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SheCanCode's Spilling The T
SheCanCode's Spilling The T
Breaking Barriers: Male Allies in Leadership
In this empowering episode, we dive into the critical role of male allies in the realm of leadership. Join us as we explore the stories of influential men who are actively championing gender equality, fostering diverse workplaces, and reshaping the narrative of traditional leadership.
Tune in to discover how Oliver Scott and Joe Dan Dockrey from Workiva are breaking barriers, challenging norms, and paving the way for a new era of collaborative and equitable leadership.
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Hello everyone, thank you for tuning in, as always, to Spilling the Tea. We have an extra special episode today. We have two wonderful guys from O', from okiva, that we're going to talk about mal allyship, breaking barriers and challenging the norms. So I'm katie bateman, the content director at she can code. Welcome to spilling the tea. Um, guys, we're going to kick off with some background about each of you. So we have oliver and joe down with us today, as mentioned from okiva. Um, ollie, can we start with you with a little bit of background about you? Where are you from?
Speaker 1:What do you do, sure. So, originally from Brighton, that's where my family and I grew up. I worked in tech for almost 15 years now. I started out as a tech sales. So I started out as a BDR so booking meetings and individual contributor, met my wife at that company, then moved to leadership there, uh, and then have been to three or four different tech companies, always in sales roles, in sales leadership roles. Now live in southwest london with my wife, our 18 month old daughter and our four-year-old dog called ralph.
Speaker 2:Wow, so yeah that's quite a lot a busy, happy house and my wife's also pregnant again. So it's all go.
Speaker 1:Thank you, it's all go, it's all go.
Speaker 2:Can I ask you quick when you were younger, did you know you were going to work in tech? Did you fall in?
Speaker 1:I 100% fell into tech. It wasn't part of my plan. I would say there was no plan apart from the loose go to school, go to college, go to university. At university I did history and politics and I thought when I ended I don't want to be a historian, I don't want to be a politician, so what do I want to be? And then one of my friends worked at a company called Mimecast in sales, so he referred me in. I joined there. So that's how I got into it. But there wasn't a grand plan, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Yes, I hear that often, often in tech. Joe Dan, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for coming Yourself, can you tell us a little bit about your background? Did you fall into tech and what do you do at work either?
Speaker 3:Certainly so, I guess. Background so I grew up in Texas, so a bit further away than Brighton. Background so I grew up in Texas, so a bit further away than Brighton, so I got into tech. Actually it's funny the way that I got in, fell into it. But I, whenever I was in college, I was actually a geographic information science systems major and at the same time, whenever I was doing that or trying to pursue that, I actually opened a business with some friends in college.
Speaker 3:This was back in early 2000s and it was basically Uber Eats, you know, 20 years ago, and it was a business model that we thought was really neat and we invested a lot and spent a couple of years running, but we had no idea of what we were doing running a business.
Speaker 3:So I switched my major to marketing so that I could learn how to market the business, and through going through marketing, I ended up interviewing for a marketing role for a tech company. I didn't get that, but there was another role open, which was an account manager, and so I got into cloud hosting. Well, at that time it was just breadbox hosting. Well, at that time it was just Breadbox hosting, but that then progressed into cloud hosting, spent about 12 years working in technical support and operations, sales, databases of service management quite a few different facets of the tech org and then, about five years ago, started here at Workiva, which has been an incredible journey. Started off running support, which then grew into our global support team as well as product enablement, and then, about a year and a half ago, moved here to the UK to run CPX, which is customer and partner experience for Europe.
Speaker 2:Amazing, quite the journey and you haven't looked back. You haven't looked back from hopping across the Atlantic or coming into tech, or no, no, no no, I love it here in tech, you know, coming over here.
Speaker 3:So my wife and my two kids and my dog moved here. But my wife and I lived here 13 years ago, so we lived in the working for the tech company which was Rackspace and loved it and so had just an incredible opportunity to come back. But no to the question of tech. I love it.
Speaker 2:Yes, love that. That's why this podcast was started to hear people that love working in tech, so I'm pleased that I've got two brilliant guests. We have a lot to cover off. Today we're going to talk about male allies and breaking barriers barriers so I wanted to kick off with a question for you how does having male allies contribute to a more inclusive workplace culture?
Speaker 1:so, in general, technology, the same as a lot of industries, has a lot more men than women. Um, and with there being less women, it means it's hard to have your voice heard, it's hard to drive the change you need to see and want to see because there are less of you. So if men ally themselves, if they get involved, if they are active participants, educate themselves, it amplifies that voice. It makes it a lot easier to make the change we need to see. But also it makes women feel more comfortable asking and makes women feel more comfortable pushing the agenda when there's men next to them doing the same thing on the behalf or with them. So it's really, it's really important.
Speaker 2:It's really important yes, I love that and just recognizing as well that, um, as you said, if a lady you know she feels like there's something that she needs to be voiced or there's something, um, even if it's a small thing that's happened in a meeting, and she wants to voice something, that there are people there that she can go to, that she will be listened to. Um, and that change, can you know, is welcomed within a company.
Speaker 2:I think some really good companies. They, they know how to to do that and to make everybody feel like they can have a voice and and feel welcome. Um, so yeah, I've heard at work eva as well that people stay for a very long time for one of those reasons. Um, and that work eva our previous guests that we had actually on this podcast, and the lady said to us people tend to move around in work eva, instead of thinking where am I going to go next, they think actually, what can I do next? Um, because it takes a certain type of company to make you feel like you want to stay and it's inclusive and everybody is definitely heard. Joe Dan yourself, how does having male allies contribute to a more inclusive workplace culture? Do you think how important are male allies?
Speaker 3:I mean it thriving kind of evolving business if you don't face the fact in the. You know the, as the responsibility really that should be taken on leaders and in terms of allyship is converting that learning into our capabilities as leaders to influence change, to drive change and ultimately just create a better culture that everyone wants to be a part of yes, and people look to you, as well as the leader, to set that example, and it trickles down that if you're not setting that example as well, other people can fill that in the team, and that is something that we always say on this podcast.
Speaker 2:That doesn't happen overnight and that is something that is just part of a company's DNA and that takes a long time to have a leadership team, male or female, that are setting a good example for everybody.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It really starts at the highest levels with leadership, but it has to be part of your ethos and your culture and you have to truly not only believe that you need to be focused on equity and diversity and creating that environment, but you have to be actively involved at all levels of leadership in order to make that change.
Speaker 2:Definitely. I couldn't agree more and on that note, I wanted to ask you a little bit about in what ways that male leaders can foster an environment that supports diversity and empowers everyone, regardless of their gender. Are there any ways that you think male leaders can actually help and foster a culture of inclusion?
Speaker 3:Yeah, certainly so. I think whenever you think of diversity and inclusion one, it's just kind of recognizing what diversity really means. And whenever you're talking age, sex, religion, cultural backgrounds, just a number of things, and realizing that there's unconscious bias that exists, and so I think that that's part of the responsibility in terms of male allyship is kind of recognizing that that exists and that's something that you constantly have to be working to overcome. But it needs to be incorporated into a lot of the processes that you have in place. A good example is your hiring process and being fair and equitable, having a very objective way of going about that hiring process. But it's not just about having a diverse pool of candidates that you're looking at, but also looking at the interviewing panel that you have and do you have the right people. That's representing different backgrounds and cultures that can weigh into those decisions, backgrounds and cultures that can weigh into those decisions.
Speaker 3:I also think it's just having very open communication with the team. As leaders, that is our job is to make decisions that impact teams, individuals, processes, just everything that goes about driving a business forward. We need to be really open to asking questions and pulling in different perspectives and understanding that those backgrounds and different perspectives ultimately can help shape a better decision. And whenever you're pulling in that different feedback, you also need to be celebrating the times when you do hear a difference of opinion, or the times when you do hear a difference of opinion or you do hear hey, did you think about this? Did you consider someone else's background or perspective in this process? And really celebrating that so that you can encourage others to think or to realize that that's the way that we should be operating and thinking as an organization and a company.
Speaker 2:Definitely. I love the fact that you said, hey, did you think about this? There are so many companies that have put out products and they had wished that they had somebody on the team that said, hey, did you think?
Speaker 3:about this.
Speaker 2:Before we put that out and before there was that PR disaster or whatever it may have been. To have a diverse team can sometimes really help you as a company, even just before a product goes out as well. Obviously, the innovation involved and, as you said, celebrating those differences and that you do have people that step forward and say, hey, did you think about this? You know, for instance, in the States we wouldn't do it like that or you know that wouldn't be met very well with our audience. So, yeah, you're absolutely right, any kind of diversity really does help and to be mindful of that you know you mentioned the interview process. That's before you even get in. You know how is that candidate feeling in their interview. Do they even want to work there? After they've interviewed? You know all of those small things before you even encourage somebody to join your workforce is so, so important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and whenever you talk about the interview process, is that we really focus on cultural ad. You know, I think an old saying was someone needs to be a culture fit for a business, but we really look at it at Workiva's cultural ad. Who is helping to evolve and change and reshape our culture really to meet the evolution of business and the environment in general, and that's something that we really applaud. Is that diversity in thinking and making sure that we're pulling in multiple perspectives and are we pulling in people who can help to elevate and change for the better our culture?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly yeah, completely agree. I love that culture add, sort of a culture fit. I agree you don't want people that just kind of fit in with the rest of the team. You want them to be different and you want to celebrate that. I love that. Olly yourself, I know well Kiva have some interesting diversity groups Could you tell us a little bit about them and you know the types of things that Mal leaders could be doing there to help.
Speaker 1:Yeah sure of things that mal leaders could be doing there to help? Yeah, sure. So we have our, our bergs, which is business, employee resource groups, um, which is a group or community of underrepresented people, um that can get together and educate uh the wider work. Either they can uh drive change in work, either they can support each other, support other groups, um, so they're really important, they're a big part of work either's culture. And the same thing exists at a lot of companies, especially tech companies. For me, having worked at a few, I'd say work either is by far the most um active with the bergs and it's promoted the most and there's the most allies in those bergs as well, and allies in that sense would be someone that doesn't necessarily um, what's the word I'm looking for? Uh, they aren't from that group, but they want to support that group and move them forwards, and that's something that leaders can do.
Speaker 1:It's really important is encourage participation. I think I mentioned it before, but there's a lot of uh gender inequality, I'd say at uh, in tech companies, there's a lot of men, not, as there's a lot of men, not as many women. A lot of men typically from similar backgrounds, maybe university backgrounds, and there isn't a book for that, because you're not underrepresented. However, you can encourage participation and say go and find out something about different groups, see who you do align with and who you want to support. And they love that. They love having people to come in and champion their cause. They can get the message out to people outside of the immediate group. So that's something we can do is make sure that people participate, educate themselves and choose one, two, three to take part with, join events and see what they can do to help.
Speaker 2:I love that and to not just get involved in your own group but to actively get involved in others.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:So years ago, when the discussion of women in tech started coming up, conferences would hold a talk with a women in tech panel and all of the women in tech would head towards that discussion in the conference and you'd see any ladies that were there all disappeared to that corner of that conference, had come off the exhibition floor and the whole room was filled with ladies.
Speaker 2:And luckily now when you go and see women in tech panels it is not an equal split, but you do see a lot more male allies in that room. They want to get involved in the discussion and I remember for years it was something that room. They want to get involved in the discussion, and I remember for years it was something that the ladies used to say the men need to get involved because we need to move forward together and we have to have that conversation together and and to be involved in groups that are not necessarily for you. But how you can help that group is. You know, it's great that it's actively encouraged at work, eva, um, but they used to drive me insane, you'd see. You know that that it would be a certain time of day and then all the ladies would disappear off the show floor and it was almost like they'd have their conversation and uh, and then they'd come back again and that was it.
Speaker 1:Um, whereas you know, now we're moving forward slowly because everybody's included in the conversation I think, especially as a as a leader, not taking part, you're doing your team a disservice, because you have women in your team, you have people from diverse backgrounds in your team. If you're not educating yourself and not taking part, you're not supporting them in the right way. You're supporting them in the way that you think, from your background is the right way, but you're not taking part in the conversation, not learning from from them. So it's really important and work he was amazing at it like by far um the most internal promotion and the most discussion around it that I've seen.
Speaker 2:Yes, especially with that practice by behaviour. If you're doing it, everybody else follows and they might hear that you were part of a group and you think, oh, actually that sounded interesting, maybe I'll go along, even if it's something that they don't necessarily relate to at that point.
Speaker 3:It's not just about encouraging people to go and join Bergs and be active allies or members of these Bergs, but as leaders.
Speaker 3:It's and it may be a small thing, but it's giving them the time and letting them know that not only is it OK to take the time to go join these causes and events, but actively working with them and making sure that all levels of leadership understand this is important to us as a business.
Speaker 3:And, kind of going back to what I was talking about, you're not going to thrive and evolve as a business if you don't make this an important part of your culture. So that is something that you also see is that when there are burger events, people have it in their calendar. We're out for an hour, we're out for a couple of hours. We're going to if people are sitting as active members, sometimes we're they're traveling and going to spend a few days to talk about objectives and planning and events together and we we encourage that and really invest in that as a business and it's you know we want to make sure that people understand this isn't just something you're signing up for so that it's just checking a box. This is really an investment in something that we believe in.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that. I love that Not ticking a box. It's so, so important. We say that as companies that put out one tweet on International Women's Day, and that is the only thing that they do all year.
Speaker 3:We do see that, yeah, we jump down.
Speaker 2:We see that a lot on iwd. We love the companies that are working at that all year and that, as you said, it's it's not just, you know, a tick in the box, it's something that is actively encouraged, and and it's done um 365 days of the year. Um, all of that sounds great, though, but I wanted to talk to you a little bit about challenges. So what are the types of challenges that males have when they want to step forward as a male ally? Have you experienced any challenges yourself, ollie? Should we start with you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure. So I think something that I've seen as a challenge previously is when your own personal values for equality don't necessarily align with the company values. Um, this is not work either, far from it. Um, but just in general, like you see some companies where you can tell either from the outside or from working there that they don't have that top-down approach to equality, inclusion and diversity, and that makes it very difficult as a leader when you have people in your team that identify with an underrepresented group, because you can tell them something that you're going to be there to support them, but if the company policy or the company culture doesn't align with that, it makes it very difficult.
Speaker 1:Um a previous organization, I had a team member who was concerned about going on parental leave because they didn't know if they would get the support that they would need at that time.
Speaker 1:Um, something I educated myself on recently having a pregnant wife for the second time is that the nhs guidelines for breastfeeding is six months and if a woman is the main contributor household finances but then they only have maybe two months paternity or sorry, maternity leave or parental leave pay, then how do you plug that gap?
Speaker 1:Like you have to make a decision and as a leader, I can say I'll support you with your parental leave and I'll do everything I can to make sure you come back to the exact same role that you left and you're supported to land back in your role exactly as it was. But if the company policy doesn't support that, it's very difficult for me to give confidence to my team that they are going to get what they need. So that's something that I've I've struggled with before and it's I think it's it's what we're talking about today. It's about trying to make change at the highest level possible so people feel like they can do the things they want to definitely yes and and and, as we've touched upon in, that does come from the top down, that feeling.
Speaker 2:We've had so many ladies on this podcast who've shared their experience of going on Matly and what that was like and whether or not they were nervous about sharing that news.
Speaker 2:Some came back and found themselves promoted and thought, well, I don't know if I was even nervous, but some have told me as well that at good companies, they receive a letter from the CEO, for instance, saying congratulations, enjoy your time off. And there's that feeling of it comes from the top down. It's okay, you know, go and enjoy your time, take what you need. When you come back, as you said, you know your job will be there and just that alignment with the company values is so, so important and must really change the way that you think about when you want to leave and start a family temporarily, come back, you know it's all of that mindset is so, so important, um, but as we say again, it's setting a good example, but it has to align with your company values definitely, and I mean I've seen a a live example of it recently with with my wife who had maternity leave at her current company went amazingly well.
Speaker 1:They're very supportive. She's got a great boss pregnant again and she was nervous about saying and I was like, yeah, they were so supportive, like you get on with them so well. She's like, yeah, but like it's the second time in two years and even though she has a direct example of it going well and being supported, she's still nervous. So I can't imagine what it'd be like when you have no examples or you have a bad example, yeah, and then you've got to go through the whole thing again. So it's something that like as men you don't necessarily go through or not in the same way, um, but it's really important to be mindful of. Like if we're having that conversation, you've got to think like there's been a long run-up to this for this person. They might have been worrying about it for days, weeks, months. Even so, they're finally having conversation. But we need to make sure that you are aware it's not just a conversation.
Speaker 2:Definitely, definitely. And, Joe Daniels, do you think there are lots of common challenges like that for male allies? What do you think some of those challenges are? When you do want to step forward and say you know, I'm a male ally, I'm going to help.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I would reiterate what was said by Oliver in terms of some of the concerns that came in from people who worked at other companies and may have had some poor experiences. I think that it's important as an ally is recognizing that that's something that's going to take years and years to overcome and it's our responsibility to really face the fact that that's where it is. But it's our responsibility and our opportunity to be able to change that and reshape that type of thinking. I'll tell you I had an example and just talking about some of the hardship is that I even feel as a leader that as much as I work to build a very trusting relationship with any employee, especially a female employee, is that it's still more difficult to probably get to the level of trust and vulnerability that is needed to really understand kind of drivers and motivators of that individual.
Speaker 3:I've an example from my past was had an incredible leader working for me, a woman, who whenever we talked about motivations and career trajectory and really what are you, what are you working towards it was always about experience and wanting to just do more things. You know, build on my skill set to be able to do more things, but whenever asking direct questions about, you know, pay and things of that nature. It was always off the table and by saying off the table, it's just no, that wasn't a priority. But, um, then that individual and this is years ago went on to go to another team Um, but it was more of a decision based on pay, um, and it just helped me to realize that you really have to be working to understand what are those motivators and what can I do as an ally to help build trust with the individual, with the woman on the team, of knowing it's OK, it's safe to be able to talk about those motivators.
Speaker 3:I can actually help to shape some of your, some of your development plan towards this. I can help you to grow in your career and I'm not going to hold that against you. And some of that just comes in just years and years past of inequity with pay and it seeming like if I was to raise the one of my motivators being pay, that I would, I would look down upon you, right, and that's not the case at all. And and I think that's one of the things that, as a male ally, that you have to do again is let let that individual know that it's okay, this is a safe space. The more that I understand about you and what motivates you and what drives you is going to help me to help you shape your career, and I can help to facilitate that and help to grow you into that area.
Speaker 2:Definitely To retain good talent, whether it's on your team or even at your company, just to get ahead of that. So they don't think you know what. I didn't feel like I could have that conversation, and especially with pay, it's such a hard one to you know. People always think that it comes out as I'm only asking for that because I just want more money. And that could be. You might want to start a family. You could be, you know, taking out your first mortgage. You could be taking out your first mortgage. It could be lots of reasons as to why you're looking for that pay rise. Not necessarily you know what. I just really want some more money. But having that with your line manager is sometimes so difficult and a lot of ladies will really struggle to think how do I have that? Do I even have that or do I just jump ship and go elsewhere? But, like you said, you know it's yeah, it's understanding that, so you can keep that good talent, retain them and, like it were key for people to stay, you know, having that safe environment where you can just talk about things, and the worst that can happen is that somebody says not right at this time and that's it. But you know we can work towards that. I completely agree with that and I love. But you know we can work towards that, um, I completely agree with that and I love the fact that you said about um, uh, bad examples and that um as well, when that bad example comes into your team, they might have had a bad example in the past, but it's just letting them know as well that that's not the case here, because they are going to have certain things that they've brought with them and if they were to tell the team that, the team might start thinking actually is that the case here? Or, you know, I haven't gone on maternity leave. How is that going to be? Because that lady told me at her last company it was dreadful. So it's kind of setting that tone as well and saying you know, that's not what it's like here and as a male ally, I'm just, you know, just to keep reiterating that to the team about what the culture is like and it's not something that is said in one speech at an annual company, do you know, it's something that is said every day and catching those things on your team definitely is, you know, setting a good example If somebody has had a bad example? Definitely, I couldn't agree more. Somebody has had a bad example. Definitely, um, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2:Um, that actually leads me on to guidance. Um, because I wanted to ask you a little bit about, uh, what guidance would you offer to men if they are aspiring to serve as male allies? Um, do you do you have? I mean, that was a great one.
Speaker 2:They're kind of, you know, jumping in and making sure, um, that if there is a bad example and you've been a little bit more mindful of how people might be thinking, do you have any other guidance for men that they might think I'd love to be a male ally, but I'm not that confident in trying, or maybe I'm going to get shot down somewhere, maybe a lot of it is I'm going to say the wrong thing. I hear that constantly about. It doesn't happen so much anymore, but men used to say I'd only get dragged into a room when I'm being told I have to have some training because I've said something wrong in the workplace, whereas actually a lot of men would love to come in on the conversation and really help and be a leader. So do you have any guidance for how they can do that?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So talking about male allyship there's one is is just leading with vulnerability, right, it's uh, letting you know. Any individual know, but specifically in in this conversation, women know like it is a safe space. Being vulnerable means really opening up. It's sharing information about yourself, your, your personal life. It's for help as a leader and really asking what, within that person's environment, their working environment specifically, that you as a leader could be doing to make an improvement, to really create and foster just a better working environment they want to be a part of and would be proud of.
Speaker 3:I also think that there's, as a leader, to really foster this idea of allyship is that it's really important to be mindful of just quality, of how you're running your teams and looking across everyone, but it's really fairness in terms of opportunity that I think comes into place. So we talked about hiring practice earlier. That's one example, but I would also say, just whenever you're looking at opportunities on your team as a leader and really wanting to be an ally, is really asking yourself have I been fair in terms of there's a new opportunity that came up? Asking yourself have I been fair in terms of there's a new opportunity that came up, there's a project? Do I have good diversity across this project team? Am I asking the right questions to the right group of people to understand? Are we making the right progress or the right decisions around these? Another thing and I've got an example of this but it's making sure that you're being intentional about where you're providing opportunities but also, you know, I guess from a delegation standpoint, where you're delegating tasks and asks and where you're not.
Speaker 3:You know, my wife has been a successful executive in technology for 18 years now, but that was quite a journey for her and she once worked for a group. It was a tech team, it was all male leaders and she was the only female in that group, the only woman. And whenever she first joined that team, she sat into a meeting room and they had team meeting and she said, raised her hand, said I'll take notes for this meeting. And then the next week she raised her hand, said I'll take notes. And then the third week it was just expected that she was going to take notes, yes, and her boss at the time pulled her aside and said you're not doing that anymore, I'm not going to delegate this Not that he ever did delegate, but there's an expectation that she was going to own this administrative task, and I think he represented just a really shining example of good allyship, of saying no, that is a task that needs to be shared amongst everyone and you're not going to grow and be viewed as an equal within this team until we share some of those you know.
Speaker 3:You know administrative type of responsibilities and we need to elevate your positioning and more understanding that you are equal across the table of this group of leaders. And so I think that's a big part of allyship amongst males and men is that we need to be intentional about where we're pulling people into opportunities, specifically women into opportunities, but also when we're saying you shouldn't be doing this or we need to spread out some of this responsibility because we don't want to put you in a position that it is kind of disenfranchising you as an individual. It is kind of disenfranchising you as an individual.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that. There's a great example. We've been very intentional about it and just making sure that that task wasn't left with her. I always think that as well with being intentional about how you are seen as a leader when you are setting that example. For instance, if you are a leader that needs to leave for a nursery pickup, for instance, and that your team knows that and that you are intentional about, you know what? I have that in my calendar. I'm going to leave at that time because I have a family thing I need to do and then I'll be back online a little bit later.
Speaker 2:But it's all of those things that are intentional, that your team see and they pick up on that, and that really builds your team and how you're going to function. But, yeah, I love that example of somebody stepping in, and especially when she's in the room, because you hear a lot about male sponsors and I've had some great male sponsors throughout my career who they're the people that are fighting for you when you're not in the room and they're saying good things about you when you're not in the room, and they're saying good things about you when you're not in the room. But for somebody to step forward as well when you're in the room and to say, actually you know what this job, that one, it's not just for you, you're not just the note taker, somebody. That is very intentional about that is so, so important. Definitely, ollie, do you think? Do you have any guidance for men that want to step forward as a male ally?
Speaker 1:have any guidance for for men that that want to step forward as a male ally. Um, I think the first thing I'd say is that you mentioned like um, men don't know where to start or don't know if there'll be how to get involved is women would love to have you like, they'd love to have you part of the group. They'd love to have the chance to educate you and have you participate and help drive um the conversation. That's the first thing. In general, my advice for male leaders would be communication is really important, whether it's in a team setting like the words you use, how you communicate or in a one-to-one setting.
Speaker 1:I think in technology I'm sure it's so in loads of industries, but I don't know those. I'll talk about technology. Very fast paced can be very, very high pressure and it can be very easy to go straight to business when you get on a one-to-one call or a team call. But it's very important to learn um to take a step back and have the time to talk to that person about how are they experiencing this pressure, how are things going in their life, what's like, what's like troubling you or what's top of mind, rather than going straight in, because otherwise they don't have that safe space to talk about what might be challenging them. And if you don't have the same background or the same experiences, you might not know how they'll be. They'll be experiencing different things. So taking time to communicate I think is is very important.
Speaker 2:Always having that time at the start of a call to sort of level set rather than go straight in um it's important definitely yes, and some people only see that as chit chat sometimes and it's go straight in um, it's important, definitely yes, and some people only see that as chit chat sometimes and it's it's not. It's far more than that. It's hearing about you know what, and that's not even being nosy about. You know what's going on in your life and and all of those. There is a fine balance, but you do need to hear those conversations. Somebody might be very stressed about something. I don't want to share too many details about what's going on in their life, but you're absolutely right. Just hearing that actually you know that they might be late to work because of certain reason, or they might have somebody they're caring for, you know, whatever it may be, um, and just just hearing that can sometimes make you think you know what.
Speaker 2:I really need to communicate a little bit more with my team. I wanted to touch upon mutual accountability and raising standards. Joe Dan, you touched upon it a little bit there, pointing out things when people see them and I've heard this as well in meetings. Things like if a lady feels like perhaps her voice isn't being heard and somebody's just stepping in and saying you know what, you're talking over someone, or, you know, just being more accountable for that. What are the ways that we could do that? I mean, you know, speaking up is a big one, isn't it that if you see a bad example, you know just pointing that out and saying you know what that's not okay in our company culture.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think At one level, mutual accountability is kind of working with some of the bigger departments that help shape a lot of our policy. So it's working with our people and culture team whenever it comes to benefits and it's working within the leadership team of commitments, of how we are making decisions to be more focused, continually more focused on diversity and equity. But to me, I think there's a big component of in terms of accountability you spoke to it but it's speaking out in public forums to not only recognize or identify if something is against our culture or is disenfranchising anyone through any of the statements or anything that was done, really calling that out as behavior that is unacceptable. I think that there is also just an element of really creating kind of a zero tolerance rule around certain language. I think it's so important and we could have talked to it earlier. But, uh, words matter and it's so important the way that we uh, we evolve and change the way that, that we are using words in a way that it again doesn't diminish any specific group.
Speaker 3:Uh, and I guess you know one example that I can think of uh, that I personally went through and shame on me for this, but uh, and luckily I had an amazing leader who helped correct me on this, but I remember sitting in a meeting and this was years ago. I've learned Um, but I, you know, I was in a uh team meeting and ended up saying we were talking about something. But I ended up saying, oh yeah, the girls did this, and my leader, who was a male leader, stopped me in the meeting and said you mean the women, and it was just a it was perfect feedback. Nothing else had to be said to me, but it was just being mindful of certain.
Speaker 3:Language should not be tolerated and things like saying you know you think girls and guys right, but it really has an effect on individuals. If you were to say girls, and so I learned a lesson very quickly of that has no place in the workspace. Say girls, and so I learned a lesson very quickly of that has no place in the workspace. And I think that's something in terms of overall accountability is that we have to be listening out for the language that's being used and if you hear anything, it's your responsibility. It's your obligation to be able to say something, stand up and say hey, that's not right or there's a better way that you could be saying that, because we need to be more inclusive.
Speaker 2:Yes, definitely, and I love that you could be saying that because we need to be more inclusive. Yes, definitely, and I love that you had experienced that and you probably go on to then say that to other people and that has a knock-on effect within the company. Definitely, and again, it's leading by example companies where I've worked at, where you get in and somebody would say you know what the workforce is toxic or you know, there's this strange culture going on. You think actually it's not. People are just not calling out those little things that happen every day, because those little things they turn into big things and then people are leaving because they don't feel like that's a company they want to stay at. So I completely agree on that and I love that that if you do hear something or see something, just to call it out, it doesn't have to be I've reported somebody, I formally reported somebody. It's just you know, calling somebody out and saying you know, have you thought about that?
Speaker 2:And people are not always mindful as well of language. You, you are absolutely right, and we run hackathons at she Can Code and in the past I worked at a company where we run a transgender hackathon and I had to make sure that everybody was just a bit more mindful of the language that day, because it's not something that you use every day. So you're absolutely right that people don't know as well and that hackathon people were so open and there was no kind of you said something wrong. It was kind of come and educate yourself, come and learn something new and you know, know, be open to that day and it was a great day and most of the time people don't take it as you said something wrong. You know, joe Dan, you shouldn't have said girls in that meeting. You know it was kind of you just learn from your experience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's obviously the environment that we want to have is that people can feel, you know, empowered that that it's part of our culture, that you can call that behavior out and and be able to correct it on the spot or do it in a one-on-one setting. But, uh, what we also have at Workiva that I'm really proud of having is that we've got a really amazing people and culture team that are also here for if someone calls out a behavior but it's consistent, you can. It's repeated. Not that I've seen, you know, examples of this, but we've we've got a really strong people and culture team who are there for receiving feedback that if you don't feel safe giving the feedback to that individual or to their manager, you can give anonymous feedback directly into the or to their manager.
Speaker 3:You can give anonymous feedback directly into the people and culture team. You can go directly to a leader's leader and you can go. You know, if you want to go to our SVP of people and culture, you can, and that's something that we actively talk about in all teams. Meetings with the whole company of this is a should be a safe space. But if ever you don't feel comfortable giving providing feedback, you know it could be a number of different things that you have feedback on, but if, for any reason, if you don't feel comfortable giving that feedback, you can go directly to the team and do it, either directly with your people and culture representative or you can do it anonymously. But we have many ways of providing that feedback so we can ensure that there's behaviors that don't exist or permeate throughout our business and people just have to accept that's the way it is.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that, so you should feel encouraged to do that every day. But just in case that there is a safe space there and there are um in place, which, yeah, is um so so valuable and not something that all companies have either, which um is very strange that you would think that most companies have something in place, um, but yeah, that takes that, takes time to to build that, that culture, and to let people know that that is a safe space and for them, for them to to say something if they need um ollie yourself. What about mutual accountability? I mean, that's incredibly important isn't it.
Speaker 2:It's not just one person. It is down to an entire team, an entire culture that moves forward together definitely, I think.
Speaker 1:I think jaydan said it perfectly it's about doing, doing the right thing, even when it's not easy, um, and calling things out and having the discussions. I think the thing that a lot of people find more difficult is when, like you said, when it's to someone more senior than them, so to their boss or their boss's boss um, something that in in software sales, is always a hot topic is hiring. They need to hire as fast as possible because if you've got someone not in the role, then they're not closing deals, we're not hitting our numbers, et cetera, et cetera. There's always, historically, other companies have a lot of pressure to hire very quickly. Now, if we hired, from the first 100 CVs we received in any tech company in sales, you probably have 99% males, 99 men.
Speaker 1:Something that WorkEva is very good at is that mutual accountability between the hiring team and the hiring managers, especially in sales. To allow us to slow down, allow us to explain to the business. We're creating a diverse pool of candidates and it might take us twice as long, it might take us a long time to hire, but what it means is we have hired the best person, regardless of gender background, because we've spent time making sure, the pool of candidates is very diverse and I've worked organizations where there is a lot of pressure to hire very quickly, but work either is is excellent for that, and that's a a joint link between, for me personally, the sales team and the hiring team to know that we're going to do it the right way, rather than the the easy way, which is let's look at the first 10 cvs and get someone in tomorrow yeah, and that's building a team for the long term as well, people that you, they, they should be there.
Speaker 2:They have the right skills. They're going to want to enjoy working there. All of that takes time. You're right, it's not kind of.
Speaker 2:We had 10 cvs in and we picked one um you know that person is going to be unhappy or the team are going to be unhappy with who came in and they're going to exit pretty, pretty quick. Um, so yeah, that is definitely building a team for for the for the long run. What do you hope for the future? What, what, what do you hope to see in terms of the future, in terms of changes around inclusivity in the workplace? Do you have any hope for the future?
Speaker 1:Lots of hope.
Speaker 2:That's good to hear.
Speaker 1:So from my perspective, I'd like to see more women get into leadership roles. In tech, it's something that I've seen like in previous roles. There's been women that I felt would be excellent uh leaders, but they're not as keen to put themselves forwards, they're not as sure if it's a the path for them, whereas usually with men it's something they are keener to do. Um, so it's about creating that environment where women feel like they can progress into a leadership role, into a management role, and then move on to senior leadership, c-level. But it all starts with that first step, and something that I think WorkEver again is great at but should be better in general, is creating a safe environment for them to be successful when they make that move.
Speaker 1:I think something that is always very difficult is when you move into your first leadership role. But I can't imagine how much more difficult it is if you're a woman moving to your first leadership role, leading a team of maybe all men, joining a leadership team of mainly all men and not knowing who to go to to ask the stupid questions, because you're new, you're not sure. So having people internally you can go to and say, hey, I need some help, or can we have a weekly call or can you talk me through how you went through this? Is is really important, so. So, creating that environment is is super key.
Speaker 1:And at work either. I mentioned before, we've got our berg, so we've got the women berg um who are there to uh promote women um at work either and outside work either, and they do a lot of work with women within Workiva, helping them advance their careers, helping them understand the opportunities available to them. Having internal, external speakers, enablement, which really helps with that. But, yeah, more women getting into leadership and then more support once they do to make sure they can thrive, I think is something we can.
Speaker 2:We can probably be better at definitely yes, and I think that that leads into mentorship and support as well, because and we have lots of ladies on this podcast that say when they step into a leadership role, they have an experience like that, or they suddenly think, um, I have to know everything because I'm in leadership and I'm, my whole team expects me to have the answer to everything. So to have somebody to go to a good example or a group that can help you and to say you know what? Actually you're not the only person that's feeling that way. Everybody has felt that way. It's so important because, you know, we are encouraged to get mentors outside of our company as well, and that's great that you can have, you know, internal and external resources, as you said. But sometimes, if it's just somebody that you want to ask day to day or something about your culture at your company, that, um, only another employee at work either would really understand. Um, then having that network, uh, internally to help would be, you know, invaluable yourself, joe dan, what do you think?
Speaker 3:you know, hope for the future and changes in the developments and to foster a more inclusive environment yeah, completely agree with what he was talking about in terms of creating more of more of an opportunity for, for leadership development, uh with with women. I can say that I'm really proud of where we are as a business right now. Obviously there are areas to improve uh many areas, but if I look at, like our our C-suite and look at our senior leaders who are really helping to shape and drive our business globally, you know we've got our uh CIO and our CFO and my amazing boss who is our chief customer officer, and our CEO, julie, you know, very influential, amazing female leaders in our business and I think that that's setting a really good example for what we want to see permeate throughout the rest of our business is a really healthy blend of all genders. That exist is because we at least me personally I I really believe that whenever those teams are together and talking you know, talking about strategy, talking about vision and where we're going as a business that there's a well-rounded view and and discussion that is happening that ultimately helps shape the direction where we're going as a business.
Speaker 3:But to to your point, that doesn't exist all the way down. We need to continue to be more influential in helping to create mentorship programs and create that opportunity to see more women kind of fill in some of those kind of middle to senior level leadership roles. I guess, when I also think about the future, is that I don't want to just see that we're making a lot of progress internally and we're creating this amazing culture for anyone who's here, but I want to see this really be exposed to the greater tech industry of you know, look what, look what type of progress we can make in terms of the investment that we're making and being very culturally diverse and and how do we influence other businesses to fall in suit? And I think that this is a good example of talking to you and and really getting out and starting to share some of our best practice or some of our shortcomings and what we're doing to overcome those, so that we can help to foster just a better, more equitable environment globally.
Speaker 2:Yes, I couldn't agree more with yes. That trickles out to the wider tech community. Out to the wider tech community. And you're absolutely right sharing what you're doing well and sharing what isn't working is so useful for other companies to hear as well and say you know what? We tried this. It didn't quite work. So this is how we've moved forward.
Speaker 2:In that way Can really help companies, especially as companies start and then they grow. If they're not thinking about diversity and inclusion when they are a startup, that's not in their DNA, they're going to really struggle when they grow into a larger company and then look back and think, oh, I wish we'd had that in our hiring process, you know right from day one. So you're absolutely right, sharing that with the rest of the industry is very important. We are almost out of time and I wanted to just ask you one last question about allies and how. How can male allies use their influence and networks to address unconscious bias and promote a more equitable distribution of opportunities within their organizations? That was incredibly wordy, just to say how can my?
Speaker 2:male allies use their influence and within their own networks. What, what do you think, ollie?
Speaker 1:um.
Speaker 1:So something I've done a lot of um over the past four or five years is using my network I'll speak about my actual network on linkedin, for example to actually look and reach out to potential candidates for roles, because historically I don't know what it was, but I saw a study where males or men will apply for a role if they can do like 20 of it and think I'll learn the rest, and with women it's the opposite they won't apply.
Speaker 1:I think I'm not the perfect candidate, so that's part of the problem with getting so many um CVs for men and not enough for women. So one of the things that I try and do and encourage other leaders to do and encourage my team to do is reach out to people in their network that might not be actively looking. Let them know about roles we have available, roles they see available in their network they think they might be a good fit for, because then it helps to maybe for a woman to sit up and go. Oh actually, yeah, I wouldn't have thought about that because maybe I don't fit this exact bullet point here, but the rest I can do um. So that's something I think is quite important. Some of the the best people that we've hired as an organization have come from that personal outreach or that personal referral um and that person might not have looked at the role if they hadn't been um spoken to about it.
Speaker 2:So that's something we can, we can do to definitely help, uh, promote more, more diversity, more equality definitely and I I have heard that before about ladies will not always apply for something unless they tick all of those boxes. I've had some incredible ladies on here share their stories of that and I had one lady who said to me I had to learn C++ for my interview and she said I'd never done C++. So I learned it in two weeks before the interview and the company were aware that I kind of just scraped through, but they love the fact that she just embraced.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna learn c++ and they said they just saw her as somebody that was willing to soak up anything that they were going to throw at her. And they hired her because they said you know what you're gonna, you're gonna learn everything, you're willing to be open and try things. And she said if I hadn't just thought to myself, you know, I'm just gonna go for it, I'm just gonna try it, she wouldn't have landed that great job and her path would have been very different. So I'm not saying we all have to learn c++ if we're all going for an interview that you know requires it. But you're absolutely right, just being mindful that perhaps the the right candidates for your team are not always applying um. So just reaching out and being mindful of that, definitely I agree. Yeah, joe dan, yourself, what do you think about influencing? You know how male allies can use their networks to be more influential.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, to the same, I think it's really staying close to the network. I've had the opportunity to work with just amazing women and especially one of our certain roles open. Knowing we're in a you know, here at Workiva we do different things than I've done at other companies. Knowing we're in a you know, here at Workiva we do different things than I've done at other companies.
Speaker 3:But keeping that network strong, reaching out and actually saying, hey, we've got some positions that have opened, I really think that you would be a good fit for this and just uh actively working to try to, you know, uh, use my network to pull people in, and it's not just, you know, just roles for my team, it's any of the roles, and so it's being mindful of all the amazing hiring opportunities, open roles that we have at Workiva and just plugging into the network and just kind of leveraging some of those amazing relationships that I've had in the past and try to continue to pull good talent into the business.
Speaker 3:You know somewhat of an answer, uh, to the question, but one thing that I uh also really like to do is, whenever we talked about mentorship earlier and, uh, you know, whenever we have current employees, women, who want to to grow.
Speaker 3:Um, you may not have the right mentor to provide them internally, and it may be that there's a few different choices, but those individuals just either are already mentors to others. There's just not the I wouldn't say time to focus, because that's not as much of a concern, but it's just not an option for one reason or another. But I've actually reached out to some incredible women that I've worked with in the past and asked hey, would you mind having a 30 minute conversation with this person? They're on a similar trajectory that you were in your career years ago and I'd love to just connect. The two of you that I've could have used my network is just to bring women together and be able to talk about their journey, some of their, you know, some of the things that they did to overcome certain challenges and be prepared for that next level role, and that's something that I want to continue to do is just connect people who may not be in the same business but have been on similar journeys.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, that's brilliant advice for for other male allies. It's just a way that you can help there and connect the dots. There might be, for instance, somebody stepping into a leadership role for the first time or somebody that is, um, you know, nervous about starting a family or whatever it may be just connecting them for to hear somebody else have that same experience of you and um. I've had lots of ladies on this podcast that say you might feel the same way as well, as men in leadership.
Speaker 2:But being in leadership sometimes is incredibly lonely and you don't always have that network of people that you can share your thoughts and feelings with, because you don't want to worry your team if something is wrong, but you do want to share it with somebody. And having somebody that can connect those dots with other leaders, for instance internally or externally, can be so, so helpful, um, and super helpful for ladies that are, you know, thinking about moving into different leadership positions or even moving up the ranks. Um, is is really good advice. Um, we are already out of time. Thank you so much, joe, dan and ollie, for coming in today sharing your insights, for taking time out of your busy days and sharing what life is like at Workiva as well. So thank you, so so much for that it's been an absolute pleasure and for everybody listening, as always.
Speaker 2:thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again next time.
