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Using Processes and Systems to Mitigate Bias w/ Deneisha Franklin
38 Plays3 years ago
This week for our 5th installment of "The 3D Podcast" I am speaking to Deneisha Franklin, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Program Manager at HubSpot to tackle the question, "How can we use processes and systems to mitigate bias in Talent Management. This was a great episode where Deneisha lays out her 5-Start Talent Management Strategy for Diversity, Inclusion, and belonging.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the 3D Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hey, I'm Cedric Chambers, and I would like to welcome you to another episode of the 3D Podcast, a masterclass where we share with you everything you need to know about how to transform diversity and inclusion in your organization as well as in your community. We're on a mission to amplify the voices of leaders that are making an impact in the world today so that we can have a better tomorrow.
Goals and Listener Invitation
00:00:34
Speaker
Our goal every episode is to keep it simple, honest, and transparent with you by uncovering the truths in diversity and inclusion with the hope of creating behavioral change all while presenting it from a unique perspective. So look, if you're ready, get your notepad out, pour you a drink, and let's dive deep as we discuss the dimensions of diversity.
Guest Introduction: Denisha Franklin
00:01:03
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the 3D Podcast. I'm your host, Cedric Chambers, and today we got a star in the making. Today, I mean, we're talking to Denisha Franklin. Let me tell you a little bit about Denisha. Denisha is a diversity and inclusion champion and tech enthusiast. She is passionate about planning, creating, and executing solutions aimed towards disrupting the status quo and incorporating sustainable systemic change, especially in corporate America.
00:01:31
Speaker
Denisha is a founding member and secretary of the Columbus, Ohio, nonprofit organization Black Tech 614, and is a diversity, inclusion, and belonging program manager at HubSpot. In 2019, Denisha was named as a CommSpark Central Ohio Tech Power Player in the Rising Star category, and has been recognized by the Wendy's Companies as a community ambassador.
00:01:55
Speaker
Look, I told you she's a star in the making. And so without further ado, I'm excited for the conversation.
Denisha Franklin's Career Journey
00:02:01
Speaker
I'm excited to get going. And let's dive deep with Danisha Franklin. So, Danisha, how are you doing today? I'm doing pretty good. How are you?
00:02:11
Speaker
Oh, I'm blessed, highly favored and everything in between. I can't complain. So look, thanks for joining us today. I'm excited to have the discussion, to walk through talent management, to walk through by a season of various different topics that we're going to address today. So excited to dig a little deeper here.
00:02:28
Speaker
you know, as we start off the conversation, you know, what I would like to do is just, you know, I want the audience to get more familiar with who you are, your background, kind of tell your story. And so if you could just start there, we'll start there and just, you know, provide a little bit more information for the audience around your background, where you are today and how you got into the diversity and inclusion space.
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah. So my background, when I talk about this, it's always a little, a little hazy just because I have a background that's pretty nonlinear, if you will. Well, when I graduated, I graduated with my bachelor's degree in sociology. So it's the study of human behavior and
00:03:05
Speaker
When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I had no idea, to be totally honest. I didn't want to go into social work and I wasn't interested in doing research or anything like that, at least not professionally. I was at a career fair one day and I ended up finding a tech staffing company. It seemed really cool. They sold me on it and that's what I ended up doing. My intro to tech in general was through technology staffing and recruiting.
Discussion on Bias and Unbiased Systems
00:03:29
Speaker
I did that for a little over two years and I started to realize that although I loved
00:03:33
Speaker
Helping people in that way i feel like there was something more that i wanted to do within tech release something different so i ended up going over to wendy's and i spent a little over two years there where i was working more directly within technology field so i was a business intelligence analyst and i did a lot of work with our internal financial reporting tools and developing and supporting those.
00:03:55
Speaker
And then towards the end of my time at Wendy's, I was working over in the digital product space and was more focused on customer experience with online ordering. So with all that, it brings me to where I am now. So right now I'm working for HubSpot and I'm a diversity inclusion and belonging program manager. So I primarily focus on our ERGs and how we can use those employee resource groups for those who may not know, how we can use those to really expand what it is that we're doing with diversity and inclusion.
00:04:25
Speaker
No, awesome, awesome. And so let me ask you this, as you kind of navigate through your career and you think about there's the aspect of diversity and inclusion from the work that you do, but then there's this other aspect just around who you are in a life that you live in.
00:04:41
Speaker
And so I want to ask you this question. As you were kind of navigating your career, just growing up in life, like when did you actually like realize, you know, this aspect of like, race, identity, and kind of, you know, who you were as an individual? Like, when did you start to kind of, whether you had like an aha moment, or kind of you start to see things
Talent Management Strategies
00:05:01
Speaker
a little bit differently? Like, when did that happen? And then how did that transition kind of affect you and your career path?
00:05:07
Speaker
I don't think there was a singular moment that I had an aha moment, but growing up, I was a competitive dancer, so I did that for about 15 years. My dance teacher, he was a black man. I remember being seven years old and I was in one of my private solo lessons for a solo, like I said, a solo lesson. I remember he stopped the music and he told me, he said, you're going to have to work harder. This is little seven-year-old me, I'm like, what are you talking about?
00:05:36
Speaker
He's like, you're going to have to work harder. And he said, you're going to work twice as hard because of this. And he pointed at his poem, obviously indicating the color of his skin or my skin. And so that was really the first time where I was like, well, what does that mean? That was the first time I really was introduced to this aspect of race and not introduced to it, but really understood that it was going to have an effect on me as a person.
00:06:02
Speaker
My background in the way that I grew up, I was again in dance and that was primarily all white young girls around the same age as me. And there was myself and then I think there were two other black girls and then my teacher was a black man. So I had that aspect but at the same time when I was in school it was super mixed and it was mostly black students that I was around. So I'm kind of grateful for that in the sense that I got to dip my feet into both worlds and I think that is a big reason for why I have an understanding of
00:06:31
Speaker
and an empathy for a lot of different things just be from having that background. Got it, got it. So you weren't like a dancing dog, were you? No, no, no. I don't know if you've ever seen Dance Moms with Abby Lee. It's more that style, but not as crazy.
00:06:47
Speaker
I got it. Yes, I have. No, that's great. You know what? One thing that you just said that I hear this a lot when you bring up the concept of as your dance instructor told you, you have to work twice as hard. Right. When I hear that and I understand it is one of those things where you kind of say, like, what does that mean? Exactly. But for some reason, I feel like all like minorities, black people, Hispanic, you know, diverse individuals, I feel like we just inherently know what that means.
00:07:15
Speaker
It's not even something that you quantify. You're just like, okay, I know what you mean. Exactly. I was seven years old. I'm always curious about twice as hard. It's only 24 hours in a day. How do I quantify this? But I think we all know what that means. That's awesome. Then as you're navigating and in the work that you're doing today and to lay a little bit of the groundwork, as we talk about,
00:07:40
Speaker
talent management as we talk about just overall diversity and inclusion. I want to start with this aspect of bias. I want to lay some groundwork here just so that our listeners and everyone gets an understanding of where we're coming from and how we're looking at this. As it relates to bias, one, what are biases? Two, how do they show up in the workplace? Yes, a loaded question.
00:08:05
Speaker
I would say that in and of itself, bias is really just a preference. So you can choose to have a preference towards or against something and it's not necessarily something that you choose, but it could be something that you choose. I work with a lot of organizations and just talk to a lot of folks who want to do maybe unconscious bias training or things like that.
00:08:27
Speaker
I am relatively, I won't say against unconscious bias, but I do have my qualms with it just in the sense that I think it's overused and I don't think we're necessarily getting to solutions by being so focused on unconscious
Sponsorship and Retention of Talent
00:08:41
Speaker
bias. And so what I mean by that is really if you think about it, I don't know if you have you ever been involved in an unconscious bias training at any time in your career?
00:08:50
Speaker
Why, yes, I have. Oh, OK. So I guess when you went through that training, did you feel like you left and you knew what you needed to do after that? Absolutely not. Exactly. And so I'm very weary of this concept of unconscious bias, especially when we talk about it in context of diversity and inclusion, just because if we go to these trainings and companies do them once a year, twice a year, however many times,
00:09:15
Speaker
The bias isn't really unconscious anymore we know that it exists and at this point we're choosing not to to address it and we're choosing not to figure out ways to mitigate it so That is my general thoughts on bias, but when people think about it I think we automatically think about diversity and inclusion right and really bias could be anything I could have a bias for sweet coffee because I like sweet coffee better than I I
00:09:38
Speaker
Like black coffee, it just when we talk about the types of biases that start to affect people's identities and start to affect people's opportunities. That's where we really get into to touchy territory. This aspect of bias, you know, as you're saying, right, not all of it is unconscious and we're making that decision. And, you know, with everything that
00:09:59
Speaker
You know, has gone on. I mean, 2020 has just been a crazy, crazy year. But then you have just years and years before this. Right. Well, you had a lot of situations where black unarmed men, black unarmed black women were being killed or how it may be. That's like.
00:10:15
Speaker
You see it on the tv you see these things happening right you have the discussions in these you know quote unquote unconscious bias trainings and it's like. At what point are you going to recognize and realize that you know okay you give
Data-Driven Diversity and Inclusion Goals
00:10:34
Speaker
me this information.
00:10:35
Speaker
I understand i have biases now is that part of what are you gonna do about it exactly i mean i think that's the point you hit it right there that a lot of bias is completely conscious that's why we end up with racism sexism. All of those things are because of conscious bias that people choose to act on so.
00:10:56
Speaker
I think that the problem with unconscious bias training is that we can't train employees to be unbiased because if you're a human you're going to be biased. What we need to do, and I think where the focus really has to be, is on how our systems and our processes are unbiased because at the end of the day it shouldn't matter who is running those systems because they are built in an equitable way.
00:11:17
Speaker
No, I completely agree. And that's a great segment to kind of the next piece here. And so, you know, as we're thinking about, you know, talent management in this space, you know, how do we build processes and systems to mitigate these biases in regards to talent management and talent recruitment?
Denisha's Personal Brand and Closing Remarks
00:11:34
Speaker
Where it really starts for me when I think about just diversity inclusion work in general for organizations, you have to really know what your problem is. And so it's easy to look at your employee population and say, okay, well, we don't have enough black people, or okay, we don't have enough women, or we don't have enough whatever.
00:11:53
Speaker
At the core of it, though, is that really the issue? That is an issue, but is that really the issue that you should be attacking? And so what I mean by that is you can't look at the employees and see that there's a lack of black people and say, OK, let's go out and hire as many black people as we possibly can. When if you really dig into the data, which one thing that we always need, I love data,
00:12:16
Speaker
If we dig into the data, you would say, oh, okay, well, we really need to focus on hiring black women. And even beyond that, we need to focus on how we can do to retain black women because they're leaving our organization quicker than anyone else. And so by doing that and using the data, you're actually going to be able to create a more targeted approach or a more targeted strategy for what your organization needs versus this kind of blanket solution that isn't really going to help.
00:12:43
Speaker
That's how I view unconscious bias training. That to me is like a blanket solution and it doesn't necessarily address the core of the issue. And so when you think about that, especially within, I think about the technology space, people are, let's say you're a developer and you're going to this unconscious bias training.
00:12:59
Speaker
A lot of times you're like, I am not biased. Let me just go back and start working on my work. Let me start coding. And so people have to understand that when we are training folks on bias, we need to make sure that it's relevant to the work that they're doing every day. So there are ways that bias creeps into development work that's going to be different than how bias creeps into project management work. And so I think that is the biggest piece. And when we talk about talent management,
00:13:27
Speaker
It creeps in at every stage of the process, literally every stage of the process. I agree. I love that. How does that bias impact the work that they do? Because let's just say that there's been a consistent theme where there's not enough Black Hispanic talent in the pipeline when it comes to tech talent, software engineers, developers, and of that nature.
00:13:49
Speaker
And so when you think about it the tools that we use every day in most cases aren't developed by those individuals right so when you think about face id when you think about you know just putting your hands under the sink.
00:14:05
Speaker
and the sensor comes on, it's like, one, how are they being built? Two, how are they being tested? Because different faces, different face structures, all these things play into how it recognizes, yep, this is the person, yep, this is a feature that we recognize. All of these things have these underlining biases that get taken into account to where you could have trouble opening your phone and probably think that it's just an issue where my phone is broke.
00:14:34
Speaker
When reality is probably. The way people built it right in that process. So you spend a lot of time kind of on the talent management side and you know, just in our previous discussion, right? You know, I'm fascinated to just kind of hear more about your five star talent management process and just, you know, break this down and understand it because I think that, you know.
00:14:54
Speaker
as we go through it and as we think about these various different steps within the organization around recruitment, around development and such, there are things that organizations are doing today that they need to fix in order to be able to move forward. We know that as a society, kids under the age of 15 are 50.1%.
00:15:20
Speaker
diverse now, right? You know, non-Hispanic white. And so we know that the organizations that we're going to be in in the next 10, 15 years, 5, 10, 15 years, are not going to look a lot different than the organizations we're in today. Right. So as we think about that talent management process, can you kind of walk us through your five star talent management process? And really what I want to understand is, you know, one, for each one of those steps, what are organizations, what are you seeing, what are they doing today? And then what do they need to do in order to perform better on each one of these areas?
00:15:50
Speaker
So the way that I view five star talent management correlates to the five different points of a star. So talk about attracting talent, interviewing talent, hiring talent, advancing talent and retaining talent. And so all five of these pieces are are unique in the sense that they have their own ways that the things start to creep in there in ways that we we end up doing things that maybe we don't realize we're doing, maybe we do realize we're doing.
00:16:16
Speaker
But either way, things have to be addressed. So when I start and I think about attracting talent, we always talk about this idea of culture fit. When you think of just culture in and of itself, it encompasses everything from different social behaviors, different norms, the knowledges, the habits. Knowledge isn't a word. But the knowledge, the habits, the beliefs of these different types of groups. So in this case, we're talking about the workplace.
00:16:43
Speaker
A lot of companies, they boast about the workplace that they have and the culture that they have. And so they look for folks who fit that same culture. Well, I mean, the problem there to me is inherent in that if you are looking for only one type of person, that's what you're going to have. And a lot of times that type of person is going to look the same.
00:17:03
Speaker
Outside of that, when you think about how we hire folks, we do want to make sure that we have a culture of people who believe in certain things, but when your culture is revolving around drinking, for example, and there's nothing wrong with happy hours. We love a good happy hour. I miss happy hours, but I've been in organizations where folks were kind of
00:17:23
Speaker
I feel like chastise is a little bit of a dramatic word, but it was, if you didn't come to our happy hours, if you didn't drink, then it was just kind of like, why do you work here? And so we're missing out on folks for that reason. And so I think that we need to start looking at it from a culture ad perspective, which I know the industry is already talking a lot more about, but the whole idea and the whole reason why that's important is because shifting that mindset from culture fit to culture ad is what's going to lead to culture transformation. And in order for organizations to really walk the walk on what they're wanting to do,
00:17:53
Speaker
and these diversity inclusion efforts, you have to be willing to transform your culture. You can't just be willing to do something here and there. It's a total shift and it's got to be something that is permeating throughout your entire organization. It can't just be
00:18:07
Speaker
your diversity inclusion department or your diversity inclusion team because most organizations don't have a department. Most organizations don't have a team. So I think that when we think about the way that that starts, first we have to identify, I think we have to ask the question of what are we missing out on if we don't do this?
00:18:25
Speaker
And I do that a lot now just in this field, but just in general, because you have to be able to prioritize, right? There's always going to be something to do. There's always going to be something that people need, but you have to prioritize. So it's what happens if we don't do this? And there, I mean, there are simple things that you can do to get started. I'm someone who's all about action. I like to
00:18:44
Speaker
identify problems, explain to you why they exist, and then tell you what you can do to get better to your point. So if we start with even just looking at how we attract talent. And I think that really just boils down to how you're finding or sourcing your talent or how you're developing your candidate pool. Today, this day is unique because candidates have options and you really have to be able to quickly establish why they should pick you and not the other way around. And so I think some of the easiest things that I think about are things like
00:19:11
Speaker
inclusive writing in your job descriptions. And just thinking about the way that they're worded, the qualifications, and even some of the must-haves. Is that really a must-have for this job? One thing I think that's funny that I always tell folks to do is request a copy of your job description for your role and see how you match up to it. I think people will be super surprised when they realize that they may not even fit the bill for their own job.
00:19:37
Speaker
No, look, you hit on two things in it. I want to make sure that we kind of dig into real quick is that the culture fit piece. I mean, you hear that word so much. And then when I was a corporate, you hear about, you know, they don't have like the DNA, right? Which I'm like.
00:19:53
Speaker
What is DNA? But when you think about this culture fit, great, great practitioner that I'm connected with, she gave me this thought a little while back around culture fit versus organizational compatibility. And thinking about it in the latter meaning, does this person share appreciation or values for the elements of the organization that make us successful?
00:20:18
Speaker
Right. There's this person bring a set of values that help us enrich our culture. Right. And so knowing that you're going to bring in different people in your culture, essentially are the people in which are in the organization, then the culture is most likely going to change. And so if you're trying to get people into something that you already have, you're essentially saying we want the most innovative, the most out of the box thinking, but then we're going to hire you and we want you to fit into this box that we already created that I need you to assimilate to.
00:20:45
Speaker
It's something that's always come up, you know, and I love that answer there. And then the other piece is I wanted to bring this out because you said it and it hit me. It hit me strong is that when you ask the question.
00:20:58
Speaker
And I think it's two different mindsets here is that you said, what are we missing out on if we don't do this? And you said, what will happen if we don't do this? And I think that those are important questions because the first one is actually having a positive mindset. Right.
00:21:17
Speaker
Because you're trying to figure out, hey, we want to have the best culture. So so what are we missing out on when you get into what will happen if we don't do this? You're approaching it from a I don't say pessimist, but you're looking at the negative side of.
00:21:33
Speaker
will we be on the news? The next, you know, hey, don't work with this organization or cancel culture or whatever it may be. And so just the way that you slightly phrase those questions I think are important so that most organizations have that mindset of what are we missing out on if we don't do this so they can figure out how to enrich the culture that they have.
00:21:55
Speaker
Exactly. And I think that, you know, the way that I think about it, I tend to approach this work from a very, well, just in general, I consider myself to be a realist. And so that's how I tend to approach this work. And I think that a big piece of that is being honest and being realistic with ourselves and the idea that we really have this, for whatever reason, we have an idea that black talent doesn't exist or that it's really hard to come by. When in reality, it's not a black talent problem, it's an organization problem.
00:22:25
Speaker
even then it's not always about developing black talent a lot of the talent is already there we just are overlooking it and we're choosing not to to acknowledge that and so one thing i think that really always kind of when it kind of irks me about that is that we.
00:22:42
Speaker
We try to look at this as happy, exciting, whatever, and it is, but at the same time, in order to really get down to the core of the issues, we have to be realistic with ourselves. And we have to shift our mindsets. We talk about underrepresented communities and how they are disadvantaged. And in my mind, these organizations are the ones who are disadvantaged because they don't have those perspectives and they don't have that insight. And so just even a simple mindset shift there I think is impactful.
00:23:11
Speaker
That's a bar right there, look, organization, your disadvantage, not me. Yeah. Awesome, awesome. And so we go through that attract piece, right? That's, you know, thanks for sharing this. And so the next step in this is a hiring.
00:23:26
Speaker
I mean, I was just gonna say, obviously, interviewing is one of the most important steps in talent acquisition, talent management, but at the same time, it's also one of the most bias-prone steps. And so one of the types of bias that I see creeping here, and I think we don't really talk about this a ton,
00:23:44
Speaker
especially for folks who are in HR, is this idea of stereotype threat. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but it's essentially when someone is aware of a negative stereotype about their group and they worry that they might confirm that stereotype, which can actually end up undermining their performance.
00:24:03
Speaker
Really, all that means is that if I am a black woman, which I am, and I know that, okay, maybe you think that black women are angry because that's what the stereotype is. And so when I go into this interview, I'm going to try really, really hard to not sound angry. And so in doing that, my mind is more so on, how can I not sound angry when I answer these questions? And I'm not really fully there probably with actually answering the questions.
00:24:28
Speaker
which in turn can end up undermining the way that I perform. And so there's actually this famous study where black and white participants, black and white students are asked to take a test. And so they both perform equally well when it wasn't framed as being a test that was measuring any sort of intellectual ability.
00:24:47
Speaker
But when they had them take it again and they did make them aware like hey we're gonna be judging your intellect by how you perform on this test that's when black students perform significantly worse just because they were they were told that and that they were asked about race it's an established phenomenon but it caused those black students to do worse on that test and so by
00:25:10
Speaker
them sitting there thinking, okay, well, I am black and they probably already think I'm not that smart because that's what people think about black folks. Then you're going to perform worse on your test. So I think it's self-fulfilling prophecy at its core. But I think that we have to think about that when we're interviewing folks just because when you're in a room where you are
00:25:32
Speaker
underrepresented during something stressful like an interview, it leads to such a heightened sense of awareness, which can manifest in their mind as a threat. Most of the time, I am the only black woman in a room full of white women, or I'm the youngest person in a room full of executives, or when I was back at Wendy's, I was the only BA, so not as technical, in a room full of architects, and
00:25:56
Speaker
The pressure kind of to be able to assimilate and to contribute to that conversation can lead to not being able to perform at a level that I guess is indicative of what I truly know. And so when you think specifically about interviewing, let's say you're a woman who's being solely interviewed by men or a person of color who's being solely interviewed by white people,
00:26:16
Speaker
or even if you're a person who uses a wheelchair being solely interviewed by folks who do not have physical disability, there's just this idea that you have to overperform in order to prove your competency.
00:26:28
Speaker
No, I agree. And you have a lot of stuff creep into that process that, you know, is even set before that discussion happens. Like, you know, bringing up diversity to the hiring team, but then get feedback or comments around, you know, we definitely want to hire diverse talent, but we also want to make sure we're hiring the best talent. Like the two, like the two can't be the same.
00:26:47
Speaker
Exactly. And so now the recruiters mind is going into these interviews, whether they're asking tougher questions because it's not a structured interview, whether they're going through and trying to over analyze or assess you harder or even come back and say, well, yeah, this person was overqualified. What does that mean?
00:27:07
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. And I think one of the biggest problems with that there is that when people think about diversity, and I always say this, people are not diverse, systems are diverse. So you can have a system of people, you can have a team and you're diversifying that team because as human beings, we're all quote unquote diverse just because there literally is no one else like us, even if you have an identical twin. So when we're talking about diversity, we need to talk about it from the sense of, okay, well,
00:27:33
Speaker
How can I diversify my team? And also keeping in mind that diversity is relative and that means something different for everyone. So just because I check off boxes of all these different underrepresented identities, you know, black woman, whatever, if you clone me and if you have six of me in one team, that's not a diverse team. And so people are looking at
00:27:55
Speaker
diversity from the standpoint of identity when really diversity should be looked at from a standpoint of perspective. So if you are someone who is hiring, don't go in looking to hire folks from the idea that, hey, I want to do this in the name of diversity. You've got to look at it as, hey, I am wanting to learn. We need this person on our team because they have a different perspective as a result of experiences
00:28:24
Speaker
associated with that identity. I love that word perspective. And that's something to where perspective and you have kind of this other piece of perception, right? Perspective is your attitudes towards the situation. Right. Whereas perception is your way of understanding it. So like when you think about like how we come into discussions, how we have these stereotypes in our mind, you know, the way we see will determine what we say. Exactly.
00:28:54
Speaker
And if our mind is, if we have this certain, you know,
00:29:01
Speaker
viewpoint, stereotype in our mind. And we're seeing that. And when we have these discussions, it's going to come out that way, right? It's going to come out in a way to where you're not really trying to open up and learn more about me in the interview process. You're not really trying to assess, you know, and have those kind of natural discussions that come out in that process to where, you know, I feel comfortable. I can come to the situation in my as my authentic self. Yes. So I can show my best self, my best self in the situation versus, you know, being intense, having to figure out, you know, did I say that wrong?
00:29:31
Speaker
Was I too aggressive? All these things that just ultimately aren't successful for the candidate at the end of the day. Exactly. And I mean, this was kind of one of my favorite things when I was in recruiting is it's so cool to see.
00:29:44
Speaker
how when people feel comfortable, when you actively make people feel comfortable, and it's so much easier for them to show their authentic selves. And I sometimes I cringe at that word because I think we just throw it around so much, but it's true. And I think you would be surprised how much more that you learn about someone and how much more you even learn about their job-related skill and proficiency is when they feel comfortable.
00:30:06
Speaker
And so there were so many times where you know whenever when we're recruiting you know we would first usually have a phone call with someone then we bring them in for kind of an in-office interview so I can get to know you better and folks will come in and they would be super tense like it was an interview and granted it was but I would always tell folks like hey this isn't an interview.
00:30:24
Speaker
especially when you can tell that someone's nervous. I'm like, I just want you to relax. I just want to get to know more about you. And just something as simple as that, it's night and day with the way that people open up and the people feel so much more comfortable. And it was actually something that I was kind of reading up on recently related to podcasts even. If you think about doing like a presentation, prepare this presentation and you kind of have a script that you want to stick to. And it's a lot harder because you're probably a lot more nervous. In your mind, you're just trying to remember, okay, what was a
00:30:54
Speaker
to say here, like, should I say this here? Whereas in a podcast, it's really just a conversation. And I feel like you can really get to understand people, really get to hear folks thoughts when they're just thinking about the conversation and not trying to think about, okay, well, what was I supposed to say for this slide or that slide? And I think the same kind of concept can be applied when you think about interviewing. No, I agree. I agree. And so, you know, it's the authenticity piece, I think is just more about as a interviewer,
00:31:24
Speaker
is your role to create the space for the candidate to have the decision or choice on whether they, how they want to come to the situation. So they should choose, you know, whether I'm authentic or not. And that you should, but you should make them feel comfortable at the end of the day to let you create the space and then allow them to come to that situation the best way that works for them.
00:31:47
Speaker
Exactly. Even when folks aren't, maybe you're not in the interview and you can't impact that and you're thinking, okay, well, how can I impact that if I'm not interviewing someone? Think about when we do, well, when we did, people come in and they would do group interviews or they would meet the team, things like that. You have the ability to impact someone's experience just simply there by being nice, being conversational. Again, a lot of it is simple things that we just don't think about doing because we don't really have to
00:32:17
Speaker
No, I agree. I agree. And so as we go through this, you run third, the third point of this star. Yes. As we kind of go to the next piece. So we're looking at hiring talent. So we're moving along. We've attracted a diverse candidate pool. We've interviewed everyone and now we're just trying to figure out who we're going to extend an offer to.
00:32:36
Speaker
So a lot of companies will use assessments to weed out different candidates when they get towards the end of the process. And I actually like assessments. Some people don't like them. And I definitely see how they could be, you know, there are ways that we can set them up to be more effective than others.
00:32:51
Speaker
I think that they really just give candidates an opportunity to showcase their ability to do the job versus making assumptions based on a resume or how well they answer an interview question. And so the problem though is that a lot of times assessments are not actually objective. So especially when you're in tech and you think about that, there's so much room for innovation and there's so many different ways that you could arrive at an answer essentially, even the same answer. And we tend to gravitate towards folks who think the same way that we do.
00:33:19
Speaker
and shy away from folks who do not. So if you think about maybe a coding assessment, for example, and a lot of times companies do them live time, which I don't necessarily think is a great idea, but they'll do them live time. The interviewer will do it and the interviewee will also do it. And you had to really think about that. So let's say the candidate is arriving at the exact same answer
00:33:39
Speaker
as the interviewer, but they got there a different way. And so when you're in a situation like that, you have to think to yourself, okay, am I annoyed because he got the answer, he or she, excuse me, got the answer a different way, or do I feel like my way is better, or am I thinking more along the lines of, okay, well, this is really cool, they got the same answer, and I didn't even think about it like that. So you have to determine who's adding new value to the team, and you have to try to remain as objective as possible when it is possible.
00:34:08
Speaker
I need for you to go tell that to my high school math teacher. Look, I got the answer. I probably didn't show the same work. I had the same steps as you.
00:34:17
Speaker
But I got the answer. Exactly. My aunt is not named Sally, so look. Yes. No, I think that that's, you know, but just like, you know, all jokes aside, even coming up and learning, even at that age, right, we learn how to do things in these steps. That's the only way to do stuff. And that's how you talk growing up, right? This is the way you do it. This is the process. You know, you show it. If they don't go down these steps, this is not the next thing. What we'll say is,
00:34:46
Speaker
The next logical step is, well, is that really logical to me? If I think in a different way. And I think that, you know, that makes sense when you're going through that process. So no, that's awesome. That's awesome. So we went through, we attract, we interview, we're hiring. Now we have them in the organization. Now it's time to start to develop. Yes. Yeah. That last piece or this kind of last half will
00:35:11
Speaker
I don't know if you'd call it half, but this last advancing and retaining talent fall into, for me, this idea of talent acceleration. Now that we've been able to make this objective hiring decision, we've got to look at what happens when someone actually joins the team. A lot of times, the diverse representation that we see is at the individual contributor level.
00:35:32
Speaker
So there's still obviously a huge gap in developing and advancing underrepresented groups within leadership roles. How are we able to intentionally kind of manage this acceleration piece of thing?
00:35:43
Speaker
of things, and you think about mentorship. So we do these mentorship programs a lot of times, and while they prove to be pretty valuable for people in terms of networking and connecting, they're not always giving tangible outcomes. So you think about it, mentors are providing guidance, motivation, emotional support,
00:36:04
Speaker
during kind of this career navigation. But there's actually research out there that shows that more than 80% of women and racially ethnic minorities need the support in order to achieve career advancement. But in another study that was done, they found that even though women have been assigned more mentors than men usually, men were still more likely to be promoted.
00:36:27
Speaker
So you have to think about that because when women and employees of color are more likely to be mentored but white men are still more likely to be promoted like what does that come down to and it really comes down to sponsorship which is the difference between having an advisor and having an advocate.
00:36:44
Speaker
And I don't think we talk about sponsorship enough just within this space because we can talk all day, but if you're not going to bring my name up for an opportunity when I'm not in the room, that's helpful, but we're not doing everything that we can. So I think obviously both are important and there's a time and a place for both. I think mentors are typically someone outside of your organization. A sponsor is going to have to be usually someone who has influence within your organization and someone who is personally invested in your career success.
00:37:11
Speaker
as opposed to acting behind the scenes like a mentor. This is someone that's going to be recommending you for stretch assignments. Ultimately, opportunities that garner visibility from leadership and promotions. I think about when I first started working at Wendy's, I had an amazing director, phenomenal. She had me presenting to our chief officers within my first month.
00:37:35
Speaker
That, to me, is sponsorship. That's creating visibility for me. One good way that I've seen it described is when you think about talent and saying, hey, have you tried applying to speak at a conference lately? Versus saying, hey, I recommended you for this conference. Can you do it? That's really the difference in mentoring and sponsoring.
00:37:58
Speaker
And that's how we have to think about things if we want to look at how we advance to talent that already exists. We can't always just be spending all the time and money it requires to go externally and find talent when we're overlooking towns that already exist. And then when folks see that, then they don't want to stay anymore. Now they want to leave because they don't feel valued. And rightfully so.
00:38:18
Speaker
Exactly. And it's like, it's not to a certain extent what you know, it's not who you know, but it's who knows you, right? So that comes up in those situations. And it's also important, right? In this, when you retain and develop one piece that I've had discussions on, and I've heard from many, many women of color is around feedback and getting the necessary feedback so that they can grow
00:38:43
Speaker
you know, develop it and make sure that, you know, they're developing themselves. And so, you know, I had, I had a conversation with an individual to where, you know, she got feedback over a situation that happened. The feedback came from an African-American leader versus her white manager, because he didn't feel comfortable giving her the feedback. And so he asked the other leader to then give her the feedback, which in the end, at the end of it, it was like, well,
00:39:10
Speaker
It took so much longer for them to give me that feedback in this process. I could have did that four or five more times and it could have been detrimental to my career versus you seeing what was going on and you giving me the feedback so that I can go in and make sure that the next time I do this and the next time I show up, I can correct that. But that ability and the frequency of feedback is important when you're thinking about developing talent because it's something that we all need. And I just don't think that as people of color and organizations, we don't get it enough.
00:39:39
Speaker
100%. And I also think that on the flip side, I'm a huge proponent of personal accountability in a lot of this stuff. And so I'm big on how can we find ways to make sure people of color and women and
00:39:51
Speaker
and whoever else feels comfortable and knows, or feels empowered, I should say, to ask for feedback. I'm someone who, compliments are nice, everyone likes to be complimented, but I really want to know, like, what could I be doing better? What is not great about this? And I always ask that question just because, you know, if you're telling me that everything I'm already doing is great, good, whatever, well then I should be promoted tomorrow.
00:40:13
Speaker
And so if I'm working towards something, I need to know what I need to be working on. And I'm just very comfortable asking that. It's just who I am. And I know a lot of folks are not. And so I think in addition to giving that feedback as leaders, we have to be able to encourage our own communities to ask for that feedback. And so then when you have both of those, you know, you're asking for feedback, our leaders have to be able to have to be able to be prepared and want to give that feedback and be able to do it in an open and honest way.
00:40:43
Speaker
A lot of times leaders get scared and kind of in that situation, they were nervous about how it would be perceived. But I think one thing that's super interesting, so at HubSpot, we actually started something this year, I think it's new, and it's an upward management feedback survey. So you're actually tasked with giving feedback, direct feedback to your manager via survey, which I just think is really, really, really cool. And so I think things like that and thinking about how we can approach it from
00:41:11
Speaker
both angles because at the end of the day, the onus isn't on any one person. And that's the thing with diversity and inclusion is it has to be something that everyone is doing. And I always say, if I'm doing my job right, then I'm going to work myself out of a job because someday in a magical utopia, diversity and inclusion will just be embedded in every team at every level. A lot of times when I think about it from the technology perspective, you know, if we have a product and
00:41:37
Speaker
We have all these different customers reporting X, Y, and Z. We don't expect our product team to fix all of those things overnight. We map it out into sprints. We figure out who needs to do what. We figure out which stakeholders need to do what. And then we have to have finance approval. We have to have marketing promoted. Our sales people have to sell it. It's a group effort for product. It's the same thing with diversity and inclusion. You can't expect any one person, one team, one whatever to do the work.
00:42:07
Speaker
because then nothing happens and it's not sustainable. Really that's what a lot of these things that we see come down to is the fact that we all have to have a stake in it and we all have to be committed to it.
00:42:18
Speaker
I agree. I agree. So for those listening, look, every job description needs to have this in there. And then going forward, title is going to be finance manager slash diversity and inclusion specialist. Yes. It's everybody's job at the end of the day to make sure that this is successful. It is. And there might be some staking ownership, some skin in the game, as we would say. Absolutely. Awesome. Awesome. So I think we're making our way around this star.
00:42:42
Speaker
And so is there one more? I think it's one more, right? Oh, yes. I was like, wait a minute. That last piece is really just around retaining talent, which I think we've covered a lot of. But I think really to me, it just comes down to a lot about data and looking at, you know, hey, when someone does leave your organization, especially if they're from an underrepresented group, you got to look at why they left. So take a deep dive into that retention data and don't just look at the retention rates and say,
00:43:05
Speaker
Okay, black people are leaving or Latinx employees are leaving at a higher rate than white employees. You need to look a little bit deeper and figure out exactly why those people are moving. And I think there's a good chance that you'll find a pattern for the reasons that people cite for why they tend to leave the organizations. I think a lot of times those reasons include lack of advancement opportunities or just a general feeling of not belonging on a team. I know for me, both of those are reasons why I have left organizations in the past.
00:43:33
Speaker
I think it's just important to do that so that, like we talked about in the beginning, you can really tailor your strategy and your approach based on the true problems and not just a kind of umbrella assumption.
00:43:43
Speaker
No, I agree. I agree. And just to touch on the piece around advancing. I mean, for organizations that are going through this, right, if you're looking at your levels, your spans and layers, and you're looking down an organization and you're not seeing a representation up there, I think one of the points we mentioned before, just around, we have to understand what is happening. What is the stopgap? What's the ceiling that's preventing diverse minorities, black, brown people from getting to those levels?
00:44:09
Speaker
And look at, you know, how are we assigning projects, right? How are we making sure that folks are getting some of those prime key visibility, you know, opportunities to be able to go out there and show what they can do? Because in a lot of cases, not that they can't do it, it's that you haven't given them the opportunity to do it in front of the people, right? There's always this thing in front of executive presence. And it's like, well, executive presence almost seems like it's a
00:44:34
Speaker
It's a select group of people who get to have it because you only give it those individuals. So that's, I think it's critical around how we assign projects, how we go through and make sure work is equitably assigned across the organization so that we can make sure that we're providing those opportunities for people to get out there. Absolutely. I talk about my time at Wendy's, but I mean, it truly was phenomenal from a career development standpoint.
00:44:58
Speaker
I talked about my manager having me presenting to chief officers within the first month or so, and then being assigned to a project that was super visible. Those types of opportunities are what led to me being successful there. I was promoted two times in a year and a half because of those types of opportunities. And so I just think about, one, I'm at a point now where I'm thinking about, okay, well, how can I create those kinds of opportunities for other people? And we all have to have that mindset no matter where you are in your organization or in your career.
00:45:27
Speaker
You know, I'm not even a people manager, technically, and I'm still having that mindset of, okay, well, who can I recommend for this talk or this presentation or so on and so forth. And so, I mean, that's another piece of it. We have to make sure that we are
00:45:40
Speaker
none of this is going to happen on accident. We have to take action because if it was going to happen on accident, it would have already happened and we wouldn't be having this conversation on this podcast right now. And you go, look, lift as we climb, lift as we climb. This has been a great discussion here. So as we kind of get closer and wrap up, for those that are listening, for practitioners, for leaders in organizations that are listening to this podcast,
00:46:03
Speaker
in this show, what are a couple of actions that you could give them that they can take away today and then take it back to the organization to get them on the right path down a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable culture process for everyone?
00:46:18
Speaker
Yeah, the first thing I would say, which I've touched on a couple times already, is target your specific problems or areas of opportunity and don't try to approach things from such a general lens. So whether that means actually looking at your people data, whether that means collecting people data, I think it starts with the data and figuring out what you have, how you can use it.
00:46:37
Speaker
And if you don't have it, how you can get it, essentially. Second thing I would say, don't talk about it unless you're going to walk the walk as well. And so what I mean by that is, I mean, obviously we saw this a lot with George Floyd, but organizations were so quick to come and say, you know, hey, we support Black Lives Matter and XYZ, but at the same time, you know, I can look at your organization's pack or your super pack and I can see that all of the money that you're donating is to
00:47:05
Speaker
conservative candidates who are going to, you know, who believe in policies or who vote on policies that will negatively impact your black employees. So to me, things like that, it's like, you have a choice. Either you're with it or you're against it, but you have to pick that and you have to kind of stick with it because it'll come back to buy you performative as we've been calling it. That's going to end up being more negative than if you were to actually maybe just said nothing until you were ready to actually do something about it.
00:47:38
Speaker
Keep it real, no cap there. So my last question for you is, just to cap off this discussion, I'm a big proponent of leadership more from a legacy perspective, meaning that the way we live our lives today is going to ultimately be a sum or result of what we see once we finish our careers and we look back on everything. And so I'm very, very mindful of the interactions that we have, the engagements that we have, so whether we speak with somebody one time,
00:47:59
Speaker
No, I agree. In our community, we call it faking the funk. Yes.
00:48:08
Speaker
or we speak with somebody 10 times, right? What is that perception that we leave of ourselves, right? And I call it a leadership legacy. And so for you, what I want to know is just what's your leadership legacy? And just, you know, kind of the thought process around it is, you know, it's something short that, you know, typically 25 words or less when you think about how will people remember you if I were to go ask somebody, hey, you know, Janeshia, and they were like, yeah, she's blank, blank, blank. Like, what will people say about you when I ask that question?
00:48:34
Speaker
I like that. I always just say I'm just a realist trying to change the world, which is an oxymoron, but I... Oh, wait, 25 words. Sorry. Okay. I just want people to...
00:48:47
Speaker
know me as the same person no matter what environment that I was interacting with them in, whether it was at work, at home, whatever. I want folks to know that I approach things in the same way and I could be in the room with folks who don't even know each other, but all know me and they would all get the same thing.
00:49:06
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. I love it. I love it. So look, this has been an amazing conversation. Before we go, do you have any shout outs, any parting words, and then where can people find you if they would like to, you know, connect with you and dive deeper on this topic? Yes. Shout outs. I have to shout out my own org. So Black Tech 624, Black Tech Columbus is one of, I'm a co-founder of that organization. And so we're building up or creating a space for Black Tech professionals to connect, collaborate, and create. Always got to shout that out.
00:49:32
Speaker
Shout out to HubSpot, awesome organization, I love working there. Also looking to bring in more folks as well and expand our perspectives. But I think that's all I can think of. If you want to talk or chat more, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm just Denisha Franklin and always happy to chat.
00:49:50
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. Well, look, that does it for us. You know, thanks for joining. Thanks to everyone for listening to another episode of the 3d podcast. This has been Cedric and you've been listening to Denise Franklin diversity and inclusion and belonging program manager helps. We out so much.
00:50:06
Speaker
awesome well that does it for us thank you for joining us on another episode of the 3d podcast if you would like to connect on social media follow me on instagram twitter or facebook at cedric and powers and if you have any questions you'd like me to read or answer on the show or just want to know more about my thoughts around diversity and inclusion entrepreneurship or just overall business you can text yes i said text
00:50:31
Speaker
at 770-285-0404. You'll receive content straight to your phone on a regular basis, and you can message back and forth with me. Not a bot or an assistant. All responses come directly from me. But look, this has been a great episode. Until next week, this has been Cedric Chambers, and you have been listening to the 3D Podcast. We out.