[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_137":-5,"_138":-5,"_139":140,"_141":142,"_143":144},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/861/you-only-grow-when-youre-uncomfortable","id",861,"title","You only grow when you're uncomfortable","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.280\nAnd I remember being offered a very large job.\n\n2\n00:00:03.280 --> 00:00:05.440\nAnd the man who I worked for, he came to me,\n\n3\n00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:07.440\nsaid, Jenny, I'm going to get a new job.\n\n4\n00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:10.200\nI am going to go to Asia.\n\n5\n00:00:10.200 --> 00:00:12.120\nAnd I think you should take my job.\n\n6\n00:00:12.120 --> 00:00:13.480\nAnd I looked at him and I said, boy,\n\n7\n00:00:13.480 --> 00:00:15.800\nnow this is a very big global management job.\n\n8\n00:00:15.800 --> 00:00:18.080\nI said, I'm not ready for this job.\n\n9\n00:00:18.080 --> 00:00:20.840\nMaybe two more years I could be ready for it.\n\n10\n00:00:20.840 --> 00:00:24.800\nHe said, go to the interview, because I had it with his boss.\n\n11\n00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:26.720\nSo I went to the interview the next day.\n\n12\n00:00:26.720 --> 00:00:28.640\nHe's telling me why I should do it, this and that.\n\n13\n00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:30.000\nAnd he offers me the job.\n\n14\n00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.480\nAnd I said, let me go home and talk to my husband about it.\n\n15\n00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:34.840\nHe kind of looked at me.\n\n16\n00:00:34.840 --> 00:00:36.600\nOK, I went home.\n\n17\n00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:37.800\nI talked to my husband's name as Mark.\n\n18\n00:00:37.800 --> 00:00:39.040\nYou know Mark did.\n\n19\n00:00:39.040 --> 00:00:42.360\nI talked to Mark and Mark looked at me.\n\n20\n00:00:42.360 --> 00:00:44.280\nHe kind of, I went on and I'm like, usually,\n\n21\n00:00:44.280 --> 00:00:47.040\nhe's like sitting there and he goes, Jenny,\n\n22\n00:00:47.040 --> 00:00:50.560\ndo you think a man would have answered that offer that way?\n\n23\n00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:51.640\nI said, no.\n\n24\n00:00:51.640 --> 00:00:52.760\nHe said, I know you.\n\n25\n00:00:52.760 --> 00:00:53.920\nYou're going to do it.\n\n26\n00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:55.040\nYou're going to-- six months, you're\n\n27\n00:00:55.040 --> 00:00:56.360\ngoing to have said, I've learned everything.\n\n28\n00:00:56.360 --> 00:00:56.680\nI'm bored.\n\n29\n00:00:56.680 --> 00:00:57.800\nI got to move on.\n\n30\n00:00:57.800 --> 00:00:58.680\nThis is it.\n\n31\n00:00:58.680 --> 00:00:59.800\nAnd I know these other people.\n\n32\n00:00:59.800 --> 00:01:01.080\nYou're better than all of them.\n\n33\n00:01:01.080 --> 00:01:05.280\nAnd that was when, to me, it crystallized that story some\n\n34\n00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:10.600\nhave heard that I say growth and comfort never coexist, never.\n\n35\n00:01:10.600 --> 00:01:13.960\nAnd it really was in that moment that I really realized\n\n36\n00:01:13.960 --> 00:01:14.560\nmy mistake.\n\n37\n00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:15.520\nAnd I went in the next day.\n\n38\n00:01:15.520 --> 00:01:16.120\nI took the job.\n\n39\n00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:18.880\nHe looked at me and he said, don't do that again.\n\n40\n00:01:18.880 --> 00:01:20.360\nI said, I understand.\n\n41\n00:01:20.360 --> 00:01:24.080\nAnd the point was, you know, you've got to have confidence.\n\n42\n00:01:24.080 --> 00:01:25.240\nAnd even if you're not, by the way,\n\n43\n00:01:25.240 --> 00:01:28.000\nbecause very natural, don't show it then, OK?\n\n44\n00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:31.320\nBecause you will only grow when you're uncomfortable.\n\n45\n00:01:31.320 --> 00:01:33.640\nAnd I've talked to so many people around the world\n\n46\n00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:35.920\nthat resonate with that.\n\n47\n00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:38.440\nAnd I try to say to them, I actually\n\n48\n00:01:38.440 --> 00:01:40.960\ngot to the point where I love to feel uncomfortable.\n\n49\n00:01:40.960 --> 00:01:42.560\nBecause then I'm like, yes, I'm learning.\n\n50\n00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:43.320\nI'm learning.\n\n51\n00:01:43.320 --> 00:01:46.560\nAnd so I would even look to put myself as a CEO, particularly\n\n52\n00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:47.920\nin those positions, right?\n\n53\n00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:50.120\nYou know, I'd be seeing a client that ran a railroad.\n\n54\n00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:52.120\nI got to learn railroad business before I get there,\n\n55\n00:01:52.120 --> 00:01:52.400\nyou know?\n\n56\n00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:56.000\nAnd it was like, if you start feeling like you're not,\n\n57\n00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:58.880\nI would say to people, if you're feeling so comfortable\n\n58\n00:01:58.880 --> 00:02:00.680\nin a role, you do need to change it.\n\n59\n00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:01.880\nBecause you are not learning.\n\n60\n00:02:01.880 --> 00:02:04.920\nSo growth and comfort never coexist.\n\n61\n00:02:04.920 --> 00:02:07.520\nAnd by the way, I felt that way about a company\n\n62\n00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:09.080\nand a country too on that one.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",1028290,"end_time",1156829,"keywords","IBM, growth, discomfort, women, female","slug","you-only-grow-when-youre-uncomfortable","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","ZvaREi02Y9Y6Bs9NOYVgb1lB5aehJ76D2v6ex7s4iaWg","mux_asset_id","nzKZtSPuAXs01D2kyl2oG9001QKJSQIlRTcI81pgZkRyU","leader_id",75,"episode_id",224,"updated_at","2025-02-26T20:03:35.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/861/you-only-grow-when-youre-uncomfortable","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_100":101,"_102":103,"_104":105,"_25":106,"_107":108,"_61":109,"_58":110,"_111":112,"_68":113,"_39":114,"_115":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_116":117,"_88":118,"_44":119,"_120":121,"_122":123,"_46":-5,"_124":125,"_126":127,"_92":128,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":28,"_17":53,"_54":55,"_18":56,"_20":57,"_58":59,"_60":-5,"_61":59,"_62":-5,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":-5,"_35":36,"_39":74,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_75":76,"_77":78,"_79":80,"_81":82,"_83":-5,"_84":-5,"_85":86,"_87":-5,"_88":-5,"_46":-5,"_89":90,"_91":-5,"_92":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","You Only Grow When You're Uncomfortable","Ginni and David talk about reinventing IBM, changing hiring priorities to tap new talent pools, and how the best growth happens when you’re uncomfortable.","summary","

Today’s guest is Ginni Rometty, the Former Chairman, President and CEO of IBM and current Co-Chairman of the OneTen Initiative. Rising through the ranks from systems engineer to CEO, Ginni has learned to be comfortable with situations outside her comfort zone, because that’s where she grew the most in her journey as a leader. While leading IBM, Ginni learned what was essential about IBM that must endure before making changes that set the company up for future growth in new industries. And so what you're about to hear from Ginni, and what you'll learn from her journey to become CEO of IBM, is that great leaders are comfortable being uncomfortable.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

How to mentally process a promotion to the top job - especially as a woman
How Ginni’s mother modelled the courage and leadership Ginni needed to succeed
Why propensity to learn is more important than a college degree in a job candidate
Why women don’t put themselves forward for new assignments and how to help them go the distance
Why preparing for the next job might actually a bad idea
How to make the leap from being an individual contributor to a leader who coordinates other people effectively
How to focus on the long-term with conviction and a thick skin
Why Ginni’s favorite IBM achievement is employee engagement
How the hybrid cloud works and the future of artificial intelligence at IBM and around the world
How the OneTen Initiative intends to tap hidden pools of talent by changing priorities in hiring
PLUS, Ginni’s single biggest piece of advice for reinventing yourself and your company

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.900\nWelcome to How Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I\n\n2\n00:00:07.900 --> 00:00:08.640\ninterview some\n\n3\n00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:10.360\nof the best leaders in the world.\n\n4\n00:00:10.360 --> 00:00:14.080\nI break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have\n\n5\n00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:14.640\nsomething\n\n6\n00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:18.680\nsimple you can apply as you develop into a better leader.\n\n7\n00:00:18.680 --> 00:00:21.120\nThat's what this podcast is all about.\n\n8\n00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:25.960\nToday's guest is Jenny Rometty, the former chairman and CEO of IBM.\n\n9\n00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:28.680\nNow, I've got a question for you.\n\n10\n00:00:28.680 --> 00:00:31.880\nHave you ever felt uncomfortable at work?\n\n11\n00:00:31.880 --> 00:00:36.320\nI'm talking about that feeling when you're offered a new leadership opportunity\n\n12\n00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:36.600\n, or when\n\n13\n00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:41.270\nyour boss wants you to give that big presentation in front of the team, or\n\n14\n00:00:41.270 --> 00:00:42.440\nwhatever moment where\n\n15\n00:00:42.440 --> 00:00:45.680\nyou're being asked to swim out past the breakers.\n\n16\n00:00:45.680 --> 00:00:50.860\nWell, our guest today, Jenny Rometty says, \"You will only grow when you're\n\n17\n00:00:50.860 --> 00:00:52.400\nuncomfortable.\"\n\n18\n00:00:52.400 --> 00:00:57.360\nSo that feeling, that pit in your stomach in those situations, let me tell you,\n\n19\n00:00:57.360 --> 00:00:57.600\nthose\n\n20\n00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:01.840\nare the moments when you have the opportunity to grow as a leader.\n\n21\n00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:06.010\nBefore Jenny was appointed CEO, she had risen through the ranks at IBM, a\n\n22\n00:01:06.010 --> 00:01:06.840\ncompany she had\n\n23\n00:01:06.840 --> 00:01:09.360\nworked at for 40 years.\n\n24\n00:01:09.360 --> 00:01:13.160\nAnd so what you're about to hear from Jenny, and what you'll learn from her\n\n25\n00:01:13.160 --> 00:01:13.840\njourney to\n\n26\n00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:20.680\nbecome CEO of IBM, is that great leaders are comfortable being uncomfortable.\n\n27\n00:01:20.680 --> 00:01:24.480\nThere's a lot for us to learn here, so let's get right to it.\n\n28\n00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:29.350\nHere's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours, Jenny Rometty\n\n29\n00:01:29.350 --> 00:01:30.160\n, the former\n\n30\n00:01:30.160 --> 00:01:38.920\nchairman and CEO of IBM.\n\n31\n00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:42.680\nJenny, thanks so much for taking the time for being on the show.\n\n32\n00:01:42.680 --> 00:01:43.680\nMy pleasure, David.\n\n33\n00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:45.320\nPleasure to do this with you.\n\n34\n00:01:45.320 --> 00:01:46.720\nFirst off, Happy New Year.\n\n35\n00:01:46.720 --> 00:01:48.320\nHave you made any New Year's resolutions?\n\n36\n00:01:48.320 --> 00:01:49.320\nYou're not going to keep?\n\n37\n00:01:49.320 --> 00:01:53.250\nYou know, it's funny, we had a little New Year's gathering, and I had hats for\n\n38\n00:01:53.250 --> 00:01:53.600\neveryone to\n\n39\n00:01:53.600 --> 00:01:55.160\nwrite in their New Year's resolution.\n\n40\n00:01:55.160 --> 00:01:58.880\nI think people are so tired, nobody wanted to write anything, so we're done.\n\n41\n00:01:58.880 --> 00:02:02.200\nYou know, Jenny, I want to start out with the obvious.\n\n42\n00:02:02.200 --> 00:02:05.440\nYou were the first female CEO for IBM.\n\n43\n00:02:05.440 --> 00:02:08.040\nThat's a company that you work for for 40 years.\n\n44\n00:02:08.040 --> 00:02:11.170\nWhere were you when you got the call, and how did it feel to get that\n\n45\n00:02:11.170 --> 00:02:12.000\ninvitation to\n\n46\n00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:14.320\nhead such an iconic company?\n\n47\n00:02:14.320 --> 00:02:17.160\nIt was, let's see, October 2011.\n\n48\n00:02:17.160 --> 00:02:20.280\nI remember that distinctly.\n\n49\n00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:24.150\nBut it's funny, until you get the job, you never think you're going to get the\n\n50\n00:02:24.150 --> 00:02:24.480\njob.\n\n51\n00:02:24.480 --> 00:02:27.680\nAnd I was sitting in my office, and my boss called me.\n\n52\n00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:29.960\nAnd it was really quite a very short conversation.\n\n53\n00:02:29.960 --> 00:02:33.520\nHe just said, \"Well, you're going to be the ninth CEO.\"\n\n54\n00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:36.160\nAnd I really, what I remember is thanking him.\n\n55\n00:02:36.160 --> 00:02:38.200\nI remember hanging up the phone.\n\n56\n00:02:38.200 --> 00:02:40.840\nI remember sitting there quietly for a minute.\n\n57\n00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:44.040\nI did call my husband because I've been sworn to secrecy.\n\n58\n00:02:44.040 --> 00:02:46.680\nAnd honestly, I got up and did the rest of my meetings.\n\n59\n00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:49.880\nYeah, you had to think, \"Holy cow.\n\n60\n00:02:49.880 --> 00:02:50.880\nHere we go.\"\n\n61\n00:02:50.880 --> 00:02:51.880\nThat came later.\n\n62\n00:02:51.880 --> 00:02:52.880\nThat came later.\n\n63\n00:02:52.880 --> 00:02:56.480\nIn the moment, it was just sort of a bit of a stunned silence.\n\n64\n00:02:56.480 --> 00:03:00.680\nI remember when I was coming up in business, I worked for PepsiCo.\n\n65\n00:03:00.680 --> 00:03:03.600\nAnd we modeled a lot of what IBM was all about.\n\n66\n00:03:03.600 --> 00:03:09.840\nAnd IBM was known for being a culture of blue suits, white shirts, red ties.\n\n67\n00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:13.000\nWhat do you wear on your first day when you joined him?\n\n68\n00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:15.160\nThat first day of your 40-year tenure.\n\n69\n00:03:15.160 --> 00:03:18.510\nI can't exactly remember what I wore, although what I wore was written about\n\n70\n00:03:18.510 --> 00:03:19.240\nmany times.\n\n71\n00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:22.280\nI mean, that's another topic of being a woman in business and how many times\n\n72\n00:03:22.280 --> 00:03:22.600\npeople would\n\n73\n00:03:22.600 --> 00:03:24.120\ncomment on my clothing.\n\n74\n00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:28.680\nBut what I thought about more on that first day was where I went, not when I\n\n75\n00:03:28.680 --> 00:03:29.320\nwore.\n\n76\n00:03:29.320 --> 00:03:32.670\nAnd so I had really thought hard because I knew that this was going to be a\n\n77\n00:03:32.670 --> 00:03:33.480\ntough journey\n\n78\n00:03:33.480 --> 00:03:34.720\nahead.\n\n79\n00:03:34.720 --> 00:03:38.790\nAnd I chose to go to IBM Research 7 AM because I knew that this was going to\n\n80\n00:03:38.790 --> 00:03:39.480\nhave to be a\n\n81\n00:03:39.480 --> 00:03:41.680\nreplatforming of the company.\n\n82\n00:03:41.680 --> 00:03:43.840\nAnd that would require a lot of the technical skill.\n\n83\n00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:47.300\nAnd it wanted it to be really clear that's where I was going to be that moment\n\n84\n00:03:47.300 --> 00:03:47.880\nat 7 AM.\n\n85\n00:03:47.880 --> 00:03:52.860\nAnd so I did a broadcast from there for all 400,000 employees, but it was from\n\n86\n00:03:52.860 --> 00:03:53.680\nIBM Research.\n\n87\n00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:55.560\nSo I don't remember what I wore.\n\n88\n00:03:55.560 --> 00:03:57.000\nI remember where I went.\n\n89\n00:03:57.000 --> 00:03:59.980\nI understand you were a bit reluctant to make a big deal out of being the first\n\n90\n00:03:59.980 --> 00:04:00.840\nfemale CEO\n\n91\n00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:01.840\nof IBM.\n\n92\n00:04:01.840 --> 00:04:02.840\nWhy was that?\n\n93\n00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:06.510\nYou know, Dave, and I think there are a lot of women that feel this way,\n\n94\n00:04:06.510 --> 00:04:06.840\ncertainly\n\n95\n00:04:06.840 --> 00:04:08.680\nof my generation.\n\n96\n00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:12.800\nI always felt I wanted people to recognize what I did and be commended for my\n\n97\n00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:13.280\nwork I\n\n98\n00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:14.280\ndid, right?\n\n99\n00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:15.280\nJust my work, not that I was a woman.\n\n100\n00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:16.920\nSo I never focused on this point.\n\n101\n00:04:16.920 --> 00:04:20.760\nIn fact, I probably went to pretty much extremes about don't recognize me.\n\n102\n00:04:20.760 --> 00:04:25.040\nAnd even when I was named CEO, people said to me, hey, don't do media.\n\n103\n00:04:25.040 --> 00:04:26.280\nDon't do anything.\n\n104\n00:04:26.280 --> 00:04:28.840\nYou don't want to be known as the first woman CEO.\n\n105\n00:04:28.840 --> 00:04:32.200\nYou want to be known as a good CEO of IBM.\n\n106\n00:04:32.200 --> 00:04:36.280\nAnd so I was really, for the first several years, very reticent about that.\n\n107\n00:04:36.280 --> 00:04:38.240\nSo I stayed away from women's conferences.\n\n108\n00:04:38.240 --> 00:04:42.000\nI mean, I would do things internally, but I really didn't do anything.\n\n109\n00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:44.560\nAnd I have to say it's one of the things I reflect on.\n\n110\n00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:49.590\nAnd I turned around on this topic that I came to view as a big mistake, because\n\n111\n00:04:49.590 --> 00:04:50.360\nI said,\n\n112\n00:04:50.360 --> 00:04:54.480\nas time went on, what became clear and clear to me, I was in such a privileged\n\n113\n00:04:54.480 --> 00:04:55.600\nposition\n\n114\n00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:58.440\nthat it was an obligation to help others.\n\n115\n00:04:58.440 --> 00:05:03.080\nAnd I really came to understand this feeling of you cannot be, which you cannot\n\n116\n00:05:03.080 --> 00:05:03.560\nsee, and\n\n117\n00:05:03.560 --> 00:05:07.160\nthat there were so many people who said, look, I see you.\n\n118\n00:05:07.160 --> 00:05:11.120\nI mean, I would remember this over the years when I would give a presentation.\n\n119\n00:05:11.120 --> 00:05:14.240\nI can remember many years ago, I was in Australia.\n\n120\n00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:15.240\nI gave a presentation.\n\n121\n00:05:15.240 --> 00:05:16.240\nA man came up to me.\n\n122\n00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:17.400\nIt was on financial services.\n\n123\n00:05:17.400 --> 00:05:19.400\nAnd I thought he was going to tell me what a great presentation it was.\n\n124\n00:05:19.400 --> 00:05:22.600\nAnd he says to me, I wish my daughter had been here.\n\n125\n00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:24.400\nAnd those events would continue to happen.\n\n126\n00:05:24.400 --> 00:05:29.170\nAnd you realize how much it means to other people, not yourself to other people\n\n127\n00:05:29.170 --> 00:05:29.400\n, to\n\n128\n00:05:29.400 --> 00:05:30.600\nhave someone to look at.\n\n129\n00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:35.310\nAnd so while I felt that way at the beginning and was really coached that way\n\n130\n00:05:35.310 --> 00:05:36.000\nby others\n\n131\n00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:39.200\nwho I know were well intended, I think it was the wrong thing.\n\n132\n00:05:39.200 --> 00:05:43.780\nAnd so I came full circle on that to really see and tell people how important\n\n133\n00:05:43.780 --> 00:05:44.200\nit is for\n\n134\n00:05:44.200 --> 00:05:46.400\nyou to be a role model to help other people.\n\n135\n00:05:46.400 --> 00:05:47.840\nI couldn't agree with you, Warren.\n\n136\n00:05:47.840 --> 00:05:52.020\nIn fact, in this podcast, my daughter did a podcast with Indra Nui and myself\n\n137\n00:05:52.020 --> 00:05:52.440\non her\n\n138\n00:05:52.440 --> 00:05:54.520\nnew book on family work balance.\n\n139\n00:05:54.520 --> 00:05:59.010\nAnd I realized just how much it meant to my daughter, Ashley, to be able to\n\n140\n00:05:59.010 --> 00:06:00.360\ntalk to Indra\n\n141\n00:06:00.360 --> 00:06:02.200\njust how successful Indra has been.\n\n142\n00:06:02.200 --> 00:06:05.460\nAnd she was so excited I was doing this podcast with you because I think you\n\n143\n00:06:05.460 --> 00:06:06.480\nreally do show\n\n144\n00:06:06.480 --> 00:06:08.480\npeople what's possible.\n\n145\n00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:12.150\nAnd so on behalf of my daughter, I want to thank you for showing women that you\n\n146\n00:06:12.150 --> 00:06:12.720\ncan really\n\n147\n00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:13.720\nrise to the top.\n\n148\n00:06:13.720 --> 00:06:15.120\nThere's no doubt about that.\n\n149\n00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:19.670\nI've heard you talk quite a few times and you talk a bit about the difference\n\n150\n00:06:19.670 --> 00:06:20.280\nbetween\n\n151\n00:06:20.280 --> 00:06:22.680\na job and a career.\n\n152\n00:06:22.680 --> 00:06:26.230\nWhat's that difference from your perspective and how has that principle played\n\n153\n00:06:26.230 --> 00:06:26.960\nout in your\n\n154\n00:06:26.960 --> 00:06:27.960\nlife and career?\n\n155\n00:06:27.960 --> 00:06:31.680\nYou know, to me, this is something that over time it's been an arc that has\n\n156\n00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:32.320\nbecome more\n\n157\n00:06:32.320 --> 00:06:33.760\nand more important.\n\n158\n00:06:33.760 --> 00:06:36.880\nBut I can kind of remember a dawning of like the first moment I really\n\n159\n00:06:36.880 --> 00:06:37.880\nunderstood that.\n\n160\n00:06:37.880 --> 00:06:41.410\nAnd I think it's really important to particularly people coming into the\n\n161\n00:06:41.410 --> 00:06:42.400\nworkforce now.\n\n162\n00:06:42.400 --> 00:06:46.530\nAnd so the first time I really recognized that difference, I was probably 22\n\n163\n00:06:46.530 --> 00:06:47.400\nyears old.\n\n164\n00:06:47.400 --> 00:06:51.980\nI had gone to Northwestern and General Motors had given me a scholarship to go\n\n165\n00:06:51.980 --> 00:06:53.080\nto Northwestern.\n\n166\n00:06:53.080 --> 00:06:54.560\nThey had been very generous with me.\n\n167\n00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:56.760\nI could never have afforded it otherwise.\n\n168\n00:06:56.760 --> 00:06:59.480\nSo when I left and graduated, I had a choice.\n\n169\n00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:01.200\nI could work for GM or not.\n\n170\n00:07:01.200 --> 00:07:04.580\nAnd I felt a great obligation given this huge investment they'd made me in a\n\n171\n00:07:04.580 --> 00:07:05.400\nvery expensive\n\n172\n00:07:05.400 --> 00:07:06.400\nschool.\n\n173\n00:07:06.400 --> 00:07:07.640\nIt was no strings attached.\n\n174\n00:07:07.640 --> 00:07:10.040\nBut I went to work for GM.\n\n175\n00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:11.040\nAnd I'm very appreciative.\n\n176\n00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:12.440\nSo I always say that to Mary Barr.\n\n177\n00:07:12.440 --> 00:07:14.720\nI'm very appreciative of that opportunity.\n\n178\n00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:18.450\nBut what I saw was, you know, I would come to work every day and I wasn't as\n\n179\n00:07:18.450 --> 00:07:19.200\npassionate\n\n180\n00:07:19.200 --> 00:07:21.480\nabout cars as Mary is and others.\n\n181\n00:07:21.480 --> 00:07:25.160\nAnd I also looked at people around me and it was more like a job to them.\n\n182\n00:07:25.160 --> 00:07:29.630\nAnd I said at a really young age, I could see this difference between a job and\n\n183\n00:07:29.630 --> 00:07:30.560\na career.\n\n184\n00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:33.160\nAnd you know, I had people that they would come at seven, leave it three.\n\n185\n00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:34.960\nAnd I was thinking, no, no, no.\n\n186\n00:07:34.960 --> 00:07:35.960\nThere's got to be more to this.\n\n187\n00:07:35.960 --> 00:07:38.520\nIf you put all of this effort into something.\n\n188\n00:07:38.520 --> 00:07:41.480\nAnd I felt like I couldn't crystallize what that meant then.\n\n189\n00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:45.630\nBut it's when I left for IBM because I said, no, I want to apply technology to\n\n190\n00:07:45.630 --> 00:07:46.280\nreally make\n\n191\n00:07:46.280 --> 00:07:47.920\na difference in something.\n\n192\n00:07:47.920 --> 00:07:48.920\nAnd I knew technology.\n\n193\n00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:51.920\nNow mind you, this is back in 1980.\n\n194\n00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:52.920\nAnd that's when I moved.\n\n195\n00:07:52.920 --> 00:07:56.610\nAnd so over time, I have always felt my say to people, you know, what you work\n\n196\n00:07:56.610 --> 00:07:57.120\non, you\n\n197\n00:07:57.120 --> 00:07:59.160\nknow, everything you do in every day isn't like that.\n\n198\n00:07:59.160 --> 00:08:03.020\nIt's not like everything, every activity, you know, drives some greater purpose\n\n199\n00:08:03.020 --> 00:08:03.080\n.\n\n200\n00:08:03.080 --> 00:08:05.920\nBut in the general that it's got to be towards that.\n\n201\n00:08:05.920 --> 00:08:08.650\nSo it's either a company who you believe in its purpose and therefore you're\n\n202\n00:08:08.650 --> 00:08:09.360\ndoing something\n\n203\n00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:10.640\nthat furthers it.\n\n204\n00:08:10.640 --> 00:08:14.400\nI would go on and work on things like AI that would help healthcare.\n\n205\n00:08:14.400 --> 00:08:16.320\nAnd now you mentioned what I do now.\n\n206\n00:08:16.320 --> 00:08:20.400\nAnd it's got a lot to do with the work I've done in education and opportunity\n\n207\n00:08:20.400 --> 00:08:21.440\nfor people.\n\n208\n00:08:21.440 --> 00:08:25.670\nAnd to me, that is just so important that wherever you're at, you feel like\n\n209\n00:08:25.670 --> 00:08:26.320\nthere's\n\n210\n00:08:26.320 --> 00:08:31.840\neither your job or the company is headed in sort of a North Star.\n\n211\n00:08:31.840 --> 00:08:35.070\nAnd that to me, I felt like I said, I learned early in life and that I feel you\n\n212\n00:08:35.070 --> 00:08:35.480\n're really\n\n213\n00:08:35.480 --> 00:08:37.680\nlucky when you can align those things.\n\n214\n00:08:37.680 --> 00:08:41.430\nI want to get into a lot of the exciting things you did at IBM, but I want to\n\n215\n00:08:41.430 --> 00:08:41.920\ngo back\n\n216\n00:08:41.920 --> 00:08:43.640\nand take you back a little bit.\n\n217\n00:08:43.640 --> 00:08:47.560\nTell me a story about your upbringing that really shaped who you are as a\n\n218\n00:08:47.560 --> 00:08:48.240\nleader.\n\n219\n00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:50.640\nWell, this is clearly my mother.\n\n220\n00:08:50.640 --> 00:08:52.160\nActually, she's with me now.\n\n221\n00:08:52.160 --> 00:08:54.560\nRight now I've got to help her with some health things.\n\n222\n00:08:54.560 --> 00:08:57.640\nBut my mom, I was raised by a single mother.\n\n223\n00:08:57.640 --> 00:09:01.080\nSo not unlike, there are many people out there like this today.\n\n224\n00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:05.160\nAnd when I say single, my mom, I was born when my mom was very young.\n\n225\n00:09:05.160 --> 00:09:07.600\nAnd I have three other brothers and sisters.\n\n226\n00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:13.290\nAnd we did have a father, obviously, but about the time I was 15, 16 years old,\n\n227\n00:09:13.290 --> 00:09:13.760\njust really\n\n228\n00:09:13.760 --> 00:09:18.300\nout of the blue, my father told my mother he no longer cared about any of us\n\n229\n00:09:18.300 --> 00:09:19.120\nand frankly\n\n230\n00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:22.500\ndidn't care how she made a living or if she made a living, if she had money or\n\n231\n00:09:22.500 --> 00:09:22.880\nif she\n\n232\n00:09:22.880 --> 00:09:24.640\ntook care of us and he was gone.\n\n233\n00:09:24.640 --> 00:09:28.320\nMy mother found herself in this position of four children, no education beyond\n\n234\n00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:28.640\na high\n\n235\n00:09:28.640 --> 00:09:32.520\nschool degree and never worked a day in her life.\n\n236\n00:09:32.520 --> 00:09:36.720\nAnd we really went through a period of time where my mom almost lost the house,\n\n237\n00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:37.120\nwent on\n\n238\n00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:40.600\nfood stamps, went on social aid, etc.\n\n239\n00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:45.360\nBut my mother was really determined that this would not be how this could end.\n\n240\n00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:47.120\nAnd she went back to school.\n\n241\n00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:50.910\nI helped really raise my brothers and sisters because she had to go back to a\n\n242\n00:09:50.910 --> 00:09:51.560\ncommunity\n\n243\n00:09:51.560 --> 00:09:55.360\ncollege to get enough of an education, to get a better job, to get us off a\n\n244\n00:09:55.360 --> 00:09:56.000\nfinancial\n\n245\n00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:59.440\naid. And I said, I never saw my mother cry.\n\n246\n00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:00.920\nShe never complained.\n\n247\n00:10:00.920 --> 00:10:03.640\nI could see quiet, sad moments.\n\n248\n00:10:03.640 --> 00:10:06.760\nAnd at the end of the day, what that really taught me and it's probably the\n\n249\n00:10:06.760 --> 00:10:07.400\nbiggest thing\n\n250\n00:10:07.400 --> 00:10:11.760\nthat's to this moment influenced me is that I watched my mom.\n\n251\n00:10:11.760 --> 00:10:18.910\nShe was not going to let my father define her as a dropout, a divorce, a person\n\n252\n00:10:18.910 --> 00:10:19.920\non wealth.\n\n253\n00:10:19.920 --> 00:10:21.200\nShe was not.\n\n254\n00:10:21.200 --> 00:10:24.240\nAnd she was determined that only she'd define who she was.\n\n255\n00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:27.860\nAnd that idea that only you define who you are is something to take control of\n\n256\n00:10:27.860 --> 00:10:28.440\nyour life\n\n257\n00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:31.240\nand that no one else determines that for you.\n\n258\n00:10:31.240 --> 00:10:35.320\nAnd I also saw in that my mother, my mom was smart.\n\n259\n00:10:35.320 --> 00:10:38.080\nShe just didn't have access to a lot of things.\n\n260\n00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:41.790\nSo the conclusions you draw about people, about their education level or where\n\n261\n00:10:41.790 --> 00:10:43.120\nthey live\n\n262\n00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:44.320\nare wrong.\n\n263\n00:10:44.320 --> 00:10:48.730\nAnd so when my mother had some access, then she was able to really get us to a\n\n264\n00:10:48.730 --> 00:10:49.480\ndifferent\n\n265\n00:10:49.480 --> 00:10:50.480\nspot.\n\n266\n00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:52.960\nSo it's kind of funny how life comes full circle.\n\n267\n00:10:52.960 --> 00:10:54.880\nBut I do now with 110.\n\n268\n00:10:54.880 --> 00:10:59.460\nBut it also will come back to what it led even in IBM, my strong feelings about\n\n269\n00:10:59.460 --> 00:10:59.520\nhow\n\n270\n00:10:59.520 --> 00:11:03.480\ntechnology had its good and bad sides for a lot of the population.\n\n271\n00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:07.000\nBut the biggest thing she taught me was only you define who you are.\n\n272\n00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:10.070\nSo and I think that's important because people feel they're a victim of other\n\n273\n00:11:10.070 --> 00:11:10.760\nthings and\n\n274\n00:11:10.760 --> 00:11:11.760\nthey're not.\n\n275\n00:11:11.760 --> 00:11:14.810\nYou can grab hold and if you don't define who you are, by the way, someone else\n\n276\n00:11:14.810 --> 00:11:15.120\nwill\n\n277\n00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:16.120\ndefine you.\n\n278\n00:11:16.120 --> 00:11:19.460\nAnd there have been those moments when I've let others start to do that or for\n\n279\n00:11:19.460 --> 00:11:20.000\na company\n\n280\n00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:24.000\nbecause it's true for a person, a company, a country, you have to pull it back\n\n281\n00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:24.560\nand define\n\n282\n00:11:24.560 --> 00:11:25.560\nyourself.\n\n283\n00:11:25.560 --> 00:11:26.560\nThat makes so much sense.\n\n284\n00:11:26.560 --> 00:11:30.610\nDo you remember a time or a story where you had an incident at IBM where you\n\n285\n00:11:30.610 --> 00:11:31.360\nliterally\n\n286\n00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:35.220\nthought of your mother and said, my mom would do this and I'm going to do it\n\n287\n00:11:35.220 --> 00:11:35.720\ntoo.\n\n288\n00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:39.400\nWell, I think early on, back when I mentioned to you that I didn't do any media\n\n289\n00:11:39.400 --> 00:11:40.240\n, it's ironic\n\n290\n00:11:40.240 --> 00:11:42.240\nnow because I do it a lot.\n\n291\n00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:45.590\nBut early on when I wouldn't do these things, I started to watch and say, well,\n\n292\n00:11:45.590 --> 00:11:46.000\nif I don't\n\n293\n00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:48.320\nspeak up, they're going to define who we are.\n\n294\n00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:51.790\nSo whether they want to call us old tech or do something like this, right, I\n\n295\n00:11:51.790 --> 00:11:52.320\nthought back\n\n296\n00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:53.880\nto that story, right?\n\n297\n00:11:53.880 --> 00:11:56.240\nEither I define who are or they're going to define us.\n\n298\n00:11:56.240 --> 00:11:58.560\nAnd that would be one of those examples.\n\n299\n00:11:58.560 --> 00:11:59.640\nYeah, that's a great one.\n\n300\n00:11:59.640 --> 00:12:02.830\nAnd I couldn't agree more with you about your mom being smart and she could\n\n301\n00:12:02.830 --> 00:12:03.400\nhave been the\n\n302\n00:12:03.400 --> 00:12:06.800\nCEO with the right kind of background and environment.\n\n303\n00:12:06.800 --> 00:12:09.750\nI feel the same way about my parents, high school education, but they're\n\n304\n00:12:09.750 --> 00:12:10.400\nsmarter than\n\n305\n00:12:10.400 --> 00:12:13.640\nme and they gave everything to me.\n\n306\n00:12:13.640 --> 00:12:17.580\nI've heard you say that the number one thing a company should hire for is the\n\n307\n00:12:17.580 --> 00:12:18.280\npropensity\n\n308\n00:12:18.280 --> 00:12:19.280\nto learn.\n\n309\n00:12:19.280 --> 00:12:23.640\nShare a story of how this always learning mentality really helped you\n\n310\n00:12:23.640 --> 00:12:25.480\npersonally in your career.\n\n311\n00:12:25.480 --> 00:12:28.500\nSo this is interesting because I actually think this is almost one of the\n\n312\n00:12:28.500 --> 00:12:29.080\nunderlying\n\n313\n00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:32.640\nissues of our time now because of the rate the technology is changing.\n\n314\n00:12:32.640 --> 00:12:35.520\nAnd even with COVID now, people having to change jobs.\n\n315\n00:12:35.520 --> 00:12:36.720\nSo I go back to my mom.\n\n316\n00:12:36.720 --> 00:12:40.880\nSo the first point about her having to get a new set of skills.\n\n317\n00:12:40.880 --> 00:12:46.280\nBut where crystallized for me was when I began my job as CEO, it was clear to\n\n318\n00:12:46.280 --> 00:12:47.000\nme, I'd\n\n319\n00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:48.680\nhave three big transformations.\n\n320\n00:12:48.680 --> 00:12:50.640\nIt soon became clear.\n\n321\n00:12:50.640 --> 00:12:52.680\nWe'd need a new technology platform.\n\n322\n00:12:52.680 --> 00:12:55.640\nWe'd have to build completely new skills in the workforce.\n\n323\n00:12:55.640 --> 00:12:57.280\nAnd we'd also have to change how we did work.\n\n324\n00:12:57.280 --> 00:12:59.480\nSo those are three big transformations.\n\n325\n00:12:59.480 --> 00:13:01.040\nSo skills.\n\n326\n00:13:01.040 --> 00:13:04.120\nAnd that was a long journey in itself we can come back to.\n\n327\n00:13:04.120 --> 00:13:07.220\nBut one of the things I noticed, one of the very first things was most of the\n\n328\n00:13:07.220 --> 00:13:08.000\n2012, trying\n\n329\n00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:10.560\nto hire cyber skills, couldn't get them anywhere.\n\n330\n00:13:10.560 --> 00:13:13.080\nAnd even today, they're very scarce.\n\n331\n00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:17.710\nSo we had this brainstorm about going to schools that had kids high schools\n\n332\n00:13:17.710 --> 00:13:18.560\nthat we could work\n\n333\n00:13:18.560 --> 00:13:23.690\nwith the community college and get them out even before they had a college\n\n334\n00:13:23.690 --> 00:13:24.200\ndegree and\n\n335\n00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:26.920\ncould they do these jobs, blow and behold, they could.\n\n336\n00:13:26.920 --> 00:13:28.560\nVery interesting point.\n\n337\n00:13:28.560 --> 00:13:33.160\nAnother point then, I had all the IBMers to transform to bring new skills.\n\n338\n00:13:33.160 --> 00:13:35.480\nI thought, well, boy, do I have to bring in all new people?\n\n339\n00:13:35.480 --> 00:13:40.280\nSo we did lots of external hiring and also offered lots of education.\n\n340\n00:13:40.280 --> 00:13:41.560\nWhat did I learn?\n\n341\n00:13:41.560 --> 00:13:43.080\nIt had nothing to do with age.\n\n342\n00:13:43.080 --> 00:13:44.880\nIt had nothing to do with background.\n\n343\n00:13:44.880 --> 00:13:46.280\nIt was all about this.\n\n344\n00:13:46.280 --> 00:13:49.870\nIf people had a curiosity and wanted to learn were the ones that made the\n\n345\n00:13:49.870 --> 00:13:50.960\ntransition, none\n\n346\n00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:53.840\nof the typical stereotypes that you otherwise thought.\n\n347\n00:13:53.840 --> 00:13:55.800\nAnd it was also not the degree that they had, right?\n\n348\n00:13:55.800 --> 00:13:56.800\nSo it wasn't their age.\n\n349\n00:13:56.800 --> 00:13:57.800\nIt wasn't the degree.\n\n350\n00:13:57.800 --> 00:13:59.000\nIt wasn't any of this.\n\n351\n00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:01.360\nAnd so I put all those three together.\n\n352\n00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:03.600\nAnd to me, it changed the way we hired.\n\n353\n00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:08.780\nSo when we hire now, we do testing for curiosity, drive, grit, that ability and\n\n354\n00:14:08.780 --> 00:14:09.720\nis best you can\n\n355\n00:14:09.720 --> 00:14:14.000\ntest for these things because nowadays, even the half life of technology skills\n\n356\n00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:14.520\nis three\n\n357\n00:14:14.520 --> 00:14:15.840\nto five years.\n\n358\n00:14:15.840 --> 00:14:21.000\nSo I don't want people who only want to do one thing forever because if you do,\n\n359\n00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:21.440\nthat's\n\n360\n00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:22.760\nreally what they want to do.\n\n361\n00:14:22.760 --> 00:14:26.310\nAnd if you're in an industry that's rapidly changing, so to me, it became the\n\n362\n00:14:26.310 --> 00:14:27.080\nmost important\n\n363\n00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:28.080\nthing to do.\n\n364\n00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:32.150\nAnd one more thing, and again, this is all for aspiring leaders and the like,\n\n365\n00:14:32.150 --> 00:14:32.320\nfrom a\n\n366\n00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:36.040\npersonal perspective, I have always been someone really curious.\n\n367\n00:14:36.040 --> 00:14:39.920\nI never wanted to be taught what and how to memorize.\n\n368\n00:14:39.920 --> 00:14:42.080\nI always wanted to know how, how, how.\n\n369\n00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:45.730\nSo then I always felt like I could go back to the roots to figure something out\n\n370\n00:14:45.730 --> 00:14:45.760\n.\n\n371\n00:14:45.760 --> 00:14:49.800\nBut that whole idea is what makes you, I think, is a leader really good because\n\n372\n00:14:49.800 --> 00:14:50.280\nwhenever you\n\n373\n00:14:50.280 --> 00:14:54.240\nlisten to people, you listen with intent to learn something.\n\n374\n00:14:54.240 --> 00:14:57.120\nAnd it has a really interesting byproduct out of it.\n\n375\n00:14:57.120 --> 00:15:00.570\nIf you are always listening with intent to learn, I'm telling you, you will\n\n376\n00:15:00.570 --> 00:15:01.280\ngrow a huge\n\n377\n00:15:01.280 --> 00:15:06.880\nnetwork because people genuinely believe you care because you do genuinely care\n\n378\n00:15:06.880 --> 00:15:07.160\n.\n\n379\n00:15:07.160 --> 00:15:09.480\nAnd it isn't that you're just talking for what's in it for you.\n\n380\n00:15:09.480 --> 00:15:11.480\nYou're talking for what's in it for them as well.\n\n381\n00:15:11.480 --> 00:15:16.600\nAnd so I think the byproduct of that curiosity is for anyone, A, if you're\n\n382\n00:15:16.600 --> 00:15:17.200\nconfidence in\n\n383\n00:15:17.200 --> 00:15:21.630\nyour job and B, it is the way to create a whole long lasting network with\n\n384\n00:15:21.630 --> 00:15:22.600\nrelationships.\n\n385\n00:15:22.600 --> 00:15:23.920\nCouldn't agree more.\n\n386\n00:15:23.920 --> 00:15:27.420\nAnd you know, when I look at your career and the number of different jobs that\n\n387\n00:15:27.420 --> 00:15:28.520\nyou had\n\n388\n00:15:28.520 --> 00:15:29.520\nat IBM.\n\n389\n00:15:29.520 --> 00:15:33.120\nAnd imagine that you were pushed out of your comfort zone several times with\n\n390\n00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:34.160\nvarious promotions\n\n391\n00:15:34.160 --> 00:15:35.800\nover the years.\n\n392\n00:15:35.800 --> 00:15:40.680\nHow did you learn to adapt so successfully taking on new and different roles?\n\n393\n00:15:40.680 --> 00:15:42.680\nI'm not sure I always did from the beginning.\n\n394\n00:15:42.680 --> 00:15:43.680\nOkay.\n\n395\n00:15:43.680 --> 00:15:47.480\nSo for maybe you did, maybe you were like infinitely, you know, confident in\n\n396\n00:15:47.480 --> 00:15:48.280\nevery role.\n\n397\n00:15:48.280 --> 00:15:49.280\nI don't know.\n\n398\n00:15:49.280 --> 00:15:52.320\nI don't think so, but I might have acted that way.\n\n399\n00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:53.320\nYeah.\n\n400\n00:15:53.320 --> 00:15:54.320\nWell, okay.\n\n401\n00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:56.080\nSo this is a very big sort of, I'm going to stereotype.\n\n402\n00:15:56.080 --> 00:15:59.500\nI think it's a very big difference between men and women, by the way, in the\n\n403\n00:15:59.500 --> 00:16:00.200\ngeneral.\n\n404\n00:16:00.200 --> 00:16:05.080\nSo if I can, one of the fast stories of mine was one of, when I made one of my\n\n405\n00:16:05.080 --> 00:16:05.720\nbiggest\n\n406\n00:16:05.720 --> 00:16:06.720\ncareer changes.\n\n407\n00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:10.920\nSo I had a very, I would call what IBM would have been a traditional career of.\n\n408\n00:16:10.920 --> 00:16:14.020\nYou move in, I came in as an engineer, moved through that, went into sales and\n\n409\n00:16:14.020 --> 00:16:14.680\nmarketing.\n\n410\n00:16:14.680 --> 00:16:16.680\nI was on my way back then.\n\n411\n00:16:16.680 --> 00:16:19.960\nThe job would have been a branch manager, wonderful things.\n\n412\n00:16:19.960 --> 00:16:21.280\nAnd someone came to me and said, you know what?\n\n413\n00:16:21.280 --> 00:16:23.800\nWe're going to start a consulting business.\n\n414\n00:16:23.800 --> 00:16:26.000\nAnd we're going to hire all these people from the outside.\n\n415\n00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:29.600\nAnd we think that you would be really good at this.\n\n416\n00:16:29.600 --> 00:16:30.680\nIt was one of the very first times.\n\n417\n00:16:30.680 --> 00:16:34.640\nAnd I was like, oh my God, I'm going to divert off of this path.\n\n418\n00:16:34.640 --> 00:16:37.160\nAnd I hemmed and hawed.\n\n419\n00:16:37.160 --> 00:16:38.160\nAnd you know, it was my husband.\n\n420\n00:16:38.160 --> 00:16:41.170\nHe'd say, well, Jenny, consulting, you know, it's all this engineering problem\n\n421\n00:16:41.170 --> 00:16:41.720\nsolving.\n\n422\n00:16:41.720 --> 00:16:43.120\nThese all sound like things you're good at.\n\n423\n00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:44.640\nWhy are you so worried about this?\n\n424\n00:16:44.640 --> 00:16:49.280\nAnd the more I thought about it, first lesson was, you know what?\n\n425\n00:16:49.280 --> 00:16:54.400\nI mean, is a really valued external career, valued by the external world.\n\n426\n00:16:54.400 --> 00:16:57.500\nI was getting really good at IBM stuff, but like, what's that worth in the\n\n427\n00:16:57.500 --> 00:16:58.800\nexternal world?\n\n428\n00:16:58.800 --> 00:17:01.680\nSo my first lesson I'm being willing to change was that.\n\n429\n00:17:01.680 --> 00:17:04.040\nThe second was time would go on.\n\n430\n00:17:04.040 --> 00:17:08.280\nAnd that turned out great, successful, et cetera, went on to other jobs.\n\n431\n00:17:08.280 --> 00:17:11.560\nAnd I remember being offered a very large job.\n\n432\n00:17:11.560 --> 00:17:14.760\nAnd the man who I worked for, he came to me, said, Jenny, I'm going to get a\n\n433\n00:17:14.760 --> 00:17:15.360\nnew job.\n\n434\n00:17:15.360 --> 00:17:20.160\nI am going to go to Asia, and I think you should take my job.\n\n435\n00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:23.720\nAnd I looked at him, I said, boy, now this is a very big global management job.\n\n436\n00:17:23.720 --> 00:17:26.360\nI said, I'm not ready for this job.\n\n437\n00:17:26.360 --> 00:17:28.880\nMaybe two more years I could be ready for it.\n\n438\n00:17:28.880 --> 00:17:32.840\nHe said, go to the interview, because I had it with his boss.\n\n439\n00:17:32.840 --> 00:17:34.840\nSo I went to the interview the next day.\n\n440\n00:17:34.840 --> 00:17:36.640\nHe's telling me why I should do it, this and that.\n\n441\n00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:38.000\nAnd he offers me the job.\n\n442\n00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:41.120\nAnd I said, let me go home and talk to my husband about it.\n\n443\n00:17:41.120 --> 00:17:42.760\nIt kind of looked at me.\n\n444\n00:17:42.760 --> 00:17:43.760\nOkay.\n\n445\n00:17:43.760 --> 00:17:46.920\nI went home, I talked to my husband's name is Mark, you know, Mark did.\n\n446\n00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:50.280\nI talked to Mark and Mark looked at me.\n\n447\n00:17:50.280 --> 00:17:54.220\nHe kind of, I went on and on, like usually he's like sitting there and he goes,\n\n448\n00:17:54.220 --> 00:17:55.000\nJenny,\n\n449\n00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:57.520\ndo you think a man would have answered that offer that way?\n\n450\n00:17:57.520 --> 00:17:59.120\nAnd I said, no.\n\n451\n00:17:59.120 --> 00:18:00.760\nHe said, I know you.\n\n452\n00:18:00.760 --> 00:18:01.760\nYou're going to do it.\n\n453\n00:18:01.760 --> 00:18:03.620\nYou're going to, you know, six months, you're going to have said, I've learned\n\n454\n00:18:03.620 --> 00:18:04.120\neverything.\n\n455\n00:18:04.120 --> 00:18:05.800\nI'm bored, I got to move on.\n\n456\n00:18:05.800 --> 00:18:06.800\nThis is it.\n\n457\n00:18:06.800 --> 00:18:09.080\nAnd I know these other people, you're better than all of them.\n\n458\n00:18:09.080 --> 00:18:14.090\nAnd it was, that was when to me it crystallized that story some have heard that\n\n459\n00:18:14.090 --> 00:18:14.960\nI say growth\n\n460\n00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:18.880\nand comfort never coexist, never.\n\n461\n00:18:18.880 --> 00:18:22.680\nAnd it really was in that moment that I really realized my mistake and I went\n\n462\n00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:23.320\nin the next\n\n463\n00:18:23.320 --> 00:18:26.800\nday, I took the job, he looked at me and he said, don't do that again.\n\n464\n00:18:26.800 --> 00:18:28.600\nI said, I understand.\n\n465\n00:18:28.600 --> 00:18:32.120\nAnd the point was, you know, you got to have confidence.\n\n466\n00:18:32.120 --> 00:18:35.640\nAnd even if you're not, by the way, because very natural, don't show it then.\n\n467\n00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:39.320\nRight, because you will only grow when you're uncomfortable.\n\n468\n00:18:39.320 --> 00:18:44.200\nAnd I've talked to so many people around the world that resonate with that.\n\n469\n00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:47.820\nAnd I try to say to them, I actually got to the point where I love to feel\n\n470\n00:18:47.820 --> 00:18:48.800\nuncomfortable\n\n471\n00:18:48.800 --> 00:18:51.280\nbecause then I'm like, yes, I'm learning, I'm learning.\n\n472\n00:18:51.280 --> 00:18:54.490\nAnd so I would even look to put myself as a CEO, particularly in those\n\n473\n00:18:54.490 --> 00:18:55.480\npositions, right?\n\n474\n00:18:55.480 --> 00:18:58.000\nYou know, I'd be seeing a client that ran a railroad.\n\n475\n00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:02.200\nI got to learn railroad business before I get there, you know, and it was like,\n\n476\n00:19:02.200 --> 00:19:02.360\nif you\n\n477\n00:19:02.360 --> 00:19:05.510\nstart feeling like you're not, I would say to people, if you're feeling, you\n\n478\n00:19:05.510 --> 00:19:05.600\nknow, you\n\n479\n00:19:05.600 --> 00:19:09.040\nare so comfortable in a role, you do need to change it because you are not\n\n480\n00:19:09.040 --> 00:19:09.840\nlearning.\n\n481\n00:19:09.840 --> 00:19:12.840\nSo growth and comfort never coexist.\n\n482\n00:19:12.840 --> 00:19:17.080\nAnd by the way, I felt that way about a company and a country too on that one.\n\n483\n00:19:17.080 --> 00:19:20.640\nThat's really interesting because I never said I was not ready for anything.\n\n484\n00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:23.800\nI've never seen any man ever say, I'm not ready for anything.\n\n485\n00:19:23.800 --> 00:19:27.270\nWhat is it about women that makes them think they've got to have those two\n\n486\n00:19:27.270 --> 00:19:28.040\nyears that you\n\n487\n00:19:28.040 --> 00:19:29.920\nthought you needed initially?\n\n488\n00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:30.920\nWhat's in that?\n\n489\n00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:33.120\nThere've been many studies on this and you and you probably know it.\n\n490\n00:19:33.120 --> 00:19:35.720\nAnd I don't know the deep down roots of it.\n\n491\n00:19:35.720 --> 00:19:39.550\nI know that and I would actually, you know, with my own teams catch this over\n\n492\n00:19:39.550 --> 00:19:40.000\ntime.\n\n493\n00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:43.250\nI would say to them, it seems like our discussions on our male colleagues are\n\n494\n00:19:43.250 --> 00:19:44.720\nabout their potential\n\n495\n00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:47.970\nand our discussions on the women colleagues when it's time for promotion are\n\n496\n00:19:47.970 --> 00:19:48.480\nabout, well,\n\n497\n00:19:48.480 --> 00:19:51.040\nwhat experience did they have to be able to do it?\n\n498\n00:19:51.040 --> 00:19:53.240\nI said, this is a very interesting difference here.\n\n499\n00:19:53.240 --> 00:19:54.600\nOne is you're saying about what he could do.\n\n500\n00:19:54.600 --> 00:19:57.440\nThe other is you're saying, well, let's prove it by what she did do.\n\n501\n00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:01.120\nAnd so that feeling that I felt many of my female colleagues had was, well, if\n\n502\n00:20:01.120 --> 00:20:01.600\nI hadn't\n\n503\n00:20:01.600 --> 00:20:03.920\ndone it yet, I couldn't do it.\n\n504\n00:20:03.920 --> 00:20:05.600\nAnd it's a little bit of a circle.\n\n505\n00:20:05.600 --> 00:20:09.710\nSo the best way I know how to deal with that is A, to be really aware of it,\n\n506\n00:20:09.710 --> 00:20:10.320\nright?\n\n507\n00:20:10.320 --> 00:20:11.400\nAnd call people, right?\n\n508\n00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:13.960\nWe would be very aware this was happening.\n\n509\n00:20:13.960 --> 00:20:16.600\nAnd also, I think it really helped because we'd have these conversations with\n\n510\n00:20:16.600 --> 00:20:16.880\nmany of\n\n511\n00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:17.880\nour women.\n\n512\n00:20:17.880 --> 00:20:21.780\nBy the way, we have the best women diversity and technology upfront about, okay\n\n513\n00:20:21.780 --> 00:20:22.360\n, we know\n\n514\n00:20:22.360 --> 00:20:24.520\nthey're going to react that way, okay, often.\n\n515\n00:20:24.520 --> 00:20:26.160\nSo help move them along.\n\n516\n00:20:26.160 --> 00:20:27.160\nAnd we did.\n\n517\n00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:29.040\nAnd I think that, well, the results speak for themselves.\n\n518\n00:20:29.040 --> 00:20:32.990\nSo when was it, when you were coming up IBM where you actually looked yourself\n\n519\n00:20:32.990 --> 00:20:33.400\nin the\n\n520\n00:20:33.400 --> 00:20:35.760\nmirror and said, you know, I can be a CEO.\n\n521\n00:20:35.760 --> 00:20:38.880\nThis is something that I have the capability of doing it.\n\n522\n00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:43.830\nAnd was there a moment in your career that really accelerated your trajectory\n\n523\n00:20:43.830 --> 00:20:44.440\nand your\n\n524\n00:20:44.440 --> 00:20:45.440\nbelief in yourself?\n\n525\n00:20:45.440 --> 00:20:48.840\nDid you have a moment like that, Dave?\n\n526\n00:20:48.840 --> 00:20:52.400\nYou know, I just kind of did every job as well as I could do it.\n\n527\n00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:55.220\nAnd then kind of look at who had the next job and said, what do they have that\n\n528\n00:20:55.220 --> 00:20:55.600\nI don't\n\n529\n00:20:55.600 --> 00:20:57.200\nhave and tried to do that?\n\n530\n00:20:57.200 --> 00:21:00.240\nI don't know how it happened, but somehow I became a CEO.\n\n531\n00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:03.320\nYeah, I really do feel the same way about that.\n\n532\n00:21:03.320 --> 00:21:06.140\nYou know, it doesn't mean it's the only formula because there are lots of\n\n533\n00:21:06.140 --> 00:21:07.320\npeople who go, that's\n\n534\n00:21:07.320 --> 00:21:08.400\nwhat I want to be.\n\n535\n00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:10.360\nAnd I, you know, chart a course.\n\n536\n00:21:10.360 --> 00:21:11.360\nAnd I didn't.\n\n537\n00:21:11.360 --> 00:21:14.630\nI always felt that if you did a really good job in this role, the next role\n\n538\n00:21:14.630 --> 00:21:15.160\nwould open\n\n539\n00:21:15.160 --> 00:21:16.160\nup and unfold itself.\n\n540\n00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:19.970\nAnd in fact, if anyway, if you chart it too specific, you'd just be\n\n541\n00:21:19.970 --> 00:21:21.120\ndisappointed and\n\n542\n00:21:21.120 --> 00:21:22.120\nwork.\n\n543\n00:21:22.120 --> 00:21:23.760\nAnd so I believed in that.\n\n544\n00:21:23.760 --> 00:21:27.640\nNow, in retrospect, if you ask me that, I would tell you that the job that\n\n545\n00:21:27.640 --> 00:21:28.560\nprobably made the\n\n546\n00:21:28.560 --> 00:21:33.270\nbiggest difference for me was when we acquired Price Waterhouse Cooper's\n\n547\n00:21:33.270 --> 00:21:34.320\nConsulting.\n\n548\n00:21:34.320 --> 00:21:38.640\nIBM had a technical consulting group, I would call it, of 30,000 people.\n\n549\n00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:40.360\nAnd we brought PWC.\n\n550\n00:21:40.360 --> 00:21:42.840\nAnd this was the year 2002.\n\n551\n00:21:42.840 --> 00:21:44.320\nAnd they were another 30,000.\n\n552\n00:21:44.320 --> 00:21:48.680\nAnd at that time, there had been previous big consulting acquisitions.\n\n553\n00:21:48.680 --> 00:21:50.040\nAll had failed.\n\n554\n00:21:50.040 --> 00:21:51.360\nAll had failed.\n\n555\n00:21:51.360 --> 00:21:53.240\nAnd then here we came with this one.\n\n556\n00:21:53.240 --> 00:21:55.560\nThe largest acquisition we'd ever done at that time.\n\n557\n00:21:55.560 --> 00:21:57.520\nAnd I was asked to run it.\n\n558\n00:21:57.520 --> 00:21:59.480\nActually, I was actually asked to go run it.\n\n559\n00:21:59.480 --> 00:22:02.600\nI was actually going to help the due diligence and what we were doing.\n\n560\n00:22:02.600 --> 00:22:03.600\nI believed in it.\n\n561\n00:22:03.600 --> 00:22:06.200\nI was running another part of services at the time.\n\n562\n00:22:06.200 --> 00:22:10.400\nAnd in going to help, it became clear I should be the one to run it.\n\n563\n00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:15.050\nAnd what I learned in that from that whole experience was what it takes, again,\n\n564\n00:22:15.050 --> 00:22:16.280\n30,000,\n\n565\n00:22:16.280 --> 00:22:19.640\n60,000 people who had to merge, you couldn't run them separately.\n\n566\n00:22:19.640 --> 00:22:21.240\nSo it wasn't like buying parts.\n\n567\n00:22:21.240 --> 00:22:24.000\nIt wasn't like buying something else that could stand on its own.\n\n568\n00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:27.720\nThese two had to come together and really create one plus one equals three.\n\n569\n00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:29.520\nIt really had to be that way.\n\n570\n00:22:29.520 --> 00:22:33.440\nIt wasn't a product going through a distribution channel, nothing like that.\n\n571\n00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:37.330\nAnd so it taught me, probably the biggest thing it taught me was this point\n\n572\n00:22:37.330 --> 00:22:38.000\nabout both\n\n573\n00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:41.880\nbeing in service of clients, which is different than serving clients.\n\n574\n00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:46.320\nAnd the second thing was how to help unmask people build conviction about\n\n575\n00:22:46.320 --> 00:22:47.280\nsomething.\n\n576\n00:22:47.280 --> 00:22:49.480\nAnd so it was probably after that.\n\n577\n00:22:49.480 --> 00:22:52.680\nI can remember when I finally took the job, I said to myself, well, this is\n\n578\n00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:53.040\ngoing to be\n\n579\n00:22:53.040 --> 00:22:55.400\nreally good or this is going to kill me.\n\n580\n00:22:55.400 --> 00:22:59.920\nAnd it was hard, but we successfully, I mean, today it's half of IBM.\n\n581\n00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:02.280\nAnd so in the end, it worked.\n\n582\n00:23:02.280 --> 00:23:04.280\nBut so many lessons of it.\n\n583\n00:23:04.280 --> 00:23:08.120\nAnd it was another one of those, long after my other story, one of those big\n\n584\n00:23:08.120 --> 00:23:09.160\nchallenges.\n\n585\n00:23:09.160 --> 00:23:11.600\nAnd if you come through the other side, but I think what it taught me was I\n\n586\n00:23:11.600 --> 00:23:12.280\ncould do things\n\n587\n00:23:12.280 --> 00:23:13.760\non very big scale then.\n\n588\n00:23:13.760 --> 00:23:15.440\nAnd that was really to your point.\n\n589\n00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:17.480\nWhen did you feel you could have some confidence?\n\n590\n00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:18.480\nYeah.\n\n591\n00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:22.570\nAnd now as a systems engineer, you had to be an individual contributor for a\n\n592\n00:23:22.570 --> 00:23:23.200\nwhile.\n\n593\n00:23:23.200 --> 00:23:27.400\nWhen were you able to make that transition to really be a people leader?\n\n594\n00:23:27.400 --> 00:23:30.440\nI mean, you obviously have great taking people with you skills.\n\n595\n00:23:30.440 --> 00:23:33.680\nYeah, as do you, my friend.\n\n596\n00:23:33.680 --> 00:23:38.910\nYou know, I think you make that transition again, now that we are like old dogs\n\n597\n00:23:38.910 --> 00:23:39.520\nto think\n\n598\n00:23:39.520 --> 00:23:43.160\nback up a couple points.\n\n599\n00:23:43.160 --> 00:23:46.160\nI'm a big believer of watching other leaders and learning from them.\n\n600\n00:23:46.160 --> 00:23:48.990\nI think you can learn from everybody you've ever, good and bad, by the way,\n\n601\n00:23:48.990 --> 00:23:49.560\nthat you've\n\n602\n00:23:49.560 --> 00:23:52.640\never worked with and for.\n\n603\n00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:56.990\nAnd you make this transition from focusing on you being the best to focusing on\n\n604\n00:23:56.990 --> 00:23:57.600\nbringing\n\n605\n00:23:57.600 --> 00:23:59.280\nout the best in someone else.\n\n606\n00:23:59.280 --> 00:24:01.040\nI don't think it happens like a light switch.\n\n607\n00:24:01.040 --> 00:24:03.040\nIt kind of moves over time.\n\n608\n00:24:03.040 --> 00:24:07.580\nWhen you recognize that you get more joy in someone else's accomplishments than\n\n609\n00:24:07.580 --> 00:24:07.800\nyour\n\n610\n00:24:07.800 --> 00:24:08.800\nown.\n\n611\n00:24:08.800 --> 00:24:10.440\nI worked for someone who I thought did that.\n\n612\n00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:14.370\nAnd he probably brought that out the most to me at some point mid-career that I\n\n613\n00:24:14.370 --> 00:24:14.960\nreally,\n\n614\n00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:20.080\nhe took such pride in what we did and never about what he did.\n\n615\n00:24:20.080 --> 00:24:23.240\nAnd that to me is that moment when you make that transition.\n\n616\n00:24:23.240 --> 00:24:25.920\nAnd there was a, I can't remember, oh, I wish I could remember if it was Ben\n\n617\n00:24:25.920 --> 00:24:26.840\nVan Franklin,\n\n618\n00:24:26.840 --> 00:24:30.520\nAbraham Lincoln or if it was, I should remember who said it.\n\n619\n00:24:30.520 --> 00:24:35.620\nIt was, there's nothing one can't accomplish if you don't care who gets credit\n\n620\n00:24:35.620 --> 00:24:36.400\nfor it.\n\n621\n00:24:36.400 --> 00:24:38.000\nAnd it could have been human rival Reagan.\n\n622\n00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:40.000\nAnd I think it was me.\n\n623\n00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:42.600\nYou think, I think it was me saying though, right?\n\n624\n00:24:42.600 --> 00:24:44.480\nIt was great, yeah.\n\n625\n00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:48.500\nIf you take that attitude, I think you're surprised at what you can actually\n\n626\n00:24:48.500 --> 00:24:49.240\nget done.\n\n627\n00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:50.240\nYeah, absolutely.\n\n628\n00:24:50.240 --> 00:24:53.980\nAnd, you know, speaking of getting something done, I mean, when you came into\n\n629\n00:24:53.980 --> 00:24:54.520\nIBM, you\n\n630\n00:24:54.520 --> 00:24:56.960\nhad one heck of a tough job ahead of you.\n\n631\n00:24:56.960 --> 00:25:01.210\nYou had to basically reinvent the company and you did it and you returned\n\n632\n00:25:01.210 --> 00:25:02.520\nbillions of dollars\n\n633\n00:25:02.520 --> 00:25:06.070\nback to the shareholder in terms of the share buybacks and, you know, a really\n\n634\n00:25:06.070 --> 00:25:06.960\ngood dividend.\n\n635\n00:25:06.960 --> 00:25:10.510\nBut you had to go through a pretty tough stretch where the company stock didn't\n\n636\n00:25:10.510 --> 00:25:11.840\nreally grow.\n\n637\n00:25:11.840 --> 00:25:13.360\nThat's always tough for a CEO.\n\n638\n00:25:13.360 --> 00:25:16.800\nWe have a tendency to be look at that stock price every day.\n\n639\n00:25:16.800 --> 00:25:19.520\nHow did you keep yourself motivated during that time?\n\n640\n00:25:19.520 --> 00:25:22.680\nHow did you keep yourself with the kind of energy I know that you have?\n\n641\n00:25:22.680 --> 00:25:24.720\nI mean, you've got tremendous positive energy.\n\n642\n00:25:24.720 --> 00:25:28.520\nYou know, a couple of points I would make that I think now are good advice.\n\n643\n00:25:28.520 --> 00:25:33.070\nFirst off, you know, you were asking me a minute ago about my first days in the\n\n644\n00:25:33.070 --> 00:25:33.560\njob,\n\n645\n00:25:33.560 --> 00:25:34.560\nright?\n\n646\n00:25:34.560 --> 00:25:40.230\nAnd the first evening after I'd been told, I'd gone home and Mark had flown\n\n647\n00:25:40.230 --> 00:25:41.120\ninto town.\n\n648\n00:25:41.120 --> 00:25:45.570\nHe was there and he had arranged for just a dinner for he and I at the top of\n\n649\n00:25:45.570 --> 00:25:46.320\nmy building,\n\n650\n00:25:46.320 --> 00:25:47.600\nkind of an event space.\n\n651\n00:25:47.600 --> 00:25:49.040\nNo one else was in it.\n\n652\n00:25:49.040 --> 00:25:53.120\nI can remember looking out over the sky and you can see the twinkling lights of\n\n653\n00:25:53.120 --> 00:25:53.440\nNew York\n\n654\n00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:54.440\nCity.\n\n655\n00:25:54.440 --> 00:25:59.040\nAnd I said to him, it was the first time I think I really understood the word\n\n656\n00:25:59.040 --> 00:26:00.160\nstewardship.\n\n657\n00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:04.040\nI said, you felt this gravity of G there.\n\n658\n00:26:04.040 --> 00:26:07.560\nLet's see a million employees, pensioners.\n\n659\n00:26:07.560 --> 00:26:09.560\nWe have largest pension in the world, right?\n\n660\n00:26:09.560 --> 00:26:10.560\nYes, your shareholders.\n\n661\n00:26:10.560 --> 00:26:13.760\nYou have these clients of how many people is you?\n\n662\n00:26:13.760 --> 00:26:17.890\nAnd you don't have to go far to find someone who worked for IBM or had a\n\n663\n00:26:17.890 --> 00:26:18.920\nrelationship or\n\n664\n00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:21.360\nsomething like that that you're responsible for.\n\n665\n00:26:21.360 --> 00:26:25.850\nBut with that understanding of stewardship, I felt came this view that I was\n\n666\n00:26:25.850 --> 00:26:26.520\ntaught, you\n\n667\n00:26:26.520 --> 00:26:30.560\ndo what's right for the long run, even if it's not right for the short run.\n\n668\n00:26:30.560 --> 00:26:35.000\nAnd so there were many decisions I had to make that I knew were right.\n\n669\n00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:38.240\nAnd I knew probably my successor would benefit from them, not me.\n\n670\n00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:42.240\nBut I also know if I didn't do them, I could likely kill the company.\n\n671\n00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:45.800\nAnd so that all equals that word conviction.\n\n672\n00:26:45.800 --> 00:26:49.920\nAnd so I think how anybody gets through those times is conviction.\n\n673\n00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:51.280\nAnd there were times that were rough.\n\n674\n00:26:51.280 --> 00:26:53.700\nAnd by the way, yes, the share price and go up, but we did return a lot in\n\n675\n00:26:53.700 --> 00:26:54.320\ndividends.\n\n676\n00:26:54.320 --> 00:26:55.320\nOkay.\n\n677\n00:26:55.320 --> 00:26:56.320\nSo they didn't get nothing.\n\n678\n00:26:56.320 --> 00:27:01.400\nAnd someone wise told me, you run the company for the owners, not the renters.\n\n679\n00:27:01.400 --> 00:27:02.400\nAll right.\n\n680\n00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:05.240\nSo the renters meaning in and out of the stock caring about it.\n\n681\n00:27:05.240 --> 00:27:08.030\nIf I own it, okay, if it doesn't go up in that period, that's fine, I'm getting\n\n682\n00:27:08.030 --> 00:27:09.080\nmy dividends.\n\n683\n00:27:09.080 --> 00:27:11.280\nBut again, to your point, everyone looks.\n\n684\n00:27:11.280 --> 00:27:14.150\nAnd my mom would say she'd watch television and she said, Oh, Jenny, sometimes\n\n685\n00:27:14.150 --> 00:27:14.480\nthey're\n\n686\n00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:16.720\nso mean to you on television.\n\n687\n00:27:16.720 --> 00:27:18.640\nMy answer to her is I'm saying mom, turn it off.\n\n688\n00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:19.640\nOkay.\n\n689\n00:27:19.640 --> 00:27:20.640\nI'll tell you when to turn it back on.\n\n690\n00:27:20.640 --> 00:27:22.760\nI said, I'm very clear what I have to do.\n\n691\n00:27:22.760 --> 00:27:24.560\nAnd I know what I have to do.\n\n692\n00:27:24.560 --> 00:27:29.600\nAnd so a conviction, B, it is that idea that you can, and I don't know if you\n\n693\n00:27:29.600 --> 00:27:30.440\ndo it, Dave,\n\n694\n00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:32.400\nI do compartmentalize things.\n\n695\n00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:35.440\nAnd that does allow you to keep moving forward, right?\n\n696\n00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:37.000\nI don't go backwards a lot.\n\n697\n00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:40.400\nYou do it, you handle it, or something bad happens here, put it in a box.\n\n698\n00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:41.440\nI go on to the next topic.\n\n699\n00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:43.720\nI don't drift it over into it.\n\n700\n00:27:43.720 --> 00:27:47.450\nSo this idea about conviction compartmentalizing and just like this, always\n\n701\n00:27:47.450 --> 00:27:48.400\nlooking forward,\n\n702\n00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:50.120\nit's always forward to me.\n\n703\n00:27:50.120 --> 00:27:51.120\nOkay.\n\n704\n00:27:51.120 --> 00:27:52.120\nSomething bad happens.\n\n705\n00:27:52.120 --> 00:27:54.790\nThat goes back to my being brought up in my, you know, a really bad thing\n\n706\n00:27:54.790 --> 00:27:55.320\nhappened in\n\n707\n00:27:55.320 --> 00:27:58.810\nmy youth, but we all turned out, okay, my brothers and sisters are more\n\n708\n00:27:58.810 --> 00:27:59.520\nsuccessful\n\n709\n00:27:59.520 --> 00:28:00.520\nthan I.\n\n710\n00:28:00.520 --> 00:28:05.320\nAnd so this idea that, hey, bad things do not determine your future.\n\n711\n00:28:05.320 --> 00:28:08.800\nAnd so that to me was the secret about how did you do it?\n\n712\n00:28:08.800 --> 00:28:13.040\nI would tell people, if you start with conviction, you can handle anything.\n\n713\n00:28:13.040 --> 00:28:17.140\nAnd then this maniacal focus on, okay, it happened, now move forward, take an\n\n714\n00:28:17.140 --> 00:28:17.600\naction\n\n715\n00:28:17.600 --> 00:28:18.920\nand move forward, right?\n\n716\n00:28:18.920 --> 00:28:21.160\nYou've got a very tough mindset.\n\n717\n00:28:21.160 --> 00:28:22.560\nYou know, you can handle it.\n\n718\n00:28:22.560 --> 00:28:23.680\nYou got a thick skin.\n\n719\n00:28:23.680 --> 00:28:26.340\nIs that something you've always had or did you just learn it as you took on\n\n720\n00:28:26.340 --> 00:28:26.760\nmore and more\n\n721\n00:28:26.760 --> 00:28:27.760\nresponsibility?\n\n722\n00:28:27.760 --> 00:28:29.720\nNo, no, it got thicker with time.\n\n723\n00:28:29.720 --> 00:28:30.720\nThere's no doubt.\n\n724\n00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:35.210\nAnd I think that's a great piece of coaching to people to realize that it will\n\n725\n00:28:35.210 --> 00:28:35.960\nget thicker\n\n726\n00:28:35.960 --> 00:28:36.960\nwith time.\n\n727\n00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:40.760\nAnd actually, it's those tough things that make it thicker in the end, right?\n\n728\n00:28:40.760 --> 00:28:41.760\nYeah.\n\n729\n00:28:41.760 --> 00:28:42.760\nYeah.\n\n730\n00:28:42.760 --> 00:28:44.920\nAnd for you, IBM now is so much better off.\n\n731\n00:28:44.920 --> 00:28:48.650\nWhen you look back, Jenny, what transformation did you lead at IBM that you're\n\n732\n00:28:48.650 --> 00:28:49.360\nthe most proud\n\n733\n00:28:49.360 --> 00:28:50.360\nof?\n\n734\n00:28:50.360 --> 00:28:52.960\nYou know, the thing people talk the most about was the portfolio, right?\n\n735\n00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:55.920\nI had to re-platform the company for Data and Cloud.\n\n736\n00:28:55.920 --> 00:29:02.820\nSo when I left, our cloud business was maybe 24 billion or so, let's say, and\n\n737\n00:29:02.820 --> 00:29:03.480\nhalf of the\n\n738\n00:29:03.480 --> 00:29:04.920\nportfolio had been transformed.\n\n739\n00:29:04.920 --> 00:29:07.000\nAnd again, in the public eye, right?\n\n740\n00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:10.010\nSo to what you just said a moment ago, while the plane was running or the train\n\n741\n00:29:10.010 --> 00:29:10.720\nwas moving,\n\n742\n00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:12.960\nyou know, all that had to happen while it was going on.\n\n743\n00:29:12.960 --> 00:29:16.280\nBut the part I'm probably most proud about, even though that was essential and\n\n744\n00:29:16.280 --> 00:29:16.600\nit gave\n\n745\n00:29:16.600 --> 00:29:22.440\nthem the foundation now going forward for growth, is it's probably what I would\n\n746\n00:29:22.440 --> 00:29:22.880\ncall\n\n747\n00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:24.240\nemployee engagement.\n\n748\n00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:27.590\nIt's a topic near and dear to your heart, which really have a lot to do with\n\n749\n00:29:27.590 --> 00:29:28.280\nthe people's\n\n750\n00:29:28.280 --> 00:29:33.050\nskills as well as how they did their work and how they felt about working there\n\n751\n00:29:33.050 --> 00:29:33.200\n.\n\n752\n00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:37.360\nAnd so that to me is probably the part I'm most proud of because, you know, a\n\n753\n00:29:37.360 --> 00:29:38.400\nmore industrial\n\n754\n00:29:38.400 --> 00:29:43.960\ncompany sets a financial model and then that drives what happens going forward.\n\n755\n00:29:43.960 --> 00:29:47.160\nI think there's another way to run a company, which is what I was switching,\n\n756\n00:29:47.160 --> 00:29:47.760\nwhich is that\n\n757\n00:29:47.760 --> 00:29:51.090\nan engaged employee really drives what happens with the client and then that\n\n758\n00:29:51.090 --> 00:29:51.680\ndrives your\n\n759\n00:29:51.680 --> 00:29:52.680\nreturn.\n\n760\n00:29:52.680 --> 00:29:55.440\nThat is the cycle of the engine I restarted.\n\n761\n00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:59.310\nAnd so when I left, we had best in class, net promoter score, best in class\n\n762\n00:29:59.310 --> 00:29:59.920\nemployee\n\n763\n00:29:59.920 --> 00:30:02.360\nengagement, and we had not started there.\n\n764\n00:30:02.360 --> 00:30:05.200\nSo that's the piece I feel the best about.\n\n765\n00:30:05.200 --> 00:30:06.960\nAnd it was very hard to do, by the way.\n\n766\n00:30:06.960 --> 00:30:08.440\nSo it wasn't like along the way.\n\n767\n00:30:08.440 --> 00:30:10.920\nIt was easy and it was difficult for a lot of people.\n\n768\n00:30:10.920 --> 00:30:15.240\nAnd then when I tell people now that have to really transform a company, I say,\n\n769\n00:30:15.240 --> 00:30:15.400\nI know\n\n770\n00:30:15.400 --> 00:30:18.280\nyou all think all the time about what you do.\n\n771\n00:30:18.280 --> 00:30:21.640\nSometimes the how and the who and the skills is the more important part.\n\n772\n00:30:21.640 --> 00:30:25.110\nIt sounds like your formula for success is you get to people capability right,\n\n773\n00:30:25.110 --> 00:30:25.480\nthen you're\n\n774\n00:30:25.480 --> 00:30:27.960\ngoing to satisfy more clients and that's how you make money.\n\n775\n00:30:27.960 --> 00:30:30.560\nSo many times people start out thinking, Hey, I want to make the money.\n\n776\n00:30:30.560 --> 00:30:31.560\nThis is what we have to do.\n\n777\n00:30:31.560 --> 00:30:35.180\nBut they don't realize the people capability you have to have to really make\n\n778\n00:30:35.180 --> 00:30:35.960\nthat happen.\n\n779\n00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:38.680\nWhen I think about IBM, it's such an iconic brand.\n\n780\n00:30:38.680 --> 00:30:40.240\nI mean, it's just, it's huge.\n\n781\n00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:41.240\nIt's so huge.\n\n782\n00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:42.800\nYou almost don't know what it does.\n\n783\n00:30:42.800 --> 00:30:46.700\nIt's like if you're just the layman out there, how would you describe what IBM\n\n784\n00:30:46.700 --> 00:30:47.440\nreally does\n\n785\n00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:48.440\ntoday?\n\n786\n00:30:48.440 --> 00:30:53.550\nAnd by the way, that is a bit of a challenge because for IBM being the grandd\n\n787\n00:30:53.550 --> 00:30:54.280\naddy of all\n\n788\n00:30:54.280 --> 00:30:58.800\nthe tech companies, the oldest, right, at over 110 years old, it means that it\n\n789\n00:30:58.800 --> 00:30:59.240\nhas had\n\n790\n00:30:59.240 --> 00:31:01.320\nto change many times.\n\n791\n00:31:01.320 --> 00:31:05.200\nYou know, it started out is meat slicers and cheese slicers.\n\n792\n00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:06.200\nOkay.\n\n793\n00:31:06.200 --> 00:31:08.480\nThen it was tabulating machines, right?\n\n794\n00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:12.640\nAnd then it was eventually time cards, I'll punch in and out of work.\n\n795\n00:31:12.640 --> 00:31:15.960\nAnd then it was eventually the, obviously the birth of the computer, right?\n\n796\n00:31:15.960 --> 00:31:20.760\nBut then people remembered it for PCs or point to sale in a grocery store.\n\n797\n00:31:20.760 --> 00:31:24.830\nPrinters, we moved out of all of those things over time because they would\n\n798\n00:31:24.830 --> 00:31:25.840\ncommoditize.\n\n799\n00:31:25.840 --> 00:31:28.870\nAnd so today I think the best way to describe what IBM does is it does the\n\n800\n00:31:28.870 --> 00:31:29.760\nmission critical\n\n801\n00:31:29.760 --> 00:31:30.960\nwork that runs the world.\n\n802\n00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:34.840\nSo there isn't a banking transaction that doesn't go through those systems.\n\n803\n00:31:34.840 --> 00:31:39.680\nThere is hardly a credit card, an airplane reservation, a hotel.\n\n804\n00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:43.080\nSo it is what's below the surface though, in many cases, right?\n\n805\n00:31:43.080 --> 00:31:45.480\nIt's like, you know, they're running in places.\n\n806\n00:31:45.480 --> 00:31:49.570\nAnd so my best way to describe it is it does a lot of the mission critical work\n\n807\n00:31:49.570 --> 00:31:49.840\nof the\n\n808\n00:31:49.840 --> 00:31:53.640\nworld and is probably the easiest way for people to think of it.\n\n809\n00:31:53.640 --> 00:31:56.800\nYour public face of the company was this Watson, okay?\n\n810\n00:31:56.800 --> 00:31:57.800\nYes.\n\n811\n00:31:57.800 --> 00:31:58.800\nWhich is really great.\n\n812\n00:31:58.800 --> 00:32:02.820\nYou know, tell me about the origin of Watson and he ended up winning Jeopardy\n\n813\n00:32:02.820 --> 00:32:04.040\nwith his AI\n\n814\n00:32:04.040 --> 00:32:05.040\ncapability.\n\n815\n00:32:05.040 --> 00:32:07.600\nYou know, I always love those commercials.\n\n816\n00:32:07.600 --> 00:32:12.280\nTell me the story behind Watson and how you developed his personality.\n\n817\n00:32:12.280 --> 00:32:17.510\nWell, such an interesting, I think, learning around this because AI artificial\n\n818\n00:32:17.510 --> 00:32:18.440\nintelligence\n\n819\n00:32:18.440 --> 00:32:20.960\nhad been around in and out.\n\n820\n00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:21.960\nIt's been decades.\n\n821\n00:32:21.960 --> 00:32:23.720\nWe did some of the very early work on it.\n\n822\n00:32:23.720 --> 00:32:27.720\nCarnegie Mellon, MIT, you name it.\n\n823\n00:32:27.720 --> 00:32:33.230\nAnd the idea, if you think about the errors of computers for kind of my layman\n\n824\n00:32:33.230 --> 00:32:33.760\nview of\n\n825\n00:32:33.760 --> 00:32:37.560\nthis originally, like I was talking about IBM originally, there were systems\n\n826\n00:32:37.560 --> 00:32:37.960\nthat could\n\n827\n00:32:37.960 --> 00:32:41.570\ncount things, tabulate, you know, little beads moving across or little machines\n\n828\n00:32:41.570 --> 00:32:42.240\n, tabulate.\n\n829\n00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:43.640\nAdding things up.\n\n830\n00:32:43.640 --> 00:32:46.040\nThen you got a set of computers that could do logic.\n\n831\n00:32:46.040 --> 00:32:47.880\nIf this do that, all right?\n\n832\n00:32:47.880 --> 00:32:50.880\nSo you went from counting to this logic.\n\n833\n00:32:50.880 --> 00:32:55.230\nAnd then what Watson began, it in human eyes for people was a system that could\n\n834\n00:32:55.230 --> 00:32:55.880\nlearn.\n\n835\n00:32:55.880 --> 00:32:58.840\nSo that was the difference, kind of this third era of computing.\n\n836\n00:32:58.840 --> 00:33:04.480\nSo it was in research and that was 2011 when I believe Jeopardy error.\n\n837\n00:33:04.480 --> 00:33:08.390\nAnd what I think Watson did, in my view, it humanized and made AI\n\n838\n00:33:08.390 --> 00:33:09.760\nunderstandable to the\n\n839\n00:33:09.760 --> 00:33:11.320\ngeneral public.\n\n840\n00:33:11.320 --> 00:33:13.040\nAnd honestly, it got away.\n\n841\n00:33:13.040 --> 00:33:16.680\nWe couldn't tamp it down because people, A, they understood it.\n\n842\n00:33:16.680 --> 00:33:21.000\nIt could no natural language so you could communicate it like you and I are\n\n843\n00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:21.080\ntalking.\n\n844\n00:33:21.080 --> 00:33:24.680\nAnd then it had the ability to learn, put things together and learn from it.\n\n845\n00:33:24.680 --> 00:33:27.800\nAnd so that brought it to the mass.\n\n846\n00:33:27.800 --> 00:33:30.560\nIt democratized this idea, right?\n\n847\n00:33:30.560 --> 00:33:32.640\nAnd that in some ways was good.\n\n848\n00:33:32.640 --> 00:33:36.520\nIn some ways, it was bad because people had huge expectations.\n\n849\n00:33:36.520 --> 00:33:41.390\nAnd some of our first four rays, right or wrong, back to this mission critical\n\n850\n00:33:41.390 --> 00:33:42.560\nin our DNA,\n\n851\n00:33:42.560 --> 00:33:47.040\nwe took on some really tough problems to solve, like healthcare.\n\n852\n00:33:47.040 --> 00:33:50.880\nAnd I would always say, oh, we're going to do our little piece, but it was hard\n\n853\n00:33:50.880 --> 00:33:50.960\n.\n\n854\n00:33:50.960 --> 00:33:54.710\nWhile others were looking at pictures of cats and photos, that would have been\n\n855\n00:33:54.710 --> 00:33:55.360\na way easier\n\n856\n00:33:55.360 --> 00:33:57.200\nroute to go with AI.\n\n857\n00:33:57.200 --> 00:33:59.360\nAnd so we made a lot of progress.\n\n858\n00:33:59.360 --> 00:34:03.600\nToday, what Watson is, it's a platform of artificial intelligence, lots of\n\n859\n00:34:03.600 --> 00:34:05.280\ndifferent routines.\n\n860\n00:34:05.280 --> 00:34:08.440\nBut what I would say is it's a trusted AI platform.\n\n861\n00:34:08.440 --> 00:34:12.990\nAnd that's a very big difference because it means the data you don't learn from\n\n862\n00:34:12.990 --> 00:34:13.520\nsomeone\n\n863\n00:34:13.520 --> 00:34:14.520\nelse's data.\n\n864\n00:34:14.520 --> 00:34:18.680\nSo if I'm a competitor, I don't have to worry that your AI systems learning\n\n865\n00:34:18.680 --> 00:34:19.240\nfrom me, that\n\n866\n00:34:19.240 --> 00:34:24.010\nmy data does not become IBM's data, algorithms that check for bias, all these\n\n867\n00:34:24.010 --> 00:34:24.800\nthings that\n\n868\n00:34:24.800 --> 00:34:27.000\nwere the downside, we can talk about good tech.\n\n869\n00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:31.940\nSo today it's a platform more able to be used in any application, but certainly\n\n870\n00:34:31.940 --> 00:34:32.320\nwhen\n\n871\n00:34:32.320 --> 00:34:36.790\nit was visible like that to the public, it really did, I think, show the world,\n\n872\n00:34:36.790 --> 00:34:37.400\nat least\n\n873\n00:34:37.400 --> 00:34:41.300\nthe possibilities of AI, which Dave, those are really still in front of us,\n\n874\n00:34:41.300 --> 00:34:41.840\nright?\n\n875\n00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:45.670\nAnd the biggest learning is you don't get the benefit of it in a business world\n\n876\n00:34:45.670 --> 00:34:45.880\nunless\n\n877\n00:34:45.880 --> 00:34:48.080\nyou really change how work is done.\n\n878\n00:34:48.080 --> 00:34:52.280\nIf you try to sprinkle it like salt on things, very marginal benefit.\n\n879\n00:34:52.280 --> 00:34:53.280\nYeah.\n\n880\n00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:54.280\nGood point.\n\n881\n00:34:54.280 --> 00:34:57.350\nYou know, and it's obvious you're passionate about AI and you're an AI commun\n\n882\n00:34:57.350 --> 00:34:57.960\nicator.\n\n883\n00:34:57.960 --> 00:35:00.720\nAnd by the way, have you always been an AI communicator?\n\n884\n00:35:00.720 --> 00:35:02.480\nI mean, is this something you picked up?\n\n885\n00:35:02.480 --> 00:35:04.240\nNo, I have not actually.\n\n886\n00:35:04.240 --> 00:35:06.840\nSo that's another good lesson for everybody listening.\n\n887\n00:35:06.840 --> 00:35:10.580\nFind the stuff you're bad at and go work on it because we found in a box\n\n888\n00:35:10.580 --> 00:35:11.400\nrecently my\n\n889\n00:35:11.400 --> 00:35:15.080\nvery first evaluations of communications from a class in IBM.\n\n890\n00:35:15.080 --> 00:35:17.000\nOh my God, I was horrible.\n\n891\n00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:20.760\nAnd so now I feel I'm on the other end of that spectrum.\n\n892\n00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:24.720\nI worked so hard because I think first it started with clients.\n\n893\n00:35:24.720 --> 00:35:27.920\nSomeone taught me that times the most valuable thing a client gives you, you\n\n894\n00:35:27.920 --> 00:35:28.520\nmust give them\n\n895\n00:35:28.520 --> 00:35:30.520\nsomething clear in return.\n\n896\n00:35:30.520 --> 00:35:33.880\nAnd so it started this preparation thing I did with clients.\n\n897\n00:35:33.880 --> 00:35:38.800\nAnd then it moved to man, when you got to talk to masses of people, two things.\n\n898\n00:35:38.800 --> 00:35:41.080\nThey don't exactly remember what you said.\n\n899\n00:35:41.080 --> 00:35:43.600\nThey do remember how you made them feel.\n\n900\n00:35:43.600 --> 00:35:47.120\nAnd then the second was, if they're ever to remember what you say, you must\n\n901\n00:35:47.120 --> 00:35:47.560\nmake it\n\n902\n00:35:47.560 --> 00:35:48.720\neasy for them.\n\n903\n00:35:48.720 --> 00:35:50.520\nThat is your job, not theirs.\n\n904\n00:35:50.520 --> 00:35:54.000\nAnd that old, I'd have written you a shorter letter if I had more time.\n\n905\n00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:55.000\nIt's so clear.\n\n906\n00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:58.500\nSo anyways, I'm a big advocate that people underestimate that that is a science\n\n907\n00:35:58.500 --> 00:35:58.840\n, not\n\n908\n00:35:58.840 --> 00:35:59.840\nan art.\n\n909\n00:35:59.840 --> 00:36:00.840\nYeah, absolutely.\n\n910\n00:36:00.840 --> 00:36:04.190\nAnd obviously today now you're moving on to different things and you're making\n\n911\n00:36:04.190 --> 00:36:04.480\na big\n\n912\n00:36:04.480 --> 00:36:05.560\ndifference in the world.\n\n913\n00:36:05.560 --> 00:36:09.970\nAnd I know you're motivated by a lot of other projects, but I want you to talk\n\n914\n00:36:09.970 --> 00:36:10.560\nabout the\n\n915\n00:36:10.560 --> 00:36:14.040\none 10 initiative and why you're so passionate about it.\n\n916\n00:36:14.040 --> 00:36:15.040\nOkay.\n\n917\n00:36:15.040 --> 00:36:20.080\nSo co-founded with Ken Schinoff, Ken Frazier, Ken Schinoff from AMX, American\n\n918\n00:36:20.080 --> 00:36:20.960\nExpress, Ken\n\n919\n00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:26.510\nFrazier from Merck, Kevin Sheer, who ran AM, Jen, Charles Phillips, who ran in\n\n920\n00:36:26.510 --> 00:36:27.120\nfor, but\n\n921\n00:36:27.120 --> 00:36:29.760\nKen Frazier and I are the co-chairs.\n\n922\n00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:34.740\nIt is to place 1 million black Americans who do not have a college degree, but\n\n923\n00:36:34.740 --> 00:36:35.120\ngo back\n\n924\n00:36:35.120 --> 00:36:39.900\nto my stories, I've told you, who do not have a college degree into upwardly\n\n925\n00:36:39.900 --> 00:36:40.440\nmobile\n\n926\n00:36:40.440 --> 00:36:42.120\nmiddle class jobs.\n\n927\n00:36:42.120 --> 00:36:47.080\nSo our point was, I mean, we're very clearly picking what we're working on and\n\n928\n00:36:47.080 --> 00:36:47.960\nstrong view,\n\n929\n00:36:47.960 --> 00:36:52.240\neconomic opportunity is the greatest equalizer that's out there.\n\n930\n00:36:52.240 --> 00:36:56.090\nAnd that if you want racial justice, one of the best things companies can do is\n\n931\n00:36:56.090 --> 00:36:56.560\njobs.\n\n932\n00:36:56.560 --> 00:36:57.920\nThat is what we do.\n\n933\n00:36:57.920 --> 00:37:01.840\nIt's not talking, talking, talking, is giving people jobs and opportunity.\n\n934\n00:37:01.840 --> 00:37:03.280\nAnd we don't mean dead-end jobs.\n\n935\n00:37:03.280 --> 00:37:06.200\nWe mean take a skills first mentality.\n\n936\n00:37:06.200 --> 00:37:10.060\nIf I hire you because you have propensity to learn and some skill, do not\n\n937\n00:37:10.060 --> 00:37:10.720\ndemand you\n\n938\n00:37:10.720 --> 00:37:15.940\nhave a college degree yet because of all our companies, 88% require college\n\n939\n00:37:15.940 --> 00:37:16.760\ndegrees for\n\n940\n00:37:16.760 --> 00:37:21.280\nthese good jobs and 80% of black Americans do not have a college degree.\n\n941\n00:37:21.280 --> 00:37:25.060\nThis equation will never be solved if you do not change something in what you\n\n942\n00:37:25.060 --> 00:37:25.760\nbelieve.\n\n943\n00:37:25.760 --> 00:37:29.640\nI, after this 10 years, I was kind of talking about this earlier, I came to be\n\n944\n00:37:29.640 --> 00:37:30.400\nsuch a strong\n\n945\n00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:34.980\nbeliever in this skills first mentality, meaning hire because of my skill first\n\n946\n00:37:34.980 --> 00:37:35.400\n, not\n\n947\n00:37:35.400 --> 00:37:37.760\na degree only world.\n\n948\n00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:41.440\nAnd we can go on and on into that and how the education system has failed.\n\n949\n00:37:41.440 --> 00:37:44.420\nAnd trust me, I'm not saying don't get a degree ever because my own experience\n\n950\n00:37:44.420 --> 00:37:44.680\nwith\n\n951\n00:37:44.680 --> 00:37:48.520\nthis is so many of the people I've hired have then gone back and gotten degrees\n\n952\n00:37:48.520 --> 00:37:48.760\n.\n\n953\n00:37:48.760 --> 00:37:51.720\nIBM, we have our first PhD out of this crowd.\n\n954\n00:37:51.720 --> 00:37:56.280\nSo again, not an issue of aptitude, the issue is access.\n\n955\n00:37:56.280 --> 00:37:58.280\nAnd so we said, this is what we can do.\n\n956\n00:37:58.280 --> 00:38:01.480\nWe can go get all our peer companies to sign up, do a 10 years.\n\n957\n00:38:01.480 --> 00:38:03.040\nIt's not an easy thing.\n\n958\n00:38:03.040 --> 00:38:06.720\nAnd the first thing they have to do is go back, check how they do all their\n\n959\n00:38:06.720 --> 00:38:07.400\nhiring.\n\n960\n00:38:07.400 --> 00:38:09.560\nYou go test every job to get started.\n\n961\n00:38:09.560 --> 00:38:13.140\nDo you really have to, or have you just become lazy that the college degree is\n\n962\n00:38:13.140 --> 00:38:13.640\nthe kind of\n\n963\n00:38:13.640 --> 00:38:15.320\nbar to get in?\n\n964\n00:38:15.320 --> 00:38:18.160\nAnd that is the case in 95% of the cases.\n\n965\n00:38:18.160 --> 00:38:22.150\nAnd so then go through the hard work, a change in your job, Rex, then you got\n\n966\n00:38:22.150 --> 00:38:22.760\nto go do the\n\n967\n00:38:22.760 --> 00:38:24.880\nhard work of interviewing differently.\n\n968\n00:38:24.880 --> 00:38:28.510\nBecause again, this is a different group of people that start in a different\n\n969\n00:38:28.510 --> 00:38:29.000\nspot.\n\n970\n00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:32.090\nAnd then you got to do the hard work of how to promote them and move them along\n\n971\n00:38:32.090 --> 00:38:32.200\n.\n\n972\n00:38:32.200 --> 00:38:36.420\nAnd then we are working with all the places that we say, okay, at Bastion is\n\n973\n00:38:36.420 --> 00:38:37.160\nleading up\n\n974\n00:38:37.160 --> 00:38:41.000\nAtlanta for us from Delta and his colleague companies there.\n\n975\n00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:45.280\nThey say, okay, collectively we got a thousand people we can hire in cyber.\n\n976\n00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:48.630\nWe're going to the community colleges and other non-for-profits and saying,\n\n977\n00:38:48.630 --> 00:38:49.040\nokay, this\n\n978\n00:38:49.040 --> 00:38:51.440\nis what we need, this kind of skill set credential.\n\n979\n00:38:51.440 --> 00:38:52.440\nCan you do it?\n\n980\n00:38:52.440 --> 00:38:54.000\nWe will hire them.\n\n981\n00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:57.360\nAnd so that's that matching and putting it together.\n\n982\n00:38:57.360 --> 00:39:01.720\nAnd in our first few months as we ended last year, we did 20,000 hires.\n\n983\n00:39:01.720 --> 00:39:05.200\nBut we'll get much closer to 100,000 now again.\n\n984\n00:39:05.200 --> 00:39:06.960\nAnd it'll just should take off.\n\n985\n00:39:06.960 --> 00:39:10.780\nBut already the impact is happening from people opening how they look at\n\n986\n00:39:10.780 --> 00:39:11.600\ncandidates.\n\n987\n00:39:11.600 --> 00:39:16.350\nAnd as I say, it changes the role of HR who went from, you know, I would buy\n\n988\n00:39:16.350 --> 00:39:17.160\nskills ready\n\n989\n00:39:17.160 --> 00:39:19.880\nmade to I have to build them more, right?\n\n990\n00:39:19.880 --> 00:39:23.000\nAnd, but these are, again, I've been added a decade.\n\n991\n00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:25.720\nSo we're kind of the longest on this topic.\n\n992\n00:39:25.720 --> 00:39:27.880\nThey're more loyal, higher retention.\n\n993\n00:39:27.880 --> 00:39:28.880\nAnd guess what?\n\n994\n00:39:28.880 --> 00:39:29.880\nWe did the work.\n\n995\n00:39:29.880 --> 00:39:32.080\nAfter a year, they're as innovative.\n\n996\n00:39:32.080 --> 00:39:35.890\nAnd trust me, I had a company of all PhDs and I had to convince them I wasn't\n\n997\n00:39:35.890 --> 00:39:36.720\ndumbing down\n\n998\n00:39:36.720 --> 00:39:39.040\nmy workforce and what I was doing.\n\n999\n00:39:39.040 --> 00:39:42.800\nAnd that this was the ultimate definition of inclusion in it is.\n\n1000\n00:39:42.800 --> 00:39:46.080\nAnd so anyways, that's in a two minutes, that's 110.\n\n1001\n00:39:46.080 --> 00:39:47.080\nI love it.\n\n1002\n00:39:47.080 --> 00:39:49.720\nAnd thank you for for leading the way on that for our country.\n\n1003\n00:39:49.720 --> 00:39:51.480\nIt's absolutely the right thing to do.\n\n1004\n00:39:51.480 --> 00:39:55.760\nAnd you know, I understand you would tell your IBM team that this is our time.\n\n1005\n00:39:55.760 --> 00:39:58.840\nAnd Jenny, it sounds to me like this is your time.\n\n1006\n00:39:58.840 --> 00:40:01.280\nYou're really passionate about what you're doing right now.\n\n1007\n00:40:01.280 --> 00:40:05.850\nHow important is it to have that mindset of this is our time and seizing the\n\n1008\n00:40:05.850 --> 00:40:06.360\nday?\n\n1009\n00:40:06.360 --> 00:40:10.400\nWell, whenever you do something hard, I think that is critical.\n\n1010\n00:40:10.400 --> 00:40:13.000\nDave, you have always been that way, right?\n\n1011\n00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:17.600\nAs I watched, you know, your strong view about how to treat employees, right?\n\n1012\n00:40:17.600 --> 00:40:21.700\nAnd really as they were the penultimate of what would eventually then turn out\n\n1013\n00:40:21.700 --> 00:40:22.040\nto be\n\n1014\n00:40:22.040 --> 00:40:23.680\nyour success.\n\n1015\n00:40:23.680 --> 00:40:26.000\nAnd it's not rah-rah, by the way.\n\n1016\n00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:28.160\nSo this is, I think, an important point.\n\n1017\n00:40:28.160 --> 00:40:29.640\nPeople, I don't want them to miss.\n\n1018\n00:40:29.640 --> 00:40:33.150\nAgain, another great saying I first learned from Ken Chanal, but it's actually\n\n1019\n00:40:33.150 --> 00:40:34.040\nfrom Napoleon.\n\n1020\n00:40:34.040 --> 00:40:39.080\nHe said that a leader's job is to paint reality and then give hope.\n\n1021\n00:40:39.080 --> 00:40:42.560\nAnd the point being, hope's got to be based on facts, okay?\n\n1022\n00:40:42.560 --> 00:40:45.040\nOtherwise it's just sort of an illusion.\n\n1023\n00:40:45.040 --> 00:40:48.180\nAnd I do think for any of us, when you say this is our time and what I would\n\n1024\n00:40:48.180 --> 00:40:48.640\nsay it with\n\n1025\n00:40:48.640 --> 00:40:52.900\nthe IBMers, it was because I had to say the things I believed in that were\n\n1026\n00:40:52.900 --> 00:40:54.280\nfactual happening.\n\n1027\n00:40:54.280 --> 00:40:57.080\nAnd you know, again, we were the oldest, not the newest tech.\n\n1028\n00:40:57.080 --> 00:41:00.400\nAnd as you know, the world falls in love with the most new shiny object.\n\n1029\n00:41:00.400 --> 00:41:02.520\nYou would see it in your industry too.\n\n1030\n00:41:02.520 --> 00:41:07.720\nAnd it's easy to forget what is in your heart of what you are in IBM.\n\n1031\n00:41:07.720 --> 00:41:12.040\nAt its heart, it was a trusted company, right, with the most important assets\n\n1032\n00:41:12.040 --> 00:41:12.760\nin the world.\n\n1033\n00:41:12.760 --> 00:41:16.710\nAnd as this era is now evolving, trust is probably one of the ultimate\n\n1034\n00:41:16.710 --> 00:41:17.760\ncurrencies that\n\n1035\n00:41:17.760 --> 00:41:19.560\ncompanies want to deal with.\n\n1036\n00:41:19.560 --> 00:41:22.990\nAnd so as we moved into now, hey, chapter two, they're going to change their\n\n1037\n00:41:22.990 --> 00:41:23.560\nback-end\n\n1038\n00:41:23.560 --> 00:41:24.560\nsystems.\n\n1039\n00:41:24.560 --> 00:41:25.560\nIt's about data.\n\n1040\n00:41:25.560 --> 00:41:28.400\nIt's about a cloud for really serious work.\n\n1041\n00:41:28.400 --> 00:41:29.680\nThat is their time.\n\n1042\n00:41:29.680 --> 00:41:31.000\nThat's what I meant by that is their time.\n\n1043\n00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:34.320\nBut I think it's so important to base it on facts, right?\n\n1044\n00:41:34.320 --> 00:41:36.720\nNot on what you wish to be true.\n\n1045\n00:41:36.720 --> 00:41:38.360\nWell, is this your time?\n\n1046\n00:41:38.360 --> 00:41:42.120\nYou know, I hope they've all been my time, right?\n\n1047\n00:41:42.120 --> 00:41:43.120\nI don't know.\n\n1048\n00:41:43.120 --> 00:41:44.880\nSometimes, yes, I think so.\n\n1049\n00:41:44.880 --> 00:41:49.660\nI mean, look, I think the best thing for anybody is if you're authentic, it's\n\n1050\n00:41:49.660 --> 00:41:51.480\nyour time.\n\n1051\n00:41:51.480 --> 00:41:54.080\nAnd to me, that's the greatest piece of advice I'd give someone.\n\n1052\n00:41:54.080 --> 00:41:56.600\nYou know, when people say, well, what's the best advice you'd give somebody?\n\n1053\n00:41:56.600 --> 00:41:58.360\nAnd I'd say, be authentic.\n\n1054\n00:41:58.360 --> 00:41:59.800\nYeah, great point.\n\n1055\n00:41:59.800 --> 00:42:03.430\nAll of this doesn't matter unless you are authentic about it, diversity and\n\n1056\n00:42:03.430 --> 00:42:04.200\ninclusion.\n\n1057\n00:42:04.200 --> 00:42:05.680\nI mean, you name it.\n\n1058\n00:42:05.680 --> 00:42:09.750\nMy belief in the transformation of IBM, because authenticity will then lead to\n\n1059\n00:42:09.750 --> 00:42:10.680\nyour conviction\n\n1060\n00:42:10.680 --> 00:42:12.800\nand it will lead to your resilience.\n\n1061\n00:42:12.800 --> 00:42:13.800\nAbsolutely.\n\n1062\n00:42:13.800 --> 00:42:15.600\nAnd I'm going to about wrap this up quickly.\n\n1063\n00:42:15.600 --> 00:42:18.160\nBut I want to do a lightning round that I always do with our guests.\n\n1064\n00:42:18.160 --> 00:42:19.160\nSo here we go.\n\n1065\n00:42:19.160 --> 00:42:20.160\nAre you ready for this?\n\n1066\n00:42:20.160 --> 00:42:21.160\nI'm ready.\n\n1067\n00:42:21.160 --> 00:42:22.160\nAll right.\n\n1068\n00:42:22.160 --> 00:42:23.960\nThree words that best describe you.\n\n1069\n00:42:23.960 --> 00:42:31.000\nResilient, empathy, logical.\n\n1070\n00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:37.240\nIf you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be and why?\n\n1071\n00:42:37.240 --> 00:42:40.240\nYou know, maybe president and I try to get something done.\n\n1072\n00:42:40.240 --> 00:42:42.440\nCome on, let's go.\n\n1073\n00:42:42.440 --> 00:42:44.080\nThat's a joke.\n\n1074\n00:42:44.080 --> 00:42:45.080\nOkay.\n\n1075\n00:42:45.080 --> 00:42:47.520\nWhat's your biggest pet peeve?\n\n1076\n00:42:47.520 --> 00:42:55.120\nI think my biggest pet peeve is when people have arguments with no facts.\n\n1077\n00:42:55.120 --> 00:42:58.920\nWhat's something about you that few people would know?\n\n1078\n00:42:58.920 --> 00:43:03.190\nProbably how much time I spend with my family and my friends and that I view\n\n1079\n00:43:03.190 --> 00:43:04.600\nthat that is\n\n1080\n00:43:04.600 --> 00:43:08.700\na really important thing for people to have and not for them just to support\n\n1081\n00:43:08.700 --> 00:43:09.320\nyou, but\n\n1082\n00:43:09.320 --> 00:43:11.040\nfor you to support them, right?\n\n1083\n00:43:11.040 --> 00:43:12.040\nRight.\n\n1084\n00:43:12.040 --> 00:43:13.040\nHell, many of your life.\n\n1085\n00:43:13.040 --> 00:43:14.840\nAnd do you have any hidden talents?\n\n1086\n00:43:14.840 --> 00:43:16.000\nOh, zero.\n\n1087\n00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:17.000\nI wish.\n\n1088\n00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:18.880\nI have lots of no talents.\n\n1089\n00:43:18.880 --> 00:43:20.040\nOh, come on.\n\n1090\n00:43:20.040 --> 00:43:21.480\nYou got to have something there.\n\n1091\n00:43:21.480 --> 00:43:22.640\nYou know what?\n\n1092\n00:43:22.640 --> 00:43:24.640\nMy grandmother taught me to bake Christmas cookies.\n\n1093\n00:43:24.640 --> 00:43:26.400\nThere you go.\n\n1094\n00:43:26.400 --> 00:43:27.400\nSee that?\n\n1095\n00:43:27.400 --> 00:43:29.800\nNo, we never expect I could do that.\n\n1096\n00:43:29.800 --> 00:43:31.800\nYou know, that's a hidden talent.\n\n1097\n00:43:31.800 --> 00:43:33.480\nAnd I got to ask you this question.\n\n1098\n00:43:33.480 --> 00:43:37.310\nWhat would be the one bit of advice you'd give every leader who wants to make a\n\n1099\n00:43:37.310 --> 00:43:38.080\nsignificant\n\n1100\n00:43:38.080 --> 00:43:40.360\nimpact at whatever they're doing?\n\n1101\n00:43:40.360 --> 00:43:44.490\nYou know, again, I love sometimes remembering these things in quotes and it was\n\n1102\n00:43:44.490 --> 00:43:45.360\nAnn Richards,\n\n1103\n00:43:45.360 --> 00:43:46.520\nGovernor of Texas.\n\n1104\n00:43:46.520 --> 00:43:50.980\nHe said, \"When someone asked a secret or a success, it was passion and persever\n\n1105\n00:43:50.980 --> 00:43:51.360\nance\n\n1106\n00:43:51.360 --> 00:43:53.640\nwhen everyone else would have given up.\"\n\n1107\n00:43:53.640 --> 00:43:56.040\nI think that that is a lot of it.\n\n1108\n00:43:56.040 --> 00:43:58.880\nSo if you really believe in it, passion and perseverance.\n\n1109\n00:43:58.880 --> 00:43:59.880\nGreat.\n\n1110\n00:43:59.880 --> 00:44:03.240\nYou know, and I'm going to ask you one question because I'd be crazy not to.\n\n1111\n00:44:03.240 --> 00:44:06.040\nYou led this tremendous reinvention.\n\n1112\n00:44:06.040 --> 00:44:10.610\nAny advice to people on how to go about reinventing a company or a brand or\n\n1113\n00:44:10.610 --> 00:44:11.920\nwhatever business you\n\n1114\n00:44:11.920 --> 00:44:12.920\nmight have?\n\n1115\n00:44:12.920 --> 00:44:17.460\nI would put it, if I could only say one thing and I would come to learn this\n\n1116\n00:44:17.460 --> 00:44:17.880\nclearly in\n\n1117\n00:44:17.880 --> 00:44:22.050\nthe middle, is that people often ask the first thing they do to transform a\n\n1118\n00:44:22.050 --> 00:44:22.960\ncompany is change\n\n1119\n00:44:22.960 --> 00:44:23.960\neverything.\n\n1120\n00:44:23.960 --> 00:44:29.270\nAnd I actually think the most important first question is understand what must\n\n1121\n00:44:29.270 --> 00:44:29.760\nendure.\n\n1122\n00:44:29.760 --> 00:44:35.920\nAnd so understand what must endure, then be willing to change everything else.\n\n1123\n00:44:35.920 --> 00:44:40.660\nBecause for companies to transform, they do need a ballast or a center or\n\n1124\n00:44:40.660 --> 00:44:41.840\nsomething.\n\n1125\n00:44:41.840 --> 00:44:45.630\nAnd as I was transforming IBM, there would be times I got us into things too\n\n1126\n00:44:45.630 --> 00:44:46.200\nfar from\n\n1127\n00:44:46.200 --> 00:44:48.600\nour core as an example.\n\n1128\n00:44:48.600 --> 00:44:53.090\nAnd I'll always remember my very good friend, you know him well too, Arnie Swar\n\n1129\n00:44:53.090 --> 00:44:53.800\nonson.\n\n1130\n00:44:53.800 --> 00:44:56.890\nOne day I was with Arnie and I said, \"It was like a marketing system or\n\n1131\n00:44:56.890 --> 00:44:57.680\nsomething he was\n\n1132\n00:44:57.680 --> 00:44:58.680\ngoing to buy from someone else.\"\n\n1133\n00:44:58.680 --> 00:45:00.680\nI'm like, \"How are you going to do it with IBM?\"\n\n1134\n00:45:00.680 --> 00:45:02.680\nI was like, \"Jenny, Jenny, J.J.\n\n1135\n00:45:02.680 --> 00:45:03.680\nHey.\"\n\n1136\n00:45:03.680 --> 00:45:07.360\nHe's like, \"I rely on you for all that mission critical work.\n\n1137\n00:45:07.360 --> 00:45:09.360\nYou got to do what IBM is good at.\"\n\n1138\n00:45:09.360 --> 00:45:12.280\nIt was an epiphany of a moment that I said, \"Yes, he's right.\"\n\n1139\n00:45:12.280 --> 00:45:14.520\nI mean, back to that mission critical.\n\n1140\n00:45:14.520 --> 00:45:18.200\nAt my heart, I am about trust in mission critical work.\n\n1141\n00:45:18.200 --> 00:45:21.080\nAnd these other things are diversions.\n\n1142\n00:45:21.080 --> 00:45:26.600\nAnd this idea about then move adjacently to what you are so good at, right?\n\n1143\n00:45:26.600 --> 00:45:30.000\nUse your strength to power your transformation is the other way to say it.\n\n1144\n00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:31.000\nI love that.\n\n1145\n00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:34.330\nAnd so that would be my advice is that and that's that point about know what\n\n1146\n00:45:34.330 --> 00:45:35.040\nmust endure\n\n1147\n00:45:35.040 --> 00:45:37.560\nand then change everything else, not the other way around.\n\n1148\n00:45:37.560 --> 00:45:41.760\nWell, Jenny, I have to tell you, I love doing these podcasts because I learned\n\n1149\n00:45:41.760 --> 00:45:42.560\nso much.\n\n1150\n00:45:42.560 --> 00:45:45.880\nAnd I learned a lot just by getting to know you even better.\n\n1151\n00:45:45.880 --> 00:45:47.760\nYou're a good friend for coming on this podcast.\n\n1152\n00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:50.520\nI know you don't do it all the time and I really appreciate it.\n\n1153\n00:45:50.520 --> 00:45:54.150\nI'm just thankful that our listeners are going to have the opportunity to get\n\n1154\n00:45:54.150 --> 00:45:54.800\nyour wisdom\n\n1155\n00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:56.520\nand you've really provided a lot of it.\n\n1156\n00:45:56.520 --> 00:45:57.520\nSo thank you.\n\n1157\n00:45:57.520 --> 00:45:58.520\nMy pleasure, Dave.\n\n1158\n00:45:58.520 --> 00:45:59.520\nYou made it easy.\n\n1159\n00:45:59.520 --> 00:45:59.520\nThank you.\n\n1160\n00:45:59.520 --> 00:46:12.530\nYou know, when I was coming up and marketing, I always wanted to become a\n\n1161\n00:46:12.530 --> 00:46:15.400\ngeneral manager,\n\n1162\n00:46:15.400 --> 00:46:19.200\nbut I was really being stereotyped as just a marketing guy.\n\n1163\n00:46:19.200 --> 00:46:23.610\nSo I knew that I had to demonstrate that I could be a general manager by taking\n\n1164\n00:46:23.610 --> 00:46:24.120\non another\n\n1165\n00:46:24.120 --> 00:46:25.480\nfunction.\n\n1166\n00:46:25.480 --> 00:46:30.420\nAnd when I was running market at Pepsi, that meant that I had to run operations\n\n1167\n00:46:30.420 --> 00:46:31.240\nfor Pepsi.\n\n1168\n00:46:31.240 --> 00:46:35.370\nAnd I remember when that job came open, I didn't have any operating experience\n\n1169\n00:46:35.370 --> 00:46:36.520\nat all.\n\n1170\n00:46:36.520 --> 00:46:40.660\nAnd I remembered how uncomfortable I was when I walked into my boss's office\n\n1171\n00:46:40.660 --> 00:46:41.680\nand I said,\n\n1172\n00:46:41.680 --> 00:46:46.710\nCraig, I really want to become the chief operating officer of the Pepsi Cola\n\n1173\n00:46:46.710 --> 00:46:47.600\ncompany.\n\n1174\n00:46:47.600 --> 00:46:51.080\nHe looked at me and he thought I was almost crazy.\n\n1175\n00:46:51.080 --> 00:46:52.560\nBut then I said it again.\n\n1176\n00:46:52.560 --> 00:46:56.730\nI know that if I'm going to stay in this company, I've got to demonstrate that\n\n1177\n00:46:56.730 --> 00:46:57.880\nI can be an operator,\n\n1178\n00:46:57.880 --> 00:47:01.560\nthat I can run a P&L, that I can work with people on the front line.\n\n1179\n00:47:01.560 --> 00:47:03.680\nAnd you've got to give me a chance.\n\n1180\n00:47:03.680 --> 00:47:07.760\nAnd I think he saw that I was really serious about this.\n\n1181\n00:47:07.760 --> 00:47:11.760\nAnd I was so uncomfortable asking him for this opportunity because I knew I was\n\n1182\n00:47:11.760 --> 00:47:12.160\ngoing\n\n1183\n00:47:12.160 --> 00:47:14.440\nto be making him uncomfortable.\n\n1184\n00:47:14.440 --> 00:47:17.040\nBut because I did it, he said yes.\n\n1185\n00:47:17.040 --> 00:47:20.800\nAnd I got the chance to run operations and that's what led me to become\n\n1186\n00:47:20.800 --> 00:47:23.200\npresident of KFC.\n\n1187\n00:47:23.200 --> 00:47:27.570\nNow you might think that was a very bold request on my part, but I'm going to\n\n1188\n00:47:27.570 --> 00:47:28.000\nask you\n\n1189\n00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:30.040\nto do something bold this week.\n\n1190\n00:47:30.040 --> 00:47:32.880\nGo look for something that makes you uncomfortable.\n\n1191\n00:47:32.880 --> 00:47:34.080\nI mean it.\n\n1192\n00:47:34.080 --> 00:47:35.080\nSeek it out.\n\n1193\n00:47:35.080 --> 00:47:38.560\nActively look for an opportunity to be uncomfortable.\n\n1194\n00:47:38.560 --> 00:47:41.080\nBut here's the most important part of this.\n\n1195\n00:47:41.080 --> 00:47:44.880\nWhen you find the opportunity, I want you to really lean in.\n\n1196\n00:47:44.880 --> 00:47:48.760\nGive it everything you got because I know these uncomfortable moments are where\n\n1197\n00:47:48.760 --> 00:47:49.200\nyou're\n\n1198\n00:47:49.200 --> 00:47:51.160\ngoing to grow the most.\n\n1199\n00:47:51.160 --> 00:47:53.360\nSo do you want to know how leaders lead?\n\n1200\n00:47:53.360 --> 00:47:58.580\nWhat we learned today is that great leaders get comfortable being uncomfortable\n\n1201\n00:47:58.580 --> 00:47:58.720\n.\n\n1202\n00:47:58.720 --> 00:48:02.970\nThanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead where every\n\n1203\n00:48:02.970 --> 00:48:03.800\nThursday you\n\n1204\n00:48:03.800 --> 00:48:07.520\nget to listen in while I interview some of the best leaders in the world.\n\n1205\n00:48:07.520 --> 00:48:11.760\nI make it a point to give you something simple in each episode that you can\n\n1206\n00:48:11.760 --> 00:48:12.640\napply to your\n\n1207\n00:48:12.640 --> 00:48:17.040\nbusiness so that you will become the best leader you can be.\n\n1208\n00:48:17.040 --> 00:48:18.040\nSee you next Thursday.\n\n1209\n00:48:18.040 --> 00:48:48.040\nBye.","

David Novak 0:04

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guests is Ginni Rometty, the former chairman and CEO of IBM. Now I've got a question for you. Have you ever felt uncomfortable at work? I'm talking about that feeling when you're offered a new leadership opportunity, or when your boss wants you to give that big presentation in front of the team, or whatever moment where you're being asked to swim out past the breakers? Well, our guest today, Ginni Rometty, says you will only grow when you're uncomfortable. So that feeling that pit in your stomach in those situations, let me tell you, those are the moments when you have the opportunity to grow as a leader. Before Jenny was appointed CEO, she had risen through the ranks at IBM, a company she had worked at for 40 years. And so what you're about to hear from Jenny, and what you'll learn from her journey to become CEO of IBM, is that great leaders are comfortable being uncomfortable. There's a lot for us to learn here. So let's get right to it. Here's my conversation with my good friend, hence soon to be yours, Ginni Rometty, the former chairman and CEO of IBM.

Ginni, thanks so much for taking the time for being on the

Ginni Rometty 1:41

show. My pleasure, Dave, pleasure to do this with you. First off,

David Novak 1:45

Happy New Year, if you if you made any new year's resolutions, you're not gonna keep.

Ginni Rometty 1:49

You know, it's funny. We had a little New Year's gathering and I had hats for everyone to write in their New Year's resolution. I think people are so tired. Nobody wanted to write anything. So we're done.

David Novak 2:00

You know, Jenny, I want to start out with the obvious you were the first female CEO for IBM. That's a company that you worked for, for 40 years, where were you when you got the call? And how did it feel to get that invitation to head such a iconic company?

Ginni Rometty 2:14

It was, let's see, October 2011. I remember that distinctly. But it's funny until you get the job. You never think you're going to get the job. And I was sitting in my office. And my boss called me. And it was really quite a very short conversation. He just said, Well, you're going to be the Knights CEO. And I really thought I remember his thanking him. I remember hanging up the phone. I remember sitting there quietly for a minute, I did call my husband because I've been sworn to secrecy. And honestly, I got up and did the rest of my meetings.

David Novak 2:47

Yeah, yeah. To think holy cow, here we go.

Ginni Rometty 2:50

That came later. That came later. In the moment, it was just sort of a bit of a stunned silence.

David Novak 2:56

I remember when I was coming up a business. I worked for PepsiCo. And, you know, we modeled a lot of what IBM was all about. And IBM was known for being a culture of blue suits, white shirts, red ties. What do you wear on your first day, when you joined? You know, that first day of your 40 year tenure,

Ginni Rometty 3:15

I can't exactly remember what I were, although what I wore was written about many times, I mean, that's another topic of being a woman in business and how many times people would comment on my clothing. But what I thought about more on that first day was where I went, not what I wore. And so I had really thought hard because I knew that this was going to be a tough journey ahead. And I chose to go to IBM Research 7am, because I knew that this was going to have to be a replatforming of a company. And that would require a lot of the technical skill. And I wanted it to be really clear. That's where I was going to be that moment at 7am. And so I did a broadcast from there for the all 400,000 employees, but it was from IBM Research. I don't remember what I wore, I remember where I went,

David Novak 3:56

understand you're a bit reluctant to make a big deal out of being the first female CEO of IBM. Why was that?

Ginni Rometty 4:02

You know, Dave, I think there are a lot of women that feel this way. And certainly of my generation, I always felt I wanted people to recognize what I did and be commended. For my work. I did write just my work not that I was a woman. So I never focused on this point, in fact, probably went to pretty much extremes about don't recognize me. And even when I was named CEO, people said to me, Hey, don't don't do media don't do anything. You don't want to be known as the first woman CEO. You wanted to be known as a good CEO of IBM. And so I was really, for the first several years very reticent about that. So I stayed away from women's conferences. I mean, I would do things internally, but I really didn't do anything. And I have to say it's one of the things I reflect on. And I turned around on this topic that I came to view as a big mistake. Because I said as time went on, it became clearer and clearer to me. I was in such a privileged position, that it was an obligation to help others and I really came to under stand this feeling of you cannot be what you cannot see. And that there were so many people who said, Look, I see you. I mean, I would remember this over the years when I would give a presentation I can remember, many years ago I was in Australia, gave a presentation a man came up to me, it was on financial services. And I thought he's gonna tell me what a great presentation it was. And he says to me, I wish my daughter had been here. And those events would continue to happen. And you realize how much it means to other people, not yourself to other people, to have someone to look at. And so, wow, I felt that way at the beginning, and was really coached that way by others who I know we're well intended. I think it was the wrong thing. And so I came full circle on that, to really see and tell people how important it is for you to be a role model to help other people.

David Novak 5:46

I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, in this podcast, my daughter did a podcast with Indra Nooyi and myself on her new book on family work balance, and I realized just how much it meant to my daughter, Ashley, to be able to talk to Indra and just how successful Indra has been. And she was so excited. I was doing this podcast with you. Because I think you really do show people what's possible. And and so on behalf of my daughter, I want to thank you for showing women that you can really rise to the top, there's no doubt about that. I've heard you talk quite a few times. And you talk a bit about the difference between a job and a career. What's that difference from your perspective? And how has that principle played out in your life and career?

Ginni Rometty 6:28

You know, to me, this is something that over time, it's been an art that has become more and more important. But I can kind of remember a dawning of like the first moment I really understood that. And I think it's really important to particularly people coming into the workforce now. And so the first time I really recognize that difference, I was probably 22 years old, I had gone to Northwestern, and General Motors had given me a scholarship to go to Northwestern, they had been very generous with me, I could never have afforded it otherwise. So when I left and graduated, I had a choice, I could work for GM or not. And I felt a great obligation given this huge investment. They'd made me in a very expensive school. It was no strings attached. But I went to work for GM. And I'm very appreciative. So I always say that to Mary Barra, I'm very appreciate that opportunity. But what I saw was, you know, I would come to work every day. And I wasn't as passionate about cars as Marius, and others. And I also looked at people around me, and it was more like a job to them. And I said, at a really young age, I could see this difference between a job and a career. And you know, I have people that they become at 73. And I was thinking, no, no, no, there's got to be more to this if you put all of this effort into something. And I felt like I couldn't crystallize what that meant then. But it's when I left for IBM, because I said, No, I want to apply technology to really make a difference in something. And I new technology. Now mind you, this is back in 1980. And that's when I moved. And so over time, I have always felt my say to people, you know, what you work on, you know, everything you do every day isn't like that. It's not like everything, every activity, you know, drive some greater purpose, but in the general, that it's got to be towards that. So it's either a company who you believe in its purpose, and therefore you're doing something that furthers it, I would go on and work on things like AI that would help healthcare and and now you mentioned what I do now. And it's got a lot to do with the work I've done an education and opportunity for people. And to me that is just so important that wherever you're at, you feel like there's either your job or the company is headed and sort of a North Star. And that to me, I felt like I said I learned early in life and that I feel you're really lucky when you can align those things.

David Novak 8:37

I want to get into a lot of the exciting things you did at IBM. But I want to go back and take you back a little bit. Tell me a story about your upbringing that really shaped who you are as a leader.

Ginni Rometty 8:48

Well, this is clearly my mother, actually, she's with me now. Right now I've got to help her with some health things. But my mom I was raised by a single mother. So not unlike there are many people out there like this today. And when I say single my mom I was born when my mom was very young. And I have three other brothers and sisters. And we did have a father, obviously, but about the time I was 1516 years old, just really out of the blue. My father told my mother he no longer cared about any of us, and frankly didn't care how she made a living or if she made a living if she had money or if she took care of us and he was gone. My mother found herself in this position of four children, no education beyond a high school degree and never worked a day in her life. And we really went through a period of time where my mom almost lost the house, went on food stamps, went on social aid, etc. But my mother was really determined that this would not be how this could end. And she went back to school. I helped really raised my brothers and sisters because she had to go back to a community college to get enough of an education to get a better job to get us off of financial aid. And I said I never saw my mother cry. She never complained. Ain't, I could see quiet sad moments. And at the end of the day, what that really taught me, and it's probably the biggest thing that's to this moment influenced me is that I watched my mom, she was not going to let my father define her as a, a dropout, a divorce a, a person on wealth, she was not. And she was determined that only she defined who she was. And that idea that only you define who you are is something to take control of your life, and that no one else determines that for you. And I also saw in that my mother, my mom was smart, she just didn't have access to a lot of things. So the conclusions you draw about people about their education level, or where they live, are wrong. And so when my mother had some access, then she was able to really get us to a different spot. So it's kind of funny how life comes full circle, what I do now with 110, but it also will come back to what it led, even in IBM, my strong feelings about how technology had its good and bad sides for a lot of the population. But the biggest thing she taught me was only you define who you are. So and I think that's important, because people feel they're a victim of other things. And they're not you can grab hold. And if you don't define who you are, by the way, someone else will define you. And there have been those moments, when I've let others start to do that. And, you know, or for a company, because it's true for a person, a company a country, you know, you have to pull it back and define yourself,

David Novak 11:25

that makes so much sense. Do you remember a time or a story where you had an incident at IBM, where you literally thought of your mother and said, My mom would do this? And I'm gonna do it too?

Ginni Rometty 11:35

Well, I think early on back when I mentioned to you that I didn't do any media, it's ironic now because I do it a lot. And but early on, when I wouldn't do these things, I started to watch and say, Well, if I don't speak up, they're going to define who we are. So whether they want to call us old tech, or do something like this, right? thought back to that story, right? Either I define who they are, they're gonna define us. And that would be one of those examples.

David Novak 11:58

That's a great one. And I couldn't agree more with you about, you know, your your mom being smart. And she could have been the CEO with the right kind of background and environment. And I feel the same way about my parents high school education, but they're smarter than me. And, you know, they gave everything to me, you know, you know, I've heard you say that the number one thing a company should hire for is the propensity to learn, share a story of how this always learning mentality really helped you personally in your career.

Ginni Rometty 12:25

So this is interesting, because I actually think this is almost one of the underlying issues of our time. Now, because of the rate that technology is changing. And even with COVID, now people are having to change jobs. So I go back to my mom. So the first point about her having to get a new set of skills, but were crystallized for me was, when I began my job as CEO, it was clear to me, I'd have three big transformations, it soon became clear, we'd need a new technology platform, we'd have to build completely new skills on the workforce. And we'd also have to change how we did work. So those are three big transformations. So skills. And that was a long journey in itself, we can come back to but one of the things I noticed one of the first things it was most of 2012 trying to hire cyber skills, couldn't get them anywhere. And even today, they're they're very scarce. So we've had this brainstorm about going to schools that had kids, high schools, that we could work with a community college and get them out, even before they had a college degree. And could they do these jobs, lo and behold, they could very interesting point. Another point, then, I had all the IBM errs to transform to bring new skills. I thought, Well, boy, do I have to bring in all new people. So we did lots of external hiring, and also offered lots of education. What did I learn, it had nothing to do with age, it had nothing to do with background, it was all about this, if people had a curiosity and wanted to learn were the ones that made the transition, none of the typical stereotypes that you otherwise thought. And it was also not the degree that they had, right. So it wasn't their age, it wasn't the degree it wasn't any of this. And so I put all those three together. And to me, it changed the way we hired. So when we hire now we do testing for curiosity, drive grit, that ability is best you can test for these things. Because nowadays, even the half life of technology skills is three to five years. So I don't want people who only want to do one thing forever. Because if you do, that's that's really what they want to do. And if you're in an industry that's rapidly changing, so to me became the most important thing to do. And one more thing and again, this is all for aspiring leaders and like, from a personal perspective, I have always been someone really curious. I never wanted to be taught what and how to memorize. I always wanted to know how how how so then I always felt like could go back to the roots to figure something out. But that whole idea is what makes you I think is a leader really good because whenever you listen to people, you listen with intent to learn something and it has a really interesting byproduct out of it. If you are always listening with intent to learn and to You will grow a huge network, because people genuinely believe you care, because you do genuinely care. And it isn't that you're just talking for what's in it for you, you're talking for what's in it for them as well. And so I think the byproduct of that curiosity is for anyone a gives you confidence in your job and be it is the way to create a whole long lasting network of relationships. I

David Novak 15:22

couldn't agree more. And you know, and I look at your career and the number of different jobs that you had at IBM, I imagine that you were pushed out of your comfort zone several times with various promotions over the years. How did you learn to adapt so successfully taking on new and different roles?

Ginni Rometty 15:40

I'm not sure I always defend the beginning. Okay, so for maybe you did, maybe you were like infinitely, you know, confident in every role? I don't know.

David Novak 15:49

I don't think so. But I might have acted that way.

Ginni Rometty 15:52

Well, okay. So this is a very big sort of, I'm going to stereotype I think it's a very big difference between men and women, by the way, in the general. So if I can, one of the first stories of mine was one of when I made one of my biggest career changes. So I'd had a very, I would call what IBM would have been a traditional career of you move in, I came in as an engineer move through that went into sales into marketing, I was on my way back, then the job would have been a branch manager, wonderful things. And someone came to me and said, You know what, we're going to start a consulting business. And we're gonna hire all these people from the outside. And we think that you would be really good at this. It was one of the very first times and I was like, Oh, my God, I'm going to divert off of this path. And I hemmed in hard. And you know, it was my husband. He'd say, well, Jenny, consulting, you know, it's all this engineering problem solving. These all sound like things you're good at, why are you so worried about this? And the more I thought about it, first lesson was, you know, what, consulting is a really valued external career valued by the external world. I was getting really good at IBM stuff, but like, what's that worth in the external world? So my first lesson on being willing to change was that the second was time would go on. And that turned out great, successful, etc, went on to other jobs. And I remember being offered a very large job. And the man who I worked for he came to me said, Jenny, I'm going to get a new job, I am going to go to Asia. And I think you should take my job. And I looked at him, I said, boy, now this is a very big global management job. I said, I'm not ready for this job. Maybe two more years, I could be ready for it. He said, Go to the interview. Because I had with his boss. So I went to the interview the next day, he's telling me why I should do it, this and that. And he offers me the job. And I said, let me go home and talk to my husband about it. Kind of looked at me. Okay. I went home, I talked my husband's name is Mark, you know, Mark did, yeah, I talked to Mark and Mark looked at me, you know, he kind of I went on and on, like usual. He's like sitting there and he goes, Jenny, do you think a man would have answered that offer that way? I said, No. He said, I know you, you're going to do it, you're going to, you know, six months, you're going to have said, I've learned everything, I'm bored. I gotta move on. This is it. And I know these other people, you're better than all of them. And it was that was when to me it crystallized that story. Some have heard that I say, growth and comfort. Never coexist. Never. And it really was in that moment that I really realized my mistake. And I went in the next I took the job, he looked at me. And he said, Don't do that. Again. I said I understand. And the point was, you know, you got to have confidence, even if you're not, by the way, because very natural, don't show it then, okay, because you will only grow when you're uncomfortable. And I've talked to so many people around the world that resonate with that. And I try to say to them, I actually got to the point where I love to feel uncomfortable, because then I'm like, Yes, I'm learning I'm learning. And so I would even look to put myself as a CEO, particularly in those positions, right? You know, I'd be seeing a client that ran a railroad, I gotta learn railroad business before I get there, you know, and it was like, if you start feeling like you're not I would say to people, if you're feeling so comfortable in a role, you do need to change it, because you are not learning. So growth and comfort never coexist. And by the way, I felt that way about a company and a country to on that one.

David Novak 19:16

That's really interesting, because I never said I was not ready for anything. I've never seen any man ever say I'm not ready for anything. What is it about women that makes them think they've got to have those two years that you thought you needed? Initially? What's in that there have

Ginni Rometty 19:30

been many studies on this and you and you probably know and and and I don't know the the deep down roots of it. I know that and I would actually, you know, with my own teams catch this over time. And I will say to them, it seems like our discussions on our male colleagues are about their potential. And our discussions on the women colleagues, when it's time for promotion, are about what experience did they have to be able to do it? I said it's very interesting difference here. One is you're saying about what he could do. The others are saying well, let's prove it by what she did do. And so that feeling that I felt many my A female colleagues had was it? Well, if I hadn't done it yet, I couldn't do it. And you know, it's a little bit of a circle. So the best way I know how to deal with that is a to be really aware of it right? And call people, right, we would be very aware of this was happening. And also, I think it really helped, because we'd have these conversations with many of our women, by the way, we have the best women diversity and technology upfront about okay, we know they're going to react that way. Okay, off it. So help move them along. And we did. And I think that well, the results speak for themselves.

David Novak 20:28

So when was it? You know, when you were coming up IBM, where were you actually looked yourself in the mirror and said, You know, I can be a CEO, this is something that I have the capability of doing it? And was there a moment in your career that really accelerated your trajectory and your belief in yourself?

Ginni Rometty 20:46

Did you have a moment like that they've,

David Novak 20:48

you know, I just kind of did every job as well as I could do it. And then kind of look at who had the next job and said, what do they have that I don't have and tried to do that? What did I don't know how it happened. But somehow I became a CEO.

Ginni Rometty 21:00

Yeah, I really do feel the same way about that. Now, it doesn't mean it's the only formula because there are lots of people who go, that's what I want to be. And I, you know, chart a course. And I didn't, I always felt that if you did a really good job in this role, the next role would open up and unfold itself. And in fact, if anyway, if you chart it too specific, you just be disappointed in work. And so I believed in that now, in retrospect, if you asked me that, I would tell you that the job that probably made the biggest difference for me was when we acquired PricewaterhouseCoopers, consulting, IBM had a technical consulting group, I would call it if 30,000 people, and we brought PwC, in this was the year 2002. And they were another 30,000. And at that time, there had been previous big consulting acquisitions, all had failed, or had failed. And then here, we came with this one largest acquisition we'd ever done at that time. And I was asked to run it. Actually, I was actually asked to go run and I was extra go help the due diligence. And what we were doing, I believed in it, I was running another part of services at the time. And in going to help, it became clear, I should be the one to run it. And what I learned in that from that whole experience was what it takes, again, 30,000 60,000, people who had to merge, you couldn't run them separately. So it wasn't like buying parts, it wasn't like buying something else that could stand on its own, these two had to come together and really create one plus one equals three, it really had to be that way. It wasn't a product going through distribution channel, nothing like that. And so it taught me probably the biggest thing it taught me was this point about both being in service of clients, which is different than serving clients. And the second thing was how to help unmask people build conviction about something. And so it was probably after that, I can remember when I finally took the job, I said to myself, well, this is a you're going to be really good, or this is going to kill me. It was hard. But we successfully I mean, today, it's half of IBM. And so you know, in the end, it worked. But so many lessons of it. And it was another one of those long after my other story, one of those big challenges. And if you come through the other side, but I think what it taught me was I could do things on very big scale, then. And that was really to your point, when did you feel you can have some confidence?

David Novak 23:17

Yeah, you started out as a systems engineer, you had to be an individual contributor for a while. When did were you able to make that transition into really being a people leader? I mean, you obviously have great taking people with you skills.

Ginni Rometty 23:30

Yeah, as do you, my friend. You know, I think you make that transition again, now that we are like old dogs to think back. A couple points. I'm a big believer of watching other leaders and learning from them. I think you can learn from everybody you've ever good and bad by the way that you've ever worked with. And for. And you make this transition from focusing on you being the best to focusing on bringing out the best in someone else. I don't think it happens like a light switch. It kind of moves over time, when you recognize that you get more joy in someone else's accomplishments than your own. I worked for someone who I thought did that. And he probably brought that out the most to me at some point in mid career that I really, he took such pride in what we did and never about what he did. And that to me is that moment when you make that transition, and there was a I can't remember, Oh, I wish I can refer to as Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, or if it was, I shouldn't remember who said it. It was there's nothing one can't accomplish, if you don't care who gets credit for it. And it could have been even Ronald Reagan.

David Novak 24:37

And I think they get I think it was me. I

Ginni Rometty 24:39

don't think so. I think it's right, that there's no good. Yeah. And if you take that attitude, I think you'll be surprised at what you can actually get done.

David Novak 24:48

Yeah, absolutely. And, and you know, speaking of getting something done. I mean, when you came into IBM, you had one heck of a tough job ahead of you. You had to basically reinvent the company and you You did it and you return billions of dollars back to the shareholder in terms of share buybacks and you know, really good dividend. But you had to go through a pretty tough stretch where the company stock didn't really grow. That's always tough for a CEO, we have a tendency to be looking at that stock price every day. How do you keep yourself motivated during that time? How did you keep yourself with the kind of energy I know that you have? I mean, you've got tremendous positive energy.

Ginni Rometty 25:25

You know, a couple of points I would make that I think now are good advice. First off, you are asking me a minute ago about my first days and the job, right. And the first evening, after I'd been told, I'd gone home, and Mark had flown into town, he was there. And he had arranged for just a dinner for he and I, at the top of my building kind of an event space, no one else was in it. I can remember looking out over the sky, and you can see the twinkling lights of New York City. And I said to him, I was the first time I think I really understood the word stewardship. I said, you felt this gravity of GE, there, let's see a million employees. Pension years, we have the largest pension in the world, right? Yes, your shareholders, yes, these clients have how many people in you, you don't have to go far to find someone who worked for IBM, or had a relationship or something like that, that you're responsible for. But with that understanding of stewardship, I felt came this view that I was taught you do what's right for the long run, even if it's not right for the short run. And so there were many decisions I had to make that I knew were right. And I knew probably my successor would benefit from them, not me. But I also know if I didn't do them, I could likely kill the company. And so that all equals that word, conviction. And so I think how anybody gets through those times is conviction. And there were times that were rough. And by the way, yes, the share price and go up but we did return a lot in dividends. Okay, so they didn't get nothing. And someone wise told me you run the company for the owners, not the renters. All right. So the renters meaning in and out of the stock caring about it, if I own it, okay, doesn't go up in that period. That's fine. I'm getting my my dividends. But again, to your point, everyone looks, and my mom would say she'd watch television, she said, Oh, Jenny, sometimes are so mean to you on television. My answer here is I might say, Mom, turn it off. Okay. I'll tell you when to turn it back on. I said, I'm very clear what I have to do. And I know what I have to do. And so a conviction. B, it is that idea that you cannot if you do a Dave, I do compartmentalize things. And that does allow you to keep moving forward, right. I don't go backwards a lot. You do it, you handle it, or something bad happens here put in a box, I go on to the next topic. I don't drifted over into it. So this idea about conviction compartmentalizing. And just like this, always looking forward, it's always forward to me. Okay, something bad happens that goes back to my being brought up. And, you know, a really bad thing happened in my youth. But we all turned out okay, my brothers and sisters are more successful than I. And so this idea that a bad things do not determine your future. And so that to me, was the secret about how did you do it? I would tell people, if you start with conviction, you can handle anything. And then this maniacal focus on okay, it happened now move forward, take an action and move forward. Right?

David Novak 28:18

You've got a very tough mindset, you know, you can handle it, you got a thick skin? Is that something you've always had? Or did you just learn it as you took on more and more responsibility? No,

Ginni Rometty 28:27

no, it got thicker with time, there's no doubt. And I think that's a great piece of coaching to people to realize that it will get thicker with time. And actually, it's those tough things that make it thicker in the end, right?

David Novak 28:40

Yeah. And for you, I mean, you know, IBM now is so much better off. And when you look back, Ginni, what transformation Did you lead at IBM that you're the most proud of,

Ginni Rometty 28:49

you know, the thing people talk the most about was the portfolio. Right? I had to replatform the company for data and cloud. So when I left, our cloud business was maybe 24 billion or so let's say, and half of the portfolio had been transformed. And again, in the public eye, right. So to what you just said a moment ago, while the plane was running, and the train was moving, you know, all that had to happen while it was going on. But the part I'm probably most proud about, even though that was essential, and it gave them the foundation now going forward for growth is it's probably what I would call employee engagement. It's a topic near and dear to your heart, which really have a lot to do with the people skills, as well as how they did their work and how they felt about working there. And so that, to me, is probably the part I'm most proud of, because, you know, a more industrial company, sets a financial model, and then that drives what happens going forward. I think there's another way to run a company, which is what I was switching, which is that an engaged employee really drives what happens with the client and then that drives your return. That is the cycle of the engine I restarted and so when I left, we had best in class Net Promoter Score best in class and playing Ah man, and we had not started there. So that's the piece I feel the best about. And it was very hard to do, by the way. So it wasn't like along the way, it was easy and was difficult for a lot of people. Anyone I tell people now that have to really transform a company. I know you all think all the time about what you do. Sometimes the how in the who in the skills is the more important part.

David Novak 30:21

It sounds like your formula for success as you get to people capability, right, then you're gonna satisfy more clients. And that's how you make money. So many times people start out thinking, I want to make the money, this is what we have to do. But they don't realize the people capability, you have to have to really make that happen. When I think about IBM, it's such an iconic brand. I mean, it's just it's huge. It's so huge. You almost don't know what it does. It's like if you're just the layman out there, how would you describe what IBM really does today?

Ginni Rometty 30:48

Yeah, by the way, that is a bit of a challenge. Because for IBM being the granddaddy of all the tech companies, the oldest right at over 110 years old, it means that it has had to change many times, you know, it started out is meat slicers and cheese slicers. Okay, that was tabulating machines, right. And then it was eventually timecards punching in and out of work. And then it was eventually obviously the birth of the computer, right. But then people remembered it for PCs or point of sale in a grocery store. Printers, we moved out of all of those things over time, because they would commoditize. And so today, I think the best way to describe what IBM does is it does the mission critical work that runs the world. So there isn't a banking transaction that doesn't go through those systems. There's hardly a credit card and airplane reservation Hotel. So it is what's below the surface, though, in many cases, right? It's like, you know, they're running in places. And so my best way to describe it is it does a lot of the mission critical work of the world. And it's probably the easiest way for people to think of it

David Novak 31:53

your public face of the company. Was this Watson? Okay, you know, which is really great. You know, tell me about the origin of Watson ended up winning Jeopardy with his AI capability. You know, I always love those commercials tell me the story behind Watson and how you developed his personality

Ginni Rometty 32:12

well set yet such an interesting, I think learning around this because, you know, aI had been artificial intelligence had been around, in and out. It's been decades, we did some of the very early work on it, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, you name it. And the idea if you think about the eras of computers, for as a kind of layman, my layman's view of this, originally, like I was talking about IBM, originally, there were systems that could count things, tabulate, you know, little beads moving across or little machines tabulate adding things up, then you got a set of computers that could do logic, if this do that. Alright, so we went from counting to this logic. And then what Watson began it in human eyes for people was a system that could learn. So that was the difference kind of this third era of computing. So it was in research. And that was 2011, when I believe Jeopardy aired. And when I think Watson did, in my view, it humanized and made AI understandable to the general public. And honestly, it got away, we couldn't tamp it down because people a they understood it, it could no one natural language, so you could communicate it like you and I are talking. And then it had the ability to learn put things together and learn from it. And so that brought it to the mass it democratized this idea, right? And that, in some ways, was good. In some ways. It was bad, because people had huge expectations. And some of our first forays, you know, right or wrong back to this mission critical in our DNA, we took on some really tough problems to solve, like health care. And I would always say, Oh, we're gonna do our little piece. But it was hard, while others were looking at pictures of cats, and you know, photos, and that would have been a way easier route to go with AI. And so we made a lot of progress today, what Watson is, it's a platform of artificial intelligence, lots of different routines. But what I would say is, it's a trusted AI platform. And that's a very big difference, because it means the data you don't learn from someone else's data. So if I'm a competitor, I don't have to worry that your AI systems learning from me that my data does not become IBM's data, algorithms that check for bias, all these things that were the downside, we can talk about good tech. So today, it's a platform more able to be used in any application. But certainly when it was visible like that to the public, it really did, I think show the world at least the possibilities of AI, which day those are really still in front of us, right? And the biggest learning is you don't get the benefit of it. In a business world. Unless you really change how work is done. If you tried to sprinkle it, like salt on things. Very marginal benefit.

David Novak 34:52

Yeah, good point, you know, and it's obvious you're passionate about AI and urine a communicator. And by the way, have you always been a community cater? I mean, it's just something you picked up.

Ginni Rometty 35:02

No, I have not actually. So that's another good lesson for everybody listening, find the stuff you're bad at and go work on it. Because we found in a box recently, my very first evaluations of communications from a class and IBM, oh, my God, I was horrible. And it's so now I feel I'm on the other end of that spectrum. I work so hard because I think, first, it's hard with clients, someone taught me that times the most valuable thing a client gives you, you must give them something clear in return. And so it started this preparation thing I do with clients, and then it moved to man, when you got to talk to masses of people. Two things, they don't exactly remember what you said. They do remember how you made them feel. And then the second was, if they're ever to remember what you say, you must make it easy for them. That is your job, not theirs. And that old either written you a shorter letter, if I had more time, it's so clear. So anyways, I'm a big advocate that people underestimate that that is a science, not an art.

David Novak 35:59

Yeah, absolutely. And obviously today now you're moving on to different things and you're making a big difference in the world. And I know you're motivated by a lot of other products, but I want you to talk about the 110 initiative and and why you're so passionate about it.

Ginni Rometty 36:13

Okay, so co founded with tensional, Ken Frazier, pinching off from Amex American Express, Ken Frazier, from Merck, Kevin shear who ran Amgen, Charles Phillips who ran in four. But Ken Frazier and I are the co chairs, it is to place 1 million black Americans who do not have a college degree. But go back to my stories I've told you who do not have a college degree into upwardly mobile, middle class jobs. So our point was, I mean, we're very clearly picking what we're working on. And strong view, Economic Opportunity is the greatest equalizer that's out there. And that if you want racial justice, one of the best things companies can do is jobs. That is what we do. It's not talking, talking talking is giving people jobs and opportunity. And we don't mean dead end jobs. We mean, take a skills first mentality, if I hire you, because you have propensity to learn and some skill, do not demand you have a college degree yet, because of all our companies 88% require college degrees for these good jobs. And 80% of black Americans do not have a college degree, this, this equation will never be solved. If you do not change something in what you believe. I offer this 10 years I was kind of talking about this earlier, I came to be such a strong believer in this skills first mentality meaning higher because of my skill first, not a degree only world. And it and we can go on and on into that and how the education system has failed. And trust me, I'm not saying don't get a degree ever, because my own experience with this is. So many of the people I've hired have then gone back and gotten degrees IBM, we have our first PhD out of this crowd. So again, not an issue of aptitude, the issue is access. And so we said this is what we can do, we can go get all our peer companies to sign up, do it 10 years is not an easy thing. And the first thing they have to do is go back, check how they do all their hiring, you go test every job to get started, do you really have to or have you just become lazy that the college degree is the kind of bar to get in. And that is the case in 95% of the cases. And so then go through the hard work of changing your job racks, then you gotta go do the hard work of interviewing differently. Because, again, this is a different group of people that start in a different spot. And then you got to do the hard work of how to promote them and move them along. And then we are working with all the places that we say okay, at Bastion is leading up Atlanta for us from Delta, and his colleague companies there, they say okay, collectively, we got 1000 people, we can hire and cyber, we're going to the community colleges and other nonprofits and saying, Okay, this is what we need this kind of skill set credential, can you do it, we will hire them. And so that's that matching and putting it together. And in our first few months, as we ended last year, we did 20,000 hires, but we'll get much closer to 100,000. Now again, and it'll just should take off. But already the impact is happening from people opening how they look at candidates. And as I say, it changes the role of HR who went from, you know, I would buy skills ready made to I have to build them more, right? And, but these are, again, I've been at it a decade. So we're kind of the longest on this topic. They're more loyal, higher retention. And guess what we did the work after a year there as innovative. And trust me, I had a company of all PhDs and I had to convince him I wasn't dumbing down my workforce and what I was doing, and that this was the ultimate definition of inclusion. And it is and so anyways, that's in a two minutes. That's 110

David Novak 39:46

I love it. And thank you for for leading the way on that for our country. It's absolutely the right thing to do. And you know, I understand you would tell your IBM team that this is our time. And Jenny, it sounds to me like this is your time you're really passionate about what you Do it right now. How important is it to have that mindset of this is our time and seizing the day? Well,

Ginni Rometty 40:06

whenever you do something hard, I think that is critical. Dave, you've always been that way, right? As, as I watched, you know, your strong view about how to treat employees, right. And really, as they were the penultimate of what would eventually then turn out to be your success. And it's not rah, rah, by the way. So this is, I think, an important point, people I don't want them to miss. Again, another great saying I first learned from tensional, but it's actually from Napoleon. He said, A leaders job is to paint reality, and then give hope. And the point being, hopes gotta be based on facts, okay? Otherwise, it's just sort of an illusion. And I do think for any of us, when you say this is our time, and what I would say with the IBM errs, it was because I had to sell the things I believed in, that were factual happening. And, you know, again, we were the oldest, not the newest tech. And as you know, the world falls in love with the most new shiny object, you would see it in your industry, too. And it's easy to forget, you know, what is in your heart of what you are. And IBM, at its heart, it was a trusted company, right, with the most important assets in the world. And as this area is now evolving, trust is probably one of the ultimate currencies that companies want to deal with. And so as we moved into now, hey, chapter two, they're going to change their back end systems. It's about data. It's about a cloud for, you know, really serious work. That is their time. That's what I meant by that is your time, but I, but I think it's so important to base it on facts. Right, not on, like what you wish to be true.

David Novak 41:36

Well, is this your time? You know, I

Ginni Rometty 41:38

hope they've all been my time, right? I don't know sometimes. Yes, I think so. I mean, look, I think the best thing for anybody is, if you're authentic, it's your time. And and to me, that's the greatest piece of advice. I'd give someone you know, when people say, well, what's the best advice you'd give somebody? And I'd say, be authentic? Yeah, great point. All of this doesn't matter. Unless you are authentic about it. Diversity and Inclusion. I mean, you name it, my belief in that transformation of IBM, because Authenticity will then lead to your conviction, and it will lead to your resilience.

David Novak 42:12

Absolutely. And I'm going to bounce wrap this up quickly. But I want to do a lightning round. And I always do with our guests. Oh, here we go. Are you ready for this? I'm ready. All right, three words that best describe you?

Ginni Rometty 42:23

Hmm, resilient. Empathy. Logical.

David Novak 42:30

If you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be? And why?

Ginni Rometty 42:37

You know, maybe president and I tried to get something done.

David Novak 42:41

Come on, let's go. Okay, what's your biggest pet peeve?

Ginni Rometty 42:48

I think my biggest pet peeve is when people have arguments with no facts.

David Novak 42:54

What's something about you that few people would know?

Ginni Rometty 42:58

Probably how much time I spend with my family and my friends in that I view that that is a really important thing for people to have in, not for them just to support you, but for you to support them. Right, right element of your life.

David Novak 43:12

And do you have any hidden talents?

Ginni Rometty 43:15

Oh, zero? I wish I have. I have lots of no talents.

David Novak 43:19

Oh, come on. You got to have something there.

Ginni Rometty 43:21

You know what? My grandmother taught me to bake Christmas cookies.

David Novak 43:24

There you go. See that? No

Ginni Rometty 43:27

one's ever expect I could do that. You know,

David Novak 43:30

that's it. That's a handout. And I got to ask you this question. What would be the one bit of advice you'd give every leader who wants to make a significant impact at whatever they're doing?

Ginni Rometty 43:40

You know, again, I love sometimes remembering these things in quotes. And it was Ann Richards, governor of Texas. She said, when someone asked the secret to her success, it was passion and perseverance when everyone else would have given up. I think that that is a lot of it. So if you really believe in it, passion and perseverance.

David Novak 43:59

Great, you know, and I'm going to ask you one question, because I'd be crazy not to you lead this tremendous reinvention. Any advice to people on how to go about reinventing a company or brand or whatever business you might have?

Ginni Rometty 44:12

I would put it if I could only say one thing. And I would come to learn this clearly in the middle is that people often ask, the first thing they do transformer companies change everything. And I actually think the most important first question is, understand what must endure. And so understand what must endure, then be willing to change everything else. Because for companies to transform, they do need a ballasts or a center or something. And as I was transforming IBM, there will be times I got us into things too far from our core as an example. And I'll always remember my very good friend, you know him well to Arne Sorenson. One day I was with Arne and I said that it was like a marketing system or something he's gonna buy from someone else. I'm like, how are you gonna do with IBM? Oh, all right, like Jenny, JJ. Hey, he's like, I rely on you for all that mission critical work. You got to do what IBM is good at. It was an epiphany of a moment that I said, Yes, he's right. I mean, back to that mission critical. At my heart, I am about trust and mission critical work. And these other things are diversions. And this idea about, then move adjacently to what you are so good at right use your strength to power your transformation is the other way to say it. I love that. And so that would be my advice is that and that's that point about know what must endure and then change everything else, not the other way around?

David Novak 45:37

Well, Jimmy, I have to tell you, you know, I love doing these podcasts because I learned so much. And I learned a lot just by getting to know you even better. You're a good friend for coming on this podcast. I know you don't do it all the time. And I really appreciate it. I'm just thankful that our listeners are going to have the opportunity to get your wisdom and you've really provided a lot of it. So thank you. My pleasure,

Ginni Rometty 45:57

Dave, you made it easy. Thank you.

David Novak 46:10

You know, when I was coming up in marketing, I always wanted to become a general manager. But I was really being stereotyped as just a marketing guy. So I knew that I had to demonstrate that I could be a general manager by taking on another function. And when I was running marketing at Pepsi, that meant that I had to run operations for Pepsi. And I remember when that job came open, I didn't have any operating experience at all. And I remembered how uncomfortable I was when I walked into my boss's office. And I said, Craig, I really want to become the chief operating officer of the Pepsi Cola Company. He looked at me, and he thought I was almost crazy. But then I said it again, I know that if I'm going to stay in this company, I've got to demonstrate that I can be an operator that I can run a p&l that I can work with people on the front line, and you've got to give me a chance. And I think he saw that I was really serious about this. And I was so uncomfortable asking him for this opportunity, because I knew I was going to be making him uncomfortable. But because I did it. He said yes. And I got the chance to run operations. And that's what led me to become president of KFC. Now, you might think that was a very bold request on my part. But I'm going to ask you to do something bold this week. Go look for something that makes you uncomfortable. I mean it, seek it out actively look for an opportunity to be uncomfortable. But here's the most important part of this. When you find the opportunity I want you to really lean in, give it everything you got. Because I know these uncomfortable moments are where you're going to grow the most. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders get comfortable being uncomfortable. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen and while I interview some of the best leaders in the world, I make it a point to give you something simple in each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be. See you next Thursday.

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