Category Archives: Authors

Advisors, Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity

Perspective on Being Black – Gail Dawson

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I woke up this morning with recent events and names like George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Christian Cooper swimming through my mind and decided to take a walk to clear my head. As I stepped outside, I took a quick pause to consider my safety. Since the tornado on Easter, I have been staying with friends in a different neighborhood and I wasn’t sure of how I would be received.

As I started my walk, another friend’s Facebook post also crossed my mind. She posted her comments and a tweet from Quinta Brunson which says, “Being black is having a good day and then seeing another black person was killed for no reason. Then you have to think about/talk about that all day or don’t and numb yourself. It’s a constant emotional war. . . Meanwhile you still need to work and worry about everything else.”

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Authors A-H, Pandemic, Social Issues

Opening for Business – by Shelton Goode and Cathy Light

Finding New Ways to Serve
Employees, Customers and Communities

Over the past few weeks, we have been exploring the effects of the coronavirus on organizations and ways to mitigate the cultural and economic damage they face. To assess the current landscape, we conducted an informal survey of roughly 80 organizations from across metro Atlanta in partnership with HR Executive Roundtable and the HR Leadership Forum. The sample includes organizations from a variety of industry groups. While it is not representative of the U.S., Georgia, or metro Atlanta economy as a whole, it does capture the intense distress being experienced by mid-size, tech, and retail-oriented companies — a snapshot of the crisis, collected recently. We wanted to understand how organizations were dealing with the disruption and what they planned to do once their companies decided to re-open. We were particularly interested in their human resource and leadership resilience and the challenges of bringing employees back to work.

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Authors A-H, Pandemic

Masking or unmasking America – by Terry Howard

I ask you this before we get to the story below: Which side are you more sympathetic – those who argue for protection of their freedom not to wear protective masks or those who insist that others wear mask to ensure the safety of them and others?

Let’s go to the story.

“I will not trade my freedom for your safety” – those are the actual words printed in large red letters on a poster carried by a mustachioed, pistol carrying protester with the American flag hovering in the background on Facebook.

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Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity

I am Sienna – by Gail Hayes

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“You’re the prettiest, smartest girl in the world and nothing can change that,” my grandmother said as she hugged me. There was no other song I longed to hear or no melody that sounded so sweet. 

In 1961, I turned six years old and my family moved from North Carolina to Okinawa, Japan. The Civil Rights movement was in full swing as we moved to a foreign country. I was oblivious to all the noises of race that surrounded me. What I did not know was that ethnicity touches you wherever you go and you cannot hide from it.

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Authors A-H, Teams & Leaders

Mastering the Unwritten Rules of the Game: Political IQ – by Nancy Halpern

Many of us begin new jobs with hope, enthusiasm, commitment and drive. And then something happens. We come up across obstacles we struggle to navigate. Bosses we thought were champions go silent and become unavailable. Colleagues who should be supportive thought partners seem to be hoarding information and have no time for us.

It’s easy to blame ourselves, and even easier to blame someone else. But the truth is, it’s bigger than that. When people are brought together, they inevitably compete for limited resources. The problem is that resources are always limited whether it’s additional headcount, a promotion, a manager’s attention, or a runway for your new idea. And that competition is the definition of office politics.

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Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity, Social Issues

Jogging in America with my Black son – by Terry Howard

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My son’s an avid jogger. For him, circling the track in a nearby park enough times to reach his 4-5-mile daily goal is no big deal. Shucks, his jogging regimen was enough motivation for me to join him on that track; not as a jogger but, okay, as a 2 mile “fast walker.” Thus, I’d not given more than a passing thought on the inherent dangers of “jogging while Black” until the Ahmaud Arbery story went viral.

“That could have been my son,” was the disconcerting thought – and rage – that unsettled my mind as I watched that sickening video and heard those gunshots that snuffed out that young man’s life.

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Authors A-H, Disability, Pandemic

Run Shay, Run – by Terry Howard

Your phone rang late that evening:
You: Hello my friend. What’s up?
Caller: Wanted to let you know of some bad news.
“So-so” passed away unexpectedly.
You: Oh my! I meant to call him months ago but never got around to it!

With the spread of COVID -19, I suspect that many of you dread getting that phone call that someone you knew came down with the disease. Or worse. And little did we know. In fact, little does anyone always know “why” when tragedy unfold in our lives. But in many ways, we do have control over what can we do now before that inevitable bad news heads our way.
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Authors A-H, Pandemic

What to do about those elbows -by Terry Howard

BREAKING NEWS: Airlines banish the dreaded middle seat (USA Today, 4/23/20)

To further the goal of social distancing driven by COVID-19, the hugely unpopular middle seat has been ushered into retirement leaving millions of dangling elbows, including mine, breathing a sigh of relief.

Years ago, I pushed my way through first class out of breath having barely made the flight. I eased my way down the aisle and — as is the practice with Southwest Airlines — tried to find the first available seat. Not surprising, the only remaining ones were those in the middle.

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Authors A-H, Holocaust, Religious Diversity Kit, Social Issues

Jewish Heritage – by Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

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When I was a sophomore in high school, my history teacher showed us a film during Hitler’s reign. The graphic film gave me nightmares for over a week. In great detail the atrocities of the Jewish people were in front of my eyes. Bodies of loved ones were dumped into a pile as the families were forced to watch in the cold, emaciated and near death themselves. The scene of women standing naked outside, holding their hands over their private areas was appalling. Not long ago I read that some women would cut their skin and use the blood to give them coloring. That was what Hitler had done. It didn’t matter that some were German, his own people, it mattered that they were Jewish. I can’t fathom a person having done such harm. In an article it said that he loathed the Jewish population because they took away jobs. We’ll never fully understand or know what was behind his madness.

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Authors A-H, Pandemic, Social Issues

Extroverts and introverts: how are you faring? – by Terry Howard

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An interesting thing happened to me last week. You see, I was in the middle of reading a piece by a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist on “social distancing,” the latest add on to COVID-19 discourse these days, when the columnist, an acknowledged introvert, alluded to another writer he’d recently interviewed for his story; Susan Cain, author, “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a world that can’t stop talking.”

Now raise your hand if you an extrovert or an introvert? Go ahead, nobody’s looking. How are you faring in home confinement these days if you’re one or the other? And if you are closed in with someone opposite your style, how’s that going for ya?

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