on STUDENTS
Andre Hawaux:
Mastery.
Keys to Success
Rather than trying to be a generalist right away and trying to know everything, be a master at something.
When I was a CFO I would tell finance people, get your discipline in order, meaning if you’re going to be an accountant,
be the best you can be. Spend the first couple of years really getting that down. So step one is be functionally excellent.
Knowledge. The second piece is to know the industry and know your space. The combination of those two things,
if you’re really good, gets you a seat at the table, so now all of a sudden you’re in where the decisions are being made.
Passion. Too often today I see kids that want to be good at a lot of things but are not really good at anything
because you can’t point to their specialization. They don’t particularly know their space if you push them hard. So
knowing your brands is really important as opposed to making generalizations about things. A former CEO at PepsiCo
once said a point of view is worth 50 IQ points because too often people just sit in the back of the room and don’t say
a thing. I don’t know if they’re really smart or if they’re dumb as a doorknob. Give me a point of view, tell me something. Fall 2010
Impact
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