Frustration, Despair and lost are some of the feelings you feel when you constantly get over looked for a management position. This is how employee’s feel all over the world, but why do African American people take it so hard. African Americans have a saying for this it’s called “the Complexion for the Connection”.
When I was in college I hated this term. I felt that it was a built in excuse for African Americans to place the blame on other people, rather than looking at themselves. We were told in school that you make your own way and that you make opportunities happen. Now I know this is very un-true in the business world. In the next couple of days I want to show different examples from different perspectives on how this affects the African American society.
A 25 Year African American Male who is currently working on his master degree, Gets an internship at a local business with global connections. He interns under the management team and is being groomed to be a supervisor once he graduates. The person who is grooming him is the Operations Sales manager who directly hires supervisor for different programs. During his training he supervises the team and performs all duties as a supervisor. After graduation, the team he supervised during his Internship needs to replace their supervisor, who has moved on to a different program. After hearing this news he gets excited and goes to inquiry about the opportunity. Upon sitting down with the same person who he trained under during his internship she goes on to tell him he is one of the top candidates for the position. Two weeks go by and he receives an e-mail introducing the new supervisor for the program he interviewed for. The person they hired was a supervisor for a short time for another program. He could not get the job done on his program so they decided to move him. Now he has to report to the new supervisor. The new supervisor has only 1 year of supervision experience and Bachelor in a field that’s un-related to sales. The young man asks the operations sales manager why he got looked over. She tells him “he needs more experience”, meanwhile he is not allowed to interview for any other management positions until he attends a 14 week supervisor training program, which he already took during his pursuit of his master’s degree.
Now he is directly under the new supervisor and he see’s flaws in a lot of stuff he is doing. He tries to talk to the new supervisor who basically tells him “I’m going to do things my way”. He again approaches the Operations Sales manager and gives her ideas and other ways that the team can be successful. She thanks him for his input and knowledge but tells him that he must be a team player. And that stepping over him is a sign of disrespect. A week later some of his ideas are implemented by the new supervisor as his own ideas. When the African American male makes it known that they are his idea’s, he is brought into human resources office and written up for speaking his mind. Now he is tagged as a “Black Angry man” for speaking up for himself. He decides to leave the job for better opportunities elsewhere. Now I know this is one company and one example, but think back throughout your employment history. How many times have you witness things like this and just shook your head. How many times do we say that’s messed up but end up doing nothing about it? I want to open up reader’s minds to something that is taking place all over the country. I will give two more examples in the next couple of days. Please share your story’s or comment on any of the 3 blogs I write. “The Complexion for the Connection” is very much alive today.