Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan

I find today's guest irresistible.

I keep wondering what mix of gumption, circumstance, and public policies slingshots a poor daughter of a teenage mom into the boardroom of one of the most iconic companies in the world.

If you ask her, it's a story that has to do with neighbors, food stamps, a scholarship, and taking the need for good power seriously.

If you ask me how this fatherless girl became the CEO of IBM, I'd say I think it's the stuff of dreams, perhaps uniquely American dreams.

I'm Kelly Corrigan, this is "Tell Me More," and here is my conversation with engineer, mama bear, and Fortune's number-one most powerful woman in the world three times over, Ginni Rometty.

Hello!

You made it.

Nice to see you.

Nice to see you, too.

Thanks a lot for saying yes.

Thank you for inviting me.

Come on.

Let's go up here and get settled.

Your mom eloped at 17...

Yes.

Had four kids, your dad left.

You happened to overhear the conversation.

So, I was 16 years old, and I walked into the garage, and I overheard my father talking to my mother.

They did not see me standing there.

And I heard my dad say to my mom, "I don't care what happens to you.

In fact, I don't care what happens to any of you."

And the garage door was open, and I remember him turning around and walking out and getting in the car and driving away.

And somehow... after she caught her breath, shall we say, she found herself a way to get employed, just a high-school graduate with four little kids.

Yeah.

It was never that my mother spoke about what happened.

In fact, even that day, she turned around.

She wasn't crying.

At least, we never saw her cry.

And it was...

Nothing was ever said.

And often she'll say to me, "Oh, my.

How did all you kids end up okay?"

And I always say that it's because we watched and learned.

My mom was smart, but she'd had no opportunity to get a college degree, to go back to school.

So, the opportunity wasn't there, meaning the access, but she clearly had the aptitude.

She went to a community college.

It allowed her to get a better job and make a little bit more money.

To me, that is the promise of the American dream, that anyone can get a good job if they try and that that's enough to raise a family, that you can become anything you want to be.

You went to college on a scholarship.

You went to Northwestern.

I did.

I only applied to two schools.

You know, I couldn't afford to apply to more places.

And how I ended up with applying to two in Northwestern was I couldn't get on a plane.

So, how far, you know, a train could take me there, and it was 45 minutes away, and I thought that was my stretch school.

And the other school was University of Illinois, which I thought, well, for sure I could probably get in-- a state school.

I was hoping.

And Northwestern was private.

And they were also something else that's really interesting.

They were need-aware, or, in other words, if you could get in academically, they would sort out your financials.

And there are not that many.

To this day, Northwestern has got that same program and same philosophy.

But, to me, that said a lot to a student, meaning, if I can get in, then they'll help me find the way to pay for it.

Right.

And that's so interesting because I feel like your life has all the components of this amazing story-- like, so much bad luck and so much good luck, so much gumption, and then also circumstances or certain public policies, like food stamps, that kind of glue your life together or this policy at Northwestern and many other schools now, where, "If you can get yourself in, we're gonna figure out the money."

Yeah, this is so important, and this will color so much of the rest of my life as I will reflect back on those things and the importance of a social safety net.

I think the most underappreciated are teachers, because it was these teachers who would say, "No, no, no.

You could be these things" or "Go apply for this scholarship" or "Okay, let me stay after school and help you with this."

And I meet so many people that will talk about people in their life, often teachers, that always said, "No, no, no.

You can do this.

You can do this.

We'll find a way."

And, as you say, it's, yes, circumstances, but it's that kind of community in a village that is silently and not-so-silently always sort of rooting you on.

It also, like, makes for a certain ethos within you that plays out over this enormous 40-year career at IBM.

There's something special about IBM, which, hilariously, when it first started in 1911, one of the business machines it made was, like, an automatic meat slicer.

Yes, and cheese slicer, too.

But Thomas Watson had taken this responsibility for the corporation.

What did he put out there in the world before even civil rights?

Equal opportunity and that everyone should be paid the same for the same work and that it didn't matter what race, religion, creed.

So, I always say to people, "I was really lucky."

I did work for General Motors for a short time before IBM, but then IBM, both companies really steeped in values, which you don't even know it at the time, because it's what you're surrounded by, right?

I remember reading that, for four years, every Friday, you would teach a class to your leadership group on Zoom.

Okay, this teaching thing did get out of control.

Yes, I always...I think through my whole like, you know, I was always trying to teach, and I guess that was my way to show people that you cared for them.

And so this one now, what you're referencing, is when I would become CEO and the company really had to move to the future, and it was not really prepared, and 2 out of 10 people had the skills for the future, good skills for the moment but not the future.

And I thought, "Okay, I have to role-model this, "and so we're gonna make compulsory education "the first Friday of every month, and I have to teach at least the first hour."

I couldn't teach all of it, but I have to teach the first hour to show everyone, like, all of us have to learn.

And I've always really believed that.

Someone once said to me, "You need to be able to dance when your team can't."

And it's that idea that "I, too, have to learn new things, and I have to learn them well enough to teach you."

And the kinds of skills that you were trying to develop are understanding AI and Cloud computing and consulting.

Like, what was in that curriculum?

So, first it was just teaching what those things were, but it was more about how to apply it, and it was also trying to signal something else which I firmly believe in for everyone, is this idea of continuous learning.

And in this world of tech right now-- I mean, I really worry because tech skills can obsolete in three to five years.

And this idea that education is once and done is really an old idea, and that roots to, then, why so many things in the country have to change about our whole education system, because people are gonna end up going back for lessons and skills in all different ways throughout their whole life.

Ah, but the difference is, when they're doing it later in life, they have obligations, they have families, you know, and it can't be, like, "Oh, let me stop and go to school for two years."

Mm-mmm.

So, we need to modify a lot of different programs that allow for people to go back to school, but it's all because I think the most valuable skill somebody can have is their willingness to learn.

You retired in 2020...

Yes, the end of 2020.

Before George Floyd was murdered.

When he was murdered, you witnessed, as everyone did, this complete rupture, and you turned to Ken Frazier.

Yes.

Tell me more.

I can tell you what happened in that moment, and I think it's important, and what led up to it.

So, I had announced my retirement.

I was chairman at the time.

So, this was in the spring of 2020 when we all collectively witnessed that murder of George Floyd, right?

Which, I think that collective witnessing of something really brought to so many people's consciousness that systemic racism was so profound.

I've always never been a big one for just Tweeting about something.

Action, action, action instead, right?

And I can remember, at the time, Ken Frazier, Ken Chenault, who I think are two of the great leaders in this country.

They're certainly two of the most senior Black leaders in this country.

And they said, "No, no, no.

We should do what business does best, is hire people."

And sitting there, I was thinking, "They're exactly right."

I said, "Oh, my god.

"The last 15 years, I've worked on this topic.

I think I have the 'how'."

And it is this idea to hire people for their skills, not just their degrees, and it would be so cemented in things like, if-- The fact I think no one understands-- 80% of Black Americans do not have a college degree.

8-0.

65% of Americans do not have a college degree.

Yet, my experience at IBM-- and I think we were a good decade or so ahead of everyone on this-- was that, you know what?

Our great, good jobs... probably 50% were all overcredentialed, meaning they required a college degree.

And there's a history to how it happened at all big companies, in any company, big and small.

It's a shortcut really.

It was a shortcut, right?

And it's got a little bit of the mentality of "I'm gonna buy a skill versus build a skill" and this idea, you know, check box.

First thing I ask-- "Do you have a degree?"

IBM is a company, great company.

95% of our jobs required a Ph.D. or a college degree to be hired, 95%.

I would go on and learn, mmm... 50% require that to get started, not the other 50, and I thought to myself, "Oh, my gosh, I am leaving out a huge new talent pool."

90% were Black Americans, Black or brown, but were people underrepresented.

I wanted this diverse workforce.

Because there was this barrier.

There was.

I call it a false barrier.

I walked into a room on corporate social responsibility, and they said, "Hey, I want to tell you "about this one school we're working at in Brooklyn.

"It is a very low-income section of the community.

"And we have this idea.

"We're gonna work with a community college, "and we are going to take this school, "offer to give an input "on a curriculum that business wants.

"We will offer them internships, the students, and a chance at a job, first in line, if we have one."

All of a sudden, we hire them into cybersecurity jobs.

Did a great job.

Now, these are all first-generation.

They'd gotten an associate degree in parallel to their high-school degree, and we would hire them.

And a year later, I came back, and I said, "Well, how many did we hire?"

They're like, "A handful."

I'm like, "Why a handful?

They're doing great."

I need thousands.

Exactly.

And the answer was, "But all our jobs require a college degree."

That would take five years.

I would have to deal with the bias in the company, because people said, "You're dumbing down the workforce now."

We were not.

We had to collect data to show that, no, guess what.

They're performing, over time, just as well, and, by the way, 75% went back and got college degrees once they saw what was possible.

And then I thought, wow, I have prepared a life for this, this idea of, if I can now help my colleagues look at it this way, and if we could even create a movement around the world on the idea of hiring people for their skills, not just their degrees, because so many people feel left out of the economy because, in fact, they have been, if you look at the numbers.

Sure.

And this is the only way forward in my mind.

It's like a dignity-making machine.

It's like a stability-making machine.

It's a terrific economic engine.

It's better for the companies themselves.

Like, there's... To me, it felt like any way you look at this, it's, like, a total thrill.

Honestly, I believe democracy hinges on this topic, because democracy can be sustained when people believe they have a better future in front of them.

And right now, the data would show you that that's not what people believe.

The whole middle class of our country has really been wiped out.

I did some work with MIT-- They did the work.

I participated on the work of the future.

And this barbell effect, that there are a lot of jobs that are higher-paying that have emerged, but a lot more lower-paying.

And that middle that really sustained, in my mind, democracy and the middle class and the American dream, it's been hollowed out.

And the reason-- You might look over time and go, "Well, wait, wait, wait.

"Productivity is up 66%.

Wages in aggregate up a lot, too."

But the median wage is only up 9%, which means the number that most people see over this long period of time.

And that just tells you that, no, the workforce has gone in two different directions, and they're separated by this college-degree barrier.

And so, that's why I think the idea that if more people could have a better future, to me, that is what democracy hinges on, which is why I say, "Wow.

"This is a very practical thing "that we can do to bring more people into the workforce "and into better-paying jobs that could sustain a family of four."

After George Floyd's murder and the group of us came together, we said, okay, to hire, we came up with an organization, a nonprofit.

One Ten means one million Black Americans into family-sustaining jobs, not just any job, over the next 10 years.

And, you know, sort of clinically, it's working on supply and demand.

On one side, we have to go work with all of the companies in this country and say to them, "Please, adopt a skills-first paradigm."

And it does take the boss to agree, because there's lots of other sort of unconscious bias about this topic, and even people to say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Do you mean a two-class world here "where some of you can have a college degree "and the rest of us don't need it and we're not good enough?"

We're like, "No.

Where you start should not determine where you end."

Poverty is also, yes, money, but it's also that side of opportunity.

And so, there is so much more to do than just give people money.

The point is, did you get something worth value for that, or did you give someone the dignity of a job.

Why is it important that corporations show up in those conversations?

Yeah, I think each company has to decide what is most important to them.

And it's almost a dialogue to have with both your shareholders and your employees, right?

And I did.

I said, look, for me, in my time, there were three-- anything that affected trust, if people believed in us, because, you know, here we do big companies, important, mission-critical work, right?

I have other data.

They've got to trust I'm not gonna do bad things with it.

So, trust was one.

The other was I need the most diverse and inclusive workforce, back to, like, what was-- I know, if my workforce is diverse and inclusive, I'll get a better product at the end of the day.

And then the third was, I did feel, being a tech company, I had an obligation to prepare society to think technology would be good for them because they'd have the skills to live in the future, right?

And this gets all put together here.

So, those were the three things important to me.

So, trust, inclusion, and preparing society.

So, I did feel on those.

I couldn't speak out on every element, but I picked them to make the point, because I couldn't run a good business if I did not have great employees.

And, again, I think this happens a little bit with companies that are older.

You understand this, that if society doesn't think you're helping them, they revoke your license in some way.

Does your experience on something like the business roundtable or working with Ken and Ken on One Ten make you optimistic for the future of America?

It does, because you know why?

It tells me that all of us can have an impact on that.

I don't have to wait for government.

I don't have to wait for some Superman to fly in--or woman-- to make something happen.

There is a way forward.

It doesn't happen in giant steps, by the way.

It happens in little steps, because, I mean, I think about everything in my life that led to where it was.

It wasn't just one thing.

Right.

And just like this work, okay, it started with one little school, and then, even my program, that grew to, you know, a couple hundred thousand people, but then more companies got on the bandwagon, and now we're in 30 countries, and now we've got, you know, One Ten has hired a hundred thousand people.

And I just think that's how change happens.

All of a sudden, you look back one day, and you say, "Wow.

This actually changed."

And it just can't be perfect, right?

And some people want perfect right now, and that isn't gonna happen.

It's pragmatic.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a sophisticated, mature understanding of incrementalism.

I guess, right?

Because some people think, "My way or the highway," right?

Or "You're with me, or you're against me."

Yeah.

And that is not, to me, a way to make any kind of progress.

I think that you must have been asked a thousand times to go to "women in tech" conferences and be the "female engineer" and the voice of this specific thing, but it's not really how you identified yourself.

You just wanted to be an engineer.

Yes, yes.

And I don't know if that's just that I'm a product of the Seventies, in that I was often the only woman in these rooms, even when I was in engineering class.

When people would say and want me to talk about women things, I'd be like, "No, no, no.

Recognize me for my professional credentials, please."

You know, I said no to everything.

And at one point, I can remember I was at a conference in Australia, giving a speech on financial services.

A man walks up to me.

I think he's gonna ask me, like, a great question about it.

And he says, "I wish my daughter had been here."

And I can remember like it was yesterday.

And in that moment, I realized, "This isn't really about me" and to really advocate for women in these roles and advocate for why.

You know, I was an engineer.

What I thought engineering did was teach me how to solve problems.

I would put every kid in engineering if I could, because any job is a problem, you know.

Even when I became CEO, every headline wrote about the first woman, and many people said to me, "Don't do any media.

Don't do anything."

And I listened, and that was probably a big mistake, because if you don't define who you are, someone else will.

And that's the biggest lesson I learned from my mom-- not just access and aptitude.

My mom was not willing to let my father define her as a victim, no way.

And so, again, she never said it, but what we took away was, "Only you get to define who you are, right?

Not someone else."

And that would all start to sink into me then on this topic.

Somebody told you early in your career that you're like a velvet hammer.

I was at a client, a big meeting and had to give them bad news, and I gave them the bad news.

And the CEO of the company came up to me after, and he said, "You know, you're a velvet hammer."

And I thought, "Oh, boy."

You know, I was like, "Is a hammer a good thing?"

You know, "This is not good."

And he said, "No, no, no.

"It's a way to tell people really bad things but in a way that they could constructively move forward."

It's, to me, one of those things that, when you're in service of something, it doesn't mean that you never speak about the difficulties or the bad parts of something.

But you can do that with people in a way that creates hope to move forward than in a way that debilitates them.

It could be not fear-based.

It could be done with respect.

It's not polarization.

So, it's a way I'm comfortable leading--right?--in my own way.

And a velvet hammer is one of them versus denigrating someone.

Well, it also sort of sets an expectation that the people around you should also be comfortable sharing with you bad news... That's right.

In a way that's productive and forward-looking.

That's right.

And look, I would learn that over time, how to make people more and more comfortable, because the more responsibility you take on, the less people really do want to tell you bad things.

They want to tell you what you want to hear.

So, you have to make an extra effort to go get that information.

Shirley Jackson is a great role model for you.

Why?

As I say to Shirley, to her face, I tell her I think she is a force of nature.

Shirley Jackson just actually stepped down and retired from having run RPI, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, for 20 years as its president.

But, before that, the Shirley I met and have known a long time, she was also the first Black woman PhD out of MIT, a nuclear physicist.

She's such a role model for so many people.

And what I saw was a women who led with her intellect, tough as nails, but a big heart.

And so, that's why, you know, she led the Nuclear Regulation Commission at one time.

She's done many, many things, always in a man's world for certain in many of these areas-- public policy and educational institution.

I've seen her in the role of being a board member.

She was a board member on IBM and many other great institutions in this company and just did wonderful work.

Another guest in this series that we just were with-- I wish I could have put you together-- is Gitanjali Roa.

She talked about her dream for education.

If she could make one change, it would be that the grades you got would not be about your outcome, but more about your process and how curiosity played into your work and how much effort you put into it.

I agree in many ways.

It's funny, because I've often said that always remember how you do your work may be more important than what you do.

I think that idea for schools about how to give people an experience, the doing part, how to re-create a problem, do problem-solving, while some people call that "soft skills," it's way more than that, right?

And so, when we worked on these six-year high schools, I can remember a gentleman named Rashid Davis as the principal of this very first school.

He is one of the heroes out of all of the work on Skills First, because he was really the pioneer that said, "I'll be the principal of this school."

Is Rashid your plus-one?

I need to put a spotlight on that man for what he has done, and, you know, here he was, the very first principal of this nascent idea of this school.

They're called Pathway to Technology Early College High School, P-TECH.

You get a high-school degree and then an associate degree in parallel.

But his background is what's so phenomenal-- three master's degrees, et cetera.

And he said his grandparents, as he was being raised, just like me, he said manners are so important, as is respect.

But he so strongly believes that he's there to be in service not to teach, to be in service of students, and that any student is capable.

The first thing we're teaching them is how to problem-solve, how to work together, all these other things, more the "hows," right, before they got into that.

And I said--it really was a wakeup to me-- "I will hire you for your propensity to learn.

I can teach you anything else," right?

And that idea of what she's talking about is very germane to this thought.

The real thing I want you to be able to do is how to approach a problem and how to solve a problem.

And that's the most important thing someone can teach you when you're in school.

This is, to me, the heart of what now, in education, it, for me, would change how we would hire at IBM.

The number-one thing we'd look for is curiosity and propensity to learn versus a hard skill.

Are you ready for the "Tell Me More" speed round?

Sure.

First concert?

Chicago.

A band.

Where?

Chicago.

I'd never been on a plane.

Ha ha!

What's the last book that blew you away?

Actually, I read one just a month or so ago called "My Seven Black Fathers."

It very much gets to the heart of what we're speaking about, the importance of role models.

It doesn't matter what circumstance you're born into, the importance of role models in your life, and particularly male role models for a young Black man.

If your high-school did superlatives, what would you have been most likely to become?

I actually think it was, I'm sorry to say, like, most likely to be president, something like that.

You're not the first person who has had that be their superlative.

It might be, like, a prerequisite.

A prerequisite to this?

Yes.

A prerequisite to being a "Tell Me More" guest.

Who's your favorite celebrity crush?

Bruno Mars.

I could be his grandmother.

Ha ha ha.

What is your go-to mantra for hard times?

There's always a way forward.

What's something big you've been wrong about?

There were times I worked so hard at something, and I couldn't get it done and almost failed when I finally asked for help.

And I finally now understand that asking for help is a sign of strength, not a weakness.

If you could pass one law or overturn one Supreme Court case?

I would go back to "Roe vs.

Wade."

But I would also then amend the Higher Education Act.

If you could say four words to anyone, who would you address and what would you say?

What jumps in my mind is my husband Mark, and I would say "Love of my life."

You're such a joy to be with.

Thanks so much.

It's a pleasure.

Oh, thank you.

Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Ginni Rometty.

Number one, don't confuse access for aptitude.

Number two, where you start need not determine where you finish.

Number three, let no one define your identity for you.

And number four-- spread the word-- not all great jobs require a college degree to start.