Costco Connection - June 2009

The Costco Connection: Having risen through the ranks at Xerox, what were you able to bring to the position of CEO? Anne Mulcahy: Having spent much time in sales and customer-facing positions, I was able to bring a grounding about customer focus that is certainly very much a part of who I am. I think the second piece of it that is important, and certainly came with me, is building teams. It’s all about building a great team and being able to attract and retain the best people possible who can then represent the company on a much more distributed basis.

Xerox has changed its focus from stand-alone copiers to office solutions and services. (Ad campaign circa 1959)

It’s little surprise

that in 2008

Mulcahy became

the first woman

to be named

CEO of the Year

by a group

comprising other

CEOs and peers.

CC: And what was your on-the-job training? AM: [Laughs] Everything else. This is where identifying great people to be on your team is so important, because I had never had a direct job in finance or product development or supply chain or a lot of areas of business. I was learning on the job all the time. I’m still learning on the job all of the time. If you run a big, complex company, one of the things you can never get confused about is that you aren’t going to know it all. It is hugely important to know what you don’t know and go get expertise and help and acknowledge that you don’t know.

CC: The name Xerox is still synonymous with a photocopy. What would you like the name to mean?

AM: I think today people would clearly think about leadership in document technology, but more and more they would think about our services and solutions. We very rarely just sell stand-alone technology to major enterprises. It’s usually wrapped with software and workflow and people services so that we’re really delivering more value than the technology can by itself.

I think we’d also be known for innovative technology. We’ve had a very prolific period of time here in terms of new technology and bringing best in class to customers as it relates to cost and value, so I think we’re a very ... long distance from where we were at the beginning of the decade.

The

Xerox chronology (please copy and collate)

HISTORICAL PHOTOS COURTESY XEROX CORPORATION

Chester Carlson,
inventor of xerography

1906

Chester Carlson, inventor of xerography, is born in Seattle, February 8. The Haloid Company is founded in Rochester, New York, to manufacture and sell photographic paper, April 18.

1942

Carlson receives U.S.

patent No. 2,297,691 on

October 6 for electrophotography, later called xerography. The process uses electricity to transfer an image to a piece of paper.

CC: You often mention the importance of talking with people—both your employees and customers. Why is that?

AM: I think people get lost in the complexity of whatever job they’re in, and they forget that those are the two most important constituencies that really drive the business. As it relates to customers, they define the business. They’re the center of the universe. They’re the ones we’re privileged to have a company to serve. For me, the people aspect of it is hugely important, because their “followership” is the core of being able to move a company in a direction and to deliver performance. It’s all about whether or not your people believe and they’re aligned with the goals.

CC: How do you get your employees to do that?

AM: I think it takes work. I don’t think it’s something that you can take for granted. Somebody once asked me how you keep in touch with your people. I said, “By keeping in touch with your people.” You’ve got to go out and work it. You’ve got to be able to communicate the story. You have to have the dialogue with your people so that there’s a degree of ownership. That they see how they fit into the story. You have to then be credible … so that they can actually have confidence that the alignment between what you say and what you do is there.

I think that all takes work, but over time it builds into a situation where people believe and have confidence. The power of what you can do in a big company when people truly believe and are aligned around goals is pretty extraordinary.

CC: Of all the articles written about the things you accomplished during the turnaround, is there anything you wish people knew that isn’t talked about? AM: I think for all of us the turnaround seems forever ago. Turnarounds aren’t easy, but they’re a lot easier than transformations. I think the piece that people at Xerox feel the best about is