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Conversations with Chanda isn’t just a podcast — it’s a movement. Hosted by powerhouse CEO, philanthropist, and unapologetic truth-teller Chanda Smith Baker, this award-winning show cuts through the noise to confront the issues that shape our world: race, power, leadership, justice, and philanthropy. With a fearless voice and a deeply personal lens, Chanda brings listeners into raw, unfiltered conversations with national changemakers like, Robin DiAngelo, PhD, Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Caroline Wanga, and Ibram X. Kendi, as well as the bold Twin Cities leaders shaking up business, community, and culture. Whether it's pushing past politeness or unpacking the quiet power behind real change, Conversations with Chanda is where leadership gets real — and personal. This is not just a listen. It’s a call to lead. Subscribe and download now — your next breakthrough starts here.
Chanda Smith Baker: Hello community. You are listening to Conversations with Chanda, where leadership gets real and personal. This is where we cut through the noise to confront the issues shaping our world and our community. From power and justice to the heart of community change. Hosted by me, Chanda Smith Baker, President and CEO of the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation.
Today, I have the privilege of welcoming someone whose life and leadership has shaped Minnesota in ways that continue to ripple across generations. Marlene Johnson has never been afraid to step into unchartered territory. As Minnesota's first woman lieutenant governor, a business and civic leader, and someone who has spent decades building bridges across sectors and across differences, she has consistently reminded us that leadership is about service, courage, and possibility.
What I appreciate the most about Marlene is that her story isn't simply one of first. It is a story of staying curious, leading through change, and believing that institutions and people can evolve. Her career has spanned public service, higher education, economic development, global engagement, always grounded in the belief that our communities are stronger when people have more opportunity to lead.
In this conversation, we explore the lessons that only come with time, what it means to lead with conviction, how to navigate moments of uncertainty, why relationships matter more than titles, and what gives her hope for the future of Minnesota. Whether you are an emerging leader or someone in the middle of your career or reflecting on the legacy you hope to leave, I think you'll find wisdom, perspective, and even maybe a few surprises in what Marlene shares.
I'm so grateful she said yes to this conversation. Please join me in welcoming Marlene Johnson
So, you know, welcome to the podcast. Welcome to Conversations with Chanda. I'm so happy to be here-
Marlene Johnson: Thank you ... with you. So am I. Really appreciate this opportunity. It's really fun.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah, and we were talking about your friend Judy.
Marlene Johnson: Yes.
Chanda Smith Baker: Who I met. I was sitting next to her at an event, and she was talking about you and your book, and said that you should be on the podcast. So- I, I always appreciate how women support women. So that's how we got here today.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly. Well, Judy has been my friend since my first day at Macalester.
Chanda Smith Baker: Aw.
Marlene Johnson: We had, we had rooms next to each other in the dormitory, and within about three minutes, we found out that our families had actually met four years earlier, or three years earlier at the airport.
Okay. Because both of our families hosted an AFS student from New Zealand who arrived on the same day. So, but- Oh,
Chanda Smith Baker: wow ...
Marlene Johnson: but she had not been with her family that day. So I had met her parents and her brothers, but not her. And they-
Chanda Smith Baker: That's fantastic.
Marlene Johnson: Yeah, it's fun.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. So you have had, uh, quite the life of impact.
And, um, I am, uh, striving to do the same. And you are on book tour. Yes. And I would love to hear a bit about this book.
Marlene Johnson: Well, um, you know, as, as some, most, many of your listeners will know, I was Minnesota's first female lieutenant governor. That was already back in 1981, when I, '80, '82 when I was elected. And, um, at the time, I was an entrepreneur, entrepreneur in St.
Paul. Had a small advertising and public relations firm. And, um, I hadn't been in elected office before. Mm. But, uh, that was an opportunity which came to me because of contact with Governor Rudy Perpich, and he was coming back to run again against, in a primary. And so, um, I did run with him, and we won, and I served for eight years.
And, and not only wa- was I the first female lieutenant governor, but I was also the first lieutenant governor who had a specific, a well-defined portfolio of work for the administration. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That had never happened before, and I'm not sure that it's happened in the same way since, because I was also the last lieutenant governor who had their own, uh, independent budget and office from the governor's budget.
Uh, since that time, the lieutenant governor's budget has been part of the governor's budget, and their office has been, they've officed within the governor's suite of offices.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: But, um, I still had my, uh, my own distinct office, my own budget, my own staff. And I had these assignments of responsibility for the administration, one of which was to chair the governor's Open Appointments Commission.
Chanda Smith Baker: Hmm.
Marlene Johnson: And the second one was to, um, lead the tourism promotion strategy for the state. On, on the appointments part, the governor was committed to integrating by race and gender every board and commission that he made appointments to. Hmm. And at the time, in 1983, that was huge. I mean, it hadn't been done.
There were no women and there were no people of color on any of these boards and commissions. It seems impossible now because now they're, you know, they're very diverse. Mm-hmm. But we started that, and we published the vacancies and encouraged people to apply for them, and then the commission members would interview the candidates.
And I would go to the governor every month or so with a list of three to five names of people we felt were qualified for these vacancies, and of course he made the appointments 'cause that was his job. Mm-hmm. But all of the lists we gave him had women on them and people of color on them, and, um, you know, he appointed Dr.
Cassius Ellis, the first- Mm ... African American m- member of the Board of Medical Examiners was his appointment.
Chanda Smith Baker: Oh, wow.
Marlene Johnson: The first woman who served on the Board of Accountancy was a woman appointed by Perpich. And, you know, he also, prior to that he'd already appointed the first female on the Minnesota Supreme Court.
So he had, his, his commitment to this was very deep and ongoing for the entire, uh, eight years.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm. Or 32. Did you, did you recognize that as a commitment of his before you accepted, um, the chance to, to run with him for office?
Marlene Johnson: Oh, for sure. I mean, he, he made that, he made that case to me when he was asking me to run with him.
Mm-hmm. He said the two things he wanted me responsible for was to chair this Open Appointments Commission, and the reason he wanted that was because he wanted to increase the diversity of all of those boards and commissions. And he spoke about that at the announcement the next day at the press conference when he announced that I would be the candidate for lieutenant governor with him, and he said, "And her responsibility will be chairing the Open Appointments Commission, and their job will be to integrate by gender and race all of these boards and commissions."
So that was a publicly spoken, articulated- Mm-hmm ... strategy, commitment, and from the, from the first day of my being on the ca- on the t- on the ticket.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. And I imagine that you did not have any struggles finding people to, um, to present in terms of names for those seats?
Marlene Johnson: Well, I would say that at the beginning we had to recruit because people were not accustomed to applying.
Mm-hmm.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm. You
Marlene Johnson: know, it's like, you know, anything. If you, if, if it's never been a- a- available and you haven't even known about those... I mean, in many of these cases, people didn't even know these boards and commissions existed. So we would start advertising them, and, you know, people, you don't understand right away the first time you read about something that that's something you should apply to.
So in the case, for instance, of Dr. Ellis, he did not apply for that vacancy, and we didn't have any African Americans, and I don't think we had any women applying either. Mm-hmm. So I just got on the phone. I just started calling around saying, " Anybody know doctors who would, you know, either African American or other minorities or women doctors who would be interested in serving?"
And three different people mentioned Dr. Ellis's name to me. So I called him up because we had to get, you know, you n- you can't appoint somebody who isn't interested.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: So I called him up and said, "My name is Marlene Johnson. I'm the lieutenant governor and my chair of the Open Appointments Commission, and my job is blah, blah, blah."
Mm-hmm. "And I'm wondering I've, your name has come up in several conversations as a really good prospective candidate for the Medical Examiners board. Would you be willing to be a candidate? I can't promise you the governor will appoint you, but I'm in, I'm, my job is to give him candidates." And he said, "Well, why should I do that?"
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah.
Marlene Johnson: So I s- told him, this is all on the telephone, you know? Mm-hmm. We did not Zoom then. This was just a telephone call.
Chanda Smith Baker: Oh.
Marlene Johnson: So I told him my version of why he should do it, and he said, "Okay, I'm willing to be a candidate." So he was a candidate. The governor appointed him. It was quite a shock to the system, um, of the Board of Medical Examiners system, if you could say that.
Mm-hmm. But within two years, they had appointed him chair of the board. So he served two full terms, that's eight years, and the last six years of his service, he was the chairman of the board.
Chanda Smith Baker: So that's an incredible tale there. And, um, they still publish-
Marlene Johnson: Sure ...
Chanda Smith Baker: the commission seats that are open, so that's quite, quite a legacy.
Marlene Johnson: And, and now the, the Appointments Commission now is by statute. Mm-hmm. So at, at that point, it was the governor's initiative. So th- everyone understood that was a really good way to do it. So it, n- there is now a c- a c- statute that created the Open Appointments Commission, so the, it, the public can apply for those jobs on a regular basis.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. Can you just say a bit for our listeners on why that, that type of service is so important to the success of our state?
Marlene Johnson: I think at the core, serving on any community boards like that helps the person who's in the d- in that p- pr- position, helps them learn about how the state works, how that piece of our community works.
And you see the staff who have, you know, who bring s- a certain kind of tech, um, expertise to the conversations, and then people from the public, like Dr. Ellis, what their contribution is, and you meet different people from all over the state. So I mean, it's just a, it's a fantastic way to learn. Um, of course, your job is to contribute.
There's no question- Mm-hmm ... that you have work to do. There's real work with these boards, and, and it's an important responsibility. It is also an extraordinarily fantastic learning experience- Mm-hmm ... both in terms of understanding one's own capacities for contributing. You, you just learn things about yourself when you do something you haven't done before, and it's very often outside one's comfort zone, at least for the first year.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah.
Marlene Johnson: And then, and then you meet all these people who are also appointed, uh, different times. So some have come a- before you and some come after you, and so you're meeting new people, and they're from other parts of the state where you might never have been or heard of, much less. And, um, yeah. And then you start understanding how things fit together.
It's, it's really, uh... And I think that as people assume these kind of responsibilities and do this kind of work, they learn, they contribute, and, and even l- long after they've left that assignment, 'cause usually it's a- Mm-hmm ... one or two-term assignment, you know, four or eight years. Long after they've left that assignment, what they learned is part of how they contribute to other things in the future.
They will... You can't ever take that experience away from you. And- Yeah ... so, you know, let's just say you're on the Board of Accountancy. You're a public member on the Board of Accountancy, so you learn- You learn about the, the ethics of the accounting business. You learn about the, the range of people who do that work, the small firms and the big firms, and you learn how...
You know, you just learn lots of things. And then next year or t- next decade, you're on, you know, you're doing something totally different, and the situation you're in requires some financial expertise, and you think, "This is the kind of job we should get a, an accountant to help us with." And, you know, then you, you, you may even know somebody from that experience, but at least- Mm-hmm
you understand something about the field that you didn't know before. Yeah. So it's just this, these, these opportunities in the community to serve, they're almost always extremely valuable, both personally and to the community.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. I've served on a number of boards, and people ask me why I like serving on boards, and I'm like, "You know, it's almost like getting a master's degree."
Yeah. You get to watch how people move in the boardroom. You get to understand issues from different point of views. Exactly. Um, the network. Um, but the understanding of leadership in organizations has been, um, priceless for me.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly, and you understand how society works.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: How, how does society work?
How does, how does a city function? And, you know, it's not just the city hall, and it's not just the business leaders, and it's not just, you know, the farmers' market vendors. It's, it's all of the above.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah.
Marlene Johnson: And, you know, you just see how things fit together and where the opportunities for interaction and, and, um, um, yeah, energy go.
It's, uh, I think it's really rich.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. So you, you talked about Dr. Ellis being, um, the first on that board, but you, um, were also the first.
Marlene Johnson: Yes.
Chanda Smith Baker: And so I imagine that took some getting used to.
Marlene Johnson: Of course it did. And, and I think it was, I mean, for lots of reasons. I hadn't been in politics before in that way.
I've been involved active in political parties, but I hadn't been elected to office prior to that. So that was, I was a non-traditional candidate besides the fact that I was a female non- that was non-traditional. It was non-traditional that I didn't come through an elective office or, you know, I hadn't- Mm-hmm
served in the legislature. So and then I was, it was new because I had this specific assignment. So I was, I had a ro- specifically defined role in the administration and a really good relationship with the governor.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: And that was also not so common because my predece- I mean, when, when Rudy himself, Rudy Perpich had been lieutenant governor, he and the gov- then governor, Wendell Anderson, never even had a private conversation together, much less worked together.
So- Wow ... you know, it was, it was very special in, in many respects. And, um, took some getting used to for everybody.
Chanda Smith Baker: Any advice, this, this issue of being, um, the first, the only, one of the few comes up quite a bit on this podcast, and certainly people listening are either, um, have leadership where they're supporting someone that is coming into a space that, um, no one that looked like them had been before, or someone that might be breaking a glass ceiling.
Um, any advice that you'd like to offer?
Marlene Johnson: I think it's most important to, to stay true to yourself. Uh, recognize that not every day can be a fight. There have to be some days where you just kind of move through and, and wait for another day for, uh, for the, you know, for some of the conflicts to, to get resolved.
Mm-hmm. But also, always, um, re- Hang around with people who share your vision so you've got support. And, and to that extent, no matter what we're doing in the way of being a first, we're also not always the first every day. I mean, there's- Mm ... always something we're doing that is not the first, but there's somebody nearby who's having a first experience that we could support.
So I think, I think that we can't expect of others toward us what we're not giving to others as well. So I, I think it's really im- extraordinarily important that we all learn how to support others-
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm ... in,
Marlene Johnson: in their journey. Uh, whether it's being the first, but for them it's a new experience, and everybody needs, everybody needs guidance and support at some point.
Not necessarily every day, but we all need support. And-
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah ...
Marlene Johnson: most things are easier when we've got people in our corner.
Chanda Smith Baker: That is for darn sure. Yeah. For darn sure. So we're talking about diversifying and breaking glass ceilings, and we're at a time in our country where, um, s- in, in some ways that's being debated on the value of, of diversity.
And I know that for some places they're still trying to figure out, one, if they wanna be diverse. Um, if they want, you know, to be diverse, then where do they find diverse people? Like, there- there's still a lot of questions. Where are you seeing, or do you feel like there's been progress? Maybe that's the question.
How are you loo- how do you look at progress in a moment like this?
Marlene Johnson: Uh, I don't know. It's, it, it's a challenging time for the country. I mean, the, the, um... First of all, I believe that a society like ours, our leadership, our leadership must reflect who we are as a society. I've, I just believe that, and I have always believed that from, um, from a very early age.
So th- I don't, I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't matter what the Secretary of Defense says about it. I know that it matters. Mm-hmm. And I, I've seen it matter in, in many aspects of my life, and I believe it's matters to our government as well, and certainly to the military. Um, I think that, um, w- we
You know, the conversation can't only, can't only be one way and I think right now we're struggling to find other way- some new ways to talk about this that don't create more flashpoints for people who don't understand but who have the po- potential for being open, open-minded- Mm-hmm ... about it. There are some people who are closed-minded at the moment.
Um, but, um, there are a lot of people who s- just, not just, who don't understand and who, who need to find, who need to have exposure and h- and have the conversation in ways that can open their minds. And so people like us have to learn h- have to come up with some new ways of talking about it too because it's not just because we've used the same language for 20 years doesn't mean that that's the only language that should be used.
Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? And that's not easy b- because we're all, we all get into, into habits of how we talk about things.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. I appreciate that point a lot and often, and particularly when people are frustrated.
Marlene Johnson: Yes.
Chanda Smith Baker: Right? They're, they're moving their point, like, you know, it's varied values and aligned, like don't you see what I see is important and we use the same strategy on everyone.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly.
Chanda Smith Baker: And so you've had this life of leadership and service, and particularly, uh, uh, in politics where you, you have to figure out how to craft a strategy to get the information to who you want to hear you and, um, I'm finding that it's becoming harder and harder for people to do that.
Marlene Johnson: Yes, and, and to be fair, it's, it, you know, these challenges exist in business too.
Business, business leaders are having these and community organizations are having- Mm-hmm ... these challenges as well. And, um, you know, w- w- at the moment, we're w- w- the added burden is that the chief executive of the country is using such hostile language all the time that it, it confuses some of the publ- some of the public.
Not everybody, but, you know, it's, it's noisy. And, and so it's, um... There's a bal- There's a, you know, some place in between giving up-
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah ...
Marlene Johnson: and being outraged where we have to find new ways to-
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah ...
Marlene Johnson: find some ways to keep, keep talking about this in ways that n- people can hear. And it's not... I'm, I'm not saying it's easy, because I don't think it is.
I know it's not.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. There's been a lot of conversation around sort of civic leadership and corporate leadership in a moment like this, and there's a lot of reminiscing of the day where the corporate CEOs led a particular way, or, um, they were, uh, more out loud, maybe more invested in Minnesota. Do you see...
Is that your perspective on what is happening now, or is there any additional context that you can provide in that conversation? 'Cause it's, it's around and it... I was just in- Yeah ... a conversation actually about this last night.
Marlene Johnson: I think, I mean, on, on one level, I, I can't speak to the is- because I, I don't any longer know personally the ch- the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies in Minnesota.
I... You know, when I was there, I knew all of them quite well, and I worked with them, and many of them were very active in helping us establish the children's agenda and the childcare strategies and, you know, Jim Renier at Honeywell. And I mean, there were many people who were really active and I worked with personally.
Um, it's also true that leaders of organizations, whether those are business or higher education organizations, or perhaps even foundations, I'm not sure, 'cause I haven't been one of those. But, um, I remember when Governor Perpich said to me, "As long as we're doing well and there's not a conflict, all the executives will return our phone calls."
Mm-hmm.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: When there's a problem, people will step back and wait, and I think that's generally true for people, lots of people, not, not just business leaders. I think that's true. Yeah. You know, we all like to be part of something that's working well, and when there's a problem, then everybody's takes a deep breath and holds their breath and, and wants to wait, see if they can wait it out.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: So, um, yeah. It's not, it's not our brightest moment when that happens, but I think that is, that is some of the truth. That said, there have always been courageous people Um, you know, there was a time when Bill Norris, who was the CEO of Control Data, it's a company predates you probably, but- Well,
Chanda Smith Baker: I had a, I had a family member that worked there, so I'm, I'm familiar with it because of
Marlene Johnson: that Well, Bill Norris was the founder.
He was a very, very special person, a good friend of mine. I adored this man. But he was controversi- controversial. He was articulating a vision for the role of technology in education at a time when people thought it was blasphemous.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm.
Marlene Johnson: I mean, h- his vision is going, is happening right now as, you know, all the students have computers and there's, you know, during COVID there was, you know, that was the way children were learning.
But it was even before that, there was a lot of online learning going on at all, at all levels. Mm-hmm. That was Bill Norris's vision. But in the '80s, people thought that was sacrilegious And he didn't give up. He just kept making his speeches and talking about it, and didn't, if you didn't wanna listen to him, he'd go try fin- find somebody else who would listen to him.
And he was talking to the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, he was talking to the Governor of Minnesota, Rudy Perpich, and everybody in between who would give him a voice. So, and, and there were people like Jim Renier at Honeywell who were actively talking about the importance of corporations being more family-friendly.
Mm. And some of that came out of his personal experience, because he was widowed at a young age and l- left with several children on his own, most of whom were in, still in school. So he was a single dad at that level, which was very uncommon. Mm-hmm. Harvey Golub, who was this chairman of IDS, you know, he had certain nights of the week when it was his, his job was caring for the children.
Now, he had young kids, and I asked him to testify at the legislature one day, and he said, "Well, I have to get a babysitter." And I said, "Well, get a babysitter then."
Chanda Smith Baker: Get that babysitter. He said, "
Marlene Johnson: My wife is gone." And I said, "Well, you can get a babysitter, and then you can come to the legislature, and you can tell them you can only speak here for an hour and a half because you have to go home because you had a babysitter.
And that will help, that will also educate the world about how this is." You know, so, you know, people lead in d- in different ways, and it's not, not everything they do is what we want, but there are lots of different ways that people, that people, individuals, both corporate leaders, and higher education leaders, and foundation leaders can make their mark.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah.
Marlene Johnson: You know, so sometimes it's leading from that position specifically, and sometimes it's, you know, peripheral work that they do. Mm-hmm.
Chanda Smith Baker: Is there, do you have an account of a time where maybe you had to lean in courageously or make a decision that wasn't popular but you felt convicted?
Marlene Johnson: When I was an entrepreneur, um, it was, the, the struggle was just finding a network of support, because it was a lonely business.
And now, uh, you know, there are hundreds of women-owned businesses in Minnesota, but at the time I started in 1970, uh, you know, the new... I still remember the day when I opened the Pioneer Press and saw an article about Susan Sands having started a business, and I, you know, looked in the phone book, found her phone.
You know, can do that then. And
Chanda Smith Baker: phoned- Forgot about that phone book.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly. And phoned her, and, you know, uh, 24 hours later we were visiting, and ultimately we started the Women Business Owners organization. And, you know- You started
Chanda Smith Baker: NAWBO?
Marlene Johnson: Yes. Yes, I did
Chanda Smith Baker: I did not know that
Marlene Johnson: Yes. Yes. So I was, last year during, during my book tour, I did, I participated in the Minnesota chapter's, um, anni- 50th anniversary celebration, which was very fun, and we had several women from that founding group who came to that, came to the gathering.
It was a lot of, lot of fun. And I participated in the national c- celebration as well.
Chanda Smith Baker: Oh. I, um, I love doing this podcast so much because, you know, I'll, I'll do a certain amount of, like, research and I'll find questions and, um, the discovery that I have in the conversation becomes so much, uh, richer.
Marlene Johnson: Yes.
Yes.
Chanda Smith Baker: Um, would you mind just sharing a bit more on just your, your life of leadership and the stops you had along the way with us?
Marlene Johnson: Sure. Well, I, I, as, as, um, I think I, I've shared many of these stories in the book, but, you know, I, if I could say the, the moment when I first understood as a, as a teenager that I had some leadership skills was, um, because of a conversation I had with m- Fritz Mondale, who at that time was attorney general, um, I decided to go to Macalester, but before I could go there I found out that I couldn't even apply if I hadn't had two years of a foreign language.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: So of course I complained to my parents who said, "Well, go talk to the school board and tell them to add foreign language." And I said, "Well, you should do that. That's a parent's job." And they said, "No, that's your job. You're the one who wants foreign
Chanda Smith Baker: language." Good old parenting.
Marlene Johnson: So I did. I made a, you know, prepared a presentation to the, my local school board at the, in, as a high school sophomore.
And of course, um- You know, some peo- it was very controversial. There were friends, parents of friends of mine who criticized my parents for encouraging me to agitate.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Marlene Johnson: Isn't that funny? Mm-hmm. Uh, but at any rate, I, uh, a school board, I mean, a, um, one of the coaches at the school, turned out he had been a Spanish language minor in college.
So he went to the school board and said, "If you offer Spanish, I'll be glad to be the Spanish teacher."
Chanda Smith Baker: Hmm. "
Marlene Johnson: And then you can say yes to Marlene's proposal." So that's what happened. And so, you know, as a high school sophomore, my first public advocacy, um, experience was a win, and that's a pretty- Mm-hmm ... heady thing for a, for a 16-year-old.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah.
Marlene Johnson: And so that was at the beginning, and then I started my business, and then I started NAWBO. I was, before that I was the chair of the Minnesota Women's Political Caucus for a while.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: And so, you know, I had, I had these experiences that built on each other, I could say, I think is, would be a good way to say it.
Mm-hmm. And, and it wasn't a plan. It was, uh, I think what I've learned about myself is that I'm quite good at, um Making decisions based on instinct. I have good instinct about what is good for me and what's right. And, um, for instance, when I was lieutenant governor and prior to taking office, between the election and when we took office, the two, two-month transition period, I had a couple of private meetings with Governor Perpich, and in one of those meetings he said to me, "You will have access to any meeting in my office that you want.
So when you look at my calendar for the day, if there's a meeting in my office that you would like to attend, you do not need p- permission. I will tell my chief of staff and my deputy chief of staff that I've told you this. It's our... My office is open unless you have been specifically told that for some reason it's not, you can't co- we don't want you to come to the meeting."
I mean, there might be a meeting in which I'm having a very confidential conversation that I wouldn't have you there. But i- in react- in reality, that never happened in eight years.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm.
Marlene Johnson: So I, I would get up in the morning, I'd look at the governor's schedule, or the night before I'd look at his schedule, sleep on it, and the next morning if, based on my own schedule, I would, you know, get up and walk down to the w- the West Wing to one of the governor's meetings.
And when I'd leave the office, somebody on the sta- my staff would say, "W- where are you going?" Or, "What are you doing?" And I said, "I'll tell you when I come back." I wasn't quite sure. Mm-hmm.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah.
Marlene Johnson: So I, I w- I was in some of those meetings, just looked interesting and I wanted to learn from the governor. I was interested in the topic.
I want... I was interested, I wanted to meet the constituents who were coming to meet him. Sometimes I just didn't know that my instinct was that I w- I should go. And I would be able to contribute. And sometimes I did contribute. Sometimes, I don't know, it was a wash. It wasn't all that interesting. I didn't, wasn't sure why I went, but, you know, it was- Mm-hmm
generally speaking, it was a really important, uh, way for me to learn and to contribute as well.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. I feel like I'm learning a lot about Governor Perpich. Yes. Exactly. Um, and his leadership style, which seems, um... Like, I feel like the stories have been undertold, right? It's, it's a level of what we would call now sponsorship.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly. Absolutely.
Chanda Smith Baker: That I don't know I realized that he was so active
Marlene Johnson: and- Yeah, he was very, very much so. And, and then when I left office, I worked in the Clinton administration for a year and a half here in DC. I ran for mayor of Saint Paul unsuccessfully, and, you know, ler- losing an election's always a good experience as well.
And then I, th- then I went out and got the Clinton, Clinton administration position, and then I did a short corporate job. And then ultimately in 1998, I ended up as the CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, a position, uh, that I held for just under 20 years, and I retired from that position.
And it was a perfect, it was a perfect fit for the organization and for me. It was just one of those moments in time that- Mm-hmm ... um, yeah, suited, suited them and suited me. It
Chanda Smith Baker: was really- Yeah. D- uh, Marlene, did you always trust your instinct?
Marlene Johnson: Or
Chanda Smith Baker: did you have to learn how to trust your instinct?
Marlene Johnson: Well, I certainly got better at it over time, but I pretty much trusted it.
And there's a story in the book from when I was five years old, when I, when I first learned to punt, and then I said that's... And n- l- being able to punt is the first requirement of a lieutenant governor because-
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah ...
Marlene Johnson: you work at the, at the, at the will of the governor. If the governor wants you to do something, you drop everything else and you do it.
And I might say that because I w- I did that so well, I met the man who would become my husband. So I can't- Mm ... I, I can't, uh, fault that str- that, uh- ... trade at all. But when I was five years old, I was the youngest piano student of Mr. Franklin, who at that time was, uh, you know, he was, in my hometown of 700 people, he was the piano teacher.
He had 50 students in my town, and another 50 students in the town away. And he had a recital every year with all of his students. And because I was the youngest student he had, and I'd just been studying with him for, I don't know, three or four months, so I didn't even have my piece memorized, but it was a very big...
This was a very big deal in the s- of the social life of the community, you know. All the girls wore little long dress pinafores, and because I had been a flower girl three times that
Chanda Smith Baker: year- You
Marlene Johnson: had, you
Chanda Smith Baker: had some
Marlene Johnson: dresses ... I had, like, I had a long dress. And the boys wore their little ties and, you know, jackets and things.
And so I was walking up from the basement of the Lutheran Church where the concert was, the p- the recital was held, with Mr. Franklin. I had... was holding on to, with my right hand, holding onto his hand. With my left hand I was hanging on to the railing and my sheet music. Halfway up the stairs I stepped on my long skirt.
You can imagine what happened.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: I tore the skirt out of the, out of the seam at the waist. Mm. And you know, the, I'm just horrified, of course. So I had to let go of the railing and hang on to my dress without Mr. Franklin knowing what I had done. And I went up and sat down where I was supposed to sit, and then I was the first person in the con- to, to play.
I had to stand up, you know, hold my dress so no one would know, announce my piece, The Flight of the Bumblebee. Sit down at the piano. And ho- get my dress, you know, all of this. Play my piece, get up and b- take a bow, hanging onto my dress without anybody knowing. And I did that at the age of five.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm.
Marlene Johnson: And when I got home that night, we walked in the door and I started crying.
And my parents said, "What's the matter? You did a great job." And then I showed them my dress.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: My mother started laughing and she said, "Oh, well, you know, did, when did that happen?" I told them the story and she said, "Nobody knew. You did really well, and we can fix this. It's no problem. It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter to the dress at all, and you did really well just, uh, uh, coping with an un- u- an unexpected crisis."
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: So I, you know, didn't remember that story for a long time, and then as I was writing the book, of course, it was one of the many stories that came back to me. And over time, as I've reflected on this, I've decided personally, it's a great story.
I've decided that's when I first learned to punt.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm.
Marlene Johnson: And from that- Yeah ... point on, you know, that was just about the crisis of the decade for a five-year-old.
Chanda Smith Baker: You know, there's so much about the way that we are raised and the stories we're told about what we're capable of-
Marlene Johnson: Exactly ...
Chanda Smith Baker: that sit in our bodies, um, and our approaches of, of how we lead.
And, you know, you've encountered many leaders and many women leaders. Um, how much should... You know, because I think these reflection points are really helpful. Like, we didn't learn everything from a classroom.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly.
Chanda Smith Baker: Um, talk about the import- Like, why did you choose to go back that far? Is it... Like, that was a, that was a very intentional choice in your book.
Marlene Johnson: Yes. Yes, it was. Um, but it came to me before I decided to use it.
Chanda Smith Baker: Oh.
Marlene Johnson: You know what I mean? I, I didn't... You know, you start making notes, and you start thinking about things, and then you go, "Oh, that's- Mm-hmm ... I remember that." And it gets... Yeah. Yeah. You know, since then, I've even found the sheet music. I still have the sheet music.
Oh,
Chanda Smith Baker: my goodness.
Marlene Johnson: So-
Chanda Smith Baker: Oh, goodness ...
Marlene Johnson: you know, and that's, that's how. And I was... You know, in, in 1970, I started keeping a journal.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm.
Marlene Johnson: So I have kept a journal even though I don't refer back to it very much at all. Um, having kept a journal, like volumes of journal that I have handwritten, uh, you know, it, it does, um, proce- help you, one, process information, process ex- not infor- no Mm-hmm
process experiences. Um-
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah ...
Marlene Johnson: I think. Yeah.
Chanda Smith Baker: I'm trying to learn to journal. That's never been my thing. I sort of process in my head, and I think every coach that I've been, like, "You, you've gotta journal. You gotta journal. You gotta document. You gotta process." And I'm like, I sort of process on my phone, you know, in my calendar.
Um, but there's something that you're, you're saying to me that is striking me because I've been talking with my team a lot about just the busyness of the work and the noise. So we talked about noise earlier. And that it's really important that we create some spaciousness in our, in our, in the way that we lead, and that we have to, whatever that looks like, if it's, if it's walking, if it's exercise, if it's journal, but the importance of not letting your calendar get you away from yourself.
Marlene Johnson: Yeah. I think for, for me, um- Originally, for the first 20 years of my journal writing, I did, I did it mostly in the morning
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm
Marlene Johnson: Start the day in the morning. Now, um, I do a very little bit of journaling at the very end of the day, and now I pick up my jour- the other, a- another journal m- during the day more.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: But I, I think for me, journaling is meditative. And, um, you know, I was reading something about Kobe Bryant the other day and, you know, that he, he was a medi- he did meditation every day, and it wasn't negotiable. Right. He did it every day at home, and he also did it in the locker room before a game.
So, and he modeled that to other people, both his children, of course, at home, but also the players, his, the other players. And I've, I've now read enough to s- know how many, how many players were affected by that and learned from that and do that also because they learned that from him. So I think, um, I think p- for me personally, w- w- finding, finding tools that create quiet are- Mm
really important.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: It's really important. Quiet is important. It's-
Chanda Smith Baker: Quiet is important.
Marlene Johnson: Yeah. Noise, noise can really get in the way. Yeah. Really can. Mm. And, you know, sometimes, you know, people like, like me who talk a lot, you know, I create my own noise. So I'm not, you know, I'm not, it's not all other people's noise that gets in the way.
It's my own noise that gets in the way-
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm ... most. Did you always imagine writing a book, or how did you get to that process? And we've been mentioning it, so I wanna, wanna make sure you say the name and say a bit more about the- Well,
Marlene Johnson: uh, the, uh, the truth is that I spent most of my life, 50 years of my life, believing I could not write.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: So, um, that's because my favorite teacher at Macalester sent back my first paper for him with all this red ink and s- language that wasn't so kind. And, you know, instead of going back to him saying, "Well, help me get better," I just absorbed it all as the truth that I could not write.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm.
Marlene Johnson: Yeah. So that's what happened.
And then, uh, after my husband died and I called Pauline Boss to tell her, uh, my husband died of a brain... At first, he had a brain injury in 2010 and spent the last nine years of his life in a nursing home in Sweden. So during that time, I was still working, and I was traveling back and forth every month and work- I was doing remote work before COVID.
So we didn't have a name for remote work yet when I was doing it. Mm-hmm. But I had a very supportive st- uh, team and a board of directors, and so it worked. And, um, when I, when I phoned Pauline Boss, the, the Minnesota, University of Minnesota academic who's done all the work on ambiguous loss, an old, longtime friend of mine, she said, "You need to write this story."
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm.
Marlene Johnson: So I wrote the first thing after I cogitated that, I thought I was... But it was COVID, so, you know, we all had to figure out what to do with our time anyway.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah.
Marlene Johnson: I'd retired, so I said, "Oh, what the heck? I'll just try writing." So I wrote 50 pages about those last nine years with Peter, and I showed them to Pauline, and she said, um, "You're a really good writer."
And, you know, she didn't know about my b- personal belief that I couldn't write. Mm-hmm. But I knew that what she said to me was the truth. I could feel the negativity leaving my body, phy- Mm-hmm ... physically leaving my body. You know, if she didn't think I w- I was good, she would've been kind. I mean, she wouldn't have been unkind like my English professor was 50 years before.
Yeah. But she wouldn't have said those words. So I really thought, "Wow, I can write." And so then, but she said, "You have to write your whole story because this part, nobody will understand how you got to this part if they don't know the first part." Mm-hmm. So then I sat down and started writing the rest- Yeah
with a friend who helped me structure some of the conversation and stuff, and read what I was writing once in a while. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So I wrote 300 pages and, and, uh, started looking for a publisher, and eventually I got the attention of Eric Anderson at the University of Minnesota Press. Mm-hmm. And he said, "Well, you got lots of really good stories here, but the framework you've chosen does not work.
People will not keep turning the page."
Chanda Smith Baker: Interesting. "
Marlene Johnson: You gotta come up with another framework." So he helped me think about that. And another friend had given me similar feedback, so she helped me as well. So then I started a rewrite, and, uh, took me about seven months to do the rewrite. And, um, yeah. It's been a fantastic
I, I can say that I had a really, I really enjoyed every day. I worked, I wrote- Mm ... six days a week for that whole year and a half.
Chanda Smith Baker: Wow.
Marlene Johnson: And, um, some days I only wrote for a couple of hours, and I'd get so exhausted that I'd lay down and fall asleep for two hours. And some days I would write for six hours.
But I wrote six days a week.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: And-
Chanda Smith Baker: And how'd you come up with the title?
Marlene Johnson: Well, that was, uh, Eric An- Eric Anderson helping me. We kind of, he helped me improve a couple of the chapter titles too. Mm-hmm. And he also helped me increase the number of chapters, because I had a few that were 30 pages long, and he-
"Marlene, you can't have a 30-page chapter."
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: So, uh, yeah. So the, the title is Rise to the Challenge: A, um, A Memoir of Politics, Leadership, and Love. Um, many, you know, he's ... At, and at the beginning he really thought I had two books. Mm. One book about the politics, you know, I was the first woman lieutenant governor, and then one about that last nine years with Peter.
And I said, "Well, I don't have two books in me right now. I, this has gotta work. I've gotta figure out how to, how to weave these stories together." Uh, because Peter, I met Peter my first year in office. He was in my office with, uh, other Swedes who were there on a different b- He, he just happened to be with them.
I was meeting with them, not with him. But we connected and found a way to stay, you know, s- get to ... get acquainted vi- via the mail back in those days. Oh. We were writing, we wrote letters to each other every day for- Mm ... a long time. And, uh, so our marriage was always transa- transatlantic because he had a business in Sweden and I was a politician here, so there wasn't really a point of living either place.
Chanda Smith Baker: Oh, wow.
Marlene Johnson: So, um, yeah. It was ... And so I just felt then and, um, as, as-
Chanda Smith Baker: You were progressive in all kinds of ways, Ms. Marley.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly. And, and some of the things in the s- some of the stories are of Peter's role in helping me. There were many moments in those early days where, you know, I was not just running for office for the first time, but I was
I'd gone from being an entrepreneur, having a small business with five employees, to being in state government, and I, I couldn't even figure out how you ... How does anything get done in this big organization, you know? I'm used to walking- Mm-hmm ... down the hall and tapping the shoulder of the person who needs to do the work.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah.
Marlene Johnson: And so, yeah, I was learning a lot. And, and Peter's business was as a change agent, so he was helping me figure things out. And so there's some really fun stories in the book about h- how he helped me, even though he, as he said, "I don't understand American politics at all." Mm-hmm. But he understood human relations and change and, um- And
Chanda Smith Baker: you.
Marlene Johnson: And me. Mm-hmm. So it was, it was great. I was ... It was, um, very special to have him in my corner.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm. How long were you married?
Marlene Johnson: Uh, well, we, we married, we got together in '84. Okay. And we married in '88, and Peter died in 2000, uh, Christmas Eve 2019.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: But he was in the nursing home the last nine years.
Chanda Smith Baker: Nine. Do you have, do you still have all those letters?
Marlene Johnson: Yes, I do. Both his and mine.
Chanda Smith Baker: That's really special. That's super special. Um, uh, you know, I was, uh, traveling recently and, um, I was actually in a church service and, um, they were... I've, I've repeated this story a couple times since, so it's obviously has set in my body. And, um, the preacher was talking about a woman named Deborah in the Bible.
And, um, it basically said, you know, she's a prophet. She was married to this guy, and she ran all of Israel. And she said it's important to you, you know, she was connected to a higher power. She was connected to someone who supported her, and she was connected to the people that she led, like, right? Like, the, the point is, is that she was supported.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly.
Chanda Smith Baker: And, um, just this idea of what support looks like, what you lead with. And, um, as the conversation went on, it was very much that when you're in leadership, there are lots of eyes. There are people that watch you. And if they're gonna watch you, you should give them something to watch. You should be modeling.
You should be- Exactly ... generous. You should be accessible. You should be a lot of things that allow people to understand what good or great leadership could look like.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly.
Chanda Smith Baker: And it feels like you have, um, led a life that way of creating space for others, right? With NAVO, obviously, I'm, you know, I'm a super fan now.
I was a fan before- ... now I'm a super fan.
Marlene Johnson: Yeah.
Chanda Smith Baker: But there's a responsibility that comes with leadership and, um- You know, for you, was the, did it ever feel like a compromise?
Marlene Johnson: No. I, I think, I mean, you know, leadership ch- uh, one of the things that I learned during the years that Peter was in the nursing home was that my role as a leader changed completely during those, during the time I was with him.
Mm. I mean, he, he couldn't ... When he moved into the nursing home, he was the youngest person living there, and when he died, he was still the youngest person living there.
Chanda Smith Baker: Wow.
Marlene Johnson: Yet he was the only person living there who could not speak, who could not feed himself, and could not walk. So my job, one of my jobs was to help the staff figure out how to work with this person who was so special in that environment.
Uh- Yeah ... and you know, I had to do it in a way that would never make them feel like they weren't okay and that they weren't doing well, but I had to be on their team, and I had to come up with ideas and, and, uh, do it in a way that worked for them as well as for Peter. And I, as I, as I learned how to do that, I realized that was a totally different leadership role than the one that I have usually played- Yeah
where I'm, you know, running something, in charge of something. I wasn't in charge of squat. I was, I was a s- a spouse who cared deeply that her husband wasn't forgotten. Mm-hmm. And I had to find a way to do that. I had to influence from wherever I am. And I, for me, one of the important learnings of that insight, personally, is how important it is that we, that we remember that when working with our children, whether it's our own children or whether it's school children, our neighbor's children, I mean, anyone on the street's children, that, that, um- Everybody leads from, can lead from where they are.
They don't have to be in charge. They, how they treat each other on the playground is a leadership. Somebody feels bad, and you're looking out for someone who's left out, that's leadership.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: So, um, we, we need to get over the idea that the only place to lead is from the pulpit.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah, yeah, or a position.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah.
Marlene Johnson: It's not, it's not that desk in the corner. It's, it's, uh, from wherever we are.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah. Is there anything that, um, in particular, that's giving you hope in terms of where we're headed, right? Like a lot of people sort of see where we are as a community or a country, and it, it feels really dark, and there are dark par- pieces of it.
But I'm wondering if there are things that you are hopeful of in this moment.
Marlene Johnson: For me, the way Minnesotans conducted themselves this past winter gives me all kinds of hope. I mean, the extraordinary compassion and kindness and, um, capability of standing up to power in a non-violent way is just ... It was a message to the world to, to s- certainly to each other in Minnesota, but to the country and to the world.
Everybody in the world was watching Minnesota. Mm-hmm. And the fact that the Jack Kennedy, um, Profiles in Courage Award went to the citizens- Mi- ... of Minnesota- Mm-hmm ... says it all.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm.
Marlene Johnson: And-
Chanda Smith Baker: Agree ...
Marlene Johnson: and I think, you know, that's ... There's more of that. There are other places where that's going on as well, and that is, that is the hope.
Chanda Smith Baker: Mm-hmm. Yeah, everyday people
Marlene Johnson: Absolutely
Chanda Smith Baker: Everyday people
Marlene Johnson: Working together. You've-
Chanda Smith Baker: This has been delightful. I, I'm just in this, this place of leadership where I am... I'm hearing about leadership all the time in a different way in this role. Mm-hmm. Right? So I'm new as a leader, um, in this space at the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation.
So people talk to me a lot about what's new and how am I transitioning, um, which is a reflective question that I get asked multiple times a day, which, um, is really, uh, helpful. But then I also get to hear the stories of how leaders are doing in the field, particularly our nonprofit space.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly.
Chanda Smith Baker: And, um, the work that they are doing that is also extraordinary as they're trying to figure out how to manage through very complex times, where many of their staff may be reflective of what's happening in community and directly impacted.
Um, they're trying to figure out budgets. And in the middle of the task and the expectation are real-life things happening.
Marlene Johnson: Absolutely.
Chanda Smith Baker: Right? Managing board, managing relationships, managing grief. And
Marlene Johnson: a lot of stuff-
Chanda Smith Baker: And- ...
Marlene Johnson: that's not so pretty.
Chanda Smith Baker: A lot of things that aren't pretty, and a lot of things that are sitting right under the surface that most people don't know.
Marlene Johnson: Exactly.
Chanda Smith Baker: And I, I think that this moment for me- The, the need for sort of grace and understanding and curiosity are sitting with me, um, very deeply because we are all, um, challenged in our different ways, and I think the only way we get it is if we have a little bit more compassion.
Marlene Johnson: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Chanda Smith Baker: Yeah.
Marlene Johnson: Thank you so much for being in, in the role you're in, but also for having this conversation with me. It's been-
Chanda Smith Baker: I am so delighted. So what we will do is, um, I'll do your intro, I'll do an outro, I'll introduce your book and, and you in the, um, podcast, and then my team will reach out and- Great ... tell you when we're airing it and all of that.
Marlene Johnson: Great. Well, it will, uh, when it's, when it is aired, um, I'll send that information to the University of Minnesota Press too, because on their website, the, the section of their website that has my book will, they, they will put that list on there, so they'll get- I,
Chanda Smith Baker: I love it. I'm so happy to have met you.
Marlene Johnson: Thank you.
Likewise. It's a pleasure. Yeah. Thanks for doing-
Chanda Smith Baker: Pleasure. For sure. Do you get to Minnesota often?
Marlene Johnson: Yes, I've been, since the book came out... Well, actually, since s- for 10 years before that, when my, my mother was still living, I was coming out every month to spend a weekend with her. Uh, but since the book came out, I've been in Minnesota almost a week or two every month.
Chanda Smith Baker: Oh, well, I would love to,
Marlene Johnson: um- There, there was so much interest in the book. But now I'm taking a vacation. Tomorrow, I leave for my summer in Sweden.
Chanda Smith Baker: Oh.
Marlene Johnson: So I'll be back in Minnesota in September.
Chanda Smith Baker: Well, in September, when you come, I would love to find time if the, if the stars align.
Marlene Johnson: Okay.
Chanda Smith Baker: I would love to do that.
Thank you for listening to Conversations with Chanda, hosted by me, Chanda Smith Baker, President and CEO of the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation. To hear more conversations with change makers, visit conversationswithchanda.com. Conversations with C-H-A-N-D-A.com, or find us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you'd like to learn more about the work at the foundation, please visit spmcf.org.