By Henrylito D. Tacio

RECENTLY, I received an e-mail containing the graduation speech of Menardo “Butch” Jiminez, Jr, the senior vice-president of the retail business group of Philippine Long Distance Telephone and officer-in-charge of the wireless consumer division of Smart Communications.

He delivered a very thought-provoking speech before the graduating glass at the Silliman University. “I have actually been waiting for almost three years,” he said. “And I would have waited 30 more years to address you.”

But that was not the speech was all about. Actually, he tried to answer the question which most people want to know: “How do I reach the top?” In his speech, he had given some “principles that I have learned, which “may guide you on your quest to the top.” I took the liberty of quoting some parts of his speech since I am sure a lot of readers will learn a lesson or two from it.

“A battle for the mind.” That’s the first principle Jiminez elaborated. He quoted the book “Positioning,” written by Al Ries and Jack Trout. “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.”

To prove his point, he cited some examples of leading brands: Coke, San Miguel Beer, Colgate, Xerox and iPod. “They are first in the mind, they are the leader, and they have risen to the top,” he pointed out. “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.”

Ries and Trout also talked in their book about “burning an attribute or a characteristic in the minds of the consumers.” “For example, Volvo did that,” Jiminez said. “They burned into the mind of the consumers the attribute of safety. If you want a safe car, Volvo is it.”

What do these two concepts in marketing has to do in the workplace? “If you guys want to start rising to the top, you have to do the same thing,” Jiminez reiterated. “You have to be the first or the top of mind amongst the people that you work for -- especially 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.”

Not only that. You have to burn an attribute in the mind of your boss. He cautioned: “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.”

Once you established that attribute in their minds, no one can dislodge it. “If you go into the workplace and the attribute you burn in your boss’s mind is being lazy, not a team player, or 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,” he explained.

To connect with the graduating class, Jiminez said: “How many classmates do you know have been branded ‘lazy’ ‘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.”

He urged burning positive attributes. One of which is 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.”

“In the world of competition, you're always competing with somebody else… 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.”

Learned some lessons from Lee Kuan Yew, prime minister of Singapore. In a leadership conference, Lee 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.

Execution is the second attribute Jiminez urged the graduates to burn. “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 attributes that will help you rise to the top.”

Jiminez cited Michael Jordan as a case in point. “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.”

Jiminez quoted Jordan: “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.”

Jiminez continued: “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 what separates the good from the great is execution.”

When something goes wrong in a company, the question the leader almost always asks is not who had the best grades, or garnered awards or graduated top of his class, but “Who can get the job done?” “That, dear graduates, is the importance of execution,” he said.

Jiminez also talked about the speech he delivered during a graduation at the University of the Philippines. “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.”

He explained: “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 you life.”

He cited the life of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple computers and iPod. At the highest point of his career, he was driven out of his company. Then, 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.”

When the people wanted him to lead Apple again, he told them: “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.” “That is descending to the top - the higher you fly, the lower the ego,” Jiminez explained.

If you’re up there, don’t forget your country, he urged. One way to serve this country, he said, is to stay here. “Just stay in the country,” he said. “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 fine 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.

His parting lines: “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.”

ooOoo