Day 3-Why Changing Hearts & Minds Doesn’t Work When Promoting DE&I Efforts, but Checklists Do
Thank you for the introduction and we are pumped to be here
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Use lot of animated GIFs and have tried to avoid unexpected contrasts
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Will lean on those in chat to look at certain content
— We can all say 2020 was a very interesting time
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Witnessed unprecedented number of people taking to the streets
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It felt like people were getting on board
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— Saw brands with sponsored conversations, DEI statements, and focus on equity focused roles
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What a time for the DEI enthusiast
— Wanted to bring design org with parity with rest of the org with DEI
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We did a book club, media club, and Slack channel
— These efforts didn’t work. Excitement turned to burnout and we were stressed and not moving needle on goals
— Most importantly we couldn’t scale
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Dominique Ward defines scale as doing less while having greater impact
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We were doing the most on our team and little impact
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— So what were the goals?
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1) Change makeup of the design team
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2) Provide access to jobs and salaries to those historically excluded
— Reflected on things we did
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Had good attendance and engagement but didn’t equal success in terms of outcomes
— So people were talking, but when we asked “How have you seen this show up at org?”
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There was radio silence when this was asked
— This set up problem that all we talked about was too removed from day-to-day work and organizational context
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People were at remedial Race Relations 101, while we were asking for high-level analysis
— This was bolstered by data in our org and others
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Study by HBR talking about DEI in workplace pointed out where BIPOC have more mistakes listed with feedback
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Less leadership mentions for BIPOC versus white women
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Women 11x more likely to be described as abrasive
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— So we changed our focus from hearts and minds to tangible impact on company goals
— Two ways we did this:
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Created objective evaluation criteria
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Evidence-based performance reviews
— Before criteria, we’ll touch upon three group norms (from Michelle Bess), commitments made to the virtual space together
— Three group norms
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Stay present and don’t check out of conversation, as much as possible
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Be open, as we are offering new perpsectives, and resist the urge to dismiss what you are hearing.
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Reflect on how this might work, and approach with curiosity
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Sit with discomfort, and you can see yourself reflected in stories told
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Sit with uncomfortable feelings and where they are coming from
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— We’ll kickoff the discussion with a story
— We were hiring an early career reseracher org
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We had a Black female candidate who had credentials from agency, with master’s experience
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Our white female research lead passed on her, and we could understand this
— But to our suprise, she then had a portfolio review with white man who had no degree, and said to hire him
— I would say that’s pretty racist, but
— There was a lot of word salad thrown out to minimize what happened
— So we decided to do side-by-side comparison of the two candidates and this got me thinking on objective metrics
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We were moving the goalposts on who was applying
— So we created 12 core competencies for design org
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Not just product designers and researchers but analysts
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Worked to talk through skills important for each capability
— Note that we don’t expect to have person be strong in all 12, but to have most important skills for capability representing and level in org
— We used example and demonstrated behavior for a skill like writing
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i.e. writing macro and micro-copy
— What is the best way to measure them, and how the org would measure them
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Encouraged people to share evaluation methods on Slack
— We used a scale for actions over perceived knowledge and how individual used the competency
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Scale ranged from being completely unfamiliar with the competency to using it in new ways
–– How knowledgable you are often dpeends on the eye of the beholder
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Might go to great school, but an interviewer can disregard that
— You can move from “I know” which is subjective, to “I can” which can be demonstrated
— So coming up with objective criteria is first thing to do
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Without this, run risk of all biases running into processes
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This is hard to fix after the fact
— We laid the foundation for future work we did
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Filling out cheat sheet for guide to take basic hiring information and what you are looking for when hiring for someone
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Pick-up required competencies (3 and at what level)
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Behaviors in case studies and actions to demonstrate, along with sample discussion questions
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Finally have archetype
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Highlight three non-negotiables , and archetype to help sort out closely qualified candidates
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We included a Figjam on work and joint notes for evaluating candidate and why might be good fit
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— Creating objective criteria helped team be more expansive and helped people notice when they were looking for reasons not to hire someone
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If person met basic competencies, they could pass on to next tier of interview
— This helped us ask right questions, and why this particular candidate and select this one and ask if bias is showing up
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Great feedback on this to be clear about role for team
— Found objective criteria and tying or to org cycle helped work with individuals from changing way we are all thinking, and instead change specific process
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Applied logic to employee journey
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Example of performance review process at organization
— So where would you focus next, in the context of the employee journey:
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We asked ourselves: Where do we see high likelihood of bias?
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The more individuals involved as opposed to processes, more likely bias
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So we looked at journey where HR was not in charge of process
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— So we focused on performance reviews, where lot of bias existed
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Literature found global ratings is a petri dish for bias, due to
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1) Confirmation bias with notions based on characteristics and traits, and paying attention to those
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2) People relying on potential impact only for one group (‘white men’), while others are asked to perform and provide results
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3) Performance reviews aslo had long-term and short-term
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Short-term: Performance reviews played part in what bonus was and compensation package for the year
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Long-term: Evaluation tied to career opportunities inside and outside the org
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— So we introduced evidence based performance reviews through a workshop and introduce process that would remove bias from feedback discussions as much as possible
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Focus on minimizing bias from conversation
— Introduced three principles for managers and team members
- Give 3 pieces of concrete evidence for feedback you give for individual
- If asked, is this a trend, you have lot of info about individual, and more constructive criticism
- It also minimizes halo/horn effect as white men who do one thing right have everything else cast as positive,
- While for BIPOC workers, doing one thing wrong is a black-mark against you, whatever else you do
— Not enough for people to look at own feedback and eliminate bias from conversation themselves
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Instead we ask managers to audit feedback and take what you learn to see bias
— Performance reviews based on research and examples based on workshop and examining biased feedback
— Managers audited individual pieces of feedback, and then audited all feedback to look for tends and outliers
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This is way to see where bias slips in
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Manager with three individuals and noticed one stood out
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Look at characteristics and probably can see bias at play
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— Performance review conversations to be constuctive by following up with reviewers and making it dynamic
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Go back, and without three pieces of evidence, ask if there are other times behavior showed up?
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Consider other critical context you are missing
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Pay attention to trends, and have conversations with people
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— We introduced workshop to move from looking at personality-driven moments in time ,to make performance reviews to be constructive
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Concrete evidence based criticism let us take performance reviews
— People thought this was incredibly successful workshop compared to others
— Asked participants to do opposite of introspection, but instead…
— We asked them to audit other people’s feedback and look at others and bringing anti-bias lens to tthem
— The results?
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Empowered team members to call out bias. Opened up performance reviews for potential bias
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Held managers to a system for reviews
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“The liked how objective criteria was taken to heart, and used empirical data to back up claims, and empowered people to do this themselves”
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— We had different idea of success
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Checklists to objective criteria and organziational cycles
— We are not fully there for accountability
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We still need to tie performance to incentives and disincentives
— We are eager to hear your thoughts on accountability
— We also have another request
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Want to scale practice byeond and link all resources with session to help you find pieces of the org cycle that are relevant to you, as well as associated checklists
— To sum up:
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Checklists moved needle as they were different from free-form discussions and centered facts in objective criteria and evidence
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Got around table and come to mutual agreement
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Not impacted by individual bias and can make conversations where bias wouldn’t impact end result
— In conclusion, forget hearts and minds and don’t go chasing waterfalls
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Disrupt your org with checklists
FAQ
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Can you share version of cheat sheet? Looks amazing.
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Yes, can share template used, but if you have competencies and criterias, do that first. The cheat sheet is a playbook
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Link will be as Google Drive in request for resources.
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Is the hiring cheat sheet before interviews or after? Does panel know beforehand?
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Yes, goes out to the entire panel, and have FigJam to take notes and gut check on non-negotiables
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Used to help write job description itself beyond strict interview space
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Story behind the matching citrus shirts in the call?
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No story, we just decided on matching citrus shirts
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