“Learn to love it. Make it your ally.”
Ursula M. Burns offered this advice about change in her 2011 commencement address at MIT. Speaking as Xerox’s chief executive and an engineer who had spent decades inside the company, she described a world in which technology, careers, and institutions would continue to shift. Stability could not be the graduates’ organizing assumption. Rather than treating change only as an external threat, Burns urged them to develop the habits and confidence needed to use it as a source of possibility.
Making change an ally begins with agency. People cannot control every market, invention, or reorganization, but they can learn quickly, update their skills, build relationships beyond a single role, and notice needs created by transition. Organizations can do the same by treating surprises as information rather than as violations of a fixed plan. A team that names what has changed, what remains valuable, and which new experiments are affordable can move from defensive reaction toward deliberate adaptation.
“Love it” should not mean endorsing every disruption. Change can eliminate livelihoods, intensify inequality, or impose costs on people who had little role in choosing it. Leaders who celebrate transformation while insulating themselves from its effects can turn resilience into a demand placed on others. Some principles—safety, dignity, truthfulness, and fair treatment—should constrain adaptation rather than bend with it. The quotation is strongest when love means curiosity and readiness, not surrendering judgment or responsibility.
Businesses now confront fast changes in automation, climate, supply networks, and customer expectations. They need more than slogans about agility. Managers can give employees time to learn, communicate uncertainty honestly, involve affected teams in redesign, and create paths into new work. Individuals can keep a portable record of skills and seek assignments that broaden judgment. Burns’s sentence captures the emotional shift required: fear narrows attention, while curiosity makes options visible. Change becomes an ally when people have the capability and voice to shape what follows. Small transition experiments can make an abstract threat more concrete: shadow a new role, test a revised process, or learn one unfamiliar tool. Visible progress builds confidence more credibly than repeated assurances that everyone should simply embrace disruption. Managers should also distinguish temporary uncertainty from decisions already made. Honest boundaries help people plan and prevent participation exercises from becoming theater. Adaptation is strongest when choice, resources, and time accompany the invitation to change. Trust grows when uncertainty is acknowledged before optimism is requested.
Burns gave the advice in her 2011 MIT commencement address while reflecting on careers and institutions shaped by constant change.
Her own journey from engineering intern to Xerox chief executive gave the message a specific organizational and personal context.
Change becomes more useful when people approach it with curiosity, learning, and a sense of agency about their response.
Adaptability does not require approving harmful disruption or abandoning principles that protect safety, dignity, and fairness.
Automation, climate risk, and shifting markets continually change the knowledge and coordination that work demands.
Leaders make adaptation credible by sharing information, investing in learning, and giving affected people a role in shaping the transition.
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