By Brittany Hutson
African Americans have long been taught that the way to succeed in business is to work hard, give 200%, and stay in line with the rules of the game. Well, what happens when you do everything by the book, only to learn that your best really wasn’t good enough? This is the predicament many Blacks know too well and it was no different for Dr. Randall Pinkett.
Five years ago, Pinkett was named the first African American winner of NBC’s hit reality television show The Apprentice, where he competed against 17 other candidates for the opportunity to run one of Donald Trump’s companies for a year. Despite his achievement, Pinkett was asked to share it with a white woman. Angry and insulted, Pinkett objected. This is one moment that Pinkett describes as a “black faces in white places” moment— a point at which it becomes clear that playing well isn’t enough.
In his latest book, “Black Faces in White Places,” co-authored with Dr. Jeffrey Robinson, an assistant professor at the Rutgers Business School, Pinkett offers ten strategies on how you can succeed at playing the ‘ever-changing game’—a metaphor for the challenges minorities face. It’s a ‘game’ that Blacks still haven’t quite mastered. According to the research included in the book, 2.5 percent of executives in Fortune 500 companies were Black in in 1995; today, that percentage is nearly 4 percent. “We have a lot to do as Americans for it to be a level-playing field in this country,” says Pinkett. “That’s one of the messages that we’re really trying to amplify through this book that in 2010, that is unacceptable.”
Here’s a look at the strategies included in Pinkett’s book:
1. Establish a Strong Identity and Purpose:
Your identity encompasses aspects such as your gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, etc. Define your identity on your own terms or someone else will. Says Pinkett, “It’s about developing and culminating a sense of pride of who you are and where you come from. You can be successful in any professional environment without compromising who you are and without losing a sense of identity.”
2. Obtain Broad Exposure:
Get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself to do things, go places and engage in ideas that are different from what you are accustomed to.
3. Demonstrate Excellence:
According to Pinkett, there are four facets that make up the “diamond of excellence”: passion, natural talent, discipline and faith.
4. Build Diverse and Solid Relationships:
Your network should be diverse. While there is nothing wrong with the majority of your friends being African American, it is not ideal if all of your friends are such. “It behooves you to have a diverse network because you’re likely to have better relationships, better connections, and a more expansive reach than if your network is all monolithic,” says Pinkett.
5. Seek the Wisdom of Others:
Wisdom is not a function of age. All that matters is that you seek the right advice from a person who has more experience in something than you do.
6. Find Strength in Numbers:
Focus on how you can align your efforts with others who are like-minded to achieve what you could not have achieved separately. “African Americans have a tradition of community but we are living in a society where it is about the individual and those two influences are often at odds,” says Pinkett. “I believe we are at our best when we find ways to connect and collaborate. That’s where we find our true power.”
7. and 8. Think and Act Intrapreneurially; Think and Act Entrepreneurially:
These strategies go hand-in-hand because they are both about applying the entrepreneur mindset but in different settings. According to Pinkett, “We’re challenging readers to think and embody the mindset of an entrepreneur by being creative, resourceful, innovative and having a vision [then] applying that way of thinking within an established organization.”
9. Synergize and Reach Scale:
This strategy is about doing something with other people or other organizations that make a deep or broad impact. For example, work together to grow a multimillion-dollar business that offers products and services to millions of people. Or, launch a community-based organization to improve the quality of life in multiple cities across the country.
10. Give Back Generously:
Look back through the previous nine strategies and ask yourself how you can put all of that together to make a lasting difference? What do you bring to the table that allows you to leave your own unique imprint?
and instantly the rules change
