The following post was published in the Rochester Beacon on July 26, 2020
There has long been a law prescribing it is illegal to shoot someone in the back. But that law did not save Walter Scott. Although unarmed and not threatening his killer, he was shot in the back by a South Carolina policeman while running away during a routine traffic stop. It is certainly appropriate to ban chokeholds by the police in the wake of George Floyd’s death. But I doubt the law will save anyone’s life. Laws by themselves haven’t been shown to protect people of color. Hence the call for “systemic change.”
But what is systemic change? And, how will it change the outcomes for millions of African-Americans who have suffered not only the abuse of police officers but also ongoing discrimination in their pursuit of economic opportunity – from housing, to banking, to employment.
The challenge for legislators, particularly at a federal level, is that there is little they can do to change outcomes that hasn’t already been done. We have extensive legislation backed up by the courts that prevent discrimination in every arena. Victims of Continue reading “Ending police abuse requires culture change NOT systemic change”
Have you ever repeated a phrase so often that you find you’ve forgotten what it means? In a group meeting this week, I referred to a company’s “mission” using a phrase that I’ve repeated for years. A new member of the group challenged me and threw me off balance. What I was really referring to was the company’s purpose.
Regular readers know that I am “old school.” As a hiring manager, I focused on finding talent not hiring for skills. “Skills can be learned,” I would say. “But, you can’t fix stupid.” That approach to hiring has faded away. We now focus on functional skills.
About every three months, I join a group of colleagues for dinner followed by an all day meeting. Our goal is to share best practices, bond with one another and have some fun. Nothing unusual about that, right? What makes it different is that there is no corporate sponsor. It’s an Ad Hoc group of people who share a profession and a common interest in getting better at what we do. Most of us hop into our car and head to a central location within an area bounded in the north by Toronto, the south by Pittsburgh, the east by Rochester and the west by Indianapolis.
We’re flush with new college grads this month. This crop has graduated into a rare economy – one in which employers are challenged by the dearth of candidates to fill the jobs they’re offering. Contrast that to ten years ago when even those with advanced degrees from top schools were kicked to the curb.
The mission of my first assignment in the corner office was to turn the business around. Bleeding cash, lacking sustainable IT and other infrastructure, and having suffered through a bad leadership episode, the company was teetering on the brink of failure. My first impression as CEO of the company (