Note: This interview was published on March 21, 2009, and is worthy of being reprinted at this website.

Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Anne Mulcahy, chairwoman and chief executive of the Xerox Corporation. She says, “We have to change all the time” so when she hires, she looks for adaptability.

To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.

Photo credit: Judith Pszenica for The New York Times

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You led a turnaround at Xerox earlier this decade. What lessons did you learn from that experience?

I think the whole management team would say that when you have that window of opportunity called a crisis, move as quickly as you can, get as much done as you can. There’s a momentum for change that’s very compelling. I think we took good advantage of it, but I think we would have loved to have done even more during that window.

We also learned a lot about identifying failure quickly. And as much as it’s sometimes hard to make choices about where you invest, it’s equally hard to make choices about where you don’t invest and what you eliminate.

What’s it like to be in a meeting run by you?

I’m not formal and I’m impatient. So I think my team would say that when she starts tapping her pen and the leg starts moving quickly, that it’s time to move on. I’m not good at long, drawn-out kinds of sessions. I want to get to the point and not waste time on something that’s not meaningful for the senior team.

So beware the tapping of the pen.

Absolutely. When that starts, you know things are not going well.

When you’re assessing a job candidate, do you have one or two acid-test questions?

They have more to do with behavior and culture than they do with competence and expertise. Generally speaking, the people you talk to have the competence and expertise. That’s how they got to the interview. So then the most important aspect is whether it’s a good fit. And so I always ask the question, why are they choosing us, not so much why we should choose them. I really want to hear about what they could do for the company and why they think it would be a place they could be successful.

It’s a little bit of a test. Have they done their homework? Do they understand the place? Do they aspire to the kind of value system and culture we have here? I’ve learned that it’s probably the biggest success or failure indication, as well, about whether people are a good fit with the culture.

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Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times’ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.comthat he started in March 2009. In his book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews with more than 70 leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here.

His more recent book, Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation, was also also published by Times Books (January 2014). To contact him, please click here.