Racism exists, but relationships matter even more.

Relationships matter.

How did Condoleezza Rice’s career catch on fire? What did powerful men see in the young Colin Powell? Who facilitated the rise of multi-millionaire Reginald Lewis, a leveraged buyout entrepreneur? What lessons can we learn from the experience of Kenneth Frazier, a lawyer who was ready to give up a promising career until a conversation with a partner set him straight?

Racism exists, but relationships matter more.

Consider the career twists and turns of Frazier, general counsel of Merck & Co., Inc., the nation’s second-largest pharmaceutical company.  The son of a janitor with a third-grade education, Frazier grew up in a segregated community where his father expected Frazier to be successful. Frazier learned those lessons well and powered through culture shock at predominantly white Pennsylvania State University and Harvard Law School. After joining an Old Money Philadelphia law firm, Frazier fell into the relationship gap.

What do I mean?

As Vivia Chen writes in Master of the Game, “Frazier initially kept to himself and focused on his work. (He) thought he could be successful by (his) skills alone.” Frazier had learned how to study well in college and law school. But his experiences as a gifted son of a black janitor left him unaware that relationships powered careers. While his father instilled the lesson that success was possible in the face of racism, academic excellence was not relationship excellence. Frazier was on a fast track to nowhere.
When Frazier received a middling evaluation in his second year, his spirit was broken. Frazier had always been better than average for as long as he could remember in school. He began the blame game. He blamed the accuracy of the evaluation. He blamed the invisible hand of racism. He decided that he would leave under his own power before the inevitable happened. He found a new job in a government office where he assumed African-Americans would get a better deal.

Before closing the door on his firm, Drinker Biddle & Reath, Frazier talked with Melvin Breaux, a partner and the firm’s only other black lawyer.  The talk changed Frazier’s life, according to Chen.

Breaux showed Frazier no pity. He challenged Frazier about his reason for leaving the firm. He lectured Frazier that race was no bar to his success at Drinker. Other lawyers ranging from Irish Catholics to Jews and other minorities had learned to develop relationships with Old Money WASPs. Why did Frazier believe he was special?

Then Breaux administered the coup de grace. Frazier had hurt himself by refusing social invitations and keeping to himself in his office. Frazier had to play the game. Relationships mattered because people needed to feel vested in your future. Without relationships, no one would vouch for you and carry the torch for you.  You had to make people want to be with you. That meant partners and clients.

Frazier took Breaux’s words to heart. He said no to the government job and stayed at the firm. He began to accept social invitations. He cultivated relationships with senior partners, many from Old Society backgrounds. And in time, Frazier grew from a second-year “blame the Man” associate to a fourth-year associate who “felt partnership was in the bag.” Frazier would make partner, with ease, and develop excellent relations with partners and clients alike. One thing led to another and Frazier became the point man for Merck, a longtime client of the firm. That relationship led to a job offer from Merck that Frazier parlayed into the company’s top legal post within seven years.

But for that fateful tough love from Breaux, Frazier might be an unsung attorney in a forgettable government job today.

Relationships matter.

The career of another African-American lawyer bears witness to the power of relationships.  Reginald Lewis was born and raised in East Baltimore, a segregated working class neighborhood. But he never feared operating out of his comfort zone. When he purchased the McCall Pattern Company for $22.5 million, he set to work establishing good relations with Earle Angstadt, a tall, blond, blue eyed, well-tailored CEO in firm command of the social graces. Lewis met Angstadt for the first time at the Harvard Club. Even though Angstadt had been with McCall for 14 years and was 17 years Lewis’ senior, Lewis saw value in retaining Angstadt as part of his team. Lewis looked beyond race and focused on shareholder return and paying down debt. When Lewis sold McCall three years later for $65 million, he made Angstadt a wealthy man in the process.

Lewis used the same finesse to purchase Beatrice International for $937 million. Operating at a level of finance where isolating himself would have been lethal, Lewis accepted a social invitation to attend the Drexel Bond Conference in L.A in 1985. The invitation came from none other than Michael Milken.  Milken got to know Lewis at the conference as well as Bruce Brown, a key research staffer close to Milken. Lewis made it his business to stay in touch with Brown, so when Lewis needed financing for the deal of a lifetime, Brown took his call. And not only did Brown take his call but Brown placed Lewis in touch with Milken. Milken knew Lewis from the Bond Conference and later conversations. Milken liked Lewis and, as a result, committed himself and the firm to Lewis’ purchase of Beatrice International. Milken made the deal happen.

Without this relationship between Lewis, a child of East Coast segregated schools, and Milken, a Jewish investment banker on the West Coast, Lewis would never have acquired Beatrice International Foods, a global giant with 64 companies in 31 countries.  Lewis died in 1993 with a personal fortune estimated by Forbes to be in excess of $400 million.

These lessons apply outside the worlds of law and finance as well.

While a Major assigned to Major General Charles M. Gettys' helicopter, the young Colin Powell showed a leadership that left a lasting impression on General Gettys. The helicopter crashed from a height of about three stories in the Vietnam jungle. Powell braced for impact as the copter slammed into the ground. Powell got out safely but then headed back as the engine continued to grind away and smoke filled the craft. Powell searched for and found General Gettys, barely conscious. In a race against time, Powell released the General’s seat belt, removed him and pulled him into the woods. Powell also rescued the general’s aide. In the end, everyone was saved from the downed helicopter.

General Gettys never forgot Powell’s valor. The general awarded Powell the Soldier’s Medal for his role in the helicopter crash rescue.  In his autobiography My American Journey, Powell recalls that he would have left the Army but for the likes of General Gettys in Vietnam.

But valor alone did not guarantee Powell’s rise in the Army. At one point, Brigadier General Powell was assigned to the command group of the 4th Infantry Division (mechanized) at Fort Carson, Colorado in 1982.  The division commander was a difficult Major General John W. Hudachek.  As Powell wrote, “Hudachek found my performance wanting and said so in an efficiency report that could have ended my career.” 

Powell feared for his career. Hudachek had ignored Powell’s command potential. In Hudacheck’s judgment, Powell had flunked. What saved Powell was the informal network among other generals throughout the Army. Generals talked. They knew Hudacheck and they knew Powell from personal dealings.  In the end, Powell’s future was assured because of “chats over drinks at the officers’ club, phone calls, the gossip mill, the old bulls sniffing the air and figuring out what (was) really happening…”             

And it was these old-fashioned principles that propelled the daughter of segregated Birmingham, Alabama into the world’s most powerful woman in August 2005, according to Forbes Magazine. While Condoleezza Rice was a brilliant student and gifted scholar of Soviet Union affairs, she might still be toiling away in Stanford classrooms were it not for her developing key relationships with powerful patrons.  Back in 1984, Brent Scowcroft, then head of President Ronald Reagan’s Commission on Strategic Forces, gave a talk on arms control at a Stanford faculty seminar. At the dinner that evening, junior faculty member Rice challenged Scowcroft on conventional wisdom. Scowcroft was favorably impressed by her self-confidence. He made a mental note to keep in touch with Rice.

Scowcroft began grooming Rice for a position in government by arranging for her to be invited to seminars and conferences and to meet people. When Scowcroft became National Security Advisor in 1989, he appointed Rice to the National Security Council as its chief authority on the Soviet Union.  During her two years on the National Security Council, she became personally close to President and Mrs. George Herbert Walker Bush. The relationship was so meaningful that the Bush family invited Rice upstairs into the White House family quarters to say good-bye before Rice returned to Stanford in 1991.

Rice continued to hone her relationships with powerful mentors upon her return to Stanford.  While serving on the Presidential Search Committee, she so impressed the new President, Gerhard Casper, that Casper appointed Rice provost of the University. She was second in command and responsible for running a $2 bullion budget. If Rice had isolated herself in her research and writing, these opportunities would not have come her way.

By 1998, former Secretary of State George Schultz had taken Rice under his wing. He arranged for an introduction between George W. Bush and Rice at a Hoover Institution meeting. Once again, Rice made a dynamic presentation and impressed the future President. Bush and Rice hit it off immediately. Bush appointed Rice to be the head of his team of foreign-policy advisers. And the rest of the story, as they say, is history.
   
Am I suggesting that the ascent of Rice, Powell, Lewis, Frazier, and others means the end of racism? No.

What I do suggest is that more attention should be given to the relationship gap between African-Americans and other Americans. How many Black Americans limit their contacts and connections to other blacks? What has been the effect of an explosion in minority-themed groups ranging from the National Bar Association to the National Medical Association, and other professional groups limited to blacks only? Can much of the income and wealth gap be attributable to a grown up version of the “black table” prevalent on white campuses? Much research needs to be done in this area.

Some may argue that unconscious racism cannot be overcome by positive thinking. Whites feel more comfortable with other whites, so blacks will be left out of informal networks that create opportunities. Look at the sad example of Larry Mungin described in The Good Black. Mungin had a Harvard undergraduate and law degree and still was denied partnership at his law firm. The case became noteworthy because Mungin sued for race discrimination. A majority-black jury awarded Mungin $2.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages but the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the jury award.  Mungin tried to fit in and not make waves.  But a close examination of Mungin’s experience suggests a naïve faith in passive good work. If you are passive and expect opportunities to come your way, you will be disappointed. Mungin placed too much faith in his academic credentials. Having a Harvard degree means nothing after your first job. Relationships matter.  Mungin came from an inner city, single-parent background where there was no one to teach him what Breaux taught Frazier. Quite honestly, Mungin needed to have someone set him straight about the way the world works. But that conversation never happened because Mungin did not have friends in high places.

Affirmative action may open doors but it will not make the powerful like you. You have got to compete and make a favorable impression.

And that is the problem when African-Americans recreate the “black table” and the Black Students Union in their careers.

Closing the relationship gap will require three steps. First, African-Americans must embrace relationships with others in the workplace, particularly those who can serve as patrons and mentors. Second, these relationships must be outside the comfort zone of minority-themed groups. The country is only 12% black. Among the professional classes, the percentage is even less.  Why limit your relationships to people who only see the world as you do? Careers are powered when people do the opposite of the expected. Who would have expected that a junior African-American female faculty member would bond with a senior white male Republican advisor? Finally, don’t blame the game. Play the game. Learn the unofficial rules for success. And remember that you cannot control racism. What you can control is your reaction is racism.  When you change your thoughts, you change your world.