I read, with great interest, your comments regarding Le Herron’s book, Making Your Company Human.

I have known Le since I was 18 years of age and consider him a dear friend and mentor in my life. As I am currently 56, that timeframe spans most of my life. I have never met another man who is able to lead as effectively using the core values that he espouses in this book. In fact I have attempted to imitate him in my business career, most recently as the COO of an international franchise company. In fact, I provided over 800 copies of Le’s book to our franchisees at a conference in the hope that we could become a more successful, profitable company by adopting the lessons from the book.

It will not surprise you to hear that these values are timeless and strike at the heart of what makes us invest our passions in a company. As I worked at Scotts as a young man, these values and Le’s leadership made us proud to be involved in a company with this leadership style and bedrock values. Later in my career, I worked for another company where the CEO stated our values were “fear, greed and fear”. That’s right, two fears and one greed – what a difference from Le’s core beliefs. It is no surprise that the culture of the two organizations could not have been more different. At Scotts, people believed in taking informed risks, were proud of the products and services we provided and felt they were a part of something great. At the other company, we worked for a paycheck and were fearful of taking bold action.

As you may suspect, Le’s values and leadership style are rooted in a strong Christian faith. The “fruit” of this strong faith is the foundation for his world view and his leadership style.

I am delighted that you have discovered this gem of a book, and that through your audience, these values may be promoted and adopted by many current and future leaders.

Regards,

Rich Kusmer