In This Issue:

• Mentoring
• Profile
• Woman Talk
• Managing Diversity
• Management Tip of the Month
• Book Nook
• Ethics Dilemma

GOT DIVERSITY?

Click here for information on our "Strategic Diversity" seminar to be held September 25-26, 2007 at the Meeting Center, Silicon Valley's Techmart, Santa Clara, CA.

PROFILE:
Clarence Boykins

Each month we will profile someone in the business, non-profit or government sector who has shown superior leadership or management skills. If you know someone who should be profiled, please send the person's name, title, organization and contact information to edgeline.

NAME: Clarence Boykins
TITLE: President and CEO
COMPANY: Tucson-Southern Arizona Black Chamber of Commerce, Tucson, AZ

Clarence Boykins is a well-known Arizona civic leader, serving on boards including the United Way, the NAACP, and the Governor’s Tourism Advisory Board.

What is most exciting about your current role?
I have the opportunity to work with new and emerging businesses and play an important role in their growth and development. I also collaborate with financial institutions and business development organizations to establish a solid support foundation for the businesses that the Chamber represents.

What is your biggest challenge?
One of the biggest challenges is developing marketing strategies to successfully reach African-American businesses disbursed throughout the Tucson community, where African-Americans are approximately three percent of the population.

Briefly describe an experience that taught you a lot about leadership or management.
In 1982, I was elected as the head of a statewide organization with a history older than the United States. Although I was prepared for my first meeting, it was a disaster. I forgot to consider certain key elements such as age diversity, people’s general reluctance to change, and the level of ownership that most members felt for the organization. I learned that being elected to a leadership position doesn’t make you a leader, but understanding the enormous responsibility and the constituency served goes a long way in being a good leader.

What personal strengths have led to your own success?
Refusing to accept failure. Knowing my limitations. A willingness to give 100 percent effort to bring about a successful outcome. Serving with humility.

Describe someone who is a hero to you, or mentor or role model?
My ninth grade civics teacher, Mr. Clifford R. Matthews, taught me about the importance of civic participation and the role that each of us can play in developing a community that works for all its citizens.

What are three tips you would offer to aspiring managers and leaders?
- Be committed to both the project and the people that you lead and manage.
- Be knowledgeable, and if possible, the most knowledgeable.
- Understand and embrace the diversity of people.

---

Clarence Boykins

Born: April 15, 1943, in Miami

Family members: Wife, Deborah; sons Darin, Rashaun and Rene, and daughters Dionne and Dayna

Favorite quote: “We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Favorite book: “Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens

Movie you found inspirational on the topic of leadership: "Glory"

Management Tip

Having problems with perfectionism? This behavior is a tough one to change, because so many see it as a positive trait. Sometimes it is more important to be “roughly right” with “good enough” data and move forward, rather than be paralyzed waiting for a perfect scenario that never materializes. With yourself, and your team, see if you can find a healthier balance between analysis and action.—Rebecca Kuiken

Mentoring top performers
can give your firm an edge

By Jacqui Love Marshall

As you groom top performers for bigger roles, consider placing them in structured mentoring programs. Mentoring provides a competitive edge for both participants and their organizations.

Mentoring gives employees confidence to build on their strengths, and “clarifies what’s needed to succeed in bigger and bigger jobs,” said Jeanne Fox-Alston, vice president of talent management and diversity at the Newspaper Association of America.

“In short, it helps high-achieving and promising employees to build on their talent, skills and drive, and go farther than would be possible without mentoring,” said Fox-Alston, who oversees the association’s Breakthrough Program, which matches senior executives with promising mid-level managers from around the newspaper industry.

In a typical structured program, companies match an experienced mentor with a high potential employee, generally avoiding direct reporting relationships. In best-practice programs, mentoring involves an active and voluntary relationship that is supported by the company with time, resources, recognition and alignment with broader company goals.

Mentoring activities may include formal group sessions, one-on-one chats or discussions via e-mail and/or telephone. Typically, they focus on coaching and development in interpersonal skills, organizational culture, sharing of experience and wisdom, cross-cultural exchanges and role modeling.

If your company would like to launch a mentoring program:

- Take baby steps. Pilot a modest program with a small group of highly motivated participants, then review the lessons learned before going bigger. Or, launch an informal program that offers sessions on effective mentoring and materials to encourage informal coaching. Share success stories. Decide when it’s time to take efforts to a formal level.

- Align with business goals. A mentoring program must have strategic value – otherwise it will not be taken seriously, especially by the senior partners. All participants should share a sense of accountability for the program’s success.

- Plan, plan and plan some more. Any new initiative needs broad ownership and sustained support at executive levels. Take at least six months to get the company ready for the program.

- Get experienced help. Don’t make it a one-person campaign. Establish an internal advisory committee to help with plans. Consider using a consultant to help you think through goals, strategy, training, administration and evaluation.

- Beg, borrow or steal ideas. Best-practice resources for mentoring goals, programs, activities and training are readily available. Check out Internet sources and talk to experts who’ve run successful mentoring initiatives.

- Provide structure. Busy, achievement-oriented people respond to structure and deadlines. Make sure there is a formal application process; defined roles for mentors/mentees; formal training; scheduled activities; assignments, and regular feedback forms. A too-casual approach invites lowered expectations and unmet tasks.

- Measure and evaluate results. If possible, gather data prior to the program on participants’ knowledge, expectations and level of career and company satisfaction. Use that information as a baseline, and poll participants later on program outcomes.

Mentoring programs can show a great return-on-investment for businesses. Although they may look simple to administer, they take purposeful planning to develop, and focused time and energy to sustain. Given the value of a great mentoring experience, don’t give mentoring a bad name with insufficient time, effort and resources. To get the best ROI, do it well or not at all!

Jacqui Love Marshall has been a senior Human Resources executive for several media companies.

Jeanne Fox-Alston and Angela Winters of NAA can provide more information about NAA’s Breakthrough program. Fox-Alston’s phone number is (571) 366-1005. For additional information and resources on structured mentoring programs, contact Larry Olmstead at Leading Edge Associates, (408) 997-2905.

WOMAN TALK: Tips from a life coach

By Dinah Eng

When it comes to getting encouragement and support, most women will turn to a girl friend or sister first. But when life and career issues flare up, sometimes a different approach can help.

Eddie Conner, an intuitive life coach based in Los Angeles, works with both men and women clients. In addition to using motivational tools, Conner encourages people to get in touch with their “inner knowing.” We usually know the answers to our own questions, he says. We just don’t always want to admit it.

“People are often afraid of their intuitive knowing because it’s unfamiliar,” says Conner, who takes a holistic view of life in his coaching. “There are more whole-brained males in society today who also use their intuition. Women, who instinctively use their intuition, have always been the backbone of corporate America.

“The high-frequency mind is open and appreciative. Women operate at a higher frequency than most men. Our feelings create our reality, more than our actions do, and women act more out of their feelings than men do.”

Conner offers the following tips:

Start each day with “I am thankful”
The moment you wake up, begin your day with a heartfelt “I am thankful.” For example: “I am thankful for my health. I am thankful that I choose to focus on success and solutions.”

“Love and gratitude attract people, circumstances, and situations that feel good to us,” Conner says. “When we start our day on the right foot of ‘I am thankful…’ the results we reap are wonderful.”

Have a Deliberate Intention
“I once heard a spiritual teacher say, ‘The person with the purest intention always wins,’” Conner says. “That statement has stuck in my heart for years, and I believe it’s true. An honest, pure intention parts the sea of negativity and brings to us the positive things we desire. So state your intention and be a winner.”

Do Your Daily Yes-ercises®
“I coach clients to retrain their brains out of the ‘N.O. Mindset’ and into the ‘Y.E.S. -ercise Game,’ “ Conner shares. “Practice saying a happy, hearty yes to all things that make you feel uplifted and empowered. Yes to love. Yes to opulence and comfort. Yes to security and abundance, and yes to brilliant co-workers and peers. Doing your Yes-ercises brings us more ease and freedom, and others respond to the positive in us.”

Ask Solution-Oriented Questions
“When we phrase our questions, we can be solution-oriented instead of problem oriented,” Conner says. “For example, instead of saying, ‘Why did my team perform poorly today?' ask 'How can I work with my team to communicate better?’ You can feel the difference between the two approaches.”

Think It, INK IT®
“Thinking is powerful, but inking our thoughts lends more positive momentum to our intended goals,” Conner says. “We can talk about something, we can dream about it, and we can think about it. It's not until we consciously ink it onto paper that our subconscious and conscious mind begin working together to bring our invisible thoughts into tangible reality. So if you have a great goal, write it out.”

MANAGING DIVERSITY: When downsizing impacts diversity

By Jacqui Love Marshall

Every year, workers lose their jobs due to companywide efforts to cut costs. Whether called layoffs, downsizing, reduction-in-force or restructuring, it can feel like a tornado spinning everything and everyone in the air. Once the dust settles and the surviving employees are accounted for, a company’s diversity is often one of the casualties.

Managers facing downsizing decisions focus on very practical factors – seniority, tenure, salary/job levels, etc. Yet, emotional reactions and biases may unconsciously drive some decisions. A “last-hired, first-fired” approach that retains loyal longtime employees may more negatively impact newly hired or recently promoted women, people of color and younger employees. Or, an effort to lower salary/benefits costs can be detrimental to tenured, older workers.

Companies genuinely committed to diversity must attend to such issues before, during and after a downsizing process.

Companies that have been diligent in their inclusion efforts will lose less ground than others. Before downsizing plans are executed, a company should conduct a thoughtful analysis to ensure the plan doesn’t unfairly impact any group of employees, especially those in protected classes. As part of this analysis, and with senior executives and legal counsel participating, consider:

Goals: Be clear about the objectives of the reduction-in-force (RIF). Articulating precise goals and desired outcomes will achieve results with less negative impact.

Impact: Applying your RIF goals, determine the scope and the potential effect on the general workforce.

Criteria: Determine selection criteria for implementing the RIF. This criteria should be aligned with future business goals. Managers should be able to apply it in an objective fashion. Criteria might include performance, job function, location, seniority, etc.

Analysis: Conduct a rigorous adverse impact analysis to determine if the criteria will disproportionately impact a protected class or other obvious groups of employees. If the analysis reveals a serious threat to workforce diversity, determine if other selection criteria should be added.
Implementation: Prepare and/or train managers to apply the selection criteria in a consistent, impartial way. Monitor the RIF process closely to assist as needed.

There are no magic formulas to avoid losses in workforce diversity after a downsizing, but ignoring the issue could expose your company to legal vulnerability or prompt some of your most talented people to exit voluntarily.

The most prudent course is to continue diversity efforts as before and to ramp up efforts if diversity takes a major setback. In the aftermath of a downsizing, make smart choices in staff moves and re-organizations.

To get back on track, think about diversity goals as you would any strategic issue: deploy multi-year goals and programs in recruitment, hiring, mentoring, development and advancement. Diligence and steady progress over years will solidify your credibility in the diversity arena.

BOOK NOOK

ETHICS DILEMMA: The human cost of layoffs

Jerry Ceppos will answer questions about ethical issues every month. Along with two others, he received the first Ethics in Journalism Award of the Society of Professional Journalists. Write Jerry at jceppos@aol.com. Tell him if you don't want your name used.

Q. I’ve just been laid off. Everyone is talking about benefits and retraining. But I want to know if there are ethical dimensions to layoffs.

A.More than 20 years ago, one of the top figures in the semiconductor industry told me that his goal was to eliminate layoffs at his company. He thought layoffs were bad for employees and bad for his company. They still are

.
This industry leader was implying that, yes; there are ethical and human dimensions to layoffs. In human terms, I’m appalled when friends tell me that they haven’t even heard a “Sorry that we have to do this” when they sit down with human-resources folks before the dreaded final “interview.”
Some of the questions to ask in purely ethical terms: Has the company explained the need for layoffs? Are they a crude way to get back at complainers? Do some workers seem unfairly targeted, on the basis of age, gender or race? Are managers, as well as line employees, being laid off?

I liked this summary by Carlton Vogt in InfoWorld in 2003:
“I think that to be ethical, businesses should consider layoffs — except for seasonal employment or in industries in which variations are to be expected — as a last resort, after all other options have been considered. When layoffs are necessary, layoff decisions should then be made with the understanding that managers are dealing with real people, not just statistics — and these employees often represent a value that can’t be quantified by a spreadsheet.”

 

Edgeline is published the second Tuesday of each month by Leading Edge Associates, a consulting firm engaged in management training, organizational change, succession planning, executive coaching, diversity and media. Rebecca Kuiken, managing editor of Edgeline, can be reached at (408) 960-9472.