Women, Minorities, Suffrage, and Inclusion

In the early days of the founding of this country, there was only one colony that allowed suffrage for women -- Pennsylvania. That proved to be one of the major sticking points for creating a harmonious union. In order to overcome the difficulty, all of the colonies needed to have the same standard. Suffrage for women went out the window in order to form a more perfect union. Unfortunately, someone got the notion that suffrage as it excluded women extended to all other forms of endeavor.

Stripped of their right to speak via the ballot, women found what we now call "the glass ceiling." They could labor in the fields next to the men and the children. They could engage in various other traditionally female jobs and earn less than the men who did exactly the same work. They could become more skilled and knowledgeable about their work but never advance to management or Board positions unless they became entrepreneurs in traditionally female industries. Things just couldn't remain the same.

Flora Davis paints for us images of the wave of change that burgeoned about 100 years after those fateful days of the creation of the union in her book Moving the Mountain: The Women's Movement in America since 1960 by touching on the 1800s and suffrage as she introduces her topic. Gail Jenner provides us with critical and compelling details of the Suffrage Movement.

For minorities (in particular, for Negroes), exclusion was just the way things were done. Everyone had a place. They needed to know their place and stay in it. Davis more precisely discusses the multiple parts of the Women's Movement and how they have either grown away from or clung to one another in order to more forcefully impact change and progress. But in regard to color, Negroes had education but the instructors were not well trained. Thus, the education they provided was of a lower quality and prepared the children for lesser jobs at lower wages. Diminished education meant ineligibility to compete for more advanced positions and totally excluded from executive ranks.

Additionally, there were some places in the South were literacy tests determined whether one was allowed to vote. The criteria for passing the tests was quite subjective. In fact, some employment tests were equally subjective.

It wasn't until the 1950s and 1960s that Negroes in the United States began to be recognized and granted full citizenship rights along with their cousin races. The struggles were horrific. Civil Rights Movement The struggles were necessary in order for change to cut through the centuries of denial. The price of these inroads was preciously expensive.

Unfortunately, the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement fell away from view. Few were willing to take on the challenges inherent in the status of Leader. Even the martyrs and those willing to raise their voices or do something to cause change dissipated. The reasons for the struggle soon began to fade as acceptance of the status quo, apathy, and complacency replaced the hunger for progress and attainment. As we look at the present landscape, it seems as though there is equal representation. Opportunity appears to be spread evenly. It doesn't take close scrutiny to realize these are illusory. Because there is a lack of demand for it. In fact, there also seems to be an accompanying unwillingness on the part of the disenfranchised to put forth any effort of their own to earn their position. They're not willing to vote for theirselves.

One thought pervading the consciousness of a few is "Why does it matter so much?" The question shouldn't be are you a man or a woman, and therefore qualified to hold this position. Neither should the question be in regard to gender preference, nor color of skin, nor ethnic identity. The tests sometimes appear to analyze too deeply. Instead, we need to be questioning whether the candidate actually knows how to do the work involved in the position that needs to be filled. If so, how much experience does the candidate have compared with any of their competitors and will they perform their work with the necessary standard of care.

If it is discovered that the most outstanding candidate brings to the table more skills, background, and knowledge than actually required for the position (usually known as under-employment), will there be a willingness to pay them in a range that even approaches the value that they infuse into their work product? Many will simply extort and plunder the value. When it's dissipated through over-exertion, the talent will be tossed aside, replaced with that of lesser quality but still not commensurate with what is necessary.

Inclusiveness and equality, indeed, real opportunity in the workplace, as well as socially, will come when women and minorities of every kind are allowed to raise their voices in a meaningful way. The small inroads should not be cast aside due to complacency and apathy. Voting with your voice, your opinion, and with your feet all count toward the same goal. All count toward a healthier society.

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Growing Awareness of Disability Empowerment

The growth in the advocacy about looking at those with impairments as merely people who do the same things but in a different manner grows. Acceptance of the advocacy grows at a slower pace. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we look at the body of the individual and only see what we have accepted as normal in our "traditional," normal environment.

How ironic it is, then, when we encounter someone with a disability that cannot be seen. The asthmatic, those with heart conditions, arthritis, or low vision. Those are disabilities -- to the extent the individual does not do things in the same "traditional" way as the major proportion of the world population. And if they do not reveal their condition, they simply blend in and are expected to perform at the same pace and in the same manner as everyone else.

But we're slow to do outreach to those with impairments. Some argue that the cost of having a person with an impairment in the office will be excessive because of modifications that are required or that they will not be able to operate as fast as others and thereby slow the pace of the entire team. Still others will argue that so much support personnel will be necessary that it will be too costly to hire a person with an empairment. I guess adaptive equipment and its annually dramatic affordability doesn't count.

The Chinese ballet has made a profound statement about disabilities. In fact, they have gone so far as to include an amputee in their troupe. He is not the comedic oddity, nor the pathetic supporting personnel. The dance is a duet, a romantic duet. The statement the male lead makes in his performance is, "I can be a man for you. I can carry you, support you, lift you up when you need support, lead you when you are lost, care for you, love you."

The female lead is initially afraid of the attraction she feels for this very handsome man. In fact, both of them show their fear of the attraction. Overcoming all of the obvious objections leads to their discoveries of the man who can dance the ballet with or without his crutch. The crutch at one point seemed to be a stage prop (of necessity). But when the lead essentially tossed it aside to perform part of his dance, we realized this is a strong man who simply does things a little differently from the rest of us.

"What adaptive devices?" you may be wondering. Talking devices are adaptations for the blind. But they assist everyone else. Take, for example, the technology that allows immediate translation of a live council meeting as onscreen text. Automatic doors are another adaptation with universal utility because they allow entrance when our hands are full yet are adaptations for those who do not have the ability to open doors for theirselves for a myriad of reasons. These are merely two of the pedestrian accommodations the general population uses, accommodations that became mainstream but had their birth in accommodating those with impairments. Are they impairments?

Please consider for yourself as you view the YouTube video.

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Death by Denial

Earlier this year, something happened to remind me of how a culture can die because of assimilation. A few days ago, I became acutely aware of how a civilization can die because its descendants are only legally recognized under a very discrete number of criteria. We'll deal with the former another day. But let's look at the second instance and the implications that are an outgrowth of it.

First of all, there is a new racial classification available which is designated "multi-racial" or "multi-ethnic." It allows those who identify with more than one race to put their collective identity into that category and thereby acknowledge their full identity. A large number of people either do not realize they have this option or are so accustomed to the either/or situation that they simply default to allowing their selves to be categorized according to the color of their skin.

In consulting with a doctor a few days ago, Doctor needed to write down the race of the person with whom he consulted. First mistake, Doctor merely looked at the color of my skin and then wrote on his checklist "black" at the space for "Race." "Multi-racial," I said, correcting him. He was a bit flustered at the interruption of his notes and asked for clarification. I explained, "You wrote 'black' but I am multi-racial." He crossed out "black" and began to write the races as he questioned what they are. We concluded and he then asked if there was any black in my heritage. He then wanted to know if I was born or was raised on a reservation or if I'd ever visited one.

My pedigree was not the subject of the consultation. I explained one reason for knowing I have Native American heritage. We were through about three-quarters of the explanation and the review was interrupted as we moved on to the point of the visit.

The thought could not help but be impressed on my brain, and perhaps on a few of you who are reading these words. Is this why there are so few Native Americans in the United States? Is it because the only way to be counted is because one was born or raised on a reservation?

There are some races that will not die, even though governmental definitions attempt to preclude their recognition. Native Americans have a birthright that identifies them for the first two to three years of their lives -- the Native American birthmark. It is a blue to purple mark that covers the baby's rear. Those who are not aware of this mark have wrongly accused the parents of child abuse. Eventually the mark fades and no one is the wiser. But the outward evidence was there. No doubt, an examination of the person's DNA will also show the native status (isn't it sad that it needs to be referred to as a "status?").

With regard to creating a positive influence on diversity for an organization, this Native American birthmark and having that heritage is probably very insignificant. But for the sake of understanding a particular marketing segment, traditions that are important to a particular area, words and names that have significance, things that are held in esteem, and so on, this is very important. Other things that give evidence to Native American heritage are nicknames and other types of vocabulary, traditions, superstitions (that hold up over time), manners of cooking, forms of showing respect and courtesy, ways of recognizing individuals with particular statuses and treating them with deference.

However, we deny these many American races simply because the individuals who are part of that race were not born or raised on a reservation. There was intermarriage. On examining history, the intermingling of any other race and Native American was a type of shame that was shushed up and not disclosed. Therefore, the names of tribes and identities have been lost to conjecture where the nicknames and colloquialisms did not survive for the sake of some foundation back to the heritage.

In this 21st Century world, there is little that can be said in a positive sense about the importance of this type of diversity in a commercial sense. However, scientifically, nutritionally, and medically this is very significant and is a determinant in the types of drugs and medical treatments developed as well as dietary considerations in order to promote or deter certain known dispositions toward having conditions. But in the business and military sense, it is still very important to know and understand the Native American perspective in order to have that knowledge as part of one's arsenal to do things in the most efficient mix of strategies. There are probably quite a number of individuals who carry the knowledge but were not born or raised on a reservation.

Instead of killing our population by denial, it would be prudent to identify ways to recognize those who are multi-racial, who are part of the fading population in order that it not completely lost but survives, along with the rich tapestry of knowledge that it holds for all facets of our being a global community.

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diversity, Native American, multi-racial, identity,

Dual Advantage

Not long ago, some of the students who frequent my favorite hot spot started talking with one another and sharing knowledge. That's one of the things I like about this particular location. In addition to it's being a diverse community, its full of people who are very much aware of their similarities. And because they are aware, they see the value in knowledge sharing.

On this particular day, I had just introduced two students to one another, both foreign students striving to earn their marks and launch a successful career. Brilliant, advanced degree students that they are, it didn't take a lot for me to get the two to see their similarities and strike up quite a lively conversation about the education process, transitioning to the job search, and filtering things as you go about doing, and then making yourself qualified as an employment candidate in the U.S.

I don't try to counsel my contacts about H-B1 issues. Immigration is not my forte. But I listened as the two discussed the timeline that's involved and the various types of permits to do first one thing, then another. Apparently the F1 allows a person to come into the States in order to study for a period of time. I don't know that it needs to be renewed. But at a point in time, it expires and you need to have either moved on to graduation, another school and schooling, an internship, found a sponsor, or landed a J-O-B.

There's another option that one student refuses to get involved in. Getting married in order to become a citizen. And then there's a green card.

My acquaintances discussed these things and threw terminology back and forth at one another. I was drowning in a sea of immigration terms. There's a time to speak, a time to contribute, and a time to contribute by just listening. They would not toss me a lifesaver so I completely backed out of the conversation and just listened -- and learned. What I gained was an appreciation of the many pressures that impact these friends. There is something very subtle in the issues they face that they do not discuss with others. In addition to using them to learn more about their cultures, I learned some major lessons about things they do not discuss.

The Pressures

Usually, the foreign students come to the United States alone. Family and friends are left at home. Our heroes venture here with whatever language skills they have, determined to improve those once here in total immersion. They have whatever knowledge is available about our monetary system and the values of our representations of money. Plastic seems to be universal.

They are thrust into the vagaries of sorting out safe neighborhoods and sociable communities. They are tasked with accomplishing what our city officials have yet to master -- making sense of our transportation system and knowing which public transport lines stop running at certain hours, which ones begin operating on an hourly schedule, and which seem to have their own schedule, according to the driver's whim.

Those are just the social sides of living here. There's also campus life, studying, attending classes and taking notes, becoming socialized and acclimated to the university environment, earning grades, turning in reports, making stellar grades on examinations in order to bring honor to the family, esteem to self, and increased employability, in addition to tenure in the selected course of study. The important issue of campus life is actually learning the content of the courses so that it translates into real world, real work skills.

Language seems to be the major issue. A few, after observing me for a time and my interactions with others, have grown to trust me and my nature. One sought me out as an ESL tutor. Unfortunately, my schedule at that time did not have a reasonable structure and I had to decline. My distant friend does the best they can in learning from all-English textbooks, lectures, notes, and study cards in order to survive each semester's slate of classes and curriculum. I regret having to have said "No" but am glad that I was responsible enough to both of us to have done so.

My friends do not discuss any of these pressures with me. We discuss news, politics as they affect us, little things of fun, the music playing at the hot spot, or what we saw on the Web. We discuss the movies and I learn about current entertainment. We share computer knowledge in order that our systems will continue working properly and effectively. And I learn more about their cultures.

My friends must feel I'm so obtuse that there's such insensitivity to their strivings. Or they may feel relieved that it seldom becomes a conscious thought for me. It means they have succeeded in keeping these pressures under control and are projecting what they want -- a professional demeanor. That is what has attracted me to them, however, and they never needed to fret on that account.

Listening

But a few days ago, I made a point of merely listening as the two new acquaintances got to know one another and discussed the foreign student's life: taking their licensing exams at the right sequence of time so that they would not lose their student status but still had H-B1 available, standing for dissertation challenges, submitting papers for publication, taking practice exams.

As the time pressures and sequences became even more plain, I remembered a discussion that was started by someone who does not seem to be at all aware of these issues, especially as they affect a career coach's clients. The career coach expressed anxiety at seeing their students reach their deadlines and in spite of the coaching, the job offers were not extended. That consequence meant return to the homeland with the degree but no U.S. job. The career coach realized the diligence that was given not only to studies and work life, but also to job search and research about potential jobs and companies. The career coach was extremely sensitive to the networking on behalf of the student. And the networking kept meeting the same outright resistance that was quite plain. The resistance was political selfishness. The recruiters simply did not want to share a fee with the coach and did not want to see the coach earn a fee. So the recruiters said there were no openings.

Unfortunately, the person who started the conversation was anxious to have their own ego inflated. After having read the career coach's concerns, the conversation was characterized as career coaches who work with people who are simply not employable and never will be. What a landmine that is not only to the career coach's credibility but also to the employability of anyone who says they were a student of the coach! But that is definitely one way to influence people into seeing things through dark-colored glasses, whether they have the correct prescription or not.

That person's discussion taught another lesson about listening. Listen not only for the details, the nuances of which you were not aware, but also listen with critical thinking skills to hear how the pronouncement causes the speaker to seem knowledgeable and superior -- or even whether that's part of the agenda.

Beyond Cultural Pressures

My hot spot friends are brave, intelligent, and strong survivors. They still aver that conditions in the United States are much better than at home. Home is (and they hesitate in order to find the right word) "different" and things are just not quite the same.

These people are observant. They are astute. There are terms that are part of every vocabulary and lifestyles that appear to be universal. Yet my hot spot friends are very accepting and open to conversing with all manner of people -- just so they do not encroach on the precious study schedule and time.

They see the street people who come into the hot spot. The telltale clothing and hairdos speak volumes about what is obvious but keep secret the details of how and why these results occurred. The fact that most of the street people are of a certain race is also obvious. The danger from street life, drug addicts, gang members, and people who are simply different also comes into plain view. Still, the students deal with these situations as professionals. They stay focused. They allow intervention for a brief time. If they cannot accommodate, they say so quietly and the street person quietly, politely moves on.

Is it any wonder that I enjoy these people? Here, I can find nearly complete acceptance and diversity simply because it is part of the culture. Live and let live.

Stations

We do not discuss it. But it must be obvious that certain classes of people and races are put into particular categories, constrained to toil and labor to rise out of that strata but condemned to dwell there until the end of their days. Only Herculean efforts will change their descending fate. But here is where more of the differences that I see are not what my friends perceive. I see a road of hopeless destruction and waste of what could have been valuable talent. No doubt my friends see the talent that is at a certain station and deserves respect for being at that station, wherever it is. There is a place for each person in society and a particular function for that station that serves the social fabric. But what my friends see is that in the United States, one has a choice about where that station and functionality lies. And just because you were born into one place does not necessarily mean that will be a life sentence.

Informed Relationships

So when I encounter my hot spot friends, both domestically grown and transplants, I appreciate the work and effort that goes into their endeavors. I enjoy the fact that they are willing to share their culture with me so that I can be more sensitive to things that impact them and more worldly in regard to people, how to relate to people, and not take things for granted. I do not rely on myths but on accurate recitation. And I see them in a slightly different light than before.

Accomplishment

The ones who have come to our domestic universities to earn their advanced degrees are probably the first in the family to make this accomplishment. If they return home at the end of five years with the degree but no U.S. job, it should not be seen as evidence of their being unemployable. It should be seen as a person who ventured to do more than the average. They earned major distinctions and survived to the end. But market pressures forbade them a place in the U.S. economic mix for employment here. Whatever employer avails theirself of the talents offered by these graduates, that employer will have selected a plum.

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foreign students, diversity, acceptance, mobility, advancement,

Credibility

I recently had the opportunity do a webinar for ZoomInfo on the subject of how to find qualified women and minorities to serve in senior executive and board positions. It's truly disappointing to look at the statistics and see that over the past 17 years, the number of women earning a Master's degree or higher has grown to 12 million compared with 7 million men who have done likewise. Women gained on the number of men and then surpassed them some time ago. In fact, women's academic dominance has increased at a pace of 1.85 percent every five years from 1990 to the present.

In spite of the vast number of academically qualified candidates, female representation in these positions on the S&P 500 corporations still amounts to a scant 15 percent. The excuse for this poor showing is that the number of qualified women is small and shrinking. An additional excuse is that the pool of candidates is actually the same people who are being picked over time and time again. There's then the myth about women are more focused on childbearing and rearing and therefore will not be part of the workforce long enough to justify the expenditures for grooming them for these positions.

The truth of the matter is that there are far too many corporations that are losing qualified women and minorities because of shortsightedness. One of the reasons for the loss is the preponderance of myths that are pandered to that thereby give leeway to overlook the prizes standing in the halls, sitting in cubicles, telecommuting from Blackberries while jetting to conferences to demonstrate or train, and who are waiting for Opportunity.

It is very true that women are leaving their mid-management positions in these corporations and in even greater numbers in the 13 industries examined by ZoomInfo's diversity white paper ZoomInfo Insite Report. One of the classic reasons for women's leaving the corporate halls is because the road to getting meaningful opportunities is too long and the rewards, even the acknowledgements, too small to make it worthwhile. It's also taking women longer to get onto the executive track, so long that they've become expert enough to break rank and open their own business in order to crack open the Door of Opportunity whose key had been hidden in a corporate closet. They become not only the competition but the fierce competition.

As I researched and developed this webinar, some situations that are normally passing scenery of Life became accentuated. While it's one thing to look at the statistics and anecdotes from a comfortable distance, it's quite another to actually see the machinations that become the suppression, the inertia, and the minutiae administrivia that causes the evaporation. It is truly amazing to see when credibility is diluted in order to justify what some researchers have denominated as sexism or sex discrimination.

Qualified Talent

There are several places where it is possible to search for the definitive portrait of an individual who has the most desired qualifications for certain types of positions. By its nature, a Think Tank is independent of outside pressures and presents its definitions and conclusions after long and careful consideration. The necessities take precedence over niceties. With that in mind, the Think Tank division of European Professional Women's Network enumerated the most important qualities of a global team leader according to a recent poll. The list is very accurate. It would be interesting to see the top six attributes worked into a position description.

The next reliable source for identifying attributes of a qualified leader is a government pronouncement. The Secretary of State maintains a registry of women and minority candidates for service on boards of directors. In relation to qualities that make a person eligible to register their availability, California Corporations Code Section 318(b) recognizes:

educational, professional, community service, and corporate governance background. That information may include, but is not limited tdo:

1. Paid or volunteer employment.
   
2. Service in elected public office or on public boards or commissions.
   
3. Directorships, officerships, and trusteeships of business and nonprofit entities, including committee experience.
   
4. Professional, academic, or community awards or honors.
   
5. Publications.
   
6. Government relations experience.
   
7. Experience with corporate constituents.
   
8. Any other areas of special expertise.

Deterrents

In a 2000 study, it was found that 48 percent of women in manufacturing and operations felt undervalued and was the cause of their dissatisfaction with they jobs. In that same study, 30 percent of the respondents said they were either somewhat or very dissatisfied with their jobs in engineering and computer sciences. Of those planning to leave, 16 percent said they were leaving to start their own business. And 71 percent of those contemplating entrepreneurial endeavors said the greatest contributing factor to their departure was lack of career opportunities for women.

One of the greatest current myths that impacts women’s careers is that it isn’t worth grooming them for more challenging or upper-level positions because they will not be with the firm for very long. Women just out of their MBA programs are perceived as more focused on childbearing and rearing and will, therefore, leave after five years or less in order to raise families full time. While child rearing is a focus of couples as well as the more progress-thinking singles, it is not perceived as something that will last the balance of one’s lifetime.

In fact, a 2005 study done by Wharton showed that 64 percent of their respondents had planned to be out of the workforce for family reasons for a period of approximately five years or less. To their surprise, they found barriers to re-entry. The most profound was recruiters (called “initial gatekeepers”) who attempted to convince the women of their lack of qualifications, when in fact they were overqualified for opportunities that were considered a shoe it the door.

So it isn’t a matter of not having enough qualified candidates for executive and board positions. It is a matter of excluding them from competing for the opportunities. Women have become the invisible corporate strength. More measures need to be implemented to recognize them earlier in the pipeline and to groom them for these positions.

Strength in Crisis

A study done by Professor Alex Haslam of the University of Exeter disclosed that women are more likely to take on higher risk projects than men. This risk tolerance is probably one of the reasons those who finally do break through to the upper ranks fare as well as they do. For one thing, they are more gutsy and will be so when it is necessary. In fact, one source found that some women thrive on the stimulating challenges that spur intellectual achievement and superiority. That type of personality will see more opportunities in situations. And when the door to being involved in those projects remains locked or women are nudged down the hall to the more administrative side of life, they become more motivated to depart in order to start their own business. This is part of the risk tolerant profile.

Professor Haslam also found that when corporations were experiencing a crisis period, the boards looked to putting women in control in order to bring the enterprise back to stability whereas men were more likely to be put in control while a company was going through more steady growth periods.

Credibility

All that being said, it boils down to the fact that women simply lack credibility and are therefore passed over for senior executive and board positions. The frustrating truth is no matter how many ways these qualified individuals prove their selves, corporations are still motivated to see men holding the positions. While it sounds believable that there are only a few qualified number of women who are eligible to fill the many seats available, there are the above, as well as quite a number of reasons why the state of invisibility exists.

One remedy is to look at the middle management ranks of the corporate environment. Start developing a succession plan with the personnel, but especially the women so that the necessary training and exposure to developmental projects becomes part of their range of experiences. All of the studies found that women are not taken seriously when they express their desire to be in line for some of the more challenging projects, and are overlooked when they express a desire to be considered for promotion to senior positions. The remedy is to start listening. The remedy is to have an availability list that is used first in order to source the talent.

Solutions

There are many ways to solve the problem of not enough women in the upper ranks. Succession planning and training, an availability list, and looking internally are just a few methods for resolving the situation. They are just the tip of the iceberg. We have more solutions to recommend. But the greatest is to give greater deference to the women in your workforce or, believe it or not, you will lose them.

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Diversity Checklist for Responsibility

There's a checklist of matters over which the black manager should take responsibility. It's memorialized in Leading in Black and White by Ancella Livers and Keith Caver. What's interesting is that these are things that we all should know and sidestep where appropriate. There are few, if any, of these items that could be omitted when consulting with a company interested in beefing up its diversity program as each item is very important. In fact, they're all essential to getting good results in work product, ROI, gaining team contributions, and so on.

Obviously, it's important to look at the corporate environment as well as ask questions about what the company feels are its compelling issues as one implements the consulting project. It's also important to do an inventory of employee attitudes. Putting the two together, the information will confirm any initial observations and tell what type of map to create for the company's journey down a more productive, team-oriented path.

One thing the checklist admonishes the manager is to not overcompensate for other blacks. There are some people who are routinely identified as black, rather than multi-racial. Because of the misidentification, they find theirselves burdened with the necessity to overcompensate lest they be relegated into being prejudged as mediocre (or less) and not capable. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to overcome that image and there can be a great deal of baggage that starts being hauled around because of it.

It's important that we who provide consulting services guide management toward not looking at diverse personalities as representatives of the talents' race. They are individuals and it is quite impossible for one person to be the penultimate representative of anything except who they are. That's another item on the checklist.

What consultants need to remind clients of is what criteria they use to determine who gets a promotion, salary increase, or special assignment. One thing that should be on the list of questions to answer is "which one 'gave back,' to what degree, and in what way?

Although this is supposed to be an African American's checklist of what they can do about responsibiity, the list can actually be applied to any person of color and any gender. Additionally, it is a checklist that can be turned around so that management is doing its own monitoring as to whether it's staying focused on the important matters and allowing the insignificant, the superfluous to fall by the wayside.

As far as what the African American can do about responsibility, the list reads as follows:

1. Communicate your rationale.
   
2. Set equal standards.
   
3. Seek out and reward excellence.
   
4. Don't overcompensate for other blacks.
   
5. Don't let the organization's expectations overwhelm you.
   
6. Don't set yourself up as the representative for your race.
   
7. Be aware of your own expectations and assumptions.
   
8. Be aware of others' expectations.
   
9. Take responsibility for your own actions.
   
10. Do give back.

Discussions for each of these items are contained in the Livers-Cavert book and make these points even more explicit.

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There's Still the Race Issue

Even though this is 2007, we still sit around and feel perplexed about which of the two equally qualified candidates should be hired. Perhaps the obvious difference is gender. Perhaps the obvious difference is race. But theory says they are equal in every respect and sometimes it simply comes down to tossing a coin. Claptrap!

Not long ago, there was a conversation among three professionals. Two were both men from different disciplines, one white and one black. Both are very qualified in their own area of expertise. All three are well educated and enlightened. All are desirous of being more aware and exposed to more situations in order to achieve that awareness. The two men are well traveled. They have visited some of the same countries. They shared their respective stories of their travel experiences and impressions.

For a brief time, there was a comparison of the two men. However, it is not really possible to compare two people to one another. Even if they were clones, they present in different ways because their past experiences and influences have shaped them in different ways. Their personalities are molded by these various influences. Even genetic twins cannot be compared to one another (except physically) because even they have various things that impact them in different ways and to which they respond with different reactions. In retrospect, there was no real comparison of the two men. It was actually a consideration of the two values and how those values could be brought to bear in different ways.

Shared Experiences, Different Experiences

The men have been in some of the same cities, they used some of the same airports to make their journeys. Yet the experiences were dramatically different because they did not follow the exact, same footsteps. Their backgrounds are different. That caused their interests and perceptions to be shaped in a particular way. Therefore, one took particular note of certain things while the other absorbed a different set of impressions.

While one was in the country for business purposes, it was from the artistic perspective whereas the other was there for corporate endeavors. The environments they saw were different and populated by different spectrums of people and professionals. They are experienced professionals. They have been to the same countries. They speak of different faces and facets of those countries.

Even when discussing cities within the United States where they have common travel experience, they saw two completely different environments. One has intimate knowledge of the racial segregation of several cities. He demonstrated the quadrants where certain races live. He discussed the timetable of another city and what types of workers and races can be seen going through the downtown sector at certain times of the day. There was a sharing of expected shock if the routine is broken. The revelations were amazing. Not many realize there is a worker or social class timetable that governs a city or a section of one. This gives rise to speculation about whether a similar timetable exists in the many international cities the two men have traveled.

Equivalencies

One has to consider, especially in interviewing and hiring decision making, whether one man is more of a professional than the other because of the lack of experiences or because of the experiences. In this situation, they are not equally qualified for two reasons. First (which is obvious), because they are from different disciplines. Second, because their experiences are not equivalent, that is to say, corporate business to corporate business compared with artistic business to artistic business.

The Challenge

The corporate of the pair posed a challenge about hiring women over men. Let us say you have two equally qualified candidates. They are equal in every way except one is a man and one is a woman. Which will you hire? The man is more likely to have staying power. There will be no employment interruptions that cause fluctuations in your business process. The man will have continuity of knowledge, information, and innovations because of his continuity in the field. Which would you choose between the two for the sake of a smooth running, profitable business?

It seems the challenge could be posed in regard to the race question as well. Let us say we have two equally qualified candidates. One is white, the other is of color.

Making a Choice

Yes, the two are definitely going to have different experiences. The more prudent choice is going to be determined based on what the corporate goal and branding are. When all is said and done and all of the technicals are equal, the toss of the coin will be based on which one will have the personality that appeals to the business target audience and corporate brand in order to develop the better market share, revenues, and goodwill.

It isn't so much a question of choosing between one race or the other. It's a matter of choosing between the one that will enter the business with a good understanding of how to appeal to the target market segment. If the person is white but has solid social and cultural comprehension of the business market segment, then that would be the choice. However, a candidate of color will have appreciation of certain aspects of the market segment that are unique. It is not every candidate of color who can identify with a similar racial demographic. To determine that is the case is to allow ourselves to slip into stereotyping.

Determination of the right candidate and appreciation of diversity is better when it is focused on more than just the business skill sets. A person who has insights into cultural nuances, social desires and motivations, and regional practices will more than likely be able to provide a sure-footed march to healthy business development.

Historical Recognition

In January, we celebrated and remembered Martin Luther King, Jr. and the things to which he strove to lead us as we climbed to the mountain top. It is now February and National Black History Month. As we commemorate both, let us remove the blinders that cause us to select out because of gender and lose valuable talent. And as we continue that climb, let us remove the blinders that cause us to choose based on the coincidence of the color of skin (which is not really indicative of one's race) and thereby lose the appeal to our target audience and the profits we aspire to earn. Let us remember King and his principles: equality is not based on gender or color.

Viva