Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO: Fortune’s “Most Powerful Woman” Shares How to Lead with Purpose | E298

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0:01:14 Feminine traits are important to all people as a leadership characteristic right now.
0:01:16 People want a leader who’s vulnerable.
0:01:21 The idea of being vulnerable is not just for women leaders, especially not just for women
0:01:22 leaders.
0:01:26 Learn to love conflict because it was going to get better one way or another after this.
0:01:29 You got to reframe how you think about risk.
0:01:31 It’s got to be a good thing.
0:01:33 So many people shy away from the truth.
0:01:34 I found that never worked.
0:01:38 Fear is not a tenable way to force anything to happen for a long run.
0:01:42 You were able to literally rise to the highest rank of power in IBM.
0:01:45 What’s your advice for 20 and 30-year-olds in corporate?
0:01:46 My best advice is just…
0:02:06 Young end-profiters, welcome back to the show, and boy, do we have a good one in store for
0:02:07 you today.
0:02:12 I’m interviewing one of the most powerful women in all-time history, Ginny Rometti.
0:02:15 She was IBM’s first female CEO.
0:02:17 She was their ninth CEO and chairman.
0:02:23 She was voted Fortune’s number one most powerful woman in America three years in a row.
0:02:28 And she’s also the author of a new book called Good Power, which is jam-packed with amazing,
0:02:30 amazing leadership advice.
0:02:33 And we’re going to uncover her five principles of good power.
0:02:37 We’re going to understand the difference between good power and bad power.
0:02:41 And we’re going to get all her advice of how we can all be better managers and leaders
0:02:47 and rise up the ranks in the corporate world as well as grow our own businesses.
0:02:49 I am so excited for this conversation.
0:02:53 I feel like we’re going to get so much wisdom from this wonderful woman.
0:02:56 Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Ginny Rometti.
0:03:00 Ginny, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.
0:03:01 Thank you, Hala.
0:03:02 It is great to be with you.
0:03:04 I am very excited for this conversation.
0:03:06 You are such an incredible woman.
0:03:11 You’ve had an amazing career and I want to talk a little bit about your book to get
0:03:14 started and just jump right into it.
0:03:15 It came out in 2023.
0:03:17 It’s called Good Power.
0:03:22 And so the word power is often just thrown around, especially in the business world.
0:03:27 Can you talk to us about the definition of good power and how it differs from bad power?
0:03:31 It’s the first question everyone asks me is what’s good than what’s bad.
0:03:34 And there’s a bit of a stereotype with power nowadays.
0:03:39 People think of it as very self-serving, can be negative or really fear driven.
0:03:44 So my point of good power is to say you can do really tough stuff, but you can do it in
0:03:48 what I term a positive way, meaning you can love tension.
0:03:51 There’s nothing wrong with conflict, but you can do it respectfully.
0:03:57 And then another, what is a tenant of good power is do not strive for perfection.
0:04:00 If you would just celebrate progress, you will be surprised how much more you’ll get
0:04:01 done.
0:04:05 Love tension, do it respectfully, and just be satisfied with progress.
0:04:06 I love that.
0:04:07 It’s short, but simple.
0:04:10 And I know you’ve got five principles of good power.
0:04:13 We’re going to dive deep into that later in the interview, but you’ve had such an amazing
0:04:14 career.
0:04:19 So I want to understand how your perspectives actually were shaped on power.
0:04:25 I learned that you had a little bit of a difficult childhood with your parent situation.
0:04:30 And I’d love to understand how your dad and the dynamic between your dad and your mom
0:04:33 actually shaped your perspective on power.
0:04:38 I tell that story, I didn’t intend to start with a personal story, but I think it’s something
0:04:42 worthwhile for everyone to think about their past of what really creates the foundation
0:04:43 who they are.
0:04:49 And in my case, it was an unfortunate situation where I was an early teen, my father abandoned
0:04:50 our family.
0:04:56 And so my mom was really just in her young 30s, I happened to walk into the garage and
0:04:59 I would hear my father say to my mother, “I don’t love you.
0:05:01 I don’t love any of you.
0:05:03 I don’t care what happens to you.”
0:05:04 And he left.
0:05:10 And what really though shaped me was what my mother did in the years that would follow.
0:05:12 In that moment, she never cried.
0:05:14 And here she was a woman with four children.
0:05:19 Now she had no money, no home, no food, no way to keep us safe.
0:05:21 And she had no school.
0:05:26 And so I watched, never cried, but she got a little bit of education, got a little bit
0:05:27 of a job.
0:05:32 I would primarily help her with my brothers and sisters, there were four of us, as I said.
0:05:35 And over time, a little bit better job, et cetera.
0:05:40 And what I learned from watching my mom through those years was that, look, she was not going
0:05:42 to let my father define who she was.
0:05:48 And the lesson to me was, and to everyone I feel is only you get to define who you are.
0:05:49 Always remember that.
0:05:51 And that when she had nothing, she had power.
0:05:53 And that is my point of good power.
0:05:57 If you think you have nothing, you actually have power to change that situation.
0:06:02 Oh my gosh, I feel like getting teary eyed, that’s such like an inspiring story.
0:06:05 And I feel like she must have been such a great influence on you because you turned out to
0:06:08 be such a rock star in the corporate world.
0:06:11 One of the biggest highlights of her career was being the ninth chairman, president and
0:06:13 CEO of IBM.
0:06:20 This is one of the most influential, impactful companies of our entire history as humanity.
0:06:22 So, so impressive.
0:06:24 And you took a path that a lot of women didn’t take.
0:06:26 You went into engineering, you went into tech.
0:06:32 I also was in the tech world many years later, so I can’t even imagine what it was like for
0:06:33 you.
0:06:34 So let’s start there.
0:06:38 What was it like in your early career as a woman in tech?
0:06:43 Well, I have to tell you, my brothers and sisters are equally successful, if not more.
0:06:45 So I would say I’m the lower achiever of the group.
0:06:46 What?
0:06:49 And my mom always says, “What did I do?”
0:06:54 And I think this idea that what we witnessed, and it’s an interesting thought about intergenerational,
0:07:00 what you learned watching your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, is what I witnessed because
0:07:02 I was raised by women who all had a tragedy.
0:07:05 I started with my mom, but my grandma, my great-grandma, all had tragedies.
0:07:08 But what we all watched was, “There’s always a way forward.
0:07:10 There’s always a way forward.”
0:07:14 And I think that that is a really important, simple notion.
0:07:18 And so when you say, “How did I end up?” or “What happened?” and “What was that early
0:07:19 time like?”
0:07:22 I have to say, I went into engineering because I liked math.
0:07:23 That was one thing.
0:07:26 But you say, “What was the world then?”
0:07:30 Right or wrong, I would have been the only woman in engineering back then.
0:07:32 This would have been the late ’70s.
0:07:36 But what it did teach me was, at that moment, anything I said would be remembered.
0:07:40 When you’re the only, whether it might be the only whatever it is in a room, you might
0:07:43 be the only man, the only Hispanic person, the only whatever.
0:07:45 When you say something, you’re going to be remembered.
0:07:47 So it made me study harder.
0:07:51 And in that timeframe, when you say, “How did that come about?”
0:07:55 Well, I would study because I knew if I raised my hand said something, they’re going to
0:07:57 remember, so I don’t want to be wrong.
0:08:01 But that knowledge would turn into power because over time, you actually did know more than
0:08:03 people around you, and it would give you confidence.
0:08:05 So it started as a shield.
0:08:09 It would become the reason for confidence over time.
0:08:10 I love that.
0:08:15 Basically, you’re saying because you were kind of a minority as a woman, that it actually
0:08:21 made you try harder because people were judging you more, like, “Why are you even here?
0:08:23 Why do you deserve a seat at the table?”
0:08:26 And it actually became a power for you, a superpower for you.
0:08:27 That’s right.
0:08:30 That it is absolutely how I would look at it.
0:08:33 Like I said, first a shield, then it would become the confidence.
0:08:37 In more times than not, it would also become sort of a stamp.
0:08:39 People would always know me, “Oh, she’s always prepared.”
0:08:43 But the reason I did it in my mind was it was always to be confident, right?
0:08:45 And I think most of the time when people are not confident some of these because they’re
0:08:46 not prepared.
0:08:51 Yeah, confidence is confidence, I always say that.
0:08:54 So you rose up the ranks at IBM.
0:08:58 I’d love to understand how you got your foot in the door.
0:09:02 And then also, as you look back, why do you think you were able to literally rise to the
0:09:04 highest rank of power in IBM?
0:09:08 What’s your advice for other 20 and 30-year-olds in corporate?
0:09:12 Look, Kyla, this is the only reason I would write a book and write a book with so much
0:09:16 personal in it is I hope I help other people on this and that there are lessons that are
0:09:17 timeless.
0:09:20 So either my mistakes that are timeless to people.
0:09:22 And when you said, “How did I get there?”
0:09:27 I did first work for General Motors and Mary Barra who runs GM is now my good friend.
0:09:30 And I always say to Mary, “There was a difference between us.”
0:09:34 As a young person, I went to work there, they had given me a scholarship.
0:09:38 So back to my earlier life, that was really meaningful.
0:09:43 So I really went there, tried, but I had a young age, I would learn the difference between
0:09:45 a job and a career.
0:09:47 I wasn’t passionate about cars.
0:09:53 And so I think to everybody, there is a question about when you’re in a job, you want to run
0:09:55 to the job, not from the job.
0:09:58 But even when people ask me about, “Oh, I’m going to quit and go do something else,” I
0:10:02 always ask them, “Are you running to something or from something?”
0:10:04 Let’s be clear which of these you’re doing.
0:10:07 And so to me, I wasn’t passionate about cars.
0:10:10 And so my first lesson was difference between job and a career.
0:10:13 Go do something you’re passionate about, which led me to IBM.
0:10:19 And then I think a few of the lessons or how could you have risen to this area, there were
0:10:22 a few things I learned along the way that maybe others could learn from.
0:10:28 One is I am a big believer in, I always hate to use the word, continuous learning, being
0:10:29 a constant learner.
0:10:35 Easy to say, I actually think it’s easy to do if you just take an approach of be willing
0:10:36 to apprentice at things.
0:10:40 I was constantly doing something I was learning from somebody else.
0:10:44 When people talk so much about, “Oh, I don’t want to go into the office anymore,” I would
0:10:45 flip this question.
0:10:48 It’s not about what’s good for the company, it’s what’s good for you.
0:10:52 Whatever environment can put you in that will make you learn more.
0:10:55 If it means going in someplace, then do it for that reason for yourself.
0:10:56 Do it for yourself.
0:10:58 That wasn’t it for me.
0:11:00 And so this idea of always apprenticing.
0:11:04 My early time, I would learn the difference of networking.
0:11:07 I don’t think networks are what give you something.
0:11:09 Networks are by what you give to someone else.
0:11:10 They’re not transactional.
0:11:14 So early in life, I had someone say to me, “Jinny, if someone ever asks you for help,
0:11:15 give it to them.
0:11:16 Give them help.
0:11:19 That will pay off for decades to come.”
0:11:21 And I think that was another thing.
0:11:26 My definition of networking was not transactional, it was by giving.
0:11:28 And I think the other reason was I didn’t have one mentor.
0:11:29 I had hundreds.
0:11:34 And to me, if you will just ask more questions and you’ll answer, even though I’m like talking
0:11:39 a lot here, in real life I don’t, I would ask more.
0:11:42 Anybody will be your mentor if you take interest in them.
0:11:47 And so this idea of my definition of a mentor, my definition of networking, my definition
0:11:51 of apprenticing is eventually what would lead me through the ranks.
0:11:56 And probably the other thing would be, and I have to say how that’s probably the one
0:12:01 thing when people say, “Give us one piece of advice,” or something, it’s my definition
0:12:03 of risk would change over time.
0:12:04 And that’s what did it.
0:12:09 If someone said to me, “Give me one piece of advice, career advice,” I would tell them
0:12:14 this story about, I was probably 10 years into my career, and every time I got a new
0:12:18 job back to that early college story, I would always be, “Oh, no, I don’t think I can do
0:12:19 this.
0:12:20 I’m not ready for it yet.
0:12:21 I don’t have more time.
0:12:23 I would always stew over doing something new.”
0:12:25 Now, you’re probably not like that.
0:12:26 I was.
0:12:31 And I got offered a big job once, and I said to the person in the interview, “I want to
0:12:33 go home and talk to my husband about it.”
0:12:35 He’s like, “Okay.”
0:12:39 I went home, my husband said to me, and I’ve been married now 45 years.
0:12:43 Back then he said, “Do you think a man would have answered that offer that way?”
0:12:44 I said, “No.”
0:12:47 He says, “I’m not on a man gender point, because this applies to everyone.”
0:12:50 He said, “You got to reframe how you think about risk.
0:12:52 It’s got to be a good thing.”
0:12:55 In that moment, it would crystallize for me that he goes, “Because I watch this, every
0:12:59 job you take, and then it’s six months you’re bored again, and so you go through this.”
0:13:04 I came up with this phrase that growth and comfort never coexist.
0:13:08 And I started to associate risk with growth, meaning, “Hey, if I feel nervous, oh, this
0:13:10 is excellent.
0:13:12 This means I am learning something.”
0:13:15 And that to me is the most important, we say, “How did you eventually get there?”
0:13:20 Because I was willing to then take on risky assignments, do risky things, and they can
0:13:21 go one way or another.
0:13:23 There are many that I thought, “Oh, God, this is going to kill me.”
0:13:27 But they usually don’t, and you really keep building your skills.
0:13:29 I think that is the most important thing.
0:13:31 It’s true for people, men or women.
0:13:32 It’s true for companies.
0:13:37 It’s true for countries, this idea that you will never get forward without that feeling
0:13:38 of discomfort.
0:13:40 It’s just how you choose to look at it.
0:13:46 Oh, my God, there’s so many good points in everything that you said, so many gems that
0:13:47 you just dropped.
0:13:52 One thing that I want to talk about, because you mentioned, in terms of a company, you’ve
0:13:58 got to have passion, I also feel like company culture matters so much in terms of whether
0:13:59 you thrive or you basically die.
0:14:04 Because I remember at HP, it was led by Meg Whitman when I worked there.
0:14:07 I literally got promoted five times in five years.
0:14:08 I was the C-suite pet.
0:14:09 I was the face of the young employees.
0:14:11 I thrived at HP.
0:14:13 I was so good.
0:14:18 I got poached and went to Disney Streaming Services, and it was a totally different experience.
0:14:21 I look really young for my age, so I was treated like an intern.
0:14:22 It was a total boys club.
0:14:26 They merged with this old school company called Bam Tech.
0:14:28 It was just all boys club.
0:14:33 I didn’t get promoted once in two years, which was really different for me.
0:14:36 I ended up becoming an entrepreneur because of that, which I’m so happy now.
0:14:39 I’m living my dream life.
0:14:43 I just love to understand from your perspective, you never really took the position of I’m
0:14:48 a female and that’s some sort of disadvantage, but it could also have been that you were
0:14:51 at really good companies that didn’t have that culture.
0:14:52 I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.
0:14:53 Yeah.
0:14:56 What you just described to me is super interesting.
0:15:01 I have not fair, but listening to it, my own conclusion of what one company had versus
0:15:02 the other.
0:15:06 In my mind, that’s the difference between a company that has deeply rooted values and
0:15:11 one that doesn’t yet have its own values really actually between them.
0:15:16 Your first company, HP is a very old company as well, IBM is the oldest company in tech.
0:15:18 I’m really clear about that.
0:15:22 I did have the ability to work for a company that was already steeped in values.
0:15:28 To me, if you’re going to be a company around a very long time, I really believe that society
0:15:30 gives you the license to operate.
0:15:35 Either you behave right in the long arc or if you don’t, I’ve had this discussion with
0:15:40 many of my colleagues that run big companies that for the while may get on the wrong side
0:15:41 of society.
0:15:44 Their view is it is super hard to come back from that other side.
0:15:45 Think of this.
0:15:50 When I was a young person, when you were just starting out, my appraisals were things like
0:15:51 the people who work for me.
0:15:52 How did they develop?
0:15:54 This is already putting in my brain.
0:15:58 That’s my job to be sure they’re better, not me, that they’re better.
0:16:02 I was actually appraised on how many in the then the day word was, how many minorities
0:16:04 did I hire?
0:16:08 In the day it was saying, “Hey, that’s a good thing to have a diverse workforce.
0:16:12 You get a better product because of it, not because it’s altruistic.
0:16:13 You get a better product.
0:16:15 This is why you want it.”
0:16:17 I lived in a meritocracy.
0:16:20 It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t still, “Look, I’m in tech.
0:16:26 There are not that many women in tech as you rightly,” and even to this day, not enough.
0:16:29 Although we’re starting to get to 50% engineers.
0:16:32 To me, it was never about a gender thing.
0:16:37 It was about being in a company that wanted everybody to be themselves so that they could
0:16:38 do their best work.
0:16:44 I was taught early on things like I had a person who was telling horrible jokes, but
0:16:45 he was the best performer.
0:16:48 The boss who said to me, “Oh, no, this is clear what you do.
0:16:51 I’m a brand new person, a brand new boss,” and he says, “Oh, no, it’s clear.
0:16:55 You give him one warning and then you fire him, and it doesn’t matter how good he performs.”
0:17:00 These are all little signals that you’re taught early on about a meritocracy and about what’s
0:17:02 expected.
0:17:06 I think that anybody building a company that it’s important to not think of values as a
0:17:09 thing you kind of like, “Oh, that’s a lofty thing.
0:17:11 It’s a poster on a wall.”
0:17:15 It’s actually predictable behavior if you really have values.
0:17:19 It’s like when things get tough, it becomes even clearer what you do if you understand
0:17:20 your values.
0:17:24 I think it’s super important, and actually I think it’s why some of the younger companies
0:17:26 today have struggled on some.
0:17:30 What I think should be easy decisions, they haven’t really yet formed their values.
0:17:32 It’s like a tree with roots.
0:17:36 They don’t have those deep roots yet to hold the tree when the wind really shakes.
0:17:37 Yeah.
0:17:38 I totally agree with that.
0:17:40 I have a company called Yap Media.
0:17:43 We created values, and now whenever we have a difficult problem, especially when it comes
0:17:48 to should we fire somebody, just something very difficult, should we change something
0:17:51 that we’re doing, it’s a decision-making compass.
0:17:56 We already decided what our decision-making methodology is going to be because we have
0:17:59 our values, so you’re so right with that.
0:18:00 Okay.
0:18:05 Let’s talk about entrepreneurship because in today’s world, a lot more young people
0:18:06 are becoming entrepreneurs.
0:18:11 Not everyone’s really staying at a company their entire career, very different from when
0:18:15 you were in your career.
0:18:18 What do you think about entrepreneurship now, and what would you say to somebody who’s
0:18:23 considering, “Do I stay at a company for the rest of my career, rise up to ranks, or do
0:18:26 I go and step out on my own?”
0:18:30 I have plenty of friends that are both, both sides of this, and I do know I spent 40 years
0:18:31 at one company.
0:18:36 Many people would find that maybe unthinkable today, although I do believe that’s changing
0:18:38 in some ways.
0:18:42 I think there’s lessons from both sides, like I always say to people, “Look, I was trained
0:18:43 to fly a 747.
0:18:46 I couldn’t fly a little bitty plane.”
0:18:49 That looks super hard to me, a little one.
0:18:52 Just like I think being an entrepreneur is super hard is running a mega company.
0:18:56 They’re just different, and they’re just both things to learn.
0:18:58 I think they are both viable.
0:19:03 I actually think the most important thing is this idea of both values, either way, but
0:19:06 that’s a common question between the two.
0:19:10 Either the company you’re starting, running, or part of, do you identify with its values?
0:19:15 I think in both cases, if they let you keep learning, either you’re the one starting it
0:19:20 and you’re learning, I stayed in one place, but I did 25 different jobs.
0:19:23 I had one benefit that the entrepreneur doesn’t have.
0:19:28 The same network I had grew and supported me through all those jobs, whereas an entrepreneur
0:19:32 who moves from different things, it’s often a different network each time.
0:19:36 I did have that benefit of a network, but to me, no bad decision here.
0:19:40 It’s a matter of, in which case, do you learn?
0:19:42 If you do in both of them, those are good decisions.
0:19:47 I actually think being an entrepreneur is a very risky decision, but I think that in
0:19:51 many cases, the payoff is much greater as well.
0:19:57 I’m a big fan of both courses, and so I think it’s a very personal decision on the environment
0:20:02 and which are the benefits you want to take the most advantage of at any time.
0:20:03 Yeah.
0:20:06 I think it’s your opportunities, because I remember when I was at HP, I literally thought
0:20:09 I was going to stay there and become the CMO.
0:20:11 I thought that that was my path.
0:20:16 I literally think I could have done that, but then I made a decision to go to Disney,
0:20:20 and then everything just flipped on its head, and suddenly I saw a different opportunity
0:20:24 to start a podcast and a podcast network and a social agency and just went that route.
0:20:27 I feel like it’s really the opportunities that you have.
0:20:28 You’re on a super good point.
0:20:34 I hope people take away, and when I do a college graduation speech, I’m always like, when they
0:20:39 say, “What a piece of advice,” I would say, “Do not plan every part of your life yet.
0:20:42 Let it unfold,” which is what you’ve done.
0:20:43 I do worry.
0:20:44 So many people, “I need to know my next 10 steps.”
0:20:47 I’m like, “Not really, actually.
0:20:50 Why don’t you just learn a lot from the next step, and then you’ll be surprised where the
0:20:51 next step goes after that?”
0:20:55 I think you probably wouldn’t have guessed you’d be doing this at that time.
0:20:59 I think that is how you should do it, and I worry that there’s so much pressure under
0:21:02 some people that are like, “Oh, no, I need to have exactly this degree and do this and
0:21:04 do that,” and I’m like, “Hmm, not really.”
0:21:08 I think as long as you’re learning in the moment, okay, a new door opens up.
0:21:12 I really actually believe that’s the most part true.
0:21:18 So I want to get into your book because there’s so many good points in your book.
0:21:22 You call your book “Good Power,” a memoir with a purpose.
0:21:24 Why do you describe it that way?
0:21:28 Listen, I did not intend to write a book that was personal when I started, and now the book
0:21:30 ends up all this way.
0:21:33 And the reason I end up calling it that is, I really wanted to share some views about
0:21:37 like I said earlier, how do you do hard stuff, but in a good way?
0:21:41 I wanted people to feel confident because I think people are really kind of discouraged
0:21:44 when they look around and they’re like, “Wow, there’s a lot of societal problems that aren’t
0:21:46 getting solved,” and they’re like, “They’re too big.
0:21:51 I want to give up,” and I feel no, you can solve really big societal problems.
0:21:53 I’ve learned that from my life.
0:21:54 You don’t have to be president.
0:21:55 You don’t have to be in politics.
0:21:58 There are ways you can do this, and I don’t want people to give up.
0:22:00 I want them to have confidence to do it.
0:22:04 So I was being literal about answering how to do this, and people are like, “Oh, that’s
0:22:05 very boring.”
0:22:07 And they’re like, “You have to tell stories.
0:22:10 You have to tell how did you feel?”
0:22:11 I’m like, “Feel?
0:22:15 I’ve spent my whole life not wanting to talk about feelings, okay, in business.”
0:22:18 And they’re like, “No, that’s how people can learn.”
0:22:20 And I didn’t want to write a book unless it could help other people.
0:22:22 This was not like a vanity project.
0:22:23 My life’s not that interesting.
0:22:29 I was like, “Okay, I had a seat at a table of five decades of technology.
0:22:31 I worked with some of the most interesting people in the world.
0:22:33 I learned from some of the most interesting people in the world.
0:22:37 I would have met with almost every president of a developed country and developing country.”
0:22:41 I did have a seat that so few people have seen that I watched and learned from.
0:22:46 So could I tell both my mistakes and learnings from that time that others could get from?
0:22:49 And so that’s how it ended up being … It’s not everything about me.
0:22:50 So don’t worry.
0:22:53 You don’t have to read all … There are other biographies that are like everything about
0:22:54 a purpose.
0:22:59 I only tell the stories that have a purpose, which is why it got to a memoir with a purpose.
0:23:04 So for the points I was trying to teach, it’s retrospective.
0:23:09 I was no genius along the way, not now either by the way, but it was a retrospective of
0:23:14 when I now sit back and say, “Okay, what did I learn from all these experiences or what
0:23:15 went wrong?
0:23:20 What could I share with people as some formulas that they could think about on how to do these
0:23:21 kinds of hard things?”
0:23:22 It doesn’t even have to be for a job.
0:23:26 I mean, it could be in your personal life and your professional life.
0:23:27 It could be for running a company.
0:23:29 It could be for running a nonprofit, whatever it is you’re doing.
0:23:34 So, long answer to the purpose of the book was to be in service of other people.
0:23:39 And so, I had to be pretty vulnerable to do that, which is why we had to rewrite it three
0:23:44 times because it’s like I had to keep telling these stories and it’s why the book ends beginning
0:23:51 where you started our interview, which was a hard thing for me to do, but I think people
0:23:54 then are like, “Yeah, I should think about my life too in some ways,” because it does
0:23:58 form a foundation of your decisions later in life of what you become.
0:24:01 Most people who read the book, they’re like, “Oh, now I understand why you are exactly
0:24:02 like you are, okay?”
0:24:05 So, I think it’s true for all of us.
0:24:09 Let’s hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors.
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0:29:06 I love that, and it’s such a — stories help us learn better.
0:29:10 We remember facts better from stories, so I’m glad that you took that story approach.
0:29:13 I hope that we get to uncover a lot of that.
0:29:16 One thing that I want to call out, and we were talking about this offline, I was telling
0:29:20 you how my listenership skews mail.
0:29:24 And I really appreciate the fact that you didn’t come at this because whenever I have
0:29:28 a woman on, a lot of the times they’re really focused on, like, women’s leadership.
0:29:30 And I’m not like that either.
0:29:34 I just want to talk about leadership and entrepreneurship no matter if you’re a man
0:29:35 or a woman.
0:29:37 Like, I don’t really see it that way.
0:29:41 Talk to us about why you decided not to just lean into women’s leadership, because that’s,
0:29:44 I think, what probably everybody expected from you, right?
0:29:46 It’s so funny because you are very right.
0:29:50 And I did get a lot of people to read the book ahead of time because I wanted the feedback.
0:29:52 Because if it wasn’t going to be helpful, I didn’t want to do it.
0:29:53 I didn’t care.
0:29:54 I’d stop.
0:29:57 And many of the first rounds were there’s not enough in here about being a woman.
0:29:58 That’s a lot of the critique I got.
0:29:59 I need more.
0:30:00 I need more.
0:30:03 And I was like, you know, I can’t make up something that’s not true.
0:30:05 That isn’t how I ever felt.
0:30:08 So there are some pieces I speak to on that.
0:30:12 I did add into the book because there are misconceptions people do have about women
0:30:13 and leadership.
0:30:16 They assume, because I have no children as an example, that that’s what it took to
0:30:19 be the CEO, that I couldn’t have a family.
0:30:21 And that is not why I don’t have children.
0:30:23 So I talk about that, right?
0:30:27 So I did go back because I felt there was important pieces that are just such misconceptions
0:30:30 people have or myths that they live by.
0:30:31 And I talk a little.
0:30:36 But to me, it was more meant to be, again, I think about the majority of who I learned
0:30:38 from were men, by the way.
0:30:41 In fact, people said, come on, can’t you put more women in here?
0:30:43 I’m like, there weren’t more to learn from, okay?
0:30:46 So I can’t make up what’s not true.
0:30:48 So therefore, it is meant to be a book.
0:30:51 And I do think, though, okay, this is a really important point.
0:30:56 I do think it does speak to feminine traits of leadership.
0:30:57 That is not women.
0:31:04 I do think that feminine traits are important to all people as a leadership characteristic
0:31:08 right now, that people want a leader who’s vulnerable.
0:31:12 The idea of being vulnerable is not just for women leaders, especially not just for women
0:31:13 leaders.
0:31:17 The idea about listening more than you talk, people might associate that with a feminine
0:31:18 trait.
0:31:22 And I do think those are the kinds of traits that are in demand right now.
0:31:27 Do you see that difference between some feminine leadership traits I speak to, but not much
0:31:32 about the other unless it’s to make a point that I’m really trying to talk about, because
0:31:34 everybody here has got a workforce that’s men and women, okay?
0:31:35 So you’re leading both.
0:31:38 So I tried to talk about that from both angles.
0:31:39 So good.
0:31:44 And this is such a great transition to your five principles of good power.
0:31:46 So I want to do this quickfire style.
0:31:51 So I’m going to rattle off each principle, and then I’ll let you describe it, and then
0:31:53 we’ll dig into each one.
0:31:57 So the first one is be in service of.
0:32:00 Yes, be in service of, do not serve.
0:32:07 It is the soul of good power, and it means fulfill someone else’s goal before your own.
0:32:09 That order matters.
0:32:10 Build belief.
0:32:15 The only way to do hard things is to appeal to someone’s head in their heart.
0:32:18 Know what must change, what must endure.
0:32:24 This is what I would call the brain of good power, and it is all about loving tension
0:32:28 because anything hard to do is never got a black and white answer.
0:32:30 Steward good tech.
0:32:36 I called this the muscle of good power, meaning it takes a lot of strength to do what’s right
0:32:40 for the long term, even when it may not be right in the short term.
0:32:43 And everybody’s a tech company today.
0:32:44 Be resilient.
0:32:50 The spirit of good tech, and this is the harder the climb, the more disappointments you will
0:32:56 have, and I have a view about resilience that’s got a lot to do with your attitude as well
0:32:57 as the relationships you have.
0:33:00 Okay, so let’s start with being in service of.
0:33:03 You call it the soul of good power.
0:33:07 Why is it so important to be in service of, and can you give us some examples of how you
0:33:08 can do that?
0:33:13 So remember, I’m thinking about anybody out here who wants to work on something hard.
0:33:17 When you want to work on something hard, you got to give people a reason why to do this
0:33:18 kind of work.
0:33:21 It isn’t just make money, do this thing.
0:33:27 A great analogy, I think of is when you go out to dinner at night, and if you have a
0:33:30 great evening, now, the wait person.
0:33:33 You can tell the difference between who cares that you had a great evening, or who just
0:33:35 brings you your food.
0:33:37 There is a big difference between those two.
0:33:39 I can see it in a doctor I go to.
0:33:41 He’s like, “Wait, I looked at the surgery.
0:33:42 Looks good to me.”
0:33:43 “Yeah, but I still can’t walk.”
0:33:45 “Hey, looks good.”
0:33:49 It’s transactional, and there are many people that approach what they do as transactional.
0:33:54 So to really be in service of something, there’s got to be a reason you do this that’s bigger
0:33:56 than just that transaction.
0:33:59 If you’re going to do something hard, there has to be a reason.
0:34:02 Like, I always felt IBM, it was in service of, we were in service of making the whole
0:34:03 world work better.
0:34:08 Now, that’s very lofty, but we’re a big company that played its role in all these strategic
0:34:09 points in history.
0:34:11 There’s a reason people do that.
0:34:15 They know what they do matters, and so I think this gets to what do you do that matters,
0:34:16 and be in service of.
0:34:17 Don’t just serve them.
0:34:18 I don’t just make this.
0:34:20 I mean, why do you do your podcasts?
0:34:23 Is it just to be the number one podcast out there, or?
0:34:24 No.
0:34:25 No.
0:34:26 To help people, yeah.
0:34:30 You really believe that, and I think if you really believe something, a lot of things are
0:34:33 different after that, if you really believe that.
0:34:34 That’s so interesting.
0:34:37 When I first read that, I was thinking you meant being of service to other people, but
0:34:40 you really mean having purpose.
0:34:41 Yes.
0:34:45 Some people would say that that’s just having purpose, but the reason I say it’s more, it’s
0:34:50 because I am taking a risk that if I do what you need, my company will be fine, or I’ll
0:34:53 get my quota, or I’ll make my whatever.
0:34:57 They are asynchronous, and purpose isn’t always that way.
0:34:58 It was interesting.
0:34:59 I was writing this.
0:35:00 People were like, “What’s the difference?”
0:35:02 I kept saying, “I got to make this point.”
0:35:07 Being in service of something is so different than just doing it and serving it or making
0:35:10 a good product.
0:35:15 It is taking a risk because I know I may be doing things that I’m not going to get anything
0:35:19 for right now, but in the end, it comes back.
0:35:25 Once I know you’ve met your goal, I’m taking a flyer that, “Yep, in the end, I’ll get
0:35:30 what I need out of this, whether that’s buying a product or buying my service or doing whatever.”
0:35:31 You do all this work.
0:35:35 If people get some value, they’ll come back and listen again.
0:35:36 You don’t know that.
0:35:39 Time will tell long after you can do anything about it.
0:35:41 That is, to me, being in service of someone.
0:35:44 If you really believe that, you are only going to air things that you think are going to
0:35:46 make these people better.
0:35:50 You won’t just do anything to keep a drum beat going as an example.
0:35:51 That’s so interesting.
0:35:55 That makes me think of my journey because I remember for the first two years that I
0:35:58 podcasted, people always ask me, “How did you stay consistent?”
0:36:01 Because for the first two years, I didn’t have a lot of downloads.
0:36:03 They were like, “Do you work hard or now?”
0:36:04 I’m like, “No.
0:36:06 I do the same thing.”
0:36:07 I was doing it before.
0:36:09 It’s just not as many people were listening.
0:36:12 I just did the same thing because I cared.
0:36:16 I wanted to help other people and that was why I was doing it, not necessarily to get
0:36:17 the downloads.
0:36:22 It was separated in time, the success from what you were doing the work.
0:36:26 That’s a really important difference of the order of what happens.
0:36:31 At IBM, you were told that you had the gift of a velvet hammer.
0:36:34 I thought we could get a little bit tactical here.
0:36:40 Talk to us about how you have difficult conversations and you’re more like a velvet hammer so that
0:36:45 you can have these difficult conversations without ruining relationships.
0:36:46 This gets to that second.
0:36:50 I’m like, “Okay, if you’re going to work on something really hard,” as I said, they’re
0:36:52 not solved overnight usually.
0:36:53 You got to build belief.
0:36:57 People got to believe they should do something like endurance.
0:36:58 Why?
0:36:59 You said, “I kept doing it.
0:37:00 I kept doing my podcasts.
0:37:01 It took time.
0:37:02 Why do it?”
0:37:04 That’s what I meant by build belief.
0:37:08 I’m going to appeal to you logically and so your head and your heart.
0:37:09 It’s funny.
0:37:14 Over time, I would almost clearly say to people, “I’m going to tell you this from my head,
0:37:15 this from my heart.
0:37:19 How do I feel versus what do I know?”
0:37:21 I think this is super hard.
0:37:22 When you say, “How do you have a velvet hammer?”
0:37:24 I’ll tell you that quick story.
0:37:29 I was, again, middle of my career and it was a CEO of a big company.
0:37:31 I can remember being around the table.
0:37:33 It was a boardroom.
0:37:37 We had some pretty bad news to deliver to him.
0:37:40 I thought, “Oh, this is going to be bad.”
0:37:45 The way in which I delivered it, told them what it was, what they could do about it,
0:37:46 etc.
0:37:49 Afterward, he came up to me and he said, “Well, you have a velvet hammer.”
0:37:51 I thought to myself, “Okay, I’ve never heard of the word.
0:37:55 I’m like, “Is it good or a bad thing to have a velvet hammer?”
0:37:59 The reason I tell stories, he said to me, “No, you told me a really bad thing, but in
0:38:04 a way I would accept it, in a way I would action it forward.
0:38:11 I would not try to defend it, not try to think about why, not try to make you give me examples.”
0:38:16 This idea, another way to describe how to do it, I often say is to paint reality and
0:38:17 give hope.
0:38:20 Yes, I’m very clear.
0:38:24 Not sensational, I’m clear about the issue.
0:38:30 Anyone, you coach people, very clear, but the give hope part is a really important part.
0:38:35 Paint reality and then give hope, meaning, okay, it’s all about the way forward of what
0:38:36 you do with this.
0:38:38 I think that that is the best way.
0:38:41 When you’re doing hard stuff, there’s a very likely thing that things won’t work.
0:38:44 You just said in the beginning, I didn’t have a lot of downloads.
0:38:48 I can’t give people to do this by telling them, “Hey, there’s a lot of people listening
0:38:49 to this.
0:38:50 They’re not yet.”
0:38:51 Okay, that’s the reality.
0:38:52 They’re not.
0:38:55 That’s the reasons why this ought to be good going forward.
0:38:59 I think that that is a really important, always no matter what you’re doing, head and heart,
0:39:00 head and heart.
0:39:01 One of the things I did was a huge acquisition.
0:39:04 It was the largest of its time, I’ve done that more than once, by the way, the largest
0:39:05 of its time.
0:39:09 In that time, I was buying a big consulting company, PricewaterhouseCoopers.
0:39:10 We were merging.
0:39:14 All five other big integrations in the industry had gone wrong at that time.
0:39:18 I was number five then to try, and I’m like, “Oh, SuperDuper, all others have failed and
0:39:19 will be the fifth.”
0:39:24 Because you’re buying people, and so this is people who, not like parts, can walk out
0:39:25 the door if they don’t want to.
0:39:28 It was buying a consulting group of 30 people.
0:39:32 When I reflect now on why did that work, there was many things they didn’t like.
0:39:36 I was always honest about what they didn’t like, and then honest about the way we were
0:39:39 going to go forward on this, like the reasons to believe and what could be different.
0:39:45 It’s a simple point, but if you do it repetitively, you’re building people’s belief in a future.
0:39:48 Those were my tips in that area.
0:39:52 That reminded me, I can’t remember who told me this, but somebody told me something.
0:39:54 The truth only sounds like the truth.
0:39:57 I never heard that one, but that’s a very good one.
0:40:02 Whenever I’m like, “There’s a problem, I have a team of 60 people now,” and whenever
0:40:07 there’s a problem, everyone’s like, “You should position it this way or whatever.”
0:40:10 I always think in my head, the truth only sounds like the truth.
0:40:12 Very good advice.
0:40:14 Very good advice.
0:40:15 That’s what I believe.
0:40:18 It’s not about rah-rah leadership.
0:40:22 It is about be very truthful, but then it’s the focus on, “Okay, but now here’s why you
0:40:24 can believe something is going to be different.
0:40:27 What we’re going to do is going to work in the future, or why we should keep doing this
0:40:30 or that,” and so many people shy away from the truth.
0:40:32 I found that never worked in the long run.
0:40:33 Yeah.
0:40:37 If you’re just honest, people have empathy for you, for being honest and trust you.
0:40:38 Okay.
0:40:41 Let’s talk about inspiring versus forcing.
0:40:42 Two very different things.
0:40:44 I’d love for you to give us an example.
0:40:49 What is the leader who forces versus how do you speak to inspire?
0:40:54 I think this goes back to this point about when you’re in service of something, you inspire
0:40:59 people, because fear is not a tenable way to force anything to happen for a long run.
0:41:05 I have had unfortunate cases when I worked with people who were driven by fear, but fear
0:41:12 closes down people’s ability to want to innovate, come forward with ideas, et cetera, and the
0:41:18 other way makes people come forward with ideas and keep going forward and inspire.
0:41:23 But inspire is usually both, you’re doing something that’s bigger than the person, but
0:41:28 I think inspire is also about letting people believe it’s going to be good for them too.
0:41:33 I think that’s something that gets lost today, is that it’s okay for people to feel like this
0:41:36 has to be good for me too.
0:41:39 Always when I would work on these things, I would think about it both from the individual
0:41:44 point of view, as well as from the broader business point of view.
0:41:46 I mean, it could be little things, Hala.
0:41:51 I remember in that acquisition as an example, okay, all the administrative systems weren’t
0:41:52 working well.
0:41:54 People weren’t getting reimbursed for their expenses.
0:41:55 You can imagine.
0:41:58 These are things that happen in this day and age, even to people.
0:42:03 And inspire, I can remember saying, it really wasn’t acceptable, and I can remember going
0:42:06 to a meeting and I took my checkbook out and I said, “I will write a check for everybody
0:42:07 for your expenses.”
0:42:08 Okay.
0:42:11 Now, all I had to do was threaten them, the system to get working, but I mean, I never
0:42:13 had a really right to check.
0:42:16 I was trying to inspire, to keep believing in what we were doing, and what I just gave
0:42:19 you an example of, it’s got like nothing to do with the real business.
0:42:24 They felt like it was addressing the human sides of what the business was, and that is
0:42:29 one way to inspire people, right, is to appeal to them personally.
0:42:35 And I think that making things personal is a big way to inspire people.
0:42:36 Yeah.
0:42:41 And speaking of that, I read that you would leave thousands of voicemails.
0:42:42 Can you tell us about that?
0:42:43 In that day and age, okay?
0:42:44 Nobody does voicemail.
0:42:46 That would be like Slack messages or something.
0:42:49 Yeah, so that would be a different way.
0:42:53 That was a time when people probably didn’t communicate to like big ranges of people like
0:42:58 they would today with social media, but that was my point, to be personal to them and to
0:43:01 reach out to as many people as possible and do it that way.
0:43:06 And it would also be why over years, I think an art that has a little bit died that shouldn’t
0:43:07 is personal notes to people.
0:43:11 Now, you can send them an email, you can do what you want, but I even still hand write
0:43:12 them.
0:43:17 And in fact, in the book, I end the book with a handwritten note that is handwritten because
0:43:22 I do believe how you do your work, maybe just as important as what you do.
0:43:27 And that how of personalizing things, every time I left a job, I wrote a note to all the
0:43:33 people who I felt had been part of that team and what I had just my success was their success.
0:43:36 I would personal note of what they did.
0:43:39 Every time I took a job, I’d write the new team a note of what I admired about each one
0:43:40 of them.
0:43:44 When I became CEO, people were astonished that the first thing I did was I left the
0:43:49 meeting and I called the 20 people in my life who had helped in some way.
0:43:55 And that this moment was as much theirs as it was mine because I was only what I was
0:43:57 because of what they gave to me.
0:44:03 So that to me is that personalization piece that I think is all about followership that
0:44:08 we mentioned earlier that any company, no matter its size, if you don’t have followership,
0:44:09 you will not get anywhere.
0:44:11 I have a question for you.
0:44:16 This is sort of personal, like I said, I’m running a company and I feel like if I like
0:44:21 the employee, I’m really good at doing everything right, being personal, all this stuff.
0:44:28 If there’s an under performer, I have a really hard time taking the time or I don’t know.
0:44:32 And then I feel bad because I’m not living in my values, I’m not being the best leader
0:44:37 that I can because in the whole experience that they have with the company, I’ve got
0:44:38 to be a good leader.
0:44:44 So how do you deal with bad employees and still upholding your values as a leader?
0:44:49 I have found if you avoid that issue, they’re just the worst it gets.
0:44:53 I also believe I’ve been known for giving people too many chances.
0:45:00 So that’s the line, which is, if someone’s not performing, why aren’t they performing?
0:45:05 In the time you take to both be honest with them, I find most people kind of skirt around
0:45:06 the edges.
0:45:09 They’re not really telling them what’s good and what’s bad.
0:45:16 So part of what I found I got good at doing was in a very kind way, back to hard things
0:45:19 in a positive way, but being direct.
0:45:24 People feel I am actually very direct, but I do it in a way you can listen to it.
0:45:25 That was that velvet hammer.
0:45:30 So I think with the poor performer, you’ve got to be honest about it and then be clear
0:45:33 about what you expect.
0:45:35 The flip of that is you say, “I don’t want to talk to them.
0:45:36 I don’t want.”
0:45:40 Well, if that doesn’t change, you really do have to change them then.
0:45:43 And I, like I said, I’ve been known for giving people too many chances.
0:45:45 Part of me said that’s just who I am.
0:45:49 I want to believe you can change, but there gets to be a certain point.
0:45:51 And I’ll tell you one thing that I find people can’t change on.
0:45:55 If they actually don’t believe something can be done, they won’t do it.
0:45:56 And that might be like a business.
0:46:00 You might say, “Look, we are going to do 50 podcasts in this timeframe.”
0:46:01 And the person’s like, “No way.
0:46:02 We’re never going to…”
0:46:03 Well, I guarantee you they’ll never do it.
0:46:05 If they believe no way, it can never be done.
0:46:10 So that’s the one thing I also learned that at a certain point, if someone really, like
0:46:12 I said, “No, the business has to perform at this level.”
0:46:14 And they’re like, “No, I’ve never seen a business perform beyond…”
0:46:15 I’m like, “You know what?
0:46:18 They’re never going to do it because they don’t really in their heart believe it.
0:46:19 I got to move on.”
0:46:20 Right?
0:46:25 So my advice is, as tough as it is, and a lot of people avoid those, don’t want to do
0:46:26 those conversations.
0:46:30 I don’t like them either, by the way, but this gets to like the heart of this third tenant
0:46:33 about know what should change and endure as loving conflict.
0:46:37 I learned to love conflict because it was going to get better one way or another after
0:46:38 this.
0:46:42 I avoided it, it just stayed bad.
0:46:46 If I tackled it, sometimes it would get better, or sometimes we’d have to part.
0:46:51 And it was true with clients, employees, lots of situations like that.
0:46:55 We’ll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.
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0:51:20 Let’s talk about change and the need to be pivot.
0:51:26 Nowadays, companies are pivoting all the time because technology is growing so fast.
0:51:31 In 2011, right before you took over IBM, the company was also at a crossroads.
0:51:36 Can you talk about what the company was facing and how you were able to pivot?
0:51:39 Let me do it in a way though that I hope people listening can get something out of it, because
0:51:41 who other than just learning IBM history, which who cares?
0:51:42 Of course.
0:51:43 But it was.
0:51:48 So 2011, you had mentioned we’re over, what are we now, 112, 13 years old now.
0:51:50 We’ve done actually fantastically well.
0:51:54 The results would look fantastic and behind us had been 15 years of companies growing
0:51:59 like Amazon, Google, Facebook, just quietly moving up.
0:52:03 And we’d done well in what I would call the prior generation, but we weren’t prepared
0:52:04 for the future.
0:52:06 Enter this is when I take over.
0:52:09 And so the pressure for me to become something else, right?
0:52:13 For the world, they’re like, come on, IBM, change, you know, don’t be a dinosaur, change.
0:52:19 It was so intense and it was existential, meaning that IBM, just because you live a hundred
0:52:22 years doesn’t mean you’ll be the next hundred years could cease to exist.
0:52:25 So I felt that intensity hugely.
0:52:29 I mean, I can remember the very first cover of Fortune magazine, the headline turns out
0:52:32 to be, can IBM ever be cool again?
0:52:35 I’m like, super, super, this is how we start.
0:52:40 So you try so much, do this, do that, do this, as you try to modernize.
0:52:46 But here’s my lesson, I think good for any, especially actually for an entrepreneur, which
0:52:51 is how this lesson got in retrospect, know what you change and what should endure.
0:52:55 So while you’ve got all these dynamics around you happening and you’re watching this company
0:52:59 do this and this one do this and do this one do that, you try this, you try this, you try
0:53:00 that.
0:53:03 I can always remember, I had my little story here.
0:53:06 It was a marketing system.
0:53:10 We were selling to Marriott and I called Arnie, who was the CEO, Arnie and I had kind of grown
0:53:12 up together.
0:53:15 Great guy who is now past, but I said, Arnie, Arnie, why aren’t you going to give us this
0:53:16 business?
0:53:19 He’s like, Ginny, why do you care about this?
0:53:22 He’s like, just be the best IBM you can be.
0:53:26 He said, you run my property systems, my loyalty systems, why do you care about this thing?
0:53:28 And I’m like, you know, you’re right.
0:53:29 Why do I care about that?
0:53:31 He said, you’re the mission critical guy.
0:53:37 And in that urge to respond to a really changing external environment, you can lose track of
0:53:38 who you are.
0:53:44 And I think this idea that know what you change, it’s often easy to change everything, but what
0:53:48 should endure but be modernized is the key.
0:53:50 And that would sort of lead me then down.
0:53:54 I would divest of $10, $15 billion of businesses.
0:53:55 I would go ahead and center us.
0:53:58 We would make this acquisition of Red Hat.
0:54:02 We are the mission critical guy and it would be a $30 billion, $35 billion acquisition.
0:54:06 It would center and get rid of all this stuff on the side.
0:54:07 These are ornaments on a tree.
0:54:09 I got to care about the tree.
0:54:11 You’re going this way, that way.
0:54:15 And because of that pressure that happens and this idea of being able to find another
0:54:19 way through things, I would learn that and be the best you can be.
0:54:23 As someone once said to me, “Hey, look, Google make a horrible IBM and IBM make a horrible
0:54:24 Google.”
0:54:27 This is not what we are and that is true.
0:54:32 And so that to me in that those moments on one, it’s what you do.
0:54:35 So really know who you are.
0:54:36 I didn’t say it should never change.
0:54:40 It should be modernized, but know what you are at your soul and your core.
0:54:44 There was a big other flip of a lesson and I think most people overlook this right now.
0:54:49 Whenever you read anything about a company, a startup, it’s always about what they do.
0:54:50 How they do it could be as important.
0:54:51 I mentioned that earlier.
0:54:56 I would learn that the how was the harder part of the transformation, meaning I had
0:54:58 to get a big company to be fast.
0:55:02 I had to get a complex company to be simple, to be consumable.
0:55:03 I had to get the skills.
0:55:06 Two out of 10 people had skills for the future.
0:55:07 Eight didn’t.
0:55:09 All that would be the hard part, actually.
0:55:11 The portfolio, AI and cloud.
0:55:12 Okay.
0:55:14 We got firm on what we were in those areas.
0:55:15 Fine.
0:55:17 But the big work was that other side.
0:55:22 And so I don’t think you should overlook how the work of your company gets done because
0:55:26 I mean, I could remember it was clear the world goes so fast as you get bigger, you’ll
0:55:27 feel this.
0:55:31 And listen, I’ve interviewed with plenty of these startups that would be like, how do
0:55:32 you hire 5,000 people?
0:55:35 You know, I’m like a hair like a lot more than that.
0:55:39 But they as they grow, all of a sudden process takes over and all these things start to happen.
0:55:43 And I would say, for us, it wasn’t fast enough.
0:55:45 And I would say, come on, team, faster, faster.
0:55:49 I’m sure that’s what they thought my name was faster, you know, like she’s always thought.
0:55:53 And I have this image in my head after two years, their tongues are hanging out and things
0:55:54 aren’t going faster.
0:55:57 And I’m like, this is not their fault.
0:55:58 We hire smart people.
0:56:01 They don’t wake up and go, hey, let’s be slow at work today.
0:56:02 They do not.
0:56:07 This is a product of the systems I put in place, the decision making, the layers, the this,
0:56:08 the that.
0:56:09 That’s management’s job.
0:56:10 That’s my job that screwed up.
0:56:13 Then I have to simplify these things.
0:56:15 20 people can’t make a decision.
0:56:20 Three, you know, and this would lead us down agile design thinking all stuff you do today
0:56:21 in a normal business.
0:56:24 But back then to do it for a half a million people was not common.
0:56:29 And so the shorter that is, pay attention to how work gets done in the skills of your
0:56:31 people.
0:56:33 The rest can kind of get unleashed in his normal.
0:56:36 But that to me was the biggest thing about what had to change.
0:56:41 Oh my gosh, it’s such good advice, really.
0:56:44 This is honestly one of my favorite interviews that I’ve had all year.
0:56:48 You’re just giving such good practical advice.
0:56:50 So let’s talk about being stewards of good technology.
0:56:52 You talked about AI.
0:56:54 Tell us what we need to know about that.
0:56:55 Okay.
0:56:59 All I want you to know about this, I don’t care how big or small you are right now.
0:57:00 Everybody’s a tech company.
0:57:02 That’s how you got to look at it this way.
0:57:05 And if you’re a tech company, you got to be a responsible tech company.
0:57:11 And all that means is, okay, fine, use the technology, take all the upside, but you better
0:57:14 pay attention to the downside at the same time and guard against it.
0:57:16 That’s all I want you to do.
0:57:19 And I have to say, I think social media is a perfect example of what went wrong.
0:57:21 We took all the benefit of the upside.
0:57:27 We knew all the downsides of social media for a very long time.
0:57:29 But just now are we tackling them?
0:57:31 So it’s about doing them in parallel.
0:57:34 So as an example now, generative AI, we all love that’s great.
0:57:38 We’re all going to do this, but you better pay attention to disinformation, prepare people
0:57:43 to use it, buy it, all the things, you got to do it at the same time.
0:57:46 When I think of AI, I was a very early pioneer.
0:57:52 So I’m 2012, the AI person of 2012, I had exactly the right idea and I was exactly early.
0:57:56 And even then AI could do better than many humans at certain things.
0:58:00 But I would learn that this technology, and instill to be proven whether it’s going to
0:58:03 succeed because it will be an issue of trust, actually, it won’t be about the tech will
0:58:08 be, it was even better than it’s better now, but will people trust it?
0:58:12 And what I witnessed then was that if it can’t be explainable, they don’t trust it.
0:58:14 If you’re a doctor and you can’t explain why is this the answer.
0:58:19 If I’m an auditor or I’m an accountant or it tells me this, or if you’re a professional
0:58:22 of any kind, your first question is, well, why is that the answer?
0:58:24 You want the why answered?
0:58:28 Second thing I learned, you can’t just throw AI on top of the current work because that’s
0:58:30 just more work.
0:58:33 You’ve got to reimagine how the work’s done with people.
0:58:37 Third thing I learned, the more important the decision you’re going to use AI to help
0:58:41 your customer with, the less their tolerance for error is.
0:58:47 So if it’s healthcare, I’m telling you, even a decade ago, it was more right than most
0:58:48 doctors.
0:58:52 But some say, well, it’s wrong 10% or 20% of the time.
0:58:57 I’m like, how wrong do you think some doctors are, okay, they are wrong more than that.
0:59:01 But your tolerance is so low for financial decisions, healthcare decisions.
0:59:05 So this is why, to me, this is really about if we can get people to trust it.
0:59:09 So whenever you do with it in your company, how you’re going to use it, always have that
0:59:10 in your mind.
0:59:14 In my head, I’ve formed a framework, not in the book.
0:59:17 I’ve given a lot of thought of this afterwards as I help people.
0:59:21 And it’s so simple of a paradigm to think about it.
0:59:25 For one, if you’re going to implement AI, I think the goal of the AI matters.
0:59:27 A lot of people talk about efficiency.
0:59:32 I think the goal of the AI should be to make whatever it is your people, your customers
0:59:33 better.
0:59:35 If the goal is that, you will approach it differently.
0:59:39 I was in a session and someone said, who said the goals to replace all of mankind?
0:59:42 We get to determine the goal and then you act differently.
0:59:44 Pick the right goal.
0:59:46 Okay, so pick the right goal.
0:59:49 The second thing is, co-create a new way of working with your people.
0:59:50 I mean, that’s such an obvious thing.
0:59:52 I’m telling you, you’ll build trust in the process.
0:59:55 Like whenever you participate in something, then you trust it.
0:59:56 Okay, so co-create.
1:00:00 And then the third is, hold yourself liable, audit yourself and hold yourself liable, even
1:00:01 if there’s not a law.
1:00:06 If you knew you were going to pay a huge financial penalty, if it was wrong, act that way.
1:00:09 If you do, it’ll change what you do on the other side.
1:00:14 And in the end, I do believe that may be the only way with this generation of technology,
1:00:17 we have to have people held liable for its misuse.
1:00:21 If they are, you’ll see a different set of behavior around it and then it will be used
1:00:22 for good.
1:00:26 So we did, not that you care about quantum computing, but we’ve worked on quantum computing
1:00:30 for probably 50 years and it’s getting to its point of being mature now.
1:00:36 But we always knew quantum could do really great things and quantum had a very dark underbelly.
1:00:38 Quantum computing can undo all of encryption.
1:00:41 So everything we know to protect data, it can undo it.
1:00:46 So what I mean by doing the good and the bad, we always worked on new encryption the same
1:00:48 time we were working on quantum computing.
1:00:52 That’s internalizing what it means to do the plus and the minus at the same time.
1:00:53 So good.
1:00:54 Such good advice.
1:00:59 So for the individual out there, you talked a lot about what companies should do with AI.
1:01:03 For the individual out there, how should we approach AI?
1:01:06 I think a lot of that has to do with how it’s introduced to them.
1:01:07 I mean, I use it all the time.
1:01:12 I find the most useful thing right now is to spark a new idea I might not have had.
1:01:13 Right?
1:01:14 Do you find?
1:01:15 I mean, you must do it too, right?
1:01:16 Totally.
1:01:19 I mean, there are a ton of ways or stuff like that just to see what it comes up with.
1:01:21 It’s like having an intern.
1:01:22 Yes.
1:01:23 That’s right.
1:01:24 And by the way, I also know it’s not right.
1:01:27 I can remember when it first came out, I say, “Who is Mark Rometti?”
1:01:28 That’s my husband.
1:01:30 And it told me all the things he did to run IBM.
1:01:31 Okay.
1:01:32 This is brand new.
1:01:36 You know, his view was, “Oh, someone’s giving me credit for everything behind the scenes.”
1:01:37 Okay?
1:01:38 Okay.
1:01:39 Not true right now.
1:01:40 It’s correct now when you ask it.
1:01:41 But it’s so funny.
1:01:43 To do this interview, I just the other day put it in chat.
1:01:44 Who’s Mark?
1:01:45 Who’s Jack?
1:01:46 Tells it.
1:01:47 It’s still got stuff wrong in there.
1:01:48 Okay?
1:01:51 After all this time, stuff I know is wrong, stuff I’ve told the media is wrong, I did
1:01:53 not go to General Motors Institute.
1:01:54 I went to Northwestern.
1:01:55 I can’t get them to fix it.
1:01:56 So it just showed.
1:01:59 I mean, look, garbage in, garbage out.
1:02:03 So as an individual, it’s your attitude to not just trust everything you read.
1:02:06 You have a responsibility to look for trusted sources.
1:02:08 And I think that’s the biggest piece of advice I’d give.
1:02:11 I’d use it as a thought starter and I wouldn’t trust everything I get.
1:02:13 I’d use my judgment.
1:02:15 Another reporter told me a great story.
1:02:17 She had a five-year-old in London in Kitty Garden.
1:02:21 They were teaching the kids what’s a trusted source.
1:02:24 And I’m going to have this wrong, but the little exercise was the kids had to go write
1:02:28 a report on a, I don’t remember what the animal was, a spider monkey or monkey spider or something
1:02:29 like this.
1:02:31 Whatever it was does not really exist.
1:02:35 But the kids were able to go out there and Google and find everything about this nonexistent
1:02:37 animal and think it was real.
1:02:41 And then the purpose of the article or the exercise for the kitties was, see, this thing
1:02:44 is not actually real, but you were convinced it is real.
1:02:48 And therefore, you know, know if you trust your sources of where it comes from, otherwise
1:02:51 take it with a grain of salt, right, and just use it as input.
1:02:52 Love that advice.
1:02:53 Okay.
1:02:54 So let’s talk about resilience.
1:02:57 What did being the CEO of IBM teach you about resilience?
1:03:00 What can we learn from your experience?
1:03:02 Anything hard is really hard to do.
1:03:05 This is why I wanted to talk about resilience and I felt so strong about it because people
1:03:10 are like, God, what you had to do for 10 years, how did you do this for 10 years?
1:03:16 Two things, one had to do with relationships and I would encourage everyone here.
1:03:19 The point I want to make is early in my life, I’m like, I don’t have time for all these
1:03:20 relationships.
1:03:24 I don’t have time for this person or that person as a wrong attitude.
1:03:29 I learned quickly because what those people do for you is they give you perspective you
1:03:31 don’t otherwise have.
1:03:35 And the harder the stuff you do, the more you need other perspective.
1:03:39 And I found that the more varied the relationships, like you mentioned about people don’t always
1:03:40 agree with, right?
1:03:46 And it wasn’t the volume of time, it was the quality of the time I was with them.
1:03:50 That often when I had tough problems, people would be like, you’re looking at that wrong
1:03:51 or why are we even looking at that?
1:03:53 Or I’d be like, that’s right.
1:03:55 It was a perspective I didn’t have.
1:03:58 So I feel resilience comes from all those varied relationships.
1:04:04 It could be my husband, my family, my friends, my work people, the more varied the better.
1:04:08 I have entertainment friends, all walks of life.
1:04:14 And I learned to make time for that, that that wasn’t a luxury, that was oxygen.
1:04:16 So you shouldn’t feel guilty about that.
1:04:19 It is what makes you able to thrive.
1:04:20 So that was one.
1:04:22 And the second thing was your attitude.
1:04:27 And this is, I think, probably obvious what my background always a way forward.
1:04:28 That’s obvious.
1:04:33 But I do think in your own attitude, there’s a lot to do with only focus on what you can
1:04:34 control.
1:04:35 People will tell you that.
1:04:38 I could learn to compartmentalize problems.
1:04:43 I think that’s essential to compartmentalize them and to love conflict.
1:04:45 And most people don’t like conflict.
1:04:48 And if I only could convince you, I mean, I learned by watching people that they’ve always
1:04:51 volunteered for the crummiest, difficult thing.
1:04:54 And I thought, why are they doing this?
1:04:57 But nine times out of 10, something was better on the other side.
1:05:01 I watched and I thought, hmm, this is kind of interesting.
1:05:07 So I started to, instead of letting conflict eat at me, I would address it head-on.
1:05:12 And it was so refreshing in nine times out of 10, it wasn’t as bad as I thought.
1:05:13 Something better happened.
1:05:16 Something that was bad happening, stopped happening.
1:05:18 I mean, something good came out the other end of it.
1:05:22 And this compartmentalized this idea to say, OK, here’s a problem.
1:05:23 Do I have a plan?
1:05:24 Yep.
1:05:25 OK.
1:05:28 In your mind as a picture, put it up on a shelf, put it in a box, put our shelf, clear
1:05:31 your mind to go on to the next thing.
1:05:34 Just let it just go in circles.
1:05:41 So I think that all gives you resilience if you’re able to do those things.
1:05:43 Compartmentalizing is so important.
1:05:48 I know that when I first started being an entrepreneur, for like two years, I never lost a client.
1:05:52 And then like, I lost my first client and it was like so devastating.
1:05:54 And I thought I was so bad.
1:05:55 It really bugged me.
1:06:00 Now I understand that people have changing priorities if somebody wants to take their
1:06:03 social internal or what it’s not really even about me a lot of the times.
1:06:07 And I’m able to just put it aside, keep it moving.
1:06:08 It is what it is.
1:06:10 I just don’t take it personal anymore.
1:06:15 And I think as an entrepreneur, when you’re first starting, you will take every single
1:06:17 little thing personal.
1:06:21 And you’ve got to just understand that not everything’s going to be perfect.
1:06:23 And girl, just like a perfect straight line.
1:06:24 No, it doesn’t.
1:06:26 But, you know, it’s nothing bad with taking things personal.
1:06:27 People would say that to me.
1:06:28 Don’t be personal about this.
1:06:30 I’m like, well, yeah, I care a lot about this.
1:06:31 It is personal.
1:06:35 So, that’s good, but you can’t let it eat at you, right?
1:06:36 So it is okay to be personal.
1:06:40 Like I hope in those clients, you did, you went and found out why they left.
1:06:43 And then, sure enough, you found out it wasn’t all the reasons you thought it wasn’t you
1:06:45 always, right?
1:06:48 So that kind of allowed you to move forward after that because you’re like, okay, I learned
1:06:49 something out of this.
1:06:52 As far as I’m concerned, bad stuff, as long as you learn something, there’s nothing bad
1:06:53 that happens.
1:06:54 Just move on then.
1:06:55 Learn it.
1:06:56 Go.
1:06:59 Jenny, this was such an awesome interview.
1:07:02 I highly recommend that everybody go get good power.
1:07:03 I loved reading this book.
1:07:07 I feel like I’m going to read it again just to make sure that I got everything out of
1:07:08 it.
1:07:10 I loved learning from you.
1:07:12 We end our show with two questions.
1:07:14 The first one, and you can take this however you want.
1:07:17 It doesn’t even have to be about the topic of today’s episode.
1:07:20 You just answer it from your heart, okay?
1:07:25 What is one actionable thing our young and profitors can do today to become more profitable
1:07:26 tomorrow?
1:07:29 Learn something new, unrelated, doesn’t matter.
1:07:33 What is your secret to profiting in life and this can go beyond just business?
1:07:35 Definitely, it’s resilience.
1:07:37 It’s just not giving up.
1:07:39 I love a quote.
1:07:43 It was that Ann Richards was a governor of Texas, but someone asked her the secret of
1:07:48 her success, and she said it was passion and perseverance when everyone else would have
1:07:49 given up.
1:07:50 You know what?
1:07:53 I didn’t get to ask you a question that I meant to, and it was about networking because
1:07:57 you talked so much about networking, and you mentioned how a big reason why you were resilient
1:08:02 is because you had support, and I feel like especially as entrepreneurs, we tend to just
1:08:06 work, work, work, work, work and forget about our relationships.
1:08:10 What’s your best advice to having a healthy network of relationships?
1:08:15 My best advice is just make the time for it, that it is not a selfish thing.
1:08:18 Your company is going to be better because of it, and you’re going to be a better leader
1:08:19 because of it.
1:08:25 It is so true on so many points that if you can get over that if you’re better because
1:08:28 of it, then the company will be better.
1:08:33 Same is true for when people ask me about work-life balance, I would say companies will take everything
1:08:36 or your company will take everything you’ll give.
1:08:40 It’s up to you to draw those boundaries, and don’t feel guilty about it because if you
1:08:44 draw those boundaries, you will feel better about the work you do.
1:08:48 Amazing, Ginny, and where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?
1:08:50 Well, LinkedIn, you’ll find me out there.
1:08:52 I still do my own there.
1:08:54 Or at Ginny at GinnyRometti.com.
1:08:55 Amazing.
1:08:58 Well, thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast.
1:09:00 It was such a pleasure to have you on.
1:09:01 Thank you, Hala.
1:09:02 You did a great job.
1:09:06 Thank you.
1:09:10 Young and Profiters, this was an interview that definitely surprised me.
1:09:12 Ginny is awesome.
1:09:13 I want her on my advisory board.
1:09:16 I’m like, how can I work with this woman?
1:09:17 She’s so smart.
1:09:21 She dropped so many gems, and what an inspiring story.
1:09:25 Ginny’s mother taught her early on that you’ve got to define who you are.
1:09:30 And even when you think you have absolutely nothing, you still have the power to change
1:09:32 your own situation.
1:09:37 And as a woman in tech, Ginny had the deck stacked against her in so many ways.
1:09:42 But she didn’t seem to really care or think about it much.
1:09:46 She just put her head down and worked harder until she was the best prepared and most knowledgeable
1:09:49 person in any room she was in.
1:09:53 And then she rose to the highest ranks in the corporate ladder.
1:09:57 She was the CEO of IBM.
1:09:59 What an incredible feat.
1:10:01 And you’ve got to be a boss.
1:10:06 You’ve got to have good power in order to get to those types of places.
1:10:10 And she had so many wonderful insights and tips in terms of how we should approach our
1:10:13 career and harness what she calls good power.
1:10:18 So here are some of my favorite pearls from this conversation.
1:10:21 First you’ve got to run to your work, not run from it.
1:10:27 A career is something you want to run towards, something that you’re passionate about.
1:10:28 Everything else is just a job.
1:10:32 Also, you’ve got to be a continuous learner.
1:10:36 Make yourself into a constant apprentice who is always seeking new mentors to learn new
1:10:37 skills.
1:10:43 You should be learning all the time, no matter how experienced you are.
1:10:44 Next, networking.
1:10:46 Jenny talked about this a lot.
1:10:49 She said you should view networking as what you give to somebody else.
1:10:51 It’s about giving.
1:10:56 If you’re networking in a purely transactional sense, then you’re doing it wrong.
1:10:58 How can you serve others?
1:11:01 If you serve others, the law of reciprocity will come back to you and they’re going to
1:11:04 help you in the future.
1:11:08 You should also be seeking your own discomfort all the time.
1:11:11 Take on the jobs that might be a little bit too big for you.
1:11:13 It’s the only way you’re going to grow.
1:11:17 Like Jenny said, growth and comfort never coexist.
1:11:22 Finally, don’t plan every single aspect of your life just yet.
1:11:25 Just let it unfold naturally.
1:11:29 It’s good to be thinking about the future, but don’t let it cripple your present.
1:11:34 Don’t let it be that you can only have this straight path towards what you want, where
1:11:38 you miss other opportunities to get towards where you want to go.
1:11:44 As long as you’re learning and engaging a new door will open up soon enough.
1:11:48 And speaking of learning and engaging, if you listen, learned and profited from this
1:11:52 episode of Young and Profiting Podcasts, then please share it with somebody.
1:11:55 Spread this podcast by word of mouth.
1:12:00 Networking is about giving after all and what better gift than a little knowledge and inspiration.
1:12:04 And if you did enjoy the show and you learned something, then please take a couple minutes
1:12:07 to drop us a five star review on Apple podcast.
1:12:08 I love it.
1:12:12 When I read your reviews, it’s super important for our social proof.
1:12:14 And let me know your feedback good and bad.
1:12:17 I want to hear what you think about the show.
1:12:21 And if you’re one of those folks who prefer to watch your podcast as videos, you can also
1:12:23 find us on YouTube.
1:12:24 Just look up Young and Profiting.
1:12:26 You’ll find all of our videos on there.
1:12:32 And if you’re looking for me, you can find me on Instagram @yappwithhala or LinkedIn
1:12:33 by searching my name.
1:12:35 It’s Hala Taha.
1:12:37 I also want to shout out my amazing production team.
1:12:40 You guys are incredible and I’m so grateful for you all.
1:12:44 This is your host, Hala Taha, a.k.a. the podcast princess, signing off.
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