The Magnolio Times — The Beginning
Begin Again, one of my personal favorite phrases. By definition beginning means, “The point of time or space in which anything starts”. This is the beginning of one part of this overall journey others and myself are on. We all tend to think of the positive when it comes to the start of something new. However, this journey has been long and not positive all the time. There are going to be moments where this will be uncomfortable, funny, shows of strength and growth.
The year is early 2017. The season is the dead of winter. The place is Chicago. I was on a snowy and chilly corner headed home from work, with the city looking something like the photo below. I’d spent the entirety of my career working in finance, but I was drained. I needed something different. I couldn’t continue the cycle of forecasting endlessly, planning never ending, month-end close, quarter-close, or year-end close. I didn’t mind creating models, automating, or working with numbers but I knew this was not ultimately where I wanted to be. I asked myself standing in the snow on the corner, “What’s next?”
Opportunity Knocks
Fast forward to October 2018 I started working at a new company, Sprout Social. I had gotten a job working in the Marketing department within Data & Analytics. I was super excited! This was a new start for me and gave me that something that I was looking for. Great culture! Great team! Great perks! Once I completed my onboarding I started getting connected with people across the company. Then I was invited to our recurring Business Resource Groups (BRGs) Black @ Sprout lunch. I met so many great people and was even more excited to have community.
As a couple of weeks went by I was getting acclimated to work and I had lunch with one of my great co-workers, Amber, on the Marketing team. We chatted like normal and she mentioned how she thought it would be great for me to be more involved with our Black @ Sprout leadership team. I happily accepted the opportunity and started to help plan for Black History Month 2019. The majority of what I did at this point was mostly learning what they were working on and how I could help, whether that was drafting communications, providing ideas, etc. It’s cliche, but no matter what you do make sure you show up. Take the opportunity and dive in! You never know where opportunities can lead in your life. You might be able to craft a new job, generate a business idea, get a mentor and so much more by taking an opportunity.
Unfortunately, my first time with the leadership team didn’t last long. Within my first two and half months of being at Sprout, two brilliant women who helped lead ultimately were leaving Sprout before the year’s end. The remaining people on our leadership team had roles that evolved and needed to take a step back for the upcoming year. That left my co-worker Cornelia, who worked on our People team, and me who would be taking on for 2019. I was a little nervous because we had spent our entirety planning for Black History Month and events that were coming up in a few weeks but half the people involved could no longer be involved. I asked myself, “What now?”
One day as I walked to my desk Cornelia asked if I’d plan to assist in leading but that we would have a more formal ask during our next Black @ Sprout lunch. I thought about it and said to myself, “This would be great! Wait…I’ve only been here barely three months. I’m still trying to get ramped up on my regular job. Should I take this opportunity so early? Am I even eligible?” I decided to myself that someone else would more than likely take the role so no worries.
At our next Black @ Sprout lunch the question was in more words, “Who wants to step up and be a part of leading Black @ Sprout?”. I looked around the room hoping to see a bunch of raised hands of people who would lead us into the future, however, there were none. As I looked around the room more people were looking at each other as if the other person would raise their hand. I looked at Cornelia, and then I looked at our Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Director Michelle. The three of us looked at each other and then they both looked at me.
Multiple thoughts were running through my mind at this point. The first was I knew we needed leadership but I didn’t know if that was for me to take on. Second is I was not entirely sure of what I was signing myself up for. I wasn’t aware of the time commitment, what conversations I would be involved in, or really anything. I had been involved in BRGs in the past but didn’t understand everything about Sprout or any of our BRGs at the time, other than I loved the people. I raised my hand nonetheless. At the same time Cornelia officially raised her hand. Then we really wanted one other person to join, in particular a male. Then Richard, who worked on our Sales team, stepped up.
Even with my thoughts I told myself this will be great! Even if you don’t feel ready remember if you wait, you’ll be waiting forever. A piece of advice that I given recently was, “You’re getting caught up on the title, remember this isn’t something that you’re immediately ready for but that you will grow into.” If you don’t have any long resume of experience or maybe you’re just doubting yourself trust that you will learn and you will make mistakes. However, in continuing on that path you’ll grow and stand out in future endeavors that you want.
When Doubt Comes Around
Our new leadership team over the next couple of months led in the planning of lunches, chatting about retention, discussing hiring, attending events, giving donations, Juneteenth, Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, various social posts, videos, and more. Then I found myself alone. Alone in ideation. Alone in planning. Alone in scheduling. Alone in trying to build something better for us. After a mere 9 months together all of my team once again had moved on from Sprout. At this point I wish the story went like, “I pushed through and built something great by myself from the ground up”, but to be quite frank we needed something new.
In this season of being alone that started a cycle of regret for me. I was saying to myself, “Ugh, I am an utter failure. Why did I do this? We’ve barely accomplished all that we needed. Now everyone is gone. I should just quit.” For me, this was an utter failure in what I felt was my poor leadership. A lot of that negativity stemmed from my own thoughts rather than what was actually happening around me. I got in my own way by thinking of the experiences I had within previous companies BRGs and comparing. No wonder I felt it was my own poor leadership. I was measuring myself against something that didn’t match where I was in my overall journey, what is relevant to where I am today, and didn’t match the circumstances for what I needed to do now. Whenever you encounter that sense of doubt, whether by fault of your own or not, remember where you are now and why you started. You could be at a point in time and space where something else will begin.
I made a decision that it was time to start over. The biggest thing on my mind to solve was retention and involvement in our BRG. In my less than a year with Sprout I’d seen a revolving door of Black people. However, I wanted to figure out why. The questions on my mind were, “Why didn’t people stay? Is it development? Is it money? Is it culture?” We all clearly enjoyed being with each other for our lunches, having fun chats on Slack and more. Furthermore, no one wanted to be involved in leadership. I asked myself even more, “Why are people not involved? Is it the time commitment? Not understanding their role on the team? The benefits of being in this role?”
Taking some time with those questions in mind, I wrote down the advantages of being on leadership and the overall vision of what we could be through a list of ideas. I listed how in these roles we could impact hiring, internal development, sponsoring people for conferences, providing monetary value for classes or getting advanced degrees, and so much more. I knew at the time, even now, that this would take years to accomplish. However, I wrote them down anyway. Through creating that vision it provided hope and an idea to work towards even if it was 3 years, 5 years or 10 years down the line.
I had confidence that all of this was possible, but at the same time was truly scared to do it. My capacity would be over it’s max. I already had my day to day role at Sprout to think about, my external activities through volunteering and more so I wasn’t sure it was the wisest decision to take this on. However, I loved our BRG and wanted to find ways to push us forward.
Asking for Help
Around the same time, through some encouragement from my mentor Lindsay and manager Marie, I applied to be on our DEI leadership team to help Sprout grow into being a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive company. I saw this as an opportunity to help craft and see the long-term vision of Sprout as it relates to DEI that I could then translate to my role in Black @ Sprout.
Shortly after that, all the BRGs leads received an email that we would be revamping our groups to have more structure such as having two leaders per BRG, a secretary, finance lead to manage our budget, and more. This change would make it easier for us to know who to go to while providing more tangible management and leadership skills in building a team. This was the start of me being able to create something new. I knew I needed help and the overall framework that they provided would be beneficial to get us started.
First, I knew I needed to focus my time on finding a co-lead. I sent multiple slack messages with an application, set up a few 1:1s with people who I thought would be interested, informally chatted with people in the lunch area. However, everyone said they couldn’t or didn’t want to commit. I decided to send one last slack message to rally everyone to apply to be a co-lead. I checked a day later and I had one response. Not what I was hoping, but chatting with enough people got me one.
After I had officially closed the application for co-leads I decided to set up a meeting to chat about Black @ Sprout with my one respondent. At first I was sure with all that I was spewing at my hopefully new co-lead, Christopher Korokeyi, about what had happened the last several months, the current state of our BRG, and where I had envisioned us going that he was about to get up and walk out the door. Thankfully he stuck around! Even though we both knew this would be a challenge and that we needed something unique, we pushed forward. You don’t have to do the work alone. You can ask for help when you need it. This was something larger than just what I wanted but what we all wanted.
The first thing we decided on was, how do we figure out what our people want? How do we figure out what they need? We set up 1:1 with over 90% of our BRG members to chat with them. How did they get to Sprout? What did they like to do outside of work? What did they have a passion for? It was great! We were both learning about people in a new way and understanding the commonalities that brought us all to Sprout. After some thought we decided that the structure outlined for us as a BRG didn’t work. Thus, we created something new and based our leadership model on a design team. We were nervous, but knew that trying something different would only move us to where we want to be. We understood that we would be going against the status quo. However, once we presented the new structure we received a lot of positive feedback!
Black, Black, Black, Black on Black.
Fast forward to the new year, 2020, we had to hit the ground running. We hadn’t had a chance to meet fully as a leadership team and Black History Month (BHM) was coming up. I started receiving slack message after message about Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Day, our monthly DEI guild meeting, events internal and external for BHM, communications planning, meeting with our Executive Sponsor and what our plans were for the rest of the year so that everyone else could adequately plan. The project manager in me kicked in so I took a step back and helped us tackle one thing at a time. We created some programming for MLK day and found ways for everyone to be involved. Easy! Next, speakers for our DEI guild which ended up being Chris, one our wonderful Sales Leaders Romaine, and me. Easy! What can we do to celebrate BHM? We’re going to create a mural and showcase content created for and about Black people throughout the month. Easy! We need a topic for us, as speakers, to discuss for the DEI guild and a title. Easy! Actually none of this was easy and pretty much was back to back meetings and planning that took me away from my actual job for way more than the original estimate of 2–3 hours per week.
In the midst of all this planning, I remembered that I had to speak for the DEI guild. Our topic was about Unsung Heroes in Black History and relating them to our personal stories. I started thinking of what personal story I wanted to share. I didn’t want something dark, but I didn’t want something shiny as well to just make others feel better. All the while I needed to connect this to a figure. The whole thought process of it all had me hyperventilating especially with the crunch. Then the age-old friend sinks in, called comparison, in the figures and stories that everyone else had versus mine which was still incomplete.
I started researching and jotting down ideas. Literally nothing was coming to mind. Then I thought about my family. In particular my grandmother and her sisters. In that moment I had done some research on Annie Malone. I decided to make craft my story there. I was so nervous and as I was practicing I didn’t think this would take a lot of energy speaking about my family but looking at the pictures on the screen brought on wonderful memories that made me miss them all the more.
Once I told everyone, “Thanks for joining and have a great rest of your day.” I felt a sense of relief. After hearing positive feedback from people in the room I stuffed some snacks down my throat and attended a happy hour with my co-workers. I took the next day off because I was exhausted. The last few months were rewarding but a lot. Receiving all the feedback and seeing how we were already making progress was exciting! I loved doing the work and seeing the impact that we could make. I made sure we accepted every opportunity and as expected from the great group that we have we over-delivered.
After one day off, that I actually spent with the flu, we turned our eyes toward building up our leadership team. This was equal parts important but fun! We met and all brainstormed together. We talked about what we all valued the most and how we would describe what is Black @ Sprout.
Looking Back To See Forward
As we were brainstorming, I took a moment to think. There are a few stories of earlier parts of life that you remember and this one has always stuck with me. I grew up in the Western Suburbs of Illinois. However, my parents grew up on the West Side of Chicago in areas that you might here called West Garfield Park, K-Town, and more. When I was in preschool I attended a school called St. Martin De Porres in that area. My teacher’s name was Ms. Jordan. I loved her and she loved me. I was convinced at the time that she was related to Michael Jordan because they had the same last name. However, she adamantly told me that was not true, but as a kid I was not convinced.
I remember being so excited about seeing her and going to class to be with my friends. I can still describe to you the building, the classroom, and even the smell. I only stayed there a short time but that school has left a lasting impression on me. Before my siblings and I went too far in our education within the city we moved. My parents knew they didn’t want us to stay in the city because of their experience in that neighborhood. They knew a potential of fates that awaited us if we stayed.
So we moved to the western suburbs. When I got to kindergarten it was as if I’d been hit by a brick. My teacher didn’t seem to really like me and it was difficult to break into a new environment. For the most part, I’m a fairly quiet and reserved person. However, my teacher didn’t seem to know how to interact with me and unfortunately took me being quiet for me not being able to learn. She recommended that I be held back because I “couldn’t” do anything out loud. My mother opposed that and I remember her saying I would be staying behind at school one day.
My mother told me, “Wait”. I’m sure you’ve had a moment where you see your parents are upset, without knowing the exact words they are saying. I could feel the energy of my mother, in more or less words, telling this lady what she could do with trying to hold me back. The next thing my mother told me was, “Kris, come here. I want you to turn your back and count until I tell you to stop.” I turned my back so quick and started counting. I counted to over 100 by the time that she told me to stop.
That feeling I had when we all started discussing what we valued and what we thought about when it comes to Black @ Sprout allowed me to think back to that experience and all the experiences I’ve had, positive and negative. I knew that Black @ Sprout was a place for us to thrive. Where our potential wasn’t questioned. Where we are able to fully be ourselves, the same way I felt in preschool, just free to do. Free to try something new. Free to make mistakes and learn from them. Free to bring up an idea off the beaten path. Free to learn in the way most comfortable for us. Take that same energy and put it back into our day to day to roles at Sprout. It has been so great to see people come up with ideas, to see agreement and disagreement, and to laugh endlessly at each other. That is what we have created and is ever-evolving into what we put into the world.
Turning towards Action
As we progressed in our time together we created leadership principles on how we show up, how we stand out, how we over-deliver, and how we stay grounded. Through all the work we did in the first couple of months of 2020 we really understood what we wanted to create based on who we are individually. Because of this, we have had triumphs with the creation of our Black @ Chats to foster development within our BRG. The continued fun of community at our lunches for us to get to that level of discussing anything and everything. We even began to get a podcast started. Then we decided to launch a blog that would showcase our voices. We started our plan to get the blog off the ground with design conversations, drafting articles for each of our principles, creating our content calendar, and more. Even with COVID we found a way to thrive and move forward.
Then it seemed like the entire world changed. The last week of May 2020 was a long week. I wasn’t quite sure how to navigate my feelings that week following the murder of George Floyd and the actions of Amy Cooper. I kept thinking more about my family, my friends, and Black @ Sprout more than anything. For me, this didn’t hurt any differently than it had any other time but how it hit differently for everyone else outside of our community is what made it harder for me to navigate my feelings.
A few years ago I worked at a consulting firm and after the deaths of Philando Castille and Alton Sterling we had a discussion as an entire firm. We brought in an external speaker who led in our discussions. He was phenomenal! He explained how the events over the last couple of weeks affected us. What I loved that he talked about in particular is that for Black people when something happens we all instantly feel that. No matter where you are in the world there is something within all of us that pulls you to that moment as if it has personally happened to you. The truth is that it does. It may not have been in our family particularly, but we all know someone like Philando Castille, Alton Sterling, George Floyd, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, whether they are family or not.
I could have simply liked some slack posts, re-posted on Instagram what everyone should do, and chat only with my family and friends. However, I decided that it was time to do something where people understood the depth of this problem. It was Thursday night May 28th and all night I was just writing. I would need to take breaks and a couple of deep breaths. I kept my family up all night reading to them this letter. Finally at some point that evening I stopped writing. I created the best of what I could muster after feeling every emotion on the spectrum from anger to grief to frustration to tiredness.
I sent the letter in the morning and flurried to get edits from the rest of our leadership team. We all rallied around it and shared that out internally. The positive messages that we all received made me remember why I wanted to work at Sprout. So I amend my statement from earlier in saying that we not only have a great culture and team we have a supportive and actionable culture because of everyone who works at Sprout.
Thankfully, Sprout wanted to release the letter externally. I had partnered with our social and communications team to draft some commentary. Once the letter was released and what I thought would be a sigh of relief brought on more emotions than I wanted to handle. Internally I was spinning. In the midst, we’d been asked to help with our June DEI Guild to talk about turning Allyship into Action when it comes to Black Lives. I was excited because while I was emotionally spent this was a time for us to continue on this wave of support that we received.
Begin Again
Chris and I helped plan the June DEI guild and received great feedback again from everyone. However, throughout the entire planning I mostly was drained. I crafted the best message that I could explaining that everyone needs to do their part when it comes to systemic racism. The countless slacks and emails that we received were greatly appreciated. Even though I found myself tired on every level I was happy, but frustrated. I was happy to see some progress, but frustrated that it took this for everyone to see. Nonetheless, we will continue to push forward. We were able to get a Friday off in June to take action, going forward we would always have Juneteenth off for work, and we created a list of commitments to our community.
How does that bring us here to this moment? Even through all that struggle for all of us what stayed true is our commitment to each other and what we set out to do. Even though this blog is not living and breathing until now we have been living it for a long time and have a lot to share. While this has been full of many ups and downs for us over the last several years I am so excited for what you’re going to see.
I joined the Black @ Sprout leadership team with not a lot of knowledge, but it’s been one of the greatest pleasures of my life. It has brought community, courage, strength, opportunity, laughter, disaster, and more. It’s a space that has allowed me and others to be fully known. I’m so proud of this team and the people you’re going to meet along this new beginning. I started with my beginning and the many of my transitions over the last 2+ years. All beginnings eventually converge somewhere. This is the beginning of the Magnolio Times.
