Words. Ideas. Actions.

08 March 2023

It’s International Women's Day. Normally, I would be involved in curating and writing about events at work, part of the D&I Champions team which focused on our belonging efforts. Without teammates to share with, or company-hosted events to attend, I spent part of the day scrolling through LinkedIn posts. I found that a lot of the ones from Brands™ wished their women workers well on this day. Same for the many emails which flooded my inbox, which also included links to buy or donate to women-related causes. 

The other trend I noticed was for people to tag women who have been influential in their careers. I love that idea. I’ve highlighted some in my own past, but I always worry while doing so that I’ll leave someone out. And being the possible cause of that exclusion absolutely terrifies me. 

So, instead, I want to point out something I think those posts and emails and tags miss: Every woman in your life should be celebrated and championed, not only today. Honestly, for my fellow fellas reading these posts, we have a responsibility to use our privilege to lift up all marginalized people. I know that’s an easy idea to type, but let’s look at a couple of ways you can do that, specifically geared toward the women in our lives. 

1. Listen– What should seem self explanatory, is — apparently — harder than it looks. You’d be surprised how many times women don’t get to finish their thoughts before a man interrupts them. 

2. Create space– This is related to the listening idea, but takes it to another level. If you notice women in your meetings, for example, waiting to speak, invite them into the conversation. 

3. Share the work and the credit– Again, here’s an idea which shouldn’t have to be highlighted, but we should be equally dividing our burdens, and then sharing the praise for jobs well done. Use any moments of recognition to give credit to the people you collaborated with.

4. Champion and sponsor women– The step after sharing credit is championing and sponsoring. They’re related, but slightly different. Championing, in my understanding, is suggesting people for opportunities when they are not in the room. Sponsoring is being able to give them the opportunities yourself, and doing what you can to help them succeed.

5. Call out other men for behavior which keeps women down– One of the best ways to use your privilege is to make sure you are stepping in to correct your male peers when they step out of line. It’s not going to be easy, but nobody is going to grow unless and until we get a little uncomfortable.

6. Go deeper in your education and advocacy– Become a life-long learner. You can listen to podcasts, follow more women on professional and social networks, and check out some books written by women. By understanding their lived experience better, you’ll get better at recognizing when you should step in, and when you should step aside. 

Happy International Women’s Day. Now, please, get to work.

See you tomorrow?

01 February 2023

As we start February, I’m feeling more than a little melancholy about not being a part of my team at Google. Yes, there’s the very real pressure to line up something new soon so that we can continue to pay our bills (Congress, they’re just like us!), but I’m also lamenting the loss of one of the roles I played in our org: writing our monthly Diversity and Inclusion newsletter.

At the start of every month since December 2020, I would publish a handful of links to share with our team. These included internal events, outside resources, book recommendations, relevant podcast episodes, and the like, to help foster a greater sense of belonging on the team and more broadly as a part of Google. It was work I enjoyed. And cherished. Although I didn’t get a chance to gather this year’s stats on how we were doing, anecdotally our D&I group heard we were definitely making a difference. 

Now, I don’t want you to think that this was an extra task we took on. On the contrary. As part of our job descriptions, we were highly encouraged to add a people-focused working group to our daily duties. We had choice over which ones we could contribute to, and it just felt natural for me to take the lessons and activism I learned at Twitter and incorporate it into my day-to-day at Google. We didn’t have a lot of access to the sentiment metrics which HR tracked, but we were given pretty broad leeway about the topics we covered and events we could sponsor and promote. 

The February newsletter, which I started drafting a few days before the Google layoffs happened, obviously included links to our Black History Month events. But in addition to any monthly themed events, we also made a point in each edition to show our team that belonging wasn’t just an effort based on how you presented or how you’re perceived. So we also included information about things like neurodiversity (there’s an incredible internal support group at Google), parenting (working from home added a whole new component to work-life balance), and ageism in the workplace (did you know Barbara Walters started “The View” when she was 67‽).

I’m incredibly proud of the work we were doing. And gutted I can’t still be a part of it. But I know those who are still there continue to put in the work to make sure everyone on my old team knows they are seen, respected, and understood. In short, they belong. Wherever I land after this layoff, I hope to join a team with very similar priorities. 

See you tomorrow?