Here's Why Your Company Is Still So White

Companies have come up with all different kinds of ways to try to correct when they've been criticized for not having diverse enough workforces. But the question is how well it's working. It's not it's not working. And we've seen this in the tech world where these companies put out these transparency reports, which is what I did at the top of the show, where they say like, look, we're going to be honest about our numbers, and then that's

how we're going to fix it. And they'll have a breakdown of the makeup of the workforce, and then they'll pour a ton of money into all these initiatives and then put out a report the next year that shows that they've barely moved the needle. Yeah, it's interesting because the transparency report seems like a good first step, like we have to kind of come to grips with what the problem is before we can start solving it. So it seems like companies should be getting somewhere right putting

these transparency reports up. But as you say, whatever they're doing as a second step doesn't seem to be exactly the right thing. Yeah, it's kind of funny because the press cycle is like, oh, applause your transparency report, and then the next year you just open yourself up to like, how not far this company has come right, or you don't release the transparency report because your numbers are too embarrassing, and then everybody asks why right, So what exactly our

companies doing well. One really in vogue thing is this unconscious bias training, which didn't exist until fairly recently and is a way of getting employees to like understand their own biases that are inside of us all. So it's not like you're a bad person. It's like we're all bad people. It's not like weed out the racists at your job. It's like except that everyone's vulnerable to having a kind of prejudicial way of looking at things. And

then work towards solutions. Sounds great, could be issues? Well, you and I took the test. Yes, there is a test you can take online to evaluate your own unconscious bias. Yeah, and it's like there are multiple different ones, and you and I took the one that was about women in the workplace and and if we are biased towards women in the workplace, And we found out that we are biased towards women in the work place. Yeah. The interesting thing for me was I think I rated worse than

you did. I got like the most biased their stream. And we talked about how we thought we would do, and my sense was, like, I I can come to terms with the fact that I have internalized bias like everyone else. I'm not special, But in my heart of hearts, I was kind of expecting your hoping that I would do like a little bit better an average. Yeah, you were.

You were having trouble coming to terms of it, right, And I was inclined to almost like dismiss the results when it turned out that I was really biased, Like I had a very strong association between ideas about careers with men and ideas about family with women. So is that the problem with those kinds of trainings, like you go into it seemingly with an open mind, but then you just believe what you want to believe about yourself in the end. Anyway, I do think that is one

of the problems. I know that people don't like being called out. And even though unconscious biased training tries to be a little bit more like we mentioned, you know, it's it's not you, it's the world we live in. I think what happened to you is the computer was telling you that you were strongly biased, and your reaction was to say, no, I'm not right. That doesn't fit with my idea of myself. So I'm just not going

to use that information. Yeah, I think people have an aversion to being told to like sit down and be better when they think that they're pretty good. Another thing that people have found with unconscious bias training is that research suggests that when you tell people how bias the workplaces, they're more likely to just accept it, which I thought was really fascinating. Yeah, it's like normalizes the bias. So you're like, well, this is just the way things are,

and so maybe you become complacent. Yeah, which seems crazy to me, but research it's science and science, so these are some of the ways that companies are trying to address the problem of diversity. And it seems like a no brainer that diversity would be a thing that you want, like a good thing in a company, But it does seem like there have been a lot of cases made for diversity that are beyond Just like diversity is good, having people that look different from you is a plus

because it's a social good. Right. Oh yeah, I've talked to many people who are like, well, why it doesn't really matter, And there are a ton of studies and research showing that when companies are made up of different types of people with different ideas, who come from different backgrounds,

they have better bottom lines. I mean, we've talked about this specific with women, but having women in leadership roles leads to higher returns for companies specifically, which is crazy, and the same is true for any type of diversity. So that's like one way to counter this narrative of

people only care because they feel bad. Yeah, that to me makes intuitive sense because the way you end up with companies that aren't diverse to begin with is because people are hiring people that look like them and remind them of themselves. So when you have teams that are made up of a bunch of different people with a bunch of different perspectives. They're going to bring different ideas to the table and challenge the things that you're comfortable with,

and that usually makes for better work. Yeah, we've seen this with Twitter specifically. Twitter has a huge harassment problem. I've been harassed on Twitter. We've had a guest who's been her ass on Twitter, and I've talked a lot of engineers who said there are simple ways Twitter could have baked into their platform that would reduce harassment. But because the people making the platform, we're all coming from a place where they probably weren't going to be harassed,

they didn't think of it. And this happens with tech products all the time. But it's kind of annoying that we even have to make excuses for why we need workplace diversity. Right. Think, companies need to know what it means for their bottom line, right, Like, shouldn't it be enough that keeping systematically marginalized people out of power and money is bad and that we shouldn't do that and we try to do better? Like shouldn't that be just a nice goal to have? Yeah? It should? I mean

it does. It does feel a little bit gross to have to make the case, make the money case for diversity. So I see what you're saying there, But I also think that the business case for diversity and the fact that diversity is just a social good aren't totally mutually exclusive. Like when you have more diverse teams often, I think a thing that happens is that women and people of color and people from all different diverse backgrounds and points of view tend to have a better eye for seeing

the issues of those communities. And that's why, you know, issues that are directly linked to discrimination and diversity, like Twitter's harassment problem, are better addressed by people in those groups. So there's at a bit of overlap to me to like, yeah, there's a social justice thing, but also like the people who are the social justice warriors are often the people

in the marginalized group. Yeah. Yeah, And I think companies, I mean, if they don't know it, they they something happens that makes them realize that, like they have some big problem within their culture, like at Uber for example, where there's been harassment or things like that, so it forces them to reckon with it. But I still think

we're stuck with this problem of what to do. Yeah, and as you say, there are these initiatives companies have spent a lot of money on and then they've proven not to work or they haven't worked as well as people would like. And I think that that can easily lead people to say, oh, well, I guess these programs don't work, and sort of become complacent and not do anything about it. But despite all of these issues and complications, there are people trying to fix things in various different

ways and seeing some levels of success. And we're going to talk about that with our guests today. Ellen Powe was an investment partner at Kleiner Perkins, which she sued for a gender discrimination she lost. After that, she went on to be the CEO of Reddit, and now she's an investment partner at k pre Capital and the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the k Porse Center. She also co founded projects include a diversity Consultancy. Thanks for

coming on, Allen, Thanks for having me. We've been talking about bias in the workplace, and I was wondering when did you first become aware of bias? When did it become an issue for you in your career? I think it's been a small issue that I focused on as being a problem with individuals. So I think of it as well, that one guy is being kind of a pain, or that one person is really making it hard for me to get my ideas across, or that one person isn't listening to me, and I didn't think of it

as being um a broader issue. And tell I really got into tech, and specifically into venture capital. Then once I started seeing like, these patterns are not limited to individuals. It's actually a lot of people and it's making it impossible for me to do my job effectively, then you know, I started thinking more about the bigger problems in tech and the bigger problems in venture capital. Were you comparing

your experiences with other people? Like, what was it about your experience in tech that made you realize it was a broader pattern. It was comparing my experiences along with other women at my firm to the experiences of the men at the firm and seeing like this much bigger pattern and it wasn't just about me, and it wasn't just about one or two people making it hard for me to be successful. It was about a much broader problem, and it was hitting these other women, and it was,

you know, much more systemic. Can you give some examples of the things that you faced, um, I think the biggest one was um just seeing how the opportunities weren't coming to the women, where we were limited in the number of companies we could invest in and the men were not. So there were rules that the women were

bound to and men were not bound to. How aware do you think people should be about bias like this, Like, if you're a woman, should you be looking for examples where you might be treated unfairly or should you be trying to kind of just do the best job you can and hope you get treated fairly. I think you do the best job you can and hope you get treated fairly, But you should also be aware that you're not always going to be treated fairly and spending a lot of time trying to fix you know, are you

too loud or you too quiet? Are you too aggressive or you're not speaking up enough? Are you getting your seat at the table? Like trying to micro analyze every one of your activities is probably not the best piece of your time. Just do the best that you can and push forward and try to you know, see what is going around you, so you're not spending a lot of time self diagnosing a problem that you have no

control over. Right, So being realistic is important so that you know, these are things that I can change, and these are things that are just in the culture that I can't change and that I just have to deal with hopefully will change over time, and you know, I'll speak up and try to make a difference, but I'm not going to beat myself over the head for not having done everything perfectly because it's just not um my fault all the time. Yeah, it's interesting. It seems like

you don't have the individualistic lean in perspective. And I know that when you went to read it where you were the CEO, you tried to change things from the inside. So you got rid of salary negotiations which tend to penalize women, and you instituted new harassment policies. Um, how did trying to change the system work out? It was hard. It's you know, even from the CEO level, you're trying to change people's behavior. You're trying to change people's attitudes,

and it's very hard. But you have the tools and you have the ability to do it. You know, if somebody doesn't agree, or if somebody is going to continue

the bad behavior, you can fire them. So it was nice from that perspective of having some more control, But it is an effort, like it takes work, and you have to have some hard conversations about what's appropriate and what's inappropriate and then changing it is really hard because it's like all the stuff that was allowed before, I'm changing because it's actually not inclusive of all the people

on our teams. And for some people, you know, you end up being the person who's you know, a kill joy, as a buzz kill, the you know, the party pooper, and you know, you have to just be willing to take that like and understand, if I can make everybody and feel included, I feel like they belong and do their best work, it is better for everyone. It's better for the company, it's better for UM, the industry, and it's something that's going to have these long term gains.

And if I have to have a few uncomfortable conversations to do that, it's worth it and us to just do it. So that was you know that it was very fulfilling to see so many changes UM. But there's just so much work and it was hard, and not everybody liked it. Why do you think companies have such a hard time solving issues of diversity and bias? Oh? I think there are a lot of reasons. I think one big reason that makes it really hard is that everybody wants to be somebody Almost everybody wants to be

somebody who is is inclusive. You know, they don't aspire to be somebody who is biased against certain groups. They don't aspire to be racist or homophobic or xenophobic. They want to think of themselves as being inclusive and fair

and supportive of all these different groups. So when you call out, hey, this policy actually is not inclusive, or this is actually a really having a really bad impact on a certain set of people, it interferes with their view of themselves and it's not consistent, and so it's very uncomfortable. And do you want to admit that you've

put in place some policies that are actually completely unfair. No, So that becomes very uncomfortable for people to sit with and to try to change because they don't want to believe that there is this unfairness in their culture and their company and their policies in themselves. And I think the other part is it really takes change from the top.

It takes the CEO saying when there's that star engineer who makes the inappropriate jokes, who has an inappropriate behavior, I'm willing to fire them, even if it means the product is going to shift later, or it's not going to be as good, or I can't solve certain problems. I'm going to take a stand and say that our values are for inclusion, were anti harassment, where you know, anti sexism or anti racialism, were anti um exclusion. And I'm going to make that hard decision. And that comes

from the top, That comes from CEO. So getting the CEO to engage and to solve these problems and to make those hard decisions and the hard trade offs can be really difficult. Yeah, we saw that play out at Uber. Basically the CEO took a really long time for him to come around, and the problems just that whereas the worse it's hard. And then once it's baked into the whole company, you can't just hire some more people or

fire a few people. It's you need to think about how you're going to change, how you have a whole hiring process, how you think about promoting people, how you think about how opportunities are distributed across the team, how you think about even firing people, or you know, how people leave. It's across like the whole course of every interaction that you have to make sure is fair and giving everybody the same opportunities. And that's a lot of work.

So it doesn't sound like you think that, you know, discrimination at work is just this intractable problem that no, you can sort of figure out. It's more that people lack the openness or the honesty with themselves to really tackle it in the way that they need to. What

policies do you think work? Um, I think the policies that are helpful are you know, making sure that you're looking at you're not just taking everything cookie cutter from these big companies that have been successful and trying to repeat them, but really looking at, you know, eliminating forms of bias by taking different technology tools to make sure that you know you're not eliminating candidates based on names or based on you know, assumed groups and bias in

how you think about those groups and giving up their assessment of that candidate. That's related to the work that they're going to be doing and the contributions are expected to be making and not the relationships that they have or the UM schools that they went to. So really trying to create this fair experience across the board is,

you know, take changing your hiring policies. It takes changing your interviewing practices or building new ones from scratch that are different from the ones that we've used for ages, the whiteboard, the team interview, all of the things that

have UM baked into some of these larger companies. We need to think about resetting and forming new ones and figuring out, like what are the innovations that we can do and move away from these traditions that have kept us at these low numbers of underrepresented groups and move into this new world where eventually we're going to be you know, half half under representation groups and they're no

longer going to be underrepresented in the population. So the things that you mentioned like changing hiring practices, UM and other forms of of waves of combating bias. I mean, I know companies are pouring a lot of money into doing these things already and a lot of it's not working. So what is different about project includes approach I think there's um three big differences. One, when we talk about inclusion,

we talk about inclusion of everybody. A lot of these companies are focused on gender, and if they think they can do gender, they'll do gender and maybe race UM, but they're not thinking about inclusion across the board. When we talk about inclusion, it's every single group. So we're not looking at having an in group that's a little bit bigger because we've added the women to it, or we've added underrepresented people of color. It's we are trying

to come up with practices that help everybody. So when we talk about making UM things inclusive, it means getting rid of all the barriers that create an in group versus an out group. If you have that dynamic where all of a sudden you're adding one more group to the in group, your culture is still exclusive, like you still have an in group and an app group, and that creates um. You know, that creates a culture of exclusion.

If you can include everyone, then you're really thinking about how can I make every activity open, How can I make sure that everybody feels like they belong, How can I make sure that everybody is welcome. It's a it's a different approach. The second one is it's comprehensive. A lot of companies, you know, come in and they'll do some training, and it's been shown that standalone training is

not effective and sometimes it's actually reinforcing of biases. So our view is you need to think about the employee life cycle and all the interactions that the employee has across their work day and across their work experience to make sure that all of those interactions are you know, are are welcoming and inclusive, and you're not looking at promoting people in a way that's biased. You're not looking at UM salaries and paying people in a way that's biased.

You're trying to eliminate as much of that unfairness as you can. And then the last part, which we think is really important, which really distinguishes us from some of these other UM programs, is UM it's got to be measured and people have to be helped accountable for the level of diversity on their teams and their organizations and also how those teams feel, what the sentiments levels are.

And we have a survey that has eight different areas of sentiment that we examined to see whether you know each group is satisfied with how decisions are made, or satisfied with opportunities, or satisfied with how they're treated and how other groups are treated. So it's a very UM data based approach to making sure that every group feels included and if there is a problem, figuring out what group doesn't feel included and exactly why, so that you

have something very specific to UM look at. We do have a set of eighties seven I think recommendations on our website and those companies that are still at the really early stages can go through and read all of those recommendations and figure out which ones they want to start out with. But this comprehensive nature and comprehensive approach gives you a lot of opportunities to start an experiment and move forward. So those are eight seven recommendations for

ways to have more diversity. Yeah, and make sure that you're inclusive. So when you have an event, like what are things that you can do to make sure that people feel included. Don't have all of your events at

the same time on the same day. Maybe you have parents who can't come after work, so maybe you do something in the morning or during the day at lunch, you know, so just small things that that um make a difference, and also large things like you know, bring in UM you know, bring in a better way of dealing with harassment complaints. You know, So a wide range across every activity that we could think of where you could have an impact by making a change that might

help make people feel more included. What are some of the changes you've seen or the practices at these companies that are kind of well on their way to becoming more diverse and inclusive. What are some of those things that packed the biggest punch like that that work best. It's hard to say because there's not Everybody wants like, what are the three things? And there isn't. It's really there probably ten or fifteen things. I think there's certain

things that we know don't work. So having the standalone I'm going to do some diversity or biased training and I hope that's a silver bullet that's alsold my problems that does not work. Having data helps a lot, so that you're actually tracking and seeing where things are going and seeing is it that I'm hiring people and they're leaving because they don't get promoted, or they're leaving because they um aren't being welcomed right from the bat, like,

where are the people leaving? Why are my numbers low? It's more than just bringing in a lot of people and just hiring them in and hoping that they swim right. It's thinking across the entire organization. What's more, what's not working, and how do you make things better? I think having I think one of the problems that has compounded low

diversity demographics at certain companies is the referral programs. Often companies will have a program where they give employees a bonus maybe five thousand, maybe ten dollars if one of their recommended people gets hired. So, you know, I'm an engineer at a company, I'm excited because I can bring in my friends and get some money for it. And you end up bringing more of the same people, people

who want the same schools. You end up baking in a certain type of person, and it gets worse and worse as those people bring in more of their like minded and like background friends, and it becomes all of a sudden you have a culture and it's all people from the same school or it's all people from the same demographic. Um dropping that referral bonus or adding a net for bonus for bringing in people from different backgrounds can can help a lot. UM The interview process is

a huge problem because often they're very specific. There might be some very specific, kind of almost gimmicky questions that get asked, kind of trick questions, and if you have a friend in the company who can warn you about it and help you prep, you can be at a very strong advantage compared to you know, somebody who doesn't

have a friend at the company. So again you end up making in people who know people at the company and who are potentially very similar, and you don't get the people from outside who are coming in cold and don't have the benefit of knowing what the tricks are to passing the interview process. It sounds like the reason diversity is so hard to tackle is that around every corner there is something that's going to buyas one group over another. UM and Francesca and I are dealing with

us on our show. We UM think about it a lot, and we try to have diverse guests, but we aren't succeeding. So we're wondering what you think we should do two tackle our own biases. I think it's good that you're bringing up the problem, right, it's a problem that is one that needs to be recognized in order to change, and that you're bringing it up on your show. Hopefully people are appreciable the fact that you are trying and that you're interesting. It's interested in um bringing on people

from different backgrounds and hopefully they'll sign up. I don't know if you know you you have an easy way of people volunteering to participate, but that's a great way of doing it, you know. And I will tell the people that I know that hopefully this will be a great podcast and UM and it's a great experience, and

they should, you know, try to try to participate. It's asking the people that you know, UM, who else from different backgrounds would be good guests, and then going out and trying to get them onto the show and really kind of making that call out to people and letting them know that you're interested and open and that it's a place that they are going to be valued. Yeah, we do have a platform for for making those requests.

And I think it's interesting because Beck and I have talked about it and a lot of the people who are in the the field that we tend to interview. You know, we talk about workplace culture and and and social science around the office and behavior at work, and a lot of people just happened to be white men.

So finding more diverse guests kind of means thinking a little more creatively about how, you know, what we think makes a good guest, not just you know, maybe someone who fits the mold of expert in this specific topic we want to talk about. And I think that probably mirrors the case for a lot of companies, like they have to they have to broaden their thinking about what makes a good employee, Um, what the metrics are and what the goals are there looking for? Right, Yeah, And

I think it's a huge opportunity for creativity. So you could look through medium, you could look through Twitter, find some people who are really interesting and then decide, well, this is something that they're doing that we would never thought about, but it would be great to have them come and talk on the show. It can expand your range of what you're looking at in a way that

can be really additive. There was a search I was doing for a CEO maybe eight years ago where you know, I we had hired a recruiter and I asked him to make sure that there was there were people from diverse backgrounds in the candidate pool. He went out and found some new candidates, and you know, one of them was a woman who you know, ended up not being the perfect fit for being a CEO, but ended up being a great UM entrepreneur and residence for Kinor Perkins.

So we were able to bring in different candidates from a pool that we didn't have seen otherwise, you know. And then we also we found somebody from that company who ended up being the CEO of the company we're doing the soarce for. So we found somebody from the same company as the candidate who was a woman UM that end up being a great candidate and end up being the person who we made CEO. But we probably wouldn't have looked at that company if we hadn't expanded

the search. That's definitely been um our experience when finding the more diverse guests. It's finding them through people who were guests that we really liked, who weren't exactly in the box in the mold. UM. So, I think that's really good advice. And this is this is all really good advice for us, And thank you so much for coming on and talking to us and hopefully we can all do better. Yeah, thank you for having me. I

appreciate it. Well, the takeaway for diversity from Ellen seems to be that you have to do a million zillion things. There's no like quick fix. Yeah. She was really reluctant to give us a silver bullet solution, which I respected. I think that that's the that's the recipe for frustration for anyone trying to solve this problem. And I can see why companies would hate that because because you send

me like unconscious bias. Okay, we did it, we fixed diversity, right, And you spend all this money on a program that somebody guaranteed you was going to fix all of your problems, and then it didn't. So you're like out of options, you're out of ideas. You don't move on to the next step. And it would be a little hypocritical of us to hold companies accountable for giving lip service to diversity without doing anything about it if we didn't actually

commit to doing something about our diversity problem. Yeah. So there were a lot of pieces of advice that she gave us that I thought were really good. One thing I think we can do right now is just say we want to do this. Yeah, if you, as a listener, have an idea for a topic or a guest or something that maybe you would not automatically expect to hear on our podcast, but would open us up to different points of view, please tweet us, call us, email us whatever. Yeah,

so that's one thing we can do. Also, she said to like ask people on your show you've had if they know people, which I've I've done that. Yeah, we've done a little bit of that. And I think that some of the things she told us for things we know, like, we know that it takes going outside of our comfort zone. It takes you know, reaching out to people that are in communities we don't always deal with and asking them for their recommendations. And this is such a common excuse.

But one of the reasons we probably don't do it enough is because we just like feel this deadline pressure to get stuff done slightly harder, and it's slightly hard you don't do it. It's not even that much harder, it's just harder enough that if there's an easier way to do it, like sometimes it'll fall by the wayside. So we'll make a commitment to do better. Yeah, we're not just a transparency report, and that's time for happy big takes, happy fake takes. We have a half bake

take from a caller. You two can call into our hotline at two on two six seven zero one six six And if you just want more of me and Francesca, we have a newsletter. You can find it at Bloomberg dot com slash newsletters. Hi, my name is Chris. My half bake take is I think daylight savings time should be permanent. I like having sunlight after I get out of work to go play with my friends or go out and eat, and I just think it should always be daylight savings time. Thanks, I'm I'm bored with us.

I love sunshine, yes, absolutely, Um, why do we make the day's shorter as the year gets more depressing anywhere horrible? Like you go from a depressing for thirty sunset sometime in like you know, the late fall, to a depressing three thirty sunset. I have a half big take on his half big take is that daylight savings time, when we get to the good times, should be a holiday.

I think it's a Sunday, but I think it's like we should all celebrate it like it's so exciting that it should be like have like a two am like exactly like that good happy Take me anyway, Francisca, what's your not really great idea that you want to share

with us? This sounds a little less sunny, but I want to put an end to an insidious business practice that I hate, which is when, um, a certain type of savvy people person in a white collar work environment just like says your name back to you a million times. Do you know what I mean, Rebecca, Yes, Francisca, that's a really good point, Rebecca. Yeah. They clearly read some sort of blog post about like when friends at work.

It's like, I'm onto you. I know you went to some management training that said that you would make people feel more special and more connected with you if you said their name and like you'd validate them. And it's like, no, you're just reminding me what my name is. I hate it. You sound phony. Although an amendment to that is I do think it's a really good mnemonic device to say somebody's name back to them when you meet them. I always do that. Nice to meet you, Rebecca. Is it

it is? My friends called me a Becca? I'll always remember that because it came out of my mouth. Becca, what is your thought? That isn't enough of a thought to put into an article, but you'd like to talk about today. I think it's lame when people pretend to not be into their birthdays. I think it's like a cool thing in my cohort, Like I'm just I'm not really going to do anything this year. Yeah, birthdays getting older. Yeah, And it's like, well, your friends want to celebrate with you,

and it's an excuse to do something fun. I totally agree birthdays, Like how do you get jaded about birthdays? I think there must be people who legitimately don't like them, but they're such an exciting thing when you're little and it kind of holds over into adulthood. And why shouldn't you like have this built an excuse to celebrate. I think there's a lot of stress about like, well, anybody show up, and I don't want to make people spend money.

But if you are just like I'm gonna do this fun thing, like come whatever, It'll be fun no matter whether anybody brings a gift or however many people show up, like what time of year is your birthday? For example, um, maybe this week it's in a couple of days and you're all invited to drinks. I really appreciate your enthusiasm about that, and this has been half big takes, half baked takes. Thanks for listening to another episode of Game Plan. You can find me on Twitter at RZ Greenfield and

I'm at Francesca today. You can tweet us with your thoughts about the show, your halfag takes, and certainly your ideas for how we can become more diverse. You can also call us at two one to six one seven zero one six six. If you like the show, head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcast to rate and review and subscribe. We got another review and it rolled. The show is produced by Liz Smith and Magnus Hendrickson. Had a podcast is Alec McCabe

See next week. M Nobody responded to my hilarious auto correct nickname Rebecca, which is ros like Rosy, which Frasier character. Are you yeah,