Dreamforce16 - Smashing the glass ceiling - tips from minority leaders
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Getting ahead when those above don’t look like you.
So much of the diversity debate in the technology sector and beyond focuses on gender, and so it was refreshing to attend a panel at Dreamforce earlier today that focused on a completely different aspect: minority leaders who have smashed through the glass ceiling.
The panel brought together four people from different backgrounds and cultures, but who had all overcome similar challenges and prejudices to get to the top of the ladder. Clearly this group are in the minority among minorities, as recent research has revealed that only 19% of Asian Americans are managers, falling to 14% at the executive level. More worryingly, only one of 285 Asian American women are in leadership roles, while African Americans make up only two percent of the technology industry workforce.
Ron Guerrier was appointed CIO of Farmers Insurance around 10 months ago. Initially from Haiti - a country his family had to flee in the late 60s after his father was involved in a failed coup d’état – Guerrier grew up in Chicago, where he initially worked at Toyota in repossessions, before he got his Masters degree and began a career in IT at the turn of the millennium. An executive team made up of white men in their mid-fifties now surrounds him, but he said they all understand the need to make the organisation more diverse. However, others Guerrier has encountered don’t have such an open attitude:
When I come to these conferences, so many times I get given the valet keys or people ask me where the coffee is, and then the next day I’m the keynote. I get on stage and look them in the eye, and they’re - oh crap, that’s the guy.
How do you react to that? Sometimes my Chicago side comes out, or my Haitian angry side but I don’t react to that. I work with them and have a conversation. I’ll take them aside and I say, hey this is what I experience when you misread the situation. I do it in a private conversation, it’s not public shaming. Most people apologise, they learn from it and I learn from it.
Candice Petty, director of litigation at 24 Hour Fitness USA, has faced similar issues due to skin colour:
My job is to provide advice and counsel to not only the main workforce but people who work in the C-suite. People tend to trust for their attorney those that look like them. When you don’t have anyone in the C-suite who looks like them, it’s a problem.
When you have women of colour in these positions, are you taken seriously if I’m in a meeting and say this is how we should proceed. They say, we’re not so sure about that. That has happened where I am now and in my previous roles. When you’re looking to someone you can trust with a major decision you’re looking for someone to relate to, you’re looking for someone who looks like yourself.
Cultural challenges
But it’s not just about skin colour, it’s also about culture, as evidenced by Taro Fukuyama, CEO of AnyPerk, who arrived in the US from Japan five years ago:
In Japan, I was reading all the articles about technology and all the companies raising millions every day. I thought if you came to San Francisco, you’d meet investors on the street and they’d ask if you wanted to go to a hotel and schedule a dinner meeting, and hopefully they’d let us stay at their house.
But that was optimistic and obviously that didn’t happen so we had to sleep on the street. But we had a car and so we slept in the Taco Bell parking lot.
Fukuyama said the biggest barrier he faced was around his own comfort level in making mistakes. He explained that the culture in Japan is very unforgiving if you make any kind of mistake, and so he worried a lot about the fact his English was so poor when he arrived:
I was reading the dictionary every day. But if you go to any coffee shop in San Francisco, you hear people speaking broken English. But those people can still raise a lot of money for a new venture if they’re passionate. As long as you have the passion, you don’t need to be perfect.
Tracy Young, CEO and co-founder at PlanGrid, which builds software for the construction industry, mirrored Fukuyama in that her biggest challenge came from within:
I’ve worked in two industries, construction and technology, both predominantly white males. I had to overcome my own insecurities. My co-founders were the ones that caught it early on. I’d be self-deprecating and they’d say it’s 100 percent your own insecurities. My co-founders were older and more educated than me, and so when they asked me to be CEO I said, no way. But they believed in me. You need to work at that insecurity and don’t be really unkind to yourself.
The panel also had advice to share on how to break down barriers. Petty said:
Don’t be afraid, be very direct. I found implicit or unconscious bias is very dominant but I have not encountered people who are bigots or want to treat people unfairly. They’re just not aware of the issue, or they don’t give it any thought. Take that person aside and use it as the opportunity to have a conversation. They appreciate if you don’t turn them into an enemy.
I went after the people who did not look like me and forced them to deal with me. While I did have mentors and allies of people of colour, the people I deliberately went after to be my advocates were older white men as that’s where the power is. Once you have the actual relationship, a lot of those biases fall away as they know you and trust you. Too often people and women of colour tend to stick together, but you need to seek out other people, then they see past that.
Guerrier called on others to give younger people from minorities and disadvantage background different role models from the stereotype:
I wanted to give them an image of somebody who didn’t get somewhere because they can rap well. I’m an awful rapper, my dancing is suspect at this point and when it comes to basketball, well...
But I remind them that when it comes to Dr Dre, he made his money from investing in technology and selling Beats to Apple. He didn’t get billions from NWA, he got the billion from working with Silicon Valley investors. It opens their eyes. It’s all about a different image of who a black person can be in a professional setting. You’ve got to give them something to reach for because if you don’t they gravitate to their friends on the street.