Abstract
Business Doing Good by Deer and Miller is, at first glance, a business book aiming to guide companies hiring and taking well-deserved chances on women from difficult life circumstances. Upon further examination, it is a book for adult educators as we collectively endeavor to leverage the social justice orientation of our field to support positive life outcomes for all learners. The authors’ purpose is to present the business case and six corresponding strategies for businesses hiring and women “overcomers,” women who have experienced poverty, addiction, incarceration, sex work, or some combination of challenging conditions. They succeed in this purpose and additionally bring light to an important but marginalized group of workers and learners.
The book is organized into eight chapters. The first six chapters each outline one of the principles: experiential learning, immediate leadership opportunities, entrepreneurial culture, translation of prior experience to new work contexts, restorative justice, and partnerships. These chapters are bookended by powerful vignettes of women overcomers that introduce and contextualize the content. For example, in Chapter 1, strategies and benefits of applying experiential learning in the workplace are grounded in the story of Cara, a woman overcoming poverty and working her first office job. In that job, she is tasked with “figuring it out” and, as a result, builds a strong sense of her own capabilities and professional potential. The seventh chapter presents the challenges of employing women overcomers and provides explicit and actionable strategies to address those challenges. The final chapter discusses the structures of business operations that would need to be adapted or implemented to incorporate the six principles. The book concludes with an appendix of practical and concrete worksheets and checklists.
Evaluation
The power of this book is in the difficult but moving narratives of the women overcomers, the convincing argument for the mutual benefits to businesses and the women, and the thoughtful balance of big picture concepts with actionable steps. These qualities are grounded in the first-hand experience of the two authors researching and working with women overcomers directly. As a result, the message of this book is clear: businesses need to hire these women not despite their prior life experiences but because of them. Doing so comes with a humanistic responsibility to provide appropriate support and learning opportunities—the six principles. Their recommendations also incorporate frank boundaries. The women overcomers are not cheap labor and need to be paid a living wage and those engaging in this work need to approach it with an open-minded perspective.
One strength of this book is the integration of all stakeholders in the development of the principles. The authors suggest ways to engage for-profit and non-profit organizations, business leaders, individual contributors, and the women themselves. For each group, the authors articulate key considerations and decision criteria. For example, regarding the entrepreneurial culture, some contexts or business units are more appropriate than others. Deer and Miller walk the reader through qualities where entrepreneurialism would be worth trying, where it would potentially be disruptive, and structures and processes for success, including reward systems.
The authors do acknowledge the challenges and fears some people may have in working with women overcomers and they provide practical solutions. Much of that content is contained in chapter seven. Readers may wish to read relevant sections of that chapter along with each principle's chapter for more immediate consideration of challenges.
Recommendation
The commitment to lifelong learning advocated by Deer and Miller is evident throughout this book, shown through the deep respect they demonstrate for people who aim to overcome their life circumstances and the straight talk they offer to business professionals. This book would be an excellent addition to adult education graduate courses for students practicing in corporate or other business settings. Similarly, this book speaks to both adult education and human resource development (HRD) disciplines and would be useful for HRD students or practitioners, particularly those who have an interest or role in hiring and retention processes. Deer and Miller's perspectives are valuable additions to the efforts of practitioners aiming to support adult learning for varied populations and researchers aiming to better understand the perspectives and experiences of marginalized learners. As such, this book moves the field of adult education forward in its consideration of and utility for women overcomers.