Advising young people who were due to graduate at Multitech Business School

I was invited to address students of Multitech Business School (MBS) who were due to graduate on Friday January 27, 2017. It is always a pleasure for me to share my experience with young people knowing that out of the many you talk to, some will pick your story, learn from it and possibly be a better citizen of the world. Multitech was founded by Mr. Ssemanda who is now Chairman Founders Board. He was one of my MBA students in the 1990s. He was a chief Executive of Celtel in the 1990s. As he invited me to speak, he revealed to the students that he too was my student and Multitech Business School was a result of a project he had been forced to write as part of our MUBS MBA. I remember those days we had Mr. Karmali, a relative of the Mukwanos teaching strategy II while I taught Strategy I. He used to make students write these feasibility studies and Mr. Aloysius Ssemanda confesses that Multitech Business School was a product of that Class. Having been my student and invited to speak to his students, I had to find the time in my own busy schedule. The Current Principal of MBS, Dr Hassan Ssendagire was also my student, he did a BCOM in the 1980s. MBS started off training aspiring accountants to do professional programmes like ACCA and CPA. Subsequently they went into offering diploma programmes and were affiliated to MUBS for some time. Today Multitech awards Degrees, I should mention that MUBS doesn’t award any degrees, don’t be dragged into this politics.

Whenever you are addressing young people you must understand them and what drives them. The main purpose of this presentation was for me to talk about how to start life after graduation, what to expect and how best to position yourself in the world of work. Linkedin the professional social network invited me several years back to write an article on if “I were 22”, I can’t recall remember what is in that article but I know what I wrote about what I would do if I was that age. This is what I felt I should tell these young people. It is difficult to get the attention of young people so to get their attention I requested that we play a song which would arouse their interest in what I was going to say. They played one of the popular local artist songs “Magic” by Winnie Nwagi. Indeed they were aroused. 

I talked to them about the need to set goals in their lives, believe in themselves, be knowledgeable and warned them about the challenges of work, challenges of success. I also told them not to fear failure since life is not a bed of roses. I told them that success came out of having a big picture, working hard, being efficient but most important managing ones ego. I shared my dreams when I was their age, the desire to live by the Lakeside which I do now and I also told them how stubborn I was in my childhood. Like I tell people always, I told them not to focus on money because the money comes as an objective because money comes if you are a good performer. I told them to have integrity and build trust with people, ad vised them to avoid the “Government etuyambe” attitude and get out, go and work. I shared with them the fact that if you have a huge ego which is making yourself feel more worth than what you were, chances are that you will be arrogant and insensitive to others needs. This was a cause of failure. I noted that like many other people today, the students don’t read much, I referred to the book “Alice in Wonderland” and seemed nobody had ever heard of that book, a clear sign that they don’t read much. My last advice to them was that when getting married, boys should have girls who are at least 5 years young but ideally 10. I also requested the boys to support their wives in whatever they did as part of having good families and peace in the home. Lastly I requested them to remember Multitech wherever they went and support it.