美国百利得集团全球副总裁、延锋百利得安全系统有限公司董事及总经理陈晔受邀为2017届研究生毕业生作主旨演讲
Set a goal, and actively pursue your goal with passion
Always begin with the end in mind.
Everyone should have a challenging goal, of becoming a certain type of an individual in your personal life or achieving a certain level of success as in your professional career. Without a goal, you are drifting aimlessly in your life, and no matter how fast you go, you are without a destiny and you are most likely going in cycles without going anywhere. You can change your goal as time goes by, or as situation changes. But you cannot afford to not have a goal. Your goal determines how far you can go, and eventually who you want to be. So set a goal for yourself, no matter it’s for 3 years, 5 years or 20 years.
Actively pursue your goal with passion. It is relatively easy to be 100% focused in a 100-meter sprint. But in an extended period with all distractions, good or bad, coming to you in your life, it takes much more to remain focused on your goal and actively pursue it. You need to constantly refocus yourself, and think and behave consistently over the course. It requires a lot of passion, commitment and discipline. But it is also very rewarding.
So set a goal, and vigorously pursue it.
Be tough and persistent in facing challenges and failures
You will face challenges and have some failures. It is inevitable. Sometimes, it is due to your lack of capabilities or effort at the time, and sometimes, it is not because of you and is out of your control. It could be simply because you are denied an opportunity for no reason, even though you are fully qualified and best suited. This type of thing happens all the time and everywhere. When this happens to you, be tough and persistent, and never give up. Keep working and improving to prove that they are wrong with that decision of denying you. It takes toughness and persistence to be a great person. The way you respond to challenges and adversities defines what you will become as a person.
When you feel disappointed or even desperate in front of failures, please think of many SJTU alumni 40 years ago. It is the culture revolution era in China, when they were denied any opportunity for college and some of them spent 5-8 years in the countryside farming. But they refused to accept the fate, and continued their self-studying effort, finally capturing the college opportunity that was overly due to them. Studying at college at the age of 25 or even 30, most of them became highly successful later in their life.
At Michigan, we have a Michigan alumnus whose personal experience also exemplified this point. Tom Brady is the greatest NFL player of all time, earning 5 Super Bowl rings and 4 Super Bowl MVPs, an achievement that is unmatched by any other players in the NFL history. When Tom played college football at Michigan, he was denied to be a starter even he played better. He was thinking about transferring to other school. He was told by his head coach, “ just put everything else out of your mind and worry about making yourself better”. In the end, he decided to stay and competed. Two years later, even when he played his best game, he was still denied the full opportunity and had to share the playing time with a highly-recruited player junior to him. Tom refused to give up and continued to compete. It is this type of toughness and persistency in dealing with adversities that makes him the type of person that he is today.
So don’t give up in front of challenges and failures. Be touch. Be persistent.
Be curious and keep learning
The education in school till college/graduate school let us learn the principles of being a good human being and a good member of the society, have basic knowledge of this world and basic knowledge of the professional area that we select, and mostly importantly, learn the framework and the way of thinking, and develop the abilities of learning. Immediately upon graduation, you will need to learn more knowledge and technology in your field, learn business practice at your new organization, and learn how to develop and manage relationship in a professional world, to name a few. And this is just the start.
Life is a journey of learning. Be curious, as curious as a baby, ask more why’s, and you will learn many more things than most of other people. Your curiosity defines how good of a human being you will be and how successful of a career you will have. Have an open mind, and learn new things as if you a sponge. Learn at every opportunity. Learn from your superiors, your colleagues, people much junior or younger, or people you seldom come across in your life.
As a professional manager and an engineer by training, after over twenty years in my industry, I still find a strong need of learning every day. In this age when technologies get developed so fast, ideas get generated so fast, and information travels so fast, you have to learn every day to stay competitive, or even qualified for your job. At the same time, even more importantly, my curiosity increased as I learn more new ideas and new things and I want to learn even more every day. It is so much fun to learn, and to understand and appreciate innovative ideas and technologies.
Curiosity is the nature of a human being. Let curiosity take you as far as it can take, and it will be full of joy.
Create value, be a good citizen and build your own brand
As starting your career, think about giving first. Think how much contribution you can make to your organization, and how much value you can create for your organization. Think about what you can do to make product better, make business process more efficient, make team work better, make people around you better, make your customers happier, and make your organization better. Your success is always judged by the value you create and the contribution you make. If you take care of these, reward will come naturally.
Be a good citizen. What each organization value the most are an individual’s integrity, positive attitude, aggressiveness, capability, and team-work ability, among many other things. Work on these items and continuously improve them, and always try to become a valuable member of your organization.
When you start as a newest and most junior member on a team, your first few assignments are probably far from your expectations. As a JI graduate, there is nothing wrong to expect your assignment to be a leading member of a team, tackling the most challenging problems and solving the most critical issues for your organization; this is what a JI graduate should strive for. At the same time, you will not get this type of assignment from the beginning, period, simply because you haven’t built your creditability and earned the trust from your organization.
No trust and no opportunity is easily given, even you are a highly-touted graduate with a master or a doctor degree from JI. You have to prove yourself on the field, just like a soldier or an athlete, and earn the trust from others in the new organization before you can play a bigger role. Therefore, start from small and trivial things, and start from whatever is given without complaint. Treat every assignment with passion, complete it with high quality and speed, and show what you are capable of. Even through a small assignment, you can shine and become a star.
You are about to build your brand in a professional world. You start small, earn some trust and good will from others, increase your brand equity, earn bigger opportunities in which you can earn more trust and good will, and add more to your brand equity. This cycle goes on, and it is how you become successful and become a star.
Therefore, create value; be a good citizen; take every opportunity to shine and build your own brand.
Life is journey with challenges, hard work, success and failure. Keep an open mind. Be positive. Be optimistic. Be confident. Be tough. Be persistent. Be curious and keep learning. Pursue your dream, enjoy the process, and enjoy your journey.
陈晔先生现任美国百利得集团全球副总裁、延锋百利得安全系统有限公司董事及总经理。他于2007年至2009年间任麦格纳公司亚太区业务拓展总监，负责公司动力总成业务在亚太区的战略规划和业务发展。之前，陈晔先生于美国克莱斯勒/戴姆勒克莱斯勒汽车公司质量，制造和产品开发部门工作近十年，并参与筹建公司的中国工程研发中心。陈晔先生拥有丰富的汽车行业经验，以及跨国公司在中国和全球管理运营的成功经验。
陈晔先生先后获得上海交通大学工科学士/硕士学位，和美国密西根大学工程博士/工商管理硕士（MBA）学位。
