Ahmad Glover

Ahmad Glover is known for his work in disproving the validity of what he termed the Big Five Ethnic Model: White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Other. Arguing that color was in no way an indicator of decision-making or behavior, Glover posited that in an era of immediate access to information Americans are better served by understanding the relationship between family origin (ethnicity) and decision-making. His model was accepted in academia, being presented and published by the American Academy of Management. His extensive Asian-Pacific American and European American models were adopted by the US Census Bureau.
Working with the famed Dr. W. Edward Deming's protégé Dr. Virginia Vertiz, he continues to publish extensively on the value of the System of Profound Knowledge, which has spawn management programs such as Continuous Process Improvement: LEAN Six Sigma, Theory of Constraint, Risk Management, Quality Management, Information Technology/ Information Assurance Management, Emotional Intelligence, Cultural Awareness, and others.
Early Life:
Born on April 4,1970 to Fred D. Glover III and Lola G. Glover, A. Leland Glover was the second of three children. A. Glover quickly became well known in the City of Richmond VA for being a quick learner. By the age of 13 he had been hand-picked to attend for gifted students. He spend one year at Community High School before returning to public school graduating in 1988 from John F. Kennedy High School.
Within days of graduating from high school, A. Glover enlisted into the US Air Force. It was in the Air Force that he first began to examine the effects learned behavior on decision-making. Being stationed and/or travelling to well over 50 military installations and 30 countries, Airman Glover took advantage of the opportunity to study world ethnicities, decision-making, and business processes.
From 1992-1996, A. Glover studied Business Administration and graduated with a degrees in Business Administration and Business Administration from Mount Olive College (now Mount Olive University) in 1996. Within days of his upcoming graduation, Airman Glover received orders to Ramstein Air Force Base Germany. Again seeing an opportunity to further study ethnic decision-making, A. Glover went on to graduate studies in Human Relation at the satellite campuses in Europe.
Via a partnership program between the University of Oklahoma and Cameron University, A. Glover earned a Masters of Business Administration in 2001. Like before, within days of graduation, A. Glover was once again given military orders. This time, Airman Glover would moved back to the USA. In Apr 2002, A. Glover gave up his enlisted rank and was commissioned as an US Air Force Officer and quickly transferred to Los Angeles Air Force Base.
Continuing his pattern of furthering his study of the relationship between ethnicity and decision-making, A. Glover yet again took advantage of his duty location to enroll into a doctorial program at Touro University (now Trident University). It was during his post-graduate studies that PhD Candidate Glover would meet and work with some of the world's most influential scholars (Dr. Eric Dent, , Dr. Virginia Vertiz, etc...). Dr. Glover's dissertation would become the foundation for using learned cultural behaviors to predict behavior.
Work Abroad
:
During the Desert Storm conflict, A. Glover got his first meaningful taste of the importance of understanding learned cultural behavior. Being amongst the hundreds of thousands of military members to deploy to South West Asia, he would quickly learn the Muslim world's view and perspectives were not aligned with those of the American Society. It was also during his time in the Middle East that he would first being to question if there was truly a singular American Society or unified Middle Eastern point of view. Studying Middle Eastern culture under Egyptian Scholar Dr. Dawuud of the Dhahran Cultural Center, he learned of the significant and measurable differences between diverse Middle Eastern groups. In almost all cases, the deltas appeared to be based on shared learned behaviors that are passed from generation to generation much like native dialect. While individual ethnic groups like Saudis or Egyptians had predictable sets of behaviors of responses to change, these perditions didn’t seem to hold true between two or more groups. Bottom-line: he quickly learned that there was no singular American point of view and no singular Middle Eastern point of view.
Later while stationed and living in the Republic of South Korea, A. Glover started a promotion company named: Far East Promotions. Although the manifest goal of the company was to promote urban music and entertainment, a latent goal was to study the interaction of South Koreans and Americans; looking for signs of similar differences in the American Societies decision-making as noted during his travels across the Middle East. It was almost immediately obvious that although like Saudis, South Korean behaviors (measured by attendance) could be fairly well predicted, American behavior was fair more fluid. Behavior did not appear to be related to race, age, or gender. It was during this period (1994-1995) that he realized that there must be confounding variables at play in American decision-making.
A. Glover would go on to conduct a number of formal and informal studies on the relationships between change, decision-making, and culture. Starting promotion companies similar to Far East Promotions in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and England, he was learn much to support his profound belief in Dr. Gerhart Hofstede's work. But he remained challenged with respect to research on American Culture.
USA:
Once he started post-graduate studies he send a note to Dr. Gerhart Hofstede questioning the validity of the American Big Five. Dr. Hofstede confirmed his suspicions and encouraged A. Glover to delve further into the value or in-validity of the Big Five model. From his understanding of tightly cluster ethnic behaviors in countries South Korea, France, or Spain, Dr. Glover decided to explore the relationship between:
1. Ethnicity- Meaning learned behaviors, transferred from parent to child...setting the foundation of adult decision-making.
2. Justice- Meaning perceptions of fairness based on learning...and displaying behavior where there is no written rule to govern behaviors
3. Decision making- Meaning what you do based on 1 & 2.
AWARDS and HONORS
Air Combat Command, Directorate of Operations; Officer of the Year 2010
Motorola University; “Sole-external” Certified LEAN/Six Sigma Master Black Belt (2008)
Black MBA’s Who’s Who in America (2006/11)
Noted by: President of Blacks in Government as “One of the Nations Brightest Leaders” (2004)
Inspection General of the Air Force; Superior Performer (2002/3)
Young Safety Manager of the Year (1998)
Marketing, Virginia (1988)
Numerous Department of Defense Military Medals (1988-present)
SUMMARY
Dr. Glover is on the forefront of our understanding to the relationship between learned behavior of profound knowledge. His continued work will serve as the basis for much of what we are learning about ourselves and the global world we live in.

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