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“Passion and Compassion”

Admission Speech MBA IV on March 30, 2007

Dear Participants, Dear Alumni, and Dear Guests,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all at the FHR Institute this evening for the Ceremonial Admission of the MBA IV Program 2007-2008. I congratulate the Participants who successfully went through the rigorous screening and selection for this new Program by the Admission Committee of the Maastricht School of Management

This Program has two special features which I would like to mention. One is its specialization in ‘Management and Accounting’ which we opted for in light of the accelerating internationalization of accounting standards due to scandals the like Enron affair. The second feature is that this Program is the first after MSM was accredited on March 2, 2007 by the Netherlands-Flemish Accreditation Organization (NVAO). This accreditation, which is in addition to the three prestigious international accreditations MSM already has, will grant you a Masters Degree specifically recognized under the Dutch Higher Education Law.

Participants, this evening marks a new milestone in your life; it marks your conscious choice to take on responsibility for a new major effort in progressing the development of your career.

What does this new responsibility entail? I would like to briefly elaborate on two aspects. The first has to do with your individual achievements and the second with your contribution to the achievements of yourself and your colleagues as a group.

Your personal achievements will highly depend on the degree of passion for your purpose; on the strength of the commitment you made to yourself to move your career forward with a leap. I refer to a passion because the Program expects that you do not just aspire to get an MBA but that you also have a strong internal drive that you want to get an MBA and an equally firm belief in yourself that you will realize this objective. This aspect of your new responsibility implies practicing high standards consistently. High standards in terms of performance and self-discipline as well as in terms of values like personal integrity and respect for and solidarity with your colleagues.

Respect for and solidarity with your colleagues - and this is the second aspect of the new responsibility resting on your shoulders from now - require you to be involved in the Program with your heads and with your hearts. High individual marks are the most important but almost as important are the marks for group assignments following from team exercises. For these team interactions to be effective you will have to appreciate and even encourage feedback you’re your colleagues (‘peer control’) and show compassion, a willingness to you’re your colleagues for reasons other than serving your own interest.

The Program you are joining today is a joint undertaking of the FHR Lim A Po Institute and the Maastricht School of Management. MSM is responsible for the content, the quality and the international accreditation of the Program. FHR is responsible for the day to day organization. But FHR has assumed an additional mission which we think is as at least as important as transferring knowledge and skills. It is to facilitate students in internalizing dedication for learning to become a key feature of their further life.

How will this dedication for continuous learning come about? Well, you are joining the Program at a time in your life when you each already have your own ‘life story’. Each of you has his or her own series of transformative experiences, events that have had a major impact on how your life has progressed. Your awareness of these experiences and the recognition of their value are important elements of your authenticity and hence, should be the source of your inspiration and confidence. They also provide the context for your new experiences including your challenges of the Program.

The FHR philosophy of life long learning builds on the wisdom, that the discovery and awareness of this authenticity in combination with a cultivated love for learning, will cement a personal dedication to life long learning. The further cultivation of your love for learning will follow from experiencing during the Program the joy of a virtuous circle of study results, reinforcing the effectiveness of further study. This experience of joy will gradually pervade other aspects of your life and at last become a critical ingredient of how you will devote yourself to a lifetime of realizing your potential. Continuous learning will enrich all of your further life.

A further characteristic of the Program is on a more practical level. It seems mundane but in fact it will initially and at least for some time be one of your major challenges. I am referring to the need that you establish the mode in which you integrate the rest of your daily life with doing your MBA. You will need to find a new balance in the way you organize your life. You need to bring together all of its constituent elements: work, family, friends and study. It will be a struggle but let me give you some comfort.

The struggle for finding a balance will be difficult in the beginning. But it will be less painful if you start with a plan that you adjust over time when the real ‘sticking points’ appear and ‘getting used to it’ makes the trade-offs get easier. But even more importantly, private and professional levels are not necessarily a zero-sum game. There is no reason why investing time and effort in your MBA should affect the quality of the time you spend with your family and friends and a reinforced culture of learning should raise the sense of satisfaction and the level of ambition of not only you but also of your family and friends.

Let me conclude with the suggestion that on embarking on the Program you should look forward not only to the pleasure of an individual achievement when it end two years from now, but also to the excitement of belonging to a group of people who together will have realized a worthy goal. When you all cross the finish line together, all pain and suffering you have experienced will quickly vanish. It will be replaced by a deep inner satisfaction that you have elevated the sense of the meaning of your own life and that you have empowered others and thus made the world a better place.