Using Your Power for Good with Ginni Rometty

Gautam Mukunda (0:00)

To lead is to exercise power. Leaving a legacy means using that power for good.

Ginni Rometty (0:07)

Good power loves tension, runs towards conflict, but in doing so, it should unite people, not separate them.

SPEAKER_3 (0:17)

World Reimagined with Gautam mukunda, a leadership podcast for a changing world, an original podcast from NASDAQ.

Ginni Rometty (0:29)

My mom taught me, don't ever let someone define who you are. Only you define who you are. She would not let my father define who she or our family would be. I think she also really taught me something that has stayed with me my whole life is that access and aptitude are two different things. Meaning, my mom wasn't dumb. She was actually quite bright if I could use those words, but she had no access to anything. And it would be cemented in my mind, and it turned out there are a lot of people like that, that God kind of spreads talent evenly, but access is not so equal in this world.

Gautam Mukunda (1:02)

Fifty years ago, Ginni Rometty's father walked out of her life, leaving behind Ginni's mother and her younger siblings. Three years ago, she retired as IBM's president, chairman, and CEO. Today, she co-chairs the OneTen Foundation, and her work there is shaped by that story. At one point in her life, she was the most powerful person at one of the world's largest companies. At another, she was almost powerless. That life story has made her think deeply about the dynamics in the world around her. She's even written a book about them called Good Power, in which she takes a long, hard look at who has clout, who needs it, and perhaps most importantly, how to do the most good with it.

Ginni Rometty (1:47)

I have to tell you, there's a reason I ended up writing a book, and I saw it really crisply said in something you wrote, or at least you quoted someone, and you said that 90% of people who get power, it's a negative thing, that they become aggressive, or maybe they lie, or they do things that are defensive and the like. That to me is why I ended up writing a book, because I have a really strong belief, in the book I called Good Power, ironically, that every one of us can do really hard stuff, but we could do it in a positive way. And I didn't feel it was something like just me, I'm a unicorn case of this. I thought it was what I learned, in that others can learn it too, in that it's a power that grows over time, in that therefore don't shy away from wanting to solve big problems. There's a way to do it, that is a really positive way, it's a choice you can make. It'll grow, as I said, with time and its potency. And could I share some lessons for how people did that? So then, what about my view about people in this focus on access and aptitude now? It's got a lot to do with that today there's so many examples of bad power out there, you don't have to look very far, that I really felt maybe the time was right to show people that how they did their work could be as important as what they do. And so we often talk about what someone does, and I kind of learned through some hard lessons learned that how is probably the more enduring part, and it may be your greatest legacy, not just what you do.

Gautam Mukunda (3:15)

So let's drill in on that because, I mean, I find that to be fascinating, obviously. So what is power and how do you use it for good instead of for evil? So how do you define good power?

Ginni Rometty (3:25)

I define good power as having a couple of attributes. To me, good power loves tension, which is kind of a people don't necessarily think of that. Good power loves tension, runs towards conflict, but in doing so, it should unite people, not separate them. It should do it with respect, not fear.

And I think another kind of really important attribute, which sounds simple, is if you would just celebrate some progress and not try for perfection, you might be surprised what you could accomplish. And so that were some of the tenets of good power, like what I learned from really great people. There was a pattern of some principles, I felt, that were there that we could talk about. But in the main arc, good power has to do with loving tension. It has to do with being respectful, and it has to do with celebrating progress. And I think what people don't realize is, you have power as an individual. You know, I always say, my mom had power, Gautam, when she had nothing else. That is what that taught me. My mother had the power to change that situation, and she had nothing. And I'm like, wow, if she could do that, a lot of us can do a lot of things.