Page 222 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

LEADERS ARE TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE AGENTS

Bellcore for a successful future. Heilmeier also initiated a series of town hall
meetings, conducting them twice each week so that everyone eventually
would have a chance to meet the new CEO face to face, listen, and be
heard. “I always met with my people in their place of work, not mine, no
matter what the subject. There were no time limits on the length of the
meetings and no cutoffs,” Heilmeier said. “The meetings were over when
there were no more questions on the topics of their choosing. You must
listen to your people and get to know them. Anything less is a ticket to
frustration and failure for everybody.”
Since “frustration and failure” were not on Myron “Mike” Ullman’s
itinerary, getting to know the people was his first task when he reported
for his White House Fellowship. Ullman (WHF 81–82) was the chief busi-
ness officer at the University of Cincinnati when he was selected for a Fel-
lowship. His assignment was to be an executive assistant to U.S. Trade
Representative Ambassador William Brock III and U.S. Trade Representative
David MacDonald.
“I didn’t know much of anything about trade. I wasn’t in commerce,
I wasn’t a lawyer,” Ullman said. “But that assignment gave me an oppor-
tunity to use some of the skills I’d already developed at the university. I
got extraordinary exposure to all of the other branches of government.
Although it was a bit overwhelming at first, I really came to recognize that
people are just people and they are just trying to do their jobs. I became
less intimidated as I realized that my strengths were complementary to what
they were doing in terms of ordering work and making sure that commu-
nication lines remained open. Three-quarters of the way through the year,
one of my Fellow partners, Tom Shull, went back to West Point to teach,
so I went over to the West Wing and was assistant to Chief of Staff
Jim Baker and John F. W. Rogers in the Office of Management. So I got
a different kind of exposure for the last three months, primarily in the area
of management issues and system changes in the White House itself and
some of the personnel issues that they were dealing with.”
When Ullman completed his Fellowship, he decided to leave the
academic world for the retail sector. For twenty years he served in a variety
of high-level positions at some of the world’s greatest retail companies,
including stints as executive vice president of Federated Department Stores,
managing director of Wharf Holdings Ltd., Chair and CEO of both
R. H. Macy and Company and DFS Group Ltd., and directeur general of

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