Black MBA - Winter 2007/2008 - (Page 62) CAREER Best Practices I’m Smarter Now…. MBAs Share Best Practices By Temple Hemphill Name: Lydia McKinley-Floyd, Ph.D. MBA: University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill., 1975 Company/Title: Florida Agriculture and Mechanical University, Dean of the School of Business & Industry Lydia McKinley-Floyd, Ph.D., can relate to students faced with complications and challenges. More than 30 years ago, she juggled college and being the single mother of a young son. On the verge of quitting after an eight-year struggle, she recalls having heard a motivational speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago, Ill. “He said, ‘One day the door is going to be open, and your job is to be ready.’” Determined not to have doors shut in her face even if it meant kicking them down, McKinley-Floyd finished her degree and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago before landing a teaching position at Morehouse College. As fate would have it, she taught Dr. King’s daughter, Bernice, in a joint class available to Spelman College students. Perhaps with the further intervention of fate, several 62 BlackMBA • Winter 2007/2008 • www.nbmbaa.org ©Powell Photography “You must stay centered on family, values and spirituality. I guarantee those things are more important than career success.” IF YOU’RE DETERMINED to have the best professional year ever, embarking on an honest exploration of past and present practices is a great start. Take a look at your “Best Practices” – skills that help maximize your performance and pleasure in life – and begin to ask the tough questions: What have I gotten right? How are my decision-making skills? Am I connecting the dots in my career? If my career is at a standstill, what role am I playing in its current status? What do I really want out of life? Even if most of these questions were easy – and they aren’t – the last question alone should make you reach for the best possible “right answer.” For all these questions, however, there are no universally right or wrong answers. The four MBAs profiled in the following pages agree that identifying and honing their Best Practices means doing what works for the individual. All in different stages of their careers, in different professions and areas of the country, they nonetheless agree that recognizing and developing Best Practices can anchor you for turbulent times in the workplace. http://www.nbmbaa.org
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