Balling Onward: Athlete To Successful Business Person

“Change begins at the end of your comfort zone” – Roy T. Bennett

This may get a little uncomfortable and inward facing for many of us, but, let’s talk about it family!

It’s quite crippling to organizations to expect change but only hire older people for executive positions and blindly limiting the vast talent they could attract if there weren’t so many barriers involved in the hiring and application processes.

Let’s talk about innovation, DEI activism, social media as a business platform and VR and AR, the metaverse (you know all the cool stuff that younger professionals are engaged in). To continue to remain innovated we must evolve over time and add new dimensions and approaches to how we strategize in business and particularly around diversity, equity and inclusion.

The world is changing and yet we have so many opportunities to elevate young minds who have focused on studying the problem, it’s history and how to make progressive change. That’s not to say we should not respect and take into considering how far we have come because of older generations. That is not at all the statement being made here. It’s actually the opposite. The older generations have paved the way for younger generations to have opportunities.

Let’s Talk About The Barriers We Create For Black Innovative Young Leaders To Lead

I think it is really time for us to think through the barriers that we create when hiring for these positions for which we “want to see progress!” 

I mean do we really want to bring change and innovation and a “new” outlook into how we can approach business strategies if on an application, you must have 12+ years of experience to qualify for an executive position? The first issue with that is that DEI for many organization didn’t begin becoming a priority (unfortunately) until 2020. There was not as high of a demand to have an executive, chief or officer in place to focus on leading DEI strategy, therefore, many people were not trying to build their expertise around DEI. The second issue is that with that requirement of longevity in the space, you are limiting your reach to young trailblazers who are both experienced, and hungry to see actual and real change. So who really wants to see progression? And who wants to just appear to be progressive? I guess that may be the bigger question here.

When in many instances, this past year, much of the work that has been done to vocalize the need to see change within organizations and in the world has been escalated by younger, successful individuals who were and are in tuned to and initiated the trends around protests for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery (the list goes on) on social media and led the largest protests ever for Black Lives Matter by innovatively communicating.

The NY Times published an article about the June 6th protest and stated, “According to the Civics Analytics poll, the movement appears to have attracted protesters who are younger and wealthier. The age group with the largest share of protesters was people under 35 and the income group with the largest share of protesters was those earning more than $150,000.”

Imposter syndrome is real! Trust me, normally as the youngest in the room, a single mother, very often the only Black woman in the room, I have felt the judgement from older professionals and I’m sure so many others have experienced the same. Despite having a PhD with a DEI focus, many years of experience in the DEI space, worked with many different clients, I still often have to prove my knowledge before even initiating an engagement. I know I am not alone. It’s time for us to make BOLD change and not limit someone’s ability and brilliance based on what was the norm of the past! It is a new day and time for smart change that will essentially bring us closer to equity.

Let’s think about it, a lot of our innovation around DEI comes from strategizing around empathizing and our ability to adjust. Even in our home-life-balance, who would you say has had to be the most innovative in order to perform at a consistent, or even higher level as a result of the pandemic? The 33 year old woman with a 3-6 year old kid, who now is home more often while mom is working for a future with a company or the 50-60+ year old woman with kids in college and planning for her retirement?

The people we put in decision making positions and positions where we normally don’t see representation, will help create magic that is felt within and outside of an organization. 

Trust me, you can trust us!