Summer book series: Ursula Burns

Fortune five hundred lists featured two black women. We'll get to the corporate world's painfully slow diversity progress later, but now the former Zerox CEO is adding another big first to her achievements. First time author. I'm not a writer, I don't pretend to even be one, and when this thing started I could not believe that I had committed to do this. She did commit to it and finished it, and her memoir called Where You Are Is Not Who

You Are, is out now and it's fantastic. Unlike a lot of books written by business leaders, this one is about so much more than the corporate world. Ursula gets very personal, sharing her childhood growing up in public housing in New York City, her Catholic school days, her marriage, and yes her thirty year ascent to the tippy top of Xerox's ladder. In her prolog, Ursla admits writing this life journey was one of the most difficult things she's ever had to do, which, let's be honest, is saying

a lot. So we started our conversation there. Why do you think it was so hard, Ursula? Because I did it right in the middle of a huge number of transitions in my life. Right one was the most obvious was this pandemic. So I started the book before the pandemic and then had to go back and re read it for the fiftieth time in the context of the pandemic and bring the book forward some of the messages forward to the pandemic time. There was one one big issue.

The other is my husband passed away in January of two thousand and nineteen, very unexpectedly. I know, I'm so sorry, or and I was in the middle of this thing as well. It was close to the end, and it really did. The book made it really difficult to kind of live in that moment because I had to, you know, living that moment. Looking back at all of the my life, my whole life, of which most of it was with him. It's Okay, it's really hard to kind of put it

in context. It was just very difficult from that perspective, as I can't imagine, honestly having to do that and also deal with grieving and the fact that your husband's death was so unexpected, and you know, I found when my husband died, gosh, now twenty plus years ago, even trying to concentrate was next to impossible. So very, very, very difficult. You know, he's so exactly on point what you just said. How you know you don't think about

I didn't. My mother died when I was twenty five, and that was a shock in my life, right and she was very young. She was forty nine when she died. And a parent dying is one thing, it's crushing a spouse dying. Even if my husband was twenty years old than I was, he was eighty years old when he died. His his death was unexpected. I mean it was literally even though he knew he was getting older. It was not something that I had brought into a context that

I could think about at all. So when I had to, when I'm writing this book, he dies, and then I have to basically stopped writing it, primarily because it couldn't concentrate on anything, and the things that I had to concentrate on to write and to review it, we're so um horrible. From a contact standpoint, I didn't want to think about my mother's death. I didn't want to think about really great times, right because then I didn't want

to think about really bad times. So basically have to kind of step away from the book for a long time, step away from writing and thinking about it. And then the third thing is we were going through a really tough political time where there was not a message that was coming from anywhere that was like peaceful. There was no there was no place to rest, like your mind.

It was every time you every time I woke up, and if I read anything about what was happening in politics in the US, it just threw me into another noneother tail spin. So I had to take literally when they say time out, I had to take time out and just kind of move away and not think about it, and not think about my life and not think about how you're trying to kind of put it in the context of a book, because you said what you said was so you don't live your life in reverse, you

live your life going forward. So you never think, you know, the day that passed right before you, which I retell days that happened before me in the book are not concept funchal when they're happening, so you don't think about them in that context. You just think about them, is okay, so another day. But when you retell them, you retell them from this perspective as if you knew they were consequential, and they aren't. And I'm an engineer, so everything was

kind of illogical about the whole thing. And finally I got through with my goodness, thank goodness, I got through the whole process, and my The woman who helped me, help me write, her name is Linda Frankie. It's very very good. She was as good a because I did all little writing right, I tell her, you know how, you know how the process goes right, tells you back then you have to read it and put it in context. And I would dwell on certain things and try to

become really precise. And she was just very good at at kind of moving me on. It's not letting you get too deep into the minutia. But but in addition to that, of course, you talk about the political scene. We have this massive racial reckoning with the Black Lives Matter movement that intersected with the pandemic. So, uh, that's something that I think you've lived your entire life and career. On the other hand, did that change the tone of

the book or did you? I know, you had to go back and make sure that you did it from the vantage point of where we are rather than where you were when the book started. Absolutely, and it did

change the tone a little bit. My daughter keeps telling me that I have to watch to not be shrill because sometimes I get yeah, when I get into to not be shrill, because you know, sometimes you get to the point where you just are so engaged, so angry, so um emotional about the topic that you get really wrapped up into it and it gets um almost like a lecture. We'll tell your daughter that's a very gendered word, ursula. And I can't believe at her age she's telling you

not to be shrill. I need to talk to her. My daughter is actually very um astute on these types of things. She's a writer. She used it to me for a very specific reason. It's kind of like the way I raised the kids. I would get into it. But the point was that I had to kind of

become emotional, but not be so emotional. And there at some points in the in the book, and some points even in the retelling, and when I was speaking in press around around the you know, George Floyd's murder around this whole time, how emotional and how troubling it was to me that we are, that we are at a point in this country. I'm at a point in my life where I have I have quote unquote arrived, Katie. I'm you know, literally, I have more money that could

possibly imagine. I am engaged in places I never thought I would be. I have access to people that I couldn't even can't even imagine, I know, much less hang out with regularly. I'm very kind of set and I now and even for my whole life, I've been involved with kind of pushing it out and giving back. But I sit here, and I sat there and said, can

you can I believe? Can Ursula Burns believe that this is two thousand and twenty and we're still talking about and dealing with and living with, very visually people who have total disregard for other people's lives, who and and and people who speak about it in leadership as if it were a transaction, you know, just it just happened. So, no, there's a bigger context to this, there is more emotion to this. There are people who are affected in this,

and it has become ordinary. And that was to the point, was that, you know, George Floyd and his family, George Floyd suffered the ultimate and his family suffered. But I don't think that the the political leadership understood that the nation was struggling and that we, even though it wasn't our direct family, we black and white, young and old, were struggling, and instead of getting any kind of solace or comfort, we got unbelievable responses like, you know, why

is this such a big deal? This whole context of well he was a criminal. There's a whole bunch of unfeeling in the middle of a pandemic. In the end, so there was this like this kind of big gap of don't you know what we need as a nation? Don't you know what we need these people? Don't you know what we need as a world? And the answer was they The answer was no, I don't know, and if I didn't know, I don't particularly care. And do

you think that things are changing? Our's law. I can't help but think as I look around that we are in the midst of a seismic cultural shift and attitudes about race, diversity, equality inclusion, that these things are being talked about in a way in my lifetime they have never been talked about. Praise the Lord, thank God. And do you see that too? Absolutely it is such. And I'm asked all the time, asked all the time whether or not this is a you know it's gonna last.

So I always put it in the context of the of Hamiltons, and right, is it a moment or a movement? And we are It could be a moment if we let it be a moment if we just basically back off, we meaning citizens in the world, we just back off black and white, male and female, and just said the status quo, the way we were living before is generally okay,

we'll just go back to that. Or if we that's the moment, the movement, which is what I feel, which is what I think you're saying you feel and see as well that the movement is We're not We're not able to forget everything and move backwards. We have to move forward. I don't know what that is going to look like at the end, but I know it's not

going to be what it was before. If we keep our voices in the right tone and are really inclusive of a lot of people's ideas, we will actually make progress, not just changed, so it will be changed for the better. I am so optimistic about this happening. Generally atenistic, but I'm so optimistic about this happening because we, we people

will not allow it to just swipp slip back. We will not allow the what I call the essential worker, Okay, the essential worker who became essential only when we wanted them to be essential. But before that, we didn't pay any attention to them. Most of these people, we wouldn't even pay them more than fifteen dollars an hour. We're know these essential workers became core and critical to our lives.

Black people, under resourced people became visible to us for the first time, really, and I think it's a it's a good time and the book. Part of the journey of the book when I read it again in the final time, was I how do I say this? I started there, That's my life, That's who I was, That's who my mother was. For sure, she was a person an invisible person, and that I want to ask you about her because you have had such a fascinating life.

Firstless so impressive. Your mom was an absolute saint, and she died, as you mentioned, at forty nine. She was an immigrant from Panama. I was so struck when you wrote about her biggest annual income was fort dollars and three a year. Yes, had three children. Um raised you all to value the importance of education. Your mom was a truly amazing woman. And one of the things that prompted me to ask you that that question now is

that forty nine she died. If she had had access to better medical care, for example, you're convinced that she would have lived a much longer life. But talk about your mom for a minute, because what an unsung heroine of not only your life, but probably represents a lot of women like her. Yeah. I think that this is the backbone of America. It is the dream of America embodied in my mother. She did it. She basically came here with very little, like literally nothing. She had a

high school education. She at the time had a husband, he was he left early. A mother never spent time thinking about or talking about what we did not have that was not part of our daily discussions ever, including my father. Never literally my aunt's told me about my father. So my mother was just this person who when I tell the story, when the when you look back, it seems like she was this perfect saint. She was a typical mother because she she cared about her children immensely.

She sacrificed everything in her sphere for us. That's basically she lived for us. She had no idea she was gonna diet for you nine Obviously, she thought that if she raised good kids, and this is part of her spiritualism, her religion, that if she thought she raised good kids, that God would take care of everything. Else. She thought if she raised kids that worked hard and took care of themselves and big for her, took care of each other,

that God would take care of everything. So she had these fundamental beliefs that a lot of you know, just regular good old fashion hard work, keep an eye on the people who are close to you. She struggled, And when I was about sixteen or seventeen, I realized my mother was really struggling. You know, when your kids you

just figure this is the way everybody lives. My mother literally woke up early every single day, went to bed late every single night, and every day she had to figure out a way to have food for us on the table, to keep us physically safe, to get enough money to pay basic things. I learned later how much she bartered for just about everything. How she would go to my high school. I have to have discussions with

my high school because she couldn't paid the tuition. My mother paid sixty five dollars a month for me to go to high school. That's six fifty dollars a year. She made four thousand, four hundred dollars. It's just unthinkable. But the reason why it wasn't unthinkable for me when I was growing up was that she didn't make it obvious. She just made us obvious to ourselves, if you know what I mean. We were it was all about us.

He never complained. She never really didn't know. I mean, you said at sixteen she was struggling, but but she never she never talked to you all of it. I realized that when I when I was in high school, because I went to a all girls, Catholic high school, basically a high school above our meetings obviously, but it's really great school. I mean high school in in the Midtown New York City Cathedral High School. And when I went there for the first time, I took I took

the bus out of our neighborhoods. I was, what's six fourteen, I guess when I first went the first time, I took the bus out way up to quote unquote Midtown. I lived in the Lower Reside and that's where we stayed. We stayed there. That was our world. And when I moved, when I was going up and down on this bus, and I started to realize people live in these great neighborhood so this was pretty cool, and they had things

besides bodega's and and the like. And then I went to school and met other children and their parents and realized just the look of my mother, the look how she dressed, how she looked. She was carrying a lot of weight. You could tell that she had a lot on her shoulders, even though it didn't you couldn't see it physically right obviously, but you could see it in her body. And that's when I said, whoa this is?

This is taking a lot from her, And is that what inspired you to achieve and to really pursue excellence, Because clearly you're a highly intelligent person, you know, And you went to to college. You started, I guess in chemical engineer and then engineering, and then you transferred to mechanical engineering. You've got your masters and mechanical engineering. I mean, what inspired you to to be such a huge achiever? Yeah, my mom, it was about in the beginning, what perspective

do you have? Right? I mean, I had no perspective on companies and hierarchies and c eos none. What I wanted to do is get a job that I that earned enough money. That's why I picked chemical engineering. This was very insightful choice about you know, I just went to a book. You're very practical, very practical. I need a job that could pay the most money after four years of college. We had no option but to go to college. But my mother said, basically no choice. I

would always say how you're gonna pay for it? She said, don't worry about that's me. You take care of your business. I'll take care of my business. And so I looked it up and it was chemical engineering. I was gonna be a chemical engineer. Four years of college. You make the most money twenty five thousand dollars or whatever. It would have been dollars. That was I was like, oh my god, because I mean twenty five thousand dollars, we

can change our life for twenty hours. It was that straightforward, that practical decision, no complications, literally dollars a year, four years of college that said. Of course I didn't go to four years. I went to five and a half year. I got my master's degree. And by the time I ended college, you know, my mother was to the point so sick, and I was dying literally a couple of

years after that. So right when I could have started to switch it back and give it to her and make her life a little bit more comfortable, which Katie would have been easy to think about this right five, I could have made her life easier without too much complications. And I ran out of time, you know, I basically that's right out of time. And she so she she died in the hospital of that is, you know, the

center the heartbeat of hospitals in New York. But this hospital, it was Bellevue, was so you know, let's overrun at that point. It was so cry would have taken care of all kinds of things that age was, you know, how it was at that time, and so she didn't get great care. I think that this is not that the people ignored her. It was just as I was not capable of pushing it. If my mother had gotten sick when I was older, I would have literally been

able to her right advocate for her. And I just didn't even know how to do it much says that it was possible to do. You know, I had no idea when my husband was sick the first time, when he got ill, way before he died along collapse, when he went into the hospital. Literally I was the general, Literally, this is what's going to happen. This is that you guys can't. I want to know what's going on, who's going to see him, et cetera. If I had half

of that, my mother would have surely been alive. Sounds like you you have a lot of I don't know. It sounds like you're you feel a lot of guilt about huge amount of guilt. Huge amount of guilt. It took me a lot of time, and I'm not gonna cry on this to get over the fact that you can't. You can't live your life backwards to force right. If you would have known, you would have done it. Differently.

But of course you didn't know, so you can't kind of keep winding back about, well, I should have done this, I should have done that. It wasn't that I knew what to do and didn't do it. I had no clue what I'm doing. That's one of the reasons why now I pushed so hard for basic things that as citizens of the world we have to have. We shouldn't have to have somebody who who has time and energy and power and position to advocate for us to get

things that are like the Pavlovs need right. Anyway, it took a lot of time for me to get past that, and even now I cry when I talked about it, because she should have been able to enjoy our success more more, not financially just being there. If you do financially that you could have been able to perfect her quality of life. And in a way you pay tribute to her ursula because your title is where you are, is not who you are, And that came from your mom.

And my mother had these amazing Pemanian English translations sayings that were She said them all the time, and of course when you're growing up you think you know, can I hear this one more time. I'm gonna explode if she says this one more time. You know, leave behind max My name is Crystal, Maxine birth Um. God doesn't like ugly, so she said, that doesn't like ugly, and that meant you yourself can't be ugly, not things you. God doesn't like ugly, so you can't be an ugly person.

She would say, leave behind more than you take away. That's how we'll measure whether or not you're successful. It is not about anything else by the whether or not you leave and every interaction more, Oh my goodness, on and on and on. She says, the world, don't worry about the world can't happen to you. You have to happen to the world. You know, all these all of these statements, is like, and now I say it in the book. Throughout my life, I lived with these statements

in my head. I literally buried in my head. Didn't say them out loud all the time, but I literally think about them and was raised with them in my soul. And that's what. I'm not a perfect person by it, by any stretch of imagination if you know me, but I do you know, I actually spend a lot of time reflecting on whether, you know, what can I do better to make sure that I leave behind more than I take away, to make sure that I am happening

to the world. I'm not sitting back and saying, oh my god, I wish it those people would make it better. And one of the reasons why I spent a lot of time speaking and speaking out, particularly the younger people, is that we have to engage. We cannot count on others to take care of us. We have to take care of ourselves and we have to take care of others. And if we do it from that perspective and everybody does it, then people will people will be taking care

of us. My entire journey, my entire success in life, every single intrivin is based on the fact that I had a great start in life and I had help along the way. The great start in life is necessary but not sufficient, right, So it got that, and then I had unbelievable just either support from people who I don't know, fellowship here or a scholarship here, or a

job here, and people who I do know. I write about Vernon Jordan and as you know, he just passed away and he was my absolute shining light outside of my family was this man who decided that he was gonna take me under his wing, plain and simple. That was it. And out of nowhere starting in about there was this kind of guy in the background. You know, he's really big and he would always kind of be not too far away from un levable experiences. Which how

did this happen? How did I get met President Clinton? Vernon Jordan's said come on, let's go, met Barack Obama for the first time before I said, oh, I'm going to a thing, are you free, Yeah, come on over. Just context connections by people who just said, yeah, I'll

take her with me. What do you think would have happened if if if you hadn't had the kind of mentors that you were so fortunate to have Ursla, from Vernon Jordan's to ken Chenalt, to all kinds of leaders who saw something special in you and said, we're going to take her under our wing and we're going to cultivate that spark and that passion that she has. I would have had a good life. The difference between a good life, earning a good living and an amazingly great

life for me, what were these people? So I literally took my mother laid the foundation for me to have a good life. These people transformed that good life into a life where I write a book and people are going to read it, into a life where where George Floyd is murdered and I have a voice that people will listen to to try to help to amplify the issues that we are dealing with, and to amplify my ideas about some of the solutions, my ideas that are

cultivated and gotten from from friends. What the difference between that and having a good life is our friends and support and and you can't literally shoulders to stand on and people to push you and encourage you and smack you when you're doing silly things, which everybody. My husband was one of these people as well, just who just basically said, just you know, stop settled down, et cetera. It's the difference between ordinary and extraordinary. That's what friends support.

But could the kind of support that I got, That's what the outcome is when we come back. How Ursula led xerox in a world that no longer needs xeroxy. That's right after this, I was fascinated to learn that you really didn't deal with head on racism yourself until you got to college. But the reason why, Katie, is because we lived in an environment where we were all the same. I mean, so we'll got that at the Catholic school, for example, when you went there, not a

lot of problems with race for me. My brother seemed to have had more um as I found out later, but for me it was it was not. I was a very um and I say this in the book I Lived Inside my Head. I was. I'm a very self contained person, genuinely an introvert. So I actually flew below the radar screen and money most of my life. I literally did what people said fairly compliant, obeyed the rules quote unquote by the route, obeyed the rules, performed fairly well. So I was I was more um. I

was just easier to deal with. When I got to high school and then to college is when I started to to open up my mouth more. And obviously then people started to notice me more, and that was when I started to see things more. But I think that when I was, particularly when I was growing up, I saw a very little of this what we now call like and what what I saw overt rate racism, where people literally disregarded me and my accomplishments because I was

because I had I looked a certain way. And Yeah, one of the things that was good about that is that it was such bs you know it was I said it was a great, great foundation because it said it was so be it. It's it's it's debunking in my own heart. You know that when you see, uh black, when I see a black person, they're just regular people who can accomplish what everybody else can accomplish. And so I didn't kind of grew up in this whole stigma kind of a thing. I even grew up in a

bad neighborhood. I talked about this, this this is a really bad neighborhood, and this thought, Okay, we let's live in a bad neighborhood. In hindsight, you realize, particularly when I left my neighborhood, that there were choices being made by funding officials, by leaders, that we could put less resources there because these people live there, will put more resists there because these kind of people will live there. But I didn't grow up with it in my face. It's

amazing what you recognize in hindsight isn't ursula. And I'm sure that this writing this book helped you kind of put those pieces together and recognize that that racism and prejudice against you know, listen, you have the trifecta black, poor female. I said, it's in the book. A guy told me this when I was in I think I was nice. So what a third or fourth grade I was in the class he had come to school. I went to a Catholic grade school. He came to school

to speak about something I don't know. I don't even remember what it was. And I we were told to ask questions and we had all these questions arranged and I had to ask one of the questions. I asked the question. He responded. At the end, when we were leaving, we had to go up and shake his hand, and he said to me, you had such a great question. And I don't know exactly how he said it, but what he said to me was, you know, you're really smart,

and it's such a great question. It's kind of too bad that you're you're black, and you're a girl, and you're poor, basically and literally. I I put that away in the back of my head for years and then remembered it when I got a little bit older and remembered it in such a way that that it struck me that, yeah, there was one of those two, one of those three things that was really a problem, the poor part, which is something that we can work to

eliminate um throughout the world, abject poverty. And by the way, we were not We didn't have abject poverty, but we were like one level above it. I can't give people the understanding of the life that I grew up and we had. My mother had nothing, nothing, We lived in a horrible building. Walk into our apartment. It was a sanctuary. Didn't have a lot of stuff in it, but it was clean and organized. But anyway, this and I said, oh my god, it's black and and a girl. What

is what he said? Black and a girl were not things that I would trade off, even if somebody said to me, you have an option to start differently. I kind of like both of those things about me. And how can that be a strike against you? And I realized as I got older that it actually was. It actually was, And the way the only way to turn that around is to use this this isolation that you feel if you're in a big crowd to your advantage.

And I say this in the book when I started working, if there was a big meeting and all of the employees had to go, or the old of the engineers had to go, I guarantee you if I raised my hand, somebody would call me because the only person who looked like me in the room was me. Literally, when I started at Xerox, there must have been ten black women anywhere near engineering in the company. I can't, I don't. I meant no black women none. So you you transformed

your differences into an advantage, to an advantage. But basically saying they're kind, I'm pretty good, I'm pretty smart. That kind of I kind of knew that. And if and I had an opinion about everything, my mother would say, always say you're you could be wrong and strong. I

had an opinion everything even is always a bad opinion. Uh, and so I basically and I was definitely taught early to speak out to literally, I'm not sit down, and kind of just taught that your mom, my mom, my mom really pretty basics she said, if you have a point of view, she didn't quite say in these words, speak up. Nobody's gonna be able to say we read you. Nobody's gonna read your mind. My mom's motto for all

of us was let him know you're there. And I don't know where even she got that, because she was kind of shy and of a totally different generation like your mom was obviously different circumstances and much more privileged

but but not uber privileged upbringing. But she she really kind of understood, especially for her daughters, the importance of letting people know you're there, of not being a shrinking violet, of speaking your mind, of being this is this is a generational thing because if you think about your mother and my mother were in the same um generational times they were they were raising us at the start of

this kind of outcry by women. It was the beginning of this by women, the modern outcry by women to be heard and to be to have We start to realize, women start to realize that there was a little bit more to us than the public male public was giving

us credit for. And so or you know, our goal in life didn't have to be to please our bosses and to make them feel like the man, absolutely or or necessarily to please our any male colleague, including our husband, and make them feel like the men at our expense, right, So I absolutely understand how relationships work, and you obviously a lot of it has to do with making a person feel good. But what happened in the past is we did that to the exclusion of any look on ourselves.

And what we were starting to live through I know I was living through was this idea that I had a point of view and I had some worth and so this had to be a little bit more of a partnership um in marriage for sure, right And in fact, that's so critically important. You talk a lot about how your husband Lloyd supported you through the years, and we've seen millions of women drop out of the workforce during the pandemic because domestic labor is just not evenly divided.

And you know, we've been set back decades in terms of progress. And I know that that having a supportive spouse and having someone who helps is so critically important and was so critically important to your success. I want to I have to ask you about Xerox and being

the CEO. So you were one of these long time loyal employees of a corporation and that happens a lot less often now, as you know millennials and gen z s or our masters at job hoppying they are going to have fourteen jobs or so on average before they retire. But you were as loyal as the day is long to xerox um and that loyalty paid off. You became CEO of the company in two thousand nine. Is that

writer's law? And uh? But at the same time, holy cow, you kind of inherited a bit of a ship chow excuse my French, because you had to manage the decline of a company that had really seen its hey days, you know, decades before, because of of of massive changes in technology in the world. And how hard was that and what kind of shape was Xerox in when you suddenly found yourself in charge. Yeah, the good news about this is that I was preceded by a woman, right

and okay who really inherited the ship show. She was the French for the description of the company company gay company. But it was a mess when she got it. We would literally we were running out of cash when she took over the company. That's right, It almost went bankrupt, right right, And she really she really laid the foundation was Xerox to have another set of generations. And but by the time I got the company and I was her second for my whole you know, for my whole

senior career. Um. And she may be president in two thousand and seven and a member of the and the board elect me, remember the board in two thousand and seven, preparing me for to you know. But one of the things that I realized from Anne was that you know, uh, that there was that there was a future that we didn't have to succumb to the easy route of just the easier route of just kind of letting it happen. It's because there was a lot of explanation and defense

about letting it happen. Literally, we were being um substituted, We're being made irrelevant by technology. We're running where every time we ran into a problem, we found a new solution, found a new solution. So we were always running and catching up. But the fundamental value of the company as a document management company in the old sense, as you can see today, is literally, um no longer as valuable that you were. You were rendered obsolete pretty much literally

by these things. Yeah, by these things, and there's smaller and smaller and by the way perfectly and the clouds to have the file cabinets, the paper and the story. So yes, we kept running. When I took all the thing that was really great about it was that we were again cornered, if you know what I mean. There was some there's something interesting about having few choices, and people said, oh my god, you're a great patetice grape.

Mind I said, if you have a thousand choices, making the right one, it's probably harder than if you have to right. If you have to, you make one one of them is probably stupid the other. And we had no choice but to look for different options for the future of this company. We had no choice but to do that, and fortunately I had a predecessor and a board who said, let's take some chances and look. Not every single one of them worked, but a lot of

them did. And still very very fraught time for Xerox during my tenure and even today, is this whole idea about recreating itself yet again, to become more, to become relevant yet again. We'll keep happening to Xerox. Not every single company has a right to exist forever. I say this as well, and at some point you may have

to say done done. But I think that when I was there, for sure, and I think even now it's too early to call that for a company like Xerox that still has an amazing number of people that still can deal lot well with large corporations, et cetera. So there's a way to trying to extract value. You should do that as long as possible. The great news is that I was I was so long in the company that it was part of my life. It was you know, it was right then a literally I woke up every

day walked into this place. There was no way in the world I could just sit back and let it kind of driftful, dribble away. I had to, you know, not only me, but the whole hundred ten thousand people, fifty thou people aboard of directors and management team. We had to fight for it, fight for tough man. Though it's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, in some ways, large e stand for pieces of our business. Absolutely absolutely, And I talked about this in the context

of a couple of things. After I retired, it became a more popular I'm not saying I started this, but one of the things that I struggled with continuously was whether or not it was reasonable or fear to disrupt people's lives as dramatically as you do when you make them redundant in an environment like Rochester, New York, which is where a lot of our employees were at the time, well other other communities that were basically dependent on an

industry or two in their towns. Is there a way for us to kind of balance it out a bit? And I said this, I talked about this in the book.

We had a lot of time when I was CEO, but even right before that, when it was president, when we're going through it, when Anne was CEO, when I first started working for her, but we had to make decisions about whether or not we were going to just lay off ten thousands of people, and if we could do save like fifty of them by not maximizing profit like this, not maximizing profit, could we balance it such that it could be a little bit more graceful transitions?

That is today a standard discussion that CEOs have to have because communities governments are saying out loud, what the heck are you doing? You can't. I do get profit and profitability, but I also get the fact that you can't just dump on Rochester, New York a thousand more unemployed people. The government's gonna end up taking care of them. So you transfer wealth to a shareholder at the expense

of the government. Call right, And I think I think now companies are coming under much greater scrutiny and this you know, you know, race for quarterly profits and all that is just companies are expected to be more humanitarian, honestly and full citizens of the world. Full citizens of the world have to be engaged and interested in their shareholders wealth and profit. They have to be engaged and interested in the communities that they work and live in,

and social issues. Have to be engaged in government and social issues. I'm on this all the time, even when I was CEO, on this idea that we can't be silent. How in the world can we be silent when we come back Ursula's unflinching advice for today's business leaders. I wanted to ask you about, uh, this year's Fortune five hundred lists because they saw a few records CEOs or women. There are two black women. But still progress is so slow.

And I know you write about feeling this otherness, and you know, I thought it was fascinating that that you know the fact that you don't play golf and that you would never play it Augusta because they didn't accept black members until nineteen and you know, and why should you have to play golf if you don't like golf? You know, But what else can be done to improve these numbers? When you consider that women make up, you know, fifty two of the professional workforce, and the number in

C suite jobs it's under ten percent. I mean, you know, I've been talking about this ursula and interviewing people about this for thirty years. Thirty years. Let me tell you what I come to the conclusion. And I said this out loud, and of course I'm getting more bullback on this in a little bit, but I'm gonna continue saying it in to a until something else changes. I actually became a fan of quotas. Let me tell you what happened with women. The numbers that you just um told

us about are a recent um reality. Ten years ago literally the number was a quarter of that. We were like fifteen, so half of that. Let me tell you what happened. California, Europe, UK and Western Europe start to talk about the fact that their states or the governments were going to require companies to have a diverse board, and they said of the board should be California did it whatever surprised. Let me tell you what happened. Out of the woodwork came these fully formed adults called women

who were ready and able to serve on boards. Before you said it, thirty years. For my entire career, forty years in business, we've been talking about this. It's really hard to find them. And the women on everything. Wait a second, yeah, hello, Ursula Burns could be on I am on lots of them, but I could be on twenty of them. But it's ridiculous, dulous. But here's the here's why I say quotas work for a while. Quotas are the penalty for not doing what you should be

doing by yourself. Right. We've been talking about it for years, thirty years, as you say, forty years, I'll do it. We can't find them, we don't really know someone on some one we find literally, I don't know where California said and out of nowhere appeared these women. Enough, they're not all the same. There's there's forty that they're out.

They appeared in the c suite. Oh my goodness. They were born yesterday, educated the day after yesterday, and today they became you know, they've been there all the time. The problem with this progress, though, I will tell you that the thing that troubles me is that we've made the progress in women with the exclusion of women of color of any sort. Most of these, as you you said it, most of this is majority of women, white women, and we've made that progress without a lot of progress

in brown and black males. So the step it's we can't seem to kind of get the momentum rolling across the board. We always have to make. It's always a choice. And I say women, white women have to help us, right because they have to. Now they're sitting on these in the c suite and the new boards, they have to ask the question, what the hell are you guys doing, Why in the world are you not Why in the world don't we as a leadership team or a board

have more, even more diversity than this gender diversity. So it's taking us forever it had as required pushes um, you know, legal pushes, nudges, whatever the heck it is to make the progress. Hopefully we will make enough progress that that becomes redundant, that those legal needs become a legal means, become redundant. I'm hoping that that's the case.

But until it becomes the case, I want people, I want NASDACT to keep pushing and saying no, you're not gonna list on this, on this mechanism to to sell your company, to present your company, until you present yourself to the world like a fully formed company, which is a company that has a lot of people of different types of working and in fact that that leads me to my final question, what did you tell some of these people who called you, probably in a bit of

a panic ursula, when this racial justice movement became too loud to ignore. I mean, it wasn't new, but it was too loud to ignore at that point, what would you tell business leaders about how to improve UH diversity and equality and inclusion in their companies? Right? And we did this through a mechanism I did after George Floyd died.

I remember flying to London, back to London, landing and getting a call almost immediately I got to my flat um from a very very good European business leader, amazing guy, um all the right foundational elements to actually have a sensible conversation with. He called me and said, I think I got this, but I'm a little confused. He was unbelievable. I think I got it, and I just want to talk to you about what's actually happening. This was the move,

the marches that were happening all over the world. I mean, George Floyd is killed in Minnea, in Minnesota, and people in London and marching Chinese people, you know, young everybody. So he said, he just didn't he he think he thought he got it, but he didn't really get. My question to him was, I won't say name what. I'm more than happy to talk to you about this, but why are you calling me? He said, what do you mean?

I said, why don't you call talk to somebody on your board or talk to somebody in your management team. His was the response, I don't have anybody on my board and my management team that's anyone of color. I said, what so yeah, I said, well, first first thing to do, start close to home. You get you have to start close. You have to fix your house before you can tell how bunch of people how to fix their houses. Right, you don't have a uh, you don't have a diverse

management team, you don't have a diverse board. Shame when you I didn't quite say it this way, what do you do? Start close to home. Literally, you have to have people who are in your house nudging you along the way, giving you insights. So, first of all, I tell the business leaders, get a diverse team around you, get a diverse board around you. You're the people who you have to have a diverse organization, not because you just want to be quote unquote altruistic, even though that's

reason enough, because it's not altruism is called equality. But even if you have to be altruistic, Okay, you don't need to go that far. Results are better. Well, it's been studied in every business school. You can imagine. Diverse teams performed better than non diverse teams. Diverse companies profitability and longevity, their future readiness is significantly better than non Okay, So we don't have to actually do this anymore because we want you to feel bad. You have to do

it because you serve your shareholder is better. First, start close to home to literally speak up this voting rights thing that's happening right now. Companies are actually debating whether they have a voice in this. I keep saying, what do you mean where they have We're not talking about supporting radical ideas. Here, we're not even talking about supporting a black or brown person. I'm not or Asian part.

We're just talking about supporting the right of any citizen. Well, you saw Ken Fraser and Ken Channa come out and talk about what was happening in Georgia. Fraser the CEO of Mirk, Yeah, and myself and seventy others went out, Black and brown business leaders, why now and sign this letter and paid for them to be full page ads in the Journal and the Times, well to Journal New York Times. Why because, first of all, we were ashamed that we hadn't spoken up before, and we wanted it

to be a yell everybody understand. And we were surprised at how few other business leaders were speaking up. It shouldn't be required that black people speak up about all inequality. It affects them, Inequality affects everyone everyone. So second thing is make sure that you speak up on issues that you are engaged as a business, not a personal crusade of business. You need. We need a free and fair

democracy for our business to operate. Well, that's all you have to do, is that's all you have to tell the state leaders. That's all we need and this is what we think. That is someone someone's on. Second. So therefore, get involved. First, start close to home. Second, get involved. Do not let this crap slide by you. It's not only about profits in the quarter. It's about readying the world, ready in the United States for its future. Third, inspect

the numbers. I am always surprised at this. Facts and data don't lie. Look at pay equity in your company, look at performance of different types of people in your company. Look at the numbers. Track when you see problems, fix it. And we you know, we do this with profit. Literally we do it with profit, with you know, to the penny. We don't do it with other areas well. We don't have enough enough women, well why I don't really know. Next year we don't have enough women. Were just not

a priority for them. But by the way, if they want to retain a workforce of young people, I mean it's it's you know, they say all altruism is self serving, but there is. I'll take that. I'll take that for now. I I literally don't like this to the extent that it's becoming where everybody who gives money puts a name on things. But that's a different, a totally different show.

But I tell you what if we need to start with self serving altruism, which is I tell you a lot of how I got for You know, scholarships were named after people, right, So I'm I say, God, bless you, thank you very much, or whoever it is that you admire, blessed you, thank you very much. I do believe that there is an equal amount of altruism that is done

with no lights on them. Right. And I'm really into civil servants lately, you know, I just started to realize how, I mean, how thankless a job these guys, and most of us don't even know who they are, but look at them. They're hustling away trying to get you know, whatever, whatever done. I think that we're at a point where it's not a moment, it's a movement where you cannot ignore the voices of people. Technology helps here. We cannot

ignore people just paying attention to how you're doing. People in this movement have a huge amount of power. They cannot um minimize how important their voice and their impact is. If they want to see change, have to speak up. If I want to see change, I have to speak up.

I cannot so I mean I do. I cannot take the easy path, right Sometimes I just want to sleep, you know what I mean, just kind of you get it as well, just go and you know, stay silent for but you really somebody else, let somebody else this battle. But you can't, You really can't, because what are the part of life is the battle, right because with the battle comes all the fun and all that stuff like that, the engagement interaction with people. But I want to make sure.

I want to make sure. And one of the reasons why I wrote the book was to make sure that people understand it does not take super people. Literally, this is not a superperson. You're not looking at a superperson. If anybody was super it was my mom. I literally was a hard working, kind of average Joe and who who literally was pretty smart did okay, fine, fine, fine, fine fine. A lot of us in the world. A

huge amount of help differentiated me. And then literally all of the lessons of the person who died a long time ago came into play. It was like almost perfect came into play where I could repeat her words and try to live by those words, and it was impactful and relevant today. And that's the point of the book. It's not about any great story about this. You know, I found goal in the no I literally just had a lot of help, a lot of help from the time I was born to know a lot of help.

And you're using it now to pay it forward and make the world a better place. Ursula, Thank you, Ursula, Maxine Max Burns. The book is called Where You Are Is Not Who You Are? A real tribute to your sweet mom, your incredible mom. You talk about your business experience or life experience. It's a fantastic memoir. Congratulations on it. A big thank you to Ursula Burns, who we all agree is very cool. Her book is called Where You Are Is Not Who You Are? Next week on next Question.

There was this very strange distinction between the public perception of what it meant to be a man and how men were um demonizing me and saying I was a traitor to my own gender. How women were publicly applauding me, but the men who needed it were privately writing how the hottie from Jane the Virgin, Justin Baldoni is trying to change how we think about masculinity, one man, one reader at a time. That's next Thursday, on Next Question, Next Question, with Katie Kurik is a production of My

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