Matched For Life/
For Geri Wolf and John Shaw, their relationship started near- ly 20 years ago. A shy young woman from the Minnesota country, Wolf was working as
a receptionist at Edina Realty when Shaw,
a Realtor with a dynamic personality that
Wolf says people are just attracted to, asked
her to step out from behind the desk and
come work with him. Over the next two
decades, the relationship evolved and sustained even as Wolf moved from real estate
to the textile business as a regional sales
manager and eventually to starting her own
event design and planning company, The
Style Laboratory, in 2003.
“At one point he was sitting on a pedestal,” Wolf says of Shaw. “He could basically
do no wrong and he was so wise. I think that
he’s not necessarily on a pedestal anymore
and it’s a much more realistic perspective
that I have. But I like that I can go to him
and bounce ideas off of him.”
Even though Wolf moved away from real
estate, she finds it’s more Shaw’s general
business sense that helped her through the
years. Wolf learned a lot about sales while
working with Shaw, and that in business,
you never really sell products and services,
but you sell a solution. “That applies to
event planning in the biggest way,” she says.
“From the start of your planning process
all you’re doing is addressing problems and
finding solutions. My sales background has
probably been the most influential in what
I do now.”
PHOTO LOCATION: NICOLLE T MALL, MINNEAPOLIS
Why did Shaw decide to take Wolf under
his wing? He saw she had potential, and
he gets frustrated when he see people not
working up to their potential. “I think that’s
a rare trait these days with how egocentric
people are, to really take yourself out of
what’s going on in your own world and try
to have an impact on people, not by doing
things for them but helping them do things
for themselves,” Wolf says.
In their book, authors Ensher and
Murphy write about this type of “
generativ-ity” (a need to nurture and guide younger
generations) and its role and mutual ben-
efit in mentor/mentee relationships. They
write, “Acting on one’s motivation to mentor early on enables the mentor to relish
accomplishments of others throughout
their careers.”
Shaw is just as quick to say wonderful
things about Wolf and explain how he’s
enjoyed watching her grow professionally.
“You run into few people who can enter
into any arena and develop a skill level that’s
expert level that quickly,” says Shaw, who
currently manages Edina Realty’s corporate
office in Edina. “And she’s been able to do
that in just about everything she chooses to
do.” But it was when she started The Style
Laboratory that Wolf really demonstrated
to Shaw what she could accomplish. The
pair laughs when they remember how Shaw
was hesitant about Wolf starting her own
business. At the beginning, he couldn’t see
a successful business model.
“I was in a real cush job and a successful career and he couldn’t see where [the
new business] could go,” Wolf says. “He
said it was the dumbest idea he ever heard.
For three weeks after that conversation,
I decided I wasn’t going to do it. But, you
kind of break away, and I decided I needed
to make a move.”
Wolf used the lessons she learned from
Shaw to market her company differently
than her competitors. Through fun events
to which everyday people could relate, she
brought in traffic and, more importantly,
she brought in the press. “John goes into
[business] saying, ‘What do I have to do
with marketing in real estate to own this
neighborhood?’” Wolf says. “It was really the
same mindset [with The Style Laboratory].
I have to market this so I can be considered
the expert, the leader of the pack or the
trendsetter.”
Like a good mentor, Shaw sat back and
let Wolf fly on her own. It didn’t matter if
they disagreed. He was just happy to see her
blossom as she created a business concept
he was unfamiliar with and make it work.
And as the years go on, their relationship
continues to reach a new, more equal level.
“I’ve come to learn that one of my favorite
parts about our relationship is when we
don’t agree,” Shaw says. “Because she always
used to agree with me and then she evolved
into this person who said, ‘Well, I have a
thought, too.’ It took me by surprise how
valuable her opinion ended up being. I was
able to step back and understand where she
was coming from and what she wanted to
get done.”
Now, Shaw sees a shift in their relationship. With the heightened use of social
media, he looks for education from Wolf,
who through blogging and tweeting keeps
The Style Laboratory accessible to her clients and the press. Some days the mentor
becomes the mentee, and that’s just fine
with them.
Mentoring Across
the River/
Twenty-five years ago, when Bill Deef, vice president of international relations at Meet Minneapolis, studied journalism at the University
of Minnesota, looking to be the next
Woodward or Bernstein, he took an internship with the city of Minneapolis. “It was
supposed to be for a semester and I stayed
for two years,” he says. “I worked in all sorts
of different departments and really got a
well-rounded experience.” He’s now been
with Meet Minneapolis, and its past variations, full time for 23 years.
Since Deef knows what it means to get
your foot in the door by (literally, in his case)
working your way up from the mailroom,
he’s always been hot on helping interns.
For the past 15 years, he was involved with
Washburn High School, which offered an
Academy of Hospitality (the program ended
this year). It was the only high school in the
state to prepare high school students for an
education in the industry. It was through
this avenue that Bill Deef met Michael
Hernandez. When Hernandez was a junior,
he job-shadowed Deef during his workday
at Meet Minneapolis.
That day turned out the be an important
one in Hernandez’s life, because when
Meet Minneapolis was looking for summer
interns in 2002, Deef thought of him. “At
the time I was working at Cub Foods, pushing carts and stocking, and I would prob-
