Are career seminars for black managers worth it?

Black Enterprise, Dec, 1992 by Dawn M. Baskerville

It's the final day of a recent black managers' development seminar in Atlanta and the participants are in the throes of heated debate. The issue? Those frustrating concerns unique to black managers that keep them from advancing up the corporate ladder.

Eulis M. Nelson, a planning support supervisor for Mason & Hanger-Silas Mason Co., a government contracting firm in Amarillo, Texas, explains: "The hidden agendas of white peers and supervisors are a real problem for many black managers. Just when we think we've learned the rules, they change the game plan."

Despite the flurry of cultural diversity programs being launched throughout corporate America, some perceived stereotypes of black managers remain unchanged. Although African-American financial, marketing and technical wizards can be found throughout industry, racism, hidden agendas and mixed communication signals still pose a threat to the success of even the best and the brightest. That's why mastering the politics of success within a hostile, or perhaps ambivalent, corporate culture is critical to the advancement of black executives. For blacks who are determined to join the company's management team, simply being considered as a potential team member is the biggest challenge of all. And unfortunately, many African-Americans are never given the chance to receive the proper training and development experiences needed to advance. One reason is certainly a result of the lack of access to mentors and sponsors who can "show them the ropes" or promote them into highly visible positions.

For the past 20 years, courses like the American Management Association's (AMA) "Successful Managerial Skills for Black Managers" a seminar that Nelson attended, have offered first-line black managers specific development and coping strategies for success in predominantly white corporations.

"We help people develop their own strategic action plan for success, and then encourage them to refine and implement it in their career development," says John W. Aldrich, president of Aldrich Associates in Shelton, Conn., and developer of the black managers seminar now utilized by the AMA. However, the changing face of America's increasingly multicultural work force poses two questions: Are these seminars still relevant and effective training tools for black managers? And, is there a stigma attached to those who enroll in them?

"In the old days of affirmative action and equal employment opportunity, the struggle was getting in the door," says Ben Harrison, president of Ben Harrison Associates, a managing diversity firm in Oakland. "Now they let us in, but block our access to the elevator." Black managers are still rare in corporate America--they number only 914,000 and are concentrated mostly in goods-producing and manufacturing industries. Still, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there are now more black managers than ever. Nevertheless, Rosalyn Taylor O'Neale, president of R. Taylor O'Neale Associates, a San Jose-based diversity consulting firm, notes that blacks throughout the pipeline are asking themselves: "How can I function at top form while I'm struggling with all the issues my race stirs up on a daily basis?"

The premium placed on well-trained team players is even more critical in the current leaner, meaner, more competitive workplace. Management circles and other structured work teams require individuals to overcome differences and pull together to improve quality and productivity. To the detriment of many companies, talented black professionals are passed over because whites often assume they can't become effective team members.

Studies like the recent "Women in Corporate Management," released by New York City-based Catalyst Women's Organization, report on the seemingly perpetual glass ceiling that impedes the advancement of female executives. However, an independent study, "A Blueprint for Success" of African-American business leaders (see BLACK ENTERPRISE, November 1991) goes a step further, by claiming it is a concrete ceiling that is hindering black managers from entering into the senior-level corporate ranks. White managers often consider it a risk to promote blacks into key positions. Unwilling to bet the success of their department or pet project on a black colleague, white managers "play it safe" by putting white males into the visible positions of their companies. And the rare times when blacks are placed in strategic roles, "they often don't get the nuturing and support in those positions that they might need, or that others might get," says Linda A. Hill, associate professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School (see excerpt of Prof. Hill's book, Becoming A Manager: Mastery Of A New Identity, this issue). Also, these same unenlightened white managers may withhold important information and critical assignments, thereby thwarting the advancement of black execs in predetermined career tracks. Management seminars help black managers over the hump of race-related barriers and up the ladder to promotion and advancement. This frees them to focus on becoming better managers and visionary leaders.