Moving the needle on diversity in tech - the delayed blog post! (Part 1)

Last year at DDD Perth I gave a talk/interactive session on “Moving the needle on diversity in tech”. At the end of the session I promised to write up a post sharing and addressing some of the discussion points raised in the interactive polling as we well and truly ran out of time to go deeper in a discussion - I felt like the Q&A could have gone for another hour at least! DDD Perth sessions are selected by ticket holder voting – it shows the importance of this topic that it was voted in the top 3 talks out of 148 submissions. If you came to my talk this first post is going to be a recap of what I covered and some of the things I’ve learned over the years so feel free to skip straight to Part 2 which will outline the barriers identified and delve a little deeper.

My DDD talk was not recorded as I wanted to create a safe space for people to share their questions and feedback.

Why?

I was a little nervous running this session and was very open sharing some of my own very personal experiences but the reason I chose the topic was that I have had many comments over the years that people (mostly from men but also a few from women) are afraid of asking questions or raising issues about diversity, because of the political nature and current climate. In fact, a specific quote from a previous male colleague was that saying the wrong thing about the focus on diversity could be ‘career limiting’ for him. If people are afraid to have conversations, give feedback, raise concerns, or ask questions then we will never move the needle on diversity in the tech industry. And we (women) cannot move this needle without the support of our male colleagues and leaders.

My ask is for us to practice empathy and listen, seeking to understand different perspectives.

A Conversation of Privilege

I acknowledge firstly, that this conversation is one of privilege. I grew up being told by my parents that career wise I could be ‘whatever I wanted to be’ so I never considered that I couldn’t or shouldn’t. Even though my family were quite poor, on government benefits for most of my childhood, I still had access to a full education (I did leave school after year 10 - but that requires an entirely different blog about Christian cults!). But, I acknowledge that as a white woman, born in Australia, with parents who loved me, with access to education and government benefits meant that I was absolutely privileged.

At the time of giving this talk last year, statistics showed that globally there are 796 million illiterate people in the world, with under 60% of children attending secondary school and 1.8 billion people lacking adequate housing. These statistics are horrendous and should be a reminder to check our privilege and ensure we demonstrate gratitude for the lives we were born into and the opportunities open to us.

The Power of Role Models

Knowing that I could choose whatever career I wanted, my choice was based on one of the most prominent role models in my life, an amazing primary school teacher: Mrs. Wyatt. She inspired me and from the age of 10 and I wanted to be just like her when I grew up!

Role models play a huge role in children’s career choices. If you can see her you can be her.

After leaving school at 15, I semi-followed this dream becoming a qualified childcare worker and working in childcare for the next 6 years - which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was then pushed into an IT career at 21 by my father who “needed my help” running the retail computer business he purchased. This was where I got my first taste of bias and what it meant to be a minority as a woman in tech. I learnt that I had to behave like a man and be as tough or tougher than the boys to be respected. Being disrespected, underestimated, treated condescendingly, or hit on was a weekly occurrence and sometimes I started to think maybe it would be easier to just change my name to ‘Darling’, ‘Love’ or ‘Sweetheart’. This environment pushed my stubborn, type A personality to work harder, be smarter, tougher, and better so I could prove myself – which I did. I have heard hundreds of stories from women who experienced the same, and often worse environments to this – and 80% of them left the tech industry because they weren’t interested in putting up with it. Fair call!

Unconscious Bias

After purchasing the business from my father a few years later, instead of having empathy for the women that I was hiring, I expected them to do what I did, behave like men to fit this existing tech culture that we had. I also didn’t understand why a business owner would want to hire women when they were just going to leave to have babies at some point… this was my unconscious bias kicking in and, looking back now, is horrifying to me that I behaved this way at a leader! Reading Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In” reinforced many of my beliefs that we (women) needed to change our behaviour to succeed in the tech industry. I spent many years working with business coaches, doing my Masters degree, gaining some emotional intelligence, and reading lots of leadership books which shifted my thinking on the type of leader I wanted to be. It was when I read “Stop Fixing Women” by Catherine Fox that the lightbulb went off for me about the culture, systems, policy, and environmental changes that are required to change; NOT that women needed to change their personalities to fit this old and outdated expectation.

What I’ve learnt over the years...

1.?Diversity is better for business

There is no shortage of statistics and evidence that diversity in leadership and diversity in teams increases both company profit and innovation. This is not just gender diversity but diversity of background, culture, experience, thinking, and personality.

2.?Inclusion is the key

Having a diverse team will often create more disagreements and challenges so having a safe and inclusive environment and culture where people are valued and celebrated for their differences is essential. Different views and opinions should be encouraged. One of my favourite Amazon Leadership Principles ?is “Have Backbone, Disagree and Commit”. It is part of the Amazon culture to share our opinions and data points passionately, fighting for what we believe in, and then at some point a decision is made and we will all jump onboard and commit regardless of whether it was our preferred outcome. Inclusion should also be a key consideration in mechanisms like meetings and events, ensuring all voices are heard and preferences are catered for.

3.?Equality benefits everyone

Equality in workplace goes further than creating an inclusive and diverse environment - one doesn’t work without other – it is a trilogy. Equality is ensuring policies, procedures, and processes in workplace create equal opportunities for all regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, preferences, or ability. This is essential in areas such as employment contracts, hiring, promotions, performance management, salary, benefits, and working arrangements.

In one of my previous Organisations, creating an equal policy with flexible and part time working options resulted in approximately 20% of men choosing to work part-time. Equality allows all of us to create the life we want by having access to the same opportunities and benefits. This allows us to create a work-life integration that we are happy with.

4.?We all have unconscious bias

It’s completely normal to have unconscious biases, they are based on our experiences, family, culture, media, and everything that has shaped life to this point. One of the most common ones is that we gravitate automatically to people who are ‘like us’ or we have things in common with. Without recognition of this and processes to avoid it coming into play we end up hiring, promoting, and providing advantages to these people, in turn discriminating against others. Unconscious bias affects the success of ID&E as it clouds objectivity and our ability to treat people as equals. Once we understand and learn to recognise we can adjust our reactions and behaviour to these unprompted emotions. Beware of the subjective ‘Culture fit’ as it’s often a way to justify our unconscious bias. I prefer ‘Values fit’ as regardless of background, personality, culture, gender, or ability we can be aligned in our values and this can be evaluated objectively.

5.?Unrealistic expectations and comparison result in failure and devastation

Unrealistic expectations and pressure, combined with past societal norms and ‘role models’ creates an unobtainable and unrealistic picture of success that many of us still strive for. The statistics on increased mental health issues and suicide is horrendous and should be of grave concern to everyone.

Men still face pressure to be the ‘bread winner’, to earn the most, be career driven, aiming for management roles to achieve success. They are judged by having the right car, expensive suit / watch and having the arm candy wife is still a legitimate pressure. A ridiculous pressure and past picture of what success used to look like. Now though, we add on being a great dad who spends quality time with the kids, sharing the domestic responsibilities, being a supportive husband to a partner likely working fulltime as well and the list goes on. For women, it’s not any better. Having a ‘fairytale’ life, perfect relationship, the big wedding, being the perfect mum (and don’t even get me started if you don’t have kids), have a career, participate in all the committees, have a great circle of girlfriends (picture sex and the city) and of course remain fit and attractive for your husband (and the world on Instagram).?With the reign of social media, this effect has now flowed on to children, with suicide as young as 6 years old. A recent group of year 8 girls I mentored spoke about the pressures they face with school expectations, extra-curricular activities, bullying and the mental health issues many of their friends were already facing at just 12 years old. This is scary stuff.

“Comparison is the thief of Joy”

Theodore Roosevelt

Social media and media in general are almost impossible to escape and create this unrealistic and FALSE picture of success which we are constantly comparing ourselves to. We are also pushed to compare ourselves to each other, driving us to compete instead of supporting each other to succeed. The reason this is relevant in an ID&E conversation is that we all need to step back and create our own picture of success for our lives. A picture not defined by what anyone else is doing or defined by comparison.?Having a workplace, a country and ideally a world (which is the dream) support our rights to ALL choose our own path and picture of success is what a focus on ID&E can do.

6.?It all starts at the top

When we have leaders that role model ID&E, set policies and mechanisms that support and promote ID&E and create safe and inclusive environments, magic happens! This is when we all have the flexibility and support to live our best lives. We need people in leadership with emotional intelligence, empathy, a growth mindset, who thrive on feedback and importantly can communicate a clear vision and goals to inspire people.

These key learnings over the past 20 years fundamentally changed my belief systems from a person full of unconscious bias who believed we all needed to behave like the toxic masculine stereotype to succeed to someone who developed empathy, emotional intelligence and saw first-hand time and time again how creating diverse, inclusive and equal environments allowed people to thrive, succeed and enjoy their work and lives.

What you can do?

• Design your own picture of success for your work-life integration
• Lead by example (some other practical tips in my conference talks here and here )
• Seek to understand the challenges that minority groups face and acknowledge the privilege you have
• Practice empathy
• Develop your own emotional intelligence
• Read some of the awesome books recommended below ??

Recommended reads

• Stop Fixing Women - Catherine Fox
• Strengths-Based Leadership – Barry Conchie & Tom Rath
• Multipliers – Liz Wiseman
• Find your Why – Simon Sinek
• Dare to Lead – Brene Brown
• Free to Focus – Michael Hyatt
• Die with Zero – Bill Perkins
• Think Again - Adam grant
• How Much is Enough - Arun Abey
• Four Thousand Weeks – Oliver Burkeman

Stay tuned for Part 2 coming tomorrow where I will share the barriers to diversity that were identified and upvoted by our audience!