If you’re old enough that the name “Atari” rings a bell, congratulations. You’re also probably old enough to be a parent of a Delphian graduate.
If you’re not yet the parent of a Delphian graduate, or your Delphian graduate left our embrace years ago, you might have missed this past year’s graduation ceremony. Don’t feel bad — but know that it was certainly one to remember.
One of the many highlights was Rob Adams, a Delphian parent who has led teams in the video gaming industry for going on 30 years. His first professional role was with Atari in the 1990s, back when it and other boxy arcade games were losing ground to smaller console-based competitors (which are now, themselves, all but obsolete).
Adams is also a Delphian parent, and it was with evident pride that he took the stage to deliver the commencement address. After admonishing graduates to “always evaluate advice carefully” — then drawing laughs with the quip “that’s also advice,” he delivered some bite-size bits of wisdom accumulated during his decades of leadership and service.
Here’s what he told them.
#1: “DON’T ASSUME YOUR JOB WILL ALWAYS BE THERE”
During his final year at Delphian School, Adams interned at a graphic design company. He had an amazing experience learning the craft of stereoscopic printing, a painstaking, labor-intensive, and very expensive process that produced great results.
Adams recalled noticing a single employee working on a computer in the back. She was learning a brand-new program called Photoshop, trying to figure out if it could help the company design cheaper, faster, and better.
You can imagine what happened next. Adam checked in a few years later and discovered that the entire team he’d worked with had been laid off, replaced by a nimbler team of digital graphic designers.
#2: “ALWAYS BE STUDENTS”
That led Adams to his next point, that successful people tend to be lifelong students. Of his old colleagues, only those who correctly saw where the industry was headed — and who were nimble enough and bold enough to retool their own skills — remained employed.
#3: “BE A MENTOR TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN”
Adams spent a lot of time talking about how Delphian graduates could pay it forward. They’d be “leaders wherever [they] went,” as he put it. But with great power comes great responsibility, in this case a duty and obligation to mentor others and help them reach their own full potential.
#4: “EMBRACE SERVANT LEADERSHIP AT AN EARLY AGE”
Adams defined servant leadership as “leadership style that prioritizes the growth, well-being, and empowerment of your team.”
It’s distinct from the hard-driving style that Adams admitted practicing earlier in his career — a style that gets results until it doesn’t, as he put it. Only over time did Adams realize that it was his leadership approach that needed changing. He implored graduates to chart a different course from the beginning.
#5: “CREATE A FAIL-FORWARD CULTURE”
Adams challenged graduates to give their (future) teams the space to fail, which he said is an essential foundation for breakthrough innovation. He pointed to the “failure” of a SpaceX test launch earlier in 2023, when the SpaceX team was mocked on social media for cheering when its rocket exploded soon after taking off. They cheered because they knew they’d learn something — many things, actually — from the experience.
#6: “KEEP IN TOUCH WITH DELPHIAN SCHOOL”
Adams advised graduates not to turn their backs on their alma mater. Not only is it a truly special place, it remains an important part of many alumni’s social and professional networks.
#7: “MAKE AND MAINTAIN REAL CONNECTIONS”
On that note, Adams reminded his audience that their network is closely tied to their net worth. Real connections, rather than transactional encounters, offer boundless opportunity.
#8: “HAVE THE COURAGE TO CHANGE THE WORLD”
It wouldn’t be a commencement speech without this bit of closing advice. But Adams was serious: He believed in each and every 2023 grad’s power to change the world for the better.
And with that, he let them get on with it.