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Bruce Gordon: Short Clip
 

Bruce Gordon: Full Interview
 

Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Bruce Gordon back to this program. Yesterday, after 19 months at the helm of the nation's largest and oldest civil rights organization, he announced his resignation as president and CEO of the venerable NAACP. This is his first television conversation since yesterday's announcement. He joins us tonight from NAACP headquarters in Baltimore. Mr. President, nice to have you on the program again, sir.

Bruce Gordon: Tavis, thank you for having me back.

Tavis: It's my pleasure. I guess the obvious question to start our conversation is what happened?

Gordon: It may as much be a conversation, Tavis, about what didn’t happen. I think that any organization that is going to be effective, whether it's a not-for-profit, a civil rights organization, or a private corporation, where there is a board and a chief executive, those two parties have to be totally aligned. The work of organizations in every regard requires the best the organization has to offer.

And if there is a conflict, if there is a misalignment between the parties, then the organization's gonna be suboptimal. It's gonna underperform. I think that we are punching below our weight. I think that the NAACP, for all of the history that we have, for the power of our 2,000 units across this country, for the name recognition of the brand NAACP, I think that we could be a greater force in America, if not the world, than we are. And I take accountability, frankly, for not succeeding at getting the board to approach our work the way that I think we should.

Tavis: When you say the organization is operating at a suboptimal level, vis-à-vis its performance, what do you mean by suboptimal?

Gordon: If you - I'm about results. So, we measure our performance in terms of whether we close gaps. Are we succeeding at getting more African Americans to be tested for AIDS in a measurable way that is impactful? Are we getting more voters registered and more voters out on Election Day? Are we getting more people educated in terms of financial literacy and what is involved to make homeownership a reality?

We are making progress in each of those areas, but I believe we could make far more substantial progress than that. So, it's a matter of whether this 98-year-old institution, with its name recognition and its 2,000 units, is being as impactful as we have the potential to be.

Now to stay with that a bit, Tavis, so you understand. I look at us like a business. I'm a businessman, so I look at this like a business. I look at our 2,000 units like a distribution channel. And I think that distribution channels have to be modernized. They have to operate with state-of-the-art technology. They have to have the capability to turn on a dime. Because civil rights issues, as you well know, pop up in different shapes and forms in communities across this country. So I also believe in peak operating efficiency.

We are not operating as efficiently as we can, and that, in my opinion, requires a remake. We need to reinvent ourselves to take advantage of twenty-first century technology, twenty-first century operating techniques, and I don't find us making progress nearly as quickly as we should in that area.

And as you probably may have picked up in some of the news stories, there is at least one board member who made the observation that I believed that my job was to make the NAACP more effective. She believed that I was wrong about that, and that instead my job was to do what the board told me to do. I don't think that I came on board for that reason whatsoever.

Tavis: To your point about the board now - and this is not to cast aspersion on the NAACP or the board that runs it. I happen to be, full disclosure, a lifetime member of the NAACP. That said, I've had the pleasure, I think, of befriending the last four president and CEOs of this organization. Four of you, I have known. You are the fourth I've known personally.

That said, I can tell you in my private conversations, without divulging too much information, I've not talked to any one of you who, at times, has not confided in me the difficulty of trying to run an organization that has a governing board of 64 people. How much of your difficulty, how much of what's wrong with the NAACP - not to cast aspersion on individuals - has to do with the infrastructure of trying to be the CEO of an organization that has on its board 64 members? There is no other entity in the country, I think, that operates that way.

Gordon: Let me be as balanced and as objective as I can, Tavis, in my response. A 64-person board, under any scenario, is an unwieldy entity to govern. So you're right purely on the surface. The numbers work against us being effective.

But let me also be very clear. There are members of our board who are long-term, committed members of the association. Committed to civil rights. They're bright, they're talented, they're active, and I enjoyed a very productive working relationship with them. It's just that I didn’t have enough.

So yes, listen, this association has been smart enough to examine its approach to government, or governance, should I say. And has, I know, done analysis that concludes that it could do better, but has not really had the appetite to make the changes that can make it even better.

And you're fair in how you asked the question, in that I don't want to cast aspersions on the NAACP. I've learned to love the NAACP in my 19 months here. I value the history of the NAACP, and value the potential impact of the NAACP. What I don't value is a reluctance to be as good as we can become.

You know the book, "Good to Great." I think we're a good organization. But I didn’t come here to manage a good organization. I came here to lead a great organization, or to lead a good organization to greatness. And it's difficult to accomplish that when in fact you’ve got 64 people who have their own points of view on how that should be accomplished.

Tavis: All right, so tell me then how you would respond to persons who would say that Bruce Gordon is a quitter? This is an organization that's been around for a long time. In 2009, as you well know, you will miss being the president and CEO of this organization when it turns 100 years old, as it will in 2009. Civil rights is a long-term struggle, it's not for the faint of heart.

Making progress on these issues where Black folk are concerned takes time. It's never easy trying to represent the least among us. How do you respond to folk who say that Bruce Gordon, after 19 months, just quit?

Gordon: I hate that I even put myself in a position where people can ask that question. And I think it is a very fair question. But I look at it this way: the NAACP is bigger than one person. I'm one person. The NAACP was around before I was born; it should be around long after I'm gone. And I've gotta look at this and ask myself the question, “Am I the person who is gonna be effective in taking this organization where it needs to be?”

And my conclusion has been, despite the confidence I have in myself, despite the skills and the talents that I think I bring to the table that can help the NAACP, I'm not satisfied that I have been nearly as effective as I want to be or I need to be. Which left me with a choice: do I stick this out and underperform, or do I step aside and make room for (inaudible) who may bring a different style and a different set of techniques to the table to take the NAACP forward?

They are bigger than I am in stature, in purpose, and in legacy, and I simply made a choice that I think is in the best interests of the association. I hope that I'm right. But I have to tell you, I'm disappointed that it has gotten to this, and I'm disappointed that I put you in a position where you can ask me the question about being a quitter.

I've never quit anything in my life, and this is (inaudible) that I don't enjoy.

Tavis: Well, I'm glad you indulged me even in answering the question, I appreciate that.

Let me ask you this, then: bigger to you - as you well know, you just referenced how big this organization is - bigger does not always mean better. Is this, first and foremost - your resignation, that is - first and foremost a sign of a relationship between a particular president and CEO and a particular board that just didn’t work?

That happens in corporate America, all across America, civil rights organizations, nonprofits, every day. It could be a simple issue of a board and a CEO not getting along, or there's a larger issue or another issue which is that the organization itself is in trouble. As we approach the one-hundredth anniversary of the NAACP, is this an example, I ask now, of a board and a CEO that didn’t see eye-to-eye, or an organization that is, in fact, in trouble on the eve of its centennial celebration?

Gordon: This is clearly a story about a board and a CEO that could not find a way to productively work together. Let me be very clear about that. But let me also say this: the NAACP has two fabulous assets; a well-recognized brand, and 2,000 operating units across the country. These are assets that could be very, very powerful, but they are underperforming.

There has to be an acceptance, a willingness to change. You can't do the same thing for 98 years and expect that you will succeed. So where we are at risk is in - and I say we, the NAACP and the communities that the NAACP serves - where we are at risk is in accepting what is required in change. And is there a willingness to change the way we do our work?

In business terminology, we would argue that organizations that are no longer customer-focused, who lose the heart of the customer, who lose the choice of the customer, will ultimately fail. I am afraid that at this very point, our organization is more internally focused than we are externally focused, and that keeps us from being great. It allows us to only be good.

I think that the NAACP has powerful potential. Let there be no question in your mind about that. Powerful potential. But that potential will not be realized if we continue to go about our work using twentieth century approaches.

Tavis: Let me offer this as an exit question. Before you got talked into putting your name in the hat to be considered, and ultimately accept, this esteemed position, you were happy - you and your wife Tawana - happy in retirement. You'd been in corporate America 35 years, top executive at Verizon. You were named by "Fortune" magazine as the sixth most powerful African American in all of corporate America. And you came out of retirement to take on this opportunity.

Let me ask, then, whether or not you, nineteen months later, regret having come out of retirement to do this?

Gordon: I do not regret it at all. I thought about it very carefully. I think I said to you when we first met that I considered the possibilities of coming to the NAACP when I saw Kweisi announce his decision to step down. So the notion of taking on this role was something that seemed somewhat natural to me.

I was intimidated when I first was called by the search firm about governance. And I realized that that was a potential pothole. But having considered all of the possibilities, I am glad that I chose to take a shot at leading the NAACP.

I am disappointed that I sit here today talking about my departure only 19 months later. But better to have tried and not succeeded than not to try at all. Our people, our communities, need all of us to value those communities so deeply that we're willing to take chances; that we're willing to make sacrifices.

I took a chance. Tawana and I, as you well know, made huge sacrifices. Because retirement was good. (Laughter) And we missed it fairly instantly. But having said that, we owed it to ourselves, and we owed it to our people, to give this our best shot. I am confident that the both of us gave this our best shot. We came up short. I'm sorry about that, but I have absolutely no regrets about having tried.

Tavis: He is the outgoing president and CEO of the venerable NAACP. His name is Bruce Gordon. I'm certain that whatever he decides to do next, he will be as successful in it as he has been in everything else he's done; indeed, if that requires or demands just sitting on the beach every day.

Bruce Gordon, nice to have you on. All the best to you in the coming months and years, and I'm sure we'll talk again.

Gordon: Thanks so much, my brother.

Tavis: My pleasure. Up next on this program, best-selling financial guru Suze Orman with advice for women and their money. Stay with us.

A couple of quick programming notes here first. Tomorrow night on this program, Rage Against the Machine cofounder Tom Morello will join us with the network television debut of a song off his first-ever solo CD. And then on Wednesday on this program, comedian Chris Rock will join us.