Hyrum Smith’s great-great-granduncle founded the Mormon church in 1830. Smith founded his own faith when he originated the Franklin Planner in the 1980s.
“The Franklin Planner is now being referred to in Utah as the only true book,” Smith, 61, told nearly 350 people at the Colorado Convention Center last week.
Smith, a leader in the Mormon church, was joking. But he does seem to have taken the mundane concept of an appointment book and turned it into what seems like a religion.
Smith says the goal of the Franklin Planner is inner peace. It’s tough to maintain inner peace when you are constantly missing appointments and anniversaries, and blowing off things you agreed to do.
Smith, who graduated from Brigham Young University in 1971, has long been in the professional seminar business. In 1981, he started Golden Eagle Motivation to teach sales management. His mission changed after he read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography.
Franklin made a list of his values, prioritized them and kept records of his efforts to live by them. Smith decided to create a day planner to help people go through the same process. He says it helps people achieve “What Matters Most,” which is the title of one of his many time-management books.
Smith’s epiphany led him to create the Franklin Institute in 1984. The company went public in 1992. It changed its name to Franklin Covey in 1997 when it paid $160 million for the business of management guru Stephen Covey, a fellow Mormon. Today, the combined company has a market capitalization of $142 million.
It trains 350,000 people a year. Its founders have sold more than 16 million inspirational books. And more than 6 million people use Franklin Planners, which are also available as software for computers and personal-data assistants.
Smith’s great-great-grandfather, Hyrum, was the brother of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. A rioting mob in Ill inois killed them both in 1844. Today they are revered by Mormons as martyrs.
In a faith that values genealogical relationships, the pressure on Smith to live up to the ideals of his ancestors has been huge. So has the fact that he advocates writing cherished personal values down in a Franklin Planner. Once they are in your day planner, they can motivate you, one way or another.
“If there’s a gap between what you are doing and what you value, the pain is huge,” Smith said. “I could write volumes about that because I’ve made some big mistakes.”
In October 1998, Smith publicly confessed to an extramarital affair.
“It was a horrifically painful thing for my family,” he said. “I’ve been married for 38 years to a saint.”
It was devastating to his six children. It made headlines in Utah. It embarrassed his company and got him excommunicated from the church his ancestors founded. Smith never publicly revealed the details of his affair, but people speculated.
“One of the rumors was that I’d run off with an 18-year-old coed from BYU,” said Smith, who would only tell me that his affair went on “for a while.”
After his confession, Smith went through a humiliating process of repentance. He offered to resign from the board of Franklin Covey and the board of SkyWest Airlines, but the two companies kept him on. So did his wife. He had grueling consultations with church leaders and was ultimately rebaptized in 2001.
“I did all the things I felt should be done,” Smith said. “And to the credit of the (Mormon) culture, the culture forgave me.”
Not everyone forgave him.
“For some people, it will never blow over,” Smith said. “Some people are still mad at me.”
Unlike many of today’s corporate leaders, Smith confessed before he was caught. It’s possible he could have ended the affair quietly, sparing his family, his company and his church a whole lot of pain.
Why didn’t he take that route?
“The confession is a very important part of the repentance process,” he said.
Noting gaps between values and actions is a risky process. But what would the world be like if more corporate leaders used Franklin Planners?
Al Lewis’ column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. Respond to Lewis at , 303-820-1967, or alewis@denverpost.com.
