I felt, literally, as though she had raped me—except she nailed me in an even more precious place. In the end, sex is negotiable, but writing is sacred—more sacred than communion or Splash Mountain.

I grew up in print. Not that I was so photogenic you saw my image in every magazine–that was my sister, Kieryn. And not that I was such a promising and prolific young writer everyone begged to syndicate me–that’s my next chapter. I grew up in print more literally. My grandfather sold type-faces to the Chicago Tribune, and my great uncle, a calligrapher, numbered among the original “Chicago 27.” The family easily could have dubbed me “font”; or I would have found it perfectly just and right if they had named a typeface in my honor. As it turned-out, however, I learned to read by learning to write; and, in my heart, I surely declared my English major before my freshman year…of elementary school. And pretty much for my whole life, I have remained immersed in print.

Of course, one thing led to another, nature took its inevitable course, and I ultimately spent six years beyond my Bachelor’s degree, ivy covered and collecting a few extra initials after my name, but mostly learning to read in order to complete my love of all things print.

And, then, because I preferred traveling the world in jeans, flip-flops, and t-shirts, I passed on opportunities to profess at big universities, and I went to work for a medium-market newspaper. Naturally, I paid my dues, writing not-very-literary features, daydreaming about becoming a starving writer of literary fiction for women, and sometimes going “on assignment” to someplace near someplace glamorous. Oakland, for example. Or Newark.

I did ultimately work my way out of my cubicle and into the almost big-time. And, then, my newspaper, like about a bazillion other American dailies, went belly-up—long before my mortgage and car payments were finished, and definitely long before I felt ready to finish.

First, I cried…

The expression comes from my tenth-grade daughter, my heroine and role model, and the first living American Girl to admit out loud what every girl always already knew. As we drove to a softball game one afternoon during her fierce campaign for ninth grade treasurer, one of Mallory’s team-mates had the courage to ask, “What will you do if Steven wins the election?”

“First, I’ll cry,” Mallory confessed. Her team-mates nodded their understanding and assent, crediting her with the distinction–first to name and claim it.

“Then, I’ll join the yearbook staff, get to know everyone in the whole school, and run again next year…for president.”

Mallory’s signature determination complete, as always, with a solid back-up plan. Trust me: Mallory did not get that presence of mind from me. The tears, yes. The pragmatism, not even close.

So, when the newspaper folded, first, I cried.

And Mallory lost a fiercely contested race for treasurer, but has taken charge of the yearbook. She couldn’t help it: print runs in her veins.

Tough Apprenticeship in the Ways of the Web

Then, I started working for an internet content business, which paid me a respectable daily rate to write about whatever clients wanted in whatever way clients preferred. On any old average day, my fingers and laptop produced about 10,000 words devoted to colon cleansing, healthy weight loss—acai berries number among my specialties, beauty products, automotive trends, and educational reform in South Africa. I declined anything dangerous to one’s health or civic standing, but I remained “negotiable.” Some of the schemes, cleverly contrived by criminally insane virtual entrepreneurs, absolutely staggered my imagination; I politely rsvp’d via e-mail, almost apologizing, “No, thank you. But, please, stay in touch.” The South African Lottery scheme numbers among my personal favorites. Right up there with enema advocacy.

While I kept the “qwertys” coming, I consoled myself with an accord among conscience, checkbook, and idealism. I paid the bills with somewhat shady internet writing, and I saved a few hours each day for my novel. I could live with it, because I counted it as some kind of 21^st century apprenticeship in the ways of the web.

Then, all of a sudden, not-so-ironically on the very self-same day I submitted just over 100,000 very well-developed and ever-so-properly Latinate words for a Birmingham, Alabama, law firm, the broker, with whom I had worked for over a year, inadvertently leaked her most precious professional secret.

Everything I ever had written for her, ostensibly as “writing for hire,” she published under her own name—not even close to the contract language, which stipulated “no writer’s credit for the contract writer or the broker; copyrights belong to the client.” For every dollar I had earned, she had earned twenty; and, at the moment the fraud came out into the daylight, she owed me more than a thousand dollars in back pay—not including the brand new thousand bucks’-worth I just had sent.

I felt, literally, as though she had raped me—except she nailed me in an even more precious place. In the end, sex is negotiable, but writing is sacred—more sacred than communion or Splash Mountain.

First, I cried…

Then, taking a page right out of Mallory’s play-book, I went to my contingency plan. Consummating a promising partnership with, Andrea, my fellow car-pool mom best friend since second grade–except when we were enemies–we delivered Patterson-Forbes Partners into the world. No epidural or episiotomy required. And we made more than a pact; we pinkie-promised: We always will do business honestly, ethically, and as a fit example for our daughters, we pledged.

We know about cheating. We don’t do it.

We also know about second-rate work. We don’t do that, either.

And we don’t just promise.

We give you our word.

© 2009 by Trystan Forbes for Tent City Networks, A Patterson Forbes Company

all rights reserved

In business, only one promise matters: The innovation du jour promises huge return on our investment; and, at the end of the year, we clearly will see and jubilate to our hearts’ delight when the innovation shows significant impact on our profit. We do not make a principled commitment to workforce diversity simply because we believe it’s the right thing to do; we invest in diversity because we expect the investment will yield handsome rewards. And either we feel the promise fulfilled when we caress our bulging pocketbooks, or we begin the agonizing process of asking and answering, “Where did we go wrong with this one?”

I cannot confidently assert we have given workforce diversity a fair chance to fulfill its promise. I like the question, but I fear our attempt at a credible answer is just a little premature. When you look around the major businesses and industries in your community, can you point to a compelling example of an enterprise putting workforce diversity through a fair test?

THE IDEAL

According to my partners and colleagues, I number among the world’s premier pragmatic idealists. I specialize in finding the motives and means to make our noblest ideals normal, natural parts of our everyday work. We’re a teeny-tiny little boutique marketing form; we can afford to protect our ideals. In a bigger corporate environment, my pragmatic idealism would require a lot more sweat, tears, and fierce persuasion. I would not, however, abandon my commitment to workforce diversity. I believe a commitment to diversity reasonably includes the expectation of bigger bottom lines. And I set the standard for diversity as high as idealism lofts it. In every enterprise, the workforce should become a microcosm of the larger community that supports it.

Here in San Diego, for example, Asians and Pacific Islanders make-up approximately 19% of the population. Not surprisingly, Mexicanos and Latinos comprise slightly more than 40% of our population. Continental and North Africans account for roughly 10% of the citizenry, and people of European descent account for the rest. Women outnumber men by about 3%. Among the college-educated population, women outnumber men by about 8%. The ideal San Diego workforce, therefore, would mirror exactly that distribution of ethnicities, national origins, and proportion of women to men. And we would expect the paradigm would hold in management as well as the rank-and-file workers.

We have yet to see the promise fulfilled just according to the way we drew it up, but I persist in my belief that if we met the basic conditions, we would see the promise fulfill our desires.

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

The conventional wisdom holds that “effective customer service” requires reasonable English-language proficiency, adequate product or service knowledge, command of basic etiquette, and a great deal of patience. I agree that we effectively can serve customers when our staff has those attributes and skills.

More importantly, however, I believe that we ENGAGE customers when every single shopper finds a worker with whom he or she can identify. The value of diversity emerges the minute we gain customers’ trust and loyalty, because they see people who look and sound just like representing us. When my Eritrean customer sees my Eritrean associate buffing-up the lawn tractors, the affinity transcends price-point. We’ll negotiate prices. We cannot negotiate common values and expectations. And we won’t require “viral marketing,” because old-fashioned word of mouth will work just fine. “Did you know that Ismael gave me this spectacular deal on this awesome Mower Machine?” one neighborhood opinion leader tells another, and so on and so on. Similarly, if we win-over one suburban carpool mom, one Latino soccer-coaching dad, and one Southeast Asian small-business owner because each of them found an associate just like him or her, we generate loyalty among legions of their friends.

I don’t really think it is as crass as it may first have appeared. When we develop a workforce with which the community identifies, the community identifies with us and our brand. We no longer are The Big Corporation, nameless and faceless and insidiously exploitive. We have become “that big place where Ismael and Jill work.”

CORPORATE CULTURE

As we maintain our commitment to diversity, though, our leaders must use all their talent, skill, and experience to reconcile one huge paradox. Our company’s values must transcend cultural and ethnic differences, so that our diverse employees either will set aside or will learn to capitalize on their differences, joining in our common cause. I don’t particularly care whether my associates greet our customers with “Welcome to The Big Store” or “Bienvenida a La Tienda Grande”; but I care a great deal that they care enough to greet every single shopper who walks through the door. And, more importantly, as we inculcate and nourish our values, I hope our associates will begin to expect it and reinforce the expectation among themselves.

And the fundamentals on which we build our business transcend culture, because they are built into our systems at the Divine Factory. We cherish honesty, plain-dealing, both fairness and equity. We trust that our people can trust and remain trustworthy. We trust that our people will not compete with one another; we expect they will collaborate while the whole enterprise learns to loathe our biggest business rival. We expect each person will play his role and support his partners and peers in theirs. I don’t think that any of these fundamental human values comes with a cultural contingency. I think all of our associates can embrace the idea “yêu thương và chăm sóc cho nhau và du khách của chúng tôi,” love and care for one another and our visitors.

THE BOTTOM LINE

When our workforce really does measure-up against the paradigm of diversity, I confidently expect we will see it fulfill its promise… with interest. In the meantime, I recommend we dedicate our efforts to making our employee rosters match the pictures of our communities.

© 2009 Tent City Networks, A Patterson Forbes Company

all right reserved