When is a company empowered? For me, this goes beyond a mere stamp of verification. It is when there is a sustained sense that there are no unfair obstacles preventing you from realising your potential. As this is a sustained state, there is no need to celebrate occasional events of affirmation.
Presently the appointment of black people to senior leadership positions is preceded by cumbersome debates or tentativeness and sometimes there are subtle machinations to circumscribe their authority.
If the general sense is that white culture and outlook are still the norm in business, then white superiority persists. This is not a black or white issue because black executives can perpetuate the status quo if they are concerned only with meeting numerical empowerment targets and if their leadership is not transformative.
Many companies are now classified as “black-empowered” companies to great acclaim and fanfare. Respected and legitimate institutions and entities accord them privileges and preference because, according to the legal formulae, they are now black-empowered. But this is merely an interim state; an indication that companies are on the right path to embracing full empowerment.
We need to ask why there are not many black people who say proudly: “I work for a black-empowered company.”
Even black people working in perennial winners or top-10 companies in BEE ratings do not seem to share the euphoria and I often encounter a quiet cynicism among them. There seems to be a disjuncture between what is measured, how it is measured and the expectations of the beneficiaries.
Political scientist Robert Mattes’s paper, Democracy Without People, explores the institutionalisation of democracy in the new South Africa. He writes that “new democracies and their constituent institutions become consolidated only when they become ‘legitimated’ or when an overwhelming majority see democracy as “the only game in town”.
In the same way, black empowerment has yet to be institutionalised. There will be a serious deficiency if the ratings that companies obtain and the honourable passage to preferential treatment as a consequence leaves the supposed beneficiaries cold.
Mattes adds that “new democracies consolidate when a high proportion of citizens demand democracy, and also believe they are receiving sufficient levels of democracy from their political regime, and when this condition is obtained over time.”
The failure of business to produce sufficient levels of empowerment would be an indictment. We are not yet seeing sufficient empowerment that is sustainable over a period of time. It is still too stop and start.