By Eva Lotta Lockner
U-Turn permitted
When your own future and the future of your
family are at stake, there may not only be doubts but also anxieties that
follow you day in, day out. This exactly is what the clients at the North Lawndale Employment Network faced, before they heard about a concept, which gives hope
to a very specific kind of people from the North Lawndale neighborhood. Your life should not be a dead end. You
should be the master of your own destiny and everything that follows, as long
as you are given the chance to make the U-Turn.
“U-Turn permitted” is
an initiative that is giving ex-convicts a spark for hope, and there is one
person that lets the spark turn into a fire: Brenda Palms-Barnes. Embracing
Brenda’s inspiring personality, she is called the Queen-Bee of “Sweet
Beginnings”. And what Brenda amongst other great people does is helping to
rebuild the community of North Lawndale and by that they are also helping to
rebuild life for those whose lives seemed to be a dead end, or a vicious circle
in which they kept being incarcerated their whole life.
“I believe that after people did something
wrong, and they’ve served for what they did in prison, they deserve a second
chance”, Brenda puts it. And yes, many companies claim that they would be
willing to employ ex-cons, but there is a tiny problem, just the size of a box
that decides, whether you get a job interview or not.
“Ban the box!”
Johnny Patterson, recently promoted as the
operations team manager tells us first hand, what he experienced on his path
out of incarceration. ‘Have you ever been convicted of a felony?’ is the one
question that could be your downfall. If you say yes, the odds are close to
zero that you will even get in the reach of a job interview, if you say no,
then they check your permanent records and even though your manager values your
skills and your personality, you have lied in the first place, so you lose your
job.
Sweet Beginnings
What if former cons get a chance to make the
U-turn and be open for the change in life they so desperately need and seek?
Well, that is what Sweet Beginnings offers these people so that they be the
writers of their own future with the help of beautifully-minded souls and thousands over thousands of little friends: Bees. Sweet Beginnings gives their clients the chance to build up the work experience they need in order to apply for a job.
Brenda, the Queen-Bee of them all, is one of
these beautifully-minded human beings with a determination in her voice and expression
that I was impressed to see. When she speaks, all the small pieces seem to make
the bigger picture we were all eager to find on our way to our own business
concepts.
“Be creative; be innovative if you are lacking
resources.” And this is what “Sweet Beginnings” and their product line “beelove”
do: They are creative and innovative with a compelling passion and they
acknowledge those people who made poor decisions in their past, due to poor
resources at hand. She also speaks about the stigmatization most ex-cons face
once they “come back”.
“Rejection is one of the biggest issues”,
Brenda knows. And a global logistics company did just that. They rejected
graduates from the “U-turn permitted” program while pleading that their company’s
values were to help those in need, without prejudice and such like. And here is
one valuable lesson we learnt from today’s excursion, not only for all our
business concepts, but for our whole working life that will follow: You as a
person, both in your professional and your private life, have to live by the
values you promote. And if you look at this statement from a leadership point
of view that also means forcing your employees and team members to recite the
mission you and your company follow and incorporating this mission and your
values to each and every one of them.
It’s not a title that
makes you a leader
Our project, the Lib Hotel has the approach to
also give something back to the community, but this approach might just be a
daydream, if the employees do not implement these values into their daily
business.
But how do we infiltrate what we believe in
into our own team members? What is the kind of leadership approach one should
be following in order to accomplish the company’s mission and keep the culture?
We have seen different views on leadership and organizational culture
throughout our excursions, which were all enriching and inspirational, but none
like Brenda’s made me realize what it actually means to be a leader, something
you won’t find in any scholarly article, but which comes straight from the
heart of a woman who wants to make a difference, and it’s a powerful one:
“What
a big word leader is. I have very strong convictions on that. Once I understood
the opportunities, I won’t call myself a leader. It’s not a title that makes
you a leader, but making a difference for others. Leadership is scary, because
it also enables fellowship and by that I mean that you have to earn the right
to lead. To me, leadership has seasonality, so that I am convinced that you
have to empower your team members to develop their very own skills and that you
let others rise and shine.”
While these powerful words still echo in my
ears, I was also impressed by the naturalness of Brenda as a business woman.
With our hotel, we have to consider to not only having one source of revenue in
order to be successful. Like “beelove”, they found that honey only has a profit
margin of 13% while their recently launched skin care products bring up to 80%
of profit margin. This made me realize that we are on a good way to develop
further sources of revenue through our tours, our rooms and our plan to expand
to other cities sometime in the future.
And what we should always consider while
developing our ideas is: “If you have an idea and no one’s laughing about it,
then you didn’t dream big enough!”
Thank you Brenda & the team of Sweet
Beginnings and the NLEN for what you do to help the community in North Lawndale and what an
insight you gave us in order to think about Social Justice and what that means
not only to our business, but to us as people and those around us that need help to make the U-turn in their lives.
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