Think about it, he said, addressing the audience at the Kauffman Uncommon Leader Visionary Award celebration. 

“Thirty-three years after Mr. K’s passing, his values and beliefs are still being embraced by literally hundreds of his associates through their personal lives and their professional lives.” 

Lou Smith, who joined the board of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 1991 and served as Foundation president and CEO from 1995 to 2002, connected the audience to the man he knew, whose own visionary leadership he witnessed firsthand. 

“Rarely, rarely, has an individual had such a lasting impact on so many for so long,” he said.

It was 1989 when Smith, having built his career at AlliedSignal Inc. (now Honeywell International) in Washington, D.C., returned to Kansas City as president of the company’s Kansas City Division. His friend, Bob Rogers, president of the Kauffman Foundation at the time, set up a sit-down meeting between Smith and Mr. K. 

“We met for a little over an hour,” Smith said. “We talked about growing up, our families, our mothers, our fathers. We even talked about baseball, because I shared a loved baseball.”  

What occurred to Smith was Mr. K didn’t ask him a single question about the business he was leading. 

“He spent his time getting to know who I was. He would spend his time understanding that our values and beliefs somehow came together,” Smith said. “What I took away from that meeting many, many years ago was to make sure you know who people are, not just what they do for a living.” 

The lesson is evidence of Mr. K’s closest held philosophy, to treat others as you would like to be treated. He once said, “It is the happiest principle by which to live and the most intelligent principle by which to do business and make money.” It’s why those who worked at Marion Laboratories and his Foundation were not Mr. K’s employees, but associates. 

Smith said Mr. K had a special way of making people feel comfortable – and valued. “He was an uncommon leader, but he had common touch, and that touch extended from the factory floors to the boardroom doors.” 

Smith’s first board meeting for the Kauffman Foundation came in March 1991. He was the sixth of six members, but the first who was not a Marion Laboratories associate. He was admittedly quiet. 

“After the meeting, Mr. K quietly pulled me aside and said, ‘Lou, I noticed you didn’t say much in that meeting.’” Smith started to explain, that he wanted to listen and learn from the other members of the board and associates. “He interrupted me and said, ‘Lou, I want the board and the staff to also learn from you.’  I knew then that my input would be valued and it would be heard, and I participated fully from that time on.”  

It’s that piece of Mr. Kauffman’s uncommon legacy and visionary leadership that Smith believes is critical to our collective work to make Kansas City a national model for economic mobility. 

“Each of us can choose to be uncommon in our personal lives, in our organizations, and in dealing with others,” Smith said. “Perhaps we too should understand the ‘who’ in our lives and in our community. Perhaps we too should listen to the voices of those surrounding us, because they speak loudly and clearly in regard to what is needed in this community.” 

Smith looked back to Project Choice. Mr. Kauffman launched the scholarship program to 270 eighth graders in 1988 at his alma mater of Westport High School. 

A signature program of the Foundation, Project Choice aimed to incentivize students to graduate on time and become productive citizens. Mr. K promised if they stayed in school and graduated, Project Choice would provide full scholarships for college or other post-secondary education, along with support services to help them reach their goals.   

From 1988 to 2001, Project Choice was offered to four full classes at Westport High School (Class of 1992-1995), as well as to smaller cohorts from Harmon, Schlagle, Washington, and Wyandotte high schools and Sumner Academy of Arts and Science in Kansas City, Kansas, ultimately serving roughly 1,400 students.   

Only 56% graduated on time. Smith said, on the surface, it might not seem like a success. 

“But it was hugely successful in that it taught the Foundation valuable lessons about what we must do, and it still influences the strategic direction of the foundation to this day,” Smith said. “We know that the promise of a free education is simply not enough.” 

Collaboration and collective impact are vital to lasting change. “There simply are no silver bullets to the challenges facing us today,” he said. 

“We must work with communities. We must partner with community. We must do that if we are to arrive at that day when we truly have self-sufficient people in healthy communities.” 

The work of lasting, systemic change is complex, but Smith challenged the crowd not to set limits on what is possible. He reminded everyone of Mr. K’s uncommon resolve to see opportunity where others saw obstacles.

[Mr. K] did not have to establish and endow a major foundation to continue his work long after he was gone, but he did. He was not required to put the proceeds from the sale of Kansas City Royals into donor funds at the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, but he did. He did not have to care for this community and inspire so many others to do the same, but he did.

— Lou Smith
Former president and CEO, Kauffman Foundation