How I Did It: Xerox’s Former CEO on Why Succession Shouldn’t Be a Horse Race

The IdeaXerox named Ursula Burns its CEO in 2009, marking the end of a nearly drama-free succession process. That was no accident: The outgoing CEO had spent nearly a decade orchestrating a smooth transition.

by

Anne Mulcahy

by

Anne Mulcahy

From the Magazine (October 2010)

The IdeaXerox named Ursula Burns its CEO in 2009, marking the end of a nearly drama-free succession process. That was no accident: The outgoing CEO had spent nearly a decade orchestrating a smooth transition.

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Summary.

Reprint: R1010A

From the moment Mulcahy stepped into her job as CEO, in 2001, the Xerox board of directors began discussing who would succeed her. Looking back on the long process of choosing and grooming her successor, she acknowledges the wisdom of having started that conversation a lot earlier than might have felt comfortable. It allowed ample time to give the four candidates developmental responsibilities and visibility with the board. Meanwhile, Mulcahy sent honest signals to them about what the possibilities were if they didn’t get the job, in an effort to keep their talent within the company. She felt that pitting them against one another in a classic “horse race” would be dysfunctional for Xerox. The ideal approach, in her view, is to develop one very strong player and some peripheral candidates who can be brought along if necessary.

In July 2009 Ursula Burns succeeded Mulcahy in the first woman-to-woman CEO handoff among Fortune 500 companies—and became the first African-American woman to lead a large U.S. company. The board’s confidence in her had been well established long before, and the final transition was accomplished without drama.

The IdeaXerox named Ursula Burns its CEO in 2009, marking the end of a nearly drama-free succession process. That was no accident: The outgoing CEO had spent nearly a decade orchestrating a smooth transition.

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In early 2007 Ursula Burns and I had dinner at a French restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was quiet and expensive—which was uncharacteristic for us. But we needed a place where we could talk. At the time, Ursula was a senior vice president at Xerox and the leading candidate to succeed me as CEO. We were about to announce that she was being promoted to president and would join the board of directors—a move intended to signal that the CEO job was hers to win. It seemed like a smooth transition on the surface. But it’s fair to say that we were arguing behind the scenes, though I’d prefer to call it debating.

A version of this article appeared in the October 2010 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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Anne Mulcahy chairs the Board of Trustees for Save the Children. She is former chairperson and CEO of Xerox Corporation, having been named CEO in 2001 and chairwoman in 2002. As well as Xerox’s board, she has served on the boards of Catalyst, Citigroup Inc., Fuji Xerox Co. Ltd., and Target Corporation.

The IdeaXerox named Ursula Burns its CEO in 2009, marking the end of a nearly drama-free succession process. That was no accident: The outgoing CEO had spent nearly a decade orchestrating a smooth transition.

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How I Did It: Xerox’s Former CEO on Why Succession Shouldn’t Be a Horse Race

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