Rittenhouse’s Unwanted Network Power
My professional world has returned back to how it was in 2019. My business is experiencing an uptick after many stress filled months, or was it years, with the pandemic forcing operations to pivot. This past week, I got a glimpse of what my business like before the 2020 pandemic. I planned and ran a panel discussion for Startup Week Green Bay, coordinated a table for the Women’s Fund of Greater Milwaukee and showcased three MalamaDoe women business owners at exhibitor tables at Milwaukee’s Women of Influence Symposium. After spending these last three days at these events greeting colleagues with a hug and smiling at newfound change agents, I am thrilled to collaborate with them. As we work on our vision to move the needle for equity for women business owners forward, hope lingered in the air. Yet, many times with two steps foward, we must take one step back. This entire week, I, along with many in the nation, had been awaiting the jury to give an important verdict on the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. The verdict finally arrived on Friday afternoon.
The moment when I learned of the verdict, I was sitting in the Pfister ballroom filled with over 250 energized Milwaukee Business Journal’s Women of Influence Symposium attendees. As we listened to the gifted and humorous Deanna Singh’s inspirational talk about Living a Life with Purpose, I glanced down at my email. Unfortunately, when I did this, my world stopped. After four days of jury deliberations, the verdict was in — Rittenhouse Cleared on All Counts. I had hoped a jury would find a seventeen year old male carrying a AR-15 rifle to be in the wrong, especially since he murdered two men, wounded a third and endangered countless others (Source: Bruce Vielmetti and Bill Glauber, “Jury Sees Shootings as Self-Defense,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, November 20, 2021, accessed November 20, 2021). But, it was not to be. In Kenosha, less than an hour away from where I sat, Kyle Rittenhouse was exiting the courthouse a free man.
As the news sunk in, I continued to listen to Deanna Signh message of serving others. As I had been serving the network of blossoming women business owners all week while building my network power, I pondered what is next for Kyle Rittenhouse. I knew one thing is for sure, he has a lot of choices. Why? That young man has network power.
Network Power is very important. It plays a key role in our success as defined by the book Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t. In it, the author Jeffery Pfeffer details
“Power and influence come not just from the extensiveness of your network and the status of its members, but also from your structural position within that network. Centrality matters. Research shows that centrality within both advice and friendship networks produce as many benefits, including access to information, positive performance rating, and higher pay.”
Who is in your network, which positions they hold, and who they know matters. (Source: Jeffrey Pfeffer, Power Why People Some Have It- and Others Don’t (New York City: Harper Business, 2010), 119.) More information can be found on my website.
With the Network Power that Mr. Rittenhouse achieved by committing horrific acts, I wonder how he will serve others. Will he work with Sharlen Moore and Youth Justice Milwaukee to close down youth prisions in Wisconsin, a state where he did not reside yet felt the need to “defend” without being asked. Will he be an advocate for change? Will he work with parents and siblings who have incarcerated family members and build avenues of support for them?
Will he work towards standing up against hair discrimination, which is a constant act of of oppression towards African Americans? Will he work with elected officals to gain support for the passage of The Crown Act in individual states and in the U.S. Congress? If that task is too big, will he partner with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion intiatives and educate the conservative majority?
The irony of it all is that as I read the verdict, Deanna Singh encouraged the audience to define their purpose. How will Kyle define his purpose? He has a blank canvas waiting for him to paint his path. His choices are immense and his support network is unbelieveable. How will he use it? Will he continue his work on litigation about how his “defamation” changed his life? Will it be by signing a financial contract with the National Rifle Association and encourage other teenagers to act as he did? Will he continue to say, as he did on the stand, that “he didn’t start this.” Or will he work to change the lives of those who do not have powerful networks backing them? I hope he chooses the latter.
Information on how Powerful Networks Pave the Way can be found in Chapter Nine of my book, Surrounded by Awesome Women: Unlocking a New Model of Women’s Success in Business and Entrepreneurship for the Next Decade by Sheila Long and published by New Degree Press.
