Resources mentioned in this podcast:

Kimberlé Crenshaw’s TED Talk “The Urgency of Intersectionality”

Spring Reading: 20 Books to Help You Become a Better, More Self-Aware Ally

Transcript:

Angie Chang: Welcome to Girl Geek X Podcast connecting you with insights from women in tech. This is Angie.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: This is Sukrutha.

Gretchen DeKnikker: This is Gretchen.

Rachel Jones: And this is Rachel, the producer of this podcast, and we’re the team behind Girl Geek X. This podcast brings you the best of Girl Geek X events, dinners, and conferences, where we’ve been elevating women in tech for over ten years.

Angie Chang: And today we’ll be discussing intersectionality.

Rachel Jones: Is this something that comes up a lot at the dinners?

Gretchen DeKnikker: I think so, and you see it a lot in the press also, and I think there seem to be a lot of different interpretations. There’re the people who are deep in doing the work, that are using intersectionality in the way that it’s intended, and then you see on the other end of the spectrum where it’s become like a buzzword, and people hear it and they start saying it without actually fully understanding what it means.

Rachel Jones: What does it mean?

Gretchen DeKnikker: Well, there’s a great TED Talk by Kimberlé Crenshaw, where she outlines everything. For years and years it existed and it was called a bunch of different things–double jeopardy–it was something that black feminists talked about a lot, and then there was a case, I think in the seventies, with General Motors where there was a woman who was suing them and the court wouldn’t let her combine race and gender. So because they hired white women in the secretarial pool and because they hired black men to work in the factory, she could not prove a case that she was being discriminated against as a black woman because they wouldn’t let her join the two intersecting–where the word comes from–parts of her identity that were preventing her from getting a job. So that’s kind of where it started.

Angie Chang: That’s wild.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Yeah.

Rachel Jones: Silly pop culture example that I always think of, there’s an episode of Scrubs where Elliot, who’s a white female doctor, and Turk, who’s a black man, are having this debate about who has it harder, black doctors or female doctors, and then thankfully a black woman doctor walks by and they’re both like ooh. Wow. This argument is dumb for the two of us to be having. And how have you seen this definition play out in tech and how people understand it in that context?

Gretchen DeKnikker: I think I see it a lot, where you’ll hear diversity and inclusion and intersectionality and they’re not the same thing. You know, if you wanna back up and really try to understand intersectionality, then you first need to understand privilege. But then once you acknowledge privilege, then you can really understand how these identities intersect, because each time you add one, right you’ve got “I’m a woman”, and “I’m a black woman”, and “I’m a lesbian” or even a trans woman, right, and you start adding and then you can look at, as you add those identities, how marginalized those people actually are. And I think that’s my definition, what do you think?

Angie Chang: A group called Project Include, which includes a woman by the name of Ellen Pao and in case her name doesn’t ring a bell, she’s a woman who sued the venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins for gender discrimination and–

Gretchen DeKnikker: Thanks, Ellen.

Angie Chang: –and lost, and I remember feeling so sad and everyone feeling so sad when that happened because we all felt in our bones that we were being let down in the workplaces around the world and we can’t prove it in court. Anyways, she is now part of this amazing Project Include and they have so many resources on the web, I read some on Medium that were very illuminating in terms of the stories that we are not living ourselves, we can listen to in podcasts and documentaries, talk to people on the street.

Angie Chang: So the blog post that really struck me was one called, it was actually titled #FFFFFF Diversity, and if you don’t read HTML, that’s the code for white diversity, and it was written by a engineer, now engineering manager called Erica Joy, and she talks about how her experience at Google–when she worked there, she was confused when the company started spending a lot of money on very outward facing initiatives about how they’re inclusive to women, and women of color, and yet she was feeling like they were not really spending any of that money internally on their black women at Google, who were a very underrepresented group, and she said that if she was a white woman in tech she’d probably have been delighted that they were investing in a diversity initiative but she’s a black woman in tech so things didn’t feel so good to her. And whether by design or by inertia, the favor seems to land on white women.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Every time I read any news that’s celebrating how many more CEOs that are of Indian origin and you notice that none of them are women. Microsoft and Google and so many other big companies that have visible Indian men running the company, and maybe, I don’t know if people are starting to notice now this obvious ceiling for Indian women and Asian-American women in general, for rising in the ranks, and so there’s this Harvard Business Review article titled “Asian-Americans are the least likely group in the US to be promoted to management,” where they say Asian-Americans are the forgotten minority in the glass ceiling conversation. We have, like I said, you know, not just for Indian men but when you see the Asian women and Indian women at the top very rarely.

Gretchen DeKnikker: When you’re talking about privilege and talking about intersectionality and diversity and inclusion, I think sometimes they all get swirled together and you can lose sight of what those things are individually and what they mean individually and that they are very unique distinctive things.

Rachel Jones: Yeah. Language, it gets tricky, there are so many words and some of them mean similar things, and there’s new ones, which never travels well. I remember even when people were getting really fed up with diversity as a word because it was losing its meaning and they’re like, oh we’re not gonna do that anymore, now it’s about inclusion, and now inclusion has lost all of its saltiness so it’s interesting just what happens with language.

Angie Chang: And now we have the letter X which has… has the letter X, as a variable it’s supposed to be more inclusive, I think the word come around the corner as the next big thing.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Well, it’s a good thing we got on that train early then.

Angie Chang: So, Sarah Staley leads communications and culture at Realtor.com and she spent a portion of her talk at the Realtor.com Girl Geek dinner touching on intersectionality. Here’s what she said.

Sarah Staley: You know, intersectionality–we often talk a lot about–you may not know what this means, but intersectionality is beyond inclusion. It’s beyond diversity. It’s when you really take time to get to know a person’s story, and that’s when the real color comes in.

Rachel Jones: What would you add to Sarah’s definition of intersectionality?

Gretchen DeKnikker: What’s not in the quote is just before that she’d had people think of something unique about themselves, then turn and share with the person sitting next to them, that unique thing about them. So I think, she’s very much trying to bring out a full personality, find a way to bring someone’s full self into a conversation. It’s not quite the traditional sense of how intersectionality would be used but you can sort of see where she’s headed and she’s really close, but I think we see that a lot, right, like people are understanding part of what it means, but not all of what it means. Or we see it where it’s very close to inclusion, which as Rachel was saying earlier, has also lost its shine and luster, given that the word itself is trying to say that it’s an assimilationist theory that the group needs to be brought in and assimilated into this environment, they need to be included in the existing environment as opposed to the environment adapting to all of the people.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: I think it’s important when you’re trying to create an equal environment that there’s no one definition of equal, right? That’s the whole problem when you assume there’s one definition of what it means to feel marginalized or to feel like a minority, so you have to identify where you stand and what the differences in experiences are for other people and perhaps that’s what she was driving to. Like, learn more about other people’s experiences, especially when they’re different from yours so you can be more informed when you’re trying to create a more equal environment. But you have to have a good understanding of what it means and not have this blanket oversimplified definition of what intersectionality is in the first place. What do you think, Angie?

Angie Chang: I don’t like to define what intersectionality is, I just like to talk about the different ways it shows up.

Rachel Jones: I have definitely been in a space where I’ve had to challenge people bringing weak versions of diversity. So when I was working in my last job in Chicago, I became a member of our “culture committee”. You can’t see this on the podcast but I’m doing air quotes.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Oh yeah, they’re very cute air quotes too.

Rachel Jones: Because, so we were a nonprofit organization serving mostly black and brown youth, and a lot of what was happening in the organization was just plain racist. The way that student stories were being used and the ways that they were being tokenized and positioned. As we were trying to hold the organization accountable for that ,they were like Oh! Let’s have a culture committee help figure this out. And for a while, the only assignments that we had were planning parties and that was very confusing, like this is not why we exist. And then we brought in a consultant to help do a race and justice training, that ended up getting us in trouble with our executive director and HR, and so it was like they were asking for diversity and inclusion and asking for our expertise and outside expertise, and then when actually confronted with, “Hey here are the ways that you’re falling short and here’s exactly what you can do to make a change,” they kind of faltered. So even just by the show of creating a culture committee they thought the work was done, when we were trying to do the actual work.

Gretchen DeKnikker: No, no, they wanted you to do the work–

Rachel Jones: –But it’s just like–

Gretchen DeKnikker: –right oh we’re gonna have a committee we’re gonna put people of color on it, they’re gonna solve this problem. We, the white people, the executives, the whatever, we don’t have to stop and look and think about our role in this.

Rachel Jones: And, yeah, I think that’s the danger when these words kind of lose their meaning, it’s something that you can just pass off to someone to figure out, and that’s something that takes actual investment and work and thought and a complicated lens that’s looking at these issues in an intersectional way.

Gretchen DeKnikker: So, this is a great lead in to a quote from Audrey Blanche who is the Global Head of Diversity and Belonging at Atlassian. She did a talk called Thank You, Next, at our recent Atlassian dinner and she is amazing, and she purposely doesn’t have inclusion in her title for the reasons that we were kind of talking about a little bit earlier, and in this quote talks about how you build a greater sense of belonging within your culture.

Aubrey Blanche: We need to move away from ‘diversity,’ which has a limited meaning and actually is not aligned with the goals that we’re trying to build. We need to build balance in our organizations. We also need to move away from ‘inclusion’. Inclusion assumes that I can fit like an add-on into a power structure that was built for straight white men, and I have no interest in doing that. I’m not any of those things and I don’t know how to show up that way. I wanna actually build belonging, I wanna show up in a space where I was considered and where I was thought of.

Aubrey Blanche: And that doesn’t mean… it can be the littlest things that show me that. You’ll see here, research shows that women feel like they belong when there’s more plants in an office. You’ll see that our bathrooms, even the ones that because of building codes have to have gendered words on them, do not actually contain pictures of what a man or a woman looks like. That might not matter to a lot of you. But to folks who are gender-nonconforming or non-binary or transgender, that has huge meaning. That little subtle clue actually tells their brain that they belong in that space, and that’s what we’re trying to build at Atlassian and I think we can all resonate with wanting to feel like we belong.

Aubrey Blanche: We need to stop thinking that women = diversity, and embrace an intersectionality-first strategy. So how does this look like? It’s pretty simple. If I think of someone who has intersectionally marginalized identities, let’s say myself. If I as a queer Latina woman can succeed in the organization, any changes that are made are definitely gonna benefit straight white women, too. But when we start with diversity = women, we only build programs, processes, and structures that help straight white economically privileged women succeed. Who certainly face barriers compared to their male counterparts, but we end up further marginalizing anyone who doesn’t fit that bucket. And I genuinely, genuinely believe that we can all win together, this does not have to be a competition.

Gretchen DeKnikker: I love her. I’m gonna get like, I love Aubrey t-shirts printed, stickers, I might just stand outside Atlassian with a sign.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Ooh, maybe I could do the Say Anything where he’s holding up the boombox, play her a song. I love her that much.

Rachel Jones: Everything that she said is every critique of white feminism, ’cause there are so many approaches like white feminists organizing and trying to push for women in workplaces and just leaving so many people out, but what was harsh about that was that so many times when people would try and give that feedback and hold these women accountable, they’re saying oh we’re trying to find solutions that work for all women, and you’re proposing things that are just specific to you, not realizing that the things that work for white women are specific to white women and not just the general universal solution for everyone. It’s actually solving the easiest problem, and leaving most of the struggle still there and saying like, “We did a good job.” So I like that she pointed that out.

Gretchen DeKnikker: And white women, if you’re out there trying to figure out how you play a role in this: Pull up a chair. When you get a seat at the table, pull up a chair for someone of a different race, or sexual orientation, or whatever.

Angie Chang: It is a little frustrating to me whenever I hear about ‘a woman has cracked this big tech board!’ And I’m like, “White woman. It is another white woman.” And it’s gonna be, if we’re lucky, the second white woman on an all white male board, so definitely, if you are a person of privilege, pull up a chair for someone that doesn’t look like you.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Yeah and [inaudible 00:15:55] other women with different experiences will start to see someone that they can identify with, because not everybody will identify with you, they’ve got that amazing ability that we really need.

Gretchen DeKnikker: That’s what I love about the dinners, ’cause it’ll be all different roles and all different levels of experience, and the more diversity we can get there from even just a cognitive level, that means that there’s one more person in the audience who, at least one more, who’s like I wanna be her someday or like I finally feel this connection with this person and I see it being possible, kind of like you were describing earlier, Sukrutha, that panel where you were like, Oh I’m out of excuses, all of these women have all of the things and now I feel empowered to go do it.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: A lot of times–speaking of intersectionality–I’ll go to a panel or at a Girl Geek dinner, I will find something that I can connect with each speaker because we have so many different identities, and I also notice that the meter of how diverse the panel is or the speaker roster is defines how diverse the attendee group is, so we have to be really mindful of, look beyond just gender or [inaudible 00:17:25].

Gretchen DeKnikker: Yeah, as we’re in the fourth wave of feminism and I feel like we can get it right this time, and not end up in a bunch of fragmented… with different goals.

Rachel Jones: How do you actually use an intersectional lens to create inclusion or belonging, in your…?

Gretchen DeKnikker: I feel like as a manager you have to, particularly once you start managing a team, you have to start thinking about how each individual person is approaching this, and at that point they’re individuals and they come with their own little unique snowflake selves that you have to start thinking about how those things impact. Right, and someone who’s more soft spoken, right, and at that point you’re not really thinking about what the race of the person is who’s more soft spoken but like how do I help this person get their ideas out there, stuff we’ve talked about on previous podcasts.

Gretchen DeKnikker: But I think from a day to day management level it’s really thinking about little things, the way that Aubrey talked about like simple little things, the not using the male and female icons on the bathroom, like at tech conferences for a long time and you still see it sometimes they wouldn’t have women’s t-shirts, and it’s like, oh well, you know, there just weren’t very many of you so they’re unisex shirts. And the conferences that I’ve planned, it’s like you have to have women’s shirts and they have to be nice women’s shirts, cut for a woman without a huge logo right in the middle of her breasts, right, a smaller logo moved up a little bit so she’s not some weird warped billboard with your logo on it. But it’s like those little things that make people feel welcome, it’s those little things of like, oh you know I was gonna be here and you knew there weren’t gonna be a bunch of me here, but you thought about it, and there’s something for me. And so I think, it’s not in the big things, it’s in the teeny tiny little details.

Angie Chang: You talk about little details and in Aubrey’s talk she mentions putting plants and magazines in work spaces so women can feel more comfortable within their workplace and studies have shown that women and girls react better to a workplace that has plants and magazines, so just little things to make women or other underrepresented groups feel like they’re part of this culture.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Yeah, but I mean that’s also not, if there’s someone listening to this and they’re like oh if I get plants and magazines women will feel more included, it has to be unique to your company, you have to be thinking about what are these things, because it can work in the opposite way too, right. You walk in one day and they’re like we heard women like plants and magazines like, oh perfect, well I must be like all other women so I’ll be thrilled.

Angie Chang: I think the study was probably meant to say if you were, I don’t know, very technology heavy environment and there were servers everywhere, maybe do some things to make it more hospitable.

Rachel Jones: There are big and small changes that you can make that communicate to a person. Yeah, you do belong here, or it’s something that’s actually accommodating needs that are specific to different groups, like providing childcare, providing transportation or other things that specific groups have a harder time accessing or could be more of a barrier for them for participating. It really should be led by what are people’s needs, what are people’s barriers and how do we respond to those?

Angie Chang: Yeah, I think it’s also understanding and helping people who are fasting for Ramadan through their work day that month, and not making them… helping them feel not so awful when they have to remind people this is why I’m not drinking water right now and stuff like that.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: And even when you’re pregnant, or you have someone on your team who is pregnant, being mindful of all their unique things and calling for the appropriate number of breaks, and when someone’s just had a baby, they shouldn’t feel stressed out or pressured to dial in while pumping.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: That can be very stressful so just, I mean…

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Thinking about barriers, scenarios and barriers. Situations that everyone else might be in, and building a team is like building a puzzle that when you take one piece out you have a totally different piece that you might want to add to it just based on who else is left on the team, so constantly thinking about who your next hire should be based on the team that you have. In terms of filling the blank, not extending the blank that might be there. Heidi Williams offered her own advice during our recent Elevate conference. We met her when she was the VP of Engineering at Box, and now Heidi Williams is changing the world for women as the CTO and co-founder of tEQuitable. At her Elevate conference talk, which was hugely popular by the way, she recommended using an engineering approach to debug the workplace culture and make systemic change that improves the lives of working women everywhere.

Heidi Williams: Psychological safety more than anything else is critical to making a team work. And so what is psychological safety? It’s the shared belief held by members of the team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. Psychological safety may sound like it’s all about the emotions or about the mental aspect of the game, but really it’s the way that you encourage and promote behaviors that reinforce trust and respect and mutual empathy and authenticity, and discourage behaviors that tear those down. So the key here is don’t measure how people feel, measure how people behave and the impact it has on others.

Heidi Williams: So let me give an example of one of the things that we’ve seen and how we identified behaviors and talked about the possible systems that might have been causing those behaviors, and of course then what actions you can take to improve those systems. So the example we saw at one company was that interactions between teams were being reported as aggressive and bullying. So you could imagine that those people are just mean. But that’s probably not really the case. There’s some reason why they’re being aggressive and bullying.

Heidi Williams: There’s a bunch of different systemic issues that could be the root cause here. Maybe the two different teams don’t have aligned goals. They have goals that they are totally different from each other, they’re not reliant on each other, and they’re both measured on the success of achieving their own goals. And maybe the success metrics don’t include that you have to collaborate and help others achieve their goals, that you’re only measured on whether your team achieves their own goal. Or maybe the peer feedback system is not part of performance reviews, so there’s actually no way to even report this behavior, so maybe the team that’s being aggressive and bullying has no idea the impact of their behavior on others. So only if you look at the data, and then ask the five whys and debug it like an engineer will you get at the possible root causes, the systemic issues that could be causing that behavior.

Heidi Williams: So to talk through that, if you’re gonna make systemic change about your supportive culture, and create a supportive culture, start by examining behaviors to understand your current culture, then ask the five whys to find the root cause behind the behavior, and then create systems that encourage psychological safety so that you can promote all these good things around trust and understanding and empathy and communication. And don’t tolerate destructive behaviors.

Rachel Jones: I really like that she says don’t measure how people feel, measure how people behave, because I feel so often in these conversations, they get lost in this place of feelings and people don’t feel included and they don’t feel like they belong and then it makes other people feel like they don’t actually know what to do in response to that. But thinking about behavior, that’s something that you can observe and easily change and that doesn’t let you get away with, oh maybe people are always gonna feel some type of way, like no. We can actually change these behaviors. It also takes the pressure off of the person who is marginalized, so they’re not having to explain why they feel the way that they feel, we’re focusing on the behaviors that are damaging and working to change that.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Yeah and you also don’t wanna wait till someone tells you how they’re feeling. You need to be observing their actions, and whether they’re showing up to events, those events aren’t inclusive enough, and when I say events I mean we do a lot of, in tech companies we do have a lot of events that are supposed to be team building and team bonding events, happy hours, ping-pong championships, and if you’re not seeing people participate, people of various groups participating, don’t wait till they tell you why they don’t.

Gretchen DeKnikker: You know when you were talking about don’t wait to have someone tell you how they feel, right, but if someone does, there’s certainly better ways to handle it than if you… a common thing that you’ll hear is giving feedback to a white person then at first they’re defensive, then eventually they feel victimized in some way, so then the person who is just trying to express their feelings is not only not getting their needs met but now they’re trying to meet the needs of the person who’s upset at having their behavior called out and called into question, which is sort of the thing that you really wanna stop doing and start avoiding, and listening. I don’t know, do you guys have tips on how people could hear feedback differently? Giving feedback and…

Sukrutha Bhadouria: I wish that when people–when I give feedback and I try to do this when I receive feedback–I wish the listener or the person who’s supposed to receive the feedback asked questions instead of responding to the feedback right away. I think the worst thing you can do is start to get defensive, is try to explain your actions when you’re getting feedback about something specific that you did or said. So if they ask the questions to get the context, to understand why someone’s feeling the way that they’re feeling. I’ve found that I’m more likely to give feedback if the person that I’m giving it to is listening and asking questions as opposed to responding to it straight away.

Rachel Jones: I think another thing you can think of, kind of flowing from what Heidi said, is really to focus everything on behavior, because it makes sense to be defensive if your whole identity is being called into question, and a lot of times when feedback is given people don’t hear it as, “Oh you did this one thing that made me feel this way,” they hear it as you are homophobic or you are a sexist or you are a racist. So it’s saying I’m not calling your whole identity into question or saying that you are one type of thing. We’re talking about the specific behavior that you exhibited and the impact that that had and the causes behind that so lets focus on that. I’m not talking about who you are as a person, so don’t take it personally in that way.

Gretchen DeKnikker: I think that’s perfect. And I think white people in this country, me included, need to get very comfortable with the fact that we are all racist on some level and that everyone has racist behaviors and that while the word is really powerful, we need to actually think about the definition of it and what that means, and how to correct those behaviors because even a racist will tell you they’re not racist, they’re just separatists. They just want you live over there. I don’t not like you, I just don’t wanna live with you kind of a thing, so just understanding there are racist behaviors. We all have them every single day and being open to hearing that feedback.

Angie Chang: I think intersectionality just reminds us how much further we have to go and be open to continuing to learn about each other, this evolving conversation and just keep trying to be curious about other people.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Yeah, my final thoughts are just a reminder that must be [inaudible 00:29:46], more than just your gender or more than just your race, and there’s all kinds of diversity that you have to pay attention to in the workplace or in your social environment. So always pay attention to the space that you fit into and the space that you don’t fit into that others might fit into.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Right, I know for this wave of feminism to be successful it has to be intersectional, and if you find yourself in a place where you don’t totally understand what that means and the ways to approach it, then there’s only like–you know we just did a post on 20 books that you can read–you don’t have to read all of them–that can definitely, on the girlgeek.io site, a book on building allyship, but if it’s not intersectional, it will fail, the same way that the past three movements have failed on some level to elevate all women. And so it’s really, really important, and what’s that quote? My feminism will be intersectional, or it will be full of shit.

Rachel Jones: It’s definitely true, you’re setting yourself up to fail if you’re using definitions of these things that are empty or you’re using solutions that only work for the group that’s struggling the least out of everyone, and we’re at a point where people can very easily see through these things when they are bullshit, like people aren’t just gonna say like we have a culture committee and take that to mean like the work is done, people actually wanna see tangible results so… yeah, I think–

Gretchen DeKnikker: We have an ERG! Clearly, everything’s fine!

Rachel Jones: Yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative). Like as much as you can, hold people accountable to do the actual work and not just fly a diversity flag and say the work is done.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Or they think that the people in the marginalized group are the ones who are going to do the work. Ask them what needs to be done and then do it.

Angie Chang: Then give them money to do it.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Oh, money!

Angie Chang: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Girl Geek X podcast, we’ll be back for more advice from women in tech.

Rachel Jones: This podcast is produced by me, Rachel Jones, with recording help from Eric Brown. To learn more about Girl Geek X, or buy tickets to our next dinner, visit girlgeek.io. You can also find full videos and transcripts from our events. If you’re interested in hosting a Girl Geek dinner, email sponsors@girlgeek.io.

Angie Chang: This podcast was sponsored by Realtor.com, offering the most comprehensive source of for sale MLS-listed properties. For years, millions of home shoppers have turned to Realtor.com to find their dream home, and this podcast was also sponsored by Atlassian, a leading provider of collaboration development and issue tracking software for teams.

Transcript:

Angie Chang: Welcome to Girl Geek X podcast, connecting you with insights from women in tech. This is Angie.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: This is Sukrutha.

Gretchen DeKnikker: I’m Gretchen.

Rachel Jones: I’m Rachel, the producer of this podcast, and we’re the team behind Girl Geek X. This podcast brings you the best of Girl Geek X events, dinners, and conferences, where we’ve been elevating women in tech, for over 10 years.

Angie Chang: Today we’re talking about personality, and how it shows up at work.

Rachel Jones: Is this something that’s come up at Girl Geek dinners? In questions in some way, or?

Angie Chang: I don’t think it really comes up in questions, but you can definitely tell that when a Girl Geek is speaking on stage, and, or off that they have their performance self, and then they have their authentic self.

Angie Chang: So, as an introvert, I’ve always enjoyed discovering who is also an introvert, and how they’ve managed to either shine on stage, shine in meetings, how they manage to speak up.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: I don’t think it’s been a discussion point, but we’ve definitely seen it.

Gretchen DeKnikker: I think as we go through this today, also thinking about that, there’s a difference between being an introvert, and being shy, or being uncomfortable, or sort of lacking confidence in one area. Right? Those are all not the same thing but, they sort of all get wrapped into one.

Gretchen DeKnikker: There are lots of introverts that aren’t shy, and there are lots of extroverted people who freak out at having to get up and speak in front of people, too. I always get annoyed, as an introvert also, that there’s this thing of, you’re shy, and so you’re not talking to me, or you lack confidence, and therefore, you’re being shy, and it’s like no, I’m just introvert. I find the discussions I’m having with myself in my head, way more fascinating than the discussion we’re about to have, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with being shy or anything else.

Rachel Jones: That’s something that I think is really interesting in this conversation. I think so often, personality isn’t even who you are. It’s who everyone else, decides that you are-

Gretchen DeKnikker: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rachel Jones: And it really affects the way that people treat you. So, as soon as they decide that you’re an introvert, then that totally affects the way that they’re interacting with you, and kind of affecting how they perceive your ability to change, or what you’re capable of doing.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rachel Jones: Like, oh, this person is this type of way, so they won’t be able to do this, or they won’t be interested in that, or this is the reason why they’re acting this way. I think the labels that people put on each other around personality in the workplace can definitely have damaging effects.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Or that being an introvert is somehow some sort of disability. Like, oh, well you’re just gonna have to learn how to be an extrovert. It helps if you can play an extrovert on TV but, honestly introverts bring so much to the table, and should do so unapologetically.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: I think even the evolution when, Angie, you first started doing the intros, before a Girl Geek dinner, the talks would start, then when I started to join you, we were like so raw, and we were so awkward, and uncomfortable, and now we’re more confident.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: While I do think in a lot of ways I’m an extrovert, I’m very uncomfortable to the point when first started working, and you know you’re introduced to like Agile and Scrum, and you’re to give your update, and say what you had worked on the day before, and what you plan to do that day. I was so intimidated when I would have to give my update. Before, I would look down, and talk, and pretend I was looking at my notebook because I was so awkward.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: You know, I just decided there are things I need to do, and I forced myself. I need to know people at work. It’s really important to have those water cooler conversations, to get to know more people, and because I don’t feel comfortable talking right away, I ask a question, and they’re talking. So, that’s how I kick off a conversation. So, even though I’m shy when I first meet people, I found a work around, I guess.

Gretchen DeKnikker: I’m the opposite because I’m an introvert but, I spent my whole life doing dance, and singing, and acting, and so, I’m way more comfortable presenting in front of 100 people, than I am with three people I’ve never met, that I’m forced to have a conversation with. That’s terrifying to me, so I think it’s just sort of your comfort zone, right? What you’ve done previously that has helped you gain confidence to do it, right?

Gretchen DeKnikker: I think those smaller conversations are still, like, but now I think I can just say this is super uncomfortable, right? And bear with me, which I would never have done before. Angie, I feel like you have a lot to add on this because I feel like you are both shy, and introverted, and yet you’ve chosen this career path where you’re this role model, and sort of creating this whole environment for women, and you’re doing it all while you’re struggling with being shy.

Angie Chang: I like to think that the job found me [crosstalk 00:05:28]. I think most of what I actually do is, I’m more articulate writing. So I’ve done a lot of writing, and then when we do all the introductions at Girl Geek dinners, and having to give talks on diversity, and women in tech over the years. It’s really helped sharpen, and it’s definitely taken about 10 years to get to a place where I can actually just give talks now, rather easily but, it did take that decade of really grating through some pretty embarrassing experiences, to get to a place where I can now give a talk, and not think too much about it.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Is that your advice? That you just have to keep doing it until–

Angie Chang: You’ve just got to keep doing it for a long time, and I think I’ve definitely seen other people do this as well. Sometimes we see someone be super confident, and then we don’t really think about how long they’ve been doing this. If not in this particular job or industry, maybe they had 10 years of improv experience under their belt, and you just didn’t know it, and that’s why they’re so great with their gesticulations, or something.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: You know just the other day someone who’s really shy at work, told me that they wanted advice. They were talking about how they admire how I could just talk to anyone, and I’m like, “Listen, listen, this wasn’t always how it was.” I feel like I need to know everybody, like I said earlier, and I just force myself to talk to people.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Now about what you just said, Angie, being able to give talks, something I struggle with myself. I was saying just giving an intro at a Girl Geek dinner, why I started to force us to do it, is because we needed to get better at it, and we did. I do think that obviously you got better at it faster than I did, but I had to, and everybody takes varying amount of time, but I had to really practice. I would initially write out what I planned to say, and researched the speakers, just in case I needed to say something about them, and I would come prepared. Same thing now, it’s so much easier for me to mentally prepare to give a talk, and I always say yes when I’m asked to speak. I just never say no.

Angie Chang: I like that, over preparing although you don’t have to, and that gives you an extra source of great things to say about people, and be great at giving talks.

Gretchen DeKnikker: [inaudible 00:07:57] quote from Disha Gosalia, who gave a talk at our Quantcast Girl Geek dinner, on how she navigated her career, as a shy engineer. It’s great. You guys should check it out. Now she was recently promoted to the VP of Service Operations and Support.

Disha Gosalia: Growing up in India, when you’re somebody who’s a straight A student, or academically focused, you’re kind of placed on a pedestal, and you always make your parents proud, and so it doesn’t matter if you’re a loner out there. I never realized that I was a shy, loner kid.

Disha Gosalia: So imagine my surprise when after I completed my software engineering degree in Computer Science, and went for my first job as a software engineer. In my first half yearly performance review, when your boss goes through all the great 10 things you did, but that one area of development that you always think about.

Disha Gosalia: He actually asked me, “So are you a little introverted? I never see you walking around the desks of your colleagues, or chatting up with them, and you actually don’t even talk much in team meetings.” And I’m like, “Am I supposed to talk much in team meetings? Well, I’m new. Should I not be listening more?” But, that was honestly the first time I realized that my personality did have a part to play in my career.

Disha Gosalia: Fast forward several years, now as I parent to fairly sensitive kids who are often called shy and quiet. I grapple with this thought on a daily basis. How do I raise confident young adults, who can accept themselves as what they are, but at the same time also has this growth mindset?

Sukrutha Bhadouria: I totally get that. I’ve struggled speaking up in meetings, even though I had a lot to say. I just realized that there were ways in which I could prepare myself to be able to speak. One is, of course, I would practice. You always know the content, or at least the goal of a meeting, before you go in. At least most of the times you know, so you can go in prepared with the points that you want to bring up. If someone else brings it up, that’s fine. You can add to it.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: So that sort of thing is really important for people to at least get a sense of what your opinion is. You can’t grow in any role without people really knowing what your opinion is, and whether or not you agree or disagree. You can’t always be silent. I don’t know if I would have given the feedback to her, the way her manager did, but I can totally see this feedback being necessary, and valid.

Angie Chang: When she was talking at the Girl Geek dinner, I was like, that is so me. I was called out, at least a few times, for being quiet in meetings. Then I’d actually actively have to work on being able to jump in and give an opinion or talk, give an update, make myself known in the room. So that’s definitely something to recognize, and overcome but it is definitely overcome-able.

Gretchen DeKnikker: I mean I think I come at it from, maybe the opposite angle, right? I have lots of opinions, as anyone who knows me will tell you. I think where I really struggled was, I’m a person who, I can live in this deeply analytical world, and I can live in this very, very creative world. That sometimes that allows me to see solutions, and patterns, and things that are really weird, and non-obvious. It took me probably until I was in my early 40s, to stop hiding that, or apologizing for it, or saying things like, “This might be really weird, but.”

Gretchen DeKnikker: Or I would spend days testing something out, to see if it would work before I would suggest it to anyone, and to really be like, “You know what? This is actually what makes me unique. This is the unique thing that I’m bringing to the table.” And to not be afraid to speak up in that way. To be like I know that my brain doesn’t work like, I think there’s some test out there. It’s like 90% of people don’t think that way, right?

Gretchen DeKnikker: So I was like, “Well, I’m awesome. You guys are so lucky to have me here, even if you think my ideas are crazy.” Right? And being okay with, it’s wrong. It’s okay if it doesn’t work out. It’s better to speak up. I don’t think you’ve told us, if you’re an introvert, or not.

Rachel Jones: True. I was thinking about that, when you were talking about what your introversion looks like, and how you are more comfortable presenting than talking with a room of three people. I was thinking, yeah, I’m more comfortable presenting to a room of 100 people than just mingling in a room of 100 people.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Right?

Rachel Jones: That’s the scariest thing-

Gretchen DeKnikker: Yeah.

Rachel Jones: To me but, I think one thing that was really interesting that stood out to me from Disha’s quote is how she said she didn’t realize that she was a shy, loner kid-

Gretchen DeKnikker: Yeah.

Rachel Jones: She didn’t realize until it was told to her, and when that feedback was given to her, it was really just behaviors that her boss was seeing, and not really who she was as a person. So I think thinking of personality as a fixed thing, versus things that you can learn, or things that you can challenge yourself to do. Yeah, I think that kind of complicates this question of personality, and how much it limits a person, or defines a person.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: I think as a manager, you need to be equipped to understand various personality types. You know the contradictions, where it feels like maybe not everybody knows it. So they don’t give the best feedback, and they don’t call attention to an area, along with what the benefits would be if they were to, sort of, acquire a different way of expressing themselves. If you don’t do that, it gets very confusing, and it feels very strange that you’re being told that you’re quiet, and that’s why that’s going to hinder your growth. That’s something that we need to be a little bit more sensitive about.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: I do want to say, though, there are certain tracks and career–study tracks–that you will find more introverts in because you know, especially when you’re a software engineer, a lot of what you do has to be a little bit more solo. You’re not working in a group. You’re not presenting as often as one would if you were in business school.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: There’s this quote I read somewhere that said, “If you’re looking for an introvert in business school, you’re not going to find one because even they know how to navigate the system, and come across like an extrovert.” So it’s not surprising to me that it took her that long to be told that she was shy because that’s just–the fact that she came from Computer Science, it’s not entirely surprising that it wasn’t called out earlier, or she didn’t draw attention to it earlier.

Angie Chang: I completely identify with being a shy, loner kid. I was that person in middle school, but I think that you have to know how you operate best, and even though I’m a shy introvert, I find one on one with people is really not intimidating. So it actually doesn’t bother me to go into a room and be like okay, I just need to talk to one person, and find that one friendly looking person to walk over to, and put my food down next to, and ask if that seat’s taken, or whatever, and just be like, “What are you doing here?” Making it more minimal to you, and not thinking about it as a room of 100 people. That’s also a handy tip from Girl Geek dinners, and having gone to many.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Yeah, I watched you do that. Man, I would always be very awkward when people were in their own groups already, at a networking event, or even at a Girl Geek dinner. I remember you told me, like, walk over to who you want to talk to, and just look at them, and then they’ll automatically turn to you. Even if they’re talking amongst each other, then you can ask a question, or sneak in a word, or a sentence, and join the conversation. Even if after that you’re just listening, you’re joining the conversation.

Angie Chang: Yeah, I think we’re always feeling like we’re the most awkward person in a room but, I think that everyone feels like they’re awkward person in the room. So they’re usually happy, when you talk to them. They’re like, “Oh yes, I have someone to talk to now. They broke the ice.”

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Yeah, I think it’s been good, for me, to identify when I get uncomfortable, and when I do feel comfortable, and so in situations when I know I’m going to be uncomfortable, I bring whatever’s going to make me comfortable, so I’m my best self.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Jumping back what you guys were saying a little bit earlier, I’m curious–being told to speak up…. What advice would you give to the manager because that isn’t super helpful, right? But if you, like Sukrutha, you must have people on your team now, that are kind of shy. How do you manage that, and what advice would you give to managers?

Sukrutha Bhadouria: So first, I don’t think it’s been very helpful to tell someone, “Hey, you need to speak up more.” I think I need to be very, very aware of who has opinions, and who’s not speaking up because they’re just uncomfortable. I need to feel responsible, that I should draw them into the conversation. Once they started talking, they’re usually fine, and then slowly as time goes by, I need to be mindful to also draw attention to the fact that their thoughts were really, really helpful, and useful in the conversation, and then automatically they’re more comfortable bringing it up. I don’t know if pointing it out, and telling someone hey, you’re too quiet, just speak up, has ever been helpful, honestly.

Angie Chang: Right. That was great advice from the manager in the room [crosstalk 00:18:26].

Gretchen DeKnikker: I feel like if you’re giving that advice as a manager, like you need to speak up, then people are going to feel like, they need to add something just to say something, and then-

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Right.

Gretchen DeKnikker: How awkward, and detrimental is that, right? To just be saying anything to have your voice be heard in the room. That’s worse right?

Sukrutha Bhadouria: That is the worst because I do see a lot of women think that they just have to do that, and you hear them saying the most random things-

Gretchen DeKnikker: Right.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: But, you’re like you could not have thought that’s going to be useful in the conversation.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Yeah, but it’s the advice, that they’re, yeah-

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Yeah.

Gretchen DeKnikker: I think it’s more of a function of the advice, than anything.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Totally, and that’s why it became more noticeable to me. There was mostly women doing that, and someone has told them, “Hey, you know you’re going to get overlooked, if you don’t say what you’re thinking.” You can’t always be thinking something useful, so you just say anything.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: So all of what we’ve been talking about, relates a lot to our quote from Product Design Lead, Eunice Noh. She shares a story of learning to speak up confidently, during our dinner with Blend.

Eunice Noh: Speaking up in meetings was really hard for me. There is an analogy I like to use. I’m not sure if everyone feels this way but, when I’m on a plane, in like the window seat. I think the entire time on the plane, wondering when am I going to use the bathroom. I’m like, “Okay I’m going to go now. Should I wake up my neighbor? Am I going to get stuck in front of the beverage cart?” By the time I convince myself that I’m ready to go to the bathroom, they’re like, “Seat belts, please.” And you gotta hold it for another 30 minutes, and it’s not a good feeling. It’s really not.

Eunice Noh: I think that’s similar in meetings, you know? I work myself in my head, and I’m trying to figure out exactly what I’m going to say, and making sure that what I say is not stupid. Should I talk now? Should I wait until the person’s finishes talking, and a million other questions in my head, and by the time I get the confidence to actually say something, the meeting has ended, and everyone’s already moving out of the room.

Eunice Noh: That’s, it’s very vulnerable. I was very, very, very vulnerable, and luckily, different from many of the past companies I’ve worked for. I had a great support system through my manager, and I had an outlet to talk to a lot of women during our Blend ladies’ night out.

Eunice Noh: So having people to help build that confidence, and give you those light nudges, and support from people around me. As a manager today, I strive to be like my manager, to give support, and help build confidence for every single person on my team. I’ve realized that building confidence, differs per person, that being thrown into the deep end, might not always be for everybody.

Rachel Jones: So it sounds like Eunice actually gives a lot of advice that was related to what Sukrutha said about how to tell someone they should speak up. How it’s more about building confidence, and knowing that not everyone will thrive if they’re just thrown straight in with knowing kind of, what approaches work for different people.

Angie Chang: What are your thoughts on this?

Sukrutha Bhadouria: I thought it was interesting that she called out that, at least at Blend, she was able to get a really good support system, through their Blend ladies’ night out, but maybe it can be a little bit more deliberate. Where you are trying to build your own support system, without waiting for your manager to set it up, or without your company’s ladies’ night.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: That will help build the confidence for you to then speak up at these meetings. Especially when you have something to say, that’s when you want to speak up. I like that she called that out, but you won’t always have those opportunities, where a manager’s helping us, or that we have a ladies’ night.

Gretchen DeKnikker: I think another thing that has happened to me in meetings, which is different from having a hard time speaking up, is having a hard time being heard. I’ve even tested this, because men will keep talking. If you go to say something at the same time, and they’ll keep talking, and so I’ve literally tested, if I keep talking, and they keep talking, will eventually they stop, and I’ve never talked long enough, that they’ll stop. That’s super frustrating.

Gretchen DeKnikker: This episode made me think about, there was this time, I’d been traveling a lot, we’d gone to the East Coast for a week, and then we’d literally flown on Friday night, and got there on Saturday, and then in Israel, the work week starts on Sunday. You’re on a weird time zone, or whatever. So, I was already extra cranky. Then we went in for a meeting, and this was my domain, and the two men in the room just kept talking, and I kept trying to add something. This was not their domain.

Gretchen DeKnikker: So, at some point, and this is not my finest moment, was I just got up, and I was like, “Well, it seems like you guys all have it figured out, I’m going to the hotel.” Up until very recently, I felt really bad about that, and I was forced to apologize to one of the people in the room, and I just thought about it recently. I was like, wait, hold on, and I felt embarrassed about that, and probably wouldn’t have shared it in this forum. Then I’m like wait a minute, no. That was a perfectly acceptable, I probably was not a nice as I could have been about it because I was tired, and I was so annoyed, but, at the same time, if you’re not going to let me speak, why am I in this room because I’d much rather be sleeping.

Angie Chang: I think that was radical candour, and that was a good job.

Gretchen DeKnikker: I want to go back, and be like, dude, I’m actually not–because I also felt like forcing someone to apologize to you, who obviously doesn’t want to apologize–

Rachel Jones: Like, what [crosstalk 00:24:17]-

Gretchen DeKnikker: Is also some ego driven nonsense, anyway.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: The danger, for me, when I was learning to speak up, is I started to talk over other people, though.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sukrutha Bhadouria: That was something, and I still struggle with that, when I really rack my brain, that I want to say something, and I’m going to be heard, I tend to talk over people. I don’t want to be part of the problem.

Gretchen DeKnikker: When I feel myself very anxious, to speak, I think, “Why are you so anxious about this, why can’t you let that thought finish,” right? Most of the time it’s just like because I know what they’re saying is wrong, and I just want to be more efficient, or at least I think. Right [crosstalk 00:24:59]? Also, just let them finish their thought, but I think it’s different when you’re in this, when you’re having a conversation, and you’re interrupting people versus, it’s a room full of people, and everyone’s talking over everyone, and literally, you can’t be heard. Right?

Gretchen DeKnikker: I’ve raised my hand before, of just like, when you guys are done, and you want to stop talking all over each other, I will wait my turn, but if this is the only way that I’m ever going to be able to say anything, is if I just raise my hand. Which makes people laugh, and they think I’m a little bit weird, but I also get to speak at some point, without having to yell over the top of everybody.

Rachel Jones: I relate to that a lot, and I definitely relate to Eunice’s quote also because I’m definitely the person–My statement has to be completely perfect, before it can leave my mouth, and enter a room. So, I will spend so much time, just analyzing, reanalyzing the thing that I’m about to say, and then yeah, usually by the time I’m ready to say it, then we’re off that topic, or the conversation’s over, or the meeting is over. Yeah.

Rachel Jones: I’ve just really envied people who feel free to just say whatever, whether it’s valuable, or not.

Gretchen DeKnikker: The people who are willing to say their thought process out loud. The speak, then think versus the think then speak.

Rachel Jones: And then ponder over it, for the night, and then come up with the perfect thing to say, and be able to say it to no one.

Angie Chang: Bring it up in the hallway the next day, in a smart email.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: So, someone told me this, which I’ve never been able to do it, but they said, in a meeting, if someone, or whatever, in a casual conversation, too. Someone is saying something that you don’t like, and you already know that, they’re saying something that’s not right, you have to say, in order for it to not turn into a back and forth. You have to say something like, tell me more, and that’ll give you more of a chance to compose yourself and find the right words to put it back on them, and find the right ways to disagree, in a very civil way. I’ve never been able to do it, though. Once I do try it, I’ll let you know if it works.

Gretchen DeKnikker: In my better moments I do, but it’s mostly like, okay. It literally, tell me more about this ridiculous thing [crosstalk 00:27:19], that seems to have come out of your mouth, but that’s also me, stopping myself from saying something ridiculous that’s not helpful.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Right. Right, I think that’s what I want to do because I sometimes just react. Not sometimes, a lot of times.

Rachel Jones: Is it the same for you, at work, and outside of work?

Sukrutha Bhadouria: As I work with the same set of people a long time, yeah, then this–the layers shed, and I end up reacting the same way, I suppose. Some of my peers I’m working with right now, I’ve worked with for three years. So, I’m starting to be less polite when someone says something awful, or does something that’s not cool. When I see in our peer group, a guy cutting someone else off, then I’m the first one to react, unfortunately. Whether it’s in my head, or verbally, I’m probably the first one to react.

Angie Chang: That’s not unfortunate.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Yeah.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: There are various ways to shut down conversations, and there are more constructive ways to make the person who is being foolish, very obviously foolish to everyone else but, if I join in that, and I play in the mud with them, then-

Gretchen DeKnikker: Right. [crosstalk 00:28:48]

Sukrutha Bhadouria: I look as foolish-

Gretchen DeKnikker: Right.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: That’s what I don’t want.

Gretchen DeKnikker: I think as I get older, it’s more of the same person. Right? I think, I didn’t bring a lot of my personality, my fun side, to work, for a really long time. Now I think, I spent so many years, at very early stage startups that now I think, me at work is more intense, and I have to pare that back because I’m so used to working on these crazy deadlines, and whatever, that I get overly aggressive about things that aren’t that big of a deal, but I just have to uncondition myself because I’m not that way with my friends. It’s like it’s gone in this further direction, the opposite way, as I’ve gotten older.

Angie Chang: I find work personalities, and every day personalities, that’s something that I’m kind of working on. Sometimes it’s intimidating to go to an office and hear everyone chatting around the water cooler, talking about things, often times pop culture, which I’m really bad at. I’m trying to find something to say, but I’ve nothing to say, nothing to say about sports, and I know if I want to talk about something that excites me, it’s the death app, of five inspirational quotes of the week, and I’m like great, I’m going to talk about death now. So, I think it’s–

Gretchen DeKnikker: And if you’re not understanding her, yes she said death app, like dying people app, yes–

Angie Chang: Yes, like a goth. So, I think it’s definitely some part of me is like how do I be one of the cool kids, and have this great conversation [inaudible 00:30:28] off the bat, about the very topical things. I think it’s just a matter of really making the points when they’re needed, and being memorable with them, instead of just the everyday chatter. The [inaudible 00:30:40] everyday chatter is helpful in greasing the wheels, to get what you want at work.

Gretchen DeKnikker: I think it’s just finding, points of commonality, and as you get older, and you get more comfortable with who you are, and you bring more and more of that to work, then I think you sort of find those different connections with different people, and I’m sure that not everyone wants to talk about the Kardashians all the time, Angie–

Angie Chang: Thank the Lord.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Just Sukrutha and I.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Well, there’s so much to talk about. I’m kidding.

Gretchen DeKnikker: So, youngster.

Rachel Jones: Yeah.

Gretchen DeKnikker: What do you bring to work?

Rachel Jones: Well, thinking about this, I think a lot about just different work contexts, only giving you so much space to be your authentic self.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rachel Jones: So, I was working with high schoolers for a few years, and the version of myself that I had to be, in order to do that job, was so different from my natural self. There were so many parts of me that I couldn’t reveal, so many things that I had to force myself into, like being more authoritative, and speaking more strongly.

Rachel Jones: It’s definitely nice to be able to feel like you can be fully yourself at work, but I think a lot of spaces are not designed for that, and I think even, just as a woman, and as a woman of color, thinking about how office culture in general, just puts a lot of limits on those kinds of expression.

Rachel Jones: I think the question of bringing your full self to work isn’t always just about your own comfort, or the extent to which you know yourself. It is a lot about the environments that you’re in, and you can definitely work to challenge that, or work to really just show up, regardless of the space that you’re existing in, but it definitely has varying levels of success with people in different situations.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Yeah. That makes me think of 22 years ago, when I started in tech, and how you’re just trying to be in the room, and not remind them that you’re a woman, and how much anonymity I started over the years, and now it’s not just, oh I can let them know I’m a girl sometimes. It’s like yeah, I’m a girl, and what? That’s my superpower, what do you have? Right. I think that the industry has evolved, right? That’s nothing that I changed personally. That’s just sort of, how things have gone.

Angie Chang: I want to see it on our shirt. Girl Geek X, that’s my superpower.

Angie Chang: This ties in well with our quote from Sandra Lopez. She brought up a great point about personality while sharing some advice for her younger self during our Elevate Conference this year. Sandra Lopez is a VP at Intel Sports.

Sandra Lopez: I joined Intel 2005. 2006 I had a meeting with an individual by the name of Early Felix, and Early Felix was pulling together executive leaders that happen to be Latinos, and he asked me a question. He asked me this, what does it feel like to be a corporate Latina? A Latina working in corporate America. I was just like, what are you talking about? I was asking what are you talking about because I never made my ethnicity, or my gender, an issue. Yet it was bothering me because I couldn’t answer the question. So each day would go by, I would take showers, I would think about it.

Sandra Lopez: Several months later I was in the shower, and I realized something. I realized that I was just never myself, and so, in the spirit, I wanted to discover who I was. I began to shed the skin that society influenced me to wear, such as the pant suit, and I began to be more familiar with who I was. Who Sandra Lopez was, in her own skin. Five feet, two inches tall. I was destined to wear feminine clothes. I wanted to wear those red suede pump shoes that you see on the PowerPoint, with three inch stilettos. I wanted to wear dresses that would accentuate my Latina curves, because that would be my ability to embrace my unapologetic self.

Sandra Lopez: If I were to advise my younger self, and do it all over again, is to be your unapologetic you, and I say that because in the process of understanding who you are, and what makes you special, you’ll discover your own depth, and what you’re capable of. You get confidence, you’ll know your place in society, in this world, and because I discovered who I was, over 10 years ago, arguably my career started to succeed.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Can I first just say, I love her so much. It’s just, we just need so many women like her to stand up and just say, these are all of the things that make me, me, and I’m going to bring them in with me, and I think it’s different for everybody, right? Figuring out who that is, and who you are, and then not feeling bad about it, anymore.

Angie Chang: I guess, after listening to Sandra, I feel inspired to think about what I do want to talk about at the water cooler, and bring myself to work in a way that works, and also less, I think Sukrutha said, to not force myself to open my mouth in a meeting, when there’s nothing particular to say.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: I think it was when Microsoft sponsored a Girl Geek dinner, one of the speakers said that, instead of working on your weaknesses, you should work on your strengths. So, when I listen to Sandra, I thought about that because she decided to just embrace who she was, and continue on, and that’s when she ended up seeing her career really start to succeed. I find that for myself too.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Luckily we work in an environment now where people just dress any way they want, and when they’re in tech, but I’m sure at that time, for her, it must have been really, really hard, to be herself. So, yeah, more power to you if you want to wear something different, or whatever makes you comfortable.

Angie Chang: When my sister got tattoos, mom was like, “You’ll never work in an industry”, and we’re like wait a second. Now, I think tattoos are everywhere. Having hair that’s a different color than the one you were born with, is completely natural, all these things–

Gretchen DeKnikker: I hope so, my hair grows purple.

Angie Chang: Right, and all these things, all these ways we differentiate ourselves, and we celebrate our differences, has made us a more interesting workplace, and industry.

Sukrutha Bhadouria: Yeah, you need all sorts of perspectives, make a good product.

Angie Chang: All different personalities. Yeah.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Yeah, I think that’s what attracted me to tech, right? Because I am very rough around the edges, and I could figure out how to get along, and be more polished, and whatever, but instead, I found a place that would take me as is. I don’t go into big corporate environments where I would be just, pretending to be somebody else, in my ways, I stick to smaller, scrappier environments, where a personality like mine works, and so, it’s sort of, rather than trying to change me, I just kept trying out different environments, until I found one where I could just be myself.

Rachel Jones: I think that’s an interesting way to think about it. I really like that Sandra uses the word unapologetic.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rachel Jones: Because to me, that really sounds like I’m going to show up, regardless of [crosstalk 00:38:33] how well my personality fits into this space, or how anyone feels, or how much space they’re leaving for me, to do this. So, it’s interesting just thinking about that perspective, versus I’m going to find a place that actually supports my personality.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Rachel Jones: I think, yeah, they’re both definitely valuable, and I think, yeah, it would work differently for different people, but it’s really interesting hearing both perspectives.

Gretchen DeKnikker: The thing that is sort of counterintuitive about it, is that you think if you are bringing more of yourself, that you’re being more vulnerable, and people are going to judge, and reject that. Actually what I found, and what I think Sandra found, is that people really embrace that because there’s something very genuine about it, and they know what they’re getting with you, and love me, or hate me. There’s not much mystery to what a daily interaction with me is going to be like, right. I think that people appreciate that, they just appreciate transparency.

Rachel Jones: I like thinking about this, discovering your authentic self, and bringing your authentic self being kind of a key to unlocking success in your career.

Gretchen DeKnikker: And understanding that it’s a work in progress. Right. You’re not one day just going to wake up, and be like, “Oh, I know exactly who I am now”, right? I feel like I’ve made this analogy that you’re like a jigsaw puzzle, and so I thought, around the time I turn 40, which is also around the time I became a venture-backed founder, that not all the pieces fit together perfectly, but that I had a pretty good picture of who I was.

Gretchen DeKnikker: Then as a founder, I was just put in these situations, and this intensity, that I’d never experienced, and I felt like I was suddenly handed new puzzle pieces, and that it wasn’t just, oh, I have to figure out where this goes. It’s like I almost have to reshape this whole thing, to figure out, because there’s essentially extra pieces, that’s all. You get more confident, and more comfortable, but you’re always going.

Angie Chang: When we think about people, and their authentic selves, I am always grateful for those people who came to their authentic self, and do things like quit working in finance, and now open a bakery. That’s super popular in San Francisco.

Angie Chang: Recently I’ve been constantly inspired by Brit Marling’s work. She turned down a job at Goldman Sachs to make films, and pursue her love for writing and directing and acting. So, I look at, not just people being an authentic self to be an executive, but also just be good at a craft, or good at their technical self. Obviously I’m a huge fan of The OA right now.

Angie Chang: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Girl Geek X podcast. We’ll be back soon with more advice from women in tech.

Rachel Jones: This podcast is produced by me, Rachel Jones, with recording help from Eric Brown. To learn more about Girl Geek X, or buy tickets to our next dinner, visit GirlGeek.io. You can also find videos and transcripts from our events. If you’re interested in hosting a Girl Geek dinner, email Sponsors@GirlGeek.io.

Angie Chang: This podcast was sponsored by Quantcast, a global leader in artificial intelligence technology. Quantcast is using machine learning to drive human learning, to help brands grow in the AI era.

Angie Chang: This podcast is sponsored by Blend, a Silicon Valley technology company, propelling the $40 trillion consumer lending industry into the digital age, through partnerships with banks, lenders, and other technology providers.