Leadership Is an Art, excerpt

Excerpt from 'Leadership Is an Art' by Max DePree.

By George Gendron | 
 

"One day the millwright [at Herman Miller] died.

"My father, being a young manager at the time, did not particularly know what he should do when a key person died, but thought he ought to go visit the family. He went to the house and was invited to join the family in the living room. There was some awkward conversation -- the kind with which many of us are familiar.

"The widow asked my father if it would be all right if she read aloud some poetry. Naturally, he agreed. She went into another room, came back with a bound book, and for many minutes read selected pieces of beautiful poetry. When she finished, my father commented on how beautiful the poetry was and asked who wrote it. She replied that her husband, the millwright, was the poet.

"It is now sixty years since the millwright died, and my father and many of us at Herman Miller continue to wonder: Was he a poet who did millwright's work, or was he a millwright who wrote poetry?"

-- From Leadership Is an Art, by Max DePree (Doubleday/ Currency, 1989)