her business degree. We’re currently in the fourth generation of family leadership in NIBCO-- our business which manufactures plumbing products. We’re a pretty “commerce oriented” family. I didn’t realize just how commerce oriented until a memorable day years ago when my younger daughter was only three years old. She asked me the question about where things come from. . only for her the burning question was, “Mommy, where do cars come from?” I replied, “Oh, good question. Cars are made in factories. Companies in Detroit have big factories that make the cars.” Then, just to make sure she was following this, I added, Do you know what we make at NIBCO?” Her face lit up immediately. She was so proud that she knew the answer. “Yes, I do!” She shouted. “WE MAKE MONEY!” I realize that like my younger daughter, you all are ready to get out there and “MAKE MONEY!” but before you do, I want to give you some real life advice to go with the stellar education you have just received. These are my Six Keys to Success—I guarantee that these work. These are the keys to success in both business and in life in general. NUMBER 1. FIND AND FOLLOW YOUR PASSION!!! Charles Lindbergh said, “It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you’ve wanted to do so badly.” That is so true. I love to get up and go to work every day. I can’t wait to get there, love to stay late, work on the weekends if that is what is needed. Whatever it takes. Every day the day just flies by! On the other hand, if you are working only for a paycheck, the company can never pay you enough. Think about it. You’re giving up your LIFE for money, so of course, you’re ALWAYS underpaid. If your work is your passion, you’d do it for free—if you didn’t have bills to pay. When I graduated with my MBA, I remember that my classmates and I were very competitive as to who had the biggest paycheck. We were scrambling to be the highest paid at some company—and it didn’t matter what company—only the dollar amount of the annual salary mattered. We practically walked around with the dollar sign and the amount on our foreheads. Looking back on that, I realize how incredibly ill-conceived that was. We should have been bragging about how excited we were about the work we had the opportunity to do. I do some college recruiting for my company. Last year, I recruited a really bright young man – football player and high grades in the business school, and he also managed to hold an outside job. When he came to interview with me, I told him that I thought he was interviewing for the wrong job. He was interviewing for human resources and I thought he had a passion for sales. I steered him in that direction. At NIBCO, We made him a good offer in sales, but he turned us down for more money with another company. He didn’t even know what he was going to be doing for the other company—he just knew it paid more. Eight months later, he contacted me saying that I was the only person in business that had ever cared about him. He hated his current job. No one gave him any guidance or even talked to him there. I made him a new offer and we are taking him back. He is getting a second chance. Be forewarned that does not always happen. I hope that all of you have based your first post-MBA job decision on the quality of the work you will be doing and your passion for that work. NUMBER 2. ALWAYS DO THE RIGHT THING. Thoreau said, “Goodness is the only investment that never fails.” I believe that. Be the best person that you can be. That means fulfilling your commitments. If you say you are going to give money to a charity, write the check. If you say to someone, I will take you out to dinner next time you’re in town, do it. If you tell a college student, they can job shadow you for a day, do it. If you promise a subordinate that you will get them a raise or a promotion, do it. We make a mistake when we think the world is large. We make a mistake when we think that we can fail to keep our commitments and no one will ever know or that we will never see those people again. The world is small. You WILL see those people again that you broke your commitment to. The world gets smaller and smaller within the upper echelons of the business community—where you all aspire to be. You will run into the same people again and again. You will be asked for various commitments. Of course, you can’t do them all. Just KEEP THE COMMITMENTS YOU DO MAKE. (Document the fact that you turned a request down.) If you keep commitments, people will remember you fondly. If you don’t keep your commitment, they will remember you not so fondly. How do YOU want to be remembered? NUMBER 3. TAKE A CALCULATED RISK “And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.” -- Erica Jong You don’t want to look back on your life when you’re old and think, “What would have happened if I had only done this?” Taking a risk goes hand in hand with following your passion. Take that risk in order to fulfill your passion. NUMBER 4. DON’T BE AFRAID TO FAIL Raise your hand if you have heard of a company called, “Handy Dan Hardware”. No one. Raise your hand if you have heard of “Home Depot”. Just about everyone—except for the people that fell asleep from spending too much time in the libraries last night. Well, two guys named Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus were fired from Handy Dan Hardware in 1978. Now they could have gone home, cried, pouted and basically gone into a depression thinking they were failures. Instead, they started their own business-- Home Depot. Home Depot revolutionized the way we even think about hardware stores. Today it is the number one do- it- yourself home remodeling store in the world. After 20 successful years, Bernie and Arthur have both retired from Home Depot now. Arthur Blank owns the Atlanta Falcons. Bernie Marcus has started his own charitable foundation—which among other good projects gave Atlanta “The Georgia Aquarium”. The wonderful successes they made for themselves never would have happened if they were afraid from their “Handy Dan” failure. NUMBER 5. GIVE IT YOUR BEST SHOT Lou Holtz has said, “If you don’t make a total commitment to whatever you are doing, then you start looking to bail out the first time the boat starts leaking. It’s tough enough getting that boat to shore with everybody rowing, let alone when a guy stands up and starts putting his life jacket on.” If you make that commitment, most likely you will succeed. I have two personal stories about how giving it your best shot paid off. In 1997, NIBCO had the first successful installation of SAP enterprise resource planning system in the United States. This was a huge success in the technology world. SAP had a lot of potential but companies were literally being ruined by trying to implement it, having SAP ruin all of their systems so that they could not take an order from a customer. My husband made the decision that NIBCO needed to have SAP. He gave it his best shot by putting exclusive resources on making it successful. NIBCO had a team of 25 of our very best NIBCO employees who were taken off their regular jobs to work six day 60-hour weeks for 17 months to exclusively design and install NIBCO’s SAP system. It was a tremendous commitment of talent and resources but this “best shot” approach worked. SAP ran well from Go Live! date. It was an historic accomplishment in the business world, but it never would have happened if NIBCO hadn’t given it our best shot. Second story, right after that event, my husband said, “Oh, it’s sad, but we’re going to lose all of those good people that did the SAP installation. They have accomplished the near impossible. They will be so valued in the technology industry. Other companies will offer them two to three times what we are paying them to go install SAP for them.” I remember saying, “If we don’t TRY to keep them, we WON’T keep them. Let’s try really hard to retain them.” We did a number of things—taking the employees on a reward trip, giving them Rolex watches, letting them select the job in the company they wanted next—but we did not just throw a lot of money at them. One year after the installation, we still had 100% of those highly-valued employees working for us. We just celebrated our ten year anniversary of the installation and we still have ten of the original 25 working for us. If we hadn’t tried, we wouldn’t have retained them. NUMBER 6. GIVE BACK Giving back just makes your life so much more fulfilled. In your mad dash to have successful careers, don’t forget to give back. My husband and I are fortunate enough to be able to give money away and that is rewarding but of course, not everyone can do that. If you can’t give money away, give of yourself. Be a Big Brother/Big Sister, tutor a child in math, sit on a charity’s Board of Directors, help out University of Illinois, the educational institution that helped you. All of these things help expand and develop you as a person. You really do gain more as the giver than the receiver. Ethel Andrus said, “What I spent is gone; what I kept, I lost; but what I gave away will be mine forever.” That’s it. Those are my six keys to success. Follow these and you will be successful. I Guarantee it. One more piece of advice: BE GLAD THAT YOU ARE AN ILLINI! I - L – L – I – N- I !