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Excerpts from Cracking the Corporate Code

Lawrence Jackson and Ron Parker worked together at Pepsi to convince senior management of the value of diversity. Jackson provided the "juice"; he was a valued and outspoken line manager. Parker was an HR manager with an inclusive style. They were an effective team. Jackson captured the attention of key executives, and Parker kept them interested.

Said Jackson: "There's a point in life where you're going to get run over unless you stand up and say, 'Look, things have to change.' Part of that is the role you are willing to play. I'm more willing to be outspoken than most. If you really want to be king, you have to be careful, because it can come back at you. But once I settled in my own head I would not be king at Pepsi, I pushed even harder.

None of the initiatives Pepsi has would be going down today if we hadn't worked there. As the only black line manager and then the only vice president, I was in a position to protect all the corporate people trying to promote diversity. I had the power - the line results, the budget - so nobody could discredit me.

"If we wanted 50 people to meet, and just the idea of that kind of meeting made the upper executives go nuts, I could walk over and say, 'You got a problem, man?' Because of what I built, I was able to call them out. We were partners in crime for years and really did some great stuff. We accomplished things other companies would never have even attempted, partly because my style was good for some things, and Ron's style was good for other things. As you grow older, you understand people get pissed off by certain antics, and some of the things I did, I can't believe. I might do things differently with what I know today, but I'm not convinced I wasn't right."

Parker developed programs to begin a concerted diversity effort at Pepsi. "We worked with a consultant to start the Black Professional Association at Pepsi and got an audience with the president. We all thought we were going to be fired when we went to see him. We were not so much worried about the president per se, but we expected problems with his middle management team. When you try to change a large organization, you are not necessarily thought of as courageous.

"I recall a session with our consultants. We had black/white teams do role playing around race dynamics for managers. The president joined us for the morning and was so intrigued he cancelled all his appointments for the afternoon. The simulation involved a black manager who had been passed over several times for promotion, and a white manager letting him know, once again, someone else had been chosen. Lawrence volunteered to be the black manager, and one of the group presidents volunteered to be the white manager. We had a blast. Talk about making people uneasy. The president was sitting in the audience, and we were