Endicott
Speech
President, Members of the Faculty, Undergraduates, Graduates,
Bachelors and Masters, Parents and Friends,
I am very appreciative of this honour you have paid me, as
a former graduate of Oxford University, in inviting me to
speak with you this morning.
I stand before you as your newest Honorary Doctor of Humane
Letters. A great honour and a great challenge for the future.
No more faxes or emails - only letters and humane ones at
that. The main challenge will be to improve my handwriting
so that everyone will be able to read these humane letters.
Honorary Fellow I am already - This Honorary Doctorate is
a pinnacle of my life and Endicott College will forever be
proudly remembered with pleasure and gratitude.
I was pleased to see that John Endicott came to New England
from Dorchester in England and was later made Governor of
Massachusetts and I also am a Governor so I am enjoying this
little bit of historical coincidence. You need not worry (neither
need this current Governor worry) that I will behave as John
Endicott did and stay around as long. I leave tomorrow! As
a Governor of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, there
is a meeting next week in London. As you might expect, often
more drama than music!
I have been very fortunate over the past fifty years in belonging
to an American Association that meets every year in a different
City. In this way I have been exposed to a great many States
and some wonderful cities and great countryside. Like most
Association meetings, I have also been exposed to a great
many speeches and key note addresses.
Many are half remembered but one in particular stands out
in my memory. It was from a well-known football coach and
he said "Remember - you will be the same person today and
for the rest of your life - except - for the books that you
read and the people that you meet".
Not a bad guidance for a useful, happy and contented life.
Read novels, to expand your imagination, History to try to
avoid falling into black holes and Biographies to study how
other people travelled a good or dangerous life.
And of course People. Listen to what they have to say. Everyone
has two ears and one mouth - that means we should listen twice
as much as we talk. You will notice that I am following this
piece of good advice myself but I will try harder when I sit
down in a minute!
People are difficult - especially if they are in full flood
- ether words or tears. Love thy neighbour as thyself, we
are told. But so often our neighbours are fractious, pernickety
types and outright refuse to be loved. But persevere. I have
often found that the customer, who always writes letters of
complaint and is always telephoning and moaning about some
trivial (to me ) problem, when we meet face to face, turns
out to be one of my best friends and supporters.
But equally beware of people who say Yes to your statements.
There are at least seven different grades of Yes. At one end
is the person who says "Yes - and I will also do all in my
power to help you achieve your objective". Then in the middle
is the Yes that says " I will neither help you or hinder you
but will be studiously neutral". At the other extreme is the
person who says Yes but means that he will do all in his power
to frustrate you in your objective. General Charles de Gaulle
was reputedly always saying Yes to Winston Churchill but meaning
"Yes I have heard what you have said", and no more!
So how can you identify the appropriate relative value of
the "yes" you may receive? Almost impossible on a computer
screen or an email or text message. Probably impossible on
the telephone as well.
If the answer is important for you and your project you must
met face to face and in person not via a TV link. On television
some politicians have taught us that you can tell the most
outrageous lies - just remember to look directly at the camera
lens and not at the interviewer. The little red light in the
camera tells you that you are "live" and this light will not
blink no matter what lies or rubbish you are talking! But
the interviewer may well express dismay, disbelieving or outright
consternation and blink he may well.
To help you understand what people are saying, or in particular
what they are not saying, you need to learn a language not
often taught at many educational establishments. That is known
as Body Language and it's difficult to teach and difficult
to learn in a formal way. But be aware of its importance especially
in business as well as in politics.
Politics may be a dangerous subject for a commencement speaker
but it is an essential component of democracy. A colleague
of mine used to say that everyone as an adult had two important
social imperatives. The first was to vote an every occasion
and the second was to roll back the borders of bureaucracy!
In my country, as well as yours, we worry about the low turnout
of voters at elections. But you should always attend and vote
in person. If you don't like any of the candidates or options
put before you, then you should abstain, vote for everyone
or otherwise spoil you voting paper. After all abstentions
or spoiled votes also send a message, and that may be as important
as numbers recorded elsewhere. Unfortunately, few ballot papers
have a column for "Abstentions" but its no solution to staying
at home and saying "a curse on both your houses" to anyone
who is listening. In Australia and some other countries voting
is compulsory. Let your generation be the one that leads modern
democracies into a social order with high voter turnouts.
If you don't, then what might come after democracy, as we
know it, will almost certainly be worse.
We have become so dependent on our laptops that we are in
dander of believing we need no other sources for our continuing
education and we forget to involve all five of our senses
and information sourced through eyes and ears is not enough.
Despite our reliance on the computer and its assemblies as
an educational tool, we must remind ourselves frequently that
it is only a tool rather in the same form of development as
a chalk, blackboard, pen and ink, the printing press and the
typewriter. The development certainly makes people more self-sufficient,
but I believe also emphasises the dangers of isolation and
turning people into self-reliant but not always well developed
human beings.
I attended a talk a couple of years ago in Korea by one of
the foremost Chinese Professors of research into education.
He reminded us that there are a number of things that computers
and the Internet and other modern marvels cannot do. He identified
Creativity, Human Relations, Problem Solving, Ethics and Appreciation
of Beauty. There is a feeling that creativity cannot be taught
through a computer. Creativity demands the human brain to
function in a different way and is very much reliant on a
cross-fertilisation of ideas, especially from one skill to
another.
It is very hard to properly relate with normal human relations
through a computer. The sending of text messages and emails
very often create more problems than they solve. Also, they
create a mountain of unnecessary reading for all those people
who get copied in for information. Human relations should
benefit from the involvement of all the five human senses.
One of the major activities of any business, or anyone managing
a family, has to be problem solving. You may need to refer
back to some of the early philosophers and understand their
reasoning in order to have developed you own skills in solving
problems, especially those which arise through people management.
We have seen in recent years, grave problems relating to
lower ethical standards and the common principles of individual
morality. These are other subjects that need to be taught
in a very old fashioned way between individuals, preferably
working together and relating and observing reactions to specific
questions.
Finally, my Chinese Professor referred to one of the key
aspects of a happy contented and worthwhile life and that
was the Appreciation of Beauty. There are no doubt people
who can see beauty on a computer screen, but this by its very
nature must be superficial and not really uplifting for the
spirit. Beauty brings peace and contentment to all our lives
and needs nurturing over time.
All these aspects of a well-rounded person will help you
and all of us to enjoy a good life and especially one, which
is worthwhile and contributes to the emotional and personal
health of all of us.
The beauty of Endicott is self-evident from its geography
and especially its flora and fauna and springtime. Ethical
behaviour you have developed, especially when trying to live
and work together in such a creative community of Faculty
and Students. Problem solving at the moment is probably a
matter of receiving examples of past problems and the resulting
historical results.
The future will bring many problems - hopefully ones that
can be enjoyed as an intellectual challenge - but almost certainly
involving business or family matters. Human Relations involve
us all - unless we live alone or on an island - and depend
on the understanding of other people's desires and objectives.
Finally, a definition of Happiness that I learned from Sir
Peter Scott, a well known Englishman who spent a lifetime
creating a sanctuary for birds. He said, "Happiness is the
moment of poise between a satisfactory past and an immediate
future - rich with promise". An appropriate comment for a
country where the pursuit of happiness is a national objective.
So, go forth into the wider world, forge friendships wherever
you go, walk tall filled with the knowledge you have gained
at Endicott and strive to make this world a better place for
all those who follow you.
Thank you for inviting me to enjoy the Endicott Experience.
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