Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Xerox CEO Steve Bandrowczak

I recently interviewed Steve Bandrowczak on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is a Fortune 500 CEO and the leader of one of America's oldest and most iconic companies. Steve Bandrowczak is the CEO of Xerox. Steve, thank you for joining us.

Steve: Adam, thanks for having me here.

Adam: I am honored to have you here. Your background is anything but typical for a Fortune 500 CEO. You grew up in Long Island and worked a number of blue-collar jobs, you attended Nassau County Community College and graduated from CW Post, but almost skipped college altogether. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What experiences and lessons were most instrumental to shaping your worldview and to shaping the trajectory of your success?

Steve: Yeah, um, I was born in South Ozone Park, Queens, probably one of the roughest and toughest neighborhoods in the New York area. When to Copake High School again, another town that wasn't the CEO capital of the world. At 16, my dad moved to the west coast and I didn't go and a Catholic Italian family, I literally got this own at 16 years old. And so I had an incredible start in terms of having to survive, and I don't use that word lightly. I was working clamming on the bay, I would go in literally on the weekends, go through garbage to find copper and find scraps so that I can get enough money so that I could put gas in the car to get to a deli job. I worked on the Long Island Railroad heavy construction for four years and working outdoors in the middle of the winter, and in the summers in 90-degree heat and shoveling tar in the middle of the summer. And so that background did two things to me. Number one, it said at a very early age, it gave me some of the leadership skills that I have today. And you don't realize it until later on in life. But I would say the first thing it gave me is to be fearless. Because when you can survive in that condition, my wife and I are married for 43 years. But growing up, we were in a high school that was burned down, the auditorium was burned down, we were in situations where got stabbed, and there were shootings. And so you're in an environment where no matter what they do to you, after that, there's no fear. That's number one. The second is your confidence that if you can come out of that environment, no matter where you start, you can overcome it. And so the second leadership skill that I got is fearless, but the confidence to be able to overcome anything, then I would say the third thing that I got was just an incredible appreciation for the work environment that I am in, as opposed to where I was from. And so every job, I was so appreciative, and I was so much going to make sure that every single day I was going to make my skills better. That's kind of what drove me and got me an early start in my career.

Adam: Steve, you've touched on so many really, really important themes and just to tick them off one by one, the importance of overcoming adversity is critical. There is no linear path to success. And we're going to dive into your journey over the course of this conversation, anything but a linear path to success, the importance of having confidence. I'm going to ask you about that in a minute. But just to talk a little bit more about your last point, gratitude. So much happiness is appreciating what you have, instead of longing for what you don't.

Steve: Yeah, I couldn't say it any better. Every day I am so thankful for what I have. And I've always been that way when you literally come from nothing. And you literally have and you start from nothing. Every day is a blessing every day and you appreciate when you enjoy life. I always tell my team, you can do one of two things you can bring energy to work or you can suck energy. And people who appreciate life in my opinion, people who appreciate what they do, the people around them better and they bring energy, and when you are a leader that is so contagious that you can appreciate and bring energy to the work environment. So I've been appreciative since very early in my career every step of the way. I've appreciated but you also appreciate the things that people give you. Sometimes we miss, somebody who treats us badly. That's a gift, Adam, but you know why you learn from that you can learn from good, and you can learn from bad. And if you look at it as oh, poor me, as opposed to no, it's a gift that I learned something. When you learn that early you can get through life and you can build leadership skills that are timeless,

Adam: It really speaks to the power of perspective, the power of attitude, and the power of mindset. Something you shared, which I love, great quote, you can bring energy or you can suck energy, it's a choice. It's something that every single person can control, you have the choice. Am I going to be a net positive? Or am I going to be a net negative? No one can decide that other than you. And that decision can completely define your value to an organization.

Steve: So to add when I meant the young people and mentor anybody in general, and the first thing they tell me is, I didn't get this job because of this. And it doesn't start with because I didn't do this. They've got the wrong perspective, you control your career, you control your life, and the only thing you can control is yourself. And so nobody can define you. Yes, you may have a bad boss, or you may have a bad environment, but you control what you do with that. And so for me, if you always take that control, and you realize it's your own personal drive, it's your own personal success, and you drive your own destiny. It's a big difference in the way that you think about life.

Adam: Steve, you bring up an interesting topic, which is the topic of control. And I did an interview with Penny Pennington, another Fortune 500. CEO. And I asked Penny, you lead this huge company, Edward Jones, one of the biggest companies in America. How do you control the culture at a company as large as Edward Jones? And she said to me, the problem is in your question, I don't control anything. I'm oftentimes the least powerful person in the room. And the secret really is understanding what you can control and what you can't control. What can you control? Steve, you know that you can control your attitude, and your mindset, you can control yourself, you can control your life, get in the driver's seat, and take control of the things you can control. Don't worry about the things you can't.

Steve: Yeah, no question, Adam. It's so important for people to realize that especially young people to think about career development and thinking about leadership skills, I always talk about whether you want to be a great athlete, or you want to be a great musician, you know how you work at it every single day. There are no great athletes that are great, because they work out at once a week, once a month, twice during the season. They work at it each and every day, great musicians work out each and every day. And then I'll ask the question you want to be a great leader would you do today to make your skills better? And I get the same answer, a blank stare. What did you do to make your communication skills better? What do you do to get your visionary skills better? Whatever those skills are? And what we find often is, people don't work on those things. So how do you ever go on to be a great leader? If you don't work on those skills that make you a great leader? And I always get asked, well, can you work on those skills, just think about communications today, versus 10 years ago. I'm dealing with different generations inside of Xerox, whether it's early career employees, employees who are coming out of high school coming out of college, I've got employees that have been here 30, 40, 50 years, every single one of them, you communicate differently. And how many times he hear well, they didn't understand me, you know, his problem, that is your problem, because you didn't communicate correctly. So you've got to learn how to be able to communicate to all those different generations in the form that they want to be communicated to young people. When we talk about purpose and coming to a job for a purpose. What does that mean? What does that actually mean to an individual, right? And so communication is so important, and working on those skills each and every day is so important. The other thing I think is interesting. I always have and I will tell you who it is on my staff, but I always have so many of my staff, it's like nails on a blackboard all the time. And the reason is I want to have that diversity of thought around me all the time. It challenges me it gives me a way of pushing myself and creating and helping me create different skills all the time. It is so, so important that you constantly work and develop your leadership skills and work on yourself. And that's the one thing you can control.

Adam: Steve, something you shared right off the bat was as you are ticking through what you were able to develop early on in your journey that fueled your success. Fearlessness, confidence, gratitude, help. Can anyone develop confidence?

Steve: I think first of all recognition. I always ask young people and people that I meet, what's your superpower? And they never know what their superpower is. Everybody's got a superpower. Everybody can do something. Everybody has skills. Everybody has someplace they get from. I was mentoring. If you don't know that I teach digital disruption at Columbia University, I was teaching the master's program. And at the master's program, I always give an opportunity to be able to mentor anybody who's in the class, just come see me afterward, come see me after the program anytime, reach out, and you can talk to me. There was an African American gentleman who reached out to me, and he said, “Steve, I was so inspired by your story. I wanted to tell you my story”. And I said, “Okay, what is it?”. And I won't share the gentleman's name. And I won't tell you where the company was. But he said to me, he said, “Steve, I was so embarrassed to tell everybody, I have been a convicted felon”. He said, my mom and dad split, my dad went to another town, and my dad and my mom were separated, my dad got cancer, I went to go help my dad, but my dad couldn't pay his medical bills. When he couldn't pay his medical bills, I started dealing drugs so I can get money to pay my dad's medical bills. I said, Hold on a second. You didn't even have a high school degree. You got and you're a convicted felon, you are now in a master's program at Columbia University talking to me, you have an incredible story, you have an incredible journey. But he didn't realize it, he didn't realize what his superpower was, and the power of that story and the power in the grid that got him from where he was to now being an A graduate of a master's program at Columbia University. And so everybody has that something in him that just need to recognize that they need to be able to develop it, they need to be able to get there. Anybody who has come out in his graduate nanoscale, you start with a silver spoon in your mouth, or when you started the same path that I'm at, anybody can get to this seat, they have the right attitude, and they have the work ethic, and they learn and they work at it each and every day.

Adam: How can anyone discover their superpower?

Adam: I always say, first of all, recognize it. Ask people. Did you ever ask somebody about okay, what do you see in me? And I'm not talking about a manager and employee conversation, right? Talk to your peers, talk to people outside of you talk to people in your network? What do you think I do well? By the way, what do you think I do badly? What can I work on, right? But it's that openness, to be able to understand the skills that you have and the skills that you need. When you talk about professional career development, I always tell everybody, you've got to pick your next job, pick your next capability on building the skills that you need for the job that you want, not the job that you have, but the job that you want. And so if you want to be in a C suite, and you have sales skills, well, maybe you need operations skills, maybe you need finance skills, maybe you need communication skills, but understanding that and getting real honest feedback people are so given of that time. You'd be surprised how many people want to mentor and people want to teach and people want to help. But you also be so surprised about how many people don't even ask, Don't even ask for feedback, or when they get feedback. They're so defensive. And when you're defensive, then all of a sudden you shut down the network in terms of your feedback. And so the first piece of that is just asking and understanding. You got family members around you family members that tell you what you do. Well, all right. I always talk to people who want leadership skills, and I say, did anybody ever say you inspired me today? They say to you a week ago, a month ago, one of the key ingredients of a leader is you need to inspire people of nobody's ever told you that they and you are inspired or you have inspired them. Why not? What do you miss it? What are you doing? All right. And so the second piece of it is when you mentor I like to mentor, you can't mentor and teach what you don't know. But your greatest gift of mentoring is what you learn about yourself, not what you give to others. So that would be the other way you can get good feedback and understand your superpowers.

Adam: What do you believe are the key characteristics of a great leader?

Steve: I think there are a couple of first of all leadership skills around communications that are so important. The ability to inspire others to do things and do things beyond what they ever thought they can go do. The ability to be incredibly simple, with complex things you think about today, and I always say today is the slowest technology will ever be in our life. Or another way of thinking about today's slowest change that will ever happen in our lives, our world gets more and more complex. How do you lead to that complexity? Simplicity. How do you take something so simple, communicate it, and give a vision? Take a look at Elon or you can take a look at some of the other visionaries out there. Pretty simple. I'm gonna take a SpaceX rocket, I'm gonna shoot it up, I'm going to bring it down, we're going to reuse it. How hard is that? Simple concept, simple vision communicated very simply, but extremely complex in terms of what you want to do. So taking those complex things, and making them simple. And then I would say the last one is, especially in today's world, the ability to be humble and empathetic. Ability to be authentic, there are certain characteristics, especially in today's world, to beat individuals through the incredibly complex environment that we're all trying to navigate through. They're looking for authenticity, good or bad. They know that when I say something, my team is going to be authentic. It's going to come from a place of it really is what Steve is thinking. So I think those are the skills that you need to lead today.

Adam: Vision, communication, empathy, and humility are essential to great leadership. And humility really ties into so many of the most important themes that listeners have heard me and so many of the guests talk about lifelong learning, growth, mindset, listening, not walking into a room, intent on hearing yourself, but intent on truly hearing others, learning from others, trying to consume as much information as possible. Understanding that no matter how much, you know, today, that's not enough for you to be as successful as you can possibly be tomorrow.

Steve: Yeah, listen. When you stop listening, you stop learning. That's just the fact you've got to be constantly listening, constantly learning each and every day. And if nothing over the last five years, we've learned about the environment that we're in today. Listening is so important. You have a perspective in life until you start to listen, and you start to understand and you start to realize the differences in diversity, differences in culture, differences in background, and different perspectives on the same situation. And so listening is so critical.

Adam: You lead one of the best-known companies in America. But it happens to be known for something that's becoming increasingly obsolete. What are the best lessons that you've learned from your efforts to transform Xerox his business model? And what advice do you have for anyone listening on how to pivot or reinvent their business?

Steve: That's an unbelievable brand, unbelievable culture, but it's synonymous with print. And the reality is today, the print industry in general is declining. And so you've got to reinvent yourself. And you got to position yourself. And the first thing is to recognize all the great things you have in your company, some of its cultures, we've got an unbelievable culture of innovation, unbelievable culture, of inclusiveness and diversity. I’m so proud that we have 12 different employee resource groups that I meet with literally on a monthly basis. That's who we are. That's the culture of what's here. And incredible, go to market and incredible network, trust our employees, trust us, our customers, trust us. And that's really important because when your customers trust you, you can bring new products and services to market. The second piece of it is if you think about where the paper company, as opposed to everything that's on paper, is data. What drives growth today, what drives GDP expansion today, data, artificial intelligence doesn't work without data. And so when you start to think about our devices, as a transport for workflow, and data happen to be paper, happens to be PDF documents happens to be Word documents, you now can start to build next-generation capabilities. And so we take advantage we talk about the hybrid workforce today and distributed workforce. The reality is that gives us a great opportunity. We invented the word replace, we get a chance to reinvent it again, the challenge today with inflation, the challenge today with labor shortages, we get a chance to reinvent all that with new technology, new capability. So the recommendation I'll make for the companies that are trying to pivot from a very traditional legacy is to leverage what has been great in your heritage, innovation, culture, and people, all those things that are great customers' trusted brands. And don't try to go too far away from what your core is, but be adjacent to your core, add on top of it, and expand, making sure that you're moving towards where the future is. Right. And that's where you can reinvent the company.

Adam: You mentioned a couple of times the importance of having a culture that drives innovation. How can leaders foster a culture that fuels innovation?

Steve: It's a great question. I think, first of all, you have to be accepting of failure, and fail fast. Okay. Innovation, by its very nature, has failed to it. R&D, research, all things that come out of some of the research labs, when you really get under the covers, there are eight projects that fail to come to market, there are eight things that you're trying to solve two of them you may solve. And so if you don't have a culture of accepting that you're going to have that failure and a high failure rate, you're probably not pushing innovation fast enough, and hard enough, but fail fast. Many companies get hung up with, oh, it's not working and you go too long, fail fast, recognize that something's failing, and then try and move on to the next thing. So that's number one, the ability to move fast reward failure and move on second, celebrate those successes, today's cycles, in terms of products, and in terms of innovation happened very quickly, especially in the software world that we're in today. And so you've got to be able to celebrate those wins, and celebrate those innovative wins, and then celebrate the people. We talk about the patents that people have. But it's not just the patent is the products. It is the way in which we go to market. It's all those things that are innovative, and celebrate those things. So recognizing failing fast, pushing the envelope, the ability to stop projects where they're not working, and then celebrating wins. That's how you create an innovative culture.

Adam: Is there a failure? Whether is your time at Xerox whether it was at another point in your career that stands out to you, that was a significant moment in your career? And what did you learn from it?

Steve: I, unfortunately, at Nortel, went bankrupt. I was there. I was hired by a gentleman named Mike Sever Auskey. And we were the last management team about 24 months before it went bankrupt. So I was part of that team at Nortel. And if you remember we had a financial collapse. We had a pension payment due and Nortel failed. And it was one of the most disappointing things in my career. We were a $300 billion market cap Nortel at one time, and we shut the doors and I was there and shutting the doors. But when we went into bankruptcy, I learned an awful lot about survival in terms of surviving in a really, really difficult set of environments. We actually took the Nortel enterprise division and sold it to Avaya. So Avaya networks was the Nortel enterprise business that we sold. And so I learned an awful lot of lessons about how fast businesses can go south and how fast the market can change. But that was a real black eye in my career where I was part of a company that went bankrupt. And it kind of drives me today in terms of making sure that we never ever, ever get close to that third rail of either having a capital challenge or having a cash shortage or putting in a position where you haven't looked so far in the horizon, that you don't realize that the cliff is coming faster than you think. And so Nortel was the one time that I was really disappointed when failing when the company went bankrupt.

Adam: What does your day look like as a Fortune 500 CEO and what advice do you have for anyone listening on how to manage and optimize and prioritize their time?

Steve: Yeah, look, I start my day at 4:30 in the morning. I am in a half marathon training as we speak. So I get out and I run in the morning. And I think it's important that every leader starts the morning, getting themselves ready for the day when I come to the office. The office is expecting me to drive energy as opposed to that energy sucker that we talked about. So how do you get ready for that? Second, I have decided very early, that as a CEO, I'm going to work with the board. I'm going to manage Capital, and I'm going to be in talent development and cultural development. And so I've gotten out of the operation aspect of running the business, although obviously, I'm a part of seeing the results and being a part of the roll up. But really, my job is to do talent management, drive the energy in the company and drive the excitement and communicate the changes in the company. So I spend an awful lot of time with employees, a lot of time with customers, partners a lot of time on the road. So it's balanced between how do I work with the board? How do I work with capital allocation? And then I would call talent and cultural development.

Adam: To that end, what are your best tips for anyone listening, on how to recruit, manage and motivate talent?

Steve: First of all, on the recruiting side, you are the best recruiter as a CEO, you're just the best. And so I spend time at universities, I spend time in the field with the team. Why is it exciting to work here at Xerox? What's the culture of your work? Where are we going? We have artificial intelligence augmented reality, we have the ability to do machine learning. We have AI technology, we got IT technology, and you said it. Everybody thinks of us as a print company, but we are revolutionizing the service industry. So telling our employees, both current employees and prospective employees. This is a technology company, not a print company, right? So getting that message out, making sure that you communicate it, you'll find me on LinkedIn, you'll find me teaching at Columbia, you'll find me speaking at universities to really talk about the excitement of what Xerox is. The ability to come and learn from the best engineers, learn from the best innovators, learn from the best. You come to Xerox, and you learn from some of the best leaders who have built sales teams, have built supply chains, have built manufacturing plants, you can learn from the best by coming here. So the ability to be able to communicate that absolutely is an ability to be able to recruit. The last thing is when you think about recruiting the early generation today, they want to come to a company that has a purpose. And so when I talk about our Community Give Back when I talk about our ERG groups, when I talk about how focused we are on the climate, and what we do with our products, and what we do in terms of preservation and slowing down and reducing the number of miles we put on our trucks by doing motor mode style. Those are all things that give individuals the excitement that they're coming to a company for a purpose. When I talk to my employees, I say it's not just about the 20,000 employees, it's about our communities. It's about the Community Give Back that we have. It's about the pension holders and the ability to pay a dividend to make sure that they can get dollars so that they can continue to have food and help their families. And so I talk about the broader purpose of Xerox and why it is so important. Not only as a brand, not only as an employee but how we contribute to the environment and the globe in general, we do a good job in telling that story and getting people excited about coming into Xerox.

Adam: Steve, you share a number of really important points. First and foremost, leadership starts at the top. As a leader, you are your company's best brand ambassador, you can send out your HR team, you can send out your recruiting team and you should. But the end of the day, as we spoke about right at the get go. Energy is contagious. And if you as a leader are bringing positive energy into the world, if you're sharing positive energy to prospective employees, that's gonna go a long way that's gonna go a much longer way than you asking someone else to do that on your behalf.

Steve: Yeah, I couldn't have said it any better. I say energy is contagious. Think about your own personal life on the weekend. Where do you go you hang out with people that make you miserable every day. You hang out with people that make you excited and bring you energy every day. When you go into a stadium. And you hear the band my daughter graduated from University of Southern Cal and when you go to the University of Southern Cal and that band comes out in the hos comes out, they're playing the band, the energy and the excitement, that's precious. CEOs need to be the leader and drive it and we all do in different ways. Some of us are a lot more excited. Some of us a lot more but both but there are a tremendous amount of CEOs that are quiet that are introverts, by the way, I'm an introvert if you ever see my Myers Briggs, I mean, off the chart introvert, I've learned how to be able to be a communicator. But there are individuals that don't have to be outward energized, yet, you're connected to them because they drive incredible energy but in a different way. 

Adam: Steve, I actually also went to USC for my undergrad. And I'm very familiar with the USC marching band, probably the best marching band in America. Yeah, my only complaint with the Trojan marching band is that when I would take finals, I would listen to them play and that isn't the time you want to hear them.

Steve: So true, but you know what it was like in the stadium when they come in. It's awesome.

Adam: Especially when they're winning. I was there when we won a couple of national championships. Those were good days.

Steve: Yeah, well, my daughter joined right after pekao lap, unfortunately. And so I remember that first year, I bought three tickets to the other whatever the national championship was, we got first game out, we lost to Stanford. And that was my hope for going to the national championship the first year,

Adam: Steve, as you know, running Xerox, so much of it is about timing. And fortunately, I had the benefit of good timing. In this case, my freshman year was Pete Carroll first year as coach. That was out of my control. But that's good luck over there. You also spoke about the importance of purpose, an incredibly important topic, the why? Why am I doing this? It's not enough to tell someone to do this. And this is something that is an important theme through so many of my interviews, I did an interview with an admiral who told me in the course of his entire military career, he can count on one hand, the number of times someone ever told him, this is an order. So even in the military, when you think that things get done, because people tell you to do this doesn't work that way. It's not about your boss telling you to do this. It's about inspiring people to do things. It's about motivating people to do things. It's about showing and explaining the why. That's what it's all about.

Steve: Yeah, I couldn't agree with him more when you have a team. And when you've got a company that is focused on the purpose and really wants to come and wants to drive that purpose drive that vision, it's unstoppable. People do things that they never thought they can do. Teams do things that they never thought they can do. So it's incredible. I've had the pleasure of leading 68+, M&A is over integrating companies or putting companies together. And the first thing he always tried to do is to make sure that the companies and the integration teams understood why the acquisition happened, what the outcome was, what you were trying to drive and the purpose of what you were doing. And people bought into that. And when they buy into it, you can make them do extraordinary things.

Adam: Steve, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Steve: The first thing is recognizing each and every day, you can work on some skills. Even today, I work on my leadership skills each and every day. I happen to be the one I had and part of we got to talk about employee resource groups. There's one called Young Professionals inside of Xerox, and I am the sponsor of the wide peak group, and listening to that team and sitting down with them each and every month. And just listening. And I'll tell you, I'd be transparent. It's like nails on a blackboard. See, why aren't you doing stuff on Tik Tok? But the reality is, when you listen, you learn. Okay, Google, what is Tik Tok? You learn an awful lot about what you don't know, you learned an awful lot about what employees are doing. When you purposely each and every day and consciously try to build upon your skills, try to learn something, try to get better each and every day. And so my biggest advice and I don't care where you are in your career, I said earlier in the podcast that today is the slowest change you'll ever happen in your life. And so the one skill going forward. And I don't care what technology is out there. I don't care what the industry looks like, I don't care where it is, is leadership's ability to drive change. And all the attributes we've talked about for the last half hour are so important to driving change, and being able to lead to that change. But that means that your skills have to always and continuously evolve, driving skills and how do you think about how AI is going to impact the work environment? How it's going to impact your company, the different issues in and around AI? How are you going to lead to that data privacy versus driving productivity, individual privacy versus driving outcomes and better results for your customers. And so you've got to continue to work on those skills and continue to improve each and every day. So my biggest advice is just find and work on your skills each and every day and at the end of the year. You'll be a much better leader.

Adam: Steve, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Steve: Adam, it's my honor and come back anytime.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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