Figure adapted by Patricia Gestoso from this image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay .
(7 min read)
Imagine you go into a one-week change management training with the expectation is that when you are back to work you’ll reassure everybody that there is no need to change. How does that sound?
Actually, this is what’s happening right now. We’ve been in a change management boot camp for 3 months now, at the cost of $2-4 trillion US$ (UNCTAD, Asian Development Bank), but most leaders keep using sentences such as “back to normal” and “resume”, or simply they have gone hiding. Do they really believe we can all go backwards in time to 31 December 2019? Are they lacking the creativity and energy to be the catalyst for a different future miles away from their vision four months ago? Or are they simply patronizing their citizens and employees by thinking that if they keep insisting on going forward to the past, we’ll all close our eyes to our individual and collective experiences during this crisis?
Last week, I asked a colleague how her recent transition to remote working was going on. Was her internet and VPN working ok? Did she get access to the docking station, screen, and mouse from the office? Was she proactively taking breaks?
Her answers reassured me: Yes, yes, and yes.
She also told me that after finishing her work at 6.00 pm she rushed to the supermarket to only find broccoli and Brussels sprouts. We made fun about how some people rather starve than eat certain food. It also made me realize that I’ve failed as a leader.
The scarcity trap
The picture that accompanies this post it’s how the supermarkets looked like where I live a week ago. It’s how they looked all this week too. And this weekend as well. Me too, I’ve felt the pain and stress of visiting 3, 4, 5 supermarkets to gather the basic food and toiletries I needed.
I’m acquainted with this feeling. I lived in Venezuela for 12 years and my parents still live there. By now, I’m used to their photos of depleted supermarket shelves and pharmacies with soda bottles where there used to be painkillers. The frequency doesn’t make the problem to go away.
In this context, how did I fail to ask my team if their basic needs were covered? Nor was I urged to do so by the uncountable articles I’ve read from management and leadership magazines providing advice on how to navigate this time of uncertainty in the last three weeks?
This gap is even more bewildering when we think that a wealth of frameworks about human motivation are built on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which stresses that the most important needs are physiological (food, water, shelter, warmth). Then, other needs follow: security needs (safety, employment, assets), social needs (family, friendship, intimacy, belonging), self-esteem (self-worth, accomplishment, confidence), and self-actualization (inner fulfillment) at the top. That is, food needs are more important that security (e.g. washing thoroughly our hands).
Although Maslow’s model has been contested, I challenge readers to find examples where other needs in the hierarchy can take precedence back over physiological needs for extended periods of time.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Shouldn’t business focus on enabling their personnel to fulfill their physiological needs as a first step? Or is that overstepping into the private sphere?
Whilst some may point out that as business leaders our duties finish the moment we timely pay the agreed salary to employees and provide them with the means to do so (laptop, mouse, VPN…), I’d argue that if you are neglecting the impact of physiological needs on performance you are setting yourself for failure. This is not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do, as per the work on scarcity from behavioral science professors Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir.
Mullainathan and Shafir postulate that scarcity – when we feel we have “too little of something” – messes up with our minds and decision: “if the mind is focused on one thing, other abilities and skills—attention, self-control, and long-term planning—often suffer”.
Their studies showcase multiple examples where individuals can lose up to 14 IQ points –more than the impact of staying 24 hr awake – when their environment forces them into a scarcity mindset [source]. Examples are the feeling of having too little money, food, or time.
In summary, the scarcity trap can hurt companies’ performance by focusing efforts on assuring the technological continuity of the business, overlooking that in this VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) time the devil is in day to day detail. To say it plainly
Employees concerned by the availability of rice and toilet paper in the supermarket at the end of their working day won’t perform at their best, no matter how good is their internet connection or how well suited is their home office.
Leading inclusively
My challenge to us as managers and leaders is that when we go back to work tomorrow we ensure the conversations with our team members explore physiological needs as well: Do they have food? Toiletries? Shelter? Are they queuing at the supermarket at 6.00 am in the morning in the hope of getting some bread and milk? And what’s more important, how can we as managers and leaders facilitate that they carve out the time to fulfill those needs?
Only then, let’s worry about virtual collaboration, laptops, and reliable internet connection.
Interacting with tech products that reject me as a user or provide a subpar experience elicits two very different responses in me.
As a Head of Customer Service with 25+ years’ experience in scientific and engineering software, I’m well aware of the constraints imposed by a finite R&D team and an ever-growing list of customer enhancement requests and bugs to fix. It’s teams like mine that build those lists and provide feedback to the product team on their prioritization. Which features and fixes make it into code depends on a multitude of factors: the difficulty to implement them, their alignment with the vision for the product, and their potential impact on the user experience and expectations. This last criterion is assessed using fictional user personas created by the product team as a representation of the ideal customer. The closer the requester of the feature is to one of the user personas, the higher the chances of implementation into the product. However, if the issue is considered an edge case – not representative of a substantial customer base – then it will mostly get rejected or postponed indefinitely. Every new feature and fix must demonstrate its ROI.
As a woman that cumulates several out-group identities – e.g. non-native English speaker, poor vision – I’m used to the frustrating feedback that my mediocre user experience is deceptively cataloged as an edge case. Why deceptively? The average tech Continue reading →
Before using the term diversity and inclusion advocacy, I had already identified the need for it. I’m a woman, STEM studies, work in tech, and I’ve been an immigrant all my life. This intersection of out-group identities has often resulted in being seen as the other. It has also prompted me to consciously endeavour to listen and empower members of other out-groups.
However, a little more than a year ago, I realized that, unconsciously, I was silencing those other voices.
The term empathy has been steadily gaining visibility for years. It’s not a hunch; as per Google Trends, its popularity has doubled in the last 10 years. This shift can be explained by empathy expanding from the personal sphere (partner, family, friendship) to the business arena (emotional intelligence, management, customer service, HR, diversity and inclusion). What’s more, empathy appears to be the cure-all for any human interaction mismatch (and for machines too: if only they would have empathy…).
But, is this based on hard evidence or wishful thinking?
I believe that betting on empathy is unlikely to make the positive change in human relationship we are looking for. Continue reading →
Unconscious bias training being thrown in the trashcan of the “nice to have”. Figure adapted by Patricia Gestoso from this original image by OpenIcons from Pixabay.
“I’ve studied cognitive biases my whole life and I’m no better at avoiding them”
The more I learned, the more I realized — in hindsight — how unconscious biases had plagued past decisions. I read books and articles, talked to experts, and watched Continue reading →
Chairing an employee awareness session about the UK Gender Pay Gap in Tech at the Dassault Systèmes office in Coventry.
Recently, I was invited to chair a “Breakfast & Learn” session at our Dassault Systèmes office in Coventry (UK). The topic: UK Gender Pay Gap. This article is a reflection on that great learning and interactive experience.
What is “Breakfast & Learn”? One-hour monthly awareness sessions organized by our Great Place to Work (GPTW) ambassadors around a specific theme. Ideally, the presenters should keep the topic light and open, avoid the profusion of slides, encourage the audience participation, and limit the use of jargon. A healthy breakfast is provided along.
Why me? I founded the EuroNorth Dassault Systèmes Lean In circles in 2016 to advance diversity and inclusion initiatives at a regional level, I’m a member of the EuroNorth Diversity and Inclusion Council, and I’ve had the pleasure to host virtual employee meetings with our UK HR team to discuss the findings of our gender pay gap reports for 2016/2017 and for 2017/2018.
Why this topic? I learned that the recent publication of the Dassault Systèmes Gender Pay Gap report had been a hot topic for discussion in this office. There were different views regarding the scope, key indicators, and impact of the UK gender pay gap as well as the usefulness of reporting the data.
Preparation
Gauging the audience: 10 days before the event, I launched a pre-meeting survey among all the employees invited. The questions aimed to provide insights into their knowledge, interest, and feelings about the UK gender pay gap. The results highlighted how much emotional background surrounds this topic. It’s not only about money. Words such as transparency, (un)fairness, equality, and bias strongly resonated with the respondents.
Getting a mentor to fill the gaps: I had the privilege to discuss the UK gender pay gap with the subject matter expert Michelle Gyimah (Gender Pay Consultant – Equality Pays). Michelle generously shared valuable insights on what makes a great UK gender pay gap report – and what doesn’t. (NOTE: If you don’t follow Michelle on LinkedIn, start now! Her short videos on this topic are always insightful).
Meeting
Given the heterogeneity of the audience perspectives and expectations – and the request to keep it light and open – I favored a participative experience over a lecture for the 25 women and men that joined the meeting on-site and on-line.
Exchanging experiences: First, I shared my journey into becoming a diversity and inclusion advocate in tech (more at patriciagestoso.com/about). Then, I invited the attendees to a spectrum line exercise to gauge their level of agreement with the sentence “I’m comfortable discussing the UK gender pay gap”.
Replacing myths with truths: I challenged 5 myths surrounding the UK gender pay gap in tech
Equal pay is the same that the UK gender pay gap: This one-minute video produced by Business in the Community explains the difference.
The UK gender pay gap in tech companies is women’s fault because (a) they don’t pursue STEM careers, and (b) they leave their jobs for full-time motherhood.
As per the 2018 tack Overflow’s Annual Developer Survey, developers who self-identify as a woman or non-binary rank the office environment and company culture as their highest concern.
Enforcement of diversity targets to suppliers is becoming a reality. As an example, this article in the ExecutiveCounsel magazine highlights that “companies considering contracting with the US federal government must be prepared to demonstrate the diversity of [their] workforce”.
The design and creation of products and services by a minority not only leads to subpar experiences for the other groups but also may impact their safety. This article by Caroline Criado Perez highlights examples where designs assuming “male” as the default fail to cater to women, some of them endangering their lives.
5.- Reducing the UK Gender Pay Gap at a company is only the purview of HR and executives: Company leadership may only see part of the picture. 164 HR executives surveyed by ICEDR ranked struggling with work-life balance or planning to have children as the main reasons women around age 30 leave organizations. As discussed above, both women and male millennials pointed to better pay and career progression as the top reasons to leave a job.
Co-creating the solution: I invited the attendees to a blue-sky thinking exercise where they imagined that they had a magic wand and could write our UK Gender Pay Gap report for 2019/2020. How would our gender pay gap metrics would look like? How would we have made it happen?
Call to action: We closed the session encouraging – and daring – the attendees to (a) join our diversity and inclusion employee resource group, the EuroNorth Dassault Systèmes Lean In circles, (b) engage in conversation with other colleagues on this topic, and (c) become an ally by championing women at the workplace.
Next steps
Brenda Trenowden CBE, Global Chair of the 30% Club, advises companies in this inspiring 13-min video that “there is no single silver bullet for fixing gender diversity […], you got to understand where your particular challenges lie”.
Our team did a great job of sharing their vision about tackling our UK gender pay gap. I look forward to sharing those insights with the other members of the EuroNorth Diversity and Inclusion Council to continue crafting our “silver bullets” to our present gender diversity challenges.
Thanks to Paige Gelder and Michelle Goodson for organizing the session, Bernie Tanner for the picture in this article, and all the attendees for stimulating discussions, before, during, and after the meeting.
NOTE: You can access the pre-meeting survey questions, the blue-sky thinking exercise, and further references here.
Originally published on LinkedIn on July 31, 2019.
The typewriter, internet, closed captioning, text-to-speech, eye gaze.
All those inventions have in common a widespread application and impact. They were also originally created to overcome a limitation imposed by a disability. And there are a lot more, as this article points out.
Surprised? I was. Stereotypes do narrow our thinking.
I was not planning to like Moment of Lift (source) by Melinda Gates. Although I was tempted to read it, I always bailed out at the last minute because somehow I thought it would be some kind of 101 Wishful Thinking for Women. When the World Economic Forum Book Club (source) chose it as a May read, I thought it may be a signal. It was.
I love the Masters of Scale podcast, hosted by Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and investor at Greylock. What’s not to like about a podcast about innovative business models, that is fun and committed to a 50-50 gender balance for guests? Continue reading →
In my first LinkedIn article, I share 5 key factors to the success of the customer support team I lead. Predictably, diversity of workforce and perspectives is crucial to delivering exceptional customer service. Continue reading →
Purl Final Scene: WARNING Wishful Thinking Ahead!!!
Last week, I received a link to Purl from a fellow diversity and inclusion advocate with the line “Wondered if you had seen this… it’s a brilliant explanation of the male-dominated workplace”.
Upon clicking on it, I was redirected to a Pixar 8-min short animation film called PurlContinue reading →
A structure like a seat over a hole where you get rid of waste from your body.
A room in a house or public building that contains a toilet.
Early this month I attended TEDxLondonWomen. As per the director and curator of the event – Maryam Pasha – it was 8 years in the making. The stimulating array of speakers showed a labor of love, commitment, and resilience.
I went to the event to keep up with the state-of-the-art in women’s issues and to network. I did a lot of the first (more at the end of this post), less of the second.
Remember last time you were faced with strong winds against you whilst cycling or walking? Probably yes. And tailwinds, i.e. winds that helped you to progress faster? Probably not.
In their scientific articleThe headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry: An availability bias in assessments of barriers and blessings, Shai Davidai and Thomas Gilovich used headwinds and tailwinds as a metaphor to explain our perception of advantages and disadvantages that we face. Continue reading →
Two weeks ago I attended the Ada’s List Conference 2018. The Ada’s List is an email-based community of more than 6,000 subscribers (me among them) “for women (and those who identify as) who are committed to changing the tech industry”.
The Conference was structured as a blend of presentations and concurrent workshops covering a vast array of topics related to women in tech. Inclusive design (‘Leaving No One Behind: Building Apps for The Next Billion Users’ by Aygul Zagidullina), new technologies (‘How can we use advanced imaging technology to build a better food system?’ by Abi Ramanan), self-care (‘Discover your self-care non-negotiables” by Babs Ofori-Acquah), and UX (‘Personalising the user experience and the playlist consumption on Spotify‘ by Mounia Lalmas-Roelleke) are some examples.
If there was a talk that both challenged my preconceptions and fuelled my optimism that a diverse and inclusive workplace is achievable was that of Åsa Nyström, Director of Continue reading →
In 2015, the UK branch of WaterAid – an international non-profit organization with the mission of providing clean water, decent toilets, and good hygiene to people that don’t have them yet – launched the campaign If Men Had Periods to denounce that more than 1 billion women around the world lack of water and toilets during their menstruation. Furthermore, WaterAid wanted to increase the number of signatories to their Make it Happen petition, which called on world leaders to make sure that the UN sustainable development goals included a target on safe water and sanitation.
Their tongue in cheek approach was successful. Their adds won several awards, their Continue reading →
Women, Tech & Power (Figure adapted by Patricia Gestoso from Pixabay images).
As a woman joining the university in the late ’80s to pursue an engineering degree, I took for granted that gender parity in the workplace was around the corner. The few female professors in our science and engineering faculties reassured us that we were on a good track. They shared how as students they were only 2-3 women per chemical engineering cohort, whilst we could be counted by tens! The message was clear: “”Don’t complain and work hard. Women’s presence is scaling exponentially”.
It’s 2018 and the World Economic Forum reports that the workplace gender gap will not be closed for 217 years. This disappointing realization has sprung a flurry of expert Continue reading →
a bias that happens automatically, outside of our control and is triggered by our brain making quick judgments and assessments of people and situations, influenced by our background, cultural environment, and personal experiences.
Whilst all human beings have unconscious biases, that’s not an excuse for inaction. Unconscious bias impactsContinue reading →
The premise of the book is the following: Years ago, the author was asked by a friend for advice on raising her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie’s advice to her.
Recently, I read the through-provoking Women & Power A manifesto, written by Prof. Mary Beard. In the chapter The Public Voice of Women, she highlights that in the Western tradition for the last 3,000 years women’s public speech has been confined to two areas: (a) the support of their group interests (e.g. women rights), and (b) their victimhood (e.g. Christian martyrs). Attempts to breach that rule are Continue reading →
The Collins Dictionary defines privilege as “a special right or advantage that only one person or group has”. The paradox is that is not uncommon that those same persons or groups are oblivious to their privilege in the first place!
Are you always stuck with taking the minutes at the team meetings? Do all the people in the room expect you to order the catering? You are not alone.
Research shows that co-workers assume that women, and especially non-white women, are expected to do office housework, i.e. pick up all those administrative tasks Continue reading →
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s book “Everybody lies” assembles his work on what he calls “Google Digital Truth Serum”, people’s internet searches. Seth theorizes that people are more honest when they ask Google than to any other source, including Facebook, which he calls “Digital Brag to My Friends How Good is My Life Serum”.
In this article, the author argues that Google searches suggest that modern American Continue reading →
As women advancement in the career ladder has stalled, there is an urgency to signal “the” culprit: women don’t ask for promotions, women don’t have an appetite for leadership, women don’t sit at the table… Unfortunately, rarely those assertions come with metrics.
Recently, I came across an article in the Engineering and Technology magazine that made me realize up to what extent artificial intelligence (AI) is mirroring our gender biases, conscious or unconscious. Think about the ubiquitous female voice in our home-assistants: Google Home, Microsoft’s Cortana, Amazon’s Alexa, and Apple’s Siri perpetuate the stereotype of female obedience.
What was even more disturbing was to learn that this submissive attitude goes beyond the Continue reading →
It’s been some years now since I realized that I was consistently paying more than my partner for items ranging from toiletries to fitness weights.
It’s not my imagination – it’s called the pink tax! The Fawcett Society in the UK estimated that “women are paying on average 31% more for an own brand basket of comparable toiletries and are paying 12% more for a basket of own brand clothing items”.
Using words like just or actually, apologizing when unnecessary, or using phrases like Does that make sense? or I’m no expert, can undermine your credibility in interviews, negotiations, and meetings.
In this TED talk, Mellody Hobson – president of Ariel Investments, a US management firm – challenges us to learn to be comfortable talking about uncomfortable topics such as race and gender as the only way to make meaningful change in our workplace and boardrooms.
Our privileges (gender, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic) make us blind to the disadvantages of others. Additionally, we generalize other people’s experiences based on our preferences, environment, and upbringing. As most of this behavior is unconscious, how can we free ourselves from those constraints and develop more inclusive products?
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s book “Everybody lies” assembles his work on what he calls “Google Digital Truth Serum”, people’s internet searches. Seth theorizes that people are more honest when they ask Google than to any other source, including Facebook, which he calls “Digital Brag to My Friends How Good is My Life Serum”.
