THE NEW REALITY by Regina Herzlinger

“She's an extraordinary person, and part of what makes her so extraordinary as a leader is how creative she is. So, the Girl Scouts, for example, at that time was kind of moribund, almost anachronistic organization—it was at a time in the 1970s when the women's movement was really chugging along, and the idea of this organization with girls selling cookies and dressed in their little drab uniforms—it seemed like the organization was just going to fade away, and membership had declined significantly. Frances understood that there was a need for a girls-only organization, but that she needed to revitalize it. One part of the revitalization would be to change the programs from, let's say, things that focused on home-making skills to things that reflected the new reality of women as part of the work life. And I remember one of the things she did is she got involved with the first female astronaut, and that was, just an example of her incredible creativity that she brought the Girl Scouts, to the full realm of what it is that women could now do in the 1970s. But she understood that she had to revive the morale of the leaders of the Girl Scout councils. . . What was wrong was—inside their view of themselves. So Frances said, ‘I want them to see themselves life-size.’ What did that mean? Life-size meant, she wanted them to have the Frances Hesselbein view of how great they were, how important the Girl Scouts were, and subsequently, it turns out, that women-only organizations are pivotal in the formation of the character of women. She understood that, and she glamourized the organization. I remember one thing she did is she had Bill Blass design the uniforms, and it was a show of these uniforms in the Four Seasons. Pure Frances. Not that she's ostentatious in any way, but this was part of lifting up the vision of the Girl Scouts, not only to the outside world, but also to the people who worked in it.”