Hello, Goodbye, Hello Again

With spring moods fluctuate. One moment we are up and the next down. Smiles one instant, frowns the next. So it goes following moods which track the seasonal swings from warm to cool to cold back to warm.

Mood swings are life. We live through them and experience them. Lately I’ve tried to use them to peer inside myself and use the energy (or lack thereof!) to fuel fresh thoughts and perspectives. Here’s one that might interest you.

My work with SCORE (SBA created entity formed to work with individuals wanting to form their own businesses, or help small businesses improve their success and performance) has uncovered some interesting things:

·        Old urban areas disconnected from a central city have fallen into disuse and decay

·        Those same old urban areas are valiantly struggling to re-position themselves for growth and renewal

·        Those old cities are making headway; they are adopting new uses, new paradigms and who knows where this will lead them?

·        SCORE is a non-profit, all volunteer agency staffed by mostly retired executives; we seek to work with all of America’s small business community; that’s all as in all genders, ethnicities, ages and income levels

·        Regional cities referenced above contain a lot of diversity that are not currently mainstreamed to the modern economy

·        SCORE can and will work to fix that

·        But we have to find ways to recruit diversity among our mentors so they can recruit diversity among new clients

·        That’s how it works but we didn’t actually realize that!

·        So in metropolitan Chicago these decaying cities exist: Joliet, Aurora, Elgin, Rockford; and they all need help

·        SCORE is inventing a way to provide that help

One of the inventions is helping old white men understand the reality of diverse America. Offering bi-lingual workshops, round tables and conferences is one tool we need. Working with local agencies we are finding the bi-lingual help. And the venues that are attractive and convenient for the new clientele.

We are finding hunger for help in starting new businesses. We are finding expertise among the clients who, because of our lack of bi-lingual skills, are as bright and intelligent and creative as the old white male society we know best! We think we are aware but haven’t lived it close up so I doubt we are truly that aware. But we are learning.

We don’t know their markets, but they do. They don’t know how to work those markets, but we can teach them the how. And then they will reap the rewards of doing so, build a successful business, employ community labor and strengthen the community. All at the same time. And we helped but only by first recognizing our limitations. And asking for help.

This is becoming a lesson in humility. We thought we knew but realized otherwise. We thought we knew the how but needed to find intermediary skills to make the how workable. We thought we were creative and we were: we invented what we needed to do to make the desired outcomes happen.

When JFK challenged the nation to put a man on the moon within 10 years, we didn’t laugh. We buckled down and invented our way to the moon.

Today we need to envision an American society rich in its immense diversity and invent our way to this goal. That goal is in our national DNA. We are diversity personified and always have been so. Current immigration rhetoric aside, ours is a melting pot and all are welcome to sit at our table and consume the stew. That is what made us great. That is what will continue our greatness.

See, feel and do. That’s the American way and SCORE is part of that story today.

Care to help write the history?

April 4, 2016