#356 How Human-Centric Leadership Transforms Business

**Norman Wolfe** (0:00)
How teachers have been taught to teach to the test, and students learn how to study to the test. And now we go to work, and I learn how to perform to the goals.
There's no sense of ownership, creativity, contribution. It's just, let me perform like a good robot.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (0:24)
Welcome to Embracing Digital Transformation, where we explore how people process policy and technology drive effective change. This is Dr. Darren, Chief Enterprise Architect, Educator, Author, and most importantly, your host. On this episode, how human-centric leadership transforms business with Norman Wolfe, visionary and author of Living Organizations.
Norman, welcome to the show.

**Norman Wolfe** (0:58)
Thank you, Darren. It's a pleasure to be here.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (1:01)
Hey, I'm actually really excited about this because I've been doing a lot of writing around organizational structures in a new book I have coming out called AI Augmented Organizations. And when we first talked and you talked about the Living Organization, I went, hey, I got to talk more to Norman. So I have to have you come on the show.

**Norman Wolfe** (1:22)
Well, thank you.

**Dr. Darren Pulsipher** (1:23)
But before we dive into any of that, everyone that listens to my show knows that I only have superheroes on the show.
And every superhero has superpowers and a background story. And we'll explore your superpowers later. But what's your origin story? Where did you come from, Norman?

**Norman Wolfe** (1:43)
I was born in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York. And my mom and my grandparents actually migrated from the... They were evicted during the programs in Russia and Poland. My mom was actually born in Poland. And they migrated through Israel. My grandfather came over, established himself in the US., then brought the family over. So that's kind of the contextual background of my family roots.
Went to Brooklyn Tech High School, which is kind of one of those three high schools in New York City that you had to take a test to enter.
Early on, I wanted to be a pilot, and I thought I'd study aeronautical engineering. Ended up going to New York University, not because I can afford it, but because I was on the fencing team at Brooklyn Tech, and my coach told me to apply to NYU, and I was accepted on a full scholarship for fencing at NYU. NYU's fencing team was one of the top teams in the country. And so I was honored to do that. I was enrolled in a special program. It was a five-year program, a Bachelor of Arts in one of the sciences. I chose mathematics. And a Bachelor of Engineering in one of the fields. I would have enrolled in aeronautical engineering. After four years of academia, I decided I wanted to go out into the world and do something. So I applied to all of the aeronautical firms, you know, McDonnell Douglas, Honeywell, Trattonwood New Aircraft. I had a job at Trattonwood New Aircraft. Instead of engineering, I ended up in the computer group. I ended up programming test and data acquisitions, systems to test the fuel cells, which got me in touch with Hewlett Packard. And I think that was the path that my life took me on that really changed everything. So, I left Trattonwood with me in 1973 and went to HP. Started off as a systems engineer, supporting customers and salespeople in the sales process. Was highly respected and very well known throughout the country, not just in my own region.
And somebody came along and said, hey, would you like to be a manager of the service department? And I said, oh, yeah, I say, from early on, I had a kind of an experience in my college, my last year in college of what you might call an openness to the concept of universality of love. And I just, my heart opened up. I don't know how or why, but I had that kind of experience. And so I had this really orientation towards caring for people. So here I am, helping customers, helping salespeople, and now I have an opportunity to help employees by being a leader. Well, I'm really proud to say my first year as a manager, as a district service manager, my performance review was unacceptable in every category.
I say that with a certain amount of pride because it gave me an opportunity, put me at a crossroads, and I was going to go back being a technical guy because I was really good at it. But a number of mentors within the sales region encouraged me to stick with it. So I applied my systems engineering orientation, my thinking of complexity in systems and how do they work and how do you solve them. I applied it to the art and skill of leadership. And I began to dive into what does it mean to lead a group of people.