There was this other one called Delta Change. It was around how do you
manage change. So the guy started that whole thing, Mike Malone, came to
Creativity Week, spent time here, impacted us. We were all back in—I was
in the old house, so this was '81-82, carrying around these machines
with acoustic couplers that were a large round box. I used to sit in my
kitchen in my old home and be connected around the world. And when he
gave his presentation here, Mike Malone, full colonel, first four days
of Creativity Week sat in the front row, starched shirt, tie and played
the whole role of the stereotype about the military. He was presenting
on Friday. He let me in and said, "Stan, when you get here tomorrow,
don't worry, I'm here, I'm in the back here. I don't want to ride in
with everyone else on the bus." Anyway, the next morning I found him
there in his cutoffs, bare feet, t-shirt and a seining net. I said,
"Okay, Mike." I introduced him as Mike Malone and he walks out and the
jaws drop. He took the net and threw it out on the audience and he said
it was a metaphor for the Internet, early days of the Internet. And he
said, "Let me show you the future." And he said, "Any of you have a
question you want to ask, I have my friends from around the world tied
in." And he had it projected on the back screen and he typed in
questions and answers starting coming back from around the world. And he
talked about how the "solved for x" in the organization and solving for
x was information, how do you get information solving it. His phrase was
"Move the poop and not the group." And those kinds of guys hung around
in this organization. And I am pleased that I was lucky enough to be a
part of that.
Page 40 And whenever I could, I mean when I
was running my shop, all my people were exposed to these people. They
were always around. AMI meetings that go on around here, any Center
staff members are welcome to attend. But do they? We get one or two if I
remind them about it. So you have the Mike Malones who were here. You
had Thomas Sayre. Thomas Sayre is a sculptor from North Carolina who if
you've been to the museum at Raleigh, he's got an outside piece he has
there. Thomas was—I used him in my book, too. His presentation was so
dramatic. The phrase paying attention to the periphery was his phrase.
He said, "The role of art in society is to get the rest of you to pay
attention to the periphery." Lowered the lights in the auditorium and
went off to the side and struck a match and said, "You still this?" They
looked. Yeah, that's my role. Thomas spent a year and a half inside
Morganton up at the institution there for mentally retarded children,
got hired as a janitor because they couldn't hire him any other way. And
he essentially produced play units for severely handicapped children by
observing these children and what they naturally—I mean you couldn't
have swings and slides because they would kill themselves. So he
developed, after that year and a half, play units for severely
handicapped children. And he talked about that. And I've been involved
in another organization where we're funding those play units being
placed all over the United States. Hooked it up in a fraternity. So
essentially what we're teaching these young men in fraternities is
community leadership and involvement in their community. All that came
out of my time here. These are wonderful life experiences. Again,
cruising my shelf here, all the places I've been, all the kinds of
organizations that we've been a part of have been wonderful experiences.
I just hope that—my wish would be that some of the younger professionals
coming along have these same kind of experiences and realize that they
are making history in some sense especially in our leadership
development field
[unclear] . We have
contributed to management and development. Part of my role as a senior
fellow, I talked with John about, is reminding these new people coming
along the history but also how they can contribute. I'm not sure I told
you this, but what I do for—I mean it's not every new person that comes
into the organization, but I walk down the hall or interact with someone
and I just see that they've got a spark, I invite them out to lunch and
we go off site for two hours. I take them downtown to eat at the old
O'Henry Cafe downtown.