Civility is NOT a Sign of Weakness!

I am truly fed up with grown adults with the audacity to display no manners or sense of courtesy to other people in public. I have a growing belief that the human race as a species is really regressing behaviorally rather than progressing. We are gradually losing our social skills, if we have not lost it already. I also notice that people have a total lack of passion and compassion. They are so robotic and thought-less in their actions and behaviors, like they have been neutered of humanity! It’s not just the lack of manners, ethics and etiquette, but a pervasive lack of sensibility, of just simple common decency. I work with the public a lot and I have seen a person pick up their cell phone in the middle of a training or presentation and proceed to entertain the cell while everyone is trying to listen to the presenter. I used to be diplomatic, but now I have had to tell some adults to leave the room with their cell phone because they are disrupting the class and the presenter!

As a parent of an autistic child, I have become so keenly aware of human behavior in public, simply because people are so intolerant of children who are different from the typical.  The other day I went to Costco and my son threw a huge tantrum in the store. He was running around the store and disappearing to look at the merchandise like the electrical fireplace and the fan heaters on the floor which are his object triggers. Because he was not listening to stay close to me, as punishment I told him he had lost his privilege of having the take out ice cream yoghurt. A treat I usually buy for him after check out. All hell broke loose. He wanted my reassurance that he was going to get the ice cream and I kept telling him no…no…No! He would not hear it. With each no, he would scream and run up and down the aisle then come back asked me again and I would say no. While this whole scene was unfolding, I started noticing this man and his three children following us from aisle and just starring at us. My teenage daughter just stood there holding the cart feeling helpless. As for me frankly, I don’t get embarrassed at all, it is what it is, this is my normal world.  By the third aisle there was quite a little crowd of adults including the man and his three children again just standing there and starring at my son doing his thing! As it dawned on me that people were starring like this was entertainment for them. As I was just about to go market on them and yell at them to keep it moving and mind their own business, I caught my daughter’s eye – begging me not to!  I could not believe it; these people were looking as if they have never seen a child throw a tantrum before. Who stands around as a spectator starring at a child throwing a tantrum as if its entertainment? Their passive action was abnormal to me to say the least.

Then I came home and caught the last bit on Anderson Cooper 360 town hall meeting on Bully. As I heard most of the experts saying the schools had to be equipped to handle these kinds of bullies by training the teachers, holding the kids accountable, etc, etc. I was like are you kidding me. Thanks to Doctor Phil for saying that this starts with the parents and therefore we need to hold parents accountable!!! I AGREE 100%. It starts with the parents and the value system they set for their children. Bully parents breed bully children. I truly believe that if you have a child bully, one of the parents (if not both of them) is certainly a bully either at work or to their spouse or in their extended family circles. I remember when my daughter was being bullied in elementary school. The bullying occurred on the afterschool bus to the YMCA. The bullying was being perpetrated by a click of 5^th grade girls on my daughter. One of the bully girls’ younger sister was in 2^nd grade with my daughter and they were having a run-in during class periods over a friend who was initially my daughter’s friend, but now this other little girl wanted my daughter’s friend to be her friend, but was not interested in sharing the friend with my daughter. When my daughter told me they were bullying her and calling her insulting words on the bus, it was on. I went to the class list and sought out the little girl’s home number and called the parents. When the mother picked up I politely introduced myself and told her why I was calling. Her first comment was “You shouldn’t be calling here; you should address it through the school! Besides, my daughters would never do that they are sweet and innocent.” I couldn’t believe that this parent was hiding behind “the school” and absolving herself of the responsibility of her daughters’ behavior. Instantly I knew therein lay the problem. I became icy cold and told her firmly “Your daughters are by no means sweet or innocent, they are bullies. You need to tell your mean daughters to leave my daughter alone. If they as much as stare at my daughter again or whisper any profanities to her again, I will be on that after school bus before the week is over and you do not want me to tell them myself. Do I make myself clear?” She was speechless. I continued, “Your daughters are messing with the wrong little girl and you do not want to hear from me again!” Then I hung up. That was the end of the bulling. My daughter never had trouble from them again.

These are just two of many incidents I have witnessed where adults just do not have common decency or social skills, they simply take no accountability or responsibility of their actions and they hide behind “the system”. The sneaky smile on Ruth Madoff’s face during her interview on CBS’s 60 minutes confirmed it all for me! It irritated the hell out of me and I felt like crawling into my TV screen and wiping it off her mouth with a cactus. People just abdicate their conscience or civility but stands by ignoring, blaming, or pushing it onto someone else! There is a decadent behavior of watching other people’s pain and misery without feeling compassion or empathy. Then we wonder why our children are growing up without proper social skills. Well it’s because most of the adults themselves have neutered social skills. CIVILITY IS NOT A SIGN OF WEAKNESS!

Copyright @ November 1, 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Affairs); Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC. 

ROOTS & WINGS…Connecting the Dots in Retrospect

The other day I heard a mother saying to her daughter, the 2 best things that a parent can give her child is give them Roots and Wings. I gave them to you so go do your thing, I got your back. I loved it. It was so simply succinct and truly encapsulated my unarticulated parenting philosophy and aspirations – giving my children roots and wings! I have always preached about the importance of giving our children S.E.E. – socio-economic exposure…. and every time I said S.E.E. I felt it always sounded so “academic”. But when this mother said it – it was so plain yet so complete!  I remember telling my daughter that there are five ways of gaining knowledge. We learn through: a) formal education; b) cross-cultural immersion; c) multi-religious tolerance; d) multi-language immersion; e) travel and food exposure; not necessarily in any order of priority.

Once, I took her and her baby brother to an Afghan restaurant on 9^th Avenue in New York City when she was about 9years old. She started protesting that she wanted hamburger and chips! I told her this was not a McDonald occasion, so she needed to try something else or stay hungry. She was hungry so she had no choice but to eat the couscous. Now she loves it. The other day she remembered and requested that we visit the restaurant again. I am not even sure if it’s still open. Then I sent her to a South African International School for two and half years straight from 8 years in American parochial school. The first year was tough. Really tough. She cried and called every weekend! But now she is a global citizen with cross-cultural competencies of discerning subtle cultural nuances that positively differentiate us, yet at the same time make us one. She is grounded and has gained some self-discipline for African boarding school is like military school, if not worse. Above all else she has social capital -made friends from all over Africa and Europe as a result.

Recently transferred back to the US for junior high, she was placed in a Music workshop class that teach studio production and engineering. While some kids in her class were complaining about how they hated the class, she loved it. On the other hand she was complaining about how she hated her music theory class because she felt so unprepared! I worked hard to get her into that class. So I shared with her my own story about hating courses in high school but taking them anyway. I told her that when I was in boarding school, I remember hating a class called “Domestic Science” where they taught us cookery and sewing. We universally hated it because we believed that it was meant to prepare us to be maids (in case you failed the rigorous British Cambridge ‘O’level exams). It was the colonial era of my high school days! Roll up 10 years later I am in Grad school in America, the economy of my homeland is spiraling down so was the currency rates. I have no money, no fellowship, never could do those waitressing jobs, let alone I did not have the stomach for working as a nurse’s aide and dropping out of school was not an option. I needed a way to pay tuition so I decided to a fashion designing company. I designed my own custom made contemporary African couture. It was a thriving business and I made enough money to pay my tuition and rent!!!! Still hated sewing, but I got great at designing averaging $250/outfit. In addition, because of domestic science I turned out to be a great cook! Thanks to my teacher, Mrs. Malaba!!! Who knew?

At the time of telling her this story I did not even realize I was building on her roots and wings. I was just trying to help her in appreciating that the dots have a way of connecting somehow! I did not even know this either till I stumbled on a YouTube video of Steven Jobs giving a 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=D1R-jKKp3NA). He was sharing his story about how he dropped out of college because he could not bear the thought of his adoptive working parents spending their hard earned savings for college tuition he could not see the value of. Once dropped out he continued sneaking into classes and stumbled on a calligraphy course and he loved it! Roll forward 10 years later he started Apple in his garage and designed the Mac to have the most beautiful typography than the PCs. In a nutshell he said that he could not connect the dots while taking these risky decisions, but in retrospect he is able to connect the dots. Had he not dropped out of college he probably would not have started Apple, given it the best typography. When he got publicly fired from the company he started he would not have started PIXAR, the best animation company of the 21^st century.

Sometimes when one door closes, there is a reason why you are being detoured to your true destiny. As human beings, it’s in our nature to get in our way. But then again is it? Does all this structured “socialization” do more harm than good? I really don’t know. I am just trying not to get in my own way or my kids’ way. Its every parent’s responsibility to give their children roots and wing, but it’s the child’s responsibility to trust and tap into their roots and wings! They need to understand, with globalization geography is irrelevant. Spread your wings far and wide child!

Copyright @ October 18, 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro (DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Affairs); Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

Conscientious Objector: The Con Game of Shearing & Controlling the Consume...

Conscientious Objector: The Con Game of Shearing & Controlling the Consume...: The Con Game of Shearing & Controlling the Consumer I just spend 2hrs of my Saturday morning with Comcast Xfinity Wi-Fi set-up...what a lous...

The Con Game of Shearing & Controlling the Consumer

The Con Game of Shearing & Controlling the Consumer

I just spend 2hrs of my Saturday morning with Comcast Xfinity Wi-Fi set-up...what a lousy process! When they hooked up my internet to my cable last Saturday and I asked the technician for my Wi-Fi password and he told me “Oh I am just supposed to hook up your router and not set up your Wi-Fi" I said to him but I specifically asked for high speed internet with Wi-Fi capability? He just shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly, looks at me calmly while he is fidgeting with his cell phone and said “So do you want me to hook it up or not?” I had already waited 2 weeks for the appointment, and he had just arrived 2 hours late for the appointment time and I was entertaining visitors, so I was in a corner. “How long will it take to hook it up?”  I asked. He says “20minutes.” Commonsense kicks in - I could not wait for another 2 weeks for them to come back for a 20 minute job. So I let him do it! I have FIOS right now and I am pissed at them too that’s why I am getting Xfinity before I kick them to the curb site! Sure enough he is done in 20 minutes. After the tech is gone, it’s irking me that they did not have it together, so I call customer service to find out why the order they gave the technician did not have Wi-Fi? The guy tells me, “Oh your router is already Wi-Fi capable, if you can’t get Wi-Fi on your laptops when you hook-up your desktop call us back and we will walk you through it, by the way you have 30 days to try it and if you are not happy you can always call us back to cancel it!” I had visitors and could not hook-up the desktop from FIOS to Xfinity there and then so I said I will get back to you!!!

Today, exactly a week later to the day, I call customer service again to tell them, well all is set up and I still cannot get my Wi-Fi! The guy tell me,

“Oh let me transfer you to our Wi-Fi department they will set you up.”

“You people told me to call you back, why do you have to transfer me?” I retorted.

“Yes, Dr. Ndoro but it’s another department that sets it up”

By then its dawning on me that I am being ‘handled’ and from experience there is always some rude surprise definitely awaiting me. I was right. They do not tell you that when you set up for internet installation with Comcast (which is $59 bucks) you have to make a separate call to set up your Wi-Fi network to your laptops and charge you another $45! The guy on the phone starts explaining in a calm voice the rational for the $45 dollars, and I am like “I don’t care about your back office logistics and which department does what or how much it cost, as an end user I wanted my technology working to my expectations the day your technician hooked me up….I did not expect to make any other service calls and go through a learning curve about cost and who does what in Comcast!”

I am beyond annoyed at this rate and I could feel the yelling coming on! But I remain calm. I tell him, “My experience with FIOS is you do not get all this peace-meal service...when they are done all your gadgets and services are working and the only thing they hand you is your NetID password!!! So again I don't care how you do it in your back office or how much it cost...just hook me up and let me use the service”. He continues calmly, “Yes, Dr. Ndoro”. But they are shearing me like a sheep…that’s what we call it in public administration when we refer to how the government increases your taxes slowly but surely without the taxpayer realizing it, otherwise the taxpayer will riot at sudden obvious hike moves…vano nyangira!

When all is said and done,

He tells me “We are done with writing up the order and you also have  Xfinity Signature support for another $5.95/ month which will appear on your bill and I will now transfer you to our network technician who will set it up for your here is your ticket #.. ”

HOLD IT!!! My mind is still at the other $5.95/month statement I just heard…..!

I ask him “Why am I now going to pay another $5.95, that’s not what your deal offer said? That takes another 15 minutes of conversation.

He tells me “This is not mandatory and it’s not included in your deal, this is just that if you ever need any Wi-fi support in case something goes wrong you can call us anytime at no extra cost”

“So it’s like insurance?”

“Not exactly, its additional support” he says.

I ask “What does that entail and ‘what would go wrong’ with the service”

“Oh if you ever buy another computer and you want it hooked to your home network we can help”

I said but that’s just to add my netID and my password to the new computer and I have to pay you $5.95 every month????”

 Then he adds "well, other people do not even know how to hook-up a new computer so we also help them with that straight from the box.."

I say "really...well I am not other people I can hook up my hardware myself"...

then he says "things can go wrong and you can call us any time, if you do not have the support plan it can cost you $45 each time you call us for a tech to help you remotely!!!".

By this time they have made me so insecure and paranoid. So finally, I am signed up for the $5.95 and yet I am experiencing buyer’s remorse and thinking - ”why should I pay rich Comcast an additional 6 bucks!!!” But I am worn out and exhausted with the conversations and need to move on at this point. I am thinking I will call them another day when I have new energy! Not to mention that when I finally get the network technician to set up my Wi-Fi, he remotely enters my computer system and takes over my desktop and is now controlling it remotely!!!! What the F**king hell are these people up to!!!  They have the capability and power to enter my home computer system through their little black box from anyway in the universe!!!! Instantly, I forget my concern of having been sucked into paying $5.95/month for ‘support’…. I am more than insecure and paranoid…I am PETRIFIED at the realization of how much control and ownership they have over me and every consumer out there!

Conscientious Objector: Manufacturing Education: Navigate the Public High ...

Conscientious Objector: Manufacturing Education: Navigate the Public High ...: I had an epiphany the other day – I am learning vicariously through my children. In fact, I realized that since becoming a parent I have...

Manufacturing Education: Navigating the Public High School System minefields

 

I had an epiphany the other day – I am learning vicariously through my children. In fact, I realized that since becoming a parent I have been learning and gaining exposure to life, not just my kids’ lives, but the capacity to understand mine too. As the kids are growing I have to assimilate them in the education industry. I have realized that this requires more unorthodox skills and street smarts than any classroom education can give you. My learning curve is in realizing that America has perfected the manufacturing of education! As an entrepreneur I was thinking this is one commodity America could franchise. If we could franchise this education system to the world every child would be “educated”, i.e. have a high school diploma! The question is will that High School Diploma allow your child to be an officer in the military, OR enter a 4 year college; OR become an entrepreneur pursuing their genius? That’s what it’s about, but if you as a parent check out or blink, your child sinks.

Don’t get me wrong – what I am saying is the superior education curriculum content is there, the problem is some of the kids are being excluded from the elite course offerings! Like everything in our American economy there are different levels of consumption – each consumer according to his/her means – you can either shop at Wal-Mart or Sears or Sacks Fifth Avenue; or you can either eat at McDonald or Olive Garden or at Per Se (NYC), but you are still consuming something! At the end of the day everyone is dressed and fed – life’s basic needs are met! The public education system is set up the same way, and frankly I do not think a lot of parents realize or understand how it works or some of the implications of it! Inclusion is not necessarily equal!

However, my daughter who had spend the first two and a half years of high school studying abroad recently changed schools to a public school here in the US. The last time she attended public school was in grade 1 & 2. After that I pulled her out into parochial schools. Now we are back, and little did I know that the Public High School System is designed as a mass production manufacturing education factory! It’s been an interesting awakening and a major learning curve from the private school process we are accustomed to. Here was my learning experience: After the application process for my daughter to attend the local public school, I sent an email to my daughter’s guidance counselor requesting a meeting. Having learnt to manage IEPs processes for my son, I knew that I had to be proactive, act timely, be fully involved and engaged in her transitioning process.  (RULE #1 – BE THE NO.1 ADVOCATE FOR YOUR CHILD).

In requesting a meeting it’s always best to specify your agenda items for discussion in your email before your meet with the school representative (s) you are seeking to meet with. As a rule and for convenience I never call school personnel or communicate by phone to the school in the beginning or on important issues I want to discuss. I always write a letter or most often email first. It also saves as a reminder of the issue I need to cover in the meeting, after the meeting and months later when there is no follow through then I have evidence of having brought it up. (RULE #2 – PUT EVERYTHING IN WRITING FOR YOUR RECORD AS WELL AS TO ENSURE A PRODUCTIVE MEETING)

Well the IEP prior experience was very helpful in the situation now upon me with my daughter. We arrived in the guidance counselors (a very nice woman) office and she was ready for us and realized the email had also been helpful to getting her plan and focus on how we would proceed with the meeting. We hit the ground running. Started with reviewing her transcript from the other school – check; equated the subject credit list for the two prior years  she had done school abroad– check; discussed how the school worked – check; finally address her subject course needs for Grade 11 – pause! She reviewed her assessment test and told us “well she is slotted mostly for level 3”. NO! I had done my home work -Level 3 is the second from the bottom and was general education curriculum, it would not prepare her for a 4 year college and she was not going to a community college first! (RULE #3 – DO YOUR RESEARCH GET CORRECT INFORMATION AND BE INFORMED BEFORE GOING IN).

The other level were:  level 4 (honors); Level 5 (advanced placement) Level 6: College prep; Well my daughter was going to college we had already attended an open house/ orientation for the university I wanted her to go into so there was no way she would get in with a level 3 education! I put my negotiation skills and demanded that 1) nothing less than level 4 would do; 2) some of the courses she needed were in level 5 and I had already reach out to the subject area supervisor for approval for advanced placement. (RULE #4: Make sure as a parent you are talking to the right PERSON WHO CAN MAKE A DECISION ON THE ISSUE)

As we chatted while the counselor works on my daughter’s course selection for her schedule, we come to find out the high school has 2000 students (Grade 9-12). “What,” my daughter exclaims – her previous boarding school had a total student body of 450!  How do they manage to educate 2000 student a year? Couldn’t believe it. I am thinking “this is an education manufacturing plant to say the least” I am now finding out that public high school operates just like the universities. The students have customized course schedules created and they move from class to class based on that schedule and may never take a class with the same students for the whole year! A good course and time management experience for her near future years in college. My daughter’s guidance counselor had 200 students in her case file! I know as a public administrator, public service employees are usually overworked and under paid; I also know that they have rigid rules and regulations based on policies some legislator push through that they have to follow. But I also know that public administrator have enough room within the parameters of those rigid rules and regulations to exercise their own discretion in making certain decisions about your special circumstances based on what’s in front of them. The ideal is a one size fits all, but they can shave a square peg to fit into a round hole if need be or justifiable! (RULE # 4 –KNOW WHAT LEVEL OF DECISION MAKING DISCRETION THE SCHOOL REPRESENTATIVE YOU ARE TALKING TO HAS & ALSO KNOW THAT THEY HAVE ENOUGH DISCRETION TO MAKE CERTAIN DECISIONS)

Once the initial schedule was done, I stopped by the principal’s office and requested the student/parent hand book only to be told it was still at the printers and we would only get it after school started! This did not make sense. In my common sense, it should be made available during the summer before schools starts so that parents and students are fully informed about their options. Well it was not. Was this by design? My skeptical mind thought, but I quickly brushed the thought aside – it was distracting and a waste of energy for now – it would be my cause when my daughter is settled in school. Therefore I figured, it was now time to put my samurai sword away and use strategy skills – I would wait a few days till it comes. (RULE #5 – CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES).

But as soon as we got home I got a call from my guidance counselor we had a class conflict in period 6 so she had cancelled French for creative writing. I am thinking she needed a foreign language to get into the university program we wanted. It was now time to pull out my strategy skills. She needed French and we need to put it back! The counselor retorted but then she will not have an English requirement and the creative writing was it! She needed English so now she had to take Shakespeare in period 2not creative writing! I don’t mind Shakespeare, but my daughter as a music lyric writer, loves creative writing so her desire won. While the guidance counselor was stuck on the conflict in period 6 I am reviewing the transcript and seeing she there were other electives I did not care for. So I asked what other period is creative writing offered? She says, “In period 4 but she has supplement English reading and writing.” “What SuppEng was it for?” I asked. She tells me for an exam every 11^th Grader takes in March. Really, well let’s take it out and put creative writing, then give me the curriculum and I will teach my child to pass the damn exam! She knew I was not going to budge. Why is a child who has been speaking, writing and reading English proficiently since she was born need to take a subject for a one time exam? I know the performance measurement game in the public sector; I have a PhD in Public Administration!!! As it turns out that class can be taken after you fail the exam, not before, therefore she did not need to spend a year studying for an exam just to meet the State passing standard goals. I eventually read this in the student/parent handbook that we got after the fact, but my district was making it “mandatory” for some students before the exam! (RULE #6 – MAXIMIZE YOUR OPTIONS, ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS AND YOU WILL GET THE RIGHT RESULTS)

Surprisingly, my district high school is quite reputable in the State, and up there in the country! It has a music program which is not found in many high schools! Who knew? I sent my child to an oversees expensive elite boarding school to have the benefit of the music theory program yet it was right in my backyard. However, she learned piano there, got some global experience, made friends with kids from all over the world, learned about diversity, grew mature and grounded, that was a plus. Other than that, I am glad she is back home and not having to be pay tuition while paying taxes as well! At the end of the day, it was a win/win/win outcome. My daughter got a schedule that works for her and she loves her teachers and our public school; I got the level classes I wanted for her (&me too); and the guidance counselor did not get a headache from us. It all finally came together.

Conscientious Objector: The Reality Wives of TV Life

Conscientious Objector: The Reality Wives of TV Life: I must admit, I am a reality shows junky, but not all reality TV fascinates me. Only the women realities, like the Real Housewife series fro...

Conscientious Objector: Conscientious Objector: Getting old is a rude awak...

Conscientious Objector: Conscientious Objector: Getting old is a rude awak...: Conscientious Objector: Getting old is a rude awakening: : "Copyright @ 6/4/2009, Dr. Tendai Ndoro (DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA/Brighten The...

Downgrading America!

I woke up the other morning to hear on NPR (public radio) that Standard & Poor had downgraded America! The first questions that popped in my head were “What does that mean? Is that possible” and the next one “Who had such power and authority to ‘downgrade’ America?” Having listened to all the angry debates, I still could not make heard or tail of it, nor could I wrap my mind around it. Some started attacking the credibility of S&P opinions and predictions given that they had given favorable ratings during the derivative carnage. Others were trying to be intellectually civil and sound “normal” about it. But all I heard were a lot of convoluted explanations full of words that didn’t mean much. One thing I got loud and clear was America’s credit score has gone down – but I thought this only happened to consumers. However, only one angry guy I listened to on NPR articulately claimed that this was another gimmick to create superficial fear and volatility in the market place in order to once again steal from the aspiring middle class investors seemed to make sense to me. I admit, it may be a selective sense because I have always been skeptical of the stock market rain dance principle. I don’t believe in it, nor do I trust the rational of it. But according to my bourgeois friends I am supposed to appreciate the stock market jargon and masquerade like I know that it’s the epitome indicator of one’s financial plan and success. An educated person is supposed to have something  intelligent to say at uppity cocktail soiree. But I live in the real world, good at maths and I have trust issues, so I would never completely trust anyone with my money! It’s the same reason I never gamble, I am a sore loser. By night fall I saw the news cast that Dow has fallen by 635 points.

Anyway as I listened all day to the debates, I also realized that some of the anger stemmed from the fact that people were feeling demeaned and insulted at the idea of being downgraded! I remembered Eddy Murphy in the movie “Trading Places” when he said to Dan Ackroid the worst thing you can do to rich people is to make them poor! Yes, it seemed to me that most of the angry comments were stemming from the fact that our superiority complex had been tarnished. What about what happening in Europe, no one has yet downgraded Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Norway, etc, etc… The same afternoon I talked to my brother-in-law on Skype and he was curious about the economic temperature in the US given the news they were watch on CNN back home. He also enjoys complaining to me from time to time about the hardship in Zimbabwe. I reasoned with him at least they are better off because they are used to their permanent economic hardships and have coping mechanisms already in place. It’s not the same for us. To be downgraded from the position of affluence into hardships is a nasty shock to the system! Therefore we were obviously upset. He thought I was being superior. Maybe so, but the process of assimilation also entails embracing the value system, I retorted. Our conversation got me pondering about all the news trends in the last few weeks – the debt limit stalemate and now the credit downgrading. This has always been a province of the consumer – the idea of having bad credit, not nations. But then again third world countries have always been in debt. All the same, do we need to be borrowing so much as a nation?

 I personally hate living on credit. I have smaller fishes to fry close to home. All day my immediate concerns were on how much the US dollar is going to be trading on the foreign currency market. This I can relate to because its affects me directly. I have overseas tuition to pay and it had increased by 35% in the last 2 years due to the devaluation of the US dollar! I am feeling the pinch! The other day I just flew to Las Vega and sat next to a gentleman from Ireland. He was so happy to tell me that this was his second time visiting the US this year because his Euro was going such a long way! He could now have extravagant vacations to the US like never before; was coming to do his shopping of designer jeans which in Ireland he would pay 150-200 sterling pounds but here he was paying US$100 buck! Really! Good for you, I thought. I was not happy, his meat was my poison! My hard earned US dollar is not worth the same anymore and it does not feel good. I am humbled.

Copyright @ August 8, 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Affairs); Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

Conscientious Objector: A Woman First

Conscientious Objector: A Woman First: "The philosophy of a woman first is simple. It is a philosophy of gender identity and economic empowerment and prescribes that a woman needs ..." 

A woman first prescribes the priority selection of ones gender as a woman, over their race! A woman first is a woman who is mindful. A woman first acknowledges the diverse experiences and challenges all women navigate through life understanding that despite geography and history, women endure and overcome. A woman first leads.

A Woman First

The philosophy of a woman first is simple. It is a philosophy of gender identity and economic empowerment and prescribes that a woman needs to build her identity around the fact that she is A WOMAN FIRST!  It is a gender based philosophy. It’s also an economic philosophy.  Yes it may have feminist connotations, but it’s not a feminist identity. It’s a womanist or womanness identity. It allows the woman to strategically navigate the universe of her options. For most women, that universe is defined by their socio-cultural context. Therefore, woman first philosophies help women gain self consciousness that is not in conflict with their socio-cultural perspective. Therein lays its sustainability, because it does not lead to an identity crisis compromise or a self-mutilating duality.

It’s not about the woman competing with; conquering or castrating or emulating the opposite sex. It’s not about having to choose between gender role priorities and having to negate the fact that sometimes she is a mother, wife, lover, career executive, mentor, friend or role model – she is all those things and must embrace all the gender roles she has to partake in. It’s not about having to choose between socio-cultural mandates or eco-political status quo, but about building on self awareness, taking ownership of one’s strengths and weaknesses without the need to tear her female counterparts, but seeking win/win cooperative and/or collaborative economic empowerment. Whether the cooperation is with one’s significant other, with ones cultural demands, expectation or with one’s gender realities and constraints, she relates from the position of both internal and material empowerment. Thus, A Woman First philosophy provides a launch pad for all informed decision making in one’s life. There are some things a woman cannot change, however she can always tactfully navigate for a win/win outcome understanding that ultimately she has the real power and greater gains come from exercising that power thoughtfully and gracefully. That’s being a woman first!

Ultimately, a woman first is about self consciousness – a liberated, consistent self conscious state of mind. It’s about peeling and dealing with the realities in the world, recognizing that there are opportunities, consequences and sacrifices but either she can choose whether to pay or not to pay the price for being a free self. It’s never about accepting or conceding to circumstances when she exercises her option of choice.

Copyright @ July 21, 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Affairs); Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

Conscientious Objector: “It was Great!”

Conscientious Objector: “It was Great!”: "“It was Great!” Recently my 7 year old son went to a new summer school and every time he came home I would ask him “How was school?” and he..."

A question of the Personal & Intimate

A question of the Personal & Intimate:

In the last month of July 2011, I have been grappling with the issue of how personal and intimate I should be in my blog: Conscientious Objector. Thus I have written many articles yet I have posted none! The story articles I write depart from my world view yet sometimes they involve very real experiences of intimate issues of family members in my inner circle! While none of them have chastised me for sharing our dramas, I am torn between being authentic yet at the same time being private – a dichotomy of personality traits I inherited from both my parents: on one hand, of my father’s very authentic, yet public persona, and on the other of my mom’s very private and censured silence. I have not yet decided which way to go. Thus I am caught up in my very own new challenge: so much to say yet not sure how much to say! To those of you who are reading what I put out there – to comment is great, but to follow is priceless!

Copyright @ August 2, 2011 time 11:18pm  by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Affairs); Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

“It was Great!”

“It was Great!”

Recently my 7 year old son went to a new summer school and every time he came home I would ask him “How was school?” and he always answers: “It was Great!” That’s all he said. I was dying to learn more, so I would proceed firing questions at him like “Why was it great?” What did you do that was so great?” “What did you do?” etc, etc…but that all I would get. I was reassured by the big smile on his face that he was having a good experience. Yet I was so caught up in my need for more details on the spot that I would press him to tell me more, but being on the high functioning Autistic spectrum with a language delay, that all he could say at the time. So I would spend the next hour trying to prod him to tell me the great part, but in vain. After a couple of weeks, I had to compromise with myself to settled for the “It was Great!!” But I was dying to go to the school for an observation of the class, talk to the teacher and/or his aid but I did not want to seem like a helicopter Mom so I controlled myself.

By the third week I had calmed and stilled myself, then something miraculous happened. I was going about my business at home when I heard him repeated the names of the dinosaurs he has learnt about the week before. I had seen the class work and handouts he brought home. Then he was saying what they like to eat – meat or plants! Most of the conversation was rhetorical statement to himself, and I imagined to whoever else in his universe who cared to hear. I started listening. I listened. I realized that he was actually going over his lesson notes, reciting and mimicking what he had learnt with great enthusiasm! As a professor by training, I also realize this was learning manifesting itself in reality. That’s how we internalized knowledge as a post relevant fact! The more my consciousness and attention presence became aligned with his I got to know about what he had done well after the fact in great detail. Sometimes, to gain favor he would show me his schoolwork and say “Great job, it’s time for cookie” thus telling me that he had done a great job in class and deserved a reward. Week four he was talking to himself about the food chain! And to me as he ate his dinner he talked about which food belong were in the food chain. Prior, he had started refusing he favorite vegetables – broccoli, but now he was back to loving it again and asking for more telling me that it’s a vegetable plant belong in the food chain! I was stumped.

As an academician I also had an epiphany – is socialization marginalizing us into a mob think mentality where conformity and averageness are the only standards to measure intelligence? I have anxiety attacks about how the world will relate and react to my son as he grows into an adult. What will become of him if something happens to me! Although, I have always been an intellectual misfit myself, I was calibrated. There were times when I used to care that I did not belong, was not in the popular crowd, was conspicuous of the fact that I was an outlier, and saw the world it such different ways than most average people. But I was “typical” (in other words “normal”) and could differentiate the ‘acceptable’ behavioral socio-cultural; socio-political and socio-economic  norms based on my socialization and could make informed decision choices as to whether I needed to be politically correct or rouge! Yet for my son, a child and/or adult on the Autistic spectrum there is no choice! This cost/benefit calculus does not come naturally, or rather is not “natural” according to our world. They are so ‘primitively’ pure and sincerely innocent in the manner with which they instinctively relate to the world, unbounded by socialization training, teaching, constrains, expectations or boundaries. They do what’s intuitively innate and spontaneously primal.

As I was marinating in this epiphany, I also realized that the irony of it is I have been fighting my school district to provide “social skills therapy” for my son! But now I am not so sure. Do I want him to be socialized into a dysfunctional human being misfit or would I rather he remains an authentic original relic of his parallel universe? I know that in an unaccepting, judgmental conformist world this is suicidal! I comfort myself, “If I were rich, maybe this would be an alternative!” The reality is I am not. But I live in the real world…I like everyone else, am striving for wealth creation. However, because of my son I see all that’s wrong with our “typical” universe and the intolerance and fear that comes with it toward people who do not fit the social norm.  NOW I understood why his day was just “GREAT!”  He was learning something new and relishing in the beauty of knowledge for knowledge itself. He was knowing and differently connecting the dots of how things related in his universe. I hope for a paradigm shift in how we raise and groom our children, especially those with different developmental abilities, but reality is – It may not be in my life time or my son’s for that matter!

Copyright @ August 2, 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Affairs); Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

Conscientious Objector: The Kangaroo Plan & Other Analogies

Conscientious Objector: The Kangaroo Plan & Other Analogies: "The Kangaroo Plan & Other Analogies The other day I was talking with two former small business clients of mine just catching up. Then ..."

The Kangaroo Plan & Other Analogies

The Kangaroo Plan & Other Analogies

The other day I was talking with two former small business clients of mine just catching up. Then we started talking about my new business ventures. At the end of our conversation, one of them asked if he could be a part of my business. I said sure – if his had a half of million dollars to purchase the license, why not. He laughed and suggested that how about he sign-up to get the license and when the business picks up he can then give me the licensing fee. I smiled in turn and said “Sure, that’s what I call in business a ‘Kangaroo Plan’, so keep on hoping!”  The other guy asked me what a “kangaroo plan” is. I explained that as you know the Kangaroo has a pouch it carries its baby, so a “business kangaroo plan is when you carry someone in your pouch and you do all the hopping work! We all burst out laughing. He like the term and was going to use it from then on. The Kangaroo plan is an expression I use often in my business training and conversations with small business clients. However, up until then no one had ever asked me what it meant so I had not really articulated the meaning of it. I just assumed that whoever heard me say it understood what I meant.
I recalled that a very dear friend of mine once said to me, I used a lot of animal analogies in my conversations. As it happens she was venting about her eldest brother’s mannerisms and I told her he is “a damn Rooster”. She asked me why I had called him a Rooster. Well, I explained that from what she was saying, all he does is stand on the family pedestal suggesting ideas and ordering everyone around, but he never steps up to the plate to execute solutions or contribute funds to the family problems – well that’s a Rooster! It gets up at the crack of dawn to give its crow, waking everybody else then spend the rest of the day doing nothing else but posturing in the yard or chasing the hens! She laughed so hard because she said it was so befitting of his mannerism. Then another time we were debating, more like disagreeing over something and I said she was acting like a goat (being stubborn and silly at the same time)!  She called her mother and told her I had called her a goat! Her mom thought it was hilarious, and agreed with me –she is a country girl who grew up in Louisiana – she knows how goats behave. From then on every time we got into our heated debates, I would accuse her of being a goat again and we would just burst out laughing and the difference of opinion would dissipate.

Growing up half my childhood life on a commercial farm owned by my paternal grandparents involved living and interacting with a lot of farm animals, as well as some wild ones too. We had cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, donkeys, dogs, cats, etc, encountered hyenas, vultures, rabbits, deer, monkey, baboons, snakes, lizards and all sort of insects!  The stereotype that in African people are living happily with lions, elephants, cheetahs, zebras and the like is not true. The ‘real’ wild animals don’t come near human habitats unless they get desperate for food. Anyway the experience of living on a farm taught me a lot about animal behavior. Over the years I unconsciously related these behaviors to human personalities and habits. It wasn’t till my friend made her observations about my analogies that I realized how often I make these parallels.

I have seen a lot roosters, goats, hens, bulls, cows, pigs goats and sheep in many of us! Hens fuss a lot for no apparent reason like damsels in distress and seemingly on the brink of hysteria, donkeys just take it and take it and then one day they just go rouge in public without warning; bulls always take charge stay cool and take their sweet time, sheep just follow each other in a bunch and if one gets separated it becomes so frantic like it missing its body parts, prigs are dirty, sloppy greedy and act like there is scarcity, monkeys are always needing something and when they can’t get it they will steal it and they are cunning at it too, baboons are very territorial, bullies and swagger around with a sense of entitlement and authority over what I don’t know. However cows are the most interesting because they have such diverse mannerism and behaviors. This I learnt from herding cattle.

Although we always had farm workers, my grandfather believed that ownership comes with responsibility and  a disciplined work ethic. When we visited on school holidays all the vazukuru (grandchildren) had to participate in some of the farm chores reserved for the grandchildren, like cattle herding, sheep and goat herding, weeding my grandmother’s groundnuts fields and occasionally going to the dip-tank, a system to combat cattle disease. The duty I liked most was going to dip-tank, because all I did was eavesdrop on conversations between my father, grandfather and uncles catch up with the other farmers and watch the cattle resist getting in the chemical water, but once they were in the barrack line resistance was futile! It was not a frequent chore as the cattle only went there once every six months or so. From this experience I learnt about what I now call the ‘dip-tank management style’ in organization management. However, of the herding chores sheep were easiest…they always stay together like jello! Cattle herding, which was the most frequent duty we did, was better than goats which were your worst nightmare. You got the goat herding chore instead of time-out. With experience, having cattle duty became easy - all you needed to do was keep the heard together in a contained spot till they were done grazing, then take them to the water hole  in the paddock. Thereafter, the sun would be too hot and once they had grazed and drank they usually go under the tree shed to sleep or just get away from sun..

 So one day, my cousin and I had the duty of herding cattle instead of going to the groundnuts field. It was one of those holidays close to harvesting season when all the maize (corn) is nice and green in the fields. The first rule of thumb in herding cattle was one had to watch them at all times. The second was making sure that the cattle don’t go into the maize field. My cousin and I had done this a million times. It was better than going to plough weeds in my grandmother’s ground nuts fields. Anyway on that day when we were herding cattle my cousin and I were supposed to drive the cattle to the paddock for their grazing, but we didn’t feel like it. Besides there were parts of the paddock that gave us the creeps when the vegetation was green and thick, so we were scared of being in there in the mornings because the cattle would have more energy and enthusiasm to wonder than later in the day when the sun is too hot in the afternoon and we could control them easier. She and I decided we were not taking them into the paddock but were going to keep them in another part of the farm with a grazing field near the house. All morning we managed to do this, and then to keep ourselves entertained we started playing hide and seek. After much  running around we decided to sit on the flat expansive granite rock (ruware) to enjoy the sun, tease some lizards while eating some wild berries we had pick up and continue our endless chatting. Then we fell asleep in the warm sun only to be awoken by loud yelling and screaming going on from the workers. From the direction where the noise was coming from, we knew instantly the cattle were in the maize field! We were in trouble. Our next chore would certainly be goat herding! It was. We were relegated to goat herding till my grandmother protested on our behalf.

Usually cattle are domesticated well and they know they were not supposed to go into maize fields. But in this particular herd there was one unruly naughty cow called “Milka”, so named because she always gave lots of milk, and she is the one we all knew had to watch. Milka could lead the entire herd astray and unravel your day with one move. Keep her in check and the whole heard would also be under control.  Due to her notorious tricks Milka wore a bell around her neck because she was known to wander off into all sorts of places and trouble and you could hear her comings and goings! I can never forget that damn bell of hers. Whenever it rang faster, you knew she was up to no good. Afterwards she would have such a look of contentment and satisfaction from her mischief. She was so boldly unruly that it was like dealing with a conniving, manipulative female human being. She would watch you all the time and the moment she realized you were not paying attention she would be at her shenanigans – whatever her flavor of trouble was for the day. I think she resented humans for taking her milk every morning.
I remember another incident I had with Milka. My cousin and I had been on cattle duty again, and we had had a great day in the paddock with the cattle. As we were heading home she broke away from the head and made a run for this thicket in the paddock. This thicket always gave me the creeps because it was a dark cluster of these big bushes, trees and vines all clumped up in this area. You could see through it but it was so dark, you did not know what might be lurking in it.  When she got into it, Milka just stood in the middle of it watch my cousin and I throwing stones at her trying to get her out. Two hours later she was still standing there, we were almost in tears as it was getting late and dark. It was like she was getting even with us, taunting and mocking us. We felt powerless. Finally by some miracle one of the bulls called Masvivi (named after my great grandfather) just got tired of it and went into the thicket and started thumping her with his horns till she got out. I was so angry at her I threw sticks at her all the way home.  As it got late, my grandfather got worried and had sent the workers to look for us because they did not know why we had not shown up. Being late usually meant that the cattle may have gone into the neighboring farmer’s fields and he would hold the cattle hostage till a ransom was agreed on. That was how disputes were resolved among the farmers.

The day of the maize raid, we knew Milka had orchestrated it. For a while we were not allowed to have cattle duty till my grandmother’s protest and also my brother and my cousin’s brother left the cattle to go into the neighboring farmer’s maize field. That was worse. They had been swimming in the paddock pond and lost sight of the cattle. Of course who had taken the lead into this trouble – Milka. I don’t remember what eventually happened to Milka but she certainly left a lasting impression on me. In school and at work I have encountered lots of female Milka’s too!

Copyright @ June 18, 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Affairs); Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

URBAN Entrepreneurship: Challenges & Solutions

Attended the White House Urban Entrepreneurship Summit at Rutgers-Newark today....what an eye opener!!! I urge all Africans to take their development best practices and repackage them for developed emerging markets, for this is intellectual property capital bar none!!! Our breakfast keynote speaker was Russell Simmons with his latest book, Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All. The first thing he said was integration destroyed minority entrepreneurship because it destroyed self sufficiency and innovation in the black neighborhoods. I expected to hear gasps in the room there were non so I took it as concurrence. It sounded like a social capital argument; I am not a fan of Putnam. Then he redeemed himself in my mind by saying in his conclusion forget just being friends with just people of your own race or ethnicity – make friends outside your comfort zone, network, invite diversity to your dinner party, because business is about embracing and knowing people of all backgrounds. He gets it.

The essence of the Summit was discussing ideas on how we can best promote urban entrepreneurship? Many ideas were generated from this conference. Of interest was the first panel of practicing entrepreneurs that gave their testimonials – challenges with people management, motivation and incentives;  payroll taxes to worker’s compensation; business liability insurance; building a business that’s scalable; operations management; need for more entrepreneurship training to CEO personal development and giving back through mentoring.

The other panel I had a chance to sit through was on public-private partnerships for urban entrepreneurship development made of all the local, federal, and not-for-profit dignitaries. I have been in this conversation before. They were selling PR. How much cash infusion (really AID) is “invested” into minority and women businesses and urban entrepreneurs to get them on a level playing field; what resources are available; all the initiatives coming out of Washington that will be so great for this business constituency; how much we finally got it in this administration or the other; initiatives and programs to promote young entrepreneurship – the catch them while they are young approach; how we love our urban entrepreneurs and how we feel their pain and suffering and we are trying to do everything we can to get them started and going. This is a common narrative! Frankly as an administrator in small business development, I am fatigued by this narrative and sometimes feel hopelessly defeated! Its well meaning sounds good, if not great at times even inspiring. But is inspiration what we need in this era of globalization? Sometimes they get it and sound like they are on point (like today) but sometimes they are completely disconnected from reality.

No one on this panel talked about technology competiveness and global competitiveness. We are living in the first developed wealthy country of the world with everything available in excess yet access to internet technology is inaccessible to most residents and microenterprises of the urban community. It should be free because, even if they wanted it they couldn’t afford the monthly premiums. For the businesses, they come for business plan training and they have no typing skills, writing skills, analytical skills – forget research skills – that we can teach, but one has to know how interpret that data! They do not know how to download basic information or use social media functionally to grow their businesses at no cost at all even if they have access to online technology. It’s unnerving to say the least and there is lots of work to be done.

My question to the public-private partnership panel was: “How come no one at the local, state or federal level had ever thought of putting an application demo or simulation that would help the federal or state contracting procurement process; such as  having the online business registration process demos; or the licensing and permit application demo; or the copyright, trademark registration process demo; or the minority, woman and veterans business enterprise certification application demo so that we can teach small businesses about completing the application form, demystify these application qualifying processes thus more businesses will gain access to these government procurement opportunities, instead of having only a live online protocol process that is accessible one business at time?” I have a PhD in research capability and even I sometimes find the process daunting when I have to do it for a small business! They looked at me strange – maybe it was my accent – who knows. Its common sense! I was clear at the implications of my question - if you want to get urban entrepreneurs to access opportunities you need to remove the barriers we all know are preventing them from getting it. Such as complicated application processes and certification requirement and buddle contracts that they cannot access because they have not yet mobilized the capacity and capability yet they are potentially successful small businesses.  You can’t put a big piece of T-bone steak in from of a baby and wonder why they are not eating it – they need to grow teeth first before they get bite into that steak. How do small businesses grow teeth, by trying out small contracts and fulfilling them so that as they grow they gain experience and capability to enable them to manage big ones. It was a similar question I asked to the White House Ex-Im Bank delegation to Newark about why they did not have different export-import financial funding packages based on business size that would enable different small, medium and big businesses to benefit from their services, like fishing nets with different hole sizes that enable a fisherman to catch different size fish if he so chooses. If we really want small businesses to participate in export initiatives we have to give them incentives that fit their sizes and gradually graduate them to medium then big business. Another aha moment!

As a public administrator, I know that too much customization or specialization of programs increases the cost of doing business, but the benefits in the long run outweighs the costs.  If reduces the income disparities. The Minority Business Development Agency notes that the quantity of minority businesses does not match the quality of revenue earnings from this business community given their numbers in the economy. The US Census Bureau study in 2002 of large minority businesses ($1million+ in revenue) vs. small minority businesses (under $1m) showed that 2% of large firms grossed 64% of revenues and had 58% paid employees whereas in comparison 98% of the small firm grossed 36% of revenues and had 42% paid employees! Clearly the difference in job creation was small yet the gross revenue disparity was much bigger. The implications are that wealth in large firms is in the hand of a few, yet they are benefit from exclusive government contracts that the smaller firms cannot access at their under 1 million dollar levels of capacity yet they are producing comparable job creation in the economy. The benefits of letting small firms take a bite of the pie certainly will outweigh the administration cost of introducing programs that they can access in the mean time. Using this data, the MBDA concluded that “while smaller in number, minority firms with receipts of $1million or more generate a much larger percentage of all minority revenues and paid employment than firms with receipts under $1 million.” What they do not mention is that at these gross revenue levels the percentage of paid employees is too low given that the opportunities are only open to a significant few – 2%. My conclusion, urban entrepreneurs and small firms are marginalized from access to procurement opportunities by government policy design!  

Copyright @ June 6, 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Affairs); Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

Conscientious Objector: Developmental Milestones for A Woman’s Life:

Conscientious Objector: Developmental Milestones for A Woman’s Life:: "The tragedy of most people’s lives is that they die without having fulfilled the purpose of their life on this earth. It is sad, but somet..."

Developmental Milestones for A Woman’s Life:

The tragedy of most people’s lives is that they die without having fulfilled the purpose of their life on this earth.  It is sad, but sometimes we can not control the circumstances of our lives. I have always told my siblings that I was a “late bloomer” or a “late comer”! I remember one time when I said this to my sister, she rushed to deny it for me saying that I wasn’t and almost sounding apologetic about it.  But I was comfortable with labeling myself as such. Growing up in a family of competitive over achievers, I had to accept that it’s OK to be a late bloomer, or a laggard as the metaphor would have it. In fact the older I get the more I don’t mind being a laggard on some things, because it gave me the time and opportunity to  survey then weigh my options, then once my mind is made up, I surgically strike with precision and passion for the goal I want! I call these achievements societal developmental milestones. I have not been good at them.

In my family you had to finish high school by a given age, then go to University and get a degree, then get the “right job” then marry the right man (meaning he was from the ‘appropriate social class’ with the ‘appropriate credentials”) then own your house, and have legitimate children, and live happily ever after! For a woman,  I knew these societal developmental milestones were to be achieved before or latest by your 30^th birthday. How did I know – through innuendoes and insinuations in conversations. Nobody really came to me and said you should have your first degree by  22 years of age; be gainfully employed or a proud housewife, married by age 24; have your first child by age 25 (which was acceptable if you went to college, if you didn’t you would have been 5-6 years late!). If you could multitask, even better – you were more efficient at. I was on course till I graduated high school at 16.  My path from age 16 followed a completely haphazard roller-coaster which I think sometimes almost gave my mother a heart attack, if not occasional nervous breakdowns! The only “developmental milestone” I ever achieved was finishing high school early, only because my father send his kids to school at age 5 instead of 7 as was the standard in the British colonial education system.

Well, at 16, contrary to the grand family action plan, I decided to go and work instead of going to University! There was an uproar. But at this stage, my father who had helped my grandfather raise his five sisters and my older sister had decided that maybe it was time to experiment and do things differently! The grand family action plan, which was my grandfather’s action plan for his girl-children had worked for some, but not all! Years before, my oldest Aunt had gotten married after Form 2 (grade 10) but it was better than having a child out of wedlock, and as a married woman she was her husband’s problem now. My sister, fell off the wagon for a minute when she got pregnant at 18, but was quickly put back on the path and went on to get her bachelors and MBA in flying colors, marrying well and having 4 beautiful children! This is not to say that her momentary lapse in judgment did not give my father a shock when it happened, and send tongues wagging in the family – both immediate and extended! My father was known to brag about his impeccable children, who were going to do what he couldn’t do himself. Besides, she was the first born and daddy’s favorite little girl, she had to succeed! I had been born a girl when he willed, or rather felt entitled to a boy-child for his second off spring – therefore, I was a disappointment to him from the day I was born! Anyway, I was his experiment – after 6 girls, what could go wrong? After all to whom less was invested, less was expected. Besides things always worked out and all his sisters were either highly educated or/and well married! So when I decided to go to  work instead of pursuing college, he was like OK, then I decided to move into an apartment in the city center (a taboo for any African girl from a decent family), and he said OK. On the other hand, though my mother was silently perturbed if not horrified. From the way she treated me like the ‘skeleton in the closet” at family gatherings, I secretly believed she had already concluded that I was going to be the shame of her life. But she was too polite, loving and sweet by nature to chastises me openly. For the most part she gave me the “EYE”…every black mother has the eye! Funny I also have it now for my teenage daughter – when she gets fresh or goes rouge on me!

The long and short of it was I worked in various jobs and by age 22, I was a manager running a department with 4 employees and being bypassed for promotions because I was a smart high school graduate without a degree. That’s when I realized, without the formal credentials to validate your smarts, no one really cared. So one day I woke up and decided I was going back to school. Packed my bags and left for UK via America. I never made it to UK. Got stuck in NYC. Twenty-two years later, I had a PhD and have discovered what an intellectual samurai I am partaking from time to time in my part-time academic endeavors. I had made my father and grandfather happy, postmortem, but I was still not married – an issue of contention with my mother. However, it was not so much that she minded my being a single Mom, because I was doing so much better than my “married’ cousins, it is more her aspiration for her daughter to find true love. But knowing my no nonsense, relationship romantic ‘miscapades’, coupled with my intolerance and short-leash for commitment-phobic men, she did not push it. A spinster daughter is better than a jailbird one any day.
According to me however, I still had not caught up to my woman’s developmental milestones! I had my daughter at 31, unmarried to my mother’s chagrin! To add fuel to the fire, when my fiancé confided in my sister that I was the reason a wedding was not taking place, there were a lot of painful female kangaroo court meetings in which I was told on numerous occasions that I must ‘submit’, for the ‘rewards’ of being MRS  were greater after the marriage! Instead I went rouge and was a recluse by the time I left my homeland. On the other hand to my surprise, my father, he was just relieved that, despite the ‘illegitimate’ grandchild, I was neither barren nor a lesbian! Which I found rather intriguing for the fact that in his African psyche the latter was worse than my having a child out of wedlock! When I asked why he was not angry he just explained that with an MA degree (at the time), I was sure able to support my child – with or without a husband! He was a strange man at times with his pragmatic reasoning! That was our last face-to-face conversation before his death in 2003. To illustrate how far behind I was with my woman’s developmental milestones at this time, most of my friends I had left behind had 2-3 kids, some who were already in elementary school or if not starting middle school. They were living the typical suburban lifestyle. Some were already getting divorced or going on for their second marriages! Wow, to me it felt like they had already lived nine lives! Without the marriage, I came back to my adopted home- the USA, which afforded me my anonymity and obscurity without the pressure of the “developmental milestones” of the elite African woman. I started my life again, this time joining the ranks of Western single parent female statistic. Certain only that stomach butterflies would persuade me to give up my single marital status!

Now as I reflect, I do not think I would have done it any other way, with or without a plan. I feel like I am exactly where I need to be, although knowing what my destiny is, I am late again. Ironically, the other day I hosted my WEN (Women Entrepreneurs Networking) Business Breakfast and my guest speaker was an awesome lady who spoke about her life, her entrepreneurial experience and how she had evolved into the multi-million dollar business entrepreneur she is today. Aldonna told the business ladies who attended this breakfast that nothing that happened in her life or career had been pre-planned, but the result of sheer tenacity and guts. The only thing she new at age 11 was that she wanted to be a consultant after listening to her father (who was a professor of mathematics) vent to her mother every weekend about how top management did not get it. She remember telling her parents she wanted to be a consultant to top executives and her father telling her that this was not a career for a woman, what made her think men with power would listen to her, let alone allow her in? Well they are listening now (The Growth Strategist Radio show -www.growthstrategistradioshow.com). She is a business strategy samurai! She said actually when she did not know what she was doing is when she delivered her best work. All that happened to her was the dynamic outcome of asking herself “Why not” when opportunity presented itself, then throwing fear to the wind and consciously or unconsciously taking the risk then strategically doing what she needed to do at any given time when life threw lemons on her path! She survives, but more importantly she prospers!

So having said all this, my advice is, as long as you are evolving in a spiral and not going in circles, you will be fine. People who have not been exposed to other elements in the universe or fail to learn from past experiences will always go in circles. People who have the exposure will navigate life in a spiral process, like climbing a spiral stair case, hitting the same points but at different levels, and gaining mastery as you go up! You peg your own developmental milestones! I am ready to launch to the next level – better late than never!!!

Copyright @ May 21 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA/Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

The Era of the New Migrant Worker

The other day I had my book club meeting with my sisters, M; L & K. It was great getting together again after such a long time. We were discussing our reading of the season: The Good Daughter by Jasmin Darznik. It was a lively discussion for about 2 hours. The discussions brought out the feminist in each of us. We all agreed Iranian women had the real power especially the power to impact other women’s destinies - though on the face of it, one would not think so.

Usually our book discussion last all of 2 hours and the rest of the 5-7 hours are spent discussing hot socio-economic; socio-political issues. The fun of it is we are passionate about our opinions, each bringing a potpourri of our personalities, world view, socio cultural values, our woman experiences (which are so diverse…) and above all else each our own convictions. This diversity makes for interesting heated conversation. I am a lover of looking at the world in parallels merging different lenses into similarities of the human condition. So when we were discussing jobs and layoffs, the concern was how we could stay employed or at least survive the current waves of recession retrenchments. Being an entrepreneur by nature I already have a paradigm shift on the classical employee/employer model, therefore when one of my sisters was lamenting about getting another job, I commented that maybe she needs to forget about “getting another job if she gets laid-off” as we are moving to a world where we are all migrant workers, so she should thing of repositioning herself as a migrant worker! What an uproar it raise. Rebellious L quickly interjected that she in no way is a migrant worker! To her, “migrant workers” are those people portrayed by the media jumping the fence, toiling in the commercial farms of America, and with no health insurance!  M gave me her “here we go again”  look, then smiled as she tried to explain to L that in actuality I was right given the context of my definition of the metaphor (M and I have had this conversation before).  So I explained to L that that when you take the expression out of the conventional meanings or label that media gatekeepers we listen to have attached to it, actually we are all becoming migrant workers. M then asked L to consider the concept independent of the negative mainstream media connotations and labels. L shook her head vehemently, repeating that she was NOT a “migrant worker”, then adding “I live in Florida and I know migrant workers!” K on the other hand was sitting watching us calmly one by one enjoying the unfolding debate drama, and reflecting on her position on the issue before she answered – she always weights her position on things before she comments.

Ironically L, who happens to be an untenured contract Professor, symbolizes the typical, new era professional migrant worker I was referring to! I pointed this out to her further explaining that it not a question of geography where the migrant workers we know of works, moving from one field to another. But then again, I retracted, the only difference in geography is being in an office, but we are all moving from employer to employer without guarantees of eternal job security till retirement or at best some long term permanence! I have accepted my fate of the new world order – and frankly, I also do not want to be an employer’s dependent anymore. For a moment, I thought I sounded like a republican, but God forbid!

As usual L and I being academicians, love debating these heavy duty intellectual conversations so the heat of the debate was now left between us. Still she objected. Not so much that the reasoning did not make sense but the idea of looking at her occupational circumstances as a migrant worker offended her prestigious status as an educated professional. I objected to her reasoning and pointed out that were all migrant workers already. The fact that she was not a tenured Professor working from contract to contract each semester; I was a contracted Director working in small business economic development, K was already self employed and M was looking to change into another career from the one she has been for the last 20 years, WE represented the classic definition of the new professional migrant worker. Thus we were!. Just because we had professional positions, did not mean that we were not migrant worker! We were all selling our intellectual properties to the highest bidder with no guarantees of longevity in these employment capacities! Our contract could be terminated at any time, and we would be all hitting the pavement looking for the next contract. I noted to L that we all have three things to sell – our minds, our physical labor or our bodies. At this point K – who was enjoying the conversation with engaged amusement -retorted that she would sell everything else before she sells her body! We all agree on this one – acknowledging that it was the oldest business model ever! By this time we were jumping out of our sits with excitement of the debate. Heck the migrant worker, despite the toil and hardship of their working environment, because they are selling their physical labor, they were better off than most of us

 In the meantime L was tallying her employment fringe benefits and above all else valuing her health benefits the most.  On the other hand, I urged L to take a pause and think about it – what’s making us all sick these days? The stress of our stressful jobs! I encourage L to imagine a day when you work when you want to work because you live within your mean, without the con-games of the mortgage industry  (which as it turns out we all bought into and as a result have them hanging around our necks), no real estate taxes, no home depot home improvement escapades, or the  need for shaving off chunks of our hard earned income on  credit card interests and payments incurred when the economy was in a bumper harvest, and vacation when you needed to vacation – that’s the life of a migrant worker! They work seasonally, accumulate their minimum wage and take time off during low seasons! That’s having ownership of your time, that’s ultimate freedom. That’s the future. At this point L took a pause, then reflected and finally conceded that indeed despite all her interesting exotic vacations the year before to all the unusual places of the world most of just dream about, the stress level of her college job instantly wipe off her rest the moment she got back to her job! We all laughed. Still I could see she was making her mental calculus about the cost/benefits of her current professorial occupation and having difficulty equating it to the image of a migrant worker.

As I was leaving to go home at 1am, she chided at me laughing then said “Damn, you now I am going to be thinking of myself as a migrant worker on my flight home….you gave me a new appreciation!” We burst out laughing as we hugged goodbye!

Copyright @ May 5 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA/Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.