[Music]
as I was growing up my mama used to
emphasize on the importance of studying
like many of you she would tell me they
carried you have to study hard get into
university and graduate with the degree
so that you could be set for life I mean
the good boy that I was I followed my
mother’s instructions I listened to her
I studied hard got into University and
graduated with a degree and then I
entered the workforce and I discovered
everyone else Rami had a degree too so
that probably didn’t make me any
different it’s also a bit lost and I
asked my friends around me what should I
do and my friend said Carrie don’t be
naive you need to pursue further
education I mean huh and they say you
need to take a master’s degree I said oh
okay so I spend six months of my life
doing research on a suitable master’s
program and I finally found an MBA I
dedicated four years of my youth to the
elusive MBA program and by the time I
graduated I realized many did the same
in fact I recently went to a trip to a
business trip to India and I checked
with some my Indian colleagues and we
were just sharing about our academic
accolades I was a little bit sheepish
about sharing what I had because one of
them said oh I’ve got two masters
degrees another one said I had three and
one of them said I have a PhD and I said
also Carrie what do you have I have one
one MBA and that led me to think you
know if relentlessly chasing after
people qualifications to attain better
skills and knowledge it’s not the answer
to staying relevant in today’s world
then what is regardless of who we are
where we are from what stage of life
were at we’re all facing the same
situation we’re all exposed to change
changes we cannot control
we cannot prepare for for some of us
it’s a teeny little bit uncomfortable
for others it’s just being scary the
inability to anticipate and prepare for
this change can sometimes leave us
feeling helpless I stumble across the
answer in my current profession which
requires me to identify and develop high
potential employees throughout the world
and I discovered that some of my
business leaders have a very interesting
perspective of what high potential
talents look like to them it was someone
who was eloquent somebody who was
confident
vocal and driven now if you listen to
this definition very closely you realize
it disadvantages introverted talents who
don’t necessarily come from sales and
may not have English as their native
language so I was tasked to redefine
what high potential talents really
looked like and I came up with this
simple definition not all high
performers are high potentials and not
all high potentials are high performers
in fact in my organization I went a step
further
I looked into certain behaviors that
high potential talents should have
resourcefulness adaptability learning
agility just to name a few so my
business leaders were tasked to identify
the talents and nominate them into a
specially designed talent program where
for the first seven to nine months they
will be put into a pressure cooker
environment going through various
activities and experiences to really
assess their true potential and most
recently I went to Denmark to facilitate
a five-day kickoff event where you know
global talents from all over the world
were put into this five days and we
really grilled them put them through
various experiences activities to see
those who are not high potentials and we
had to filter them out so I met this one
lady she was very curious very friendly
very outgoing confident ask a lot of
questions if you hear things that you’re
going
Wow she is a high potential that was my
pot too right
but you can never judge a book by it’s
cover when she went through various
activities we realized she wasn’t as
high potential as what we initially
thought even though she was highly
recommended by her boss we discovered
that she liked even though she asked a
lot of questions
she liked depth in a quality of
questions and not only that when we put
her into uncomfortable situations she
became very jittery now for those of you
who have or who are working we never
like feedback but we had to in hey cha
we had to give her feedback so we told
her after the kickoff event that she had
to be better grounded she had to have
better business acumen familiar right
and I think that when she walked away
she felt more confused than enlightened
so I went in search of the answer so if
looking for high potentials I mean what
is high potential to to all of us I ask
my fellow HR professionals hey what’s
your take on high potentials and they
tell me things like this they say Oh
Gary we’re looking for the X Factor we
are looking for Spa personality we are
looking for exemplary leadership
qualities even to HR I have no idea what
that means you so what more to a layman
and then I came up with a simpler term
simple wisdom and some of you are going
how is there any simpler because then
what is wisdom now if you think about it
wisdom is exactly why interviews are a
crucial part of any job application if
your resume your well-written resume
your certificates and written
assessments are sufficient to assess if
you can do well in the job role then why
do we even need interviews I mean some
of us go through multiple rounds of
interviews to meet people and they ask
question after question after question
and we do and we ask yourself why are
they asking you so many things when I
asked fellow interviewers what are they
really looking for because sometimes I
get confused too and this
oh we want to check their personality we
want to assess their behavior by asking
questions and they want to check for
culture fit that’s a difficult thing to
do just by asking questions right but it
was interesting because draw all my
conversations with them the idea of
skills and knowledge rarely came into
the equation so by now some of you may
be asking me this question so what is
wisdom and that impart has got to do
with the word growing up because growing
up to date requires us to attain wisdom
true relevance instead of time you can
be in a function or industry for 10
years but you’ve not gained any wisdom
from it all the years don’t matter and
relentlessly chasing after paper
qualifications bettering your skills and
knowledge can be extremely exhaustive
and what still all these can become
obsolete very very quickly so some of
you may also carry so what what is
wisdom you know if you’ve talked about
this you have you know enticed us with
this word and I went in search of the
answer
I asked hitch our leaders business
personalities and even ordinary folk on
what was their take on wisdom and
believe me I had a tons of definitions
some of them gave me a single statement
and left me on my way some of them set
me down and spoke to me for hours which
I regretted some mmmm would tell me
their life story finally coming up with
the moral of the story and there was
actually ritual just accelerator
everything and just say this is it this
is wisdom and I found out that the more
I asked the more confused I became
because the varieties were just too many
and that led me to realize something
their wisdom isn’t a definition it is a
process every single one of us who see
that here today we have our own
definition of what wisdom is but the
process of getting to their wisdom
is similar now I believe a lot of here
we have met wise people before if you
think about them
you’re wise personalities business
leaders or ordinary folk who you believe
our wives yes they may all come from
different walks of life but they all
have something in common they have
learned something from the experiences
that they went through it could be a
life-changing event it could be a major
failure as long as they have learned
something from it they attain wisdom how
can we continue to grow in a world of
ever-changing disruptions and trends in
order to attain wisdom today some of you
may decide it’s time for me to go back
to school I want to pursue further
education like yet a master’s degree
some of you may think has too
time-consuming I’m just gonna go and
follow the latest trends I’m gonna go
and enroll in courses related to FinTech
or digital marketing and frankly
speaking it doesn’t matter what you do
as long as you know why you do what you
do and create relevance you attain
wisdom look beyond the skills and
knowledge that you learn and focus on
more how all these experiences gets you
to grow as a person that is a lot more
important now when I reflect upon my
life I ask myself how do my past
experiences get me to where I am today I
mean come on I didn’t plan to be in hich
are I don’t believe any child at the age
of five years old will tell their mommy
and daddy I want to be in HR
I want to approve leaf I want to fire
people I mean being a typical boy that I
was you know I I guess I believe I
wanted to be a policeman right you know
if I think the good and things like that
but my mother was very persuasive my
mother thought that being a policeman
was too dangerous because she took my
chouchou ambition seriously so she kind
of like swayed me over and she says son
be a banker then I asked her why she
said you can make a lot of money and buy
a lot of poise that’s good
so I decided hey my travel ambition was
to be a banker right but I ended up in
HR but when I look back I realized that
all my past experiences were there for a
reason now believe it or not I graduated
with a computer science degree all right
hey Charlie computer science but it
taught me more than just programming
it taught me systems thinking and I for
detail and most importantly patience for
those of us who have done programming
having to debug millions of quotes over
hours will test your patience to a whole
new level my MBA taught me more than
just business acumen and numbers it
taught me how to understand people from
different perspectives learning how to
handle people with big egos and learning
how to agree to disagree now when I look
at the sports that I played when I was
younger it wasn’t just about keeping fit
it was learning that I had to be
disciplined if I wanted to do well in
the sport and I think very very
important especially for parents who are
seated here learning that losing does
not make you a loser you know being
gracious about it there is something
very very important learning how to pick
myself up whenever I fell and be my own
greatest critic now I’ve done volunteer
work with youth and it was interesting
because I think they helped me more than
I helped them they thought need to see
the best in people and it taught me how
to develop empathy and especially for
men empathy is a precious commodity yes
and what I found most valuable in this
journey wasn’t the skills the knowledge
or the content but how it continuously
moves a person’s personality and create
networks all these make me a much wiser
and stronger person than when I first
started my HR career now with new job
titles appearing in the market today it
is challenging for a child to find the
right person for the right job in the
past I could look at your academic
qualification or your industry
experience and simply place you in their
job today it’s a totally different
ballgame
I’ll give you an example
my organization recently hired a chief
technology officer right so if you hear
the term you probably think to yourself
okay I would hire somebody from a
technology background makes sense
I would probably hire somebody who comes
from amateur tech company like for
example Apple Google or Dell right I
mean it’s a logical decision but the
funny thing was my group management
decided to hire somebody from a totally
different spectrum all together they
hired a Swedish entrepreneur to put it
you know more specifically a techno
premier another new term right so he had
expertise in starting up small tech
companies building them successfully and
I realized that what my group management
saw in him wasn’t the skills and
knowledge that he had but the wisdom he
had the ability to building something
from scratch what was scarce resources
and most importantly was unafraid to
roll up his sleeves to get the job done
growing up today requires us to attain
wisdom through relevance it can be
anything we do it can be the books we
read the interest we have the causes we
support or the learnings that we take in
fact it could also be the stumbling
blocks that are perpetually in front of
us
instead of blaming it on sure bad luck
that’s a lot of bad luck to have focus
on how you can learn from it it will
continue to refine and define our
personality beliefs values and
principles all of us seated here today
can be a high potential in life if we
choose to it is not about gaining
experience but gaining relevance through
experiences and for those of us who have
gone for interviews or have undergone
the annual performance review
we always get this dreaded question that
we absolutely hate where do you see
yourself in three years time how are you
going to answer that because frankly
speaking some folks don’t even know what
they’re gonna eat for lunch you ask me
to project for three years and you know
being a corporate world
we have to be politically correct so I
would say things like oh I want to grow
with the organization I want to I want
to contribute to the organization I
couldn’t even tell my boss I want to
take a position in three years time I
can’t see that right and I wish I really
wish I had the wisdom back then to give
a much better answer wiser then I was
three years ago now when I think back
about my wonderful mother I realized she
didn’t more than just naked me to study
all mothers name that’s how they show
their love she actually gave me poles of
wisdom as well and she said this
something like to share with you she
said
Gary being smart gets you an A in school
but being wise gets you an A in life
thank you
[Applause]
you
as I was growing up my mama used to
emphasize on the importance of studying
like many of you she would tell me they
carried you have to study hard get into
university and graduate with the degree
so that you could be set for life I mean
the good boy that I was I followed my
mother’s instructions I listened to her
I studied hard got into University and
graduated with a degree and then I
entered the workforce and I discovered
everyone else Rami had a degree too so
that probably didn’t make me any
different it’s also a bit lost and I
asked my friends around me what should I
do and my friend said Carrie don’t be
naive you need to pursue further
education I mean huh and they say you
need to take a master’s degree I said oh
okay so I spend six months of my life
doing research on a suitable master’s
program and I finally found an MBA I
dedicated four years of my youth to the
elusive MBA program and by the time I
graduated I realized many did the same
in fact I recently went to a trip to a
business trip to India and I checked
with some my Indian colleagues and we
were just sharing about our academic
accolades I was a little bit sheepish
about sharing what I had because one of
them said oh I’ve got two masters
degrees another one said I had three and
one of them said I have a PhD and I said
also Carrie what do you have I have one
one MBA and that led me to think you
know if relentlessly chasing after
people qualifications to attain better
skills and knowledge it’s not the answer
to staying relevant in today’s world
then what is regardless of who we are
where we are from what stage of life
were at we’re all facing the same
situation we’re all exposed to change
changes we cannot control
we cannot prepare for for some of us
it’s a teeny little bit uncomfortable
for others it’s just being scary the
inability to anticipate and prepare for
this change can sometimes leave us
feeling helpless I stumble across the
answer in my current profession which
requires me to identify and develop high
potential employees throughout the world
and I discovered that some of my
business leaders have a very interesting
perspective of what high potential
talents look like to them it was someone
who was eloquent somebody who was
confident
vocal and driven now if you listen to
this definition very closely you realize
it disadvantages introverted talents who
don’t necessarily come from sales and
may not have English as their native
language so I was tasked to redefine
what high potential talents really
looked like and I came up with this
simple definition not all high
performers are high potentials and not
all high potentials are high performers
in fact in my organization I went a step
further
I looked into certain behaviors that
high potential talents should have
resourcefulness adaptability learning
agility just to name a few so my
business leaders were tasked to identify
the talents and nominate them into a
specially designed talent program where
for the first seven to nine months they
will be put into a pressure cooker
environment going through various
activities and experiences to really
assess their true potential and most
recently I went to Denmark to facilitate
a five-day kickoff event where you know
global talents from all over the world
were put into this five days and we
really grilled them put them through
various experiences activities to see
those who are not high potentials and we
had to filter them out so I met this one
lady she was very curious very friendly
very outgoing confident ask a lot of
questions if you hear things that you’re
going
Wow she is a high potential that was my
pot too right
but you can never judge a book by it’s
cover when she went through various
activities we realized she wasn’t as
high potential as what we initially
thought even though she was highly
recommended by her boss we discovered
that she liked even though she asked a
lot of questions
she liked depth in a quality of
questions and not only that when we put
her into uncomfortable situations she
became very jittery now for those of you
who have or who are working we never
like feedback but we had to in hey cha
we had to give her feedback so we told
her after the kickoff event that she had
to be better grounded she had to have
better business acumen familiar right
and I think that when she walked away
she felt more confused than enlightened
so I went in search of the answer so if
looking for high potentials I mean what
is high potential to to all of us I ask
my fellow HR professionals hey what’s
your take on high potentials and they
tell me things like this they say Oh
Gary we’re looking for the X Factor we
are looking for Spa personality we are
looking for exemplary leadership
qualities even to HR I have no idea what
that means you so what more to a layman
and then I came up with a simpler term
simple wisdom and some of you are going
how is there any simpler because then
what is wisdom now if you think about it
wisdom is exactly why interviews are a
crucial part of any job application if
your resume your well-written resume
your certificates and written
assessments are sufficient to assess if
you can do well in the job role then why
do we even need interviews I mean some
of us go through multiple rounds of
interviews to meet people and they ask
question after question after question
and we do and we ask yourself why are
they asking you so many things when I
asked fellow interviewers what are they
really looking for because sometimes I
get confused too and this
oh we want to check their personality we
want to assess their behavior by asking
questions and they want to check for
culture fit that’s a difficult thing to
do just by asking questions right but it
was interesting because draw all my
conversations with them the idea of
skills and knowledge rarely came into
the equation so by now some of you may
be asking me this question so what is
wisdom and that impart has got to do
with the word growing up because growing
up to date requires us to attain wisdom
true relevance instead of time you can
be in a function or industry for 10
years but you’ve not gained any wisdom
from it all the years don’t matter and
relentlessly chasing after paper
qualifications bettering your skills and
knowledge can be extremely exhaustive
and what still all these can become
obsolete very very quickly so some of
you may also carry so what what is
wisdom you know if you’ve talked about
this you have you know enticed us with
this word and I went in search of the
answer
I asked hitch our leaders business
personalities and even ordinary folk on
what was their take on wisdom and
believe me I had a tons of definitions
some of them gave me a single statement
and left me on my way some of them set
me down and spoke to me for hours which
I regretted some mmmm would tell me
their life story finally coming up with
the moral of the story and there was
actually ritual just accelerator
everything and just say this is it this
is wisdom and I found out that the more
I asked the more confused I became
because the varieties were just too many
and that led me to realize something
their wisdom isn’t a definition it is a
process every single one of us who see
that here today we have our own
definition of what wisdom is but the
process of getting to their wisdom
is similar now I believe a lot of here
we have met wise people before if you
think about them
you’re wise personalities business
leaders or ordinary folk who you believe
our wives yes they may all come from
different walks of life but they all
have something in common they have
learned something from the experiences
that they went through it could be a
life-changing event it could be a major
failure as long as they have learned
something from it they attain wisdom how
can we continue to grow in a world of
ever-changing disruptions and trends in
order to attain wisdom today some of you
may decide it’s time for me to go back
to school I want to pursue further
education like yet a master’s degree
some of you may think has too
time-consuming I’m just gonna go and
follow the latest trends I’m gonna go
and enroll in courses related to FinTech
or digital marketing and frankly
speaking it doesn’t matter what you do
as long as you know why you do what you
do and create relevance you attain
wisdom look beyond the skills and
knowledge that you learn and focus on
more how all these experiences gets you
to grow as a person that is a lot more
important now when I reflect upon my
life I ask myself how do my past
experiences get me to where I am today I
mean come on I didn’t plan to be in hich
are I don’t believe any child at the age
of five years old will tell their mommy
and daddy I want to be in HR
I want to approve leaf I want to fire
people I mean being a typical boy that I
was you know I I guess I believe I
wanted to be a policeman right you know
if I think the good and things like that
but my mother was very persuasive my
mother thought that being a policeman
was too dangerous because she took my
chouchou ambition seriously so she kind
of like swayed me over and she says son
be a banker then I asked her why she
said you can make a lot of money and buy
a lot of poise that’s good
so I decided hey my travel ambition was
to be a banker right but I ended up in
HR but when I look back I realized that
all my past experiences were there for a
reason now believe it or not I graduated
with a computer science degree all right
hey Charlie computer science but it
taught me more than just programming
it taught me systems thinking and I for
detail and most importantly patience for
those of us who have done programming
having to debug millions of quotes over
hours will test your patience to a whole
new level my MBA taught me more than
just business acumen and numbers it
taught me how to understand people from
different perspectives learning how to
handle people with big egos and learning
how to agree to disagree now when I look
at the sports that I played when I was
younger it wasn’t just about keeping fit
it was learning that I had to be
disciplined if I wanted to do well in
the sport and I think very very
important especially for parents who are
seated here learning that losing does
not make you a loser you know being
gracious about it there is something
very very important learning how to pick
myself up whenever I fell and be my own
greatest critic now I’ve done volunteer
work with youth and it was interesting
because I think they helped me more than
I helped them they thought need to see
the best in people and it taught me how
to develop empathy and especially for
men empathy is a precious commodity yes
and what I found most valuable in this
journey wasn’t the skills the knowledge
or the content but how it continuously
moves a person’s personality and create
networks all these make me a much wiser
and stronger person than when I first
started my HR career now with new job
titles appearing in the market today it
is challenging for a child to find the
right person for the right job in the
past I could look at your academic
qualification or your industry
experience and simply place you in their
job today it’s a totally different
ballgame
I’ll give you an example
my organization recently hired a chief
technology officer right so if you hear
the term you probably think to yourself
okay I would hire somebody from a
technology background makes sense
I would probably hire somebody who comes
from amateur tech company like for
example Apple Google or Dell right I
mean it’s a logical decision but the
funny thing was my group management
decided to hire somebody from a totally
different spectrum all together they
hired a Swedish entrepreneur to put it
you know more specifically a techno
premier another new term right so he had
expertise in starting up small tech
companies building them successfully and
I realized that what my group management
saw in him wasn’t the skills and
knowledge that he had but the wisdom he
had the ability to building something
from scratch what was scarce resources
and most importantly was unafraid to
roll up his sleeves to get the job done
growing up today requires us to attain
wisdom through relevance it can be
anything we do it can be the books we
read the interest we have the causes we
support or the learnings that we take in
fact it could also be the stumbling
blocks that are perpetually in front of
us
instead of blaming it on sure bad luck
that’s a lot of bad luck to have focus
on how you can learn from it it will
continue to refine and define our
personality beliefs values and
principles all of us seated here today
can be a high potential in life if we
choose to it is not about gaining
experience but gaining relevance through
experiences and for those of us who have
gone for interviews or have undergone
the annual performance review
we always get this dreaded question that
we absolutely hate where do you see
yourself in three years time how are you
going to answer that because frankly
speaking some folks don’t even know what
they’re gonna eat for lunch you ask me
to project for three years and you know
being a corporate world
we have to be politically correct so I
would say things like oh I want to grow
with the organization I want to I want
to contribute to the organization I
couldn’t even tell my boss I want to
take a position in three years time I
can’t see that right and I wish I really
wish I had the wisdom back then to give
a much better answer wiser then I was
three years ago now when I think back
about my wonderful mother I realized she
didn’t more than just naked me to study
all mothers name that’s how they show
their love she actually gave me poles of
wisdom as well and she said this
something like to share with you she
said
Gary being smart gets you an A in school
but being wise gets you an A in life
thank you
[Applause]
you
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