Ravi Ahuja (Sony Pictures Television) – 2023 Wharton MBA Program for Executives Graduation Speech

It's a privilege to be here with you all this morning. Wharton Executive MBA Class of 2023, let me congratulate you again. You're gonna get a lot of these over the course of the day. And thank you for allowing me to be a part of this key milestone in your lives and to help kick off the next chapter in your careers and lives. I know from my own two graduations from this school, the specifics of these types of addresses can get lost in the flurry of activity on happy days like this. So I'll be brief and I'll be pointed in these remarks. Just a couple of realizations I've picked up over the years that I would've liked to have heard several years ago. Another good thing is this is the first time I've heard what Dean James was gonna say this morning. And it fits very well with what I'm gonna say. So there's a better likelihood that it's gonna land. So in the spirit of good business communication, I'm just gonna give you three things, that's all. The first is really about ongoing learning. Now this of the three things I'm gonna say is the easiest insight to impart this morning because as Executive MBAs, you've already committed to this path. When Dean James asked me to speak here, I noted that with my two Wharton degrees, the Executive MBA is one of the few Wharton graduations I haven't actually been to. So now I get to add another one in the Wharton graduation variety pack. But I'd venture to say this is probably the most fulfilling Wharton experience. I often thought when I went back to Wharton full-time in my mid 20s, that the easy way, by the way, that in theory the MBA should take place in two phases, one then, and then another 10 or 15 years later. That way you can really absorb what you learn, and you can bring to it years of in the field experience. So look, you guys have done it right. Now when you leave here, I ask that you keep that commitment to being ongoing self-improvers. I get asked all the time about how you build a career, and my answer is that building your career is about adding skill blocks on top of skill blocks. It may start like it did for me, with the ability to work a spreadsheet, to build a spreadsheet. Then on that, you build presentation skills and negotiation abilities. And then you learn how to manage people, how to sell ideas, on which you build leadership abilities and business judgment and so on, you get the idea. But stumbling your way through all of that is really tough. After all, our time on earth is really short, our careers are anyway. And our brains, while miraculous and powerful, are only three pounds, which is about the same as our livers, which are also very powerful and sometimes miraculous. But then, given that, why reinvent everything? Why reinvent when all the lessons are there ready to be tapped into? We're at our best when we tap into the knowledge of the human hive, from the Bible. In Ecclesiastes, there's nothing new under the sun. What has been will be again and what has been done will be done again, it's very true. For me, learning has been propelled by very active reading. In hindsight, so much so that what I've read has predicted, and this is only looking backward that I can see this, has predicted where my career has gone. I haven't necessarily been reading things that are immediately useful. I'm guided by what's interesting on a gut level. So in high school I read economics books. My high school didn't have economics, so I was a strange kid. I read about economics. But a few years later I ended up at Wharton, even though I started at Penn undergrad as a pre-med major. In college at Wharton, I read about Wall Street and its titans and then ended up on Wall Street after graduating. While working on Wall Street, I read about business strategy, and then went back to Wharton and got an MBA in management, and then worked at McKinsey after graduating. At my time at Wharton and McKinsey, I started reading about the media business and ended up at Virgin Entertainment and then Fox. This pattern continued, you get the idea. The reading and interest precedes the career. So reading's my thing, but ongoing learning doesn't just come from books and articles if that's not your thing or if it's incomplete. It comes from meals with admirable colleagues, seminars, masterclass, TED Talks, podcasts, documentaries, joining boards, dozens of other sources. Becoming knowledgeable about my interests in my career and using them to inform career choices helps to build those skill blocks. But there's another unintended and maybe even more profound benefit, and that's that it's created alignment between my interests, what I'm really fascinated by, and what I do day to day, which creates the career version of what athletes call flow, which is concentration, engagement, and fulfillment all coming together. And that's what can really propel you forward. So ongoing learning. The second recognition is that there's no crystal ball. You're smart people, all of you, and you know that the complexity of the ultra dynamic and complicated world makes prediction impossible. But we all try to do it. We all try to figure out the future and build plans accordingly. I did. My wife and I just recently told our kids when they were teenagers, now they're 16 and 20, that our plan in moving to LA after graduating from business schools, and this was in 1997, was to get a couple years experience and then to start our own record label. The industry was doing great in 1997. When we told our kids this, the older one said, 'Really, that was the plan?' The younger one said, 'What's a record?' So it just tells you how smart we were with our four pricey business school degrees. The reality is, you're gonna get it right, you're gonna get it wrong. Hopefully you'll be more right than wrong and never fatally wrong. But if you don't know where you're gonna end up, what do you do? How do you start? And even if you pick a particular destination, there's no Apple Maps or Google Maps to give you turn by turn, step by step directions. It's more like the explorers long ago who had to navigate with the sun, wind, landmarks, maybe even a compass. So since I'm on metaphors, I'll give you another one. My office at Sony Pictures is 500 feet from the sound stages on which the Wizard of Oz was filmed. This is always amazing to me. Stage 15 housed the Yellow Brick Road. For All Mankind there is now, I have to plug one of our shows, it's on Apple TV+. The Yellow Brick Road in the Wizard of Oz is probably almost everybody knows here, is the path that Dorothy had to follow to achieve her goal, getting to the Emerald City and then home. Dorothy sets out on her journey with her ruby slippers, propelling her forward, and which represent her underlying power. Wharton and your skills are your ruby slippers. I'll make it really easy this morning. The power to move the gatekeeper and open the gates of the Emerald City to protect you and take you forward onto your goal. So get moving on your personal Yellow Brick Road and toward your goals. And as with Dorothy, stay true to yourself. And on your path, good things will come to you. Now, of course, in real life, the road is not actually paved, and is not easily seen. The compass that gives you a sense of direction as you make the hundreds of decisions that propel you forward on life's road are your guiding principles really. The principles and what you wanna do on your business strategy and the companies you work in or lead, how you face the world. Principles for life. What drives you? For me, it's great creative product that changes culture. Could be for you, innovative technology that feels like magic. Products or processes that lower costs and create customer value. Whatever it is, you'll find your rosebud. The animating force that shapes your lives and your careers. You knew when you invited me, Dean James, that you were gonna get movie and TV references, I'm sure. But there's principles for business too. In my company, I have four that I repeat over and over and over again. Quality, people, execution, leadership. Principles for behavior, for me, don't fight for the last dollar. Be a good partner. Obviously the golden rule, treat people how you want to be treated. No matter how the world evolves, how the path forward presents itself, the personal and professional decisions you make, for those, your principles guide the way. The final understanding is people make all the difference. So back to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. As Dorothy set out, she meets great friends: Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion who join with her. And together they do great things for themselves and for the world. Like Dorothy, we simply can't get anything done in our work lives without others. And I'll tell you a secret, as you go forward in your career and have more scope, you become less of a player and more of a coach. So you will actually do less. My computers have gotten less powerful as my career has advanced. Hopefully that'll happen to all of you. It's a good aspiration. And that's gonna mean that you need your teams, your mentors, your colleagues, your advisors, your families to do more. Again, a lot of you know this already. So spend time keeping the bonds you've formed, including those that you formed in this program, even when there doesn't seem to be a clear purpose. Staying in touch has helped me. Information, knowledge, even jobs. I was hired into my current job at Sony by my boss at Fox 10 years earlier. We remained friends in the periods between working together. He and I got back together when we found a reason to reunite again. And like Dorothy, get to know new people. That shouldn't be a chore. Remember when we were kids? It's a lot of fun. As a business leader, always be a recruiter. Meet rising stars in your community. Many times the challenge in business is not what to do or how to do it, it's who's gonna do it. See, in strategy, there's almost never a single shot solution to a new approach toward the market or to the competition. There are multiple steps you need to take, and that can be really daunting. So to win, you need the best team. You can't rely on waiting until you have the need to find the right people. So that's all, three lessons I've learned. Keep learning, use your principles to propel you down your own Yellow Brick Road and find and stay close to your people. I hope in the joy of this great weekend, there are a few words here that may resonate as the years go by. So again, it's been an honor to share this day with you, but always remember, there's no place like Wharton. Good luck and thank you all for listening.