STRATEGY 6

Find Strength in Numbers

When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.—African Proverb

The Power of Strength in Numbers: Don Imus Gets Taken Down

April 4, 2007, began the same as most any other day.

For radio personality Don Imus that meant heading off to the studio where his show, Imus in the Morning, would discuss the issues of the day, employing a mix of what’s been termed “shock” journalism and interviews. This day, U.S. Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut was on the lineup as the program was simulcast on cable TV network MSNBC and syndicated on radio stations across the United States by Westwood One.¹

But before his program was over, Imus uttered words that created a firestorm that led MSNBC to drop the program, convinced advertisers to pull the plug on sponsorships, and resulted in his removal from the airwaves.

During a sports segment, Imus, his producer Bernie McGuirk, and sports announcer Sid Rosenberg discussed the Rutgers women’s basketball team:²

Imus: So I watched the basketball game last night between—a little bit of Rutgers and Tennessee, the women’s final.

Figure 6–1. The path to greatness (Strategy 6).

Rosenberg: Yeah, Tennessee won last night—seventh championship for [Tennessee coach] Pat Summitt, I-Man. They beat Rutgers by thirteen points.

Imus: That’s some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they’ve got tattoos and …

McGuirk: Some hard-core hos.

Imus: (Laughs) That’s some nappy-headed hos there. I’m going to tell you that now.

MSNBC, a division of General Electric’s NBC at the time, turned off the camera and CBS Radio, which at the time managed Westwood One, unplugged the microphone—as they should have. But it’s unlikely either entity would have walked away from Imus and the millions of dollars in revenue generated from his program if not for the public and financial pressure applied by a variety of individuals and groups.

The “nappy-headed hos” and accompanying comments weren’t the first ugly speech uttered by Imus and his gang. Imus, known for his cranky and curmudgeonly demeanor, routinely spouted offensive remarks. So much so that Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, a periodic guest on the show, asked him to knock it off. Announcer Rosenberg, according to a Newsday article, once recounted on-air telling a friend that tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams had a better shot of getting in National Geographic than Playboy magazine.³ Rosenberg also referred to Venus Williams as an “animal.”

To be sure, the Imus attacks weren’t limited to race. Over the years, his barbs—whether raunchy or rude, sexist or homophobic—were volleyed at politicians, religious leaders, prominent journalists, and other public figures, some of whom appeared on his show regularly.

But when Imus carelessly targeted the Rutgers women’s basketball team, he crossed an already-precarious line because he singled out a group of student athletes, not public figures running for office or journalists hawking a book. Going after the Rutgers women, for many, was going too far.

The ire spread swiftly. Bryan Monroe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and editorial director at Johnson Publishing Co., which publishes Ebony and Jet magazines, saw an e-mail from one of NABJ’s board members about Imus’s comments. According to the Wall Street Journal, Monroe said, “My first reaction was, ‘Oh no, he didn’t.’” After conferring with other NABJ board members, Monroe pulled an all-nighter and posted a statement about the comments on the NABJ website, where it caught the attention of Black journalists who forwarded it onto friends and colleagues. NABJ soon demanded that Imus apologize and eventually pushed for his firing.

But NABJ group wasn’t alone. Employee affinity groups like the General Electric African-American Forum, the Sprint Nextel Diamond Network, and African-American employees at MSNBC—organizations within corporations that support specific employee groups—simultaneously lobbied for action. NBC News President Steve Capus held a meeting with African-American employees in the news division. The meeting was scheduled for forty-five minutes. It ended up lasting two hours as individuals argued passionately for Imus’s dismissal.

Influential individuals also chimed in. Rutgers women’s basketball coach, C. Vivian Stringer, held a press conference alongside the entire women’s basketball team. “It’s not about them [the players] as Black or nappy headed. It’s about us as a people,” Stringer said. “When there is not equality for all, or when there has been denied equality for one, there has been denied equality for all.” American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault, who is African American, pulled the financial services company’s advertising from the show. Washington Week managing editor and PBS NewsHour senior correspondent Gwen Ifill wrote an op-ed for the New York Times denouncing Imus’s words. NBC’s Today Show weatherman and host Al Roker wrote several blogs about the Imus comments on his website www.roker.com. After his initial post on the subject calling for Imus to be removed from the airwaves, he explained why he spoke out. “Don Imus broadcasts under the NBC News banner via MSNBC,” Roker wrote. “This is a reflection of my company. I won’t stand for the idea that someone who has the privilege of working under the aegis of NBC News could damage this organization with the taint of racism and sexism.” The Imus story was widely reported and well documented in many media sources.

Support came from outside the Black community as well. The National Organization for Women (NOW) sent out alerts urging members to flood CBS and NBC with calls and e-mails to “Dump Don.”

Comments made by Capus on the show Hardball further showed that the calls to take action came from diverse corners. “I’ve received hundreds, if not thousands, of e-mails, both internal and external, with people with very strong views about what should happen,” Capus said. “I’ve listened to those people with their comments. And many of them are people who have worked at NBC News for decades, people who put their lives on the line covering wars and things like that. These comments were hurtful to many, many people.”

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) also spoke out. “Imus has freedom of speech,” said NAHJ President Rafael Olmeda. “His employers have freedom of association, and if they continue to associate themselves with his patently offensive comments, they show that they are more concerned with ratings and publicity than they are with race relations and the quality of public discourse. Enough is enough. Can him.”

In addition to American Express, companies like General Motors, Glaxo-SmithKline, Procter & Gamble, and Staples began pulling ads from MSNBC.

On April 11, MSNBC pulled the plug on its broadcast of the show. On April 12, Imus was fired by CBS. Why were his critics successful? Simply put, they were able to find strength in numbers.

Different voices communicated the same message: Imus’s brand of hate-riddled speech was no longer acceptable. And while the effort to get Imus removed wasn’t broadly coordinated among individuals, companies, and organizations, these groups were successful because:

The effort focused on an issue, not identities. The groups that protested focused on a common issue—the insensitive, offensive language that Imus spewed. Groups like the NAHJ, NOW, and NABJ serve different audiences and push agendas connected to their members’ shared identity—be it race, gender, or the occupation of their members. The common focus on this issue helped these identity-driven groups turn their independent complaints into a collective roar.

The approach was multipronged, including individual and collective action. Efforts came from within the companies that employed Imus; the companies that sponsored his show, like American Express, Sprint, and Procter & Gamble; journalism and business organizations; community and action groups; influential individuals like Stringer, Chenault, Ifill, and Roker; and the general public. Imus and his bosses were hit on all sides from a social and moral perspective—and in their pocketbooks.

Internal and external pressure forced higher-ups to take notice. If NBC employees had been alone in their frustration about Imus’s comments, many may not have had the guts to risk their own position for a greater purpose. While it’s not always ideal, self-preservation is a path that men and women of all races and ethnicities take every day in the workplace. But with the external push for Imus’s ousting, employees had the safety net of broad support. Likewise, the external forces had internal voices, and as Roker expressed in his blog, they didn’t want their employer’s good name dragged through the mud.

Established organizations facilitated an efficient, effective, and spontaneous response. NABJ and NAHJ had processes in place to get the word out to members, to draft media releases, and to make personal calls to key players to express their disgust. The affinity groups within Sprint and GE had an established forum that allowed them to gather quickly and demand an audience with decision makers. With a structure already in place, the groups were able to focus on dealing with the issue rather than spending time on organizational efforts.

The responses to and the results of the Don Imus debacle portray the very essence of this strategy: find strength in numbers.

“Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.” This saying comes from an African proverb that expresses that a single stick can be easily split in half, but combined with a group it can withstand pressure.

We’ve all heard common sayings like “United we stand, divided we fall,” and “All for one and one for all.” Management expert Ken Blanchard is known for saying that “none of us is as smart as all of us.” The word team is sometimes expressed as an acronym T.E.A.M.—Together Everyone Achieves More.

Even “Big Momma” in the popular movie Soul Food stated, “One finger pointing don’t make no impact. But if you ball all of them fingers up into a mighty fist, then you can strike a mighty blow!”

All of these expressions tell us to do the same thing: find strength in numbers. Strategy 6 presents the different kinds of groups with which you can align, explains why connecting with groups is important, and shows how you can do so most effectively.

Group Relationships

Finding strength in numbers can have multiple meanings and interpretations. Here, we discuss the power of strength in numbers through a range of what we call “group relationships”—relationships comprised of two people or more. Whereas Strategy 4 dealt with building diverse and strong relationships, and Strategy 5 dealt with developmental relationships between two people, Strategy 6 is focused on larger groups.

THE SIX FORMS OF STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

Figure 6–2 presents the six group relationships or the six forms of strength in numbers, ranging from informal family ties and friends to formal organizations. All of these group relationships embody concepts first introduced in Strategy 4. Let’s once again review each here (we also provide a summary in Table 6–3 toward the end of this chapter).

Figure 6–2. The continuum of group relationships.

Bonding social capital—or how people in a group or network stick together—is an important component of an effective group dynamic. Group relationships work best when their structure mirrors dense networks—or groups of tightly connected people. The high level of trust that typically characterizes dense networks works extremely well when members of a group need to produce results. Group relationships are further strengthened by the basic principles of networking and relationship building.

The ideas that form the foundation of good group relationships also relate back to the concept of developmental relationships, as discussed in Strategy 5. Group relationships are instrumental to undergirding your personal and professional endeavors because they enhance the wisdom that you gain from more personal, developmental relationships, or at minimum they help you to make the connections that lead to making those personal ties.

For example, Roland Martin credits much of his ascension through the ranks of journalism to his involvement with the National Association of Black Journalists on the student and professional levels. He attended his first convention in 1989. There he met the person who made the connection that helped him get a job at the Austin American Statesman, the editor who hired him to become the city hall reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the person who hired him to be editor of Tom Joyner’s BlackAmericaWeb.com, and the person who was editor-in-chief when he was hired to work at Savoy magazine.

Martin traces his role on CNN back to NABJ’s 1989 and 1991 conventions. He recounted this story in an interview with us: “I’m on CNN because I first met Henry Mauldin, who was the head of talent for CNN, and he remembered me from a convention in 1991, and he said [to me], ‘We were in a room with all of these bigwigs, [you were] the only student in the room, but everybody in the room knew [you].’ Had I not gone to that convention, I would not have been in a position to be in that room.”

Essentially, Martin established a borrowed network through connections brokered by Mauldin.

INFORMAL GROUPS

At one end of the continuum are informal groups that do not meet regularly and are not structured to achieve specific goals and objectives. However, despite their unofficial nature, these groups are an extremely important source of strength in numbers. Family and friends are two natural examples of informal groups.

Family members are a group of people with common ancestry, common bonds, or kinship ties. Friends are a group of people with a close association. While we do not choose our family, we do choose our friends. There is an expression that we put a lot of stock in—“Show me your friends, show me your future.” Some people would say that your circle of friends determines your destiny. Your friends can influence you in many ways—positively and negatively. If you surround yourself with friends, family, and community members who have similar goals, you’ll be on your way to positive outcomes.

The point here is that family and friends can have a profound influence on you and can provide the leverage you need to overcome obstacles. We’ll get more into this aspect in our next section.

FORMAL GROUPS

At the other end of the continuum are more formal groups organized for a specific purpose. These groups meet regularly to achieve an objective or to conduct a program or initiative. Keep in mind that informal relationships can evolve into formal ones.

In this chapter, we place a particular emphasis on four formal and organized approaches to strength in numbers—inner circles, teams, partnerships, and organizations. As you will see in Part III: Mastering the Game, these groups are vital components to entrepreneurship, achieving synergy, and reaching scale. We divide these four approaches along two lines—strength in smaller numbers (inner circles, teams, and partnerships) and strength in larger numbers (organizations).

Strength in Smaller Numbers: Inner Circles, Teams, and Partnerships

In general, finding strength in smaller numbers (groups of two people or more) brings the benefits of:

Having a cohort of individuals that share your perspective

Having people who can affirm your goals and dreams

Developing relationships that provide psychological and social support

Gaining the knowledge, skills, and education of others

Networking effectively and efficiently

Now let’s specifically define the three points along the continuum: inner circles, teams, and partnerships.

INNER CIRCLES

You may have many friends. But really think about the group with whom you regularly spend most of your time. They are the people you hang out with and communicate with weekly (via phone, text, e-mail, instant messages, or social networking sites), and they are the first to call when you are looking for something to do or need assistance. These are people you would take trips with, given the opportunity. Typically, this is between three and seven people. This is your inner circle, a group of people with strong influence on one another.

Your inner circle is more influential than your general set of friends just by the sheer fact that these people are regularly in contact with you. You also influence them. You have the ability to help and strengthen each other by encouraging and supporting one another through good times and bad, and by holding one another accountable for your goals and objectives. In this context, some people also refer to their inner circle as their “personal cabinet” or their “mastermind group.”

At Rutgers, we became close friends with three of our college classmates: Lawrence Hibbert, Dallas Grundy, and Aldwyn Porter. We, along with Aldwyn, were upperclassmen when Lawrence and Dallas were first-year students. Aldwyn, Lawrence, and Dallas comprised our inner circle; they were “our posse,” “our crew,” and “our brothers.” In fact, we shared an apartment with Aldwyn. Lawrence and Dallas were also roommates.

Our relationship was very much like any group of close friends. We hung out together, spent time eating together in the dining hall, and we even partied together. We were also members of the Rutgers Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). Coincidentally, through a “big brother/little brother” program sponsored by Rutgers NSBE, Randal was Lawrence’s “big brother” and Jeffery was Dallas’s “big brother.” Perhaps most important, we supported each other academically and encouraged one another to stay positive and stay strong.

A variation of the inner circle might be book clubs or discussion groups to which you belong. By design, these small groups are engaged in intellectually stimulating activities. This is a great way to meet likeminded people and to be exposed to new and interesting ideas.

Your inner circle does not have to have a specific purpose, except the general purpose of supporting one another. Your inner circle can be comprised of peers, friends, or more seasoned and experienced people.

Building an inner circle that engenders positive peer pressure and a set of values based on mutual trust, respect, and support (as happened with Larry, Dallas, Aldwyn, J.R., and Randal), and perhaps a shared vision (in our case, the formation of our first business, Mind, Body & Soul Enterprises), can be an important step toward reaching your personal and professional goals. It is no accident that we (the authors) each have five academic degrees, including PhDs. It was a goal we both shared and one that we supported each other in pursuing. We exerted mutual positive peer pressure.

Having an inner circle that exerts positive peer pressure on you to pursue your goals keeps you motivated. When things aren’t going well, you have people around you to encourage you to achieve your best. Therefore, choose your inner circle wisely and do things that will keep you linked and allow you to be a positive influence on each other. For actor and author Hill Harper, this means using your intuition. “You usually have a pretty good intuitive knowledge of where other people’s hearts are and where they are in terms of you,” Harper shared during an interview with us. We should choose people who not only have a good heart, but who are trying to figure out what you are attempting to achieve and want to help you get there. “In other words, they have a vision for your life that is in line with the vision that you have for your own. Those are the types of people you want to surround yourself with,” Harper said.

Inner Circle Diversity. There is also the issue of whether to have an inner circle of other Black people or to have a diverse inner circle. We have a few things to say on this subject. Our inner circle was all Black, and we all knew each other and had worked with each other in student organizations. The key to having an inner circle is not necessarily ethnicity but compatibility. It isn’t just that you want to be comfortable with your inner circle on a oneon-one basis; it is also how everyone in the group interacts with each other. That will give you the best opportunity to leverage the human and social capital of your inner circle because you will have to spend less time trying to understand where each person is coming from.

Your inner circle is similar to what we referred to in Strategy 5 as your “personal board of directors.” Your inner circle is a group of people you would talk to about important decisions, but usually it includes people who are similar to you in terms of experience or interests. By comparison, your personal board of directors or personal cabinet usually has people on it who are more experienced than you are in certain areas and possess wisdom that you may need.

TEAMS

Teams are different from groups. In its simplest form, a group is merely a collection of people. For example, strangers standing in the lobby of a hotel are a group. A team is a group of people who work together for a specific purpose—a project, as part of a program, or within an organization. Teams manifest themselves in countless ways: ministries at a church; a hip-hop and R&B group or jazz band; the executive board of a student organization; the committee of a fraternity, sorority, or other association; a dance troupe; the board of directors for a charity; a choir; and, of course, any sports squad. All are examples of teams.

Intellectual capital resides in teams of people. It is the knowledge, experience, and skills resulting from your team’s collective effort and is often the source of innovation and intellectual property. In science-oriented ventures, teams of scientists and engineers develop inventions that are then brought to the marketplace. If the team disbands or members leave, the ability for the team to create the next invention may be in jeopardy. Other people may be willing to invest, acquire, or trade for the intellectual capital that resides in a venture or team.

One of our first experiences with innovative teams was when we were on the executive board of Rutgers NSBE. What began as an “inner circle” between ourselves, Aldwyn, Larry, and Dallas later evolved into a “team” when we all served as members of the executive board. Our specific purpose was to fulfill NSBE’s mission “to increase the number of culturally responsible Black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally, and positively impact the community.” As a team and fellow members of the “e-board,” we fulfilled this mission by working closely together to run the chapter’s meetings; coordinate speakers and programs on campus, such as a career fair and a dinner for alums; organize outreach to local high schools; participate in regional and national conferences; and manage the chapter budget. It was through Rutgers NSBE that we honed our team-building skills.

Features of High-Performing Teams. What we have learned over the years is that teams function best and perform at a high level when they have a shared purpose, commitment to that purpose, mutual trust, well-defined roles, and frequent and effective communication.

It is clear to us, looking back, that our team was able to get a lot done because we had many of these high-performing elements in place. We had a common purpose and were committed to it and the NSBE organization. We developed trust and communicated regularly with one another. And we certainly had different roles. Randal was president of the Rutgers chapter. J.R. was the vice president. Aldwyn, Larry, and Dallas were executive board members and officers. We learned each other’s strengths and weaknesses by working together.

To get to this level of teamwork, it is important to promote camaraderie among the team. Dedicate time to organizing team-building activities that promote solidarity and collaboration. It may be something as simple as eating dinner together. It could be something as elaborate as spending an entire weekend during the summer participating in icebreakers and games, along with holding strategic planning and organizational development discussions. Two other important considerations are team diversity and team leadership.

Team Diversity. In Team of Rivals (Simon and Schuster, 2005), presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin explores the relationship between the men who vied for the presidency with Abraham Lincoln. The political genius of Lincoln (which is often referenced, and some say practiced, by President Obama) was to include these rivals in his cabinet and leverage the different points of view to get the best solutions for the nation. His team diversity was based on the various perspectives represented in his cabinet.

Team diversity might be based upon leadership styles, functional expertise, experience, profession, or any other dimension you may think of as relevant for the task at hand. Diversity will lead to different viewpoints. Usually, these disagreements lead to better solutions to complex problems because the proposed solutions are more comprehensive than if everyone had the same perspective.

A harrowing example of what can happen when you don’t have diverse and diverging voices on your team is captured in numerous books and movies about the Cuban Missile Crisis during John F. Kennedy’s presidential administration. Kennedy had some of the most intelligent men around the table advising him about how to deal with the emerging crisis of Soviet missiles being erected in Cuba. The term groupthink is derived from the situation that emerged in those meetings. Dissenting views were drowned out by the race for a speedy and unified solution. The group began to think as one, and it nearly brought the United States to war with the Soviet Union.

The practical takeaway here is that you want your team members to all be committed to a common purpose, but you also want there to be enough difference that you don’t all think the same way.

Having people with different personalities and different strengths and weaknesses on your team can be extremely helpful when addressing complex problems. We learned this when we had our first business together and we were trying to figure out how to price our services.

Aldwyn was always the one who pushed the envelope and wanted us to charge more for our services. We tended to be more moderate. In one instance, we developed a proposal to organize a conference for the United Negro College Fund/Citigroup Fellows program. We were shooting in the dark when it came to deciding how much we should charge, because we hadn’t yet benchmarked the competition in terms of pricing. Up until that point, we’d been charging just under $5,000 for our conferences.

Aldwyn asked, “What do we have to lose by throwing out a larger number?” At first we thought it was too risky. Eventually, after a good amount of discussion, Aldwyn convinced us to price our proposal at more than double our previous rate—$10,000. As Randal explains:

I thought that was a huge amount of money! That week, I sat down with Citigroup’s vice president, Peter Thorpe, and the program’s coordinator, Cathy Grant, to discuss our proposal. The first question Peter asked was: ‘Have you ever done a conference for $10,000?’ I told him that we had not, but I could guarantee it would be worth it. You know what happened? We got the business! Aldwyn was on point. In retrospect, I should have heeded Aldwyn’s words more often.

Aldwyn taught us a valuable lesson that day about avoiding group-think. If it had been up to the two of us, we would have left some money—okay, a lot of money at that time—on the table that day. J.R. and I appreciate each other because we’ve often thought alike. We appreciated Aldwyn just the same because he often thought so differently, and that made us a great team.

Team Leadership. Finally, you must have strong team leadership for any of the benefits to bear fruit. This not only requires some training for those who have not been leaders before, but also requires understanding how to bring out the best in people. J.R. explains our experience:

For Randy, Larry, Dallas, Aldwyn, and me, two things happened over the course of our participation on both the NSBE chapter and regional executive boards together.

First, we quickly learned that the relationships we developed as an inner circle helped to significantly streamline our ability to work together as a team because we knew each other well and got along well. Second, as leaders we charted a course for the organization that the entire team could buy into by respecting and soliciting everyone’s varied opinions. While we do not have the hard numbers to prove it, anecdotally, we believe the chapter and the region experienced significant growth in membership, in community outreach, and in academic performance during our tenure.

In fact, because we believed so strongly in our effectiveness as a team, when I decided to become the chairperson for the NSBE National Convention, I convinced both Randy and Aldwyn to join my convention planning committee. By all accounts, the conference was a huge success.

We have participated in and facilitated all kinds of leadership training courses and seminars and have used tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II offered by AdvisorTeam. (You can learn more about these tools at www.redefinethegame.com.) Yet one of the biggest lessons we have learned and now teach others is that you must understand your own leadership style and the leadership styles of others to be an effective team leader.

PARTNERSHIPS

Partners are the formal members of a venture, initiative, or entity. The partnerships that are formed are formal because they are organized for a specific purpose and are governed by some kind of structure, legal entity, or written agreement. When we think of partners, we think of the people who work together to open a new school, launch a new business venture, or start a new nonprofit organization. Partnerships are serious! These are people you are placing your trust and confidence in to help you achieve your loftiest of goals. You must choose your partners wisely.

Our relationship with Aldwyn, Lawrence, and Dallas evolved beyond that of a “team” during our senior year, when we all became “partners” in our first business venture: Mind, Body & Soul Enterprises (MBS). Randal explains the genesis of MBS:

A childhood friend of mine, Wayne Abbott, was almost solely responsible for inspiring us to become entrepreneurs in college. Wayne was a visionary. He was not only the president of Rutgers NSBE during my first year and an early mentor to me, he was also the first student I ever met who owned and operated his own company. At our weekly NSBE meetings, Wayne would always hammer home the message that Corporate America was not the only path for us to follow, and he practiced what he preached. His company, Aware Information Products [AIP], was an on-campus retailer of Afrocentric T-shirts, apparel, and other cultural items, which were increasingly popular among students at the time. Among the Black engineers at Rutgers, Wayne’s example was part of an entire wave of social consciousness and entrepreneurship on campus. Recognizing my passion for entrepreneurship, he forced me to ask myself, ‘If he can start a business now, why can’t I start a business now?’ In seeking to follow in Wayne’s footsteps, I quickly enlisted the help of the people I knew best—my friends, roommates, and fellow NSBE officers, J.R. and Aldwyn—in launching our first venture. We later reached out to Larry and Dallas to join the partnership, and MBS was formed.

In this first business venture, we sold compact discs out of our dormitory on campus and used the proceeds to fund high school outreach. We soon learned that we could make money from our outreach efforts and we changed the company name to MBS Educational Services and Training. Eventually, we added a sixth partner, Raqiba Bourne, who had recently completed undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Collectively, we ran MBS part-time for seven years while each of us worked fulltime jobs and/or pursued graduate degrees, until Lawrence and Dallas left their full-time jobs in Corporate America to run the company full-time. MBS evolved into BCT Partners, which today is a multi-million-dollar management and information technology consulting firm.

Using Teams to Preview Potential Partners. We are often asked, How did you find your business partners? As you can see, the answer is that we worked on teams (committees, class projects, executive boards) together before we even had the business ideas. Working on teams with people allows you to preview potential partnerships. Working on teams with other people is the best way to learn the working styles of potential partners. Through the work of the team you will learn another person’s strengths and weaknesses. This will help you to find the right partners and to place them in the most appropriate role.

Another avenue for previewing potential partners is to take a look at your inner circle. There may be people in your inner circle who you already know you want to have as your business partner because you work well together. Our only caution here is that once you enter into a partnership, the stakes are high and the work can become more challenging. If you are going to enter into a partnership with someone who is a good friend or part of your inner circle, you must be able to have frank and honest discussions and not take offense easily. In other words, you must be able to separate what is business from what is personal so that you can have disagreements over “business” but still remain friends. Randal notes that:

Although we have sometimes disagreed over issues relating to MBS or BCT, it has never spilled over into our personal relationships. Back in college, we could argue on Thursday about the equity split for the company and then high-five each other in the dark corner of a house party on Friday. That is one of the reasons why I loved working with them.

An alternative is to bring people into a partnership with you on a limited or trial basis. This gives you and them an opportunity to test the waters before the stakes are higher. J.R. gives an example:

Technically, Randy, Aldwyn, and I were the original founders of MBS. Larry, Dallas, and Raqiba first came on board only to help with the UNCF/Citigroup Fellows conference because we needed at least five people to pull it off. As part of the team for the conference, it also gave them the opportunity to show us what they could do. They contributed some great ideas for the training materials and did an outstanding job as public speakers. As Randy, Aldwyn, and I were preparing to graduate from Rutgers, we decided to bring them on as full-fledged partners as a result of their performance.

In essence, if you are interested in having someone as a partner, you might want to work with them on a team first. We suggest you put a time frame on this type of involvement so that it is clear what the expectations are.

Strength in Smaller Numbers Leads to Strength in Larger Numbers

If you are already finding strength in smaller numbers, you may be on the brink of creating something new. In Strategy 8: Think and Act Entrepreneurially, we will talk about entrepreneurship and the creation of new ventures both for a profit (i.e., a business) and for a purpose (i.e., a school, nonprofit, or religious institution). Strategy 6 is the beginning of how you get there.

Partners and partnerships create organizations, schools, and businesses. This is how a group of five people becomes 50, and 50 becomes 500, and 500 becomes 5,000. This is how power can be coalesced, how influence can be wielded, and how strength in numbers can be amplified. As you will see in Strategy 9: Synergize and Reach Scale, this power is one of the key ingredients to achieving synergy and reaching scale.

Strength in Larger Numbers: Organizations

Strength in larger numbers represents a second model. Here, a group of people is actively involved in a formal organization—an entity that exists to fulfill a specific mission or vision and its values.

COLLABORATIVE ORGANIZATIONS

You find strength in larger numbers through active involvement in a formal organization, but not just any organization. Strength in larger numbers stems from collaborative organizations, or organizations whose efforts lead to ongoing collaborative action or combined action, such that people take action together (a concept that we’ll revisit in Strategy 9: Synergize and Reach Scale). For example, a leadership development program alone does not suffice in this context. But a leadership development program wherein participants tackle societal issues collaboratively does meet this standard.

More specifically, we are referring to collaborative organizations that meet the following five criteria:

1. Organizational mission, vision, and values are defined and clearly communicated and geared toward a societal benefit.

2. Participation is open to anyone, notwithstanding consideration for the demographic focus of the organization (i.e., youth organizations may be open to anyone, but they tend to be comprised of youth).

3. Members work together toward shared goals and objectives.

4. Positions in the organization (i.e., president, committee chairperson, volunteer, etc.) are defined by specific roles and responsibilities independent of who performs those duties; if someone leaves a key position, that person is replaced by someone else.

5. Members communicate and meet on a regular and continual basis (i.e., weekly, monthly, annually) as opposed to only meeting for a finite period (i.e., for a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years).

Collaborative organizations meet all of these five criteria. These organizations generally take the form of clubs, societies, leagues, forums, councils, unions, fraternities, sororities, exchanges, guilds, and other associations. Involvement in collaborative organizations allows you to:

Affirm your identity, purpose, and values.

Develop excellence by exploring your passion, experimenting with your gifts, cultivating greater discipline, and reinforcing empowering beliefs.

Prepare for future roles, including leadership positions.

Create meaningful, lasting relationships.

Coalesce power as you address important societal issues.

Achieve goals you could not achieve on your own.

Become part of something bigger than you.

Serve others and the community.

Some examples include the NAACP, the National Urban League, Black Greek-lettered fraternities and sororities that are part of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, NSBE, NABJ, the National Black MBA Association, Jack and Jill of America, and Mocha Moms.

It is just as important to be clear on what does not constitute a collaborative organization. For example, MBS and BCT are not collaborative organizations. Even though they meet most of the five criteria, they are a for-profit company, participation is not open to anyone (criteria number two), and they are not necessarily geared toward addressing societal issues. In Strategy 8: Think and Act Entrepreneurially, we will discuss a special class of for-profit organizations—social ventures—that are specifically geared toward social change.

Organizations that promote the ideals of Strategies 2 and 3 are not collaborative organizations. These organizations primarily, if not exclusively, present either opportunities for exploration and experimentation (broad exposure), or opportunities for personal and professional development to foster excellence. These organizations are, of course, extremely valuable. However, what distinguishes them from the collaborative organizations that constitute the focus of Strategy 6 is that they do not meet criteria number three (shared goals and objectives). They generally promote individual development as opposed to collective action. And while a number of collaborative organizations, as we have defined them, are the sponsors of programs geared toward individual development, the true lifeblood of a collaborative organization is coordinated, collective action that stems from having strength in numbers and organizing groups of people to make a difference.

THE FOUR ORGANIZATIONAL DIMENSIONS

As a way to provide you with a way of thinking about which collaborative organizations are right for you, we present four organizational dimensions that can be used to categorize them: stage, scope, subject, and specificity (see Table 6–1).

Naturally, different organizations speak differently to the organizational dimensions. For example, The Partnership, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing professionals of color. It offers services to the greater Boston area in a way that very few organizations do: by offering programs that span almost every career stage. This nonprofit’s programs are targeted specifically at college students, recent college graduates, entry-level professionals, and mid- to senior-level professionals; it also runs an alumni program that promotes mentoring and community service.

Several examples of African-American (specificity) collaborative organizations that operate at the local and national level (scope) are listed in Table 6–2, according to their focus area (subject) and targeted life-period (stage). Visit www.redefinethegame.com for a more complete list.

If you are not already involved with a collaborative organization such as those listed in Table 6–2, we strongly encourage you to join one or more. J.R. adds:

Randy and I are proud members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated. Randy was my line brother. We both remain active at various levels of the organizations. The fraternity mission statement is “Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated develops leaders, promotes brotherhood and academic excellence, while providing service and advocacy for our communities.” The brotherhood of Alpha Phi Alpha has been invaluable to strengthening our bonds to other Black men, renewing our sense of manhood and fatherhood, reinvigorating our commitment to excellence, and reinforcing our responsibility to give back to the community.

Table 6–1. Four organizational dimensions.

We are vocal advocates and strong proponents of involvement in collaborative organizations. We believe that collaborative organizations have and will continue to play a central and critical role in redefining the game and reshaping America. Much like strength in numbers is a timeless principle, we believe organizational involvement is another time-tested strategy for facilitating change. Granted, organizational involvement is not the only way to facilitate change, but we believe it is among the most viable and effective ways.

Table 6–2. Examples of African-American collaborative organizations.

However, for involvement in collaborative organizations to indeed serve as an effective mechanism for change, it requires members, at times, to look beyond their individual agendas toward a collective purpose.

Have you noticed the diminishing number of R&B groups and bands? In fact, most people are hard-pressed to think of five modern R&B groups or bands that have hit the charts in the new millennium and remained together. At best, you may be able to think about some duets, guest appearances, joint or reunion albums, but not successful, intact R&B groups or bands. Why is that? There are probably several factors that have contributed to this phenomenon, but it is safe to say that this trend reflects a greater emphasis on the individual over the group. Another example is when all-star athletes cannot work together despite the real possibility of winning a championship. These are examples that run counter to the principles of finding strength in numbers. Much like we believe there is something sadly lost in an R&B landscape that is full of solo artists, or a winning sports team that’s forced to release one of its star players, we believe collaborative organizations similarly lose when members prioritize their individual agendas over the organization’s agenda.

To truly find strength in numbers, we must sometimes sacrifice a bit of our personal objectives to contribute to a greater goal. This is something our business partners have always felt strongly about, especially Larry. We are not contradicting our arguments that you demonstrate excellence (Strategy 3) and not subordinate your passion to other considerations. Instead, we are simply “keeping it real” to emphasize that any collective undertaking—be it a friendship, a marriage, a partnership, or an organization—requires some compromise and some sacrifice. For example, when we formed Mind, Body & Soul Enterprises, J.R. abandoned a company he had already started—Nia Educational Services—to join forces with me, Aldwyn, Larry, and Dallas.

Table 6–3. Six forms of strength in numbers.

The need for sacrifice is particularly true as it relates to the ability of collaborative organizations to maximize their strength in numbers. If each individual member did exactly what he wanted to do, the way he wanted to do it, when he wanted to do it, collaborative organizations would crumble. Success not only rests on the ability of organizational leaders to cast a vision that engenders buy-in from their stakeholders, but also the ability of organizational members to do whatever needs to be done to collectively see that vision brought to reality.

Finding “numbers” is easy. All you have to do is create the band, form the sports team, or establish the organization. Finding “strength in numbers” is much harder. To do so, all of the members must remain focused on their united cause and work to stay together.

Game-Changing Strategies for Organizational Involvement

Finally, let’s present the game-changing strategies that are specific to African Americans for finding strength in numbers.

IDENTIFY THE RIGHT ORGANIZATION TO ADDRESS THE RIGHT NEEDS AND ISSUES AT THE RIGHT TIME

You must be strategic about what organizations you are a part of and when you are a part of them. The stage, scope, subject, and specificity that constitute the focus of an organization are paramount considerations as you decide which organizations to be involved in. Ask yourself the question: Should a person at this stage in my career or life be involved with this organization? For example, you may have a legitimate reason for working with a college-based organization after you have graduated from college, especially if you are mentoring the upcoming leaders or you are assisting in the transition between terms. However, at some point, you are giving much more than you are receiving. Are you still developing your skills? Are you meeting your own development and professional goals? If not, it may be time for you to move on.

Similarly, ask yourself: What is the real focus of this organization? The answer may help you make a better decision about your involvements. If the scope (local or national), subject (at-risk youth, unemployed adults, etc.), or specificity (African Americans, women, etc.) does not match where you want to make an impact, it may be time to find a different organization.

When Randal transitioned from being a graduate student in engineering to a full-time business owner, he needed an organization that could place him in the company of fellow information technology entrepreneurs and senior-level technology executives. He joined the Black Data Processing Association (BDPA), which provides professional and technical development for African Americans in the field. Around this time Zack Lemelle, then–vice president for information technology for Johnson & Johnson, who also supervised one of BCT’s projects at the company, was attending an awards gala where Randal gave a keynote speech. Zack, who later became a mentor to Randal, asked him to speak at the awards ceremony for the Information Technology Senior Management Forum (ITSMF), the only national organization dedicated exclusively to fostering upper-level executive talent among African-American IT professionals and high-growth IT entrepreneurs. Randal describes his experience:

I quickly learned that ITSMF was exactly the organization I had been looking for at that stage of my career. Within a few months of the awards ceremony, I accepted an invitation to become a member and lead their efforts with African-American entrepreneurs in information technology. NSBE was perfect during college. NSBE’s alumni extension and BDPA were a great fit during my years as a technical professional. ITSMF was ideal once I became chairman and CEO of a growing technology firm.

Being at the right place at the right time is a theme that runs through Strategy 3 about strategic career management, Strategy 4 about strategic networking, and Strategy 5 about strategic mentoring. Here, too, in Strategy 6, strategic organizational involvement is identifying the right organization to address the right needs and issues at the right time.

COMBINE IDENTITY-DRIVEN AND ISSUE-DRIVEN ORGANIZATIONAL AGENDAS

People are often naturally drawn to organizations that reflect their identity. For example, as African Americans we have naturally been drawn to “ethnic organizations” whose “specificity” is geared toward African Americans. The agendas typically pursued by ethnic organizations rightfully reflect the needs of the ethnicity they represent. We refer to this as an identity-driven agenda, while others may call it “identity politics.” A few examples of an identity-driven agenda include the Christian educational society that promotes prayer in schools; the women’s organization that lobbies for legislation ensuring equal pay regardless of gender; the predominantly Black association that works to address issues affecting minority communities; or the Cuban-American group that organizes to advance freedom and democracy in Cuba. Quite often their identity group affiliation is even self-evident from their names: the Society for Christian Education (Christians); the League of Women Voters (women); the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (people of color); the Cuban American National Foundation (Cuban Americans).

We are strong proponents of such organizations and have, in fact, spent a considerable amount of our time working with such organizations. However, we believe reshaping twenty-first-century America necessarily requires combining an identity-driven agenda with an issue-driven agenda.

As the name implies, an issue-driven agenda is one that is focused on issues, interests, or causes, such as affordable housing, environmental justice, universal health care, poverty elimination, and economic development. Naturally, these issues tend to have an identity spin associated with them. For example, African Americans are disproportionately affected by the lack of affordable housing, environmental racism, access to quality health care, poverty, and the economic gap between the haves and have-nots. However, African Americans alone—and African-American organizations alone—cannot solve these problems. And, in fact, to the extent that the African-American community is not monolithic, African Americans do not necessarily even agree on the issues affecting our community, much less how to address them. It is only when those of us who have some general consensus on issues are able to see and embrace the commonality we share with others across lines of difference that we can truly make a difference together. As evidenced by the efforts of those organizations that called for the firing of Don Imus, as chronicled at the beginning of this chapter, strength in numbers finds its greatest power in large and diverse numbers.

There are quite a number of issue-driven organizations in our country, which we also refer to as “general organizations” because they are not necessarily geared toward a particular ethnicity. However, based on our experience, these organizations tend to be predominantly white and are not nearly as prominent within the African-American community as those that are identity-driven. Generally speaking, African Americans are more likely to be familiar with the NAACP or the National Urban League, because of their long-standing tradition of helping our communities, than with Amnesty International or the National Rural Health Association, despite the important work they are also doing. Issue-driven organizations tend to focus on issues that affect society at-large, not necessarily the needs of particular ethnic groups or other identity groups. This suggests that three things must happen.

First, in a diversifying society, issue-driven organizations must consider ways that they can become more attuned and more involved in the issues affecting people of color, which includes diversifying their ranks and promoting closer collaboration with organizations representing people of color. Conversely, identity-driven organizations must both explore ways to collaborate with other identity-driven organizations representing different ethnicities (e.g., predominantly Black organizations working with predominantly Hispanic organizations) and issue-driven organizations that share similar issues (e.g., predominantly Black organizations collaborating with affordable health care organizations).

This is undoubtedly a way to redefine the game and reshape America by building wide-ranging coalitions of diverse people with common interests to achieve shared goals. In Strategy 9: Synergize and Reach Scale, we will take these ideas even further in the context of how these collaborations can reach scale.

BROKER COLLABORATIONS AMONG ETHNIC AND GENERAL ORGANIZATIONS

We believe it is important to maintain involvement in both ethnic and general organizations. We cannot underscore the importance of this point enough. It is only when you have a “foot in both camps” that you can take informed, proactive steps to create new mechanisms, new spaces, and new structures that help facilitate the discussion, debating, strategizing, and planning that are necessary to build viable coalitions between African-American organizations and other ethnic and/or general organizations.

This involvement could be as simple as becoming a member of another ethnic or general organization. You could lend your perspective to the issues they are wrestling with or build bridges between their organization and your African-American organization. It might mean deliberately putting yourself in a position where you are the sole Black face in a white place, or Latino place, or Asian place, or Native-American place. On a more elaborate scale, brokering collaborations could be manifested in the form of joint, interorganizational meetings, committees, conferences, and task forces comprising representatives from each organization. For example, since the 1990s, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (a general organization) and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated (an ethnic organization) have worked together to provide support and mentorship to young African-American males.

Brokering collaboration can also mean building bridges across other lines of difference within the African Diaspora (e.g., religious, geographic, intergenerational, etc.). Reverend Otis Moss III, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago (and successor to Reverend Jeremiah Wright), is no stranger to crossing lines of religious difference. As a participant and now board member of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference (SDPC), he is involved with convening African-American faith leaders and their congregations from a diverse cross-section of religious backgrounds. SDPC organizes congregations and their leaders to collaborate with others representing the civic, academic, business, and government sectors to address issues related to education, social justice, and economic empowerment. This gives SDPC participants tools they need to mobilize community members. Pastor Moss told us in an interview, “Most Black ministers have been trained in very conservative seminary so they know how to walk you through the Bible, but they really don’t know how to make those direct connections to policy and other issues and say that ‘This deals with your faith too.’ You know, whether a child is able to get decent health care. More and more ministers are admitting that ‘I want to take things to another level.’ So the Proctor Conference does a marvelous job with that.”

Regardless of the form it takes, the point is to take action in bringing together organizations that have shared issues, interests, or causes and to help them find strength in numbers. In Strategy 4, we talked about this very idea in the context of bridging social capital, bridging network gaps, and brokering connections between disconnected or uncoordinated entities. Here, we are simply applying the same thinking to collaborative organizations.

Strength in Numbers Sets the Stage

Finding strength in numbers not only completes Part II: Playing the Game, it also sets the stage for Part III: Mastering the Game and Part IV: Redefining the Game. In these final two parts, starting with the next three chapters, we will synthesize all of the concepts discussed here and in the previous strategies.

Strategy 7: Think and Act Intrapreneurially will talk about intrapreneurship and how to transform existing corporations or government agencies. Strategy 8: Think and Act Entrepreneurally will discuss how small group relationships can spawn new organizations, such as startup businesses or nonprofits. Strategy 9: Synergize and Reach Scale will identify the steps needed for organizations and businesses to evolve into lasting institutions and how collaborative action that is brokered across organizations can have the broadest or deepest possible impact to truly redefine the game and reshape America.