An Enigma Named Ralph

I told a shorter version of this story in Hip and Sage, but here is the longer - and more colorful - version.

As he walked on the hollow hardwood stage, his worn and scarred plain brown cowboy boots boomed and echoed. He looked, spoke and moved a bit like John Wayne. A hero with big flaws. Several hundred middle and senior-level managers from a mid-western Fortune 500 company - many of them wearing navy blue suits and red striped power ties  - looked up at Ralph as he began talking. I was one of the middle managers in the audience, but I did not wear a navy blue suit or a red striped power tie. The company had hired Ralph to kick off a yearly management conference held in their worldwide headquarters’ city of Dayton, Ohio. Ralph was hired to get us started, motivate us to think differently and to reinforce a number of points that our company’s senior leaders had apparently failed to successfully communicate. Ralph did these things, and for that he earned his generous speaking fee. He projected a colorful PowerPoint presentation onto the stage wall, which was a bigger deal back in 1997 than it would be today. Ralph shared two-by-two models, charts with boxes and arrows, and pithy one-liners framed around a well-told story about how he had turned his company around. Like many leaders on the speaking circuit, Ralph had a best-selling book that described his professional makeover as CEO and President. We all got copies and I eventually got my signed.

Ralph started the meeting off, showed us his two-by-two models, said what our leaders could not in ways they had not, and then he kept going - an enigma of strength and softness, confidence and humility, popular business jargon wrapped and rephrased in his gritty style. Blue suits shifted in their chairs, took a few notes, but their eyes rarely strayed from where Ralph stood high and alone on the vast wooden stage.

I do not know if our minds were ready for Ralph. As a conservative and often unexciting large company over 100 years old, we had not previously hired motivational speakers like him. Mine was a company of blue suits and red striped power ties and managers who were nothing like John Wayne at work. What took us by surprise, why our eyes were glued up toward and on him, was Ralph’s willingness to be vulnerable, show us that he was fallible and share his success story – a considerable financial achievement – with humility.     

The blue suits were not easy to impress. Motivational speakers often failed to cause even a modest stir in thinking or enthusiasm. Ralph’s power and humility perked us up like a fully dressed banana split served after a banquet lunch of broiled chicken breast, wild rice and steamed broccoli. Ralph said that he was the problem with his business, that he was the one who needed to change, and told us – not sugarcoating the less flattering details - who he had to become in order to change. He asked questions that probably provoked private “oh, shit” moments for half the blue suits in the room. I believe all great leaders learn lessons along the way but Ralph surprised us that day in Dayton, Ohio in 1997 with his story of how he learned to lead by being a better follower. It was on this morning that I first began distinguishing and thinking about what sageness could look like in business. Ralph followed and reinvented his company and his career as its CEO. Ralph was an enigma because he was wise and catalytic, strong and soft, unrefined and elegant, filled with humbleness and ego.

My leadership team ended up working with Ralph several times over the next year. Once, we flew up to Ralph’s company and toured his facilities. I was struck by how Ralph and his employees – most much younger  - communicated and connected. At Ralph’s plant, the culture oozed mutual respect and cross-position collaboration. Ralph employed several methods that helped him move from near-curmudgeon to hip and sage leader within a few years. Are you curious about what Ralph did? Stay tuned to future posts.....