Name: HP Inc. CEO Dion Weisler: Leaders Have the Power to Influence an Ecosystem
Uploaded: 2018-06-13
Duration: 4 min 42 s
Description: Weisler is a fan of brave, bold moves, and believes action is far better than inaction.

[ MUSIC ] Dion, when you became CEO of HP three years ago, one of your goals was to create a diverse workforce and also a diverse Board of Directors. How close are you to reaching the goals of gender diversity And racial diversity. I don't think you ever reach them. If you say you reach them, you are admitting that you've arrived. And I don't think you have arrived, it's something you have to constantly do. Diversity inclusion is so important, the next two billion eyeballs are going to come from different places, and that diversity Thought is super important if you are going to capture the kind of customers we are looking to capture in the future. They say that when you do good, it's good for business. How is this diversity inclusion going to be good for HP's business? It's so true. It's not just the right thing to do which of course it is, it's a business imperative. You know for HP you were in a unique situation when you became CEO, because Hewlett Packard was seperating itself into two parts, and you had a fresh start with HP Inc. And so you could reinvent the company and do all of these diversity stuff. Many business executives talk about this but they don't do much about it. How do they have to do a better job? Leaders have to step up, and they have to make a priority of the company. It doesn't matter whether you get a chance in a new company or whether you are in your exiting company. You just need to step up Make it a priority. And you build a plan, you work your plan, your plan will work. I was fascinated to hear that HP has been putting pressure on its suppliers to hire more women, African Americans, and Latinos. Is this making a difference? It's making a difference Quite profoundly, both in our marketing department as well as our legal department, where a couple of our leaders very early stepped up and said listen, if you wanna work, And support HP. We require you to have a certain kind of shape of diversity. WHat was your reaction when your executive said that to them? Actually, more positive than you, it was kind of a, it's unusual, right? So something has changed here, what's going on? But the logic is so sound. It is a business imperative, and so they all stepped up. And the ones that stepped up more gaining more work and the ones that didn't step up aren't working for us anymore. Was that the or else? Step up or we're gonna give our business to someone else? Yeah, absolutely. So if you wanna make a difference, be prepared to make the difference and make the tough call. And so we did that and that's the power of Being in a leadership position. That you can influence an ecosystem, that you can step up an elite as a leader across an organization larger than your own, to make a difference in the things that you really believe in. There's been a lot of attention on Starbucks recently and how is the dealing with this whole racial bias issue? Some people have criticized their approach, other people say It's a start, what's your take? My take is action is always better than inaction. And if that's the right thing for them to do, if that's the best way to do it, more power to them. Great for standing up and sayiing, we believe in this. We need to move on. We have to do the same things. We need to make the decisions for our company, other companies, and other CEOs. And leadership teams need to make the right decisions for their companies, but we ought to be doing it. Was there anything that you Observed by watching what was going on with Starbucks and any kind of lessons learned forget their experience? It's a brave bold move, and I Iike brave bold moves where you're saying we are not gonna Do something that is incrementally gonna make a difference. We're gonna try something here and make a bold move. I appreciate bold moves, particularly when they're the right thing to do. And the right thing to do for the customers and the shareholders. You know we're seeing more business leaders are stepping up And they are speaking out on some of the social issues, but people still expect more. What more do our CEOs need to do? I think they have to listen. They have to liste nto their customers, they need to listen to their partners, they need to listen to the ecosystem, they need to listen to their employees and they need to undestand where The world's moving. And whatever you're doing, you need to be raising the bar. That it's not enough to just keep doing what you've been doing. Even if you've been doing a lot. That's the way we think about it. Even though we've pioneered in areas, we've got more work to do. We're after ideas every single day. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

HP Inc. CEO Dion Weisler: Leaders Have the Power to Influence an Ecosystem

Leadership

Weisler is a fan of brave, bold moves, and believes action is far better than inaction.