Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - The Only Way We’ll Achieve Equity | Julia Boorstin - CNBC’s Senior Media & Technology Reporter

Transcript

Lessons - The Only Way We’ll Achieve Equity | Julia Boorstin - CNBC’s Senior Media & Technology Reporter · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  So we have so there's like you mentioned before there's so many different like there's so many
• 0:14
  different issues we have to tackle but also levers that we can pull right so we have it so many
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  reason to be optimistic and so optimistic even in these crazy times know what you should be you
• 0:24
  100% should be like you can see you can see all the pieces when you see like a VC firm
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  that's self-aware when you see community groups that remove social stigmas that can
• 0:34
  impede your performance when you talk about all these founders that have been exceptionally
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  successful even though they only represent whatever 6% of 3% like there's obviously a lot of
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  positive points however it's not where it should be in 2022 so how do we move like a little bit
• 0:53
  quicker how do we get towards equity maybe not in the next 50 years right oh gosh i hope in the
• 1:01
  next 50 years come on i hope things speed up i'm telling i'm being honest i'm being i'm saying how
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  do we get it moving quicker right like we thought that we farther along in 2022 um i am optimistic
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  that the business world will move towards equity and become more diverse both in terms of gender
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  and in terms of race um and in terms of ability and in terms of everything because there are so many
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  studies showing the diversity is better for business it's it's better for product development
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  it's better for understanding your customers it's better for for management i mean there are all
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  these stories about diverse management teams have better retention you know they they are more
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  empathetic so i can go on and on about all the academic studies but i think i think that's why
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  there's reason to be optimistic and then there's just this day-to-day thing like how are we all
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  supposed to navigate the world especially if anyone i mean anyone feels like they're facing bias
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  or they're facing stereotypes or they're there's a ceiling of how far people like them have gone
• 1:59
  in their organization and i think that's sort of the day-to-day like big picture i guess we can
• 2:03
  be optimistic but we all have to get up and go to work the next day um and when i was writing the
• 2:09
  chapter on how people are judge more you know women and people of color judge more harshly i was
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  really depressed by the data this is the chapter i actually wrote last because i was so dreading
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  getting dragged down by the negativity of all the ways women are judge more harshly women are
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  judge more harshly if they use humor in the workforce women are more judge more harshly if they
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  use anger if they give feedback to their employees that's critical they're judge more harshly i
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  mean it's like a laundry list and i was losing my mind reading this data but i found a way to make
• 2:43
  it practical and constructive and it was this i realized that if you understand what you're up
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  against and you understand what these challenges are that actually have nothing to do with you
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  in your performance you can navigate around them there was a woman i a woman i interviewed named
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  ayabadir and she founded a kids tech company called little bits which she then sold and she's
• 3:04
  Lebanese and she's a uh of of female founder and when she was raising money she said she faced
• 3:10
  the craziest kind of stereotypes and bias and we've got the rudest questions and she was telling me
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  about some of these comments she heard i was like gosh how did you not get so discouraged that you
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  gave up what did she what did she deal with like give us an example yeah i mean just wouldn't make
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  rude comments her you know there were some women i interviewed one of them said she was an
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  indian immigrant and someone asked her like when are you gonna hire a white male co-founder like
• 3:35
  you're obviously not gonna do this your own like no one's gonna ever like you run a company
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  unless you hire a white man to go with you like just things and like that that just are so
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  discouraged that's really messed up actually that somebody would say that it happens all the time
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  it happens all the time and so i just want to say like i might have given up after the hat you
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  know i don't know how you keep going and um i got this interesting message from a number of women
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  and what they said is once you identify that this bias is like not about you you just like
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  figure out how to go around it so i have a deer said i thought of it like remembering to bring a
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  jacket when it's cold out you know it's gonna be cold you know you're gonna be uncomfortable
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  but if you prepare yourself you put on the armor of a jacket you just don't let it bother you
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  so she said i would go into the meetings i would listen to the feedback some of the comments would
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  be constructive and things that could make my company better and some would be rude and useless
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  and if i could figure out how to separate the ones that were rude and useless then i could actually
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  learn and get value from the ones that were constructive and then i would let the negative stuff
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  get me down and i think there's this idea of once you have and i put it this way in this book like
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  once you can understand the contours of something that's gonna be um like an impediment to your growth
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  you can better figure out your way around it and so that's something i like to think about a lot like
• 4:51
  okay you know maybe i can't change this thing like i used to say like oh my god i want to hear about
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  if i can't control it if i can't change it like it's not my i'm not even gonna waste my time on it
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  but actually it's good to know what the what the challenges are maybe it's good to know um do research
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  and find out if your company um you know is and you know what what the pay gap is in your company
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  that's valuable research maybe that will empower you to negotiate for more um i just think that
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  again data data data but also using data to not be brought down by something that's challenging
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  and to help forge your own path to success another option um that's sort of more of a career-focused
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  option but if you're looking to raise money you may i guess research the the fund or the firm
• 5:34
  and see who else they've invested yeah i mean you can and also yeah you can find out what other
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  if you're if you have any raising money um what firms have invested in and then there's you can
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  get information from organizations like like all raise or hashtag angels to make sure you're not
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  giving way to much of your company um at a lower uh you know and getting less for it so it's
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  interesting because it shows that women hold fewer shares of startups even that they've found it
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  and that means that they're not negotiating for as much uh so it's like a better deal when they're
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  getting those investment checks and part of that is just a lack of transparency if everyone has more
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  data about how things work how much people are likely to get paid then you're gonna have things
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  end up more fair and more equitable um there's some companies that are starting to offer
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  be very clear about what their salary ranges are and especially for entry-level jobs
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  why let people negotiate and have the people who don't bother negotiate get paid much less
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  they're saying this is our starting you know this is our starting level paid check and this is
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  what it's gonna be and so later we'll we'll promote you based on performance but they create
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  these very clear systems to strip out any buys and there are some amazing companies such as PayPal
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  and Salesforce that have really led the way on using data to eliminate bias from hiring and promotion
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  I think that um to to your point before like I also agree that it's not gonna be another 50 years
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  I think a flywheel has started and I think that the more data the more exposure that we have
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  the better people will be but it's about educating them and and also getting people to also help
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  themselves I think it's a big piece of it so it's not always it's not always rainbows and unicorns
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  when you go into these situations because not we're not 100% perfect like businesses are not a
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  100% perfect so like you said yeah and yourself you arm yourself yeah you arm yourself you put
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  on the jacket figure what you need to have the jacket that's gonna protect you from the situation
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  but you uh um earlier in the conversation you mentioned you know these women who are so
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  exceptional you know how did they get the three percent of easy dollars and when I started this
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  project I was like you know what I'm gonna find that these women just came out came out of the womb
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  more one thing or another they came out of the womb more more you know empathetic or more
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  insightful or better and managing people I just thought this is gonna be a born trait right
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  that I mean I'm not I'm not a leader you know that but there must be these ingrained traits that
• 8:02
  some people are more likely to have and the thing that was true across the board is that none of
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  these traits are born all of these things are developed and the most successful leaders are the ones
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  that fail and learn from their success and get better and figure out what traits they want to
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  develop and build on themselves care inside been becker may have been more likely to be over
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  prepared from the time she was a kid she talked about how you know her grandfather had escaped the
• 8:27
  Holocaust and so she always had this idea of like belts and suspenders always be prepared to maybe
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  that was like a familial thing that was in her head but she also had all these successes and failures
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  along the way you know she she watched what happened in we know with 9-11 and that got her
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  thinking about airplane safety she watched what happened with the 2008-2009 financial crash and
• 8:48
  she lost a lot of money for her clients then and she learned from it so there's amazing data
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  about how people who do sports in like serious sports in high school and college are more likely
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  to be leaders that is true of men and women I'm not an athlete I was not an athlete in in high
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  score college but I was really interested in this data why is that do I have to go into a time
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  machine and have been an athlete in high school to benefit from these from from that statistic and
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  of course that's not possible unfortunately but what I found is there's actually this thing about
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  athletes that is really wildly portable and that's this athletes study their failures when you
• 9:27
  get off the field you say what went wrong there is this amazing woman in the book named Christine
• 9:32
  Hunziger she was a tech company the retail space called the castle and she said after any work
• 9:39
  situation anything anything any negotiation anything they do a sort of a post event analysis they
• 9:46
  don't call it post post mortems she's like nobody died we don't have to make this negative let's
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  just analyze what happened and she was a very serious athlete like in high school she did all the
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  sports she she played field hockey and in college and rugby she was an amazing athlete and she
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  she said you just have to analyze everything and what she taught me about the value of athletics
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  is that it's all about measuring yourself against your own benchmarks I think about athletics as
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  like people competing against each other but in business and in life that is not what you want to
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  do you want to say I need as an athlete and Christine did this I need to push myself to be my best
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  version of myself I'm not going to be a good teammate and we're not going to win let's I do my part
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  and figure out where I'm now and where I want to go so none of these women came out as amazing
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  leaders no one ever does but it's about figuring out your starting point and then creating benchmarks
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  to create a path to success that's something we can all do