Descending to the Top
January 16th, 2007 by jet-freespiritgraduating class of UP entitled "What’s Better Than?" made the email
rounds and inspired readers with the practical sense the speech offered.
This year, Mr.Jimenez was invited to address the graduating class of
Silliman University and likewise, his speech (though he does not have a
written one since he spoke only from an outline) and its transcribed
form is again making the rounds of email. This is a copy of that speech,
with messages on leadership and success and an interesting hook –
Descending (yes, not Ascending) to the Top. Take the time to pause from
work and read thru it for a lesson or two and some quick inspiration.. .
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93rd SILLIMAN UNIVERSITY COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES
Luce Auditorium Lobby
March 26, 2006
Descending to the Top
Senior Vice-President, Retail Business Group PLDT
OIC, Wireless Consumer Division, Smart Communications
It is a privilege of mine to be here. In 2003, I was requested to be the
commencement speaker for the graduating class of the University of the
Philippines-Diliman. And after I gave that address, I said to myself-and
this is true-the only other invitation that I will accept after UP
Diliman is Silliman University. I have actually been waiting for almost
three years. And I would have waited 30 more years to address you. You
may be asking, "Why is that?" It is simply because of the Christian
roots and the Christian heritage that this university has; the same
roots and the same heritage that my great grandmother, my grandmother,
and even my mother have tried to instill in my life.
That is why I am here. So thank you very much for the privilege. I am
actually quite excited to address all of you. One of the questions
running in your mind today as you graduate and move forward is, "How do
I reach the top?" A fair question and one that needs to be answered. And
since I now presently handle marketing for both PLDT and Smart, let me
share with you some marketing principles that I have learned, that may
guide you on your quest to the top.
A battle for the mind Success in marketing is a battle to be the first
in the mind of the consumer. That is the principle proposed in the ’80s
by two authors, Al Ries and Jack Trout, in their classic book,
"Positioning."
Ries and Trout said that success in marketing is a battle to be the
first in the mind of the consumer. If you are first in the mind of the
consumer, in most cases, you will rise to the top and become the leader
or number one. So, the battle is to be the first in the mind.
Let’s give a couple of examples. When I say cola, what comes first in
your mind? It’s Coke. And today, Coke has risen to the top and is number
one. When you say beer, the first thing that comes into your mind is
San Miguel. They are first in the mind, they are at the top, and they
are the leader. When you say toothpaste, in most cases, what comes to
mind is Colgate. The same rule holds true. Colgate is at the top of
your mind, and they are number one. When you say photocopier, it’s
Xerox. They are first in the mind, they are the leader, and they have
risen to the top. Let’s try something more hip for the new generation
kids. When you say mp3 player, what’s first in your mind. I can actually
read your mind. The iPod.
They are first in the mind, they are at the top, and today, they are
number one.
So, in many instances, the rule actually works. If you want to rise to
the top, you have to be the first in the mind.
The second thing that Al Ries and Jack Trout talked about, aside from
being the first in the mind of the consumer, is burning an attribute or
a characteristic in the minds of the consumers.
For example, Volvo did that. They burned into the mind of the consumer
the attribute of safety. If you want a safe car, Volvo is it. iPod, for
example, is burning in all our minds the attribute of being cool. They
want to drive into our minds that the Ipod is the coolest gadget in the
universe today.
So, two concepts we learn from Marketing to reach the top: Be the first
in the mind and burn an attribute in the mind. Then, you start rising to
the top.
So what does this all mean to you, as you go out into the workplace?
If you guys want to start rising to the top, you have to do the same
thing. You have to be the first or the top of mind amongst the people
that you work for specially your boss. When the boss needs something
done, you have to be the first in his mind. If you’re just the third, or
the fourth, or the fifth, or the tenth in his mind, you’re just like a
company that is in third, fourth or fifth position — far, far away from
rising to the top.
But like I said earlier, being top of mind is not enough. You also have
to burn an attribute in his mind. Now, a slight word of caution. Burning
an attribute in your boss’s or co-worker’s mind is a double-edged sword.
You have to make sure that you burn a positive attribute and not a
negative one. Ries and Trout explain that it is very difficult or next
to impossible to dislodge an attribute in ones mind once it has been
established. If you go into the workplace and the attribute you burn in
your boss’s mind is tatamad tamad ka (you’re lazy), mahirap kang
pakisamahan (you’re not a team player), or di ka mapagkakatiwalaan
(you’re not trustworthy) then chances are, that attribute will stick in
his mind for years to come and you’ll have a hard time rising to the
top.
How many classmates do you know have been branded "lazy", "a flirt",
"playboy", "cheater" etc. Think about it, no matter how hard they try to
change their image, it just sticks and is so hard to dislodge from your
mind isn’t it? That’s how powerful burning an attribute in the mind is,
positive or negative.
So, key lessons if you want to rise to the top is, you have to be the
first in their mind and you must burn positive attributes in their mind.
This leads me to the question, "What attribute should you burn in the
minds of the people in today’s world?" There are many attributes that I
would have wanted to share with you, but in the interest of time, I will
focus on two. The first one is the attribute of discipline. If we want
to be able to compete not only with our peers, but with the best in the
world, we have no choice. As a person, as a people, and as a country, we
have to be disciplined.
Discipline is a very fascinating thing. In the world of competition,
you’re always competing with somebody else. There is Smart competing
with Globe, There is GMA competing with ABS-CBN, there is Sony competing
with Samsung, and the list goes on. But when it comes to discipline, you
are not competing with anybody else. You are only competing with
yourself. And if you lose, guess who actually loses, only you.
A year and a half ago, I went to a leadership conference in Singapore
that put together and assembled some of the best speakers in the world.
I actually had to pay a huge amount-probably my whole month’s
salary-just to be able to enter that conference. Al Ries was speaking.
Film legend, Francis Ford Coppola was speaking, Rudy Giuliani, who led
New York to rise from the 911 crisis, was speaking and Lee Kuan Yew,
Prime Minister of Singapore was one of the speakers.
I wanted to listen to Lee Kuan Yew and what he had to say. Lee Kuan Yew
shared how he built Singapore from nothing to where it is today. He
shared that Singapore, barely a generation ago, was far worse than many
of its peers. But today, it is an economic superpower. He narrated that
when he first started to lead Singapore, he asked his think tank to
visit neighboring countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam,
Laos, Cambodia, and figure out what they don’t have. He said they all
came back with one conclusion: These countries lacked discipline. So to
differentiate Singapore from its neighbors, he decided to build his
country on discipline. This meant that if Singapore promised something
to its people, to its foreign investors, and to other countries, it will
be fulfilled. A disciplined country and a disciplined people-that’s what
he built Singapore on.
Discipline is a very important attribute all of us must have to be able
to bring this country up from where it is today. If you want to reach
your goals and dreams, you cannot do it without discipline.
One of my good friends is the president of Alaska Milk, Fred Uytengsu. I
used to see him on the baseball field when he used to coach his son’s
team and I was an assistant for my son’s team. One day, I saw him
wearing a shirt that said, "If you don’t have discipline, you don’t
deserve to dream." No matter how harsh it may seem, the point is true.
If you’re 350 lbs. overweight and you’re dreaming to become the next big
hunk, but you don’t have the discipline to watch what you eat, to
exercise, and to make it happen, it isn’t going to happen. Don’t even
bother dreaming, if you don’t have the discipline to make it a reality.
You’ll just get frustrated. That’s how important discipline is in
achieving success.
In the world of business, discipline is defined as work ethic. I’d like
to share with you an anecdote from a great man who epitomized what work
ethic is all about. Thomas Alva Edison. At the age of 82, the President
of the United States said it was about time he was honored with an award
for his lifetime work. So they put together a huge event in honor of
Thomas Alva Edison. Being 82, he felt a bit sick that night and fainted.
Good thing they were able to revive him and he was still able to go up
on stage. Edison upon accepting the award simply said, "I am tired of
all this glory. I want to get back to work." 82 years old, and all he
can think of is going back to work.
That is work ethic. That is discipline. And that is one of the
attributes we need to burn in people’s minds if we are to rise to the
top.
Execution
The second attribute we should burn is execution. We need to be able to
drive in the minds of the people that we work with that we are the
"go-to" guy. That if they want to make something happen, you are the guy
to go to, because you are the person who can execute. Execution is one
of the attribute that will help you rise to the top.
I’d like to quote one of the greatest mentors of all time who said to
his pupil: "Luke, there is no try. There is either do or not do." You
know who that is? That is Yoda teaching Luke Skywalker of Star Wars one
of the most important lessons in life: execution or making it happen.
An icon of execution, of course, is Michael Jordan. He is arguably one
of the greatest basketball players that ever lived, but not without
getting the ball, taking that shot, and executing the play. Can you
imagine what would have happened to Michael if all he ever did was to
plan on shooting the ball but never did? One of the things you have to
remember about execution though is that it doesn’t mean you have to be
successful every single time. Part of execution is learning how to fail
yet rising up again.
Michael Jordan says this, "I missed more than 9,000 shots in my career
and lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions, I have been entrusted to
take the game-winning shot and missed. I have failed over and over and
over again in my life, and that’s precisely why I succeed."
When you go out to the real world, you will realize that there are many
people out there who have great ideas and great plans. And that is good.
But like I always tell my team in PLDT, what separates the good from the
great is execution. We can spend endless hours and tons of money
strategizing, planning, team building, and analyzing to come out with a
great plan. But until we execute that plan, that’s all it will ever be,
a plan.
When something goes wrong in a company, the question the leader or the
CEO almost always asks is not, "Who has the best grades?" "Who has a
diploma?" Who has all the awards?" "Who is the summa cum laude?" "Who
graduated from an Ivy league school?" The CEO just asks one question:
"Who can get the job done?" That, dear graduates is the importance of
execution.
Let’s learn a lesson from Mickey Mouse. Well, maybe not from Mickey, but
from his originator, Walt Disney. Walt had four mantras: dreaming,
believing, daring, and then doing. Of the four, "doing" is what turns
everything into a reality. Walt said, "Dreaming, believing and daring
without doing is just like Dumbo, the elephant, without ears. It just
won’t fly. ABRAKADABRA will never work." Only execution does.
Descending to the Top
In my UP speech, I talked to them about "what’s better than," and I
juxtaposed what’s better than this versus what’s better than that. Now,
all of us want to ascend to the top. No doubt about it. And we should.
We should plan on ascending all the way to the top. But I will pose the
same question I did three years ago: "What’s better than ascending to
the top?" The answer is DESCENDING to the top.
That may actually baffle a lot of your minds. "What is he talking
about?"
"How can descending to the top be better than ascending to the top?" It
is a biblical principle. The Bible tells us that he who wishes to be the
greatest must be the servant of all. That is the concept of descending
to the top. What I want to share with you is that as you rise to the
top, the more you have to be a servant. The keyword is humility. The
more you start rising to the top, the more humility needs to become an
important place in who you are and in your life.
I want to share with you what happened to Steve Jobs the founder of
Apple computers and now the Ipod. We all know what a great visionary
Steve Jobs is. But if we chronicle his career, Steve Jobs, as he was
ascending to the top, as he was rising towards greatness, forgot all
about humility. While he was hitting his peak, all he thought about was
how great he was, how fantastic he was, and how the world and his
company revolved around him. That is ascending to the top. The higher
you go, the bigger your head.
What happened to Steve Jobs as he hit the peak? He was driven out of his
company both in failure and in disgrace. Then after having failed in
many other endeavors, he started again and went on to make an indelible
mark in the entertainment industry, and with the extraordinary success
of the iPod, regained his reputation as the "greatest innovator of the
digital age". And so Steve Jobs, after having ascended to the top and
then unceremoniously booted out, now gets the chance to lead Apple
again. But something was different about the man this time. People
started to feel Steve had changed. And so in a big conference at the
Moscone Center in San Francisco, there he was, listening to the chants
of his people, demanding him to come back and run Apple again. Let me
share with you how the new Steve answered the call. No longer ascending
to the top, but understanding what descending to the top is all about.
And I will quote from the book, "Icon: The greatest second act in
business".
For the first time in his public life, there on stage, Steve appeared
genuinely touched when the people were starting to ask him to come back
and take the CEO position. He wasn’t brash or cocky anymore. Maybe his
four kids and the complete failure of a company and the near failure of
another taught him something. There on stage, he fought back the tears
as he mumbled something to make it clear that yes, even Steve Jobs can
change.
He had made the transition into a world where feelings and passion
could partner with business and technology. Steve Jobs said, "You guys
are making me feel funny right now. I get to come to work with the most
talented people on the planet at Apple and Pixar. The best job in the
world! But these jobs are team sports. I cannot do it alone; I can only
do it with a team."
A team sport. Fifteen years ago, it would have been a lie. It would have
been all about him and how great he was. But now, everything was
different. He now understood that it was really the many others who
helped him succeed. He did realize it wasn’t all about him. That Apple
is a team sport.
That is descending to the top - the higher you fly, the lower the ego.
If you’re able to get a copy of Time Magazine’s issue where they
declared who their Man of the Year was for 2005 you’ll see their choice
was Bill Gates. But not because of what Bill Gates has done for
Microsoft. Not because he revolutionized the computer industry. But
because of what Bill Gates has started to do for humanity. If you read
that article, Bill realizes that this is probably the generation where
if health care were given enough resources, he can actually make a big
difference in millions of people’s lives. And that has become the man’s
passion and advocacy, donating billions to uplift the health of poverty
stricken nations. This today is what truly defines him; no longer his
technological achievements. It is now about serving and helping other
people. In other words, descending to the top.
A heart for our Country
Finally, as you rise to the top you should never lose your heart for our
country.
I always tell my team in PLDT, that yes, we have a business to run, but
let us never forget we also have a country to serve. And that is the
same thing I will tell you as you guys rise to the top. You will have
businesses to run, you will have your own careers to take care of, and
you will have your own dreams to pursue, but never forget you have a
country to serve.
You may ask, "How? How do I serve the country?" One way is actually
quite simple. I’ll give it to you in one word. If you are great, if you
are smart, if you are the best, if you have a Silliman education, then,
please STAY. Just stay in the country. You would have actually done a
great service to our country just by staying.
But if you can’t stay, or you don’t want to stay, that’s fine. If you
think you want to make it out there in the world, that’s a-ok with me.
But I want to ask two things of you.
First, go out there and show the whole world how great the Filipino is.
In whatever field you’re in, prove to the world how special we Filipinos
truly are.
Second, don’t just plan to COME back. Plan to GIVE back to the country.
If you do that, if every Filipino who goes out there into the world –
and there are millions of us already — proves to everybody how great
the Filipino is, and not only plans to come back, but actually plans to
give back to this country, in less than one generation, we will be an
even greater nation.
I will end with what I told the UP students in 2003. You must be asking
yourselves, "How do I reach my dreams?" or "How far can I go?" I told
them this: In the last 42 years of my life, I have realized one thing,
"There is no destination beyond the reach of those who walk with God."
So when you go out there in the world, take God’s hand and walk with
him. Because when you do, whatever destination it is you are hoping to
reach, if God walks with you and takes you through, there will be no
destination beyond your reach.
To the graduating class of 2006, I will meet you at the top and nowhere
else!
Jaylord de los Santos, co-head organizer (together with Benjie Madolin) of the Guimaras Fund drive of Accenture Philippines wrote this letter to demand transparency in the handling of funds to ensure that it will go to the people of Guimaras.
