Monday, August 04, 2008 Echaves: Third time around By Lelani P. Echaves Thinking Aloud
NOTHING beats learning from the university of hands-on management and experience. So, while students can have their fill of authors and management gurus Tom Peters, Jack Welch and Bill George, there’s no replacing tried-and-tested experience and lessons learned.
Such must’ve been the consensus last week of 87 college student leaders from all over the country. Carefully selected by their schools for their leadership track records, the college juniors and seniors trooped to an uptown hotel for the 3rd Aboitiz Business Summit for Future Leaders.
Reflecting the objectives of the two-day event, as well as the key participants from both sides, was the theme “Shaping the Filipino Youth towards Becoming World-Class Leaders.” Though varied, the scheduled activities allowed for both cerebral sharings and clean fun.
The management’s perspective brought together a powerhouse panel—Romy Ronquillo, director of the Aboitiz Foundation; Bobby Aboitiz, president and CEO of the Aboitiz Construction Group; and Endika Aboitiz, president and CEO of Aboitiz Transport System.
Ronquillo stressed that leadership can be learned, and that recognition is a “fantastic motivator.” The self-made man knows whereof he speaks. He was first a messenger then collector, estimator and purchaser before becoming manager. Despite retiring from Aboitiz and Company some years back, he’s still requested to sit as director in Citisavings Bank and in the corporate foundation.
The group’s construction company, Bobby Aboitiz said, has no room for four kinds of people: the aggressive impostors, the glory seekers, the rationalizers and the independent loners. Addressing the young audience, he stressed that “a leader’s value is in what you cause others to do, not on what you do as an individual.”
Strong as his ideas were, Endika Aboitiz shared as powerfully. Even the lyrical “Life is not about how many breaths you take, but rather about how many moments in your life take your breath away” was delivered with such conviction that they sounded like battle cries from the Knights of the Round Table.
Asked whether the Aboitiz companies prefer women or men, he shot back, “The question does not even need to be asked. Meritocracy recognizes no gender, whether it’s one or two, or three.”
How about favoritism, another asked. His response: “Only one way to handle favorites. Expect more from them. Discriminate in favor of talent. Discriminate in favor of results. Discriminate against non-performance. Discriminate against non-teamwork believers.”
After the forum I relayed to Erramon “Montxu” Aboitiz, president and CEO of the Aboitiz Power Corp., and Xavier “Txabi” Aboitiz, senior vice president for human resources, that Endika left the audience and even the Aboitiz employees “awe-struck.” Txabi said, “I never know what he’s going to say next,” but their smile said it all. There was no mistaking their agreement, and their brotherly pride and admiration.
