Almost five years ago, I stood in a similar position in the Dud Berry Gymnasium in a small town not too far from here. I was the proud valedictorian of a class of fifty from LeRoy High School, and so I had the honor of giving a congratulatory speech to my fellow classmates. And so I want to begin my speech today, Congratulations! Congratulations to the graduates who survived years of lectures, homework, personal trials, and academic successes. Congratulations to the professors, administrators and staff who put up with us students. Congratulations to the families and friends who helped all of us achieve our goals. Congratulations.
We have all attained yet another goal in life. However, if you are like me, your idea of goals and aspirations has changed considerably throughout your academic career. In that speech five years ago, I urged my high school friends to make one important goal or promise and strive for that purpose. I felt that as long as everyone has something to work toward, then the world should be all right. My next goal was simple enough: to study accountancy in order to get a good job. However, I slowly realized that life was too complicated to just have one simple goal. I also wanted to learn more about computers, become fluent in a second or third language, become better acquainted with history and politics, and maybe even study abroad. I soon realized there was too much for me to do in four years. To the dismay of my parents, professors and advisors, I decided to take a year off to study in Japan.
Some people might question the need for an accountant to have such a variety of interests. However, if we look at the business world today, we see many accountants and economists doing work outside of their original fields of expertise. For instance, some recent graduates from the University are now working in consulting, auditing, strategic planning, management, investing, or financial forecasting, just to name a few. The world is still a place of specialists, but companies need versatile people who can wear many hats while always keeping an eye on the big picture.
Even in academics, the home of specialization to the point of minutia, there has been increased interest in research and learning at the border of disciplines. The linguist might employ the expertise of the computer programmer or the social historian in order to perform research regarding speech patterns of recent immigrants. While an expert in any field is a prized commodity, an expert who can understand and communicate with people of other backgrounds will make even greater strides.
Tomorrow's leaders will have to wear many hats in order to achieve their varied goals. Since the probability of working at one job for an entire lifetime, or even for more than ten years, is increasingly unlikely, versatility will be a key.
However, the ability to wear many hats is not the only key to success. A good leader will also be able to wear many shoes. That is, just as a linear path will not lead to anything interesting, a one-track mind will not lead to anything worthwhile. We have all memorized the accounting equation A+L=OE. We have learned that stockholders are most interested in the bottom line and short-term growth. However, we also know that there is something more than increased net earnings. We need to think about how business policy affects society at large. We have to put ourselves in the shoes of the competitor, or the school board member, or the social worker.
I think the course in Business Policy, BA389, highlights many of the dilemmas that people face in the "real world" that we often hear about. For the visitors who are unfamiliar with this course, BA389 is a course that all business students take, generally in their final year, as a sort of cross-disciplinary capstone that will top off the undergraduate degree in commerce. In this class, we act as hypothetical managers. We are faced with tough decisions about investing our corporate funds in a new Saturn car or an old Chevy division. We have to help Pepsi compete with Coke. And like the real world, the answers are not always clear: do you use throwaway diapers which crowd the landfills, or do you launder cloth diapers which cloud the water? Do you bomb Iraq or send Anan in to negotiate? Clone or not to clone? Paper or plastic? The list goes on. The world is not as simple as FASB 109 and Keynes Law.
The Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream case of BA389 sticks out in my mind as particularly problematic. The founders of the famous gourmet ice cream company were a couple of hippies who quit their jobs in New York City in order to start a socially and environmentally aware company. One of their key policies set a strict limit on the salary that the president could earn: no more than seven times the hourly wage of the lowest-paid worker. Ben and Jerry stuck by this policy for many years as their company grew to national success. Some people pointed out how this hurt the company's ability to attract quality executives. In BA389, this topic led to a rather heated discussion one day. "A company's goal is to maximize profits for its stockholders" some said. Personally, I think there is a definite market for companies and ideas that take a wholistic approach toward the public good. There are customers who would pay more for ice cream from a socially aware company. People prefer shoes made by companies who don't exploit their workers. Some consumers will even pay more money for recycled paper than regular paper.
And so I challenge everyone here tonight. As you don your many hats in life, be sure to think about how the role you play affects the community around you. You may need to put yourself in another person's shoes now and then in order to understand the whole picture. Whatever you do, don't stick to just one goal. I was wrong five years ago. Balance all of your goals and the goals of those around you. You will find that this approach gets you farther than the next person who is too busy thinking about the bottom line.
You know, it is pretty amazing to imagine where all of us will be in ten years. To be sure, there are many leaders among us. Sometimes I doubt that a boy from LeRoy is ever going to be a leader of anything. But then I remember the leaders of small-town Midwest who have gone before. People like Walt Disney, Frank Lloyd Wright, Art Wyatt and Sam Walton. People who started out with little to nothing, but got somewhere because they understood people. They made it to the top without stepping on anyone. I hope that I didn't step on too many people during my five years at this institution. I hope that we can all act with integrity, empathy, and sincerity as we move forth to the new goals of our lives. Congratulations, graduates of the University of Illinois. Best of Luck.