Michele Hunt,  Author Dreammakers: Putting Vision and Values to Work

Bowen:     Michelle, you have had varied experiences with prison systems, with corporate organizations and with government. Certainly you've had an opportunity to see lots of different cultures and lots of different environments. Is there a problem in corporate America today? Are there organizational cultures or issues that are perhaps dysfunctional in nature?

Hunt:     Absolutely. I would however say, beyond corporate structures, I'd say in the workplace in general, whether it be for-profit, non-profit, it's simply the way in which we've structured the way people get work done. And unfortunately, in most organizations, people serve systems and structures versus systems and structures serving people who are trying to do something collaboratively together. So it's not only the structures, the organizational structures, but for lack of a better term, kind of our mental model structures about people. So they're not designed to nourish and polish people's gifts and create the kind of environment where people can contribute those gifts to the organizational goals.

I, unfortunately, believe that some of the underlying assumptions by which organizations are structured are that people are lazy, that people cannot be trusted, and that people have limits on their growth potential. That people need to only bring a portion of themselves to work and leave 90% of them behind - meaning emotions, meaning laughter, meaning creativity - and that only a few people have the right answers and generally they sit at the top.

All of these assumptions, we're finding out today, not only are wrong (and we've always known this) because when people leave work they live very complex lives, they sit on boards, they manage budgets, they manage oftentimes five and six different lives, whether it's an aging parent and children and community. But somehow or another, we went crazy when we designed the workplace to restrict all of those gifts and talents to a specific boxed-in role.

Bowen:      In your new book, "Dreammakers: Putting Vision and Values to Work," you indicate that there are a number of people in the world that you refer to as dream makers. Can you tell us a little bit more about what dream makers are?

Hunt:      Well, these dream makers are visionary leaders in my mind and they share a mindset or a world view that's different than most leaders. And so they choose to lead their organizations and their lives differently, based on a belief system of shared values and powerful visions that they share with everyone in their organization or enterprise. So they are very special people and I've found them all over the world. They see the world different than most of us. They have a sense of responsibility beyond their own lives. They're practical optimists. They share deep faith in people and their capabilities and potential and their basic goodness.

They build their organizations based on relationships, so they value relationships -- maybe even beyond value, they have a reverence for all relationships. And so their organizations allow those relationships to flourish. They're really quite complex people in the sense that they're multi-dimensional, deeply involved in family, community, the arts, the environment, as well as, work. And what I've found is that they draw from all of these experiences, these diverse experiences, and they draw from those in the way they make decisions.

Some of the other things I've found are that they make decisions with both their head and their heart. And when their head and their heart get in conflict, they tend to go with their heart. Some of the other characteristics are that they understand we're all human and that we're all flawed, nevertheless they seem to focus on people's talents and strength. And instead of trying to have us become perfectionists in everything, which is totally impossible, they allow people to focus on their strengths and then they build teams that fill out people's weak spots allowing others to complement the team with their strengths.

Bowen:       Michelle, now, as a business person and also as a consultant, is there a profit to all of this or is this some kind of wishful thinking?

Hunt:      Not only is there a profit, I don't think any, particularly for-profit, organization can thrive without drawing on the creativity, talents, heart and soul of people today because of the rapid and unprecedented change and the explosion of technology. No longer can a few people just come up with the ideas. You have to really draw on people to navigate through this change and you kind of have to navigate through this change collectively and collaboratively.

So in this way, you need to provide a North Star that everyone can relate to that shines bright enough that everyone says this is where we're all going and we understand why we're going there. We understand however that the environment may change on us overnight. But if we keep our eye on this North Star, which is what I call vision rooted in deeply-held values that are shared also, then people can create and re-create the route to get their.

My experience at Herman Miller was that we (the seven of us at the top management team) certainly understood that without the ideas and creativity of the people, there was no way we could be successful because change was hitting us so fast. And it was so unpredictable but when we finally got so frustrated, we went to the people worldwide and said, "Look, let's create a shared vision of where we want to go together. And let's root it in some deeply-held values so that it's not by our means that we get there because we could hurt the customer, hurt the employer, hurt the environment, hurt ourselves, if we don't have some shared values to route us or to be our rudder." And then we called on people to help us navigate through and, of course, the results were phenomenal, continuously.

Bowen:     Having said that and obviously having seen the benefit of that philosophy and that approach to business, why are so many leaders reluctant to give up the oppressive systems?

Hunt:      We haven't been taught any other way. Our education system is demeaning in my eyes. It limits people. We're taught to compete with one another. We're not taught to collaborate. We're taught that the teacher is right, when in fact many times the facts are questionable and when children question they're often shut down. So if think of those little children and how creative and how fascinating and intelligent they are by mastering a language by the time they're three or four. And you get into school and it's no, no, no, no, no, teacher's right, walk in a straight line, shut up and sit down and be quiet. Oh, and by the way, don't dream.

And when you think about all of those messages and that we get almost everywhere, the only model I think that doesn't teach us is when we have a community crises and we pull together and everybody brings whatever their gift is and it's because there is a shared vision.

Bowen:      Michelle, in reading your book I was struck by the story that you told of your experience as a child and the stereotypic thinking that you experienced.

Hunt:     Well, I'm African-American and I'm 49 so we were raised in the 50s and 60s. And my father was in the Air Force and we were one of the few blacks to have housing on the Air Force base. So I was the only black in the whole fifth grade and we had a fifth grade play. I was so excited. And it was in the gym and I remember taking a seat way up high so I could see. And the teacher was passing out the different roles and she pointed up to me and she said, "Michelle, now here's your role." And she started singing and imitating a cotton picker. And she started singing, "Cotton needs a-picking so bad, cotton needs a-picking so bad, Oh, Lordy, help me pick some cotton." And then she told me to come down and try the role. And obviously I was devastated and frightened and embarrassed. But I do remember in that long journey down those steps, something happening, and it comes from my upbringing, I really tapped into my own belief system that my parents taught me. And by the time I got to the bottom of the, to the gym floor, I just smiled at her and walked out of the gymnasium and out of the school and I walked home. And I sat on the steps that day because it was just like the most wonderful day of my life. I think it's because I took control and I did what was healthy and nourishing for me.

And that comes from my father who every single morning getting me up and having me look in the mirror and say, "I'm healthy, I'm happy, I'm beautiful, I'm intelligent and I'm wise," seven times. And I used to think he was crazy. And my mother was saying to me, when I would complain about things, she would say, "Okay, sweetie. Uh-huh, now, what are you going to do about it?" And I think those two messages helped me navigate through and not challenge authority but really go in and do what was right for me.

Bowen:     And that was certainly a life plan and life learning that you obviously executed and are executing in your life successfully. In terms of business, however, do we see those same kinds of mental constructs putting people into roles that they aren't going to find beneficial?

Hunt:       Absolutely. Let me tell you another quick story. I was at Herman Miller and one of the janitors of the building was retiring and at his retirement dinner one of the vice-presidents got up and said, "Fred, what are you going to do now? Are you going to go fishing or whatever?" So Fred gets to the podium and he says, "Well, you know, Gary, I've been running this janitorial service on the side and last year I grossed $300,000. My plan is to grow this into several million."

So, yes, we put people in boxes. We have no idea the gifts people have. You have, in your workplace, you have great singers, artists, writers, you have geniuses walking around.

And it wasn't until we on the top management team at Herman Miller almost lost the store, so to speak, that we liberated people to contribute those gifts. Within 18 months after creating a shared vision, rooted and shared values, and then allowing people to share in the risk and the rewards of the business, we were the most admired company by Fortune magazine. We began to hit every year, the best designed products, best managed companies, best managed company in the world by the way, top ten companies in America to work for, we had two consecutive stock splits, our growth went up to 20-plus percent compounded. It was just incredible.

And the employees, there were only about 7,000 people in this company worldwide, but those 7,000 people all began to generate $12 million a year on average of cost improvements, literally, backed out of budgets.

Bowen:     Now, when you joined Herman Miller, you were the first African-American in a senior management role?

Hunt:      I was, there were only two African-Americans in any professional position worldwide in the company.

Bowen:     And what change did you bring to the organization over time?

Hunt:      I'm not going to say I single-handedly did anything. I was an advocate for diversity obviously. And by the time I was on the top management team, we had four African-American vice-presidents. We had 30-percent of the top management, meaning directors and vice-presidents, were women. And about 30-percent were people of color in some kind of management or supervisory role.

But again, we had a very visionary CEO, who was Max Depree, who wrote "Leadership is an Art," who became my mentor and not only was open to learning about diversity, he quickly grasped how it could contribute to the work environment and the profitability of the company. So it was with his openness to understanding and resonating with this power of diversity, that we were able to collaboratively do this.

The top 150 leaders of the company worldwide were brought together in groups of 24 for three days at a time, for instance, where we would just generally have dialogue on diversity, quality and change, and very powerful things. It became part of our fabric, actually. I mean, two of the vice-presidents, who were not African-American, aside from their huge jobs, one was over worldwide manufacturing, actually taught diversity, in the end they became diversity facilitators. So it didn't become something you did for those poor people. It was something you mined--the nuggets--the gold that lies in there in the diverse array of ideas, choices, experiences, backgrounds, that you can bring to any organizational opportunity or problem.

Bowen:      Max Depree has been certainly an exceptional leader with his organization and is a fine person. So many CEOs across our country espouse diversity, espouse treating human resources as our most valuable assets, and yet the behavior is not there, why is that?

Hunt:      Well, I don't have all the answers but there's not just organizational ego but there's people ego. So I think in the heart of hearts of most CEOs, they would love to mentor people and to have an environment that grew from good practices. I don't know that they know how to do it. They don't have practice at it nor do they have the confidence nor the patience that it will work. But I think the desire deep inside is there. I've never met a CEO that doesn't desire that but quickly under pressure goes back into the old habits.

Bowen:      It's often difficult to change one's behavior when the model that they are following has the behavior of the past but in your book you reference the concept that mammoth change is coming and that there is an incredible need for letting

Hunt:     It's not coming, it's here. I mean, when I was coming up, a new idea or new product or new invention would generally take ten years before it impacted our lives--from the time it was in research and development till the time it hit the market till the time it changed our lives. Today, new technology is changing our lives overnight. So with that the old way doesn't work and now every CEO knows that. And so one of the compelling reasons for change is that the old way of leading is not working. You can't move quick enough. You can't change on a dime.

And the other thing is that people now don't have the trust in organizations like they did when they were, you know, our parents might have worked for an organization for 20 years, 30 years. Today because of the downsizing and all of that, people basically are bartering their skills. And if you don't treat them right, they'll barter them somewhere else-- particularly those in high demand like the information technology folks. And there's a crisis there; we've got a shortage of approximately 200,000 in information technology people. Now, they can demand anything. They're bringing their pets to work. Look what's happened to the workforce. You walk into any information technology organization or related organization and people are walking around in jeans and who forced that change--the employees who had the skills and were in high demand. So with this change, CEOs are sitting up there and they're understanding you can't treat people like that anymore and people won't let it happen.

Bowen:     You know, I hear those words and yet the headlines that we both read every day announce massive layoffs of 2,000, 14,000, 19,000 and on and on. How do you see this is affecting people and their attitudes toward work and toward organizations?

Hunt:      Oh, I do believe we're creating chaos by the massive. And people are losing trust in every institution. It's because these things don't happen just in corporations--they happen in education, they happen in government, they happen in non-profits. Now, there are silver linings but they're difficult to see. The silver linings are that people no longer are looking to daddy, the organization, to define their lives. It forces one to become self-reliant and to not depend on the leader of an organization to define their reality.

However, in the meantime, it's a mess. Now, I'm an optimist so in that mess allows for new structures to emerge. And my belief, my vision, my hope, my trust is that as we're hitting bottom in this chaos. That we now are the generation that have the opportunity, as well as the responsibility, to design organizations, communities and structures that are healthy to people, that are win-wins, that, yes, can make money but not over the backs of people. But that can capitalize on people's skills and strengths.

So as things deteriorate, including the trust that we're losing in organizations, out of the ashes, the phoenix hopefully will arise. And I see that happening. I travel 70-percent of the time, all over the world. And everyone is struggling with who do we want to be, where do we want to go and how do we organize. Now, I launched this business called Vision and Values. Now, that says something. and I have more work than I know what to do with. So, I guess, what I'm seeing as a pattern, that may not be visible to others, is that that deterioration has become so deep that new forms are emerging. And remember I worked for President Clinton in helping to reinvent government. And if you see it there, then it can happen anywhere, if it can happen there.

Bowen:      In terms of workers who are entering the workforce anew, what advice would you give them and also what advice would you give people of diverse backgrounds entering the world of work today?

Hunt:      Oh, it would be the same for everyone and that's interview the company. Don't just have the company interview you. And ask them what are their corporate or organizational values and make sure that those values have confluence with yours so that your spirit doesn't become dampened because it's very easy to get disillusioned when you first start out. Fortunately, I've got a 17-year-old daughter and I don't think we have to worry about those kids. They're going to be asking those questions. I mean, my daughter fundamentally says there's no way she would work in business. I took her to a Take Your Daughter to Work Day and, of course, I have a home office so that wouldn't work. So I took her into one of my customer's places and we were in there about an hour and then left and she stopped me in the parking lot and she said, "Mom, wouldn't going in there every day be hazardous to your health." So she's going into the performing arts and my house is the hangout. So I started asking her friends and nobody's going into business. I don't know if that's good or bad. But I say follow your bliss first of all, follow what makes you happy and then secondly, interview the company. And the best way to interview the company is to stop people in the halls and say, "What's it like to work here?"

Bowen:     In the book, "Dreammakers," you reference a walk through the hallways of a government agency, the Office of Personnel Management. Can you share that little experience with us because it said so much about the culture of the organization?

Hunt:      Yeah. I'm a person that loves to laugh and I was walking through the halls, and I'm sensitive enough to look around and make sure that there's no meetings going on, but I did laugh and gentleman put his head out of his little cubicle and said, "That's not professional." When you think about that, if we ponder that a moment, think of what we've done to people in organizations by inhibiting laughter and saying laughter is not professional. What kind of cultures have we built where you can't bring laughter, even tears, emotion to the workplace because that's what we are, we are human.

Bowen:     Along those lines, as we focus on the specific area of anger, which oftentimes is an outgrowth of fear, what thoughts do you have around dealing with these issues? We've certainly seen situations of uncontrolled anger that have resulted in violence and loss of life.

Hunt:     Boy, I think we've got to return to the fundamental question and everyone can ask this question, what makes, what motivates me? If every manager and every individual asked that question of themselves, then they'll know how to treat another human being. I don't think it's that complex. I don't know why we believe that the person next door needs to be restricted when I want freedom, for instance. And if you give me freedom and trust, I can contribute a great deal. But you start inhibiting me and demeaning me then it's going to come out in a different way. It's going to come out in the quality of your products. It's going to come out in the quality of the work I do. And it's going to come out in anger, which is catching, by the way.

So I think, it is a matter of values to me. It's a matter of us stepping back and re-asking the fundamental questions and challenging our fundamental assumptions we have about people. People want to contribute their gifts. People are amazing.

I mean, I was nine years in the criminal justice system. I was the first female probation officer to handle adult male felons on probation in Detroit, Michigan. And I was the first female deputy warden in a male prison over treatment programs. I saw remarkable things. That's where my lessons were learned. We put a responsibility model into place where an inmate, the more responsibility they showed, the more they had the opportunity to participate in the design of programs that affected them. So our education program, our recreation program, our religious services program, our psychological and counseling programs, they helped design those in collaboration with my treatment staff and our community volunteers. And so, we, had remarkable results. We had a prison theater that would just spellbound you. There was an arts program that would spellbound you. Every single inmate that had a tutor, they came up with those ideas of how to capitalize on the community volunteers. They talked me out of hiring a chaplain. They said, "Miss Hunt, why don't you get the community volunteers for the different churches to rotate and volunteer and then we could have 24-hour coverage at a lower cost and take that $30,000 and we can put it into programming." And that's what we did.

Bowen:    As we come to the close of our discussion, let me ask you to focus on one thing. The story about your dad and the Air Force and the message based on his own experience that he gave to you. Do you recall that?

Hunt:     Yeah, that was a real defining moment in my life, in all three of us, the children, my brothers and I. My father, my parents are very unusual people. They're phenomenal. They're the greatest people I've ever known. And my father, one of his jobs was to help desegregate the recreational facilities on Air Force bases. But even though segregation was over on the bases, whites and blacks ate at different tables in the mess hall. And my father was moved one day and after people finished their meal, he climbed on top of the white table and gave a speech on brotherhood and they threw him in jail for five days. And during those five days, all sorts of things happened to his food, to his water, to him. He lost about 30 pounds in five days. And when he tells that story, when he told it to us the first time, we were six, seven and eight and he cried and he still cries when he tells this story. But he looked up to us and said, "But don't you ever hate. Love. Understand that this comes from ignorance and our love is powerful." That's my Dad.

Bowen:      As you think about the dream makers that you have known, what is it that they do to incorporate their vision and value system into the operations of their organizations? How do they make their personal values come alive in their organization structure?

Hunt:      Well, they generally (and it's not one person's values, by the way, where I've seen it successful) will start out with articulating what's important to them in the way of values but then engage the organization in dialogue where that gets embellished by what's important to everyone in the organization.

I've seen, for instance, Motorola, the radio and products group. They literally started out with the top130 and then they created a shared vision and they created shared values based on those 130. They spent three days doing that. And then each one of those leaders went back to their countries or places and repeated that process with everyone in their organization and got feedback from the bottom up. Both on refining the vision and on did we miss something on the values.

They came back together the next quarter, and by the way, moved around the world doing this because diversity and learning about diversity was so important for them. They moved from Capetown, South Africa to Lake Geneva to Mexico City back to Chicago. And every time there was an iteration of this where they got richer and richer. And then they finally put a stake in the ground and said, now, this is what everyone said, this is what everyone's agreed upon. The last time they bounced it through the organization, people said it's better, it's good, it gets me up in the morning. And then they aligned their strategic imperatives and then said what needs to change organizational.

And they put teams together and included people in designing the change process, which means then the people actually knew why they were changing, they had participated in the vision and the values. And then they changed their human resource policies or in the process of changing, their recognition and reward policies, their behavior, even things like how they design their information technology systems because they wanted to be much more collaborative and global. So everything, systems, processes, structures, behavior, etc.

Bowen:     So truly taking the vision and values of the visionaries and making those community vision, community values?

Hunt:     Right. I mean, vision, values and strategic imperative. I mean, it is a business. And that's basically it. It doesn't have to be that specific design but organizations find a way to engage their people so they can participate in the vision and values and in what needs to change.