Thomas O. Staggs , 2014 Carlson School Commencement Speaker - Carlson School

I feel like that introduction deserves a rebuttal, by the way. You brought up the Penny Saver thing. I was like 10 years old. I got fired. How do you get fired from selling Penny Savers?

Well, thank you Regent B. Dean Zahir, the distinguished faculty and guests, and of course to the Carlson undergraduate class of 2014. You made it. Congratulations. It really is great for me to be back here among some of my closest friends in the world, and I'm honored to help celebrate your achievements this morning. I actually pointed out to the graduate class that one of those great achievements was surviving this past winter here in Minnesota. You know, both my brothers still live here, so I followed your weather pretty closely. And you know what? I have to say, I felt almost guilty, not because I was sitting in shorts and a t-shirt checking your windchill, but you know, we had this movie out you might have heard of called Frozen. Anybody see it? You know, so I'm not saying Disney was responsible for the whole polar vortex thing, but they don't call it Disney Magic for nothing. Actually, after one of those charming late April snowfalls that you had, a friend of mine that lives here called me up and he said he had a message from his daughter. She wanted me to tell Queen Elsa, enough already.

But really, no matter how difficult the work or the weather, I know all of you have a very strong appreciation for just how special this school and this community are, and how worthwhile and valuable your time here has been. It's why I'm so proud to be a U of M graduate and a Gopher. One thing you may notice as you go from here, by the way, is that the further you get from the Midwest, if you're in Minnesota, the more people will tend to assume you're just a nice person, which is kind of great really, when you think about it. I hear this little voice in the back of my head telling me not to be the one that screws that up. And I guess it's a little bit of stereotyping, but you may see that. But if that's going to be a stereotype, it's a good one to have. Actually, I had another instance of that early in my tenure at Disney. I was helping work on the creation of the Mighty Ducks hockey franchise in Anaheim, and we were getting close to the first game and there was some question about the quality of the ice in the Ducks' home arena. So a guy I work with said, 'Well, you should go down there and check it out. Don't you Minnesotans have like eight words for what kind of snow is falling?' So I explained to him that I didn't actually speak Inuit. My parents had about eight words for snow, but I think they were mostly expletives.

But based on Dean Zahir's introduction, which was overly generous, you probably concluded I have a pretty fun job. And I would have a hard time arguing with you. Over the last few weeks, I've opened a attraction in Florida and dedicated that, yes, I wrote it several times. I was just last week working with the Imagineers on a bunch of projects, ranging from creating Pandora for Walt Disney World to building the new park that we're going to open at the end of 2015 in Shanghai. Spend time with the cruise team previewing a musical that'll be on the ships in 2015, and going over new itineraries. So with all that though, as fun as it all is, what makes being at Disney so great for me isn't so much what we do, it's really why we do it. The Walt Disney Company is built on an amazing legacy. If you think about it, in addition to Mickey Mouse and all his friends, Walt Disney created the first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. As you might guess, there was no best animated film category at the Academy Awards that year, but Walt won an Oscar for Snow White nonetheless. That was one of 26 Oscars he won, more than anyone else. Of course, he also created Disneyland even though everyone told him he was crazy to try to do it, and in doing so he invented the theme park and he created an entire industry. The list of Walt Disney's achievements is truly staggering. Late in his career, Walt was asked about which of his many achievements he was most proud. His answer was simple: the smile on the face of a child. You know, every time I walk into one of our theme parks, I've got a good sense of exactly what Walt meant. So my wish for everyone here today is that you have a career that constantly inspires you and offers you so much satisfaction, satisfaction that's reinforced by what you do but rooted in why you do it.

I also hope you'll remember that life is about more than just work. I've been with my wife Melanie for 24 years now. I'm quick to point out we've only been married 18, but she definitely wants credit for time served. Either way, we've been together long enough for me to truly realize how much of my success and happiness comes from her influence in my life. I get more joy from the life she and I have created with our sons than anything I could do professionally. They're a tremendous source of pride, and that keeps everything in perspective and makes anything seem possible. So make sure you invest as much focus and energy building a personal life that is profoundly meaningful to you as you do building your career. As you do, please also know that doing something you love can be almost as important to your family as it is to you. You've obviously all worked hard to get to this point, and odds are you'll continue to work hard in the future. Perhaps you'll occasionally come home late from work. It turns out that isn't necessarily the end of the world when it comes to building a healthy, happy family. However, studies show that coming home at night from a job that you hate, that does real damage. So as you step forward into what I hope will be highly successful careers that you love, you do have some challenges ahead, starting with the sheer number of you. Your degree from the Carlson School proves you've got a track record of significant achievement, but there are a lot of you, and there's thousands more around the world sitting at their commencement ceremonies right now also hoping the speaker will hurry up and sit down so the party can start. In addition to this newly minted competition, there are generations in front of you, including my own, the Baby Boomers. We outnumber you, but we're also living longer and we're working longer. That Q was a little early, by the way. In short, we're sitting here in front of you, and some of us are just getting comfortable. The trick is to find out what makes you different, what you have that previous generations don't, and make the most of it. In this regard, you actually have a compelling advantage, because your generation came of age in an era of constant disruptive change. Over the past decade, the pace, scale, and breadth of our daily interactions have increased exponentially. The Ericsson Company recently pointed out that it took 100 years to connect a billion places around the world, but it took just 25 years to connect 5 billion people. By 2020, there'll be 50 billion connected devices. And the funny thing about this is that the pace of change will never again be this slow. You've never lived in a world that wasn't undergoing rapid change. You're used to it, and you're uniquely equipped to expect, anticipate, and take advantage of it. Conventional wisdom says change is hard, but I'd wager that from your perspective, change is constant. Where those who grew up before the digital age are apt to see challenges, you're more likely to see opportunities. In the last few years, we've seen the rise of entire new industries and cultural norms created by people just like you. The most exciting ideas are coming from people of your generation, in part because your imaginations are not limited by what existed before. Mature companies need that same mindset, that same energy, in order to evolve and survive in this rapidly shifting environment. Organizations, especially established ones, often resist change. Corporate cultures can become so focused on protecting past successes that they fail to innovate for the future. To stay successful, these companies must continue to learn and evolve. If an organization's pace of learning can't keep up with the market, then the organization and its relevance are at risk. So your comfort with change, your willingness to embrace it and drive it, is something you bring to the job market. It's an intangible that makes you incredibly valuable as entrepreneurs, but equally so to employers who must transform themselves in an era where constant change is the new normal. I believe it's absolutely possible to teach an old dog new tricks, but one of the best ways is to pair them with a young one. So as you saunter up here to accept your diploma, you can be confident that you've got some real value in the market. And believe me, your self-confidence is an asset you should embrace and use to your advantage. But there's another asset I recommend that you cultivate that's just as important as your self-confidence, and that asset is humility.

It sounds counterintuitive, because right now we're all here to celebrate your achievements. You should know that to your parents, it seems like only yesterday they were saying goodbye to you as you headed off to college, with more than a few of them shedding tears over the reality that you were leaving home. Today, there are probably quite a few shedding tears of joy over your success. Okay, sure, one or two might be crying because they're afraid you're going to move home again. But mostly, they're just proud. The truth is that none of you got here alone. As Dean Zahir said, you were helped by family and friends who love you, and even by people who created obstacles and challenged you to find your way. So, I liked your chair before, but I think you can do better. It seems like a perfect time to thank them all for everything they've done. So go ahead, shout it out. I'll wait. Just yell. You see, being grateful is one of the best forms of humility. It takes nothing from you to acknowledge the people who helped you to reach your goals or become your best self. Life's about give and take, and in that vein, I encourage you to be the type of person that takes responsibility and gives credit. If you are, I guarantee people will want you on their team. And as you go forward, the greater your success, the harder you should hang on to your sense of humility. Having worked in investment banking and the entertainment industry, believe me, I've encountered quite a few people who seem to have adopted this pre-Copernican view of the universe, with themselves cast in the role of Earth. Of course, Earth isn't the center of the universe, and neither are you or I. There are about 7 billion people sharing the planet, and it's a good idea to always remember it. I know that I've been incredibly lucky throughout my career, starting with the first job that Dean here mentioned at Dain Bosworth. I'd met the CEO, a great guy named Dick McFarland, when I was in college, and I was lucky enough to have him offer me a job. One day I had the chance to ask him what made him successful in his career. He didn't even hesitate. 'I'm successful,' he said, 'because I assume I can learn something from every single person I encounter on any given day.' Now, I'll grant you, finding that inspiring nugget of wisdom in some people takes a little bit more time and effort than with others. But I've been struck by the fact that Dick's answer had nothing to do with demonstrating his own skill or intelligence or importance. And his words have often served to remind me that there's always more to learn.

I also got a chance to learn about humility from one of my early mentors at Disney. Frank Wells was Disney's president when I joined the company, and he was really the epitome of what I'm talking about. He was a habitual overachiever. In college, he was Phi Beta Kappa, a Rhodes Scholar, a water polo player, a runner. He was an attorney later. He was a highly successful attorney, a husband, a father, a mountain climber. He managed to climb the highest peak on six of the seven continents. He was also Vice Chairman of Warner Brothers before he took over Disney with Michael Eisner in 1984. For the next 10 years, Frank and Michael helped create an extraordinary period of creative and financial success for Disney. To honor Frank's countless contributions, Disney named a building for him at our corporate headquarters in Burbank. Or the next time you're at one of our parks, look for his name in the windows above Main Street or on the crates of supplies inside the Matterhorn at Disneyland. He was an extraordinary man, and he was beloved and admired by pretty much everyone who knew him. And he achieved phenomenal success in every aspect of his life. Just before Easter in 1994, Frank asked me to run up to his office with a document that we'd been working on. He was going heli-skiing that weekend, and he wanted to take it with him. He died that Sunday when the helicopter he was flying in crashed. In his pocket, they found a small folded piece of paper from a fortune cookie, a piece of paper that he carried around for 30 years. It said, 'Humility is the final achievement.' If you're looking for a motto to take with you as you go out in the world, you could do a lot worse than that one. Let me be clear, though: humility is not the same as self-doubt. In fact, simultaneously possessing a healthy measure of humility and self-confidence is one of the best recipes I know for sustained success. Having one without the other is likely to make you either ineffective or annoying, or both. I was 37 when I became CFO of the Walt Disney Company. I was well aware that I had a lot to learn, and I was a bit more than daunted by the challenge ahead. So I had that feeling of humility in a big way. My boss at the time was Michael Eisner, who was pretty much legendary in terms of his knowledge and experience in the entertainment industry. Michael's belief in my ability gave me the tremendous boost of confidence I needed, which was the other half of the equation to do the job. But one of the best people I've known at balancing confidence and humility is Disney's current CEO, Bob Iger. Right before Bob was supposed to take over as CEO in 2005, we were in Asia for the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland. As we were watching the opening day parade, Bob commented that of all the characters in the parade, there wasn't a single Disney character that had been created in the previous decade. All the popular new characters in the parade had been created by Pixar. When we got back to California, he was very clear that fixing Disney Animation was critical to the future of the company. The problem he recognized was that we didn't have the right people in place to do it, and if we did, it would probably take more than a decade to turn around. So that difficult, clear-eyed assessment led to the acquisition of Pixar for 6.2 billion, just a few months after Bob became CEO. At the time, a lot of people saw Disney as the world's premier animation company and viewed Pixar as the upstart. But by recognizing and facing up to our own limitations, Bob was able to bring Pixar founders John Lasseter and Ed Catmull in to run both Pixar and Disney Animation. And now you have Frozen. And he also added Steve Jobs to the Disney board and as our largest shareholder. It looks like an obvious decision now, but at the time it took tremendous confidence and courage for a new CEO to even attempt such an acquisition, and a complete lack of hubris on Bob's part to make it successful. And we've worked hard ever since to avoid falling victim to our own success. One of the dangerous things about success is that it can kill your interest in introspection. After all, whatever you're doing is obviously working, so why bother reflecting on it? Although it sounds ironic, it takes confidence to admit that you don't have all the right answers. But humility is what keeps us asking questions. It motivates us to learn and makes us receptive to new things. Humility makes us keep trying and makes us willing to look beyond ourselves. And if you can do that on a pretty consistent basis, then you're going to be ahead of the game.

Okay, so I know that I'm the only thing standing between you all and the Tomato Can Award, so I'm going to wrap this up. You know, I was commenting to the Deans here, I love this award by the way. And I think it fits with what I'm saying, actually. It's tremendously important in that it recognizes not just academic achievement, but leadership and making a contribution to the business school and to the University as a whole. So it's fantastic. But the trophy that comes with it, it's an 85-year-old soup can. I think they rinsed it out first. It's on top of a candlestick that Henry Hilton got from his mom. It's like we're saying simultaneously, 'You're awesome, you're fantastic, we love you, but don't let it go to your head.' It's perfect. So in summary, for those of you who haven't been listening up to this point, my advice to you is pretty simple. What you do in your work is important, but why you do it is even more so. Your work is part of who you are, but only part. Your life in total is what matters. So make that life one you're proud of, one in which the people you love know they are your priority. No one is better equipped to drive change than you are. Use it to your advantage. And humility is just as important to long-term success as self-confidence. Remember, there's always more you can learn, and there's always room for growth if you're ready and willing to look for it. I have tremendous faith in this class, in your ability to take us forward with a new perspective and a determination to make a difference in the world around you. The diploma you're about to receive is more than a symbol. In Disney terms, you might call it a Park Hopper, and all access pass to the adventure of your choice. Whether that's Soaring Over California, discovering It's a Small World, chasing Pirates of the Caribbean, bobsledding down the Matterhorn, I could go on and on, or even spinning in a teacup. I made you want to go to a park just then, didn't I? It's a ticket to ride, and you decide where it takes you from here. So as a proud alum, I'm grateful for the chance to be here today. And I know wherever you go, you'll have plenty of opportunities to appreciate your experience here at the Carlson School. Because you've been here, you're ready to go anywhere. Congratulations and good luck to you all. Thank you very much.