My Inclusion Journey from Redmond to Montgomery

In March 2017 my wife took me on a date night to a Seattle Arts and Lectures series. The speaker was a social justice activist, lawyer, and author named Bryan Stevenson, and he blew the audience away. I was moved and inspired as he talked about his work helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. I went home that night and started reading his book, Just Mercy.

As I was absorbing the lessons in Bryan’s book, I was also on a personal journey at Microsoft working to make our team (and our company) more inclusive. We were starting to have necessary but sometimes uncomfortable conversations across various forums to try to learn from each other. In June, I shared the five most important lessons I learned that fiscal year and proximity powers empathy topped my list and was inspired by Bryan’s book. In July, I gave a speech dedicated to inclusive marketing to our sales force, which was a major personal step for me. In August, my leadership team decided to make inclusion one of just three core priorities, signaling an even deeper commitment. Bryan's stories helped me think beyond the halls of Microsoft and provided historical context that gave more power to the small steps we were taking each day.

What I didn’t know back then was that I was about to plunge headfirst (with my leadership team) on an experience that pushed me far outside of my comfort zone and ultimately lead to an incredible journey of learning and listening.

In April 2018, I read a slew of press coverage about the opening of The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. These are two new sites in Montgomery, Alabama created by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), which is Bryan Stevenson's non-profit organization. EJI built these sites as part of its mission to have an honest conversation about our shared history of racial injustice in America and its enduring and damaging effect on African Americans. When I read the press coverage, I knew I wanted to visit these sites in person one day and I started wondering if I could do this as a leadership offsite focused on inclusion.

The notion of taking the team from Redmond, Washington to Montgomery, Alabama felt unorthodox to say the least. It wasn't until I finally suggested the idea to my business manager that I realized how much I really wanted to make it happen. I wanted us to “get proximate,” as Bryan says, to our country's painful history, and to have a shared experience that could impact us as individuals and maybe as a leadership team too. I felt excited and unsure. People might question why we’d travel across the country for an offsite. What did studying slavery, segregation, and mass incarceration have to do with Microsoft and cloud computing?

After a big Microsoft customer event in Orlando, I flew to Montgomery with my business manager and HR partner to visit the museum and the memorial. We were quickly convinced that this unorthodox idea could be a powerful experience for my leadership team. We were all in.

After months of planning, November 5th was finally here. It was mid-term election day in the United States, which made the day feel more poignant, with voters across the country hoping their leaders would be elected. Leading up to the trip, everyone read Just Mercy, and watched Bryan’s Ted Talk, as a way to be more prepared for what we would experience together.

Kiara, Elliot, and Bre from EJI were our excellent hosts that day making the experience unique. Everyone in our group had the time to make their way through the museum at their own pace. Although the museum has a relatively small footprint, it’s packed with history, interactive experiences, powerful stories, animations, videos, and pictures that were both beautiful and heartbreaking. The main room is anchored by a timeline mural that starts with slavery then moves to segregation and finishes with mass incarceration. Everyone was quiet as they read and listened. Since it was my second time through the museum, I was able to see details I missed the first time. I also observed that even though we were a group, each person was having their own individual experience.

After three hours in the museum, we made our way to lunch. For some people this was a time to process by interacting with each other. Others sat quietly, preferring to process by reflecting alone. Seeing the impact the museum had on the team made me feel incredibly relieved but also eager to compare observations and find some level of a shared understanding of what we witnessed in the morning. It became clear to me that this was going to take a lot more time and conversations than I had anticipated.

After lunch we walked up to The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. It was good to get some fresh air, and the Alabama sun did not disappoint. We stopped at many of the historical markers that EJI has erected across the city.

The memorial was stunning. The first glimpse of it as you walk through the entrance has an incredible visual impact. As we made our way through the memorial, we looked at the hanging, rusted blocks that resemble coffins and read the names of the people who were lynched and the counties and states where they were lynched. There are small signs describing the events that led to a person or a family being lynched. It’s a somber and evocative space. Our group was once again quiet and introspective.

I became more acutely aware, not just of the terrible acts carried out in many counties across the country, but also of the larger-scale systems failures that created the environment where these atrocities could go on for years. Often our efforts to be more inclusive focus on the small personal interactions we have with one another many times a day. But leaders also have a responsibility to improve the systems that an organization (or even a country) has in place as well.

When we finished at the memorial, we were met by the charming and effervescent Michelle Browder, our Montgomery tour guide for the next 90 minutes. With hugs, smiles, and laughs, Michelle gathered us onto her bus. Michelle's family has a rich history in the area, and she brought a personal perspective to our tour, which included her hopefulness about the future. She brought us to the Dexter Avenue Church where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor, and then we visited the house where he lived. It was special to realize the importance of this one church and one house in the history of civil rights in America.

After Michelle’s tour, we headed to the Equal Justice Initiative offices to meet with Bryan. I felt honored that he would take time out of his schedule to meet with us. Bryan shared his journey and experiences along the way. He talked about how he handles a bad day, why he doesn’t think he’d pursue life as a politician, how he stays open to new ideas despite having so much on his plate already, and how Microsoft could help with his mission.

It was a phenomenal day of learning and an emotional rollercoaster. I’m still processing what the day will mean for the team and for me. I think I’ll be processing for a while, but some learnings are already very clear.

First, taking my entire leadership team from Redmond to Montgomery was a great decision. While it pushed me outside my comfort zone, I'm thrilled we did it. I need to keep pushing myself to do unorthodox things because that’s where the best learning takes place and that’s probably where the best ideas for change come from.

Second, having a shared learning experience about our country's history leads to very different kinds of conversations than traditional business discussions. In talking to my team members, they each had their own personal learnings, but the trip also gave us a shared experience that we can use to make progress on inclusion.

Third, getting close to people who inspire and challenge you is amazingly motivating, and it can be a great change agent for yourself and your team. Team leadership experiences are often short-lived in their impact. But this one feels different. Bryan and his team gave us a great gift in sharing their work, their passion, and their perspective. They helped me think more about the systems of our organizations, and my opportunity and responsibility to make them more inclusive.

Finally, I’ve learned that there is value in bearing witness to someone else’s reality even if you don’t know exactly what actions you’ll take next. It’s so easy to want to jump in, to try to make a difference, to create some new program that will change our diversity metrics or make us feel better by doing something. Believe me, I’ve got a long list of ideas now, in large part because of this trip. But I also think it’s valuable to not rush to action. There’s richness in taking the time to listen and learn from people who have committed their life’s work to something very distant from your area of expertise. This trip, at its core, was about us bearing witness to someone else’s painful and inspiring journey and reflecting on how it can and should impact each of our own journeys to come. Who would have thought a simple date night could lead to that?