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The start of a new year generally inspires us to set new goals, resolutions, and pull out our checklist containing those routine tasks we conduct every year. For many of us, that checklist includes a wellness check or a physical health exam.

In a blog from Pomona Valley Health Centers, the writer states, “A generation ago, people used to see their doctor only when they were sick or dying. Today, preventative health care is becoming commonplace as people become more educated and empowered about their own health…

Regular check-ups can help find potential health issues before they become a problem. When you see your doctor regularly, they are able to detect health conditions or diseases early. Early detection gives you the best chance for getting the right treatment quickly, avoiding any complications. By getting the correct health services, screenings, and treatment you are taking important steps toward living a longer, healthier life.”

A business health check serves much the same purpose as a physical health check. Both are able to detect health conditions early and provide the best chance for getting the right treatment quickly to mitigate or decrease adverse complications. A business health check, like a physical health exam, should be conducted regularly, no less than annually. A health check ensures the business is tracking towards its goals. It delivers insight into the overall performance of your business, uncovers opportunities for improvements, measures employee health and the end-user experience, and assesses the organization’s culture, engagement and alignment. It’s an opportunity to make course corrections, mitigate or exploit risks or market changes or take advantage of new and innovative solutions.

Let’s associate the benefits of a physical health check with a health check of your business so you better comprehend the significance.

“A healthy business is as important as a healthy body; it will bring growth and prosperity to all its stakeholders.”

As you begin the new year, stop and take the pulse of your business by performing a business health check. Examine your business from a fresh perspective to see what’s working and what’s not. iSeek experts can guide your team through the phases of our customized Business Health Check iBHC©, which will result in greater insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your business and yield broad solutions on what to do to reach your target level of health. Learn more about the Business Health Check iBHC© by visiting the resources page of our website or contact us directly at   [email protected] to get started.

 Early detection of unhealthy conditions could be the difference between the life or death of your business!

Strategic planning is the process of looking ahead according to Eric Vo, a writer for The Hartford.  The strategic planning process involves a business, large or small, envisioning the success they’d like to have in the future and setting goals to get there. It’s not enough to just think about the future. Organizations should go about the process of developing a plan on how they will be successful by first determining which method they will use.  Regardless of the method employed, there are five key components that every strategic plan should include: the vision, mission, goals & objectives, action plans and a review process.  These components are the basic pieces that should be developed by an organization. The most important of the five steps is the vision. Some organizations create a vision for the company that is impossible to reach; This is a mistake.  A vision should be created and established as a realistic path to a future goal that is attainable in a set amount of time.

According to VP of Product at ProjectManagement.com, Stephanie Ray:

<A vision>…. states the current and future objectives of an organization. The vision statement is intended as a guide to help the organization make decisions that align with its philosophy and declared set of goals. It can be thought of as a roadmap to where the company wants to be within a certain timeframe. A vision statement is not only used in business, as nonprofits and governmental offices also use them to set goals.

A Vision for the Future

A famous quote from the Bible says, “with no vision, the people perish”.  How true!  In business, we could say it in these words: “Without a thoughtful determination of what the organization should be doing and where it should be going, it will not be successful.”

A vision may be crafted by the leadership within an organization, but it should be massaged by employees.  Why?  Because the employees carry out the execution of the strategic plan goals and objectives that employ the vision.  Without buy-in and participation from employees, a vision will fail to be effective.

Visioning Exercises

To get thoughtful interaction amongst leadership and employees, outside consultation may be beneficial in helping to lead productive exercises that culminate in consensus and shared understanding about what the goals and objectives of the organization should be.  A visioning exercise is a thought-provoking way to generate positive ideas about the future of the organization and what it will take to make it successful. Hari Srinivas, a leader at the Global Development Research Center, created a useful guide called “How to Conduct a Visioning Exercise”. See the full instructions on how to implement this exercise by clicking here.

The first step in your organization’s journey of developing a strategic plan is to create a vision. iSeek experts can guide you through the visioning and strategic plan development process. Contact us at [email protected] to start your journey.

Are you familiar with the reality show, “The Amazing Race”? On the show, teams embark on a journey. At every destination, each team must compete in a series of challenges, some mental and some physical, and only when the tasks are completed will they learn of their next location. Teams who are the farthest behind will gradually be eliminated as the contest progresses, with the first team to arrive at the final destination winning the contest. The journey of “The Amazing Race” is a lot like life, personal and business. The goal is to finish while successfully completing a series of tasks along the way.

The takeaway from this analogy is, it’s not good enough to finish the race but fail to complete the tasks along the way. And, it’s not good enough to complete all the tasks, but not finish the race. Finishing first after having satisfactorily completed all tasks is a whole ‘nother level, but it’s the goal.

Unlike “The Amazing Race”, in life, we often have the luxury of identifying potential challenges, assessing the effects each might have on our ability to meet our goals, then finding ways to mitigate the impact. Too, we often have the ability to adapt to, improvise around and overcome an unplanned event that has negatively impacted our goals.

In business, that process is called a Business Impact Analysis or Assessment (BIA). The BIA focuses on events that disrupt or impede a business’s ability to operate normally. The Business Continuity Institute, a professional organization focused on helping companies prepare for emergencies, says in its good practice guidelines that there are four main types of BIA:

• Initial BIA: This is a high-level analysis that serves as a framework for more detailed BIAs.
• Product and Service BIA: This identifies a business’s most important products and services and the impacts they would face.
• Process BIA: This analysis identifies the processes or workflows that are needed to deliver the most important products and services.
• Activity BIA: This identifies the activities that deliver the most urgent products and services.

Paul Kirvan, a fellow at the Business Continuity Institute, says that past events are the best source of information about what impact a disruption would have.

2020 has left us no shortage of unplanned events that have negatively impacted business operations in one or more ways. It’s safe to say, every business (mom & pop, small, large and enterprise) would benefit from an impact assessment. Perhaps the results from a BIA are strategies that catapult the business from surviving to thriving or the pivot roadmap or data-driven input to the annual business continuity or strategic plan update. Regardless, every business is, or should be, developing mitigation, pivoting, sustainability, growth or exit strategies.

iSeek Solutions, through our management consulting services, empowers businesses to meet their goals. So, of course, we facilitate Business Impact Assessments. Our Assessment often entails thorough assessments of one, multiple or all of these areas: business processes, technology platforms and infrastructure, human capital and organizational structure.

The goals of every business are akin to those of “The Amazing Race”. Contact us today to assist your business in assessing the impacting events of the past and developing mitigation strategies for the future. To learn more about us, check out our website, subscribe to our blog, or follow us on LinkedIn!

There are thousands of books, articles and literature that speak to exemplary principles in leadership.  In fact, you can find over 90,000 books on Amazon if you did a search on the broad subject of “leadership”.  The best sellers list includes favorites like The Five Dysfunctions of a Leader by Patrick Lencioni and Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek – indeed classics for anyone looking to enhance their leadership acumen.  Interestingly enough, only 2% of these leadership books focus on the blending of “leadership” and “crisis”. One may ask, “Is the relationship between leaders and the crises they face not a tangible subject of those who educate, pontificate and write?”  The small percentage of books on crises that we can find that focus on the “principles” of good leadership demonstrates the need for much more research and development on leadership in the state of crisis.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have already seen over 10,000 books written on the subject of this crisis.  Of these books, we have seen some emphasis on the principles of good leadership as a critical component in resolving the crisis.  But not nearly enough.  As leadership guru John Maxwell posited in his book The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.…but knowing how to lead is only half the battle”.  In order to prepare leaders for the current and future epidemics of our era, more focus is needed on developing leaders in a state of crisis.

In Part I of Leadership in a State of Crisis we asked, “Is leadership an essential component in resolving a crisis?”. We answered the question by highlighting several examples where exceptional leadership created a shared agenda of listening and acting on a social contract.

A social contract is a commensurate exchange between a leader and a team established by a relationship that is linked together through human touch. In the midst of uncertainty, a social contract can capture the loyalty of employees, consumers and investors.  Be it government, corporate or private entities in crisis, leaders are called to approach difficult circumstances with an innate or trained mindset capable of navigating uncertain situations with emotional intelligence.

While leading in a state of crisis, there are 3 key features of leadership that must come naturally or be part of a leader’s professional development plan: The power to influence; The ability to make an impact; and The capacity to imagine positive change.

The power to influence. John Maxwell says, “Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less”.  In order to move a person, team or organization from their current state to where you want them to be, you must “influence” them. The academic approach to influencing others uses the art of persuasion which is a method of constructing thoughtful arguments.  A layman’s approach is to identify shared goals, then work to find commonalities that can be achieved together. According to leadership researcher Nathalie Drouin, transformational leaders are good at focusing on goals that are shared by everyone.  In a crisis, leadership is about influencing the emotions of the team to achieve a shared goal.

The ability to make an impact. Leadership coach Michael Dale wrote his doctoral dissertation on The Effect of Servant Leadership on Technology Project Outcomes.  He researched 10 leadership attributes and measured their impact on successful project outcomes.  As a result of surveying project leaders from around the world, the data indicated that positive outcomes were significantly impacted when leaders were committed to helping their team to grow. Growth can be defined as the achievement of personal and professional development goals ascertained by team members. Significant impact is what former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani referred to as the social contract developed during the tragedy that occurred on September 9, 2011.  During this crisis there was an exchange of shared goals between the leader and the team that ensured everyone would be successful. Leaders in a state of crisis can manage people during difficult circumstances by focusing on making a positive impact in their personal and professional lives.

The capacity to imagine positive change. Leaders imagine positive change when they’re capable of clearly communicating in words and behavior. Extraordinary leaders engage the team to imagine and construct well-thought out ideas that are not ignored but recognized and considered.  Leadership expert J. M. Burns says that imagination can run rampant in a positive and productive way when both the leader and team members wield power equally. In a state of crisis where good leadership is essential, a thoughtful and considerate imagination that is open to impromptu ideas and adjustments from the team has the power to produce positive change.

At iSeek, we believe that an investment in Professional Development for Leaders, regardless of the type, reaps numerous benefits for your organization. Professional Development positions your organization to create effective leaders with enhanced skills and greater insight to guide their teams through crises.

iSeek’s Learning & Professional Development professionals are educated and certified in industry-leading leadership curriculums. We facilitate bootcamps for those preparing to sit for the Project Management Professional (PMP®) and Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP®) certification exams offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Additionally, we provide training to enhance leadership skills. Our leadership series is based on the teachings of transformational leaders such as David Cottrell, best-selling author of the Monday Morning series and John Maxwell, a world-renowned leadership expert.

Visit our website to learn more about iSeek’s Learning and Professional Development program offerings including ways to upskill your leadership team’s acumen to prepare for a state of crisis. Subscribe to our blog or follow us on LinkedIn to be one of the first to know when new Resources and Insights are available. To create or customize a program offering to meet your organization’s Learning and Professional Development needs, you may contact us directly at [email protected].

Is leadership an essential component in resolving a crisis? It’s a yes or no question.  Fairly easy to answer if you have witnessed the profound impact that effective leadership has had on a society, country or organization in crisis.  In times of great difficulty, history has shown us the extraordinary difference that good leadership has made to counter the detrimental harm caused by mismanagement, mistreatment, and misuse. The question can also be answered by anyone who has witnessed the absence of good leadership in a crisis.

During the global financial crisis of 08’ & 09’, we witnessed a highly touted CEO named Martin Winterkorn come to Volkswagen to turn the automobile manufacturer around. While competitive brands such as Nissan, Toyota and Honda began to surface from the financial crisis, Winterkorn’s challenge was compounded by Volkswagen’s difficulties in dealing with new emissions standards.  In an attempt to address the challenges, Winterkorn made examples out of employees he perceived as lack-luster performers. He also sought to publicly humiliate workers who did not meet his standards of perfection. Trust and respect with his employees were absent resulting in distrust between leaders and workers. Using a command and power approach to leadership, Winterkorn failed to reduce the damaging impact of the crisis on Volkswagen.

Around the time of Winterkorn’s tumultuous failure at Volkswagen, a relationship-oriented leader named John Donahoe was at the helm of a fledgling online company called eBay. At this time, eBay had performed inoperably in an online market that was transforming into the new digital age.  Although eBay was one of the first online stores to reach prominence in the global marketplace, it was facing a financial crisis that would make or break its future.  eBay’s competition was against the likes of internet giant Amazon who had the majority share of the market. Donahoe had his work cut out for him, but his “human touch” approach to leading people was reciprocated immediately.  By engineering a culture of corporate loyalty through listening and acting on a social agenda, Donahoe captured deep seated loyalty amongst employees and investors. His capacity to apprehend the needs of people and connect them with corporate goals was key to a positive shift out of the crisis.

Leadership is an essential component in resolving crises. Corporate leaders such as Donahoe at eBay utilized the “human touch” approach to influence, impact and imagine positive change. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani called it a “social contract” that established a relationship of trust between leaders and followers during the 9/11 crisis. In this current period of unparalleled crisis, leadership is needed to create a coalition of reciprocal trust between employees, investors, and consumers.

Well known leadership author, educator, and businessman Stephen Covey said, “Leaders are not born or made – they are self made.”  A “self made” leader is one that becomes successful by his or her own efforts, often through educational pursuits, mentors, or professional development.

At iSeek, we believe that an investment in Professional Development, regardless of the type, reaps numerous benefits for your organization. Professional Development positions your organization to create effective leaders with enhanced skills and greater insight to guide their teams through crises.

iSeek’s Learning & Professional Development professionals are educated and certified in industry-leading leadership curriculums. We facilitate bootcamps for those preparing to sit for the Project Management Professional (PMP®) and Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP®) certification exams offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Additionally, we provide training to enhance leadership skills. Our leadership series are based on the teachings of transformational leaders such as David Cottrell, best-selling author of the Monday Morning Series and John Maxwell, a world-renowned leadership expert.

To learn more about iSeek’s Learning and Professional Development programs visit our website. Subscribe to our blog or follow us on LinkedIn. To create or customize a program to meet your organization’s Learning and Professional Development needs, you may contact us directly at [email protected].

Management Guru, Peter Drucker said “Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.”

Organizations struggle to balance their existing portfolio of projects with a growing list of new demands. While managing competing projects, these organizations are expected to maintain peak performance in their core services and operations.  Therefore, deciding how to prioritize and separate the strategic and high priority projects from lower priority projects can be a grueling task.  Emotions can run high when people debate what is important to them.  This is why a structured and objective approach can be helpful in achieving consensus and balancing the needs of the entire organization, along with the priorities of each stakeholder.  Using a decision matrix is a proven technique for making tough decisions in an unbiased way.

iSeek’s Decision Matrix (iDMX©) has been used by several organizations to support structured decision-making. Our clients have benefited greatly by using our tool to objectively weigh each of their competing priorities in an effort to select what is most strategic, transformational and operationally important to their organization and stakeholders. When deciding which decision matrix tool is right for your organization, you should consider what’s included in it.  The iDMX© provides:

• Help to consider complex and unclear constraints when there is a substantial number of benefits and value determining importance
• A quick and easy, yet consistent, method for evaluating options
• Enhanced objectivity by taking some of the emotion out of the process
• A quantified way to consider decisions with numeric rankings
• Adaptability to any priority-setting needs (projects, services, products, etc.)
• Flexibility when used by a single person or group of stakeholders who require engagement and agreement

To learn more about iSeek’s Decision Matrix (iDMX©) tool, visit the Resources page on our website. Subscribe to our blog or follow us on LinkedIn to be one of the first to know when new Resources and Insights are available. Contact us directly at [email protected].

Now, more than ever, the ability to effectively pivot might very well be the difference between thriving, surviving, or outright failing. Pivot, by definition, is a fundamental change in a company’s business model.

Whether the change is equipping the workforce to effectively work from home or shifting production from automotive parts to ventilators or deploying new business and technology platforms – change is challenging.

Over the past few months, we’ve highlighted the discipline, “Organization Change Management” (OCM), which addresses “the people side of change”. Change management has many moving parts, but the most important pieces are understanding the part people play, getting people on board and participating in the change.

In last month’s blog post, Organizational Change Management – Is your Organization Effectively Leading Change?, we identified two perspectives that are required to effectively manage change within a company: an individual perspective and an organizational perspective.

We stated that, according to Prosci, the organizational perspective is the process and activities that project teams utilize to support successful individual change. The individual perspective is an understanding of how people experience change.

As mentioned in our previous blog, change has become a constant. However, with change comes the natural reaction of employee resistance that organizations and leaders must be prepared for or what Prosci calls “proactive resistance management”. Resistance to change is one of the top obstacles to successful change. Here are 5 likely sources of resistance for almost any project:

• Uncertainty: Employees who are highly invested in the current way of doing work
• Pride of ownership: People who created the current way of doing work that will be changed
• Increased workload: Employees who expect more work as a result of the change
• Loss of Control: Those who advocated a particular alternative, say Option B, when Option A was ultimately selected
• Fear of the unknown: People who have been very successful and rewarded in the current way of doing work

Prosci | The Global Leader in Change Management Solutions states: How many times have you heard, “our employees are our most important asset”? Then, when it comes time for a change to be implemented, employees are sent an email on Monday for training on Tuesday for go-live on Wednesday. That is not the right way to treat people, especially the people that are your most valuable asset. By proactively engaging and supporting people in times of change, we demonstrate in action that we value them.

Investing the time and energy to manage the people side of your organizational efforts pays off in the end – in terms of success of the effort and avoidance of the numerous costs that plague poorly managed change.

Prosci’s ADKAR® Model describes change as successful when an individual has:

• Awareness of the need for change
• Desire to participate in and support the change
• Knowledge on how to change
• Ability to implement required skills and behaviors
• Reinforcement to sustain the change

If an individual is missing any of these five building blocks, then the change will not be successful. The goal, then, in leading the people side of change is ensuring that individuals have Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement.

Along with identifying why change is difficult and why some changes succeed while others are unsuccessful, the ADKAR® model also helps leaders identify what steps to take to prevent or mitigate resistance before it emerges and impacts the project and the organization.

Ultimately, change management focuses on how to help employees embrace, adopt and utilize a change in their day-to-day work. iSeek professionals trust and implement the Prosci ADKAR® Model to ensure thorough processes, minimal resistance and impact, and lasting change.

If you’re in the midst of pivoting, rethinking your strategy post-COVID-19 or making the necessary enhancements required to keep market share, don’t forget the “people side of change”. Let us help you navigate the change management process to mitigate change resistance and reach the intended ROI. Contact us today at [email protected]. Check out our website, subscribe to our blog, or follow us on LinkedIn for more insights!

In last month’s blog post If you build it, they will come. Really? we highlighted the discipline “Organization Change Management” (OCM), which addresses “the people side of change.”

Organization Change Management is defined as the process, tools and techniques to manage the people side of change to achieve a required business outcome.

In order to stay relevant and thriving, companies must respond to changing markets, technical advances and customer demands.

Change management is one of the disciplines that is applied to a variety of organizational changes to improve the likelihood of success and return on investments.

To effectively manage change within a company, two perspectives are required: an individual perspective and an organizational perspective. The organizational perspective is the process and activities that project teams utilize to support successful individual change, according to Procsi.

Change can only be successful if the change takes place simultaneously on both levels – individual and organizational, according to Management Skills, Personal Effectiveness and Business Communication expert, Patty Mulder.

It is often said that an organization is only as strong as its leadership. As a leader in your organization, are you effectively endorsing, advocating and managing change? Below are a few traits of effective change leaders. How well do you measure up?

• Leaders understand they are ultimately accountable and responsible for the successful implementation of change, which is ensuring the benefits of change are fully realized.
• Leaders are role-models. Leading by example; providing visible, active support of the change.
• Leaders embrace change management disciplines and create a strong network of sponsors throughout the organization.
• Leaders support change management throughout the project lifecycle in various ways, to include assessing the need for specific change management skills and training and/or acquiring the necessary resources.

No company or organization is exempt from organizational changes. Change has become a constant. However, with change comes the natural reaction of resistance from employees that organizations and leaders must be prepared for; a proactive resistance management. Resistance to change is one of the top obstacles to successful change.

By outlining the goals and outcomes of successful change, the Prosci ADKAR® Model is an effective tool for planning change management activities, equipping leaders facilitating change, and supporting employees throughout the change.

The model helps leaders and organizations identify why change is difficult and why some changes succeed while others do not. The model also helps leaders determine what steps to take to prevent or mitigate employee resistance before it emerges and impacts the project and the organization.

The Prosci ADKAR® Model is a goal-oriented change management model that iSeek change management professionals trust and execute to develop thorough change management plans that mitigate resistance and ensure successful change.

Our next blog will discuss more insights on the Prosci ADKAR® Model and the individual/employee perspective of Organizational Change Management. So, stay tuned for more! Check out our website, subscribe to our blog, or follow us on LinkedIn. Again, if you’re about to kick-off a new project, or perhaps you’re already in the midst of one, and you want to ensure a thorough change management process exists to mitigate change resistance, contact us today at [email protected] to get started on a change management plan.

As Project Management Professionals, we’re experts at ensuring projects are delivered on time, on budget and meet the predefined scope and level of quality. Our project management methodology also advocates for well-defined project metrics and manages benefits realization. Often, our role entails managing “the people side of change”, which has its own professional discipline known as “Organizational Change Management”.

Far too long organizations have operated using the metaphor from the movie FIELD OF DREAMS, “If you build it, they will come.” Well, the statement is not exactly as it was quoted in the movie and the sentiment is not the answer to ensuring intended project outcomes are achieved. This reality is true whether the project is internal business transformation, a new product, or technology innovation.

Prosci | The Global Leader in Change Management Solutions states, “There is a common denominator for achieving the intended outcomes of your initiative: people. Your initiatives impact how individual people do their work: their processes, job roles, workflows, reporting structures, behaviors and even their identity within the organization.”

We happen to agree with Prosci, which is why we became Prosci ADKAR® Certified. As was stated earlier, as project managers we were already managing the “people side of change”, so becoming certified change managers, better understanding the science behind it, and acquiring the tools and techniques elevated our game to a new level. We’re now better equipped to help our clients enhance change adoption, decrease change resistance and achieve the people-dependent portion of the project’s return on investment (ROI).

Our next 2 blogs will contain more insights on Organizational Change Management. So, stay tuned! Check out our website, subscribe to our blog, or follow us on LinkedIn. If you’re about to kick-off a new project, or perhaps you’re already in the midst of one, and you want to mitigate change resistance and ensure you achieve the people-dependent portion of the project’s return on investment (ROI), contact us today at [email protected] to get started on a change management plan.

Founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now known as Tuskegee University) in Tuskegee, Alabama in 1881, Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856-1915) was an educator, orator, author, and one of the most influential African American leaders of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Washington was committed to improving the lives of African Americans after the Civil War. He advocated economic independence through self-help, hard work, and a practical education. His drive and vision built the historically black college of Tuskegee University into a major African American presence and place of higher learning. The university focused on training African Americans in agricultural pursuits, grew immensely, and became a monument to his life’s work. Through progress at Tuskegee, Washington showed that an oppressed people could advance.

On April 5, 1856, Washington was born into slavery on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. His mother, Jane, worked as a cook for plantation owner James Burroughs and his father was an unknown white man from a nearby plantation. At an early age, Washington went to work carrying sacks of grain to the plantation’s mill. With his size, hauling 100-pound sacks was hard work for a small boy, and he was occasionally beaten for not performing his duties satisfactorily. Peering into a schoolhouse near the plantation seeing children his age sitting at desks and reading books was Washington’s first introduction to education. He wanted to do what those children were doing, but he was a slave, and it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write.

After the Civil War, Washington, his siblings, and his mother moved to Malden, West Virginia, where she married freedman Washington Ferguson. Coming from a poor family, nine-year-old Washington went to work in the nearby salt furnaces with his stepfather instead of going to school. Washington’s mother noticed his interest in learning and got him a book from which he learned the alphabet and how to read and write basic words. He was still working at the time, so he got up nearly every morning at 4 a.m. to practice and study before work. It was around this time, Booker took the first name of his stepfather as his last name, Washington.

In 1866, Booker T. Washington got a job as a houseboy for Viola Ruffner, the wife of coal mine owner Lewis Ruffner. Mrs. Ruffner was known for being very strict with her servants, especially boys. Ruffner saw something in Washington — his maturity, intelligence and integrity — and soon warmed up to him. Over the two years he worked for her, she understood his desire for an education and allowed him to go to school for an hour a day during the winter months.

Determined to educate himself, in 1872, Washington left home and traveled 500 miles under great hardship until he arrived – broke, tired, and dirty – at Hampton Normal Agricultural Institute in Virginia. Along the way, he took odd jobs to support himself. He convinced administrators to let him attend the school and took a job as a janitor to help pay his tuition. The school’s founder and headmaster, General Samuel C. Armstrong, soon discovered the hardworking Washington and offered him a scholarship, sponsored by a white man. Armstrong had been a commander of a Union African American regiment during the Civil War and was a strong supporter of providing newly freed slaves with a practical education. Armstrong became Washington’s mentor, strengthening his values of hard work and strong moral character.

Washington graduated from Hampton in 1875 with high marks and taught at his old grade school in Malden, Virginia. In 1879, he was chosen to speak at Hampton’s graduation ceremonies, where afterward General Armstrong offered Washington a job teaching at Hampton. Two years later, in 1881, the Alabama legislature approved $2,000 for a “colored” school, the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. General Armstrong was asked to recommend a white man to run the school but instead recommended Washington. Classes were first held in an old church, while Washington traveled extensively all over the countryside promoting the school and raising money. His achievements at Tuskegee earned him widespread support. An assertive, hands-on principal, Washington attended to every detail, from overseeing faculty and students, to school publications. He monitored the quality of instruction, inspected campus grounds and buildings, and scrutinized students. The university grew immensely and focused on training African Americans in agricultural pursuits.

Washington personally made sure that Tuskegee maintained its excellent reputation. On the other hand, he also reassured whites that nothing in the Tuskegee program would threaten white supremacy or pose any economic competition to whites.

A skilled politician and major political force, Washington developed relationships with blacks, whites, farmers and businessmen in the North and the South, but not everyone agreed with his views. Washington urged blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and concentrate on elevating themselves through hard work and material prosperity. While politicians and presidents sought him out, some in the African American community, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, saw him as a traitor and criticized the extent and use of his power and influence. President William McKinley visited Tuskegee. In 1901, Washington dined at the White House with President Theodore Roosevelt making him the first African American to be so honored. However, the fact that Roosevelt asked Washington to dine with him (inferring the two were equal) was unprecedented and controversial, causing an uproar among whites. Both President Roosevelt and his successor, President William Howard Taft, used Washington as an adviser on racial matters, partly because he accepted racial subservience.

Washington’s controversial Atlanta Exposition speech in 1895 (Atlanta Compromise) appeared to support separate development as a “”necessary condition for economic cooperation between the races.”” He said “”In all things that are purely social, we can be as separate as the fingers, yet as one hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”” The speech brought him fame as well as criticism. Many believe that Washington’s address laid the ground for state supported segregation. Dedicated to the continued existence of Tuskegee, Washington secretly supported many black causes for equality. For Washington, education and hard work led to economic independence, and then to political rights.

Washington remained the head of Tuskegee Institute until his death on November 14, 1915, at the age of 59, of congestive heart failure. Washington’s funeral was held on November 17, 1915, in the Tuskegee Institute Chapel, and was attended by nearly 8,000 people. He was buried on campus in a brick tomb, made by students, on a hill commanding a view of the entire campus.

Under Washington’s leadership, Tuskegee became a leading school in the country. At his death, it had more than 100 well-equipped buildings, 1,500 students, a 200-member faculty teaching 38 trades and professions, and a nearly $2 million endowment. Washington put much of himself into the school’s curriculum, stressing the virtues of patience, enterprise, and thrift. He taught that economic success for African Americans would take time, and that subordination to whites was a necessary evil until African Americans could prove they were worthy of full economic and political rights. He believed that if African Americans worked hard and obtained financial independence and cultural advancement, they would eventually win acceptance and respect from the white community.

In addition to his contributions in education, Washington contributed to the Progressive Era by forming the National Negro Business League. It encouraged entrepreneurship among black businessmen, establishing a national network. Washington also authored and co-authored many books that reflected his ideas on education and society. Up Slavery, his autobiography written in 1901, has been translated into many languages and is still widely read today. He was awarded many honorary degrees, including degrees from Harvard and Dartmouth Universities. The American people recognized his extraordinary achievements with a commemorative US postage stamp in 1940; in 1956 when his birthplace became Booker T. Washington National Monument; and again in 1974, when his residence at Tuskegee Institute, The Oaks, became part of the NPS Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site.”

His work greatly helped blacks to achieve education, financial power, and understanding of the U.S. legal system. This contributed to blacks’ attaining the skills to create and support the civil rights movement, leading to the passage in the later 20th century of important federal civil rights laws.

At iSeek we admire Booker T. Washington’s passion for education and hard work and understand the importance of professional and personal development. We are proud to recognize and celebrate Washington’s accomplishments, legacy, and leadership.

To learn more about Booker T. Washington and his contributions to history visit: https://www.tuskegee.edu/discover-tu/tu-presidents/booker-t-washington

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