\u201cIf you\u2019re wondering if this book is mostly about leadership advice for women based on my experience as a woman in business, the answer is no,\u201d Rometty said. \u201cIt\u2019s true that I grew my career in the male-dominated tech industry, and yes, I broke glass ceilings, but that\u2019s only one facet of a larger narrative and broader set of leadership lessons.\u201d<\/p>\n It started with the grit she inherited at 16 from her 34-year-old mother. She and Rometty\u2019s four younger siblings were completely abandoned by their father. They had no money, a partially finished small house in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and the challenge to scrape by with modest contributions from hard-pressed relatives and menial part-time jobs. But they never gave up.<\/p>\n Rometty\u2019s mother, Arlene, had married at seventeen and, with no training beyond high school, fought her husband\u2019s abandonment by taking any job she could find. Rometty, as the eldest child, took on the responsibility of raising her younger brother and three sisters. They struggled but stayed together by sheer grit and determination, continually seeking ways to improve their lot. They seized on small triumphs and believed that many things were possible.<\/p>\n \u201cShe [my mother] showed me that no matter how desperate a situation gets, we each have within us the power to create opportunity for ourselves as well as others,\u201d Rometty said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lesson I\u2019ve tried to apply in my own life and work.\u201d<\/p>\n Rometty helped take care of her siblings and went on to Northwestern University in 1975, cobbling together scholarships to fund her education. She said that her essay about her life after her father left the family and how she had to be self-sufficient and turn a negative into a positive might have set her apart from other candidates.<\/p>\n For the record, the future CEO Rometty was not an early all-star at everything. In her youth, she played the piccolo and flute, and not well, she said. Not the most outstanding athlete, she didn\u2019t make the swim team but was involved by being the timer.<\/p>\n However, she showed her leadership qualities along the way, being elected high school senior class president (\u201cWin with Gin!\u201d) and president of the prestigious sorority at Northwestern (Kappa, Kappa Gamma).<\/p>\n Thanks to advice from a professor at Northwestern, she applied for a General Motors scholarship available to women and minority engineering students. She was named a GM Scholar and was awarded full tuition for her last two years there. She graduated with a bachelor of science degree in computer science.<\/p>\n Although working for General Motors after graduation wasn\u2019t part of the scholarship, she appreciated their support and took a job with them. And she chose Detroit because she had met a tall, \u201clight-haired,\u201d and handsome fellow on a blind date, Mark Rometty.<\/p>\n Mark went to Eastern Michigan University and graduated in 1975. He was four years older than Ginny. He started off working for General Foods as a coffee salesman and segued into what became his lifelong career as a manufacturer\u2019s auto industry rep. They married seven months after she graduated and have been together ever since.<\/p>\n Mark suggested that she apply to IBM. And so she did in 1981 as an entry-level systems engineer, the same year the company introduced its first computer.<\/p>\n One of her first big projects was helping sell to an insurance company a new line of IBM mainframes.<\/p>\n As she moved up through the company, she embraced challenging assignments, was involved with multi-billion-dollar acquisitions, shedding unprofitable businesses, rebuilding its product portfolio, and the growth of IBM\u2019s artificial intelligence computing. Along the way, she headed global sales, marketing, and strategy.<\/p>\n In 2012, she became IBM\u2019s ninth chief executive officer and the first woman CEO in its 100-year history. She took the helm when one of the world\u2019s largest and oldest technology company was faced with a dramatically changing business environment. Her task was to help right the ship. It was a daunting task.<\/p>\n Her role as CEO put her on the international stage, meeting with world leaders like President Trump and Biden, Angela Merkel, and heads of state from China, India, Brazil, and more.<\/p>\n How did she do it all without spinning out of control? She learned how to compartmentalize. \u201cMy approach has been to take one crisis at a time, be clear on a plan forward, then put it in a mental box and focus on the next issue,\u201d she said, \u201c\u2013 until it\u2019s time to revisit the crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n Rometty attributes much of her leadership success to a mindset she describes in her memoir: \u201cI write about my experiences through the lens of an idea much bigger than me and my life, one that relates to all of us: how we can drive meaningful change in positive ways for ourselves, our organizations, and for the many, now just the few. It\u2019s a concept I\u2019ve come to call good power.\u201d<\/p>\n IBM has always been a pioneer in information technology. As a leader in the mainframe business, IBM built its reputation, servicing primarily large corporations from the 1960s to the 1980s.<\/p>\n In 1991, the mainframe business and competitive PC market forced IBM to reinvent itself by heading into the business services area. IBM\u2019s in-house services were being replaced by outsourced cloud services provided by such companies as Amazon and Microsoft.<\/p>\n IBM has been an IT industry leader for over a century. The company had to pivot numerous times to keep up with technological advances. The time Rometty came on board was one of those moments.<\/p>\n \u201cReinventing so much is a challenge for any organization, but especially one with $100 billion in revenues,\u201d Rometty said. And the changes had to be done with the public watching.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s news is loaded with artificial intelligence (AI) development. Most people don\u2019t know that AI development began as early as the 1950s. In 2011, IBM dropped jaws by pitting its computer, Watson, against Jeopardy contestants. Watson, as many will remember, did win. But a parlor game trick was not IBM\u2019s mission. They wanted to use AI to help solve large-scale problems, such as in healthcare.<\/p>\n Even the most non-tech person today is talking about the effect technology has on our lives. And now, the big questions are about AI. How will AI help us or have negative consequences? As the Center for AI Safety<\/a> recently pronounced, can it be a risk of extinction?<\/p>\n In her memoir, Rometty offers helpful clarity on the ethics of technology in the world from her career experiences and what could happen in the future. She emphasizes the importance of being acutely aware of the trade-offs between reaping the rewards of technology with maintaining our privacy, security, and overall lives.<\/p>\n Throughout her memoir, Rometty touches upon the reality of being a woman in a man\u2019s world, but not with a heavy-handed feminist gavel. She began her career when men vastly outnumbered women in the workplace. Her viewpoint was women needed to work extremely hard, and the ones that succeeded were prepared and knew their stuff.<\/p>\n When asked why she never had children, Rometty dispels the belief that she didn\u2019t have time for them. When her father left the family, Rometty helped raise her siblings. Even before her career started, she had to develop parenting skills at a young age. She remains an important figure in her siblings and their children\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n Rometty championed looking beyond requiring future employees with four-year college degrees. She recognized there were plenty of qualified candidates who had the skills but not the degree. During her time at IBM, along with the human resources staff, \u201cskills-based hiring\u201d (SkillsFirst) was successfully tested.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes we have to look back to look forward,\u201d she said. \u201cI see now that championing SkillsFirst today is a natural culmination of my life\u2019s experiences and learnings stemming back from my childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n Through her early life of tough lessons emerged the three core beliefs that shaped Rometty\u2019s life and eventually led to her climb up the corporate ladder of IBM: \u201cOne, Access to opportunities like education and employment can unleash our potential. Two, a propensity to learn new skills at all stages of life is an invaluable asset. And, three, we each have the power within us to create positive change in our life.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, Rometty serves on many boards and cochairs OneTen<\/a>, a collation dedicated to upskilling, hiring, and promoting one million Black Americans by 2030 into family-sustaining jobs and careers.<\/p>\n \u201cSome might roll their eyes and say I worked too hard,\u201d Rometty said. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t want to look stupid in front of people. And given I was often the only woman in the room, skills, and preparation were my shield and confidence. Plus, I just like learning.\u201d<\/p>\n Former IBM Chairman and CEO shares thoughts \u201cGood Power\u201d in new memoir<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[170,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-summer-2023","category-spring-summer-2023-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13797"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14019,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13797\/revisions\/14019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/good-power.650.jpg\")
<\/a>How Ginni Rometty became Chairman and first female CEO of IBM is an inspiring story that checks all those boxes. Her memoir, Good Power, Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World<\/em><\/a>, tells how a poor, disadvantaged young woman was able to become Fortune\u2019s #1 Most Powerful Woman three years in a row and lead IBM, a Blue Chip company with $100 billion in revenues, a million-plus shareholders, well over 350,000 employees and clients in more than 170 countries.<\/p>\nHer Five Principles of Good Power are:<\/h3>\n
\n
Biggest Career Challenges<\/h3>\n
The Race to Keep Up with Tech<\/h3>\n
Turning the World\u2019s Focus to Artificial Intelligence<\/h3>\n
Coming Full Circle and Giving Back<\/h3>\n
Good Power, Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Ginni Rometty, published by Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation<\/a>, copyright 2023.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"