 from the CUBE studios in Palo Alto and Boston. It's theCUBE, covering IBM Think. Brought to you by IBM. Welcome back everybody. This is Dave Vellante of theCUBE and you're watching our continuous coverage of IBM Think, 2020, the digital version of Think. Deb Bub is here. She's the HR VP and Chief Leadership, Learning and Inclusion Officer at IBM. Deb, good to see you. Great to see you as well. Thanks for having me. You're very welcome. While we're in the same region of New England, wish we were face-to-face at Moscone, but we're doing the best we can, right? Absolutely, absolutely. So I got to ask you, so one of your roles is you're responsible for executive leadership succession. So I remember I was in a lobby hotel in Barcelona when I heard that Arvin Krishna was taking over as the CEO of IBM. And I sat there and wrote a blog, tapped out a blog on my mobile phone now. But a little did you know, and he know at that time, and we had a glimpse of what was coming, but I don't think we really fully understood. And so I'm wondering, how do you prepare for that type of succession? Well, I think our leaders now are all encountering unexpected circumstances where we have big plans and big actions we've planned, but the current context is asking us to rethink them in all kinds of ways. So of course, IBM is the kind of company who had a very well thought through kind of world-class succession process, but none of us thought that we would be integrating Arvin and launching him into his new role as the CEO, working from home. So we had to do what every leader at IBM is doing right now, which is starting from a position of resilience, taking a deep breath, thinking through what's really happening to me, to my work, to my situation right now. A lot of us are working from home. A lot of us are adjusting to physical distancing. There are many leaders here who are deeply worried about their families, their lives, their situation. And so starting from a position of personal resilience, making sure we put our own oxygen mask on so we can think clearly and make the decisions was an important first step. Second, focus on empathy. Leaders across IBM right now are really focused on making sure they understand the situation people are in, that they understand the physical, emotional, mental health and needs and requirements of every IBMer. So they can make really good decisions about priorities. And then it's time to focus on what's mission critical, what's urgent to compartmentalize and relentlessly prioritize so we can all be successful. All of those lessons applied to succession like they do to every other kind of work and led us to reimagine and create really interesting digital intimacy opportunities to connect Arvin with every IBM around the world through new kinds of social channels. And overall, I think it's been a really incredible experience. Yeah, yoga breaths are a good thing at this time, aren't they? We're all taking a lot of deep breaths for sure. Right, no doubt. And you guys probably had a little bit of a canary and a coal mine leading visibility on this because you've obviously got a presence in China and throughout the world. And so you were probably a little bit ahead of other US-based companies. Is that fair? Well, we certainly are a global company. And so the idea that everyone is going through this in the same way at the same time is just not accurate. We have people all over the world. And I think we did have early lessons from our colleagues in China who are incredibly resilient, who showed us the way with great social distancing discipline and really working hard together to help each other be successful and challenging times. And we've learned that in every community around the world that's been impacted. And I think that's been one of the most surprising and amazing things about this whole experience is the way we've been able to leverage digital technologies at scale to connect with one another, learn from one another and support each other through a very, very challenging experience. So Deb, you've got inclusion in your title. And so this is a relatively new thing. I wonder if you could address sort of what that means for you to IBM and why is it so important right now? Well, inclusion is sort of the core of what makes it possible for us to benefit from each other's incredible talents. I like to say, diversity is important to make sure you have the right people at the table, but inclusion is how you turn that talent that's at the table into magic. Inclusion is what allows every one of us to bring our uniqueness to the table and to contribute. And it couldn't be more important than right now. Inclusion is the most important ingredient to helping people thrive in difficult times. It allows team members to quickly orient to new ways of being together. An inclusive leader is able to manage in a digitally distributed environment and create a new context for people to connect with one another. Ask the right questions to allow team members to manage the competing priorities of homeschooling, working, living, all in the same environment. So inclusive leaders really create a context for each other's contribution and success. You'll hear again and again in the description of how IBM leaders are thriving in this time, how we're stepping up and stepping in for our IBMers, our communities and our clients and finding ways to include, learn, take the best insights and accelerate productivity and the right solutions in this challenging environment. Inclusion is one of IBM's most asset right now. Well, you mentioned that you're kind of connecting Arvin digitally with the broader IBM community. So that's kind of interesting, right? I mean, leading digitally, he has no choice. Other than he's not the only leader at IBM obviously, he's the top leader, but there are many, many leaders at IBM. So how is this sort of, we're talking today through the cubes digital platform, how is this digital revolution really affecting people's ability to lead? How are they stepping up to that challenge? Sure, well, IBM like all our clients have been on a journey of digital transformation for the last several years, but this is really putting it to test in a very different way. It's presenting new challenges and new opportunities. The opportunities are incredible, new tools, like we're using, you know, WebEx and Trello and Slack and Mural and all based in the, you know, the IBM cloud really enabling full digital collaboration at a whole different scale than ever before and leveraging new kinds of leadership insights and new kinds of leadership mindsets to benefit from all that great ability to collaborate asynchronously, to create digitally distributed creative conversations. And then as leaders, knowing how to harness all that creativity and provide the right context for people to share, to move product quickly, you know, be more agile in our production of outcomes and solutions. That's right at home in my group, for example, we're creating new digital communities and coming up with new solutions with our, you know, inclusion communities, new solutions with our teams to help enable leadership and new learning solutions all over the company. It also, you know, working digitally presents some new challenges, trying to figure out how to help people balance the challenges of being at home and things that we might have relied on face-to-face contact for to create different levels of trust and interactivity, learn new skills, et cetera. Some leaders have sort of recognizing some of those challenges gotten together and, you know, taking a work from home pledge, you know, helping each other figure out and co-create with parents who are working at home how to navigate this new digital, totally distributed remote work situation we're in or, you know, figuring out how to teach each other how to use new tools. So I think, you know, if I were going to give advice to any leader now, I would say it's a good time to assess your digital presence and your digital savviness and then think about how you're showing up in these digital forums. Are you trying to do things in the same way you were doing them, just doing them online? Or have you really rethought your digital presence and are you really using that environment to create the maximum context of creativity and inclusion you can for your team? You know, Deb, I was having a conversation earlier with an IBM executive and a Cisco executive and I kind of joked that, you know, what people need right now, they don't need people selling them stuff. IT practitioners are putting out fires and, you know, in some industries, you know, just trying to keep the companies alive. And I joked it's kind of what they need is some adult supervision. And what do you see as IBM's role in this sort of during this crisis and maybe even post this crisis? How would you define that? Absolutely. So look, IBM is a trusted partner to the companies of the world who are facing the same challenge we're facing and trying to digitally transform themselves and thrive as the world continues to grow and change. And certainly this current context puts the whole thing in a different relief. But fundamentally, IBM is the most important technology company in the world because we have the technology that industry expertise and the position of trust with our clients, they don't need, what they need from IBM is not us selling them something, but they need our partnership to imagine themselves in the future, reinvent themselves toward that future to thrive during this incredible challenge and maintain business continuity while they become who they're going to be in the next era. So, you know, it's a challenge for all of us. We are a huge global company in 173 countries and 350,000 people uniquely positioned to help. We have incredible technology. We have the call for code with our developers all over the world helping to solve these issues. We have many ways in which IBM is positioned socially to make a difference in helping with skill acquisition, super compute capacity. I mean, in many, many ways that we can help as a business. But closer to home, we are also able to help companies imagine how they can emerge stronger by reinventing their, digitally reinventing their business processes and their leadership and talent cultures for how they can thrive in the new era. Hey, Rob Thomas and I were talking about how, you know, things post COVID, you know, maybe they changed, maybe they don't, but there's certainly, there's going to be an acceleration to some things. You're mentioning, you know, digital transformation. Certainly people are more willing to look at the cloud. You know, this whole work from home infrastructure seems to be for something that has legs. Do you think inclusion is going to be one of these things that gets accelerated as a result of this pandemic? I absolutely do. I mean, I think we have lived in an era where this kind of concept was sort of nice to have or viewed as important, but maybe not essential. I think that's really being transformed by the current environment and people are expecting their companies to provide a context that is psychologically safe, inclusive and help some do their best work when it matters most. Those are the companies that are going to emerge from this challenge stronger. And so IBM's culture, I mean, last year, we talked a lot at Think about the compelling call to action to be equal. That comes from IBM's deep commitment to diversity and inclusion. And in every era, challenging ourselves to do more to create a context of full inclusion and equality. Well, this year, we're expanding that concept to include all forms of equality. We started with gender equality. Now we're looking at full inclusion for all. And in this circumstance, it could not be more important. And so I do think, you know, you said it well, you know, there are all kinds of capabilities that will be transformed and scaled as a result of this. Our technology environment will be different. Our commitment to infrastructure, working from home, lots of things will be different. I think one of them is a call to action for leaders to be more inclusive and to create the context where everyone can be equal. Well, I think it's important that companies like IBM lead in this regard. Sometimes, you know, it's harder for smaller companies. They may not have the resources, they may not have the network. And so, you know, setting the example as IBM is very important. Debbub, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE and you know, sharing your philosophy, IBM's philosophy and your best practice, et cetera, with us and theCUBE. Appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. Be safe and be well. Yeah, back at you. You too. And thank you for watching everybody. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE's continuous coverage of IBM Think 2020, the digital thing. Keep it right there. We'll be right back.