So if you are one of thousands if not millions of people wondering how Cisco chair and CEO John Chambers will act as chair only when UNC-Chapel Hill graduate Chuck Robbins takes over as CEO in July, the Chambers-Robbins management team debuted Wednesday in a conference call on earnings.

The call makes clear: Chambers will remain very, very involved.

Cisco reported another very good quarter, and Chambers talked about being “pumped” as he prepares to hand over the day-to-day reins of control after 20 years to Robbins.

The stage is set

But read this passage for insight into how Chambers – as hands-on a CEO as there ever has been – will mentor Robbins, if you will.

James Faucette of Morgan Stanley asks a question about security. “… I’m wondering how security and security concerns may be impacting demand in some of your other product segments firstly. And secondly, also related to security, how should we think about your efforts in security in areas where you may see some room for improvement in the product portfolio, et cetera?”

“Got you,” Chambers replies, according to the transcript of the call provided by financial news website SeekingAlpha.

“So security is the ideal market for us. …We’re on a journey here. We love the momentum, 14% growth with orders growing faster, which I think was 20% growth, and I expect us to do a lot better than that over time.”

He then talks about “pull-through” and “our product architectures” and so forth as well as the “IoE” – the Internet of everything. He says a Cisco offering “gives us a seat at the boardroom where on the one hand, we can say you either disrupt or you die. And on the other hand, your major fear of a CEO or a board is what happens if we have a problem? How do I minimize it? How do I know I’ve done everything possible? And don’t save me a couple hundred thousand dollars on a white label box that causes me a problem. So our win rate goes way up and our relevance goes way up. And you will continue to see us move in terms of additional moves as we go in the future.”

There’s the phrase to key on: “in the future.”

The handoff

There’s already big talk on the Street that Cisco is preparing to make a big buy.

Here’s the handoff to Robbins:

“Chuck, I’m going ask you maybe just to comment about his indirect question, which is acquisitions. Don’t tie down to a specific industry, but your overall view of innovation, how we defined it before, and your thoughts about are we going to continue with the model if that includes acquisitions in that model.”

Robbins, who is the CEO Designate and currently Senior Vice President, Worldwide Field Operations & Director, responds based on Chambers’ mentorship:

“Yes, John. So as I think about M&A activity going forward, I think if you look back at our strategy for innovation, it has always combined a combination of internal R&D partnerships and acquisitions. If you just look at the landscape today that we see in the consolidation of many of our peers and competitors, and, John, you’ve been talking about brutal consolidations for a few quarters now. Many of those that we see out there now are really around cost synergies, candidly that are between players that perhaps aren’t as strategically well positioned. And when we see that happen, that usually creates opportunity for Cisco, and that’s when we usually take advantage of those situations. …”

There you have it

So don’t think for a moment that Chambers won’t be involved very actively as Cisco goes forward.

And look for Cisco to be making a big deal soon.

You can read the full conference call transcript at: http://seekingalpha.com/article/3181286-cisco-systems-csco-john-t-chambers-on-q3-2015-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single