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HR A SUPPLEMENT OF THE ZWEIG LETTER
Relationship building: A primer to success It’s not uncommon for relationships to lead to job offers – that’s what happened for Mal Goode! So, take every opportunity to expand your network. O P I N I O N
J ackie Robinson was an iconic sports figure who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier. Robinson was also a natural connector who developed relationships with African-American journalists across the country. One of these journalists was Mal Goode, who wrote for the Pittsburgh Courier . The Courier was a black-owned newspaper in Pittsburgh with a large circulation and national following. Mal would often cover Jackie when the Brooklyn Dodgers came to town to play the Pittsburgh Pirates. They developed a fast friendship, and Jackie would even have dinner with Mal and his fam- ily when in town.
Randy Wilburn
biggest names, including Max Robinson, Ted Kop- pel, and Peter Jennings. You might be wondering: What does this have to do with the design industry and recruitment and retention? Though, the story is a good yarn, and one that few people know about, it’s more important that it highlights the importance of relationships. In the frenetic and fast-moving en- vironment that we live in today, it is difficult to get to know the people that you want to work with. Relationships are one of the easiest ways to build a pipeline of potential candidates that could ulti- mately prove worthy of hiring. I recently did a presentation on recruitment and retention where I discussed the power of relation- ships and how they can lead to so many different opportunities. In the A/E business, we understand this phenom- enon all too well. There is always a client out there that you’ve been champing at the bit to work with, “The design industry offers plenty of opportunities for hiring managers to meet great candidates and create a dialogue with them ... Some relationships will take longer than others to develop, but, if you don’t make the initial effort, the relationship will never happen.”
Over the years, their friendship grew, and after Jackie had retired from baseball they remained in touch. In spring 1962, Jackie was in New York visiting with Jim Haggerty, the head of the ABC News network. Jim had a problem because he needed to find and recruit the network’s first black newscaster. Actually, the first on any network – CBS, NBC, or ABC. Jim asked Jackie if he knew of anyone. One of the first people that came to Jackie’s mind was his friend in Pittsburgh, Mal Goode. Jim asked Jackie to call Mal and get him to New York as soon as possible. Mal took a train to New York from Pittsburgh and interviewed with Jim and the rest of the news team. Goode wrote several “off the cuff” stories for the interview and even did a few test stand-ups to show his ability to deliver the news quickly and accurately. There were over 40 people interviewed for this po- sition, but ABC went with Mal Goode, who was 54 years old. Jim would later tell Mal that one of the reasons that he got the job was his relationship with Jackie. Like Jackie, Mal became a trailblazer of sorts. There’s a little serendipity involved when the first African-American ballplayer in Major League Base- ball has a hand in helping the first African-Ameri- can journalist join the major leagues of television news broadcasting. Goode would go on to have a 10-year career with ABC, where he covered major historical events like the Cuban Missile Crisis; the March on Washing- ton; the assassinations of Malcolm X, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.; and several major Civil Rights stories, including the March to Selma. Goode was also a mentor to some of ABC’s
See RANDY WILBURN, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER NOVEMBER 9, 2015, ISSUE 1127
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