Rapid Response: Embrace tension, w/former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty

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Those of us in tech, we want society to really believe us that technology will make man better. I think with Not just chat GPT AI you have to think about. The up and the downside. Trust is built by the drop.

Withdrawn in buckets. If you go back in history, a bad thing that can happen with technology. A few can make More and a lot can make less. And so we're gonna have to reskill people to work there.

When my father abandoned us, my mother had no education. Instead of us remaining on food stamps and no home, She was like this can't end this way. I'm gonna find a way to get a skill. It convinced me that aptitude and access are two different things.

And it can't be more true in this country right now. And I just feel that we can create so much opportunity for so many people. That's former IBM CEO Ginny Rometti. In her new book, Good Power, Ginny argues that all of us have a responsibility to use the influence we have to positively impact others. I'm Bob Safian. Former editor Fast Company, founder of the Flux Grub, and host of Masters of Scale Rapid Response.

I wanted to talk to Ginny because taking responsibility for society increasingly falls on business leaders. Yet they often struggle with balancing marketplace dynamics and broader cultural issues. Ginny's roadmap through this terrain. isn't without tension. As she puts it.

Growth and comfort never coexist. Jenny talks about the need for what she calls good tech. And both the obligation and the opportunity for businesses to help those being left behind by tech fuel change. She was at the helm of IBM when they created Watson, the early question answering AI that beat Jeopardy champions, and her reflections on what she learned provide insights into our chat GPT crazed moment. Genie's lessons are about building trust.

Setting guardrails and making the right decisions for the long term. I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Ginny Rometti, longtime CEO of IBM and author of the new book. Good power. Ginny, thanks for joining us. Bob, thank you. Nice to see you again.

So your book Good Power it's both A memoir and a call to action. For businesses, for business leaders to use their platforms for Broader impact. than just maximizing dollars.

What do you hope? the book's impact will be. I hope. Be in service of a lot people, not just business leaders. And that they have the power to make some pretty meaningful changes to some tough problems out there.

And so yes, business people, of course, I think might be the first audience, but I'm hoping that anyone, even someone trying to change something personally, will find value in it. And so what is the definition of good power? Good power is the ability to do really hard, meaningful things, but do them in a positive way. And Now what is positive?

You run toward tension. So that you unite not divide things. You do it respectfully, though. No fear. And then you celebrate

Progress, not just perfection. I often associate perfection with polarization of issues right now. And if it you're with me or against me, it's really hard to make progress. Good power's more about How things get done.

Then exactly the what? I'm trying to share an idea about How to do things that are hard. In a positive way. They you said the the first thing was run toward tension. Most of us

Instinctively. Avoid tension. I have learned over so many decades that If I would run toward conflict, it was so much more productive. Both mentally and emotionally for me, instead of stewing in the problem constantly, if I would just take it head on. I could actually make some progress.

Right now the tensions are so high on things that people get divided when they talk about them instead of saying, No, wait, now how can we bridge a difference, which does not mean compromise, by the way, but bridge a difference. And so I would run toward a tension in this world. One of the great lessons in the book that growth and comfort Never coexist. When I was looking to go to a new job. And all I could think of was all the reasons I couldn't do it.

was like so vivid to me that I would be uncomfortable. But I would not grow up. that helped me take on riskier and riskier assignments and actually look for things that I didn't know how to do and want to learn something. And

it would eventually end for me to believe that When I hire people, the number one thing I would hire for is their willingness to learn. At the outset of the book You make very clear that the book is not about leadership lessons. For women.

Although you were one of only a handful of women's CEOs at major firms. I originally did not include much if anything about being a woman. It's just not how I defined my tenure or my or my whole career, my life. And Yet people would ask when I was sort of mid career. And I was presenting somewhere and someone came up after I thought he was gonna tell me how brilliant my talk was on financial services regulation. And he said, look.

I wish my daughter could have seen you. And in that moment. I realized okay, look, this is not about me defining myself as a woman. But People cannot be what they cannot see.

And It's a responsibility at a certain point to be a role model. So in the book, I come full circle in that I do end up talking a bit about it because I know it does mean something. to a lot of people.

But I don't believe any of these leadership traits have to do with being a man or woman. Some of the traits may be more what people like psychologists would call more feminine types of traits, but that doesn't mean you're a man or woman leader, right? You mentioned The idea of being a a role model. CEOs today, business leaders are

Personally more front and center. for the brand and the business, internally, externally called in on social and political issues in a way that they weren't even when you started as a CEO. How Do leaders decide what to weigh in on when it comes to these public issues? So I can only tell you how I made those choices. I think all companies

our tech companies now. So we should take responsibility for the up and the down. side of what technology does in the long run. In the long run. And so I had a framework. I would focus on things that had any impact on trust. Meaning

Did my words and actions always match up and align with my values? How do you introduce? We could talk about chat GPT, et cetera. I prioritize focusing on inclusion, because I do really believe with inclusion you get better products, better company. And then I felt It was Our duty the world.

to think that these new technologies would make their life better not worse. So to prepare society. So Whatever your framework is, I think you need one is my only point because I would say to the workforce, I cannot and will not speak out on everything. So you mentioned Stewarding Good Tech.

And chat GPT. And I did want to ask you about it. Chet. G P T Particularly in the context of You know, IBM, because IBM was a pioneer in AI, right? IBM Watson in some ways was

Chat GPT before Chat GPT exists, although it It didn't have that. Moment of sort of broad consumer use in the same way. Right. And I'm curious, you're nodding sort of how you think about

Chat GPT and the way we're thinking about AI today, and how you thought about it with Watson and what that means in relation to what you call Good tech. IBM works on large language models and large language AI, but in a business enterprise context. I had a lot of learnings. I always feel like when you're the early guy, you catch a few arrows as the pioneer here and

I always felt the purpose of our AI and the purpose of the new technologies was to Augment Man. Also said it would change all jobs. Through my journey at least, I came to conclude In the end, this would not be a technology issue. This is going to be a people trust issue.

So When I think of AI right now, ChatGPT jumps to the forefront because it's got this consumer access to it. Trust is built by the drop. Withdrawn in buckets. I've seen a quote from

opening I CO and he says, Hey, be careful Don't use this for anything important yet. Okay, but we're out in the consumer world. There's no real governors on how it's used, right? As an example, people say, Well, this will be better. For doctors, just think you could have uh something on your phone.

Okay. You're right, doctors do make some mistakes. Depending on the type of disease, five to twenty percent times they're wrong. But your tolerance when it's technology is very different. I learned.

guarantee that you expect that technology for an important problem. To be a hundred percent right. Not five to twenty. Search maybe you'll tolerate it. But the more important the problem starts moving, uh uh. So

I do think how introduction happens matters and I We'll see. Is it a good thing that Chat GPT reached a million people in five days or not? Yeah, it depends. You do need guardrails. I felt like I was talking about AI ethics a decade ago and nobody really cared because

Once it's a started, it's impossible to slow down, but you can have an opinion about usage, about how it's applied, right? When we worked on quantum, but as you know, quantum can break traditional encryption. So we worked on encryption that could not be broke by quantum in parallel. And that's that idea of good tech says I better pay attention to the positive and the negative. Right.

I wanna ask you to make sure I I understand this right,'cause I've noticed that The fact that Chat Chi PT came from a startup. And not from one of the big companies that we know has been spending lots of years and lots of money building AI, is that in part because Those companies might have been able to release a product like that, but in some ways They had too much ex stake for their brand to have it be messy.

In the release. It's a good question. what is the tolerance, I use that word tolerance, of their users for it being Right or wrong. You know, and exact or not. And

I do think there is a difference on how people view that. by different you know, a small startup versus a a large established company, what they expect. And it gets back to that word trust, right? Yeah, everybody loves playing with chat GPT, but when it becomes part of Bing, suddenly it gets complained about. Right. Very different one. And it doesn't matter whether it's Bing, but

Any big established company like that that people h expect some X from? If All of a sudden that's out of the norm. Very different reaction. You know, folks in technology

Often Emphasize the positive potential of these new texts. There's a lot of carnage that comes when dramatic change happens for those folks At the end of the barbell that are not The beneficiaries of that.

As a Techly they're Did you feel like That makes You know, it part of my responsibility to try to

Fill that because we're beneficiaries on one end? I did. If you go back in history and look. the bad thing that can happen with technology. A few can make More

And a lot can make less. And so we're gonna have to reskill people to work there. I think society gives you a license to operate. And so I felt it was my job then to prepare society to think Hey, if these technologies are out here, I can still make a good living. And It got me down.

A whole path over the last decade. If this is back in early twenty twelve. The people were not yet trained in much of this to be a cyber analyst as an example. I happened to walk into the next meeting on one corporate social responsibility school, which was a

High school, poor neighborhood, worked with a community college, we gave them input on a curriculum. hired the kids for internships. And said okay, even though In parallel you can get an associate degree at this high school We might hire you for a few jobs.

But ninety five percent of our jobs require a college degree. Lo and behold. These people have great skill, we find. And wow, now lo and behold, 97% are from diverse groups. Then I start to think, holy cow.

I think we're on to something. I need the people. And I want a more diverse workforce. And this is a whole new talent pool. Well

This to me eventually turns out to be a movement to this idea of Hire for people skills, not just their degrees. It's not like I'm against a degree. I've I'm a one of the vice chairs at Northwestern University. I have a degree. But Sixty five percent

Of Americans don't have a college degree. eighty percent of black Americans don't have a college degree. And if all the jobs Good jobs. Raise a family of four. Good jobs.

Are going to people cause degree, we have a very big problem in this country. I would learn over time. But Almost seventy five percent of jobs have been over credentialed. It became an easy way for HR to vet through Resumes.

Just use a college degree. It's an artificial filter. It's an artificial barrier, systemic in its nature. It took the better part of five years to relook at every job we had and rewrite it. Based on a skill. And we went from ninety five percent needing college to start to fifty percent. And then we started measuring performance because people would

Think maybe you're dumbing down the workforce, but we weren't. And many go on to then get their degrees all diverse. It's really become kind of my life's purpose now. Because if you look at it. Giving people economic opportunities probably the best thing you could do f as the greatest equalizer.

out there. And People aren't gonna like technology. If they think it's a goes the other direction. When you've built substantial wealth through your business, it's often tied up in a single equity position.

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Lear more at creative planning dot com slash masters of scale The Wired Newsroom is known for award-winning reporting on how technology shapes our world. On Wire's Uncanny Valley, we take that curiosity even further. Each week, journalists from Wired break down the biggest stories in tech while speaking directly with the people building, challenging, and reshaping the future. Is the AI boom sustainable?

How do you protect your privacy in an age of constant surveillance? Uncanny Valley tackles the questions driving today's tech debates and lighting up your group chats. Listen to new episodes every Thursday. Wherever you get your podcasts. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI.

There's gonna be two types of companies. Those were great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered. I'm Rana El Calyubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone.

Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Before the break, we heard IBM's former CEO Ginny Rometti talk about what she calls good power and good tech. Now she talks about how in her post IBM work she's trying to make corporate America more accountable for broadening workplace opportunity. She also shares insights on what she calls the teeter totter of managing change.

The difference between work life balance and work flexibility And the importance of setting your own boundaries in the face of unending demands. I know you're working with one ten, the organization you co founded with, Ken Chenault and Ken Frazier. Both of them have been on the show and talked about how after George Floyd's murder, they were talking to each other and Anchored on this idea of adding family sustaining jobs for black Americans. How did you Get involved with them.

on the heels of the murder of George Floyd, many people spoke out about what should they do. And Ken and Ken said, We should do what corporate America does best and we should hire. Okay, so they were the what? Ай зде. It's like a

Thing. We can get a coalition of all the big companies. And we can work on them to help'em all move to skills first. I said, guys I think I know how to make your vision come a reality. And that is what's brought us together. And we enter year three of one ten, which stands for

One million over ten years. Like any startup. W we said we're gonna work on black Americans first, but Every barrier is a systemic barrier for any. underrepresented group.

We've hired about a hundred thousand people. Today. So A lot of the focus is as well on promotion, like what I learned from my mother. My father abandoned us, my mother had no education. Instead of us remaining on food stamps and no home,

She was like, This can't end this way. I'm gonna find a way to get a skill. She never had anything beyond high school, never worked a day outside the home. She's thirty-two years old, four kids. And she got just enough community college and a little more. And I only tell you that story'cause It convinced me

That aptitude and access are two different things. And it can't be more true in this country right now. So my mom wasn't dumb. She had no access to anything. And I just feel that we can create so much opportunity for so many people. You are.

optimistic about this. I mean there are a lot of proclamations and announcements that were made after George Floyd and There hasn't always been a lot of tangible Progress. No, this is tangible. A? They put money in?

B, they sign up for the number of hires per year. C CEO led and committed. and they made a long-term commitment. And D, we're tracking

Those hires and so Then once they're hired It's not like they're an experiment. You have to hire people in cohorts so that The company changes to adapt to them too, in that you end up with this very a wide spectrum of teammates. And To your point.

We all felt like Words don't matter. What is the action and the outcome? So in your book, you use this phrase, what must change and what must endure. And some people are impatient about the pace of change, you know, in culture inside organizations that we move too slow. And other folks are kind of wary that we move too fast, right? That it's chaotic. How do you think about

The pace of change in our era and how All of us leaders, organizations, individuals. should be adapting to it. If you're too patient. Then you

start to believe excuses of why things can't change, right? So there's this constant teeter totter that you're constantly trying to get right. Yeah. Speed the change. and then the rate at which the organization can really absorb it and make it permanent.

One of the things I learn is do think hard about what you are at your soul. Because Be willing to change everything else, but do know what that is. I know when I

In that hurry to change and There's people like become something else, become something else. you start to drift away from what you really are. And That was always a mistake.

Now it doesn't mean what you are doesn't have to be modernized, right? For sure. But how you do it. may actually be what you're remembered for. During my tenure as CEO, I would tell the workforce, go faster, go faster. We gotta go faster, faster, faster. I'm like, they think that's the only word I know, you know. And then like I had this epiphany one day.

'Cause I could see people were tired. They're working so hard. And some of the outcomes weren't changing and I thought Okay, wait a second, this isn't fair. That would lead me down a whole other path of agile design thinking, net promoter sc a lot of things that you never see on the outside, but make a difference on the inside. And

And I think often in those moments of crisis to change, people forget to look at the how, they just look at the what. When you mentioned your workforce feeling like they were getting tired'cause you were you were pushing them too much. We're all tired these days. This challenge about how to manage the workforce is something that We're all struggling with right now between Remote work and in office or lifetime careers versus You know, tours of duty.

really two important themes. Right now. I think this idea of How clear is the purpose of the company and do people feel connected to it.

And the second one is Flexibility. And that is different than work life balance. It doesn't mean that You're all in the office or all not. I mean

I was very familiar with hybrid. We already had hybrid work. And so I feel that was a benefit because it took years for people to self govern themselves to learn how to do that. So for companies that had none of it, I could see why that's a struggle, because You can't let everybody decide what to do on any given day.

But I think the workforce of the future, if I had to pick two words, it would have been purpose and flexibility. And can you double click for me on like flexibility versus work life balance? Like what's the difference there? To me. Work life balance says that I want you to be sure that I have all this time extra time perhaps to do something.

And that's a good thing. Flexibility says, No, let me determine, all right, I've got to take these days off, or I am gonna work in this kind of way when I have to. Or it may even be. Yes, I am going to take off'cause I have an ill parent for X months. Or it might be I can get my work done.

Partly Working with my team this way, not that way. In That's probably a lot more levers than just work life balance, I think. And so that's to me the difference I draw between them.

I mean there's something about the work life balance that has come to imply Sort of more limited ambition. In a certain way. That I'm throttling back on my work in order to have my life. I actually think

I had to force myself to learn that. I had a Force myself To take Time.

For relationships. Could I be in the moment? I would be at dinner with my husband and I go to the restroom and of course I would be on my phone and I don't realize how much time would go by and I would come back and he's like, Oh yeah, great, super, you've been your phone. And I'm like, Okay, this is really not a quality evening, you know, is it? And I'm sure many people can identify with that point. I had to learn to draw the boundaries that I needed to make time. It might be my family, but it could be my friends, it could be my co workers, it could be my colleagues.

If I made that quality time, I learned so much. Yeah. They gave me perspective on big problems that were there that I often, you know, you might not see. And I know you could hope and pray that a company's gonna give up a perfect formula to you

But for most of us. It's what we do to ourselves. And I had to learn that I had to draw boundaries.

And The only person who could do it was me. You will do better work. if you give yourself in your mind some space and some time and w however you define it. It could be working out, it could be doing something with kids, it could be reading, it doesn't matter. It's whatever gives your brain, you know, kind of that.

We'll pause back a minute. And I'm like the irony is the time you give it may be the greatest fuel. You'll actually get. I think a lot of people have been struggling with that, particularly over the last three years. as the intensity of the environment

has seemed to be sort of Unending. It's hard'cause I always say work Leaders, they will suck everything out of you that you'll give. I mean a comp it's an innate object. It'll pull. It there'll be no end. So I feel like for each of us, we have to then draw those lines ourselves somehow. To do it.

And as a business person who is overseeing people who may be doing this like How much responsibility do you have to sort of Help that team. I know. Well that's what I mean. It's'cause it's easy. You might say, God, I love how hard they all everyone works, you know? And but I would say to people,'cause I say, look, guys, some of how I work, I work'cause I like it. This is my pleasure. And

I would try to go out of my way to say to people, I do not expect you to do the same thing. Some people would say to me, Hey, look, you know, when you when you send me notes every hour of the day on the weekend, it makes me feel I should be on looking at'em every hour of the day of the weekend. And I'm like Honestly, that isn't really why I'm sending'em them. I'm like getting'em through my funnel, you know? I didn't actually expect you to have to answer them immediately. I've seen others say, Hey, look. I just don't send some people this or that or because I know the pressure I'm putting on them and it's not the pressure I mean to do. So

It's both sides. What you can do and but there is as a leader the things you could do to not Like send the wrong signal you're really not trying to send. So From the context that you've seen what do you think is at stake right now for businesses, for business leaders, for all of us.

You know, the biggest thing that I think about Is The social fabric. of a country, country's The social economic divide.

people feeling that their future will be better. This is the first time I'm not so sure a generation says that their future will be better than their parents' generation, right? Saw things. And so that tears away at a social fabric, that tears away at democracy, is not a good ending there. We all think about it.

how people can thrive. in this next era which is clearly gonna be driven by digital transformation. Now I gotta make sure that people can see their place in that world. Well, Jenny, this has been great. Thank you so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. It's good to catch up with you after all this time, Bob. Thank you.

Hey there, it's Jill Slesinger. I'm launching a new show. It's called Money Moves, and your money is going to move. We're gonna help you make better financial decisions. We're gonna call out the BS you're finding all over social media. We're gonna give you actionable guidance to make your financial life clearer, less stressful. We're gonna answer your financial questions and take the mystery out of your financial life. Follow and listen to Money Moves with Jill Schlesinger wherever you get your podcast. Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday we release a second rapid response exclusively in the rapid response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada.

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