HBR’s 10 MUST READS On Leadership inspired me to write this remembrance of my first mentor. It is a great collection of leadership insights from experts that include Peter Drucker, Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman and Jim Collins. Based on a strong recommendation from my scholarly colleague, Terry Barnhart, I bought the audio book. As I began to listen, I discovered two unusual coincidences.
The first coincidence came in Jim Collins’ section on Level 5 Leadership. That section opens by describing a seemly ordinary man named Darwin Smith. Mr. Smith was the CEO of Kimberly-Clark, the Wisconsin based paper company. At the time I listened, I was in the car driving for my first meeting of a new coaching engagement at Kimberly-Clark in Wisconsin. Ironic? Perhaps.
As I continued listening on my drive through America’s Dairyland, another section of the audio book hit much closer to home.
This section, written by Warren Bennis and Robert J. Thomas, recounts mentoring relationships. The story that struck me featured entrepreneur Michael Klein.
A young man who made who made millions in California real estate while still in his teens, only to lose it by the time he turned 20 and then go on to start several other businesses. His mentor was his grandfather, Max S. Klein who created the paint-by-numbers fad that swept the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.
Michael Klein’s grandfather, Max Klein, shared his business expertise with more than his grandson. Max also shared and mentored me. With his guidance, we developed a unique business partnering arrangement that went beyond a typical vendor-customer dynamic.
The Crucibles of Leadership section of the HBR book describes how Max and his grandson spoke by phone for an hour every night until Max passed away. I suspect that after he hung up with Michael, he called me. Or perhaps the reverse given our time zone differences. Max and I had regular weeknight phone discussions until his passing in 1993.
Upon returning from my Kimberly-Clark trip, I was eager to answer this question. I thought about I might reach out to him to remember our mutual mentor. Upon searching, I learned that Michael Klein’s entrepreneurial successes continued beyond the Real Estate ventures mentioned in the book. Michael was the CEO of Pacificor LLC, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based company that manages several hedge funds. He founded two companies in the 1990s before becoming president and CEO of eGroups Inc., which was the world’s largest group e-mail communication service. Yahoo Inc. purchased eGroups for $450 million in August 2000. It later became known as Yahoo Groups.
I discovered that I was one degree away from a really interesting half-billionaire. Or so it briefly appeared until I also learned that Michael was tragically killed in a plane crash in Panama in 2007. The crash also took the life of his 12 year old daughter.
With Max’s protege’ Michael gone, I feel obligated share what I learned from his grandfather.
I don’t know how Max gained an ownership interest in Palmer Paint Company. I do know that he started his career in Detroit as an engineer for General Motors. He told me that he didn’t enjoy a big corporate environment.
Palmer Paint Company had a limited market. They were selling washable children’s paints. Adults who were not artistically talented had little use for their product. Max addressed this obstacle to increasing their customer base by asking possibility questions:
The answers to those questions came from his collaborations with his package designer, artist Dan Robbins, and led to the birth of the paint-by-numbers fad. Max’s slogan for the business:
The fad launched in 1951 and swept the nation. With a creative solution to a major marketing obstacle, millions of paint kits were sold to regular folks who otherwise would have no need for paint kits.
Max had a positive attitude and creative approach to viewing obstacles. He thereby found creative ways for overcoming them.
Max made his first fortune in the paint business. He didn’t stop there. He was a Detroit guy. After moving on from the paint business, Max maintained his relationships with executives and buyers of a local retailer, S.S. Kresge. Kresge became Kmart in 1977. Kmart became a dominant retailer. And Max Klein became the plastic housewares king of Kmart. When you walked the housewares aisles at Kmart, one side of the aisle was all Rubbermaid. The other side of the aisle was the Max Klein brand. The line included waste baskets, dust pans, salt & pepper shakers, baby baths, you name it. The housewares business expanded to build an expansive manufacturing facility in Baraboo, WI. But, there’s more…
For some reason, Max took a liking to me. He initiated regular nightly, hour long business conversations. Our manufacturing company collaborated on producing his line of non-housewares plastic products. But our discussions covered other general topics about business philosophy and approaches. All the while we explored creative ways to collaborate.
Max’s companies were major customers for our family’s manufacturing business. We established a partnering relationship at a time before the term “partnering” was in vogue. Our manufacturing company collaborated and went beyond producing his line of non-housewares plastic products. We did their warehousing, distribution and even created invoices to their customers. That partnering and integration later led to our acquisition of that business after Max’s passing. It was a natural progression.
That’s me on the left (before I changed my hair color). Max Klein in the middle with his signature bow tie and my wife Holly on the right. In the days before camera phones, Max often brought a camera along, took photos and mailed them after they were developed. He was the first person I knew with a “car phone”.
Max would show up at Kmart Headquarters most mornings at 6 am. to meet with executives and buyers. While other visitors to HQ needed appointments and visitor badges, Max was exempt from such formalities. He wandered the halls freely and was known by all. Buyers regularly sought him out to discuss new opportunities. As buyers and merchandise managers were prompted to the VP and C-level, they were close friends of Max.
Max did most of his meaningful work during evenings and weekends. His weekdays were filled with playing the stock market. If I met with him on a weekday, we were constantly interrupted by conversations with his brokers. So I learned to accept his invitations to convene on weekends.
Max’s ability to easily move from the paint kit business to plastic housewares was all about the relationships he developed with executives at Kmart from top to bottom. He learned about their needs on many levels, responded to them and thereby created countless successes..
Michael was Max Klein’s ambitious, receptive grandson. It’s easy to understand why that mentoring relationship developed and prospered. I still wonder why Max chose to mentor me. In meetings with others, Max’s preference for my opinions was often obvious. A few times there were post meeting comments about his preference. Why me? In hindsight, I believe the attraction was about our shared values:
I’ll never really know the real reasons behind his his attraction. I’ll always miss those nightly discussions. The attraction was mutual. I was always flattered by the attention.
I attended Max Klein’s funeral in Detroit. As mourners were filing out of the cemetery, I recognized the Chairman of Kmart. He had appeared in TV commercials. I casually slipped in behind him and his colleagues and heard him say:
“We lost much more than a vendor today. We lost a good friend.”
I later learned more about what prompted that sentiment.
I knew of the relationships Max developed by routinely showing up at Kmart Headquarters in Troy at 6 AM. Several years later I gained a greater understanding about what built a unique friendship with the CEO.
As a result of our partnering relationship, we acquired a consumer product business from his successors. As I was going through boxes of files moved in the acquisition, I made a surprising discovery. I found drafts of speeches ghost written for Kmart’s Chairman. The speeches were intended to share the Chairman’s vision with Kmart employees and stakeholders. Max was mentoring him as well.
Here are my recommendations. First, I challenge you to ask yourself:
Consider reading or listening to HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership. There’s no telling what you might discover. There is a section titled Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? Answering the question alone is potentially valuable, introspective food for thought about becoming a more effective leader.
Max Klein never asked me if I wanted mentoring. I never asked to be mentored He simply began calling me at home in the evenings. In the later years, he’d occasionally call from the Mayo Clinic, saying he was just there for a check up. We later learned he was actually fighting cancer. We never know when our time is up. We don’t always get to choose when valuable relationships end. Time is truly our most scarce resource. I remain grateful for the time that Max Klein shared with me.
Tom Lemanski helps accomplished leaders unlock potential, solve complex challenges, and amplify their impact.
Effective leadership is the key to driving meaningful, lasting success in a fast-changing world.
Tom’s focus on innovative strategies and self-awareness creates transformative results for leaders striving for the next level.
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5 Responses
Tom, I enjoyed reading your work, reminiscing about my 20 years working for Mr. Klein. Those early meetings at Kmart HQ, walking through the various modules of their building, stopping into dozens of offices (without appointment,) and schmoozing with buyers from almost every product category. The first day I accompanied Mr. Klein on a visit to Kmart I was introduced to everybody from the receiving dock foreman to the chairman of the board and the president of the company. Everybody knew Mr. Klein, and much of the art pieces and pictures throughout the building had been presented to various people by Mr. Klein, usually on a birthday. Every week he would compile an assortment of articles from trade magazines, newspapers, and news letters, and he would have copies made of the most pertinent articles, which we would carry to Kmart and distribute to those people who he deemed to be important enough to get on our list. When he died, I took the last issue of his newsletter, with the top page edged in funereal black, with a note saying that this would be the final edition, because no one had Mr. Klein’s eye and mind to select the right mix of articles that would appeal to everyone at some level.
Best wishes to you and your family for the upcoming Holiday Season.
Hello Rich! Thanks for enhancing the story. It’s great to gain the perspectives from someone who worked at his side for decades.
I read about Max Klein in an HBR compilation on mental toughness. That led to some googling, and I was lucky enough to find your article here! Thank you so much for posting this. It was very interesting, well written, and nostalgic. Thank you.
Tom and Rich,
What fond memories this article has brought to me about my mentor Mr. Max Klein.From humble beginnings at The Max Klein co. as customer service manager to VP of Sales ,I spent many hours in the company of Max and his assistant Marian Ferraro at the offices in Detroit or numerous trade shows.If you were privy to his stock market news and took a chance on his recommendation you could do well in the market. Both he and his plant manager Mr.Paul Swain tought me everything I know about the plastics business and I will forever be in their gratitude. Both Max and Paul were instrumental in my eventual purchase of one of their companies which I have enjoyed running for the past 35 years. During one of my trips to KMart I remember toting NY Cheese Cakes to distribute to various buyers and corp.excutives. I too remember walking right past the lobby filled with sales people all who wondered Who is this guy that knows everybody by their first names and rarely had an appointment.Both Max and Marian were always gracious hosts whenever my wife would accompany me to trade shows in various cities, Every night dinner would be a surprise that Max had researched to make sure we enjoyed not only the dinner but also the great stories Max would expand on through the night.When my wife and I built our first house, Max surprised us with a watercolor he painted and signed . I truly miss my conversations with Mr. Max Klein and think of him often.
I’m very grateful to have come across your writing this evening- what chance! I recently picked up a plastic, yellow, Max Klein tackle box with a removable insert at a second hand shop, and researching the brand marking brought me here. I’m so pleased with the box- it’s exactly what I need, and have no interest in reselling, although there appears to be a niche market on eBay and Etsy for his sewing boxes. I appreciate learning about Mr. Klein, and the warm words from you and other commenters are heartening. All things, like people, have a story, and I’m glad to know more about my happy yellow box.
Best!