That Nasty Woman: Bari Weiss, or the Gray Lady?

Observations from the Week in Work + Tech: July 13-17

What Bari Weiss Can Teach Us about Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, and Belonging

There were times when I nodded my head in agreement with NYT opinion writer Bari Weiss and times that I did so uncomfortably And always, whether I agreed with her or not, she made me think twice about my presumptions. 

I imagine that not all of Weiss's colleagues at the Times agreed with her opinions. But harassing someone you work with because she has different opinions than you? In an organization predicated on providing a forum for opinions and who hires people to provide those opinions?

That’s just wrong y’all. 

Weiss’s resignation letter to NYT Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is a clarion call to progressives to get over the tendency of demonizing the less-militantly liberal among us. Full disclosure, early in my career I was an editor at the NYT Syndicate and wrote freelance for the City section. I sure as hell didn’t do it for the money. I did it because in my mind The New York Times was the Bombdiggity of journalism; I still read it religiously and hold strong ideological alignment and respect for the reporting. But I've been troubled by recent events that suggest, while the Times is “inclusive" of viewpoints, as its founder intended, some viewpoints, even from its own employees, are unwelcome.

Weiss, who came to the Times via an inclusion effort by James Bennet (an editor who was forced to resign for running an Op-Ed considered impolitic or not at editorial standard for the Gray Lady), certainly wasn’t made to feel welcome, with employees mucking up Slack with insults, even intimidating colleagues who were cordial to Weiss.

It would seem that Weiss was hired for the very purpose of providing an alternative viewpoint, so then why was she demonized for providing it?

Isn’t this dynamic similar to what many have encountered in the Tech workplace? I don’t know a major tech company that does not currently have—or is not in the process of hiring—a Diversity and Inclusion leader; some of the more woke organizations even throw “Belonging” into the title, acknowledging that once more diverse employees have come into an organization some effort should be made to make them feel welcome. Their mantra: Diverse minds are required to build and serve diverse customer needs, to root out our blind spots and avoid Groupthink.

But despite the Chief Diversity Officers, Inclusion programs, and seemingly heartfelt admonitions by tech leaders that “We need to do better,” the percentages of women and people of color in these companies is still disproportionately low. 

How could it be that--even if we can pat ourselves on the back for actively improving the pipeline of women and black and brown people; even if we have bots to root out micro-aggressions in our Slack channels and bias in our automated recruiting systems; even if we fire people who exhibit lack of tolerance on their personal social channels or for not capitalizing the letter B when referring to Black people--goshdarnit, we still have a diversity problem?

There’s a phrase that HR managers use to explain it all, suggesting that it’s people’s incompatibility with excellence, not their otherness, at issue, and it’s deliberately vague to avoid any whiff of intolerance: “Not a fit.” That black woman who spoke up in meetings to ask why she wasn’t asked to review a marketing plan? Not a fit. That quiet “girl” who could code fine but who couldn’t stand up for herself when called out in team weeklies? Not a fit. That 40+ year old manager who asked a lot of questions and suggested we try something different? Not a fit.

That mouthy lady who liked to write about Jewish and gender politics and could make you uncomfortable by breaking down your Liberal presumptions? Not a fit.

So what now?

This piece by Bo Ren details her experience with a product management training program designed to bring in diverse talent that ended up exacerbating inequity; its a good reference point for tech managers who want to understand what can go wrong, even with good intentions, with shallow initiatives that do not have buy-in at every level of the organization. 

And: Consider what you mean when you think someone is "not a fit.” Do they approach problems from life experiences you know little about? Are you over-weighting the opinions of others with authority, who have their own functional fixedness, and not taking your own assessments into account? Are you manipulating perceptions to maintain a status quo that has served you well? Do you weaponize phrases like “earning trust,” or “team dynamic” when explaining why someone is not a fit? Do you say things like, "We can do better," but would never actually sponsor, defend, or develop someone with less power or influence than you have in your organization? Can you accept that even the most venerated institutions and leaders, especially in periods of intense change, can have blind spots? Can get stuck?

Just consider it.

Ch, Ch, Changes...

I’ve been thinking a lot about transitions lately, partly because I am going through several occupational, hormonal, and existential ones myself. But I’m also noticing how bad many of us are at them. Some of us are so bad at managing them that we refuse to look at facts and make economy-destroying, life-threatening decisions rather than hunker down and embrace change. 

I’m not suggesting that we stay in our robes and slippers all day, blessing the pandemic for bringing us closer to our Oreos. Or that we now drop everything and move into a Sprinter van. But even in the spring, when I was working 15 hours a day from home, on Zoom calls, away from CNN and the grocery store, I felt it: Things were not just pausing but changing. And whether we are still employed or not, at-risk or not, woke or not, we are all feeling it. 

Which is why I was grateful for my weekly dose of Jessi Hempel, whose Hello Monday newsletter I’ve been drinking like oxygen on LinkedIn, and the associated podcast. Jessi has done this for a while (I first caught her on Medium) and goes beyond the career how-to’s (“What to wear for that interview on Zoom…”) that are peppering (littering?) the Internet and hits more deeply. This week she hosted Bruce Feiler, author of  Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age on mastering change.

Being an entrepreneur, I thought I already was a master at change because I had usually been in charge of my transitions. According to Feiler, about 53% of transitions are chosen and 47% of those in his research were not anticipated or opted into (illness, sudden loss of a job or loved one). But really all are disorienting. Feiler, who himself experienced massive, unwanted transition a decade ago decided to dig into “Life Quakes” transitions that are bigger than switching jobs or rethinking the carpet in the den. Life Quakes cause you to question foundational aspects of your identity. 

I have certain tell-tale behaviors that signal I’m in-transition:

• I start jigsaw puzzling, moving to the kids’ puzzles when I run out of my own.
• I take on new forms of meditation—most lately dish washing.
• I call people who knew me in other lives (ex-business partners, ex-bosses, ex-colleagues) and just talk. Not on Zoom, not text. Phone only.

I see everything in my past and present as clues to what’s next, and I try, sometimes painfully, to sit still long enough to notice them. 

On average, Feiler says, these kinds of transitions take five years to get through, “longer than you’d expect, but not longer than you need.”

It’s my guess, that even after getting rehired, or paying back loans on our small businesses, or deciding to work from home indefinitely, you, I, all of us are going to be working—and living—differently. 

And on that note…Help Wanted: Clinicians Interested in Therapy3.0

I had a chance to catch up with a kindred spirit, tech leader, investor, and entrepreneur Cat Lee recently. Cat sharpened her company-building skills at Facebook and Pinterest before becoming an investor and then realized she wanted to go back to operating, this time starting from scratch.

I'm a big proponent of therapy, both in times of trauma and life inflection points, but also for ongoing emotional wellness. But 1:1 therapy is expensive, and not always necessary. Cat teamed up with two former Pinterest colleagues  Jack Chou, and Alex Shye to disrupt therapy with Pace, a platform for helping people create deeper emotional connection within themselves and with others through a form of group therapy called Process Groups.

Think: Group therapy meets group chat.

If you are—or know—a therapist interested in exploring, the team is meeting clinicians who are interested in either:

1. Building Pace: working with the founding team long-term to scale the impact of Process Groups to 100 million Americans. Compensation would be as a full-time member with salary and equity.
2. Leading Process Groups that circle specific life situations and audiences. Compensation would be on-demand per group session. 

Interested parties reach out and I'll be glad to connect you.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Because Crypto Wasn’t Already Having a Credibility Problem

While Jack Dorsey and anyone holding stock in Twitter may be freaking out over the 5% drop in market cap resulting from the Mother of Hacks, I’m feeling sad ... and even a bit embarrassed for Cryptofolk. That is, the good ones.

As a marketing leader at ConsenSys, I spent a year extolling the virtues of crypto and its underlying technology, blockchain, to global businesses, public sector, startups and the most spooked of them all, consumers. I explained that yes, despite some of these hit-and-run ICOs by opportunists more interested in timing the market than building sustainable companies, blockchain and cryptocurrencies are here to stay. 

Seeing this tweet hurt. And it made we wonder: Does Biden even know about Bitcoin? Yes I feel badly for Twitter, but I feel even more for the legitimate Crypto companies and builders whose hard work people will inevitably conflate with bad online juju; and for the vulnerable public, who put money in and were duped. To them, I just want to say: It’s no longer 2017: You can’t double your money in crypto in 30 minutes anymore.

Lemonade? Wait, isn’t that an album by Beyonce?

A quick primer on the Home and Renters Insurance Company that oh-so-subtly killed it going public in a pandemic.

Quote of the week

This week it's from a former business peer, Bob Glazer, who I’ve been meaning to tell his Friday Forward newsletter is fantastic. In last week’s column, “Pro or Anti” he touches on our more natural tendency to complain versus fix; to move away from something rather than toward; to rail against versus champion. And he quotes one of my favorite commentators and guest you’d like to have at your dinner party, Van Jones:

“Right now, too many of us seem to approach liberal causes and conversations mainly by looking for ways to show other progressives where they are wrong. Too many of us can deconstruct everything but can't reconstruct anything and make it work. Too many of us know how to run a protest against the adults on our campuses but don't know how to run a program for children in our neighborhoods. Too many of us are great at opposition but awful at proposition. 

So I ask you to think about this over the weekend: What do you propose?

Happy Weekend!