Mitzi Perdue

A Side of Frank You May Not Know

Frank Was A Shy Man

Surprising as it may seem, Frank was an unusually shy man. He fought against it so successfully that I suspect few people would guess it. However, I have several reasons for knowing that this is true. First, I often heard him talk about his shyness; next, I also observed it myself countless times; finally, and perhaps most objectively convincing, I saw the results of a personality test that he once took that confirmed it.

The personality test came about because a university person, possibly from the Perdue School, wanted to uncover some of the personality traits that made Frank a success. Frank wasn’t known for introspection and the test would take more than an hour to complete. So I was surprised when Frank agreed to take it. Actually, we each took the test. It was a forced choice questionnaire, something like the Meyers-Briggs test.

The results showed that on each of the 25 or so parameters, Frank and I had similar scores. They showed what percentile we were for various characteristics such as honesty, punctuality, conscientiousness, perseverance, and so on.

Frank’s scores were invariably higher than mine, but my scores always went up and down the same way his did. If you had made a graph of our scores, the patterns, if not the actual scores, were identical. Except there was one glaring exception to all this, an area in which we were exact opposites.

What Does and Doesn’t Energize a Person

It had to do with what does and doesn’t energize a person. My score in this dimension was in the top 5% and his was towards the bottom 5%. I no longer remember the name for this particular aspect. However, the questions behind it revealed whether you were energized by social interaction, or if it “cost” you significant effort to socialize.

Some people, me for example, get totally energized by interacting with people. In a large party, I’m in my element. Socializing, preferably with the hustle and commotion of a large group, is about as natural and essential as breathing. Frank used to say, with perfect accuracy, that I would rather give a speech than eat. I think all this came from being raised in the hospitality industry.

For Frank, none of this “came natural.”

And yet (and we’re now coming to the point of why I’m writing about all this) he overcame his shyness. He transcended himself. Frank remained shy to the end, but it didn’t hold him back. He became more than he was born with.

Frank could see the importance of social skills and simply made himself not only learn them, but practice them, and in the end, perfect them. Today, I think almost anyone would agree that Frank Perdue became world class at just about every aspect of socializing.

But remember, he didn’t start out like that. He often talked about the beginning of his career as a feed salesman and how he was too shy to look his prospect in the eye. Instead, all he could manage to do was awkwardly stare at the guy’s feet.

Frank Changed and How!

How he changed! I used to watch in awe, as he’d work a room with a politician’s skill.  I’d notice that at the end of an event, we had talked with just about everyone there.

Each contact may have been brief, but he made the effort to look the individual in the eye, shake his or her hand, and for a moment, give the person the feeling that they were the most important person in his world.

I said that at the end of an event, we’d have shaken hands with almost everyone in the room. Interestingly, this didn’t happen by accident.

Frank Knew How to Work a Room

Frank made it a rule always to arrive either at the very beginning of an event, or even a moment before. For example, if the invitation to a reception was for 6:00 PM, we would typically be there at 5:59 PM. (You do know, don’t you, how legendarily prompt he was?) He’d position himself at least somewhat near the entrance so he could interact with the maximum number of people as they came in. Being there at the beginning of the event and positioning himself near the entrance meant that in a deliberate and organized what, he could get a chance to shake every hand.

I couldn’t get over being impressed by how insightful Frank was in going about it this way. Businessmen typically go to big important events at least in part for networking, and if it’s a charitable or political event, they’re also there to be seen supporting whatever cause it is. But after investing the time and the money to be there, how many of them accomplish their networking and visibility goals as thoughtfully and as efficiently as Frank did?

Frank Was Gracious One-on-One

Frank’s social skills at events were always a bravura performance, and they weren’t limited to events. I often meet people even today who remember a brief contact with Frank: a secretary in an office where Frank was visiting her boss and took the time to be pleasant and make her feel important; or a taxi driver who for the rest of his life remembered the pleasure of having Frank Perdue in his cab; or a server at a restaurant who remembered Frank treating him with the dignity of an equal.

“Treat all people with courtesy and respect, no exceptions,” was his motto. Frank made the effort to make each person feel that he or she was important in Frank’s world. As far as I can tell, he treated everyone that way. Whether it was the President of the United States or an associate in one of the plants. He gave that person his total focus. I think it would be fair to say of Frank Perdue that there was nobody he ever met who was unimportant to him.  

Autograph Seekers

Something else that makes Frank, I think, unusual among celebrities: unlike many, Frank was always gracious to autograph-seekers, no matter how much they were interrupting.

Because he was so famous, people were constantly coming up to him asking for his autograph. Sometimes, for example, at an airport, he might have 20 people clamoring for his signature. Even when we were eating a quiet dinner at a secluded restaurant. People would interrupt, first to confirm that he was Frank Perdue and second, to ask if they could have his autograph. For a lesser person, this could have gotten real old, real fast.

But not for Frank, or at least not that he ever let on. No matter what, he was gracious to all. He always gave his “You’re the most important person in the world to me at this moment” look.

Being gracious to just about everyone he came across was sincerely important to him. I remember once at a Shorebirds baseball game, the stadium’s management was giving out bobble heads of Frank. The line of people wanting Frank to autograph the Frank Perdue bobble head was at least two hours long. Since he already had Parkinson’s disease, sitting still and signing autographs for that long was a serious, serious hardship for him.

Sensing that signing so many autographs was exhausting, officials from the Stadium several times told us that they were going to cut the line off and end the signing. Frank’s response was that if people had waited so long to get the autograph, he wasn’t going to disappoint them. He insisted on signing autographs until the last person in line got one.

Why Did Frank Do It?

What was behind Frank’s learning to be good at socializing and making the effort to do it? Why would an innately shy person go to the trouble of perfecting and using this skill to such a degree that people remember his talent even decades later?

I don’t now for sure, but I have some guesses. I think part of the well- spring of this was the same thing that made him visit the sick every weekend. We had lists of Perdue associates or friends who were hospitalized, and we’d visit them all. He would also spend weekends calling on elderly retirees or always to attend funerals. He had what was for me, unfathomable and almost incomprehensible, generosity of spirit.

Also, it probably made business sense, to behave so that as many people as possible would have a favorable opinion of him and thus, perhaps, a favorable opinion of his product.

Maybe it was a skill that he wanted to master the same way he wanted to be good at ping pong or tennis.

However, my best guess is that he simply felt that treating everyone with decency and respect was the right thing to do. And he had to learn and hone and practice his people skills to do it.