Meeting the changing needs of black MBAs - effectiveness of National Black MBA Association - Masters of Business degree

Black Enterprise, Oct, 1993 by Dawn M. Baskerville

How important is the National Black MBA Association to the advancement of blacks in business? It depends on who you ask, and when you ask them.

Talk to, a black professional who's still pursuing her MBA, and she will probably tell you that the group provides her with unparalleled networking opportunities and mentoring support. But talk to the same executive a few years after business school, and you might get a different answer: A lot of good her membership did when she was pushed out of her comfy middle-management perch and forced to fly with her own consulting firm. "The organization helped me get my MBA," she and others like her might say. "But if they can't help me advance my career, why do I need them?"

When the National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) was founded 23 years ago, its mission was clear: push blacks towards the degree, help them get into corporations and up the corporate ladder and provide a forum where they could network and socialize.

But changing times and the shifting needs of its membership prompted the group to reassess itself recently. What it discovered was that its mission was outdated, its structure too bureaucratic and its agenda out of sync with the real issues affecting its 2,700 members.

Specifically, the NBMBAA has been perceived as being too focused on helping African-Americans secure MBAs, and not focused enough on the survival and advancement strategies black professionals need once they've earned the coveted degree. The organization's conferences are also too often regarded as networking opportunities, as opposed to high-level business forums. Certainly, many of the programs sponsored by NBMBAA chapters seem far removed from the nine-to-five issues facing black MBAs. For example, a mentoring program for elementary school students, while laudable, does not exactly address the concerns of a black executive trying to avoid the downsizing axe. Meanwhile, the success of chapter-driven programs focusing on the needs of black MBAs has not translated into an image of power, influence and effectiveness. All of this adds up to an organization that many black MBAs feel they have outgrown.

Managing change, in the best of times, is difficult. Trying to do it amid chaos can be nearly impossible, and the corporate world is clearly in a scramble. The upheaval plaguing American business recently has upended the lives of even its top professionals, and black MBAs are no exception. Blacks who pursued a master's degree in business administration - once regarded as the panacea for all career obstacles-have fast discovered that even with the credential, they are still vulnerable. Downsizings and reinforced glass ceilings have hit these managers hard, forcing them into formerly unthinkable career options such as retraining and entrepreneurships to survive. "We quickly found out that Harvard MBAs can be laid off too," notes Leroy Nunery, NBMBAA's national treasurer and vice president of human and information resources for the National Basketball Association in New York City.

Against this backdrop, with its members facing new and more complex challenges, NBMBAA has to broaden its scope to remain viable. It must also refine its internal administrative structure, which, until 1989, was virtually nonexistent (prior to that, everything was administered by an outside management firm). Today, NBMBAA has 10 staff members - up from just four last year-operating out of its Chicago headquarters.

Despite these efforts, some black MBAs, both members and nonmembers, have been highly critical, charging that these changes have been too long in coming. NBMBAA officials concede this criticism, but say they are looking forward, not backward. Their willingness to accept the formidable challenge of redefinition is admirable, particularly at a time when the professional waters for black MBAs are murkier than ever.

By expanding its programs, streamlining its once cumbersome mission and stepping up its community outreach, the organization is seeking to justify its life expectancy into the 21st century, and beyond. But to reinvent itself successfully, the NBMBAA must shift some of its attention away from the "softer" social tactics of professional development such as networking, mentoring and community service, and place more emphasis on the harder strategies of career training, business development and political awareness.

A RELEVANCY SCORECARD

Time was when an African-American manager in a major corporation was rare. Even more exceptional was one with real bottom-line clout. Lacking the mentors and influential support systems available to their white counterparts, blacks often languished in lower-rung positions. These conditions led a group of black MBA students at the University of Chicago to form NBMBAA in 1970.

"Back then, that support group encouraged black students to pursue graduate business degrees and provided networking opportunities for those with the degree," recounts Derryl L. Reed, immediate past president of NBMBAA and an assistant vice president of the Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association in New York City. The expected payoff? That the increase in the number of black MBAs moving through the corporate pipeline would boost their ability to pull others through.