Resumo de What Makes The Great Great - DENNIS P. KIMBRO PH.D.

ANATOMY OF THE GREAT EXECUTIVES
Everyone needs to master some thing. Whatever you do in life, be greater than your calling. Choose one profession, and master it in all details. Sleep by it, swear by it, and by all means, work for it, and success will add glory to your labor.

Corporate executives, for example, choose and master careers in business with the thought that, all things considered, corporate life offers the greatest opportunity for personal satisfaction. They come to the corporate world hoping to have their full range of talents and abilities t5ested and utilized. Business schools of yesteryear summed up the philosophy that presupposes individual success: Go to the bottom of your business if you would climb to the top. Do that which is assigned, and more will be added unto you.

These ideas are not hew, but are they enough? What of the black corporate executive- those men and women who risk resources and reputations to reach the highest rung on the corporate ladder; those individuals armed with the latest management techniques who also have felt the tug of ambition? Do the same traits apply? Is hard work enough? If not, what are the core skills and values? Time and again, high-achieving men and women have been subjected to intense examination to reveal their inner secrets to success. Volumes of research have pinpointed certain traits that are common among peak performers. These characteristics have often emerged from self-appraisals and personal accounts as corporate climbers try to piece those factors together that repeatedly earmark business success. However, little is known of the skills of those remarkably successful black, senior-level executives who, like their white counterparts, continue to encounter a changing environment, stiff competition, ever-shrinking markets, as well as racial bias. What is known of these men and women who take on the odds and continue to pursue their objectives?

Achieving corporate success and remaining competitive through the ups and downs of an unstable economy ahs never been easy. The wave of restructuring, spin-offs, mergers, and acquisitions is no fluke. There are some costs. Failure is frequent. Adjustments and midcourse corrections are the norm; early retirement, golden parachutes, and lateral assignments are routine. Furthermore, overcoming barriers and road-blocks can be horrendous. As a result, many corporate climbers stop climbing; even the best and the brightest lapse into apathy. While this holds true for everyone who dares to test these tricky waters, the black corporate achiever is cast afloat with the most limited provisions.

In their early years, many black executives were belittled. For example, in the late 1960s, with degree in hand, Frito-Lay?s Lloyd Ward was greeted with derision during an interview when he tried to convince a college recruiter that a black man could achieve and prosper in the corporate arena. ?Sorry, you?re too early,? Ward was told by an indifferent personnel manager. ?Come back in twenty years,? the man said. Unyielding, this serenely confident college grad fired back, ?Sir, will that be in the morning or the afternoon??

Just imagine the type of skepticism that was aimed her way when Linda Baker Keene decided to make her move in the personal care division of Gillette. The whispers behind her back; ignored by her peers in staff meetings; and the combined burdens of sexism and racism were laid at her feet. But every day of meeting sorrow makes the life grander. Somehow, some way, this black woman with a Harvard MBA would rise above it. Before the final page was turned, Vice-President for Market Development would be written by her name. Kraft Foods? Paula Sneed, Sun Microsystems? Dorothy Terrell, and Coca-Cola?s Carolyn Baldwin have similar stories to tell. All started from scratch, without influence or connections.

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