During my 35-year career at large organizations, the description of the goal of providing equal opportunities for women, people of color, and other disadvantaged groups changed from “equal opportunity” to “diversity.” Today, that word would be “inclusion.”

What is inclusion?

“Inclusion” means three things:

• building a diverse organization;
• respecting everyone in it; and
• welcoming and act upon their input.

Excelling at inclusion requires qualities Jim Collins describes in a Level 5 leader in Good to Great, particularly, the combination of modesty and strong will, and the ability to seek out market feedback, which he calls “confronting the brutal facts.”  Inclusion requires more listening than talking, and more consultative and less traditional “selling.”

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In the March 5-11 issue of The Economist, there was an article entitled “The Perils of Property.” The author made the point that buying a home is the biggest single financial bet most Americans will ever make.  As all too many Americans learned in the recent financial meltdown, buying a home can be a very risky bet.

Our government not only subsidizes home ownership through the home mortgage interest deduction, but it has created a variety of tools to enable lenders to make home mortgage loans to more people.  Lawmakers have always believed that broad-based home ownership is an inherent societal benefit, because they believe it creates a greater stake in the well being of the community.  Independent of whether owning a home is a good investment, American lawmakers want as many Americans as possible to own, rather than rent, their residences.

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This has been a most interesting week for me, especially the first two days I spent in Los Angeles with my older son in meetings relating to three investments in performing arts projects: a small commercial independent film called Fog Warning, (a trailer is viewable on YouTube), a reality TV production company called LongStoryShort Productions, and a film script on which my son Mike and I are working together.  From these meetings on all three investments, as well as other conversations I have had with many people in the performing arts business, I have learned about the challenges artists have with agents, distributors, or other intermediaries.

In the recording industry, the intermediary is the record label.  In movies, screenwriters have to approach producers through agents, and film producers have to reach the marketplace through sales agents or distributors.  TV producers have to go through agents to reach TV networks and other content buyers.  This is similar to what I experienced and saw in the broader business world: there are always gatekeepers between product and service producers and the end customer.

What is great about the Internet is how it has the potential to give those who want to reach a customer the ability to bypass intermediaries and create a better balance of power with those intermediaries.  I love the fact that Paranormal Activity, a movie produced for $15,000, which used predominantly low-cost direct marketing channels, including social media, has grossed over $100 million since its release. Too many intermediaries would be threatened if that became the norm on how to get a movie to the public.

Related to this, I was so happy when my younger son became a very capable online seller during his senior year of high school, and my daughter learned about to get harp performing engagements directly without needing a booking agent.

I believe strongly that we will see far more prosperity and a more equal distribution of income and wealth if individuals have the skills to sell their products, services, and labor directly to those who need them.  Intermediaries can serve a very valuable role, and many are essential to the people they serve.  However, just like any monopoly situation, when they have sole or primary access to the end customer, they can get complacent and not do the best possible for the seller.  That’s why I like the potential direct marketing opportunities the Internet provides.  It gives any seller, including me, the ability to say to an intermediary: “Either be as passionate and single-minded about what I am selling as I am, or get out of the way.”

In the April 9 Wall Street Journal, there is a front-page story about the impact of sub-prime lending on ordinary citizens. Featured in the story is a 74-year-old self-employed tailor who put her entire $55,000 life savings into a high-interest-rate notes issued by a Philadelphia lender called American Business Financial Services. When the firm went bankrupt, she and others lost their entire life savings. The blog entitled The Importance of Being Financially Literate reinforces the fact that Americans lack financial knowledge even in the most basic savings and investment decisions.

While the story is a tragedy, it brings to mind the urgency of focusing on teaching all Americans financial literacy. The National Urban League and its affiliates have specific financial literacy programs, specifically focused on first-time home buyers. Operation HOPE, headed by the very impressive John Bryant, is specifically focused on broad-based financial literacy. These are great programs, and they provide individuals with good nuts-and-bolts tools. Other notable mentions on behalf of the National Urban League in partnership with Honda amid the turbulent economic climate include their offering of personal financial management classes. The acclaimed “Know Your Money Program” seeks to provide economic empowerment and financial literacy to those individuals in communities seeking to change the attitudes about money and money-management. The program is highlighted in this Honda Blog post. (more…)

I just attended the annual conference of the National Urban League in St. Louis. I have been on the NUL Board for 10 years, and just completed a nearly five-year stint as its Chairman. The National Urban League has an outstanding CEO, Marc Morial, and I have an equally outstanding successor as Board Chair, John Hofmeister, Country President for Shell.

Marc Morial’s keynote speech eloquently and meticulously described an Opportunity Compact that the Urban League has committed to as a mission for the people it serves, and that it wants government officials and partners to support as well. This compact, which can be accessed on the NUL website, NUL.org, consists of four cornerstone values: (1) The Opportunity to Thrive; (2) The Opportunity to Earn; (3) The Opportunity to Own; and (4) The Opportunity to Prosper. These cornerstones are supported by policy priorities described in the Compact.

The Urban League has been offering social services for 97 years and has over 100 affiliates around the country. Historically, it has been most known for its workforce readiness programs, and for supporting educational initiatives. More recently, it has focused on increasing homeownership among African-Americans.

What Marc has brought to the NUL in his four-year tenure as CEO has been a substantially increased focus on entrepreneurship to increase the pool of available jobs, and an even more significant focus on driving civic engagement through voting for African-Americans, and in having the Urban League play a more pivotal educational role in public policy debates.

The conference inspired me because four Democratic candidates, Senators Clinton and Obama, former Senator Edwards, and Congressman Kucinic, thoughtfully and positively presented their agendas to the attendees, and Senators Clinton and Obama specifically endorsed the Opportunity Compact.

I was particularly pleased that, through ground-breaking research led by Drs. Silas Lee and Bernard Anderson, we were able to validate that, at a minimum, the Urban League service network has delivered over $2.5 billion of economic value to America over the last three years.

I also had one-on-one meetings with members of the Urban League movement. Bonnie Boswell, a Los Angeles-based newscaster and the niece of Whitney M. Young, the NUL CEO in the 1960’s and a civil rights leader whose contribution to civil rights has been underestimated because of the low-key way in which he influenced events, is raising money to do a documentary on Whitney Young’s life. His leadership skills are noteworthy because they go far beyond what he accomplished as a civil rights activist. He united white and black Americans, civil rights activists, corporate leaders and governments, and other diverse stakeholders in ways that enabled them to work together far beyond the specific tasks that initially brought them together. I will be helping Bonnie get this project completed because I believe strongly in it.

I also met with Melinda Emerson, a former NUL trustee and now a successful entrepreneur with her company, Open for Business with Melinda Emerson at www.melindaemerson.com. She is both passionate and extremely thoughtful about the key levers for success for any small business, not just female and minority-owned businesses. She is focused on the specific needs of “Mompreneurs,” businesses formed and operated by working mothers, particularly first-time working mothers, but her insights on how to succeed are more broadly applicable: the focus on targeting the right customers and getting to know their specific needs, networking, delegating effectively well before women have less time to spend on the business because of child-care needs, and finding ways to build continuous, long-term relationships with the best customers of a business.

Marc, Bonnie, and Melinda are just a few examples of the kind of people that keep me excited about the NUL. Their focuses on driving thoughtful policy positions and measurable success in implementing them, driving and educating people about effective leadership, and role-modeling excellence in entrepreneurial small business leadership respectively are just a few of the reasons I continue to support this great movement.