Ursula Burns Quotes

Believe that there are no limitations, no barriers to your success --- you will be empowered and you will achieve.

Dreams do come true, but not without the help of others, a good education, a strong work ethic, and the courage to lean in.

The best way to change it is to do it. Right? And then after a while you become it, and it's easy.

The world is changing. We all know this. And as that world changes, if you don't transform your company, you're stuck.

I say to my team all the time that this is how I grew up: Always thinking that, at any minute, I could be unemployed. You have to scramble. You have to work hard and get ahead of things.

I realized I was more convincing to myself and to the people who were listening when I actually said what I thought, versus what I thought people wanted to hear me say.

Where you are is not who you are

Find something that you love to do, and find a place that you really like to do it in. I found something I loved to do. Im a mechanical engineer by training, and I loved it. I still do. My son is a nuclear engineer at MIT, a junior, and I get the same vibe from him. Your work has to be compelling. You spend a lot of time doing it.

My perspective comes in part from being a New York black lady, in part from being an engineer. I know I'm smart and have opinions worth being heard.

I'm an advocate for change and eager to break a little glass when needed.

As Ive progressed in my career, Ive come to appreciate -- and really value -- the other attributes that define a companys success beyond the P&L: great leadership, long-term financial strength, ethical business practices, evolving business strategies, sound governance, powerful brands, values-based decision-making.

Crankiness is a human attribute that when people walk in the door of Xerox, they remain human. The best way to get the best out of people is to not force them to be something other than they naturally are. Now what do they have to be? They have to be respectful. You can't be ridiculously disrespectful.

I want to stop transforming and just start being.

I'm a black lady from the Lower East Side of New York. Not a lot intimidates me.

My mother raised us to think that if we worked hard, and if we put our end of the bargain in, it would work out OK for us.

I don't think paper will go away. I do believe that the value of paper will change, and Xerox is working on changing that value. Consider a color page. Actual life is in color, but you keep reproducing it in black and white. You remove value. It's a bad thing to do.

I've had many mentors, but the one that has the most impact was my mother.

Fresh out of college, you tend to join a company because it's a job. But, you tend to stay because it becomes a career; you start to feel at home. In the beginning of your career, you're focused on you: 'I like this place because I'm doing rewarding work; they take good care of me; the people are nice; there's runway for me,' etc.

CEOs resign when the internal dynamics of the company and the external dynamics of the company actually come together to say it is appropriate. When the internal dynamics ask you whether you have a replacement. I think the transition from CEOships have also become cartoonish.

Xerox is really good at managing documents, and we're definitely good at managing through a process.

Admiration takes on a whole new level when you appreciate just how complex it is to run a modern business.

I don't want to overemphasize this, but not a day goes by when I don't think about my mother and what she would think about what I just did. I often adjust my approach.

This old notion that work is drudgery is nonsense. Most days, even back when Xerox was under siege, I could not wait to get to the office.

You don’t have to be at every volleyball game. We can’t guilt ourselves.

If you go to Norway, Finland, Russia or Australia, youll see Xerox or Fuji-Xerox people, not just the name on the door. We have human beings who live and work and serve customers everywhere around the globe.

My mother was pragmatic, focused and extremely, exceedingly practical, and she was the ultimate self-determining person.