The Once <amp></amp> Future Consultant

Ulrich has always preferred the world of ideas and intangibles to that of hard numbers. In books such as Why the Bottom Line Isn't (Wiley, 2003) and The HR Value Proposition (Harvard Business School Press, 2005), he has empowered HR executives with the idea that 50% of their firms' market value comes from things they control -- things that aren't mentioned in the accounting statement. He's also a masterly teacher. "Executives are mesmerized with him," says Henry Mintzberg, a consultant and professor at McGill University. "You listen because he talks about human resources and change in ways you've never thought about before." B. Joseph White, the president of the University of Illinois and Ulrich's former dean at the University of Michigan business school, says Ulrich inspires others because he brings zeal and hands-on experience to human resources, a subject generally buried in bureaucracy. "Bridging theory and concept to practice and application -- no one does that better than Dave," says White.

Ulrich has also earned high marks as a professional coach, where he uses simple questions to pave the way for incremental action. Wrestling with how to jazz up GM's products a few years back, CEO Rick Wagoner threw up his hands, Ulrich recalls. "I've got books of action plans, Dave," the CEO said, but no solutions. Ulrich suggested he temporarily ignore the plans. "What one decision can you make in the next three weeks that will move things along?" he asked. Soon afterward, Wagoner hired Chrysler's design guru Robert Lutz to run innovation and product development.

Loping around the house at 5:30 a.m., Ulrich is more prepared than his relaxed attitude suggests. His Lexus is packed with boxes of granola, bags of oranges, and bottles of water. On the drive to Mount Royal, Ulrich and I meet up with a herd of identical tan 2005 Chevy Cavaliers that's waiting at the side of the road. At the top of the mountain, dozens of fresh-faced missionaries rub their hands and stomp their feet in the 40-degree air. This is where the system side meets the human side, and something greater than the two emerges.

Ulrich has been pushing a tiered-target idea, encouraging missionaries to contact potential church members 20 hours each week, invite 9 each day to meet personally, and confirm 6 individual meetings by week's end. Ulrich's approach has translated into 750 Mormon baptisms during his watch. "Every two to three months, I've got to get another idea that will hook people's attention," he says. "If I implement new ideas too much, it's chaos. If I wait too long, the energy dies."

While setting new goals, "My new tendency is to let them fail," he says. Why? Because Ulrich sees failure as a by-product of setting high goals. Following tough sessions, he will ask his missionaries how they might have done better. Did they elicit further discussion, or did they stick to yes and no questions? "You should go home with regrets because your expectations should be high," he tells them during a sunrise speech on Mount Royal.

Where does a passion for the interaction of people and systems come from? When Ulrich was a year old, his park-ranger father was hired by Job Corps to coordinate the training and education of 200 inner-city youths who had been relocated to South Weber, Utah, for training, education, and a fresh start. Though others shunned them, Ulrich learned to identify with the children from cities like Detroit, Chicago, and L.A. This was where he observed his first lesson in organizational theory. "The fallacy of Job Corps was when you take somebody out of a setting and give them training, they get it," he recalls. "But when they go back into their original setting, recidivism occurs; they go back to their old friends and their old habits." It was a lesson that would find its way into much of his work years later.

Ulrich's first big break as a consultant came in 1989, when he was summoned with 50 other top business thinkers to brainstorm with Jack Welch about changes needed at GE. Welch wanted to launch a two-day program for cultural change. Ulrich had seen what programs did when they failed to consider context -- Job Corps's central flaw. He raised his hand.

"If you want to waste a million dollars, go buy a corporate jet," he told Welch. "Don't do a two-day program, because it's not just going to waste money, it's going to hurt. People will get expectations, and they won't be realized back in the workforce." Welch called him the next day and asked him to help design a program to cut the workload and bureaucracy at GE.

This was no two-day plan. Workout, as it came to be called, lasted nearly a decade. To create lasting change, Ulrich and fellow Workout architect Steve Kerr held to one central tenet: Make change a natural act in a natural place. Sticking to familiar locations, Ulrich led town-hall meetings and hit factory floors. "Workout helped to generate an openness we never had before in the company," Welch recalls. "We needed smart, independent people like Ulrich so that our own hierarchy wouldn't get in the way."