The Road to Success

Faculty Address to Certificate Recipients

by M. Myra S. White

M. Myra S. White

My comments today are based on my forthcoming book, The Yellow Brick Road to Success. The book examines what makes people successful in the workplace. It starts with The Wizard of Oz and the Scarecrow’s wish for a brain. Instead of giving the Scarecrow a brain, the Wizard awards the Scarecrow a diploma. He tells the Scarecrow that with this diploma he will be able to think the same deep thoughts that people at universities think. You can now think deep thoughts as well, but you will need more than this ability to succeed in the workplace. You will need to understand and use the strategies and techniques that lead to success in the workplace, which are different than the ones that helped you succeed in school.

In writing my book I reviewed the lives of more than 60 successful people from all types of careers to identify the factors that helped them succeed. The book includes people like Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric; Oprah Winfrey; Warren Buffett, one of the country’s greatest investors; and Lance Armstrong, seven-time winner of the Tour de France.

I would like to share three things from my book that will help you be more successful.

Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses

To succeed we need to pick an arena where we have an edge. Succeeding takes effort and perseverance. It is difficult to persevere at things that we don’t do well.

Successful people pick careers that exploit their strengths. Warren Buffett has always had an incredible memory for numbers and been good at understanding them. When he looks at a company’s financial statements, he can figure out how a company is really doing and what its weaknesses are.

One of Oprah’s key strengths is emotionally connecting to others. When she interviews people on her show, she makes them feel like they are the only people in the universe. The audience also relates to Oprah. They feel like she is their best friend because she always asks her guests the questions they want to know.

In addition to knowing our strengths, it is equally important to know our weaknesses. Successful people aren’t afraid to acknowledge that there are things they don’t do well.

Jeffrey Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, originally wanted to be a physicist, but as an undergraduate he discovered that he wasn’t good enough to be a top physicist. So he went into computers. Lance Armstrong grew up in Texas, where the high school heroes were football stars. Lance, however, found that he didn’t have the hand–eye coordination to play sports involving balls. So he turned to bicycle racing.

To succeed it is important to find careers that don’t depend on our weaknesses. Alternatively, we can find people to help us compensate. After Richard Branson started his first Virgin business, he realized that he was terrible with numbers. He quickly brought in his best friend, Nik, who was brilliant at keeping track of every penny.

Know Where You Are Going

To succeed it is important to have a clear idea of where you want to go. By the time Sam Walton finished college and his military service, he knew that he wanted to go into retail. Richard Branson wanted to start businesses from the time that he was a child. Bill Gates was so intent on developing software systems that he didn’t bother to stick around Harvard to get his degree.

When we know where we are going, it is easier to make career decisions. It keeps us on track. Bill Clinton always knew he wanted to go into politics. Soon after he graduated from Yale Law School, the chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, who was investigating whether to impeach President Nixon, invited Clinton to work on the committee. This was a fabulous opportunity for a young lawyer, but Clinton turned it down because he wanted to be a politician, not a lawyer. He has commented, “A lot of your life is shaped by the opportunities that you turn down as much as what you take up.”

Knowing where you are going is also important because it attunes you to opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise notice. When Richard Branson was seven or eight, his family went to the seashore for a two-week holiday. Richard’s Auntie Joyce bet him ten shillings that he couldn’t learn to swim. Richard spent his holiday in the sea trying, but at the end of the two weeks he still couldn’t swim. Auntie Joyce told Richard that he could earn the ten shillings next year, but Richard wanted the ten shillings this year. On the drive home he spotted a river. He called to his father to stop, leapt out of the car, and raced into the river. The current was strong, and he started to go under when his foot hit a rock. He pushed off and suddenly he was swimming. If Richard hadn’t been focused on learning how to swim, he never would have seen the river. When we know where we are going, we begin to see opportunities that can help us get there.

Know How to Get There

One of our first hurdles when we begin any career is getting on the playing field. If we can’t get on the playing field, we will never be able to show people what we can do. It is hard to be a star if we are on the sidelines.

Successful people use effort and expertise to get onto the playing field. Jack Welch used these powers to build his career at General Electric. After he finished his undergraduate degree, he got a PhD in chemical engineering. The expertise that he acquired paved his way to a job in the plastics area at GE.

At GE, Welch worked for a boss who didn’t offer him many opportunities to show what he could do. Jack used effort to get noticed. When Jack’s boss’s boss asked him to do an analysis of a new plastic, Jack realized that he could impress his boss’s boss by doing more than he was asked. He recalls, “What I had to do was get out of the pile. . . . To set myself apart from the crowd, I thought that I had to think bigger than the questions posed. I wanted to provide not only the answer but an unexpected fresh perspective.”

In addition to doing the requested analysis, Jack compared the plastic to major competing products. His boss’s boss was so impressed that he became Jack’s mentor and helped him move up the corporate ladder.

By using effort and expertise, Jack Welch built a positive track record at GE that ultimately led to his becoming CEO.

Remember to Have Fun

We spend over a third of our lives at our jobs. During our lifetime we can devote more than 100,000 hours to work. This is a long time to spend doing something we don’t enjoy. In my research I haven’t found anyone who wasn’t happy doing what they did. Richard Branson only starts businesses that he thinks will be fun. Bill Clinton loves to meet people and hear their stories. When Fred Smith was asked how he handles the stress of running Federal Express he replied, “Business is a game. It’s great fun.”

For successful people, it is not about money and fame. They know that success is really about expressing what is best in each of us in a way that we enjoy and accomplishing things that add value to the lives of others.

Dr. M. Myra S. White has been a respected instructor since 1999 in the Certificate in Management Program, where she has taught two courses, Organizational Behavior and Managing Workplace Performance. She is an instructor at Harvard Medical School and CEO of Behavior Scientific.

Dr. White holds two Harvard University doctorates: a PhD from the Department of Psychology and Social Relations, and a JD from Harvard Law School. She also has a master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from Northwestern University.

Dr. White’s current research focuses on the psychological factors that lead to success in the workplace, which is the topic of her forthcoming book, The Yellow Brick Road to Success.