A Conversation with James H. Lowry: Change Agent

James “Jim” H. Lowry recently joined the Human Ventures community for a discussion surrounding his life’s work as a Change Agent, moderated by Seema Mody, a global markets reporter for CNBC. Given Jim’s seasoned experience, he shared thoughtful advice that can be applied in real time by anyone who is looking to make a difference, especially entrepreneurs. We’ve shared some highlights and advice from the conversation below.

James H. Lowry: Change Agent: A Life Dedicated to Creating Wealth for Minorities

As the first African-American consultant for a global consulting firm, McKinsey and Company, in 1968, Jim Lowry has spent his career changing the landscape of corporate America. Later, as the first African-American senior partner at the prestigious Boston Consulting Group, Jim led the firm’s workforce diversity program, ethnic marketing practice, and minority business development practice. Jim continues to serve as a senior advisor to BCG while heading the consulting firm he founded, James H. Lowry and Associates. We highly recommend reading Jim’s new book Change Agent: A Life Dedicated to Creating Wealth for Minorities if you have not already done so. Jim delivers a plan to accelerate economic development in the black community. This book is a road map for the next generation of leaders and will inspire new change agents to take the reins.

It’s all about people.

Jim shared that the most important aspect of your success is the ability to work with people — people are more important than institutions. Jim stated that at the end of the day, people make the decisions — they’re the influencers and the mentors. When reflecting on his life as an entrepreneur, Jim shared that he could not have succeeded without his vast network of friends and allies who were making big decisions and who could write big checks. Getting to know people and building relationships is his top priority. If you try and build something or move forward in your career without a strong network around you, it will be much harder.

To make networking authentic, Jim shared that the most important thing to do before you meet with someone is to try and learn personal details about them. Jim noted that it’s gotten a lot easier to learn details about a person’s career and interests since he was using the Who’s Who books — this research can be done instantaneously today. Once you find out more about the person — their family, what school they went to, what is important to them — the entire conversation will have a different tone. You can establish a personal relationship based on their history and shared interests. Doing your homework will always give you a competitive advantage.

Jim has spent his lifetime mentoring the next generation of talent. Jim shared that this is an important way to expand your perspective and network. However, through the years, he has seen many people approach this relationship dynamic in ways that don’t serve them. He advised that if you’re looking for a mentor, don’t just consider what potential mentors have to offer, put some thought into how you can be a stronger mentee. Jim stated that part of being a good mentee, is giving back to the mentor.

Jim offered a few ways to be a better mentee:

• Show your potential mentors that you want to help them in any way that you can. One way to try this is to just ask at the end of every meeting: “What can I do for you?”
• When you ask for help and you get help from a mentor, remember what the mentor said and show them that you have put their recommendations into practice.
• The next time you see your mentor, don’t fill up the hour talking about you. Fill up the hour talking about how you learned from the advice given by the mentor. Nothing makes a mentor feel better than knowing you gave advice to a young person, they followed your advice, and they do well with your advice.
• Thank your mentor!

Representation in your industry.

Jim urged all of the event attendees to commit to affect change throughout their careers. If you feel that you’re underrepresented in an organization or industry — don’t step down. Even if you feel discouraged by the current state of corporate America, you can be the one to work with or join an organization and affect change. If you affect change for yourself and the companies you work with, it will be a very powerful and positive force on society. Jim advised to think big, build your career, move up and build businesses that employ a lot of people to affect change. Sometimes you will have to get to a higher plateau to really affect change, but to get a seat at the table, you will have to work hard and change the mindset of those around you.

As technology continues to drive revolutions, Jim highlighted the opportunity in Silicon Valley to affect change and infuse capital into businesses led by people of color. Men and women of color must be part of the revolution. Jim shared that for continued progress, we need to factor in building and supporting businesses at all levels. We must continue to support the mom and pop shops and micro-businesses as they’re the anchor of the US free enterprise system. But we also have to focus on creating larger businesses that can employ a lot of people. That starts with funding and supporting businesses led by people of color. Many of the new wave of billionaires in Silicon Valley didn’t have a penny to their name 7–8 years ago. Jim shared that in his book, he wrote about what it would be like to have “10 black billionaires in 20 cities. Just imagine if we had 10 Robert F. Smiths in 20 cities, what an impact that would be on the black communities, on the communities that we live in, in the cities, but even on our nation.” He also shared that people should not be embarrassed to make money! If you get a chance to be at the table because you have wealth, don’t be shy. Be bold, be innovative, be practical, be strategic. If your goal is to affect change, what matters the most is what you do with your wealth and voice when you have it.

Accountability of leadership.

Leadership teams must take accountability to move change forward. Jim has been working with executive teams for decades where he is often the only person of color in the room. He urges leadership teams to be honest with themselves and reflect on their internal culture and histories. It will take bravery from the people of color and the entire C-Suite to move forward. For example, one issue he spoke of was the idea of meritocracy. For the last 30–40 years, leadership teams have told Jim that they believe in meritocracy — but there is a very thin line between subjective and objective meritocracy. If leaders believe in meritocracy, they must be unbiased in their approach. However, sometimes, unconscious bias (attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding in an unconscious way) can creep into decision making. You have to be honest in communicating how your teams will evaluate, mentor, sponsor and promote people. He advised executives to put leadership in place that will make a difference and surround themselves with strong people — hopefully ones who are smarter than they are! The sincerity of a firm’s leaders is very, very important. Until executives take this approach, the numbers will never change.

As you navigate leadership, you must be honest with yourself about some tough realities. You will have to use your voice when you see things that are not right. Change can be difficult and uncomfortable, but Jim advised looking beyond the temporary discomfort to reach the greater goal. Jim left us with this thought: “If all of our actions are quick fixes without thinking about the complexity of what we tried to do, we won’t have our desired results.”

Thank you to Seema Mody and Jim Lowry for the inspiring discussion — we look forward to continuing the conversation with the Human Ventures community!

About Human Ventures

Human Ventures is an early-stage venture fund located in New York City. We invest in ambitious founders who are building in what we call the “Human Needs economy​.” Human Needs encompasses products and services that address material human problems — specifically those in the areas of health and wellness, the future of work and community. In our fall cohort of Humans in the Wild, we are looking to partner with entrepreneurs redefining the future of how we work. If you are building an early stage business in this space, we’d love to hear from you.