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Read our latest article from Mandeep Singh, MD, CPM India and his recent and touching experience at Omnicom University.

 

Omnicom University

Thought-provoking lessons

I was fortunate to be at the Omnicom University last month in Boston. It was my fourth time there and like every time it has left me with some thought-provoking lessons that will go a long way in my personal and professional life.

I always transcript my key learnings in simple one-liners and keep referring to them often. I will share some with you today but before I do that I am going to share the most important learning that I saw and observed during this visit.

Setting the scene

On the inaugural day of our program, we were welcomed by Janet Riccio, the Dean of Omnicom University. I don't know her very well but have met her in my earlier visits.  I was surprised to see that she arrived in the class in a small scooter and looked very frail. I learnt that last year she was detected with ALS and has been fighting her battle. She made fun of it while delivering her inaugural address and took her seat in the back of the class. She was there every day, filling the class with her sunshine like energy and in fact closed the class with an inspiring note. The class gave her a standing ovation thanked her for what she was doing for the Omnicom University.

 Make anything possible

One week after I returned we got the news that she passed away. It was news that was difficult for a lot of us to believe as it was only a week ago that she was driving around at Babson on her bright yellow scooter - holding court in the courtyard and in the classroom - engaged, vibrant, funny and charismatic as ever.

I have always been amazed at the zeal in people to make anything possible but this is the closest example in recent times. In spite of her diagnosis last year, she kept her sense of humour, her passion for life and her endless support to the Omnicom University.

Her light, her kindness, her wisdom, wit and grace, will stay with us always.

Key takeaways 

As a tribute to her, I would like to leave you all with some key takeaways of mine from the Omnicom University this year. Hope we are able to imbibe some of them and honour her memory.

  • Get Comfortable to be Uncomfortable
  • If you are not too early, You are too late!!
  • Surround Yourselves by People Different from You
  • Everything that happens to you is due to a choice you made /make
  • Do Big Things and Small Things Together Today
  • Be consistently Great
  • Vision is 20% and Execution is 80%
  • Time is the one thing you can’t buy and we so often don’t spend it wisely
  • Busy is the New Stupid
  • Make it Harder to do the Wrong Things and Easy to do the Right Things
  • If you talk to your team all the time, you don't make Big Mistakes, you make Small Ones
  • We want to give clients what they want, but never what they expect.