Humanize Diversity and Inclusion

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right here's how this rolls I know it's the end of the day I know I'm the only thing standing in between you all and alcoholic and non-alcoholic to be inclusive beverages but the only way I can do this well is if I get good energy from y'all I'm going to give it to you okay so how we doing yes excellent all right so uh first of all can we give a round of applause to the entire uh first round crew for what they've [Applause] done okay and and what a great session to lead into this one Julia thank you so much um Damen Hooper Campbell I am uh eBay's first Chief diversity officer I've been in the role for about two months absolutely loving it fantastic company fantastic experience let's Jump Right In folks all right so look any halfway decent pres presenter is going to tell you what in the world they're going to tell you first okay so first of all we're going to talk about the state of things in terms of diversity and inclusion and Technology second I'm going to focus a little bit on the title of this presentation which is let's dig in a little bit and figure out how we humanize this conversation that has become so popular in our industry and then finally yes I'm going to give you a couple of takeaways of things that you all can do as Leaders within your organizations in your life if you'd like to uh that hopefully will be helpful to you but disclaimer number one I'm not going to give you the solution to diversity and inclusion in Tech okay number two I don't have any data in this presentation this is all about humanizing this conversation and maybe taking a different approach with it and number three I know many of you are closing rounds of Investments as we speak but for those of you who might be Snapchatting or snapping those of you who might be you know sending text messages Etc I'm going to ask you just to engage and to be mindful as Julia just mentioned for about the next 18 minutes okay so with that couple of housekeeping rules how many of you by a show of hands have seen meet the or meet the parents okay in the spirit of inclusion for those of you who have not let me just lay this out for you Robert dairo on the right he's the father of this woman and in his mind no one is good enough for his daughter okay he's a former CIA agent so he's cynical about every single thing there is doesn't trust anybody poor Ben Stiller on the left is the daughter's significant other he's coming home to meet the parents for the first time wants to make a good impression but poor guy at every single interval he stumbles all over himself there's this Infamous scene where they're in Robert Dao's house and Robert dairo Corners Ben Stiller in the hallway and he says hey Ben we got this thing in our family anybody remember what it was called circle of trust and he's like Ben we got this circle of trust the entire family is inside the circle of trust and Ben's like okay and he goes but you Ben your way out here and you're trying to get inside the circle of trust and I'm watching you okay Daman awesome funny why do you go through that well I tell you that one you should check out the movie if you haven't seen it right but two y'all don't know me many of you here don't know each other and so in the next 15 minutes I need us to do what we very rarely do as human beings when we first meet each other most of us come into companies and we bring our Representatives you know what I'm talking about most of us have surface level conversations if we are politically correct in the next 15 minutes and we don't push the boundaries beyond the surface level then guess what the last session of the day you'll leave with surface level takeaways so I'm going to ask you to be okay to be politically incorrect I'm going to ask you to call BS when you see it and I'm going to push you to go a little bit deeper are we okay being inside the circle of trust this is like when you're in the exit row on the plane and they need the verbal confirmation right okay are we okay being inside the circle of trust love it love y'all okay wonderful so if you've ever Googled diversity in Tech here's what you probably come up with I literally Googled it and I came up with all these titles in literally less than 10 minutes what's happened with this conversation that's supposed to be about people it's supposed to be about something good is in many ways it's become a bastardized sticky conversation to have ADD in the backdrop in the United States in particular of the racially polarizing things that we're seeing happening across all of our cities add in the backdrop of what's happening in the UK with brexit add in the backdrop of what's happening in Germany with refugees and this is not become the most fun conversation to have and it's not for a lack of trying in fact in my time in this industry here's what I see most companies do that got a little mixed up so here's here what I'm going to do here's what I see most companies do number one they throw money at the situation they hire a chief diversity officer they invest in tons of programs more money after more money after more money and they focus on recruiting Because the media says that you've got to have a higher percentage next year of women of blacks and of Hispanics in the United States than you have last year or they invest in trainings unconscious bias has become the buzzword of The Last 5 Years and training after training after training takes place and in the worst case many individuals who don't consider themselves to be underrepresented minorities white men heterosexual men and women Asian men and women Indian men and women in these companies are so scared to talk about this that nobody says anything because they're afraid that by talking about this conversation they'll be blasted in the media or worse yet blasted by the people who they lead so what I'm going to ask us to do for the next few minutes is to humanize this this is not about metrics it's not about percentages yes ultimately those are some of the ways we measure it but I what I'm going to ask us to do is to throw out the trainings to throw out the money for a second and for those of you who have been afraid to talk about it I'm going to ask you to talk about it and I'm going to push you to do something in this room for the next few minutes that I hope you will do at your companies especially those of you who are just getting started because you have the best opportunity to make a change here I'm going to push you to have a conversation not rocket science so let's kick this off now remember we said circle of trust we said no BS we said no surface level stuff so I've got a few people who are in the aisles up here too in the balcony with microphones okay what does diversity actually mean what I'm not looking for is what does it mean as defined by the dictionary what does it mean as defined by what you think people want to hear or what the media says what does it actually mean in your world I need a few volunteers there's a hand there great uh it means to me uh a people who come from a wide diverse of background and places okay backgrounds what does backgrounds mean um experiences whether that's life experiences job experiences um uh location experiences okay perfect thank you very much let's go down here I'm going to look for somebody over here in just a moment so please volunteer somewhat similar we all have cognitive biases we all the things that we carry with us in baggage I want a wide variety of baggage I wantet I love that I love that great somebody over here can I get a volunteer on this side how about up in the balcony anybody okay there we go thank you uh it means not letting your culture be defined by a single or a few narratives huh okay great wonderful so look thank you for starting to participate I'm going to ask for a few more hands in just a moment thing is is we kind of get what diversity means it's everything often times this conversation is solely focused around race and gender and while yes race and gender are very important topics diversity goes well beyond race and gender and should include them but goes even further what I'm going to ask you to think about is this other word inclusion so what does this word actually mean and I don't want you to do what we typically do which is just Define inclusion for the next 3 to four minutes I'm going to ask you to talk with the person next to you if that means you got to get up and move your seat please do it and here's what I'm going to ask you to think about good it was supposed to have that effect all right so what I'm going to ask you to think about is not necessarily inclusion but I want you to dial back in your own life to a personal event when you felt excluded now this doesn't have to be about race or gender or age or sexual orientation this can be when you were four years old and you didn't get picked for the Kickball team this could be earlier today when you realize that people at your company held a meeting and didn't invite you it doesn't matter what it is I just want you to talk openly and candidly with the person next to you about a time in your life when you felt excluded and try to come up with a couple of adjectives that describe how you felt go [Applause] okay excellent you're probably all so engaged that you didn't even hear or see the buzz in the room so I want to ask you to give yourselves a round of applause for doing it all right so here's the moment of truth you all just shared and I heard you I saw you I need to ask for a few Brave volunteers to very quickly share the story that they told and how they felt when they felt excluded volunteer here thank you you I see one up there as well and in the balcony if there's one please let me know yeah go that picture was me but fatter and I felt like a loser because of the things that I thought were important um I was really good at but Sports was not one of the things that I cared about but it was a majority it was something everyone thought was important it was how people judged popularity and so that was a very classic uh multi- deade or decade and a half you know sort of recurring theme for me what's your name ai ai ai you said multi- deade well you know I was in school you know in Primary School 5th five to 18 that's but we're talking about a long time that you're dealing with this exclusion I found other things I was good at to focus on and friends and sure let let's first of all give ay a round of applause hold on hold on give him the mic sorry leave him with the mic for a second just give us a couple of adjectives that describe how you felt when you say you know like that was you and you felt excluded from things just one word adjectives loser mhm and lonely loser and lonely yes okay excellent thank you all right next I saw a hand up there let's bring the mic up there okay we'll go right here and then we'll go there next we're going to come up to you sir who's standing at the top next go right here hi um so Matt I hope you don't mind me sharing your too Matt and I Matt didn't volunteer but he's being included um Matt and I actually shared very similar stories is why I feel confident uh or comfortable maybe including his we both talked about uh not such close friends but also not like such distant acquaintances who had weddings recently that neither of us were invited to and both of us expected to possibly be invited to uh and so it wasn't necessarily maybe a deep exclusion in in the sense that we just heard but it still kind of was uh prompted almost a little bit of insecurity in the sense that wow maybe I'm not as good friends with that person as I thought I was or I'm not as close with that couple as I thought I was before mhm your name Zach sorry Zach and Matt right yeah Round of Applause real quick so you mentioned insecure what else did you feel being excluded and yeah fear too which was a mat just said fear of what fear of not being missed huh wow fear of not being missed very interesting show of hands how many people have been excluded from a wedding and felt that way okay and show of hands back to ob's point about maybe your physical presence um being something that's excluded you whether it was your weight or appearance how many have had that kind of an experience before keep your hands up put them up High please take a look around the room folks okay great another experience up top here my name is Steve uh my experience was in high school I was on our high school soccer team and it was a we'd have these big parties over the weekend the team would have you know someone's parents would be out of town and there' these big big parties and uh it was really awesome except I would hear about it on Monday uh after they happened and nobody told me or invited me mhm so um it was always uh one of these things uh feel left out feel sad feel um unwanted left out sad unwanted did you say Steve yes Steve Round of Applause real quick leave leave the mic with him leave the mic with him for a second Steve you you know you're a grown man now right yes why did you wh why did you bring that up from back then why was that why is that significant now uh you it's the same you still feel that feeling so when you're not invited to a wedding or you know when people are sitting somewhere else it's that same feeling that comes up interesting okay thank you do we have other volunteers like to hear more stories yes one right here please and do we have anybody in the balcony great and one in the balcony and then we're going to wrap hi I'm Caroline um I went to high school in Japan and I was on the math Field Day team and I was the only girl and I was the only non-japanese person and they would literally just speak Japanese in front of me like I wasn't even there and so this reminded me of that and that feeling of just like not even mattering that I was there so got it Round of Applause [Applause] please and quick show of hands how many people have felt excluded from a language standpoint before okay take a look around the room folks all right and then up top hey my name is uh Anker so mine is a it's kind of been a theme it's about age so uh the first few internships I had and the first job I had uh I walked in the front door and said I a million ideas on how to make everything better um and immediately got shut down uh and it happens a little bit less now but that that was kind of a theme of walking into things uh as kind of the youngest person around and and getting shut down and how did that make you feel Anor crippled a little bit and uh demotivated crippled demotivated okay okay great anybody else before we close anybody else want to share okay that's wonderful what we just did five six of you just shared experiences I want you to notice something those experiences didn't necessarily have to do with race and gender only those experiences were about human beings regardless of what our backgrounds are who have felt excluded what were the words we heard insecure fear lonely right crippled be motivated folks the point of this is there are people who are working for you there are people who want to work for you who are feeling this way right now inside of your organization show of hands how many people have ever felt excluded before in their life how many people have ever been responsible intentionally or unintentionally for excluding someone else take a look around keep those hands up high okay we've all done it before what I'm asking you to do is not a training I'm not asking you to take money and throw it at it I'm asking you to start with diversity and inclusion by simply committing in your positions of influence to never either directly or indirectly allow anyone in your sphere of influence to feel the way that we all just talked about okay so if you still aren't getting this diversity and inclusion thing okay this is not my metaphor and analogy I heard this before and I love it and so I continue to use it diversity can be likened to being invited to the dance party so you open up text email and you've gotten an invitation everybody in this room balcony down here we've all gotten an invitation to the party Saturday rolls around we got our freshest gear on we're ready to go and we're all in the venue beautiful venue we're standing around and there's tons of diversity in the room however you describe or Define the word but so what so what if it's only the people in the room who were invited who are the athletes who are dancing or if it's only certain people who are close enough friends to be invited to the wedding who are dancing or only people of a certain age who are dancing or only people who speak a certain language who are dancing or only people who are cool enough on the soccer team who are dancing folks my point is diversity alone is not enough if diversity is being invited to the dance party I'd push us to say that inclusion is being invited to dance when you're at the party and as Leaders the question is great if you're trying to recruit people from diverse backgrounds table Stakes as one of my colleagues just called it but are you actually inviting people to dance inside of your companies okay so really quickly at eBay here's how we think about diversity and inclusion and I'd challenge you all to get rid of the white noise that's in the media that focus focuses all of it on recruiting and statistics that's a major part of it and we call that Workforce we've heard it already we've heard it tons of times a diverse Workforce helps with with profits and business because many of our customers and then users reflect a broad array of diversity okay got it workplace how do you actually feel when you're there are you being invited to the dance or being invited to dance when you're actually in the workplace and then this other one Marketplace there's lots of research and studies out there that say that a more diverse Workforce gets you more customers but I'm going to push all of you to think about this in your business what communities are you missing out on what individuals are you not bringing into your platform because because you're not thinking about it in a diverse and inclusive way couple of things I want you to leave with I want you to try this with your people start with a conversation we can bring in external experts to talk about unconscious bias all day long we can hire a chief diversity officer all day long but have you actually had a conversation to understand what diversity and inclusion means to the people who you work with do you know maybe it is about physical appearance maybe it is about languages it's probably also about race and gender but don't miss out on bringing people into the conversation because you're so narrowly defining diversity and inclusion make inclusion inclusive this has become a very us-centric conversation I guess that if you're not already dealing with global audiences you probably have aspirations to at eBay yes we're going to talk about certain things in the US but what diversity and inclusion means here is different than what it means in Paris and it's different than what it means in Korea by having the conversation and hearing people and listening as Julia said you'll get the information you need to figure out where to meet people on this conversation the other thing is we've gotten to a place in this discussion around diversity and inclusion where we have initiatives that are focused on certain populations we have initiatives focused on women we have initiatives focused on Veterans we have initiatives focused on blacks and Hispanics in the US but what good are those initiatives if people in the majority don't feel welcomed in that conversation if it's simply an initiative inside of your company that's focused on women which is fantastic but men look at it and they say oh hell no I'm not going in that room how are we ever going to move the needle on this conversation and so I would push you to broaden the definition of diversity and inclusion and make sure that even with all great intent that we have to focus on underrepresented communities that were doing it in partnership with majority communities how ever you define that if you are at a place in your organization where you don't know if you should call Daman black or African-American get to a place by having a conversation where it's okay to ask that question if you don't know if you should call someone homosexual or gay get to a place where you can ask that question the worst thing you can do is say nothing at all I want I want you to find the business case for every single person in here it exists you can drive Revenue through diversity and inclusion forget any research study find the opportunity in your business model and then finally I coached leaders on Wall Street for almost four years and the biggest Achilles heel that I saw with senior leaders who make a lot of money who have big titles is an inability to be vulnerable what we did today folks is the real takeaway it's not even these things on the board in less than 10 minutes we fast forwarded past the point of political correctness past the point of I don't know you past the point of surface level conversation and talk to each other about something that we all have in common feeling excluded whatever you do own never ever ever ever doing anything to the best of your ability to let the people who are in your sphere of influence feel the way that you heard others talk about feeling today with that I want to say thank you and enjoy the rest of the evening

Channel: FirstRoundCapital

Views: 207,981

Keywords: Diversity, Inclusion, eBay

Id: 79JHMjA6tAA

Length: 26min 19sec (1579 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 23 2017