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Minding Their Own Business book
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part of their business strategy, Fona divulged, was “being able to give people something that nobody else is going to give them.” This service orientation made up the approach that Fona believed was a necessary part of “the components that make up a successful business.” Alyssa had clear ideas about what she saw in action at the book- store where she was frequently able to help out. The teacher said that she had “never seen them hire someone just to take money.” That mentality wasn’t the philosophy that supported the purpose of the bookstore. Further indication of the logic that undergirded the insti- tution was provided when Fona recalled a young man calling in on a radio show to give thanks to Marcus. The youth described the role that Marcus played in his life as a young boy who was making his way through high school. The caller told Marcus, on the air, “Mr. [Marcus], this is T. I remember that I used to hang out at the bookstore with you. You told us that if we were going to work that we would have to dress like we were coming to work.” The young man went on to state that “in the middle of the hot summers we were not allowed to wear shorts to 98 minding their own business work.” Fona explained that the former “worker” who called to speak to Mr. Marcus was then at a college in Florida and he happened to hear her spouse speaking on the radio. Having come from a Wall Street experience, Fona found it diffi- cult to mediate some of the attitudes that the young staff members brought to the working world. She pointed out that “they sit around and put their feet up and relax in your business because there are no customers but they don’t do the functions that you ask them to do. To them it is a hindrance in their day.” This lack of follow-through with tasks left Fona exasperated because it stalled the next steps in maintaining an efficient organization. She believed that “If you got the time, do the job!” That would ensure that the orders went out on time, and the inventory was kept up-to-date so that customers could easily find what they needed. Fona described the fact that “[the young work- ers] have to redo [the task that they are assigned]. Then it moves the time you can buy new merchandise. You have to change your whole appointment [schedule] because the function isn’t ready when you need it.” She continued listing her challenges with staff when she said that “the fights are always about people not wanting to do their job. You have to tell them to do the same thing three times. That really bothers me” because it shows a lack of respect for the business and its clients. It was the manner in which Fona confronted challenging issues that led Alyssa, the teacher, to commend Fona on her commitment to the African-American community. Alyssa pointed out that “the reason why I respect her so much, [was the fact that she was] coming from Wall Street and letting all that go, in order to own the bookstore. The struggles [Fona and Marcus] have gone through to maintain the book- store in the area. They have tried to keep it in the African-American community.” Andy, the visual artist who relied on Fona and Marcus for their sup- port in his own business venture, talked about the fact that the bookstore did not operate in a traditional mold. The idea that the basement of the building was used as a “community center” gave the neighborhood a meeting place that it otherwise would not have available for public use. Andy believed that the business owners understood that “you got to be fona ’ s community book club 99 disruptive in the marketplace in that you got to do something different” in order to pull clients in and keep them coming back to support the venture with their money. Among the other challenges that Fona described were those that included negative attitudes expressed by novice workers. She believed that African-Americans do not teach young people a work ethic that helped them to prosper in a professional environment so that “at twenty- two, their attitude is, ‘I am going to come to work late’.” Fona was always committed to being on time since she had three stores to run at one point in her journey, and she could not be at all of those places at the same time. In expressing her frustration with the situation that she had to endure with her young workers she commented that “our people have gotten very, very comfortable working with the White man so that is the only person whose time they respect. They do not [respect] other people as Blacks in business.” Although these issues of “a lack of respect” and “no work ethic” have haunted the bookshop for many years, Fona and Marcus still believed that they should be in a “teacher’s role” and try to instruct “young people [about] what their responsibilities are” so that they could develop their attitudes in a positive way. The entrepreneur is convinced that young workers “really don’t know” how to properly “respond in a work environment.” Fona is committed to the belief that she should “give them the time” so that they can improve themselves and the community in which they function. For all this effort, Fona could proudly report that “every once in a while it really works.” She believed that “if one out of ten people come through, [the effort was a] pay off.” In her estimation “It is a pretty good odd when you are look- ing at so many of our young people, just incapable of understanding, how they are supposed to respond to each other. I mean, self-hate is a hell of a thing.” It is also significant, Fona intimated, that they have never had money or merchandise stolen by any of their workers. That, she believed, is one of the most telling traits about the quality of the people in the community. As Fona began preparing to retire from running the bookshops, she looked to the underlying philosophy that guided her understand- 100 minding their own business ing of service in her community. She knew that when she interviewed people for positions as workers, they needed to be good at “being able to assess [the person’s needs by] talking to a customer” and “to point them in the right direction in terms of book selection.” The bookshop was successful because a customer “doesn’t get her recommendations from people who haven’t read the merchandise and can go one way or the other with it.” Training the partners who planned to take over the business involved teaching them to scan books and read sections of text in order to appraise the writing and content. Fona revealed her under- standing that the way in which “you train those people to read and be able to talk about a book intelligently without having read every single word on every single page, is an art form in itself.” The new list of expectations that came into practice as Fona con- tinued to think about what mattered most in the book business that she helped to create had to do with the ability to communicate with customers. As she ruminated, Fona admitted that “the list is changing from these are the five objectives we need, customer service, ability to communicate, courtesy, honesty, those things change to: do they understand their community?, are they really part of this commu- nity?, do they know the people they are dealing with?, because that’s the knowledge they have to have in order to help you grow [as a business].” This entrepreneur always knew that the bookshop and being in the retail environment had “to be about something bigger and something better” than making money and moving out of the community. She knew that her motivation should inspire the choices that made the way that her business was conducted. The first decade of the bookshop was “always … [about] the social programs until we got into the retail envi- ronment” and then the direction changed. The rationale for “why we spent so much resources and time with staff, feeling you should do more than just provide a function and a paycheck to people that defi- nitely aren’t whole, because it is sad but our people are not whole,” had to be revisited. Unfortunately, Fona revealed, “when you come to terms with that [fact of your staff not being whole people] …. It overwhelms you.” fona ’ s community book club 101 In the face of this reality, Fona and Marcus made a decision to move forward with their dreams for the business. She explained that they took the position that “we build and we grow because that’s what we have to do. So you teach as much as you can in terms of making sure your management is well grounded … making sure they under- stand the [business] functions that must be done.” In the six months that the store owners taught the prospective owners of the business how to function in their managerial roles, Fona asked herself “where does your solace and peace and your balance come from?” She was able to answer by noting that “every time [the apprentices] do some- thing right, you say ‘right’ and it’s not the function but they make the right decision” and that tells you that “we’re on the right path.” Fona declared that “once [that kind of thinking] exists, you know that it is something you can build on, and that’s pretty exciting,” no matter how rare the occurrence. The Literacy Rituals Fona said, with pride, that she and Marcus read 90% of the titles in the bookshop. At the time of the interview, she counted 10,000 books that they had in stock. She also explained that she was dyslexic and “I don’t write a whole lot …. I can read and edit anything but I can’t write anything because my brain moves faster than my hand.” She fur- ther explained that “it always comes out very incoherent when I write …. My husband does most of my writing, sad to say.” Once she has Marcus write her thoughts down, she is able to revise the draft so that her thoughts flow smoothly. She can, then, edit for sentence formation and paragraphs. In the face of this challenge, Fona still did many book reviews for publishers. She knows that they “want a feel if a book is going to be a hit in the African-American community” since “most of our books are published and edited by the large White [publishing] houses and they do not understand our contemporary literature at all” they reach out to a well-read consumer of the genre and get feedback that they can use. 102 minding their own business Children and education figure significantly in the working of the bookshop. Alyssa, the teacher, recounted a story about the young girl who was invited to join a book club that Fona created to engage adult women. Alyssa recalled that Fona “brought [the little girl] in … she was 14 at the time. The women were all older, but she still brought her in. Everything we read, she read too.” The idea behind this fusion of young and old women, according to Fona’s vision, was based on the fact that she was “trying to bring the younger women to learn how to be older women. How to mature gracefully, [to find out] what you need to do to be able to survive.” It was a novel idea to Alyssa since she “had not seen that really done before,” even in her years as a high school teacher, and the only custom she knew about seemed to be one where “the young adults and the older women groups” were kept separate in church and community events. Andy, the visual artist who depended on the bookstore as a com- munity meeting place, quickly recalled the role that Fona played in his family’s life. Fona, Andy explained, “was a great resource for me in getting the children’s books and she would let me know when some- thing new was on the market” and he divulged that on the day of the interview for this book “I even called her even today in looking for children’s, but particularly the books that are African” centered. When Andy began a project with his own book, he needed direction on choos- ing a publisher and he sought out Fona and her husband. He expressed his relief in finding help from the booksellers when he said that “I have to think of the pros and cons for using a university press, … and the whole contract structure that works for the university press.” Andy even got a list of books that he had to read in order to research the origins of some of the spirituals that he was using as the basis of the images that he created for the coffee table book. The other story that Fona shared during the reflection on the liter- acy activities at the bookshop involved a little girl who started volun- teering at the shop when she was eleven years old. At the end of her first summer with Fona and Marcus, this young lady had picked out the books that the bookstore would sell at a national book festival in Arizona. Fona elaborated on the journey with the young girl when she fona ’ s community book club 103 boasted that: “We needed somebody who understood children’s litera- ture well enough that they could find what we should buy. This eleven- year-old sat there for an entire summer and compiled a list. She put it in a computer so it was easy to order …. She created an entire database of over 5,000 titles.” Everything that the young girl recommended was a success at the show where the books were sold. The words that the little lady had used echoed in Fona’s mind when she remembered that her young assistant prodded her to follow her advice with the mantra: “Buy it. It will work!” This young lady continued to work at the store until she was ready to enter college. On her application to Southern Technical Col- lege where she wanted to go to school, she described her summers at the bookshop and explained that she did not have any extracurricular activities to describe on her application since she never had time for anything except reading the literature that was assigned for her review at the store where she volunteered during her summer vacation. Fona exuded pride when she talked about the result of that application and the young girl’s acceptance to the college: “Believe [it] or not, I don’t know what the application process is for [Southern Technical College], but she got a hand written note from someone who said that the reason why she was accepted was because they never heard of an eleven-year- old deciding to give up her entire summer from [the ages of] eleven to seventeen to volunteer in a bookstore before.” The other person who worked at the bookstore, Frank, was also effusive in his praise of the kinds of things that he was taught while employed by Fona and Marcus. Frank reported that he often said to himself that “I wish I could have given [Fona] the $30,000, $40,000, that I spent on college …. I think it would have been better served giving it to her, than [spending it on] the two degrees that I have no idea where they are now!” The list of functions that Frank learned from Fona were based on the many jobs that she had to complete in order to keep the business running. The bookstore was primarily a distribution company with about 200 customers that they served in a month. Fona explained that in “a typical day, you would get out about ten to fifteen orders pro- cessed.” The book orders would be packed and invoiced, sent to UPS 104 minding their own business for shipping, or collected by the UPS company at the store, then the attention of the workers would turn to selling books over the counter at the site around four or five o’clock when people are coming home from work. The young people, like Frank, who worked at the store were paid in books. This became one of the initiatives that the store owners put in place because books were so expensive for the parents of children who loved books. Fona noted that “young kids that come in … they would do odd jobs … they would clean the bookstore … they would unpack huge orders” and their reward was choosing books that they wanted to read and getting to keep them. Fona witnessed a consistent support of African-American chil- dren’s literature by parents over the decade that she served custom- ers in her community. She recounted the fact that “many people give children, African-American children’s books” and that these buyers have said things like “I didn’t have this when I was growing up, so I am going to make sure that my nieces, my nephews, my children, my brothers, my sisters” have these books. The hunger for “African-Amer- ican children’s books has been growing at a very, very rapid pace,” the businesswoman continued. Black children, Fona observed, will quickly switch from reading the chapter books that describe Caucasian chil- dren, “the minute that an African-American child finds out that there is another series of books specifically for them, there goes the Baby Sitters Club [series] straight out the window.” She believes that this can be explained by the fact that the children see themselves in the books written by and for people who share their ethnic background. In other words, Fona said, “They gravitate to things that look like them. That is a big, big thing!” This fact translated into heavy book sales of the chil- dren’s literature at the store over the years. Fona reads the books that she knows most women would gravitate to in the bookstore. The store owners observed the pattern of reading habits that men and women continuously displayed over the decade that they were in business. Fona commented that “in the last ten years, it is still exactly the same. Women read for entertainment and the brothers read for development and self-improvement and education.” She also noted that “You seldom see a brother who is just going to read for relaxation. fona ’ s community book club 105 But that is what women do. So therefore the quality of the merchandise is very, very different” for the different clients who support the bookstore. Further, Fona supported her observations and buying practices when she explained that “if you walk into your typical Black bookstore, and you see where the sisters are standing and you see where the brothers are standing, it kind of explains the schisms that [are] between the sexes in our community.” Frank, a former employee, honed in on Fona’s ability to analyze and make decisions, as he reflected on the choices that he saw his employer make over the years. He commented on Fona’s “ability to analyze situations” an then “adapt because of these skills, reading and writing and being able to communicate with anybody” whether they were from a high or low status in society. Frank was always impressed by Fona’s skills with people and her wisdom in knowing when to “apply them at the appropriate time, given the situation.” This was an import- ant point, he thought, since there “are so many things to take into con- sideration” when you are an independent business and intent on serving your community. Unity in the Community From the very start of the venture in the book business, Fona and Marcus realized that they wanted to leave a legacy in the neighbor- hood. As Fona put it: “when you serve your people and you work closely with them every day, and you really assess them, [we realized that] everything we start in our community dies with us.” So the first order of business that inspired the entrepreneurs was a commitment to “go into the next generation.” It was no surprise then that she saw her- self as a success at the end of a decade in the business and stated that “You can serve the next generation and you can walk away gracefully, having your legacy remain intact. I think that is the most important thing for me right now, that it will … all stay intact. It wouldn’t die with me.” Alyssa, the teacher, pointed out that Fona’s insistence on passing on knowledge to a new generation of people could be observed in the fact that the businesswoman “was willing to bring [the little girl] in and let her learn” from the adults who ran the business and the women in 106 minding their own business the book club who shared their experience and set high expectations for their young ward. Andy talked about the fact that he always asked Fona for sugges- tions for materials that he could share with his nephews. He recalled that he would “always give books to all my nieces and nephews and I would sit down with … Fona and she would look at the ages of all of the kids and then we would sit there – and it’d take up to two days sometimes to do this – and it got to the point that she knew what the individual nieces and nephews – what kind of books they liked because she remembered what I’d given them before.” Fona, according to Andy, “wanted to know how they liked that book” he had given to them as a gift each time, so that she could make other recommendations when the time was appropriate for new purchases. Andy recollected that his nephew, now completing college, received books from him as early on as when he was eight years old and that Fona could probably name all the books that she suggested to Andy as gifts for his nephew, Phillip. Another aspect of the community approach to running the business was evidenced in the manner in which the managerial team was facil- itated. Monthly meetings went on whether Fona and Marcus were in town, or on the road doing business. This, according to Fona, was a sign that the team saw the need for the meetings, and was willing to facilitate their own professional development along the lines that were organized by the store owners. Fona gave an example of a sign of leadership by one of the members of the team when she described a book that was recommended to the whole managerial team. The point of the recom- mendation was based on the idea that it would help improve the way that the work was being assigned and completed at the stores. The busi- nesswoman explained that: “the focus of the whole book is [the mes- sage that] once you are persistent, you, too, can get there. It is not about greed.” It was even more exciting to Fona that “It is just really great that you can find all this stuff right [in the book] because we not only share it with ourselves, but we share it with customers who are dealing with the same issues in terms of staff and upgrading their own office.” In this way the whole community is served by one group working to improve themselves and then sharing their successful strategies with fona ’ s community book club 107 others. Besides the fact that this process has “been pretty exciting,” Fona could see how it had “worked out really well” in the transition process that she and Marcus had instituted. The vision for the future of the bookshop included expanding its services and maintaining the high level of community engagement that was established over the early years. Alyssa, the teacher, could not imagine “the bookstore changing that much” after Fona retired because she could bet her money that “whoever they leave it to will continue at the same level that [the store was operating at] now.” She foretold that the bookstore would continue to grow since it was already operating at two locations when she talked about its evolution. This prediction of success by Alyssa was based on the fact that every effort that Fona made showed that “it’s about educating the community through her business,” and therefore the roots for the anticipated expansion were already in place. Fona herself was convinced that the managers who were being trained had the equipment to be successful on their own. She shared the fact that “a big part of the philosophy … of [training them] is getting them to see themselves differently, getting them to see their function in the whole cycle of business differently” and from that perspective the group’s focus was based on them doing “a lot of differ- ent kinds of reading” to shore up their business acumen. Investment in the community through service to the young people is another highlight of the story that described Fona’s vision. She and Marcus had no children of their own, but they were considered to be “community parents” in the eyes of those who frequented the stores and attended their community events. Frank, the former staff member, explained how the attitude of caring for youth was evident in one young person’s journey. He remembered “one story where … they had a kid that … got out of school … she would get off the bus and come to the bookstore until her mother was able to pick her up.” This little girl was cared for, even “nurtured” according to Frank, and “even on her birthday … they had a party in the bookstore for her.” Frank was per- suaded to believe in the positive effect that “these types of things” had on the community and said that it reminded people of the high level of commitment that Fona and Marcus exemplified. 108 minding their own business In another example of the interest that the booksellers took in the children who entered their world, Alyssa described Fona’s relationship with her son, Trent. She was fascinated that Fona “just talks directly with my son and my son does remember her. He does like her. He is three now …. She can pick … books for him.” This is an example of the wide reading that Fona did and the way that she related to her clientele as part of an extended family. Since it is Alyssa’s goal “to make sure [Trent] understands who he is as a person” she deeply appreciated that Fona “approaches him … as a little man to some extent.” This interac- tion encouraged the young boy to have confidence in himself and learn to interact with his elders. It was also noted that Fona trained young people who are asso- ciated with the bookstore to appreciate literature that is grounded in their Black heritage. Fona was proud when she described the reading habits of one young girl who had to catch up with her peers and their reading habits once she got to college. This young girl spent her teens reading the best writers in the African-American and African Diaspora canon while she was a volunteer at the bookshop. Fona explained that: Because she grew up among books, she never got a chance to read all those popular writers like … Tyree and Eric Jerome Dickey and all this stuff. She would always say to her friends at school, “I don’t not understand how you guys can read that trash! You guys do not understand how many great African- American writers [exist].” It’s really funny because at eighteen she is now reading Fly Girl when every fourteen year old is reading it. But at fourteen she had to read classic African-American literature. So at that age she was reading Toni Morrison and J. California Cooper …. She was reading the best of the works written by our people because that’s what we represented in the store. The community focus that first inspired Fona and Marcus on their jour- ney in the book business continued to direct their choices as they inter- acted with the people who came and performed different roles at their site. While the entrepreneurs saw themselves as facilitators of commu- nity development, they also ensured that they were identified as a site where like-minded people could gather and share their knowledge and ambitions. The bookshop housed books, a community school, a space for art exhibits, community theater, and other important events. fona ’ s community book club 109 The central operating mission was realized in the fact that books were the background to the other positive activities that took place at the store. People could browse books, read Afrocentric literature, visit with each other, and become a part of a positive movement for the good of all. Andy stated that Fona reminded him of Angela Bassett, the actor, because of the determination that he observed in both women. He also pointed out that Bassett was well-regarded for her support of commu- nity development. In his recollection, he talked about Fona as someone who is “cheerful,” “helpful,” “outgoing,” and a caring person who cre- ated a space where “people who were seeking knowledge and looking to learn more about themselves” would find a ready resource to do research and meet individuals with a similar orientation to their own self-development. As Alyssa, the schoolteacher, stated when she imagined herself giving Fona an award for her work in the community: “[Fona] helped in the most minute form … helped those who others have the tendency to look over, totally discard. In appearances alone, that has never been an issue for you. You take people for exactly … what they are. The mere [fact that] you lack the materialistic bug that most of us who live in a capitalistic society possess, [caused me to] look up to and … really … admire [you].” References Fona. (2005). Personal interview. Chapter 7 Business Is as Business Does The entrepreneur possessed a mindset that moved him or her beyond chal- lenging circumstances, setting him or her apart. (Taulbert & Schoeniger, 2010, p. xxvii) In the introduction to Clifton Taulbet and Gary Schoeniger’s book, they state that “Entrepreneurship is a mindset that can empower ordinary people to accomplish the extraordinary” (2010, p. xvii). Eight life les- sons “from an unlikely entrepreneur,” Taulbert’s uncle, are supposedly able to “empower this generation to overcome adversity through entre- preneurship” (Ruhe in Taulbert & Schoeniger, 2010, p. xiv). The eight lessons include the topics of choice, opportunity, action, knowledge, wealth, brand, community, and persistence. Each of these lessons is described in the following quotes and will be used as a lens to better focus on the attributes that led the five businesswomen to their success as entrepreneurs. 112 minding their own business The Life Lessons According to the authors of Who Owns the Ice House? (2010), these are the eight lessons that lead to transformation: 1. Choice: “The ability to choose the way we respond to our indi- vidual circumstances is perhaps the single most powerful abil- ity we have as human beings.” The authors continue with their admonishment stating that “it is the choices we make that ulti- mately determine the outcome of our lives” (p. 57). 2. Opportunity: The author’s uncle “understood that problems were opportunities and that if he could identify problems and find solutions for other people, he would prosper as well” (p. 62). The logic of this thinking is described in this way: “The secret to identifying opportunities simply lies in our ability to be observant, to pay attention to what people need, and to find solutions. This idea is the essence of an entrepreneurial mindset” (p. 73). 3. Action: The entrepreneur in question “understood the power of his actions and fully embraced the qualities of the entrepre- neurship mindset” (p. 81). Thus, it is clear to the authors that becoming an entrepreneur “necessitates our paying attention to the world around us, looking for problems and finding solu- tions …. It requires us to reinvent ourselves” (p. 87). 4. Knowledge: The orientation of a successful entrepreneur takes for granted that “curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge are critical aspects to an entrepreneurial mindset. … they are skills we can learn to develop, ones we can all learn to apply” (p. 100). The businessperson believes that “rather than being pounded by winds and currents, we begin to set sail for a destination, one that we have chosen rather than one we have unwittingly accepted” (p. 103). 5. Wealth: “Rather than being paid by the hour in a job where someone else controlled his future, [the author’s uncle] was focused on solving problems and creating value for others” (p. 112). It follows then that “the ability to create wealth is business is as business does 113 something anyone can learn and anyone can apply … it also starts with a shift in our awareness followed by a change in our behavior” (p. 121). 6. Brand: We understand that “by doing what [the business owner] said he would do, rain or shine, he watched his business grow” (p. 130). Therefore, we can be dependable “whether we are in business, in school, or transforming our lives, [and] it is essen- tial to understand that wherever we are, in whatever we do, we are building our brand” (p. 138). 7. Community: The successful businessowner “learned from the success of others, and thankfully, he was willing to pass along what he learned” (p. 144). Entrepreneurs know that “mentors can help you identify your strengths as well as your weak- nesses. They can encourage you to keep going when you feel like giving up. They can also share in the joys of your success” (p. 154). 8. Persistence: A successful businessowner will learn that “no rewards are handed out for quitting.” If an entrepreneur can “persevere” they will realize that they will learn “not to fold” (p. 164). One therefore comes to accept that “success as an entre- preneur may be the hardest thing you will ever do. Through sheer perseverance and determination, it may also be the most rewarding” (p. 168). Using the descriptors for each of the attitudes listed as the important features of the entrepreneurial mindset, I will present quotes from the interviews conducted with the five business leaders and their friends, family, and colleagues to support a deeper understanding of this jour- ney of success in business. These reflections from the group will pro- vide the basis for the contention that these women are descendants from their island home where female estate owners grew provisions on plantations, between the cane brakes and other available land, while they were enslaved and soon after emancipation. The business leaders, described in the previous chapters, provide evidence that they are the children of the earliest female entrepreneurs who peopled their native country in the Caribbean. 114 minding their own business Choice dictates the outcome of our lives. In the words of three of the women we hear their intention to make a better life for themselves and the families that they were responsible for creating and maintain- ing. Gina, the caterer, explained: And whereas I knew intellectually what I had to do, a series of events just occurred that led me to the next steps that was the personal revelation that it was time to leave the job that I was in. Which was the personal revelation that the time was right to go ahead with the catering on a full time basis as opposed to a part time basis which I had done for a little while. Those are the two main steps that led me to the actual doing of the work that opened the doors [to my own business]. Maria, the public relations consultant, explained her path to success: I find that whilst in a lot of instances now I don’t have to actually do a lot of the rolling up of the sleeves, because I still have a lot of presence, at another level that gives the client the confidence that this [event] is being driven by someone they trust, someone they know, someone they have confidence in. So there is no sitting back and kicking up the heels. I don’t see it in the fore- seeable future, and to be honest, my personality cannot manage that kind of lifestyle, either. Miss Nadine, the author and publisher: I joined up the regional chamber for several reasons. One is that I need to be, to have my finger on the local pulse even though I am from the Caribbean, raised in Canada; I live here, in [this] town. So I need to know what [this] town is all about and how it’s breathing. So I joined up there. And, again, I was the only one with a business like [my publishing house], with the owner anything like me. The entrepreneurial mindset requires us to take action when we decide to meet the needs of our clients. The businessowner must reinvent her- self in order to change the perspective that has dictated her choices up to the moment that she becomes a business person. The women’s actions reflect this kind of intentional reinvention in many ways. Miss Nadine’s son, Samuel, shares his astonishment about his mother’s transformation as a businesswoman: business is as business does 115 [We] live hundreds of miles away from any of these people [in New York] and manage to get them collected into a city that isn’t even her home city where she’s pushing this media from. So I thought that was really … impressive. The way my mom had adapted to using social networks as a method of branding for herself, given the fact that … she’s like a grown woman, she’s like … of age, and social media’s rather new and a lot of people her age don’t click well to the internet at all, they just like, don’t, they’ll never get it, which is beyond me. But the lady clicks so well to it and manages to make that possible. Miss Maria’s spouse, Manley, explained his view of his wife’s talent with people in her new country of residence and business: You have to understand that Maria is not [from this country where she is working]. Maria is from Trinidad. Even though she maintains and she keeps her Trinidad accent, basically, she is so much loved by corporate [clients here]. It’s amazing! There has not been any drawback to the fact that she is not [a native of this country]. That has to do with her personality. She is a warm person. She endears herself to you. I think that she has been embraced by corporate [clients in her new home country]. You have to see her in action to understand. It is amazing! She knows everybody who she needs to know, so far as her work is concerned. Curiosity and the interest in gaining new knowledge are characteris- tics that propel the business person into novel vistas of production. In the comments below we can glean the kind of mindset that led these women into their levels of creativity. The caterer’s son, Andy, shares his insights as he explained: She is the premier Caribbean caterer in the metropolitan area. There are some that try to do the catering [of] Caribbean food but that is not their forté. This is her forté. We have had several discussions at times about hiring decisions, whether she needs to bring in sales people, marketing people. And as we have explored she’ll call me, and ask what’s my opinion on this and I put these pictures together, from my opinion, you need to hire a marketing manager. Without much discussion, and without much argument she said okay, let me go find a marketing manager. Fona, the bookseller, divulged her understanding of her situation as a leader: 116 minding their own business I find myself in a real teacher’s role. As frustrating as it gets for a business that is ten years old, I still grapple with why do [so] many of our people still [act from] there. By where we have no work ethic. We have no respect for Black businesses. But if we don’t teach them, who will? So you are forced to sit in that position and teach and develop. Every once in a while it really pays off. So if one out of ten people come through, [it] pays off. It is a pretty good [result] when you are looking at so many of our young people just incapable of understanding how they are supposed to respond to each other. Gee, the florist, described the steps to attaining membership in a new flower club in these words: Well, we had to take some years [to get into the club], I think three years in the beginning, we had to do little courses. Then you had an exam. If you qualified you got in. Now it is much more, what should I say, much harder because we have gone so far ahead in flower arranging that we now have seminars. People come in and out at these seminars. You have these semi- nars, Course I, Course II. You have to do four of those, do exams, before you qualify to coming out. It is very hard to get to now …. We are down to about twelve people, which is not enough [to keep the group running]. So we are now recruiting. We have just taken in what are called Junior Judges from the last seminars, last year. I think that it is just three people. So more people are being encouraged to do these seminars. Creating wealth, the fifth principle of business, requires a shift in our awareness. Our principles of action must change and we must become aware of the possibilities that exist in the arena of providing valuable services to others. In the following reflections, we can see how these female business leaders came into their new awareness of possibilities for service. Their statements included these descriptions of commit- ment and high level of service. Fona described her store’s decision to train the young entrepre- neurs in its ranks with this statement: We have a weekly business meeting and we talk about philosophy. And, you know, three hours four hours long, but that’s what has to be done. We just have to be very careful with who you bring into that environment, because your results are going to be driven by who you bring to that table … but it has to be done because that has to go on whether we’re here or not and we business is as business does 117 have seen a lot of success because if we are not here … the show doesn’t stop because we can’t make it, the show doesn’t stop because we are out of town. Miss Gee’s former flower business partner, Betty, had this to say about their effort to educate customers about the beauty of locally grown flowers: In fact, what we would like to do is to make our local people more aware of the beauty of these [local flowers]. They tend to want … carnations and roses. That is not really suitable to our [aesthetic]. We haven’t really got around to convincing the majority of the population that this is the way to go …. In fact, very often, when we use [local plants] without telling people, they rave about it. But if you discuss it with them at the beginning and say, “This is what I am going to use”, they hesitate because some of them have never seen it used in that way. Miss Gina, the caterer, enthused about her steps to offering a wide array of catering services to her clients: We actually were able to move ahead in part of our 10 year plan which was to start another catering company … that would appeal to a different center of the community. We were able to include that … because … we had the infrastructure we were able to [put] that forward quite a number of years. So that has been a part in the diversification [of our services]. We’re also getting into more party planning …. There are other areas that we have realized, more recently, that we need to more cautiously approach and so we sort of back burnered several things especially with moving up the opening of the other catering company. Building your brand entails a commitment to carry out your responsi- bilities. When a client puts their trust in you, as a business and a person, your integrity is on the line. We hear echoes of this ethos as it is upheld in the character of the women who built their businesses from scratch. The testimonials include descriptions of community service, time man- agement, and adopting a “no nonsense” attitude in the line of duty. When Fona described her bookshop’s involvement in the commu- nity and its children, she outlined one program that helped an eleven- year-old girl to develop her love for reading and feeling of belonging to the store and its owners. The story unfolded as Fona explained that: 118 minding their own business One of the things we have instituted years ago [addresses the fact that] there are young kids that come in. They would do odd jobs. They would clean the bookstore. They would unpack huge orders. They would work for books. They don’t work for money. That has been a big, big, big project of ours for years. It is really funny because you watch what kids do with that informa- tion. I think if you had to ask me what was the most inspiring thing, it would have to be about this young kid who came to us. She was eleven and didn’t want to be going to daycare during the summer and was too young and inex- perienced to be at home at eleven. Her parents didn’t know what to do. Her father always brought her to the bookstore. She came up with this brilliant idea, “Why don’t I go spend the day with Mr. Marcus and Ms. Fona every day?” It was her idea. This was something that she wanted to do. We were thrown. Why would anybody want to spend their entire summer vacation in a bookstore from ten in the morning to five in the evening? But she said she wanted to. Gina’s daughter, Aida, also echoed the values that her mother instilled in her from her earliest years in this recounting of her journey to adult- hood. Aida showed her appreciation for her mother’s wisdom: She taught me that there were 24 hours in a day. In 8 of those hours you are going to be sleeping so how are you going to spend the rest? And get it all done and set yourself on schedule? She was the first person to buy me a planner and encourage me to use that planner. Set it all down and she would always say, make a list. Write the list out, everything that I had to do. When I had to clean my room. I make a list now just like my mother. Because when you look at it, you put it in order and you can get it all done …. So all of that I think that added to this culture of being efficient. Finally, we hear the voice of Nadine’s son, Samuel, as he described his mother’s business persona: And I have inherited that [no nonsense attitude in my business dealings] 100%. But anytime I see that attitude executed in a way that I feel reminds me of my mom, that always hits home … because …, I think that really, really strong black woman character who is almost defiant in her aspirations because she knows they defy what society has expected of her, that, that character is you know, one of the pinnacles of my life. It’s … my mother, it has shaped me … I definitely have picked up that attitude. business is as business does 119 To be part of a community means that you take and give from the common pool of experience. Successful business people make themselves available to those who share the resources of their common environment as clients or entrepreneurs. Mentoring is part of the economy of the communal experience that inspires and motivates business people. There are many examples of the mentoring that has shaped the journey of these five women on their path as business people. Below are quotes that help us understand the nature and depth of the commitment to mentoring among the female leaders. Gina’s former boss, Kenneth, explained how he saw his former manager’s approach to people work in her favor and led to the compa- ny’s growth under her guidance. He disclosed that “one of the things that Gina really helped define as part of this new role that was new to the company, new for our business unit, was she knew how to both conduct an audit and be the teacher handing out the grades, as well as the teacher who spent most of her time coaching and educating and really being able to bring people to a higher, better level of understand- ing.” Kenneth could see how Gina’s intellectual and emotional educa- tion helped her to be in a place of “Realizing that everybody’s reaction to this new responsibility as Project Managers to adhere to standards was one of resistance and one of an attitude that, ‘Well that doesn’t apply to me. Or I don’t need to do that. Or what do you think that you are going to tell me that I haven’t learned in 20 years of experience and doing this work already?’” Gina’s former boss witnessed his former employee in action “when she needed to be firm, she could be firm because she had that very rare quality in any person, whether it is a manager, a programmer or anyone that … they were able to maintain a level of emotion through a wide range of communication environ- ments.” Fona’s former business associate, Andy, reflected on his business mentor’s role as an inspiration to the people in the community. Andy talked about the fact that he witnessed the occasions where “young people have moved on, moved out of the community, went away to college …. I did not know them, but when they came back home to visit, I would happen to meet them because I happened to be in the store. 120 minding their own business Ms. Fona is one of the destinations.” This, he felt, makes the point that “the impact that she’s had on a number of youths’ lives has been some- times as great as the parents [in their home]. A greater influence than what their parents had on them [sometimes].” In one recollection the visual artist and independent businessowner recounted Fona’s story about a young girl who “would get off the bus and come to the book- store [to wait] until her mother was able to pick her up. That’s where she stayed.” Fona and Marcus took care of the young girl “they had a Download 0.6 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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