Hello, everyone and welcome to the series of Fireside chats by Women Tech Network. We are inviting phenomenon and outstanding women to inspire, inspire and empower you to grow professionally.Today, we have a special guest, Laurie Misura mackenzie co-founder of the New Stanford VMBO, Women's Leadership Innovation Lab, least strategy, diversity, equity and inclusion at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Collaborating at the intersections of two organization.

Laurie brings 20 years of marketing strategy and business management experience at companies including proton Gambler, Apple, ebay, and paypal. She is a board member of the Alliance for Girls and Watermark and an advisor to the Women's Start up lab. Laurie was, was also one of our keynote speakers at Women Tag Global Conference 2020 as well as a Panelist and provided lots of valuable insight. Hi, Laurie and welcome.

Thank you.

Super excited to have you with us and thanks for making time for this um chat today.

Absolutely. I I'm looking forward to it. Great

uh for everyone who is tuning in, feel free to ask your questions in the chat or the comments, depending where you're watching us at and whenever you hear something that resonates with you. Please do. Let us know. So let's get started, Laurie, how did you become passionate about women's leadership and diversity, equity and inclusion? Were there some biases that you personally face that encourage you to go for it?

You know, the I think my passion started when I was really young. I was about six years old and I remember this day really well, I was walking with my mom to the library, which was my favorite part of the week we collect books in the old days. You couldn't just order them, you know, to your iphone. And I know so we had, we had to walk. And as my mom and I were walking, these men leaned out of the car and made kind of fake uh Asian eyes at us and started shouting fake Asian words at us and I was frozen. Uh I didn't know what was going on. And I remember clearly my mom who never let us say a bad word, flipped the guy off and I realized, wow, just based on the way I look, people will make all these assumptions about me and threaten me. And so I think what it did for me was make me realize because of my mom that we have to stand up to be seen as equal humans in the world. And so I think it got started early and then as I've progressed, I've seen it play out in different workplaces and it's become my, my life's work

interesting were the, what were some actions that you took that were pivotal in reaching the stage of the career you are in today?

There is no clear path to being somebody in diversity, equity inclusion. And so the way I, I thought about it was I started in the world of marketing and what marketing really teaches is the ability to listen to your audience to see what the audience needs in order to match the product to what they want. And that ability to listen deeply to really understand what's needed is a skill. I've been leveraged into diversity, equity inclusion. Um I got this job at Stanford so that I could be around the best research and best experts bringing my ability to listen to that. And I think bringing the two sides together, the ability to think about our audience, the ability to think about the best research and then produce, hopefully produce works that make that make an impact in the world.

It does make an impact. I do love what you're doing. Your research is incredible and so needed. And that's why we are having this conversation because I want everyone who is part of our community to learn about it in in depth and also to share with others. So we can amplify this message and to spread because I feel that often um people are not even aware about of, of some biases or they think. Yeah, this is not me, I don't have this, right. So I think when, when you study something that profoundly, you can understand the nature behind it. And then once you put it in the perspective and share with others and we can learn about different needs and challenges and how we can address them. It's really like that. And I like the point that you mentioned about market and actually listening to your audience, that's a really good skill. And I think that everyone should uh should learn something about marketing and, and and and become it will help you become better regardless of which role, whether you are an employee, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're managing a company organization,

I think you're right, Anna, I've seen a lot more emphasis on brands so women can have, for example, our brand, what is the brand that you're trying to promote companies have employee brands? Meaning how are they attractive to people or not attractive to people? So I think you're right this idea of thinking about how you present yourself, how you're seen by others and how you listen to who others are. Maybe I'm biased is, is, is a skill I think is really important to have.

How did you decide to get started in marketing first? What, what uh what like kept fascinated you about this field?

My first field of study was economics and the thing I liked about it is you kind of started to understand the shape of markets, what forces drive market shifts. And then I started to be interested in that from a personal level, how do people decide what to buy? How does something become really popular without a driver of it? And so I think this interest in the way markets move has always been there for me. Um I've always loved to travel internationally and see the differences between different cultures and even how one product is marketed differently in other countries. I used to be fascinated by that. And so I think this interest in how things move on a macro level. Ha ha has always been interesting to me. And even when you think about research, the point you made earlier, how does word get out about research? Does it stay in the academy? Does it have impact? These are questions I think I've always been interested in. And so, II, I feel like bringing a diversity equity inclusion lens to those questions is really needed in these times when we look at this, the scale and scope of the issues we're dealing with today, we need thinking that helps us achieve it both on a personal level, but then on on a macro level as well.

So true. Totally agree. Uh You have 20 plus years of professional experience in different areas of expertise and just it just sounds super impressive. And in fact, it, it the research as I mentioned that you do, I find it. And the more II I learned about the things that you are doing, the more things that I have discovered and, and I understand the more uh you know, the more you don't know, you understand, because the more in depth you go, the more understand. OK. OK. That there are so many important aspects, there are so many important points. So my question I want to ask in the beginning of our conversation, not to, not to prolong it upon it for, for, you know, for the end of the conversation. So what were some things that you wished you knew earlier in your career? Maybe at different stages of your career? That would be like when you started and in the middle of your career and where you are right now?

Now when I started, I was so enthusiastic, I thought I could do anything. I, I really did, maybe that was hubris. I don't know. And so I was really focused on achieving and less focused on understanding the landscape of work. And as you progress up the organization, how the organization works is really critical to career advancement. And I wish I could tell my younger self to achieve. Yes, that's really important. But understand how things get done at levels above you because to be promoted often it's being known and seen in those executive or more senior levels. And if you don't really understand how they work, I kind of ignored that I kind of thought it was more important for me to get my work done. So that's something I would have told my early self. And what I didn't realize is that different projects have different kinds of visibility in a very early project at Procter and Gamble. I got to work on a program that was a side program but was a very big driver of profit that really set me off in a good place in my career because it had a, a lot to do with the profitability of my small group.

I got to present to the general manager when I had only been there a year, it was considered kind of a side project, but because it was about profit, I got visibility and I didn't know that when I was entering, you know, uh the workplace after business school. So figuring out what drive, what drives interest from executive teams, making sure your projects enable you to get visibility around. Those can be a career accelerator. And that was something I didn't know when I entered the workplace and had good luck, maybe not as much strategy.

So it sounds like women should be in the early stage of their career and some of our community members are in early stage. So it sounds like they should be super strategic about which first project they choose. Right?

Yes. If there is an opening to have that conversation with your manager, take it, I don't know. If you've seen the lean and mckinsey report, but they show that women often don't even make the first promotion to manager. Uh, last year's data said women were 20% less likely than men to get that first promotion. Black women were 40% less likely. It's not because they're not skilled. They got in the position often it's the assignment they get and for managers of people getting their first assignment, here's something we know women are the least likely to get a skilled manager for their first assignment. So they're given a first time manager who is less connected.

Remember, I talked about being connected to the organization. The manager is less likely to be able to help them make those valued connections, doesn't know to give them a good assignment. So bringing that all together, you could see that that first broken rung really happens because we're not giving entry level women the right first assignments, the right first managers and the accelerators to have them be successful in their careers. It's all fixable.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting what, what, what you're sharing about the managers and, and the assignments and how it influenced the career in general, right? Um You know, recently I came across one post on linkedin which got over 40,000 reactions where a successful woman in t she's also a founder shared that she made a common mistake that many women do. Taken less time to introduce herself. She explained that everyone at the networking event took two minutes to introduce themselves, but she took only 30 seconds or so. And I'm wondering why does this happen? And what can women do to introduce themselves in a powerful way and take that time?

That's such a great question. And it's kind of nuanced. There's something called a likability penalty. So research shows that when women act authoritative self promoting, like we expect leaders to, they often get some pushback because now they're not behaving in a stereotypical feminine way.

A stereotypical feminine way is being supportive, thinking about others, not promoting yourself, promote your team's work. It's not right that this happens. It's a stereotypical function. So an introduction could be seen as a self promotion. So if women have been criticized in the past for promoting their own expertise, you can see how they might pull back. Now, what I've discovered the trick is is to figure out how to talk about your expertise in a way that doesn't seem as though you're violating those norms of femininity. But you still get your point across now. I just want to make a point. It's not fair that women have to do all that work. Men can just say I led this. I did this and not face well, white men can do that without facing any of the pushback. So here's, here's what I recommend. If you haven't thought about your elevator pitch, I would put some thought behind it because it might make it easier for you to say it in those two minute moments than having to think of it on the fly. And if you're trying to think about this likability penalty, what I've noticed if I talk about achievements in kind of just a matter of fact, way people are less likely to think of me as breaking. So I might say my name is Laurie mckenzie.

I am the co-founder of the Stanford VM Ware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab at Stanford University. We believe we can bridge the gap between theory and practice to accelerate change. And I'm the lead strategist at the Stanford Graduate School of Business where we're trying to reshape what it is to be a leading organization in the world to develop purposeful and principled leaders. So those are facts. They're less likely to sound like bragging. Now again, it's not fair that we have to be so careful as opposed to if I said, you know, I'm really considered one of the leading voices in gender equality in the country. I should be able to say that but maybe starting with the data will enable your elevator pitch to be heard again. It's extra work. But what I found is it's really important to be seen as your expertise. So don't pull back, just think about how to deliver it.

I like that and I like how masterful you, you, you used the words we right, you started with I my name and then you say we help, we do, we do this. You, you projected basically already people start to think to imagine how they could be, potentially, how they can receive value from working with you, for example. Oh, that's interesting. Actually, what they do, what, what they like their, the organization, what the initiative does.

So basically started with, hey, my name or I am. Hello and, and, and then projecting what we do um as an organization or as a company that's, and then there are great examples that you shared. And um yeah, unfortunately, we have to do this. Otherwise they won't be as you shared, like, like like Village Pan that can receive that. And um I, to be honest, I've been also using the strategies that you shared in, in we, I was um Ryan. No, I was, I am still part of the founder institute, a prom of a founder institute.

Yeah. Well, there you go.

Well, and, and basically when we were pitching to um to people to like, what do you do? And I would also say we help talented and motivated founders to get to start and run successful companies. So we also were using not I person but say we, and that came kind of unnaturally because we have a global network. But um yeah, now when you are explaining all the things and, and, and I, I sorry to, to think and understand more why this happens and I think it's really useful for everyone, regardless whether you are the, the, you know, at the beginning of your career or where you're already senior.

And, um, yeah, because we still introduce ourselves, whether online or offline, we still do that.

Yeah. And I love what you said because you didn't go one way or the other. You skillfully blended. The two, sometimes women go too far and they only say we, and the interpretation from the other side is they didn't do anything that's an inaccurate interpretation. So I love how you said it's blended. I am the co-founder we, right. So it's what's called self monitoring. It's using both skillfully not automatically can help you be seen and heard the way that has the most

impact. This is this hybrid model, right? Like starters, I continue with me and focus on culture action, right. Yeah. Right. That's super interesting. Um You know, I'd like to move to move uh into the leadership and the definitions and the words we use. And um more often than not, people tend to favor this narrow definition of leadership which uh often has the agentic traits of leadership, like independent big thinker, risk taker and the stereotypes around men are more aligned with this definition. Um How organizations can recognize and promote uh female leadership, especially when it comes to tech and female leadership. How can we achieve a leadership position in predominantly male field?

That's a great question. Because you're talking about stereotypes, the way stereotypes influence our decision is it makes people seem more suited or less suited for a job without us knowing it. So when I say the word chief technical officer and you close your eyes, what kind of person comes to mind? Probably a tall man. Right. Not even my,

my but probably my already since I met some female CTO S, it's already mixed. But yeah, of course, naturally like it's, it's like hard to find. Uh yeah, just, just you need to cherry pick this female CTO S, right.

Right. Like Megan Smith, he was CTO of the United States, right? But, but still when you look at the percent women CTO S in the US, it's under 5% right?

I think the world the situation is the same. So

yeah, so what happens is whoever looks like your stereotype gets a pass? Oh yeah, there's a CTO. I'm going to listen to that person. Whoever doesn't match that stereotype. Oh, is Megan Smith? Did they say she's CTO of the United States? How did she get there? Is she qualified? Right? You start putting someone through more scrutiny when they don't match the stereotype. So part of what you're talking about Anna, which is really smart is if I say a CTO needs to be a technical expert who has the ability to pull together teams to solve thorny technical issues. I've just broadened the definition of success from not just being drives outcomes. Technically brilliant. I said also must be skilled at bringing together teams to solve issues together by broadening that definition of success. I'm less likely to fall into a stereotypical response. I might think a little bit use my slow thinking brain about all the kinds of people who curate great technical teams who are technical experts. And by broadening that definition of success, I'm more likely to see the talent that I might have overlooked if I only said I want a CTO to be the person with the most patents. Right. Right. So by broadening definitions of success, more people come to mind.

And hopefully the women who might not have, for example, had as many patents because there's bias in the patent process can now be seen as a candidate for success. So that's what what you skillfully call broadening the definition of success. So more women or people of color or people from other national origins can be seen, they have the talent, but they're not able to be seen when we define success very narrowly.

Yeah, it sounds like we need to show and bring more role models that look like CTO s and like to, to break this and well, what you said to broaden but also to bring and say, hey, that's how a CTO can look like. Don't think only about the male, uh white male, uh CTO and um yeah, and, and, and like uh limiting your or narrowing your definition of what uh what a successful CTO can mean, for example, or a successful woman in tech,

right? So even thinking about images, if I were putting together powerpoints about uh CTO S, am I only pulling from one kind of person? Am I thinking? Oh Megan Smith, right. So how we make these automatic assumptions? We should try to catch ourselves and say, how can I broaden the role models that I'm bringing into things like panel discussions and to images? Because as you said, it, it can slowly start to reframe success in our minds but also be, I guess fodder for justification. We say no, I think we should consider this skill set as well. Look at the CTO discussion, we just had, they said both team leadership and technical expertise was needed, right? So it can help us also argue for a broader definition of success.

Good point, good point. I like that, especially event organizers. When you, when it comes to tech, events, I see the, the the dramatic lack of uh female females in tech of different um skill set, but specifically female CTO S. So a good point to consider is first to uh to broaden your, your, your thinking, to broaden your vision and the way you define CTO, the way you define a, a success. Um Yeah, I, I'd like to dwell upon one other common bias that women face, which is the performance bias. How can women block this bias and uh what could be done on the management level to eliminate it.

So it's really important to think about performance bias. And the way it works is for the exact same level of performance, the woman is rated lower than the man. And I've heard this on some technical teams when the women present their code, they are told to go, we rework it and the men, even if they have the same number of issues are told, oh, fix those. But here's the next level. So what happens over time is the man seems to be more productive than the woman. But what's really going on is her performance is being questioned and scrutinized much more than his is. And then over time when the organization says, oh who's your top performer? He looks like it even though she is performing equally well in the organization, you see this in resume studies as well where two equally qualified people, right? The man is more likely to get the job if the field like tech is, is male dominated. So what can women do? Um One thing is to really promote your technical expertise on your resume or linkedin profile. Uh You said the point earlier that women tend to take less time um when they make in-person introductions, women often also put less technical expertise when they are presenting themselves in written format.

For example, they might focus more on skills like uh bringing the team together and less on the technical issues or expertise that they have. So one way you can try to at first limit the bias from affecting you is making sure your written documents fully capture your technical expertise. And then in the interview process, if for example, you're not asked technical questions um because they've already kind of made up their mind that they only ask men again, it's because of bias men, technical questions, you can talk about your technical expertise even in a response to other kinds of questions, right?

So, um thank you for asking about how I led the team. One of the critical contributions I made was identifying this technical issue and making sure that we put all our issues to addressing it in these three ways, right? So you can keep presen in your technical expertise for managers. One way to prevent or to, to mitigate bias is to be really clear about the criteria you're using to evaluate. Because what I was just describing is that men and women often get evaluated differently and by holding the bar study, that's one way. And I'll, I'll give you an example. We had one graduate student who sat in numerous interview um sessions with the white board at a tech company and then the interview round ups when managers talked about the candidates and what he discovered was that even though coding was the most important criteria for women, they combined coding with how she presented.

So the women would get comments like this. She can code, but she can't convince me she can code, but she's just not very good at presenting her logic. Well, maybe they weren't listening for her logic because she's different than they are. Right? So if I were a manager, in that case, I would say, you know, we said coding was the most, most important criteria. You've combined coding and presentation, let's separate them and put everyone who passes the coding into the potential candidate pool. Now, this thing about presenting, did you equally look at every presentation or did we really over index in looking at the women's presentation? Because if that's the case, I feel like that's not an even playing field. We should have a separate session or section to talk about presentation.

I really wanna focus on coding ability. So by if I were a manager in that situation, really getting skilled at weeding out this extra scrutiny that women are getting and focusing the team on evaluating based on the criteria we said was most important is how I would work to try to mitigate bias in that situation.

Oh, wow. I think if, if all the manager do in this way would have had already more women in tech to be honest. Well, this, this totally makes sense and what you're sharing is like comes or she doesn't look just like me and I don't think she can be good enough. Uh Yeah, she can code but this and that she didn't convince me what you said. So yeah, this is good. Want to actually separate this uh these two categories and not to blend them in and not to take it as, as one thing really, like, you know, a very important point. I think more managers should know about it and more hiring specialists. I think just they often overlook these things And I did really like what you said about um women and blocking the bias and taking this kind of a proactive approach and not, not to forget to mention your technical uh skills and your achievements, right? Like thanks for asking and, and on top of that, I was doing this and that, right. So even if they didn't ask you not to wait for this invitation, special invitation to be asked about this, but rather to take this proactive approach to, to mention it like if you want to get this role, of course. Yeah.

Uh 11 so uh sw sw here uh sharing here, I have been in interviews where I was told I am too extrovert to be a coder. Yeah. All the introverts can be coders. Right. Right.

And it's funny because White Boarding as a process is extroverted because you're talking to people as you're working. So that's, that's kind of ironic and, and that's, that's what we would often call the ever moving bar for women. The introverted women are told they're not speaking up.

The extroverted women are told they're too extroverted, but the men can sail through extrovert or introvert. Right. So managers and processes need to be able to catch this double standard that women are facing. People of color are facing in order to make sure we hire the best talent, not just the talent that feels stereotypically right to us.

Right. Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah. Good, good, good points on that. Um You know, when it comes to nurture and inclusion in the workplace, there is no such thing like a magic wand that could do wonders and it takes time to cultivate the inclusive culture and what you are sharing and bits by bits we can contribute towards creating um creating a modern workforce, but also we need to make sure that we are inclusive.

So what can organizations do and people in the organizations to use the language in the daily communications that is more inclusive, whether face to face or remote?

That's a great question. You know, I think it starts with what are the company values? And that's all words, right? Iii I was working with one start up and there were some behaviors where the men were speaking over women experts and really taking them down and people in the organization complained about this. So I I said to the leader as well. Um What are the values of how people are supposed to behave with? One another and they said, oh, they should be understood. And I said, well, you know, we don't always understand things in exactly the same way. Remember that old game telephone where I say something to you and then you say it to them and by the end when it comes back, it is not what we thought it was. And, and that's exactly how values work. We think everyone knows how to be inclusive, but we don't talk about the behaviors that we value in our organization. So in team meetings, for example, we know that if you're inviting six people to your meeting and their time is really valuable. Isn't it interesting that in general, we tend to hear from three people, 60 or 70% of the time? That means the other people are playing these minor roles.

So in t meaning some of the language of inclusion might be what I call soliciting information instead of letting people compete to have the most say what if it were the team leader's job to make sure that we heard from everyone in order to come to better decision making. So language that solicits could look like me saying something. Um You know, Anna, I love the way that you've thought about this global community of women. Um Could you share your experiences in starting that in order to drive this conversation forward? I've just elevated you.

I've let everyone know your expertise and I've given you the stage. Those words are the language of inclusion, elevating people, creating a stage for them and making sure that they have time and space to speak another um phrase I've heard is a negative question. So oftentimes people align really quickly, especially if a leader has an idea, it's called groupthink. We all tend to want to agree. One very inclusive thing to do is to ask a negative question. Could someone tell us a reason why we shouldn't do this? I've just opened the door to letting someone disagree with me with respect. It's called psychological safety. The idea that we can criticize ideas, not each other in a way that then I'm not kicked out of the meeting and told never to come back. Right. So part of the language of inclusion is allowing space for dissent in a respectful way instead of going to group think. And in group think the dominant voices tend to be the only ones that we hear.

And that's a really good strategy and I think it could lead to bad decisions and bad products or services in the end because especially when you have a diverse group of people, probably someone will have something and say, well, I actually thinking I'm thinking that for this reason, we shouldn't be completely totally or now go for it.

So I think the more diverse team you have, there could be different opinions and the better products you can make because you like, right. Now we live in, in the, in a global world and especially in the virtual world, right? And like when, when, when everything like the borders uh have been like smashed and, and like, yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a very interesting moment we live in. But what I want to say that um it's more than ever important to include a diverse group of people. So you can make better products, better services for, for the better outcome for the humanity, especially when we're looking on, on, on the lookout for finding the remedy to battle COVID. So I think that this is more than ever to include and to value diversity of thought.

I agree. And even if you have people with different perspectives, experience and knowledge in the room, if they're not being heard, you've kind of wasted the opportunity.

Yeah. Yeah. Should, should, should be very um attentive not to do that. You have these people. So make sure their voice is heard so they can contribute towards making something better. Um You know, I'm thinking um one question comes to my mind, how can companies cultivate diversity inclusion uh when working remotely from home? Like, you know, one thing is when you see each other and you meet um you, you have this face to face communication. And uh yes. So how, how can, how this is is and in, in maybe from your observation, maybe you've done some research is the situation getting better towards diverse inclusion. Do people start to understand other people better and say, hey, we actually do need and now more than ever, we need to unite and to work together even when we are remote, we still need to uh and maybe people started to, to care more about others and to understand their challenges or, or, or is it going down and, and and companies are more focusing on, I don't know, staying afloat, surviving just doing their stuff.

I I we see both trends happening at this time, Anna, so partly you do see what I call the personal, becoming professional where we can't just leave our work lives um at the office and our home lives at home, we are working from home predominantly. And so the idea that they're completely separate has broken down and it has required good managers to care about that intersection. So for example, if I know a school district is closed and my employee has small Children, I'm asking how can I help schedule meetings so that you can deal with this disruption from the pandemic. So that's been the positive that the personal has become professional. And we know in general, people thrive better when they're not making those decisions on their own. But when they're made by the team, right? So this person can take these hours because that's when they are able to, to work and this person can't work those hours because of child responsibilities and together we can come up with a schedule that works for everybody. But if we each have to manage it, I might get a schedule that doesn't work for you. But, you know, so anyhow, that's, that's, that's been the one positive. The downside is around the valuation of who's valuable, the valuation of performance.

So, if you think about uh the latest, again, the and mckenzie study that showed that we're at risk of losing. I think they said one in four women during the pandemic because they're unable to really manage childcare, the impact of racial inequity, um having to care for elderly parents or even our own mental health needs. This is a really stressful unprecedented time and here's one way that managers may unconsciously be preventing women from staying in the workplace. If we only value people who stepped up during the pandemic, we needed extra people in customer service. And this person was able to not only do their job but do three hours in customer service, right? If we only value people who stepped up, what we're going to unconsciously do is devalue people who had to lean out, it doesn't mean they're not contributing, it just meant that they didn't have the bandwidth to raise their hand and do extra work at this time or maybe they did need to reduce their work a little bit.

We're in a pandemic, right? So if managers aren't careful about how much they're valuing stepping up and accidentally or inadvertently devaluing the lean out. When we look at who gets to stay, who gets promoted, who gets rewards, the stepping up, people will rise to the top.

They are predominantly men, predominantly men with good circumstances, white men who aren't dealing with other issues like racial inequity. And if we look at the impact of that decision over the next year, it could be really, really dramatic. So going back to criteria again, if organizations aren't overtly discussing how they're going to deal with the step up, lean out dynamic, we're going to see a dramatically different workplace, something we could have prevented by having those discussions and making sure people are valued for stepping up and yet not at the expense of devaluing those who need to lean out.

If we don't have this discussion, I'm really concerned that we're gonna see the impact of this in the next year and it won't be something that we're happy about ending up uh with. I

hope the discussions are happening because uh yeah, II I wouldn't want to see uh uh uh uh uh uh uh down, you know, women are becoming less in the tech space that we actually are now because as you said, there is too much on women's shoulders and I can feel it on my shoulders as well.

Being, being a woman, being a mother, being a wife and uh the friend, many things, so many roles, many hats we are wearing as women and we need to, to balance it and we need to, to deal with different situations. And I think for everyone, everyone faced challenges during this pandemic in one way or another. But women are definitely more affected and there are many stats who, who, who say who confirm these facts. So I think that this conversation should happen in the organizations. Otherwise the the outcome could be really um dramatic and in a negative way. This word. So really, I'm very, I'm very grateful that you brought it up and showed this um you know, dynamic and how it could be. Um Yeah, you know, it's um quite common that when we talk about diversity and inclusion and gender equity in the workplace, it translates mostly to white women. And on top of that, a lot of organizations hire people of color in a very low level entry level positions need management where they don't have a lot of equity or decision making power. What could be done about that?

This is such an important point and it's one that one of my colleagues at the lab studies deeply. Her name is Doctor Melissa Abod and she does work specifically on women of color and tech. Now, here's one of the things that we don't recognize if a woman of color has navigated all those barriers and made it into the workplace. She has wisdoms that are far greater than her technical abilities. You see, if someone else sails through the system without a single hitch, they don't know that much about how the organization really works. But if someone has had to do all this extra navigating, they have all this insight into the barriers, the way promotions really work that if the organization is leveraged, they could produce better run organization by leveraging those wisdoms that not only helped women of color thrive, they would help everyone thrive who wants to be in a workplace, that only advantages one kind of person, right?

So here's some of the wisdom we can think about, we often undervalue how networks influence our decision making that we trust people so much more if we have a personal connection. So when someone's up for a promotion and they have that acceleration of, you know, I trust them.

I know their work. I feel confident voting for them. We often don't realize that we're giving extra um points to people who we're closely connected to in our network. And if we're one of the people who is closely connected to leaders, we might not even notice that we've been accelerated by that. We might say, no, I'm just really talented. I've worked hard for this, right? But if a woman of color who's been excluded from those networks, sees this dynamic and has figured out other ways to position herself for success, she has so much insight into the way the organization runs that if leaders listen to that and redesigned access to key projects, promotions, spending time with leaders, they would broaden their bench of talent.

They wouldn't just rely on the one person who happens to make their way to the top. They would be curating a larger, more diverse, more talented bench that's promotion ready. So one of the ways that we can think about the value of diversity is not only the great ideas that we get from people from all different backgrounds, but gaining access to the hidden rules of work so that we can redesign the overt or explicit rules of work. So they work for more people, not just the people who happen to look or be like the leaders in our organizations.

Yeah, this is a really good advice. And I think that by, by having uh women of color and in the in the driver seat, we can really change the game in a positive way. And as you said, they have learned so much because they've navigated and, and you know, encounter different challenges situations. So I think there should be and I hope there will be. And I want to believe that black life matters movement is, is, is raising awareness about very important matters in a sense that there should be more women at different industries, at the, at the management level and uh being active part of the of the society community. And um I don't know why it didn't happen before because it's like, it's like should have been already years ago and just uh right now and with all the movement, I, I feel that uh we are getting closer and I hope, and I see the lots of support from, from the world, from the communities, how, how and we also uh we recently had women tch mid Atlantic conference.

We had access and speakers, women of color, black women. And I like, I want to see more women and like black men and people of color different conferences. This shouldn't be like of of an option. This should be already like even like 5050 you know, if you want so and II, I want to see more positive change and we are working also as an organization in that direction. Um Here are questions, many questions. And uh before we uh you know, send our final message, I would like to um to uh ask some of them, here's a question from Pinar, how to differentiate a gender biased feedback from a genuine one that would help one grow as in how do you know if you're simply not good enough because you don't fit into the stereotype for the troll?

Or you really should take that advice seriously and work on itself since you have both mentioned, women get criticized for things men tend not to.

That's a really great question. It's very nuanced, isn't it? There's kind of two sides to it. One is, you know, how can I differentiate, differentiate between biased and genuine or authentic feedback? And then at what point does it become, you know, that you're spending too much work dealing with the gender stereotype and what could you do about that? So, to differentiate between gender biased feedback and feedback, that is authentic, I often think about what the goal of the feedback is. If the goal of the feedback is to correct something you're doing, that's really not germane to your job. So for example, if someone says, um you know, in meetings, you really speak up too early and um I feel like people think you're self promoting notice, the person hasn't said anything about whether your ideas are good, whether your, your presentation has had an impact, whether you know what you're saying, positions you as successful.

So one of the things I try to do is separate and, and listen for it, does this really have to do with the job or does it sound like kind of the wrapper around the job, which might be gendered? If I think it's the wrapper, I might start to ask some questions. Thank you for the feedback. I just wanted to ask some questions about how you came to. Did I hear you correctly in saying that in team meetings, really, people who speak up early aren't really welcome. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? And, and how, who does speak first? Then if, if if you're saying speaking first isn't valid, right? So I would try to get underneath that because sometimes there's a grain of, of gold inside of it. What they're saying perhaps is the perception is running them the wrong way, not what's happening now. It's unfair that I have to deal with people's perceptions. And yet I know that I could develop some skills to be more effective in those situations. Right? So remember I know you talked about communal and agentic, the we versus I, I think it's great that someone speaks up first. One of the things some depending on how big the meeting is. I might say, for example, I'm so glad you brought up that point. That's critical. Here's what I have to say about it. That's this balance. So if it's that it's being perceived that you're not being effective, but you get, you get it inkling because you've done some probing that is gender bias.

I might just pull some tools out of my tool kit to try to deal with the perceptions because because I want my ideas to be heard again, unfair that we have to do that extra work. Now, I think the second part of your question is when does it become that you're spending all your energy, dealing with those kinds of biases and feeling, you're not able to spend your energy doing the good work that you need to do and that's a decision everyone has to come to for themselves.

It's kind of like a procon checklist. When I worked at one company, I got this really great advice. They said I get this company is not a great fit for you, but it's a great company. So do you have a checklist of all the things you want to take from this company? What skills you want me want to develop? What projects that if you had and you decided to leave, you could say I got everything I wanted from this company and now I'm ready to go. And that was really great advice for me because I wasn't a long term fit for that company. But I did make sure that my, you know, skill set was bolstered in the way that I wanted and why I went to that company in the 1st, 1st place. So that was useful advice. I hope it's useful for you as well.

I like that. I like that you manage, manage to uh two components on how it could be potentially worked out. And it's um important to ask questions to understand and not to have that feedback stuck in your hand and think, hey, I'm not just good enough. That's it. I should probably quit, I should quit tech or whatever industry I'm in or just quit this job, et cetera. So the more the more questions we ask, the more accurate feedback we can receive and then understand, hey, this feedback is biased because the person doesn't like me or this feedback is valid and I can do something to grow and improve, right? So it's good to ask questions. And I really love that you mentioned that. Let's take one more question. Um I've noticed, uh here's another question, I've noticed that women tend to put pressure on themselves to be perfect in their job, like they have to know everything about the field in order to be taken seriously. I know personally, I have this fear that people won't take me seriously if I sleep up, how do you combat sort of perfectionism?

That's a great question. And I, I think you might have heard of the phase. Perfection is the enemy of the good. And I've even seen some work that says perfectionism is part of a kind of a racist culture that who gets to be seen as perfect. That very idea of perfection eliminates people from being seen as the top in an organization. So perfectionism is something that is, is mostly problematic. Now, what do you do for that about yourself? Sometimes I think about the conditions of success. Sometimes the conditions of success include having what some people call a posse. Some people call it your personal board of advisors. You know, there's many names for it. Often the way we interpret what we're seeing puts us in a less good light than we really are like those doubts. Maybe I can't do something unless I'm perfection. I'm perfect. When you have a group of people that you can trust and who will bolster you, you're more likely to take those risks. So if you wanted to do something for the first time and you were nervous because you were a perfectionist, ask what are the conditions I could build in order to do that? Anyway, that will kind of grease the slide for me to do it.

One might be asking someone to coach me on my presentation. Another one might be a really powerful introduction that positions me for success. Another might be asking your friend to ask you all those questions you're afraid to be asked and practice answering them thoughtfully.

So think about the conditions of success and how to set yourself up for success as opposed to focusing on being the perfect person for the job,

good, good, good advice, advice. And here comes since we already touched success. My, my question before we say goodbye is um how do you personally define success? And do you consider yourself to be a successful person?

Wow, that's a big question. Um For people who are motivated by mission. Uh And I think many women are motivated by mission wanting to make a difference. How I me measure success is how I've had an impact. I think in my younger days, I viewed impact as maybe how many people I managed. How big my budget was, how many people listened. And I'm starting to redefine success into the quality of the relationships I have. Do I really reach out to people who are excluded from networks and spend time with them and elevate them even if I never get known for this. I know that I've been that kind of person and so I've been redesign, finding success for myself as the quality of the important relationships I have and how much I invest in them and their success as together we move forward towards my mission, which is a world where all workplaces value their employees so that their employees thrive.

And whether I'm successful, I I would say um at the current time, yes, because I'm really focused on the important relationships in my life and having them thrive and work. So thanks for that, that big and challenging question.

That's a beautiful definition of success. I do really love that. Never heard of this specific. That's why I was curious about your own definition. And uh I really love what you're doing the way you're doing it, the energies that you are putting the, the impact that it is making when you spread the word about the research that you have conducted. And I think that more people should know and more people should um try to understand the reasons behind the bias, try to change the way they think and the way they perceive the certain things because we do have unconscious bias, but we can work on it, right? Because we can change things for better. The way we, the way only we can do, right? The way you can do the way I can do the way everyone who's listening to us can do. And I'd like to thank you for this. Um This is super engaging and interesting conversation. We've been receiving lots of feedback. People are thanking us. This was awesome. Good points. Thanks for the interview. Yeah, I did really enjoy Laurie. It was great and we are looking to have a US speaker at our future events.

We are going to have a global conference again and more events and uh thanks a lot for your time. Keep up your fantastic research. Um Check in uh I I 1111 thing that I'd like to mention before we say goodbye. A great course that you did women transforming tech. I urge everyone to watch and where Laurie is sharing about uh breaking the bias. And uh there are good points and sponsorship on networking, great course on linkedin and you can watch it and it's, it's excellent. I think everyone can take something new and some, some good chips, some good uh tool strategies, techniques and, and take something for themselves. Thanks Laurie,

thanks for having me and thanks for making this amazing network possible. It's really, it makes a difference.

Thank you. Uh We also have now a networking um who is everyone who's listening to us on, who's joining us on hoping you can join the networking area. Laurie. If you have some time, I know you're super busy, but if you have some time, stay with us. Um iii I know that people would love to meet you and you can have just a quick chat with some of our community members. And um yeah, if you can please stay if not see you and have a great day.

Thank you. Bye bye bye.

So, thank you, everyone. I did really enjoy how active you are today and I see many people are joining us from different parts of the world, London. Um um Nigeria I saw in the beginning um I see also uh Armenia us, Texas. Wow, super diverse in Indonesia, Peru. It's great. Uh I hope the time fits uh you and you join us, people are saying that this is a great event. Thank you very much. And um yeah, if you like your feedback is uh always important and welcome and um also feel free to share uh with people who might need. We have um we shared the link uh with um the recording. So maybe drop this link to someone who needs to hear this and someone who can take really value because Laurie gave really valuable um pieces of advice. And I think everyone can um especially those who are uh who are struggling, whether they're working in tech on other industries, they can really um take something and implement it in the strategies they use uh to grow professionally. Um Another thing that I'd like to mention is that we are Having Me Global Awards this December and that nominations are open until the 23rd of October. So feel free to nominate an exceptional woman you admire, look up to or think that she's awesome or nominate yourself.

If you think that you fall under um under a category, check out our categories on our website women tag.net, we'll drop also a link here in the chat, the networking area is already on. So go ahead and do some inspiring and exciting networking. You will have um time to connect with people from all over the world. Here is, thank you from Algeria coming and yeah, thank you very much for being such a great audience. I do really like uh how we interact and can communicate and how you send positive vibe. And I believe that uh you feel the energies. It was today at our chat and we are going to have another chat in two weeks and next week we are going to have also an interesting session uh with the Microsoft team and we'll be talking about um how to navigate your career and get into the leadership role. Very connected. We talked today about women's leadership as well, so join us and I'm wishing you a great day. Great evening, maybe morning, depending where you are and see you online. Bye bye.