8 hard-earned career lessons

LUIS Calingo Jr recalled how he almost got himself kicked out of engineering school at the University of the Philippines. Enjoying his first wind of freedom, cutting classes to join demonstrations and hanging out with his fraternity brods, his grades plummeted and he lost his scholarship. The timely intervention of a fatherly professor, who pulled him aside to remind him to shape up, helped him muster a second wind to make it to graduation rites in 1976, earning a degree in industrial engineering.

Calingo would return to his college after more than 30 years abroad as one of its most distinguished alumni. As provost or executive vice president and chief academic officer of the Dominican University of California, he is one of the highest ranking academics of Filipino descent in the United States. The first Filipino administrator of the international business division at Nanyang University in Singapore, he is also an internationally-recognized expert in total quality management(TQM).

In his distinguished alumni lecture at his alma mater early this month, he candidly shared his experiences—trials, mistakes and successes—in negotiating the academic ladder abroad.

After graduation, his first professional decision, he said, was to split from the pack. “My friends had better grades than me, so if we went job hunting together, how could I compete?” he said. He chose a small government office, the Farm Systems Development Corporation, and was in fact the first among his classmates to land a job.

1. Work with a purpose

He was assigned to mathematical modeling—designing pro forma financial statements for farmers’ cooperatives and constructing linear programming models to determine the optimum mix of crops. He later moved to corporate planning and communications.

His first lesson: “Work with a purpose. And you’re able to work with a purpose only if you pursue work that you are passionate about.”

2. Emulate role models

Of course, he wanted to move up in his career. Looking up from his desk, he noticed that many of the up-and-coming managers were pursuing Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) degrees.

His second lesson: “Look for role models; discover their formulas for success and emulate them.” So, he applied for admission to the MBA program at UP. “I was quickly turned down,” he retold. He did not have enough working experience and his less-than-spectacular grade average during his undergraduate years still haunted him.

He added an addendum to his second lesson: “Be flexible. Make adjustments as you try to emulate formulas for success.”

Calingo looked around for another graduate program. He was accepted at what then a new Master’s program in Urban and Regional Planning. This time he took his studies seriously, graduating at the top of his class. He was inducted into the Pi Gamma Mu international honor society.

With his MA distinctions, he moved up to head his office’s technical staff and later was concurrently appointed assistant secretary for operations at the Ministry of Human Settlements. Meanwhile, he was mailing out applications for admission to a doctoral program in the US.

3. Good deeds pay off

Calingo said he received admission offers from Columbia, MIT, North Carolina and Pittsburgh. He was ready to fly but he discovered he could not get a government travel clearance. This led him to this third shared lesson, a pragmatic one: “When you do good and make your boss look good, your deeds will not be forgotten.”

He did not make it out in time for the September opening of classes. But his bosses did help facilitate his clearance papers. One school was willing to defer his admission to the winter term in January—the University of Pittsburgh, which luckily had one of the top three programs in Strategic Planning.

There was a snow storm in Pittsburgh when Calingo landed in January 1980. He was cold and lonely.

Calingo again mustered his focus. He graduated with straight As, earning his MBA in Strategic Planning and Policy and a Ph.D in Business Administration.

Meanwhile, he got married, became adept at shoveling snow and moving lawns, and learned to bake pan de sal.

4. Know the political layout

Calingo admits that in Pittsburgh, he made mistakes in dealing with people. “I pissed off one senior professor,” he retold. That professor became part of his dissertation committee and didn’t see him for six months.

His fourth professional lesson: “When you enter the workplace, always construct a sociogram that describes the political lay of land. Who talks to whom? Who could you not afford to piss off? Identify the alliances and coalitions and tread the waters very carefully.”

Calingo’s first teaching job in 1983 was as assistant professor at Fresno State, one of the 23 campuses of the California State University system.
Working “twice as hard,” he made it to full professor before the age of 35. On his sixth year, he was appointed acting director of the university’s MBA program.

His first sabbatical leave was a sweet homecoming as visiting professor at the UP College of Business Administration. “I wittingly reminded my colleagues that they turned me down for admission to the MBA program 10 years before,” he laughed.

5. Insist on integrity

When he returned to California, he was appointed associate business dean. An internal revolt broke out in his department. Some faculty members had petitioned for the removal of the dean. The university provost had asked him to testify against the dean. Calingo said the situation led to his first major moral dilemma. The dean had given him his breaks and he had assured his superior he would not involve himself in the affair.

Calingo said he went to the president of the university and gave him a sealed envelope containing his resignation. If the school wanted him to testify, then he would have to resign. “After two days, the president returned the letter to me—unopened, saying that they didn’t need my testimony.”

His fifth professional lesson: Workplace politics is a reality you cannot escape from. Insist on integrity. The only side that you should take in a “civil war” at work is your own. Your own moral compass might be your sole guide as you try to navigate through a political storm.

The dean, however, eventually left and Calingo stepped up as interim dean for a two-year term.

6. Never stop learning

In 1993, Calingo took a leave to accept a position as one of the founding faculty members of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He was also drafted to be part of a team to formulate Singapore’s National Quality Strategy and was one of the first examiners for the Singapore quality award. Before he ended his Singapore stint, Calingo had retooled his expertise and became the first Filipino director of Nanyang’s new international business division.

Returning to the US in 1996, Calingo became more involved in evaluating internationally competitive corporations as an examiner of the US Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. In no small way he lobbied for and helped design the Philippine Quality Award. He has also helped design similar programs to enhance international competitiveness in Indonesia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam, among others.

7. Respect differences

His experience in Singapore and other Asian countries has taught him how to navigate cultural differences, he said.

“My seventh professional lesson is that people are different. They learn in different ways and at different rates. Societies, which are simply a collection of people, are different too. We need to be respectful of those differences, especially when we work across national borders. Articulating those differences do not necessarily mean criticism. Those differences do not necessarily mean that other people are better or inferior; they are just molded in a different way. “

8. Family first

On returning to the US, Calingo moved to Long Beach, the main campus of the Cal State system. He became the dean of its business school. He is proud to say that in 2005, Cal State Long Beach was listed in the Princeton Review’s “Best Business Schools.”

But what would seem like the hard-earned pinnacle of Calingo’s career would turn out to be one of his most trying times. He fell ill and underwent weekly chemotherapy for almost a year, while still working four days a week. “My treatment had an average success rate of 28 percent and only divine intervention allowed me to live through this experience.” He recovered.

“I have rediscovered my faith,” shared Calingo.“I decided to spend the rest of my academic life in a Catholic university and took the offer to be business dean at John Carroll University, a Jesuit university in Cleveland, Ohio.

The job, however, would last only nine months. Calingo admits that he had made a mistake in accepting the job without consulting his wife and family. “In making the move, we left behind two of our three daughters who were studying in Berkeley and San Diego. My wife became depressed and the Midwest cold weather made her ill.

He went back to California, taking a pay cut to keep the family together. After his second year as business dean, he was promoted to executive vice president and chief academic officer or university provost. Right now, he said, there is one Filipino provost (him) and one Filipino president of an American university (Dr. Boyette Esteban, a UP Mathematics and MBA alumnus is head at Seton Hall University, the Catholic university in New Jersey).

His eighth lesson: “Whatever career decision you make, do not leave your family behind. After all, work is just a means for livelihood and there is a higher purpose in what we do.”

His parting remarks to young graduates this year: “It is difficult to predict what you will be in the future. The best way to predict the future is to create it. In order to create your future, you need to continually develop your competence, be willing to learn new skills and retool if necessary, and be open to any opportunities that might arise.” –Monica Feria, INQUIRER.net