"Leadership is a Journey"

I borrowed the title for this post from Ralph de la Vega, the President & CEO of AT&T Mobility, who was the guest speaker this morning for WIT's "Leader in Focus" Speaker Series held at Maggiano's in Buckhead. An impressive group of business leaders convened to hear Mr. de la Vega speak about his incredible journey from being a happy child growing up in pre-Castro Cuba to a displaced 10 year old boy in Miami living with family friends while his parents struggled to find a way out of Cuba after the Castro revolution. For over four years he was in the care of another family that he had never met before arriving in Miami, mostly out of contact with his parents, siblings and relatives and finding it very hard to adapt to being a kid in America in the early 60's. He told an amusing story about his first meal being a peanut butter sandwich with a glass of cold milk, the first glass of cold milk he had ever experienced. He noted that while he had learned to love cold milk, the peanut butter and jelly experience was not one of his fonder memories. I can relate since my British wife constantly shakes her head every time I make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I suppose it's an acquired taste, but you got to love the cold milk!

Mr. de la Vega then talked about his journey through the American educational system and how he nearly found himself agreeing to strive for less than he knew he could accomplish by accepting a high school guidance counselor's advice to focus on becoming a mechanic instead of an engineer, which was his true desire. But thanks to his Grandmother, a former teacher in Cuba who arrives in the nick of time, he is set on the right path and realizes his dream of becoming that engineer and ultimately he becomes the engineer running one of the largest multinational enterprises in the country.

It was an incredible story to hear, but what really impressed me about his chat this morning was his focus on the kids in Georgia and the issues we face with an increasing and alarming rate of high school drop outs. Across the state the high school graduation rate is not much above 60% and when you deep dive the numbers in the inner city that rate falls somewhere between 40% to 45%. Couple these statistics with the reduction in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) studies and an almost ingrained expectation of failure among the inner city kids and you have a recipe for a national disaster as we try to compete in the 21st century. How many engineers will China graduate this year? India? How about the USA? It is a staggering differential and one that needs to be raised to the highest levels of our government and addressed now. Outsourcing is a reality that is not going away and the key for this country is to possess the intellectual capital to move to the next stage of our evolution, which is to become the country of innovation and imagination. You cannot achieve that goal without Mathematicians, Engineers, Technologists and Scientists. It's impossible, and the real danger lies in the fact that many of kids today are not being given the incentives to even look at these fields.

I remember reading a book years ago entitled "More Like Us", written by James Fallows, a former speechwriter for Jimmy Carter. Published in 1989, it was a thesis on how to compete with the then emerging threats from Asia. Although considered somewhat weak by many critics, the one thing I took away from this work was his analysis on how other cultures arriving on our shores seemed to be able to maximize the opportunities that accompany the "American Dream", especially the Haitians who he pointed out had an impressive rate of college graduations among the second generation and an equally impressive rate of new business starts among the first generation. So why is it that a refugee arriving on a boat from Haiti can find the resources to build a life in this country, start a business, send their children to college, and become productive members of our society while the kids being born in our inner cities cannot find the the same opportunities? Fallows argues that it is a matter of an "ingrained expectation of failure" among the inner city kids that does not exist with the kid stepping off the boat from Haiti, or the plane from Cuba, in the case of Mr. Ralph de la Vega. They find opportunity in adversity and they never allow anyone to dictate what they can or can't become, which was a strong theme running through Mr. de la Vega's comments this morning. His "Four Pillars of Success": Have a Winning Game Plan; Take Risks; Overcome Obstacles and Recognize Opportunities resonated with the audience as did the principles he suggested were fundamental to leadership (Integrity & Credibility; Attitude & Teamwork; Excellence and Vision. Mr. de la Vega is an extraordinary example of what can be achieved when someone "Dreams Big & Believes in Him/Herself".

In closing, Mr. de la Vega talked about AT&T Aspire, a $100M program aimed at getting kids excited about education. He also mentioned the Junior Achievement Job Shadowing Program and how we can all help to connect our classrooms with the real world. I came away inspired by a man who has clearly taken the obstacles in his life and turned them into opportunities, but hasn't forgotten his roots or the struggles he went through to be where he is today.