CHAPTER
11
Welfare to Work
Helping anyone who is in any way disadvantaged is at Herb’s very core. So when President Johnson declared a War on Poverty during his State of the Union Address on January 8, 1964, Herb was in. With both feet.
“The president was responding to a national poverty rate that was nearing 20 percent,” Herb says. “With a vision of a Great Society, President Johnson wanted to expand our government’s role in education and healthcare. The policies he was introducing reminded me of what President Franklin Roosevelt was doing with the New Deal, when I was a child,” Herb adds. “I was also reminded of my job at the Department of Welfare, where I felt frustrated and ineffective; I was seeing the need, but unable to do anything to make a difference. Contributing to President Johnson’s War on Poverty, I believed, was my chance to take all that I had learned and developed and help create a new, more positive outcome for people who had potential but could not see a way out of their situation. I saw it as an opportunity to hopefully reinvent a new future for many people.”
It was as though his past was coming back with another chance.
“Taking the president’s lead, Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Office of Economic Opportunity. That’s the door where I went knocking,” he recalls.
It was there that Herb met Sargent Shriver, known as the architect of the War on Poverty, who became the first director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Herb would also get to know Robert Kennedy, who, as the attorney general at the time, was very interested in the promise of this new program. “Sargent Shriver believed in us and gave us an initial grant of $198,000 to staff an office and conduct our first project in San Juan, Puerto Rico, called Programa de Nuevas Oportunidades, which translates into ‘New Opportunities Program.’ Our successful placement of what were known as ‘chronically unemployed’ individuals in that program enabled us to get an additional grant for the next year. Through our in-depth assessment of an individual’s potential, we ended up matching over 350 hard-core unemployed individuals to productive sales jobs in the San Juan area. They wound up working for Shell Oil, phone companies, and newspapers. They were getting real jobs that helped set their life in a new direction.”
Herb dove into this project and gave it all he had. “David kept the day-to-day stuff moving forward, our more traditional work, if you will, while I focused on the potential and growth of this project. I had to hire people, train them on how to interpret our assessment and consult with clients, find companies willing to take a chance on this new approach, and create a network of applicants who were looking for a new beginning. It was around-the-clock.”
Where would he find people who had the ability to consult with clients?
“I was always looking, always trying to piece it together. I heard a blind musician playing piano in a club in Queens. So, as I got to know him, I sensed he could read and connect with people really well, and he spoke Spanish. Our assessment confirmed all that and more. So Angelo Henri came to work with us on this project, and stayed on as a consultant with us afterwards for quite a while.” Pausing, Herb adds, “That was one of my favorite parts of being an entrepreneur: sensing someone’s potential and being able to do something about helping him or her realize that potential.”
He adds, “Along the way, I had to ‘sell’ or convince executives of companies we had never worked with in Puerto Rico that it was worth taking a shot to hire someone who had never held a job where they earned more than $1,800 a year—but who we had determined had real potential.” Shaking his head, he says, “It was a hard sell. No doubt about it. Sure, I would tell them about the tax breaks they would receive. And I would try to appeal to their social conscience, but I had to prove it would work. Fortunately, we began building stories early on. For instance, we had hired a babysitter, Maria. But after assessing her, we saw that she had sales and even sales management ability. So we put her through two weeks of job readiness training. She was then brought on by a large mutual fund sales organization that put her through their sales training program. She became the first woman to be licensed to sell mutual funds in Puerto Rico, and six months after her initial training, she came back to the program to hire five people to work for her,” Herb says, smiling. “So we lost a babysitter, but gained a wonderful success story.
“On the heels of that program, Leon Levy and Jack Nash asked if we could help them hire people who had never had a job before for Oppenheimer & Company. They were impressed by the work we had done in Puerto Rico, and both of them had such a strong social conscience, which I admired greatly. At this point we were expanding beyond sales positions to virtually every position—including clerical, technical, administrative, professional, managerial, and leadership. Interestingly, the most difficult thing for us at that time was finding applicants who were willing to think of themselves and their possible futures in a more positive light. I remember, it actually took a lot of coaxing and convincing to get applicants to open up to new possibilities for themselves.”
Toward the end of the 1960s, Caliper received a $2.88 million grant, funded by the United States Department of Labor and the National Alliance of Business, to help people move from welfare to the workplace in New York City. “With that, we had to move our offices from the little apartment at 175 West 13th Street to 404 Fifth Avenue,” Herb recalls. “At that point, we went from having a dozen people to 96.”
That is transformational for a company. How did that change his approach to leading, let alone the culture of this very young company?
“Well, we had an advantage in that we knew how to assess everyone’s potential, so that helped us hire people who had the inherent talent and would fit in with us,” Herb says, smiling. “I also believe that because of the nature of the work we were doing—helping people in an innovative and meaningful way—that the people who wanted to work with us were very committed and focused.”
Herb adds, “Our success that first year led to the fastest 4.69 million dollars I have ever received in my life. I walked into the Department of Labor office on 9th Avenue in New York, and 15 minutes later, I got a grant that was nearly double the size of the original grant to continue the program for another year. Over the course of those two years, before administrations changed and the War on Poverty was being dismantled, we placed over 3,600 ‘hard-core unemployed people’ in 55 job categories with 52 New York area companies.”
Helping people move from welfare to work connected Herb’s past with the promise of a new future. Strands were connected—from rooting for the underdog, to experiencing prejudice as a child, to being beaten up on his way to school, to writing his dissertation about disadvantaged groups, to trying, fruitlessly, to help people at the Department of Welfare, to being an integral part of the War on Poverty. Ironically, while he had initially pursued a request from an insurance company to help them find a way to hire more effective salespeople, he ultimately found a way to help people from all walks of life discover their true potential.
For Herb, everything was expanding—his company as well as his vision of what could be. “We assessed over 7,000 people in New York, and placed over half of them,” he says. “What was exciting was they were for every job under the sun and the turnover was very low. Most of them succeeded. Not all of them, surely, but most of them, which was unheard of. And, to make things better, some of the success stories were truly inspiring,” he says, nodding, as if in agreement, as he remembers.
Among his favorite stories is of Georgie, a 22-year old man from Harlem, whose only previous employment was some deliveries and scattered odd jobs. When he was assessed, it was discovered, as his counselor put it, “that Georgie could sell sand in the Sahara Desert.”
Herb recalls, “We told Georgie that we wanted to refer him to a life insurance company that was participating in our program. He literally laughed and asked, ‘What’s life insurance’? He totally ridiculed the idea of being a salesperson, particularly the idea of attempting to learn a profession about which he had absolutely no knowledge. It took several counseling sessions to finally get Georgie to laughingly admit that maybe he did have some sales ability. ‘I guess I can sell,’ he said, as he realized how easy it was for him to convince his friends to go along with some of his ideas. Georgie went for an interview and was hired on the spot. And, within two years of acquiring his license, Georgie became a member of the Million Dollar Roundtable.”
There is a final success story from this program, which is perhaps closest to Herb’s heart. A young man named Ralph fell asleep while taking the personality assessment early one morning. “We were concerned that drugs might be involved,” Herb says, “but, as it turned out, Ralph had tended bar until 2 a.m. that morning and was simply exhausted at 7:30 in the morning. In any case, this assessment indicated that he had management ability. There was one problem, however. He had a rap sheet, and it was a rather extensive one. There were no violent crimes, but there were enough arrests and convictions to block him from consideration for most companies. Gimbels, the department store, however, had some very good experiences with a number of people that we had recommended to them, so they took a chance on Ralph. As it turned out, he received several promotions within two years. He was even in a position to hire some people from within our program. And when my daughter was born, my wife and I received a dozen roses from Ralph, with a note saying, ‘To a new life, from a life you saved.’ “
Through his in-depth approach to uncovering an individual’s potential, Herb helped over 4,000 “hard-core” unemployed individuals move from welfare to work for the first time in their lives. “This, to me, remains the most significant experience of my professional life,” Herb says. “We were able to provide conclusive evidence that the unemployed and underemployed are an untapped and exceptionally rich source of talent. Not only did the people we placed succeed, but many were promoted and moved on to managerial positions. And in the follow-up after two years, it was found that fewer than 3 percent had been terminated because of their inability to do the job. These programs proved my hypothesis—that ability exists across the population, regardless of what individuals have or have not done in the past. What matters is what someone can do, not what they have done.”
Herb concludes, “Ultimately what this means is that there is no shortage of candidates with the potential to succeed. What leaders and managers need to do is open themselves up to looking in places where they might not have before. Throughout my life I have fought against this human tendency to limit what people can do. I strongly believe that we are not merely what we have done. We are who we can be. Don’t let the past limit you or anyone around you. Be open to yours and someone else’s potential.
“My strong advice,” he adds, “as you look to uncover someone’s potential, is to realize that you cannot give someone the right attitude. An applicant who possesses a positive attitude is bringing you an enormous gift. In fact, the best training companies we have worked with confirm that you can teach skills, but you cannot teach attitude. Whenever you come across an applicant with the right attitude and with the potential to succeed, you have found someone worth investing in because they possess the essential foundation on which you can develop your next top performer.”
Hiring in Your Own Image
When you are looking to hire for an important position, how can you find someone who has the qualities you are looking for?
Maybe you could start by looking in the mirror. Obviously, you’re driven to succeed. So all you need to do is hire people who are more like you. Right?
The truth is that nothing could be more wrong.
“What we all need to keep in mind is that it is only natural for us to want to work with people whom we like,” Herb says. “We all tend to like people who are most like ourselves. For better or worse, it’s just human nature.”
That’s why we are all fascinated whenever we meet identical twins. They can make people do a double take as they enter a room together. Ultimately, they are as close—genetically speaking—as two people can be on this planet. And it makes them feel special—particularly when they are together.
If you think about it, when identical twins see each other from across a crowded room, they know that they are with the one person on this planet with whom they have the most in common.
Liking someone who reminds us of ourselves is just human nature. We can’t help ourselves.
That’s why, without being conscious of it, we often end up hiring people with whom we have much in common. Maybe they have the same hobby that we do. Or there is just that special chemistry. Whatever the connection, it usually starts with having something in common.
Then we end up saying, “There’s something about that person I really like. I’m not quite sure exactly what it is. But they remind me of someone I’m very fond of. Let’s see. Who could it be?”
As Herb notes, “Of course, we don’t want to surround ourselves with people who get on our nerves. But if you hire an entire staff of people just like you, you will inevitably create an unbalanced organization. We have to remember that a staff with all of our strengths and virtues will also share our faults and shortcomings.”
So they will help us stay right where we are, not help us grow to where we need to be.
Growth
Tom Gartland, former president, North America of Avis Budget Group, shared with us, “You have to keep in mind that you are hiring someone for a certain position, but you are also hiring that individual for the future. Knowing everyone’s growth potential is vital to the growth of our organization.”
Herb underscores, “What you really want to know is whether a promising applicant can grow with your company. Does he or she ‘get’ what you and your company are about? Can you see them years from now, contributing to your company in even more meaningful ways? Are they in it for the long haul?”
How can you tell if someone has the ability to grow with your company?
“While growth is related to an individual’s ability to acquire new information and view situations from a fresh perspective, it is not merely a reflection of intelligence,” Herb notes. “Some people, while being very bright, are so opinionated, rigid, and dogmatic that they use their intelligence to reinforce and defend their preconceptions. In other words, they use their intelligence to build a wall around themselves, selecting evidence that supports what they already believe to be correct and ignoring all conflicting ideas and facts.” Such individuals, unwittingly, use their intelligence to keep themselves from growing. “We have come across individuals whose IQ was in the genius range, but who were not capable of growing beyond their current job,” Herb adds. “Being able to grow, on the other hand, involves intellectual capacity, but it also requires the empathy to understand those around them and themselves while also possessing the flexibility of mind to ponder and seek new ideas and methods.”
Questions to Ask Yourself About Being Optimistic
These questions are posed for you to consider as you create your own vision, tap into your personal strengths, and pursue your own leadership journey. Your answers to these questions will help you understand how optimism factors into your approach to leadership. You are encouraged to consider these questions at different times, as your answers will undoubtedly evolve and change as your leadership journey unfolds.
1. When do you feel you are at your very best?
2. How could you create more of those experiences?
3. When things do not go your way, what is your first thought?
4. How much control do you believe you have over negative events?
5. How much control do you believe you have over positive events?
6. Do negative events upset you more than positive events please you?
7. Do you believe that most people are optimistic or pessimistic?
8. Do you consider yourself mostly optimistic, mostly pessimistic, or somewhere in between?
9. Do you surround yourself with people who are mostly optimistic or mostly pessimistic?
10. What makes you smile?
