SPOTLIGHT
ON CONSULTING
ISSUES:
|
||||
|
This was a test or a game. For the next sixty seconds my new colleagues would be gauging whether I was really part of the team. The prospective client was taking advantage of this opportunity to make a point and probably had in his mind what the "right answer" should be. Being the "only one" or "one of few" in an organization was not new to me, so the test seemed familiar and tiresome that it was still being administered. It was one of those moments when I had to process in a matter of seconds, emotionally and intellectually, whether I wanted to play the game and how I wanted to play it. My delay tactic of asking "what do you mean?' worked. The prospective client rephrased the question and asked "I mean is it uncomfortable…" I saw an opening and took it thinking that if he was looking for a way to back off on whatever he was going after a dash of humor might be welcomed by all of us. I jumped in before he could complete his thought and asked, "Do you mean uncomfortable for me or uncomfortable for them?" Nervous laughter from my colleagues. Patronizing laughter from the prospective client as he and I looked at each other with superficial smiles. I recognized that he was not planning to back off and waited for his next attack. The prospective client continued by saying, "Seriously, since most consultants who do this are not black, how do you find executives react to you when they realize you are black?" On one hand this seemed to be a reasonable question. From another perspective, his timing was suspect regarding when the question was being asked and in what social context it was being asked. I remember dispensing with trying to read and manage the reactions of my colleagues and I remember severely reducing any concerns I had about carefully framing my responses in order for us to get the business. I settled for the following response: "I recognize that many people do not consciously think of race which often means they assume people are white. When I appear, I assume they recognize like you did that I am black and in a blink of the eye, some say to themselves "I didn't realize" or "interesting". As in most first encounters, we usually both try to determine what we have in common. Talking about the Andrew Wyeth painting on the wall might help. My Harvard degree might help. In some cases being black might help. My actual ability to be a resource to you might help. I find that the most successful executives figure out how to utilize all the resources available to them. Other executives get distracted by unnecessary things." I took a sip or water, listened to the held breaths slowly being released around the table, worried a nanosecond as to what my colleagues thought and what this prospective client thought, and began to think about where else I might want to work. The prospective client said "good answer". Later on, my colleagues said that I had handled the situation well. I wondered if I had been too concerned with everyone else's feelings and ended up "sucking up'. The prospective client decided to hire us; however I was not on the team that worked with the client. DOES RACE REALLY MATTER
Nevertheless, are we, particularly in America, and are we, particularly African-Americans overly concerned with race. "According to the Joint Center for Politics and Economics, 81% of Black professionals think workplace discrimination is still common. This is not merely the belief that job discrimination exists, but that it is common." Exclusive survey commissioned for Fortune Magazine, June 9, 1998, p. 141, "What African-Americans Think of Corporate America" Is this merely a perception? Does it actually impact performance? There is some experimental research that supports the anecdotal experience of many black executives who believe that their performance is viewed differently than their white colleagues. In Thomas and Gabarro's Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America (Harvard Business School Press, 1999), they paint distinctly different paths for development between minority executives and their white counterparts. In an effort to explain some influences on those differences they cite the research of Greenhaus and Parasuraman ("Job Attribution and Career Advancement Prospects: An Examination of Gender and Race Effects" Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 55, no 2 (1993): 273-297) in making the following point: Experimental research has shown that people are more likely to attribute excellent performance by a majority group member to the majority person's own efforts and abilities. In contrast, the same level of performance by a minority is more likely to be attributed to the situation or the effort of others. (p118, Thomas and Gabarro, Breaking Through).
In contrast to O'Neal, Cora Daniels in her book, Black Power, Inc. (John Wiley & sons, 2004) offers the following reflections from her interviews with Kenneth Chennault and Richard Parsons. She writes in regards to her interview with Chennault, "he was talking about the importance of race, obligations to the race, and about Blacks succeeding without compromising their Blackness" (p. 126). Daniels goes on to quote Richard Parsons as saying "many people have written in the abstract that race is the quintessential question in America. I used to reject it out of hand because I thought it was silly. But I'm beginning to think that they are right…we just can't seem to get past it." (p128). At my lunch meeting my social identity was both as an African-American and as a capable consultant. Even if I had reconciled in my mind that both of those identities could peacefully and productively co-exist, I was sensitive to what I perceived was the prospective client's concern as to how they might conflict with one another and affect my impact as a consultant. It is tempting to propose that the reconciliation of those differences evolves over time. This might explain how Chennault and Parsons seem to have come to stages in their careers when they are more comfortable and direct in talking about race and its impact on their effectiveness as leaders. I suspect that the balancing of these identities is a more constant effort of reconciling and integrating even though it may not be shared out loud with others. I remember a senior executive African-American woman lamenting that "By many standards I have reached a significant level of accomplishment despite being black and female. I wonder how much further I might have gone, and how faster I might have gotten here, if I had not felt I needed to spend so much energy proving that a black and a woman could do this."
1. Race matters. The race card is present even if face down. You are more likely to understand its impact, if you find ways to raise it as the coach. It is too costly for the executive to play it.
2. Rumors of intellectual inferiority flourish. Innate intellectual ability is still the predominant belief in companies and in people: some folks are born smart and some folks are not. The focus has moved from questions about "IQ" to questions about "strategic thinking."
3. Warring souls at peace. Though one's title and socio-economic status gives you more options, it does not change one's core identity. You cannot look at a black person and NOT see the color of their skin. They cannot deny their color and their self-identity will always include race.
4. More "how to" than "hugs". Given an overall goal of increasing one's impact on the organization, there is more value in a coach providing directions to navigate the environment that there is in a coach who is exploring for insight. Navigation includes mapping the environment, charting the paths of least resistance and most impact, and running interference to minimize obstacles.
5. Race does NOT matter. Ultimately all executives understand that they must contribute to the bottom line. Ultimately, and ideally the evidence of their contribution and success will be measurable and objective. Nevertheless, you must accept the paradox that it is critical to consider race in order to get to the point where race does not matter.
What would you have advised me to do at the lunch meeting? Would you have given me a different script? If you were one of my white colleagues there, what would you have done? How would you have counseled me afterwards? When diversity is raised in the context of developing leaders or consulting with executives, someone inevitable suggests that "fundamentally, excellent consulting and coaching is all the same regardless of the person's race or gender". This is true. To be effective as a consultant or a coach, we must be able to understand our client in his or her context. This includes their social and organizational context as well as their self-identity and how it impacts their behavior and the perceptions of others around them. The skills we have to probe and explore, to discern themes and connections, to listen to and challenge, and to help our clients accurately map their environments should not be abandoned when the client raises a question about the relevance of race. A tragic and arguably unethical mistake we make too often is to dismiss or ignore the question from a client or from ourselves: "So…what is it like being black…?"
|
||||
