You know, I've had a lot of chance to interact with your

class over the last couple of years, starting with admit weekend, I guess.

About 27 months ago.

So, we've had lots of interactions, large and

small but never anything quite like a last lecture.

Come in, come in.

So I'm looking forward to it.

I, I have assembled the list of of ten lessons that have been

important to me in my life that I'd like to share with you.

So.

If it's all right, let's charge in.

This first one, I guess, comes from two sources, one, as you know, I spent

seven years of my life living and working

in Australia where cricket is a national game.

But I also spent the last nine years

teaching a second year seminar on leadership and in

that leadership seminar I like to use the

case of Sir Earnest Shackleton the great Antarctic explorer.

And Shackleton had something very interesting to say about life.

He said, Some people say it's wrong to think of life as a game.

I don't think so.

He said, Life to me means the greatest of all games.

The danger lies in treating it as a trivial game.

A game to be taken lightly.

And a game where the rules don't matter much.

The rules, he said, matter a great deal.

Shackleton said, you know, the game has to be played fairly, or it's no game at all.

And even to win the game is not the chief end.

The chief end is to win it honorably and splendidly.

And in Shackleton's mind, honorably and spend, splendidly meant living it by

his values, the things that mattered most to him, by his rules.

Now, those of you who know cricket know, it's got a lot of rules.

But another thing about cricket that I think is relevant, it's a long game.

You know, life ebbs and flows.

And endurance is a virtue.

Stamina is very important.

Work at staying in shape, work

at staying in shape physically, mentally, emotionally.

In many respects, your determination and your drive will have

as much to do with your life as your DNA.

Like cricket it's a long game.

You need to pace yourself.

And another thing a well known cricket commentator observed

is that in addition to being a long game where

perseverance and resilience and patience are critical, it's a

game where he said, nothing happens and then everything happens.

Again, only a true cricket aficionados might appreciate this.

But applying it to life, I can tell you that often, out of the blue, that big

opportunity or that big challenge hits you in the face, you can't plan your life.

You can't plan your career, but you can plan

to be prepared, and preparation is an awfully key aspect.

Number nine.

Now this is a lesson that I got over and

over again from our CEO at Wells Fargo, Carl Reichardt.

He liked to say this.

I don't think Carl necessarily believed the

world was divided into good people and bad

people but we all grew up understanding

that there were people with very bad behaviors.

You know, and life is too short.

You don't have to deal with people who are

abusive, people who are dishonest, people who are unethical.

You can just say no.

In fact, you better just say no.

You know, in banking where you make loans every day, you take deposits every day,

you accept investments, you, you have a lot of opportunities to say yes and no.

Even at the GSP, when raising money, there are times

when it's appropriate to say no because the motivation isn't right.

And I think this lesson, aside from saving you

an awful lot of unpleasantness, can also save you.

Because,

oh, we're going backwards.

[SOUND] Because your reputation is everything.

And you've got to guard it scrupulously.

For me, a corollary to this life's too short lesson, has been another one

I've always applied, which is, don't sign something you haven't read,

don't sign something you don't understand, or that you don't agree with.

Life's too short.

This is another Wells Fargoism.

This is a, this is a slogan or a phrase,

it's still very much a part of the company today.

And it's something that we began adopting when we wanted very much to change the

culture from one that was more bureaucratic

to one with a real sense of accountability.

You know, when you think about a small

store, and you encounter the person that owns that

store, you have a much different experience and encounter

than when you're dealing with a temporary, hired clerk.

That sense of ownership.

That comes from true ownership is is a very real

and different behavior that we all recognize and we all appreciate.

Run it like you own it.

Spend it like it was your own

money not somebody else's, or somebody else's enterprise.

Whenever you're in charge of something, anything, anywhere, any group.

If you adopt that ownership mindset and mentality, it serves you well.

After all, next John, leadership is not about fame

and fortune and power, it is about responsibility.

And it's a responsibility for the group that you have inherited.

It's a responsibility for helping that group

to be better, to helping that group to

do better, and that's that same responsibility that

an owner feels of his or her establishment.

That is often missing when you come to somebody working for a large organization.

Now, the challenge in a big organization is if you can get everyone and every group

to have that same ownership mindset you see in a small shop or a small business.

If everyone in the group can adopt and have that

kind of sense of run it like you own it,

you create a culture and a climate of discipline and

accountability that has enormous power and energy for the enterprise.

Another thing about run it like you own it, next Johnny, is

that when you have that sort of mindset attention to detail really matters.

You know, in that post Enron and WorldCom world we got Sarbanes-Oxley.

And a lot of people love to complain and

winge about Sarbanes-Oxley, too much paperwork, too many rules.

And yet, you, at the, at the same time, you would see CEOs in

front of congress, saying, well Mr. Congressman,

understand that accounting wasn't part of my job.

And that lack of ownership, if you will,

of the details, is a real sign of difficulty.

If it was your business, you'd want it to be in control.

You would want it to be under good control.

Without surprises.

That's not micro managing, but it is investing the time that

it takes to really understand what's going on in the operation.

You can't manage and lead something you don't understand...

And a final point about ownership.

Next Johnny.

Is that just like the owner of a small enterprise, when

you have something that you own, people will watch what you do.

They'll watch how you do it.

Much more than they'll listen to what you say.

And in particular, they'll watch what you pay

attention to, because leaders really do cast long shadows.

So, run it like you own it.

Number seven.

This one, I think, is particularly important for GSB graduates.

I know it was for me in my career life.

You know, when you think about leadership and management, you

often think, we think about leading a team, leading a group.

And it's our group that we're responsible for, and

you think spend most of your time managing downward.

Working with a team, building a, a lot of excitement and enthusiasm, building

loyalty, and commitment, and achieving whatever it

is that that team's about to achieve.

So we spend a lot of time managing down, and yes, there's an

understanding that, you know, I should spend some of my time managing up.

The boss needs to know what's going on.

The board needs to be aware of what's going on.

The regulators need to know what's going on.

But this kind of, we have an up and down mindset, often.

And yet we often forget, next, that wherever

you find yourself, you're always part of some team.

You need to manage these relationships with peers and other team members.

You wanna be part of a winning organization.

That means you need the strongest team possible.

That means other parts have to do just as

well as your group if you're going to be successful.

Even a CEO is part of a team called the board of directors.

A dean of a school is part of a team, the executive cabinet of the university.

And another way of viewing this, I think, is on the next slide.

You know, don't be so competitive that you just

stick to that narrow job description of your own job.

Wherever you are, think about your unit, yes.

But, the entire company.

And if you are in charge of your entire company, think about your industry.

And if you are an industry leader, think about your country, or your world.

In terms of the way your mind operates and works.

Don't forget to manage sideways, it's a big world out there.

Number six.

I'm sure the number one reasons that leaders fail, is because of hubris.

They take themselves, too seriously, as I would put here.

In other words, they stop listening, they stop

learning, they start believing in their own unique importance,

they forget that an awful lot of success has to do with luck, and timing.

The work of others.

You leave here, I know, with great

confidence, and you should have great confidence.

Given who you are, and all that you've done, and

what you know as you leave here, you should have self-confidence.

But there's always a fine line between confidence and arrogance.

And on the next slide, you know, don't let yourself cross that line.

Leadership is about earning followers.

People want to follow a genuine leader, they

don't want to follow a self-proclaimed, self-important one.

That's not who you wan to follow and that's not who you want

to be when you're interested in motivating and attracting other people to your cause.

You know, in his book, Good to Great, our alum

Jim Collins who taught here and obviously got his MBA here.

And this one of the what, 25 best selling business books of all time.

He coined this term Level 5 Leadership and in Jim's concept of Level 5 Leadership,

it was not arrogance but humility that he saw in these

people combined with a very, very

disciplined focus on the organization's needs.

In other words, take your job seriously.

Take the group and its needs seriously.

Just don't take yourself that seriously when it

comes to attributing what's making all this happen.

And I think another way to keep yourself humble is,

stay close to people at the entry level,

stay around people that are smarter than you.

Stay around people that will give you honest feedback.

Feedback is one of life's great gifts.

Feedback man you know, is right, that's absolutely.

[LAUGH].

When you're lucky enough to get honesty back, treat it as what it is.

One of life's great gifts.

Stay around the University, it gives you great perspective on the future.

Number five, [COUGH]

I'm not sure who actually came up with this saying.

You find it a lot if you look on the Web and Google it.

I don't know who the original source was.

But I heard it at one time, and it had a lot of resonance for me.

You

know, there are a lot of powerful emotions in life.

There's, there's greed, and there's envy.

And, and fear is certainly one of them.

And fear can impact us in a number of ways.

It, it can cause you to withdraw and just not deal with a situation.

It can cause you to freeze, in the sense you just can't decide and you can't move.

But it can also give you the courage to act, to risk.

To change when change is appropriate, to change yourself when change is required.

My wife said to me, you know, fear can paralyze you or it can energize you.