Commencement Speaker George Schindler’s remarks to George Mason’s winter 2024 graduates

As prepared for delivery

Thank you, former Rector Blackman, President Washington, and thank you distinguished Board Members and Faculty. I accept this honorary degree from your esteemed institution with immense gratitude and humility.

And dear parents, guests, and, most of all, graduates to be…Congratulations on reaching this significant milestone!

You have each worked so hard to reach this point as graduates—overcoming countless obstacles to acquire a knowledge base that will allow you to succeed in your chosen career path. You have also built lifelong friendships, made the time to give back to your university and your community, and hopefully had lots of fun along the way. You deserve to celebrate this momentous occasion.

Yet, believe it or not, your learning journey…is just now beginning. You must get ready for a life of learning, irrespective of your future plans.

For you are receiving your degrees during a period of extraordinary change. At CGI, we have been working with our clients around the world to identify, and begin addressing, the most significant drivers of this change. At the macro level, these include:

• Changing social demographics, including aging populations in much of the world;
• A shift in the world economic order, resulting in, among other things, a reconfiguration of supply chains;
• The ongoing fight against climate change;

and, last but not least,

• The rapid evolution of technology and digitization of society.

These macro trends are triggering large transformations and corresponding cultural and behavioral evolutions across most economic sectors. For all of society—for all of us—this evolution will provide richness in diversity and countless exciting opportunities.

As you are aware from my introduction, I spent the last 40 years in the technology industry, and our constant in this industry has been, and continues to be…change. And currently, that change is occurring more rapidly than ever before…and this has a follow-on impact on every industry.

The reality is that previous technological changes took longer to take hold, allowing for human adaptation. We no longer have that luxury of time.

A few years ago, the bestselling author and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman explained that Technology is accelerating faster than our ability to adapt. He added: We can catch up. And goes on to explain that the foundation for adapting to rapid technological change is set, we just have to build on it. I would suggest that, each of you, have the necessary attributes to do just that in your respective fields of study.

As Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, stated to the World Economic Forum: Change is faster than ever, but will never again be this slow.

In fact, some futurists predict that there will be more change in the next 10 years than the previous 50 years combined. While there is no clear roadmap for navigating all the change that is coming our way, I do have a few suggestions for you. These are based on my experiences as a global CEO and also as a father to four relatively recent college graduates, to whom I provided much of this same advice.

I believe the key to success in this rapidly changing environment will be the ability to continuously learn, in order to adapt and to thrive.

I recommend that you remain deeply curious, just like your first days here at George Mason. Stay in a learning mode. In today’s world, current knowledge is just table stakes. While continuous learning is often the differentiator in career and life. It will be important to be agile and adaptable in your ways of thinking and acting.

So as you begin new careers, think about how you will stay relevant in your chosen field through continuous learning. When joining an organization, ask: “Can you tell me about your learning philosophy? Can you tell me about the mentoring I will receive?”

If you create your own company, ask yourself: “How will I foster an environment of continuous learning to remain relevant to my customers and to my colleagues?”

You should expect and demand an environment where continuous learning is a core focus area.

My next piece of advice concerns mentorship—it is the single most important activity that we can do to give back to our organizations and our communities. Everyone, at any and all levels, should seek out a mentor. And everyone, at all levels, has an opportunity to be a mentor to someone else. I have found it to be the most fulfilling part of leadership.

However, in my experience as both a mentor and as a mentee, I have seen that “advice” can be a double-edged sword.

My view on this topic is that one should listen intently to all the advice that is received, but in order to make it really work for you, you should be willing to throw most of it away…Unless of course, the advice is from your mother. Always follow your mom’s advice.

While all advice can and should inform your own personal continuous growth, it shouldn’t be followed blindly. For everyone strives to be an authentic performer and leader, and to be authentic, you need to be yourself.

Now this shouldn’t discourage us as mentors from giving advice, in fact, knowing that your advice will not be followed blindly should be liberating to dispense even more of it.

And to be clear, that also goes for all of my advice given here today. Feel free to throw most of it away!

For me, I was told throughout my career that I was too nice, and that this was a flaw that needed to be corrected in order for me to excel in my business career. Nothing could have been further from the truth for me; in fact, that’s my last piece of advice here today:

Be kind to everyone. You can be kind and still be a strong performer and a strong leader. You can be kind and still make difficult decisions. You can be kind and still provide firm feedback and be a firm negotiator.  And you can be kind and have a successful career. Our companies need more kindness, our governments need more kindness, and our society could definitely use some more kindness. It starts with each of us.

And most importantly, you need to remember to be kind to yourself. This is especially true when you screw up—naturally, I have screwed up plenty in my career and life. My advice here is to refrain from beating yourself up for not being perfect. Any missteps you make should be used to gain wisdom that will help you (and others) improve in the future. Just remember to be kind to yourself throughout that learning process.

I’ll close with a quote that is often attributed to the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking: “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”

Each of you are really fortunate. As new graduates, with all of the intelligence you have acquired here at George Mason University, you are very well positioned to adapt to change and therefore thrive in your selected fields of expertise.

Congratulations, once again, on your accomplishments. You have earned this right to celebrate!

Thank you.