Some ideas on education reform:
1. Teach
Business pros need to go back to school and teach. The only way your future workforce will get better is if business experts get involved. So go back and teach. You don’t have to quit your job. You can take a sabbatical or teach a night or two at a local college or high school even. Just make time and teach. Your company’s future depends on it.
Businesses are also consumers and schools are just businesses that provide a more sophisticated product— your workforce. You know what you need more than they do, so tell ‘em—they’ll listen. (Supply and Demand, a.k.a. ‘B-School 101.’) And if you don’t have time to teach at least make time to help a school develop proper business curriculum.
Remember: Knowledge in the hands of selfish people is worthless. It only accrues interest and value when you pass it on.
Businesses are also consumers and schools are just businesses that provide a more sophisticated product— your workforce. You know what you need more than they do, so tell ‘em—they’ll listen. (Supply and Demand, a.k.a. ‘B-School 101.’) And if you don’t have time to teach at least make time to help a school develop proper business curriculum.
Remember: Knowledge in the hands of selfish people is worthless. It only accrues interest and value when you pass it on.
If corporations demanded more, B-schools would be forced to respond.
—Luke Visconti, co-founder, Diversity, Inc.,
on getting more qualified black business candidates
—Luke Visconti, co-founder, Diversity, Inc.,
on getting more qualified black business candidates
2. Internships/Apprenticeships
Nothing teaches like experience and nothing teaches experience like internships and apprenticeships. They’re cheap, easy to run, and if you do them properly, you’ll develop a mob of qualified talent from all backgrounds. Here’s a quick internship story for you:
I got my DDB Needham internship after interviewing with “Jeanne Clemson,” then their VP creative recruiter. I still had 2 years of college to go but I needed full-time job money bad. I was thinking like a high school baller: If I’ve got pro potential, draft me now.
So Jeanne checks my portfolio and tells me I’m good but “not good enough for a job—yet.” She mentions a minority internship program she’s running. “I’m tired of walking down the halls and seeing the same people generating the same ideas from the same perspective,” she adds. She figured an internship would get me the seasoning I needed, so I took her up on it.
This was back in 1993. It was a lot easier to discriminate and probably easier to be inclusive, too. If she pulls this today, she probably gets sued for reverse discrimination. She might’ve been on some sort of Angelina Jolie kick—she’d adopted an ethnic kid a while back and it’s possible she saw me as another pet project. Still, she was cool people. I just chalk it up to God’s grace. Still, there’s no reason why more companies don’t do the same thing.
Some saw Jeanne as flaky, but she was a top-flight judge of talent and the whole industry knew it. She wasn’t much for handouts, either. You don’t get to her level by giving opportunities to folks who can’t cut it. In fact, of all the interns she recruited that summer, I’m the only one to my knowledge to leave the business and it took me 13 years to do it.
Point is, business needs more internship programs. We need more apprenticeship programs, too. It’s just smart business. Don’t say there’s a lack of diverse talent then do nothing about training and nurturing diverse talent.
I got my DDB Needham internship after interviewing with “Jeanne Clemson,” then their VP creative recruiter. I still had 2 years of college to go but I needed full-time job money bad. I was thinking like a high school baller: If I’ve got pro potential, draft me now.
So Jeanne checks my portfolio and tells me I’m good but “not good enough for a job—yet.” She mentions a minority internship program she’s running. “I’m tired of walking down the halls and seeing the same people generating the same ideas from the same perspective,” she adds. She figured an internship would get me the seasoning I needed, so I took her up on it.
This was back in 1993. It was a lot easier to discriminate and probably easier to be inclusive, too. If she pulls this today, she probably gets sued for reverse discrimination. She might’ve been on some sort of Angelina Jolie kick—she’d adopted an ethnic kid a while back and it’s possible she saw me as another pet project. Still, she was cool people. I just chalk it up to God’s grace. Still, there’s no reason why more companies don’t do the same thing.
Some saw Jeanne as flaky, but she was a top-flight judge of talent and the whole industry knew it. She wasn’t much for handouts, either. You don’t get to her level by giving opportunities to folks who can’t cut it. In fact, of all the interns she recruited that summer, I’m the only one to my knowledge to leave the business and it took me 13 years to do it.
Point is, business needs more internship programs. We need more apprenticeship programs, too. It’s just smart business. Don’t say there’s a lack of diverse talent then do nothing about training and nurturing diverse talent.
Each one teach one.
