IBM’s Ginni Rometty on Skill-Building and Success

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For years, employers have used university degrees as a major requirement for hiring. But, for many jobs, success depends more on skills -- and the ability to adapt and learn -- than on piece-of-paper credentials. Ginni Rometty, former chairman and CEO of IBM, realized this early on -- first by watching her mother and other female relatives support their families and later by seeing what it took to rise to the top in her own career. At the helm of IBM from 2012 to 2020, she pushed the company to adopt skills-first recruitment and development practices, and now she's encouraging other organizations to do the same through her work at the non-profit OneTen. Rometty is coauthor of the HBR article “The New-Collar Workforce,” and the book Good Power: Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Are you trying to bring your leadership skills to the next level?
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0:24.0	New episodes every Wednesday.
0:30.0	Welcome to the HBR idea cast from Harvard Business Review.
0:40.0	I'm Allison Beard.
0:42.0	The most successful people out there in business or anywhere else are those who are always ready to learn.
0:54.0	They're constantly thinking about how to improve, where they can grow,
0:58.0	ensure what new skills they need to develop, whether it's something technical,
1:02.0	like a new coding language, or so-called softer stuff, like communication and collaboration.
1:08.0	The best leaders are also thinking about skill building on their teams and in their organizations,
1:13.0	even across society as a whole, to tackle looming challenges and seize emerging opportunities.
1:18.0	This is something today's guest knows really well.
1:21.0	She learned about the importance of training and development first from female role models in her family,
1:25.0	then by practicing it herself in her own career with focused study and stretch assignments.
1:30.0	As she rose through the ranks to CEO, she infused her Fortune 500 company
1:34.0	with an ethos of continuous learning and skills first talent practices.
1:39.0	And now as a public and private board director, she's encouraging other organizations to do the same.
1:44.0	Ginny Rametti is the former chairman and CEO of IBM, an author of the new book Good Power,
1:49.0	leading positive change in our lives, work, and world.
	...

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