Black In Business

As a sales manager for a national team of medical equipment salesmen I developed a promotion called the “Great One.” To my pleasure and surprise this became a terrific success. We set a hurdle at appox 2 times the goal for 100%, which ended being over 1 million dollars in capital equipment sales. My sales team at the time was about 70 people and normally 2 to 3 people would be called great. In the begining that was the only reward,being referred to as great. As in “the great” Ralph Cobo or “the great” Mark Florence.

I would kick off the new year and talk about greatness and what the great ones do.This program became so inspiring that over time we had double digit great ones. This all came back to me as I read a friends post yesterday about African business owners.Benin Mwangi post” 7 lessons from Africa’s successful Entrepreneurs” provide insights similar to what I discovered from my great salesmen. Please take a look at this important post.If you are in a leadership position, you will want your people to learn from Benin’s post. If you are striving to do great things, you will love this common sense advice.

http://africareadyforbusiness.blogspot.com/

My good friends asked me to do a guess spot for their blog. These guys do a  nice job on their bi-partisan blog and are on my blog roll. Check it out and if you like politics you will be hooked.

http://politicalgrind.com/2007/01/31/jim-walton-various-thoughts-on-politics/#more-118

I spent the week end visiting my wife’s family. I always enjoy Baltimore, we stayed in center city at a  hotel just taken over by Shearton Hotels. Our niece Erica just turned 21, I remember when she was born. Happy birthday Eeica! We saw cousins, sisters and our niece Tammy’s husband Shawn is a sports talk show host! I had to throw that in because I was on the air talking about Da Bears.

On Sunday night, I went to the bar to have a beer and a shot and maybe talk some smack about football. Low and behold, My daughter, age 22 and her cousin 21, were having a drink. Now I am into family but not former little girls in a bar. So, I left!

Sunday morning I came accross an article in the New York Times that lead to this post. Skin color can be a dividing factor even within a family but defiantly within a race of people.Going back to the times of slavery in America, light skinned blacks were preferred by the white slavemasters.

The light skinned blacks held their head high in pride as they served tea and cooked in the big house of their owner Isn’t it strange to realize, people actucally owned humans? The owners referred to their light skinned property as house nwords.Us dark skinned blacks who picked cotton in the hot sun were refered to as the field nwords.

For blacks in the states, the black is beautiful movement of the 60’s helped the self esteem of many dark skinned blacks

Light skinned blacks have felt closer to the white man and not as threatening. Even a man as privileged as Colin Powell, provided his thoughts to an interviewers question. The question was something along the lines of; why do you think so many whites are comfortable with you as a black man. General Powell began, first of all I am not that black! General, you got that right.

With that landscape as a back drop, it brings no surprise to black Americans the findings of a study of immigrants.This study linked lighter skin color to higher income. The study futher indicated, the cheif reason light skinned immigrants make more on average than those with darker complexsions appears to be descrimination. Ya Think?

The results of the study done by professor Joni Hersch. The professor of law and economics at Vanderbilt University, studied the results from a goverment survey of 2084 legal imminigrants.

What dose all this mean to blacksinbusiness?For dark skinned people of the US it implies a continuing obstacle.Keep hope alive! It also provides one more reason to calebrate victory as we climb the world of business success! To win in America, we cannot allow anything, including dark pigmentation, seperate us from our dreams. By the way being a house nword, is no longer an elite status. We built this country, it is our duty to be successful! Make it happen!

http://www.owen.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbilt/About/faculty-research/f_profile.cfm?id=204

Yesterday I recieved a shout out from a young black male college student. He attends one of our nations best and rich in tradition universities. The intelligent young man had read my post, “20 ways to know you are black in corporate America.” Check out the archives. My young brother was surprised that corporate America was as racist  as a top Ivy League University. Yes the corporate world is a lonely place and most blacks must sell out in order to make it. This gentleman wondered how I was able to spend 20 plus years in the corporate game. My answer is I was desperate but I tried to over come the haters by kicking their butts at every thing  I did. My goal was to be a star, a black one but one shining brightly.

I attended a white New England University like this one man. I found support in  my fellow black students but with all the hippies on campus, the racism was not as bad as today. Years of Reagan, Bush and son of a Bush have made racism ok today. It is all around us. I put this gentleman in touch with a couple of his unversity’s graduates. One is white and one is black, both successful and may be able to provides some good advice.

As fate would have it , I came across Liz Strauss at Successful blog today. Her advice on taking charge of your life is a must read. Much of these top 10 areas will enlighten students as well as business people. Lis’s compassion and eloquence is apparent  and noteworthy but the compelling aspects of this top ten list is her life lessons being shared. Have a look.

http://www.successful-blog.com/1/the-top-10-ways-to-start-living-your-life/#comment-116615

I remember taking a trip to Florida A&M, home to one of the nations top business schools. I was the highest rank black in my division of Abbott Laboratories. This was many years back and I was only a sales manager. On the way to the event to meet with students about life in the corporate world, I had to make a quick stop. Things were under way when I came in. I was quickly surrounded by several young black men.  Our group from Abbott has a white male VP and a black woman from , you guess it, HR.

I was shocked to hear the young men say, we could not wait to meet you because you are a black male. Companies are going to give her a shot, because blackmen are a threat.

The link below will lead you to a story about, black women in big jobs, tension between black male and female in the corporate world, black professional women with out a man, corporations fear of the sex appeal of black men,interracial dating and the extreme long hours. All of which could have a bad influence on our families. Check it out and let me hear from you.

http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF0904/Lane/Lane.html