[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 7/10/02 ] Without well-known icon, Life likely to struggle By MARY MacDONALD and CLINT WILLIAMS Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writers Andy Sharp / AJC Sid Williams, founder of Life University in Marietta, leaves a meeting with students about the school's loss of accreditation last month. The folksy television ads became synonymous with the nation's largest chiropractic school. "Call Life University . . . Today," Sid Williams urges from the screen, with a broad toothy smile and a flowing white mane. To much of metro Atlanta -- and the chiropractic world -- Williams is Life University, just as Sam Walton was Wal-Mart, or Dave Thomas was Wendy's. On Monday, Sid Williams' forced retirement became official, raising an age-old question for the future: How will an institution so closely tied with the dynamic and visible personality of its founder survive his departure? Business experts have a fancy term for what Life is likely about to go through, said Barbara Reilly, a management professor at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. It's called post-heroic leadership stall. Translation: Larger-than-life leader leaves, trouble moves in. Often, there is "a big implosion when the founder is gone," said Donald Hambrick, a management professor at Pennsylvania State University and co- editor of the book "Navigating Change: How CEOs, Top Teams, and Boards Steer Transformation." But many who know Life University best say it can and will survive. And the big shake-up of the past week may be just what will ensure Life's future. "Life can survive without Sid Williams," said Paul Lapides, a former Life faculty member who is now a professor at Kennesaw State University. "In fact, it can thrive without Sid Williams. Life should be much stronger if the trustees move quickly to name a strong president." Keith Asplin, until a year ago vice president for academic affairs under Williams, added: "Removing him is probably the only way the institution could have survived." University supporters also agree that the transition is likely to be rocky. Abrupt departure For nearly 30 years, Sid Williams has dominated every aspect of the university he created. His face peers out at students from statues and portraits across campus. Immediate family and close friends have filled top administrative posts. And an oversized bronze of his hands, positioned in chiropractic adjustment, sits at the entrance of the campus just off U.S. 41 in south Cobb County. But Williams' hold on the university would not last forever. On June 10, the Council on Chiropractic Education revoked accreditation of Life's chiropractic program after a year's probation. The news rocked the campus just as 2,600 chiropractic students prepared for final exams. Within two weeks, the university trustees -- derided by skeptics as a weak group that tended to rubber-stamp Williams' decisions -- had begun to view Life's founding family more critically. The trustees voted in late June to seek the resignation of the president and his family. Within days, Williams and his wife, Nell, had left campus for Florida, vacating their executive suite offices. The picked-clean lobby startled many employees. For years, it had served as a shrine of sorts to Williams and his accomplishments. Three walls were filled with mementos that included newspaper accounts of his exploits as a Georgia Tech football star. By July 1, a few couches and a potted tree were all that remained in the lobby. Williams and family members who worked on campus were gone by the time students returned to campus Monday to start the summer session. The academic turmoil has bewildered students and saddened many Williams loyalists. "I wish it had all worked out so differently," said Gerard Clum, a founding faculty member at Life who is president of Life Chiropractic College West. He met Williams at 16, in a workshop for chiropractors that helped inspire Clum's career choice. "The man I know is flawed," Clum said. "But he's a wonderful guy, a wonderful man. To have things taken away from the goodness of the man I know, that just hurts." Filling founder's shoes Williams, 74, has been the public face of the private university since its beginning in 1974. He started with a three-person faculty and two dozen students in a cluster of rented trailers near Dobbins Air Reserve Base. The university now employs about 500 faculty and staff, and the campus covers 125 acres. The impact of Life University on the local economy is estimated by university officials at $150 million a year. Its impact on chiropractic runs even stronger. Williams is universally described as one of chiropractic's great champions, a charismatic and visionary leader who did as much as anyone to increase public acceptance of a healing practice once broadly dismissed as quackery. "He's evangelical for chiropractic, and chiropractic certainly needed that 20 years ago," Lapides said. "It was largely unaccepted and unknown." Lapides, director of the Corporate Governance Center at KSU, where he is considered an expert in corporate board behavior, believes that Williams -- like many successful entrepreneurs -- did not realize he needed at some point to turn over the operation to others. "It's really unfortunate," Lapides said. "It's one of the saddest things you see in business. The owner, particularly in a family-run type business, just has difficulty letting go." It is Williams' controlling management style that contributed to his departure and may continue to cause problems. Some iconic corporate heads -- Wal-Mart's Walton and Jack Welch of General Electric, to name two -- plan for the continued success of their companies by developing strong senior leadership. "Jack Welch at GE had 20 people who could have filled his shoes -- his succession plan was that well thought out," said GSU's Reilly. The Disney Co., on the other hand, floundered for years after founder Walt Disney died, before transforming itself into a professionally run corporation. "Once Walt Disney died, they stayed very much in the mode of 'How would Walt do this,' and the organization fossilized," said Andrew Ward, assistant professor of management at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. Whether Life University will falter without Williams' guiding hand, or regain its place in chiropractic education remains to be seen. And given that Williams and his family have been criticized for keeping a tight hold on the school, it's also unclear whether future leaders will attempt to emulate his style. The unexpectedly rapid departure of Williams has been bitter for many of his admirers. Lee Gruber, a chiropractor who graduated from Life in 1979 and served as dean of its chiropractic college and later as vice president for academic affairs, described Williams as a mentor. "This man, for all of his life, has done nothing but promote chiropractic. He has devoted his soul to that university. I know this was never in the plans." Despite the gravity of the loss of accreditation, that development has not destroyed the Williams legacy, Gruber and Clum agreed. "The legacy that Sid gave me began before Life University and will extend beyond his term at Life University," Clum said. "He taught me how a person's life can be changed by dedicating their life to their profession, and providing for people's needs as fully as you can. That's the most important lesson he ever taught me." He paused. "Do I wish things had worked out differently? You bet your life."