A Personal Story of a Mistake, and My Evolving View of Diversity and Inclusion
It has taken years for me to realize that not being overtly biased is not the pinnacle of inclusion, and hiring as many women engineers as possible is not the pinnacle of diversity.
Welcome to the Scarlet Ink newsletter. I'm Dave Anderson, an ex-Amazon Tech Director and GM. Each week I write a newsletter article on tech industry careers, and specific leadership advice.
Writing this article made me nervous. I’m telling you right now that I was quite hesitant to write this article. I don’t get many opportunities to talk about diversity and inclusion, and I've historically been uneasy mentioning it as a major topic because I haven’t experienced racism or sexism. This is not surprising, as I'm a white male in a white male dominated workplace.
But I'm also blinded by my experiences. Amazon is on the West Coast, and tech employees tend to be liberal. Beyond the open disdain for Trump, this also means that most employees are on alert for sexism, racism, and other isms.
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However, that caution and awareness may also contribute to our personal blindness to the challenges of those who are not in the majority.
Because things aren't overt. A female relative was working in Texas, and a client said she was a little cutie in a meeting. I can only imagine the collective outrage if someone tried that in an Amazon meeting. And since we don't see these overt acts of sexism or racism, I think the tendency is to believe that things are "pretty good".
And yes, improvements have been made. We put in effort to hire diverse candidates. We listen carefully to the words and phrases we use. And yet, we have a long way to go.
Why I felt the need to write about this now.
I recently wrote on LinkedIn about how I felt that removing pay negotiation (having set pay rates for the many employees in a specific job at a company) would improve equity. My short explanation is that I believe that, on average, White Males are more successful negotiating than women or minorities (various research seems to back me up). This means that negotiation is one mechanism creating inequity. Right or wrong, that’s where I was coming from.
Here are some quotes from the comments, and the messages (and emails) I received.
“This post has so many bad speaking points it's hard to pick just one. You're paid for the value you bring to the company. You get what you negotiate. "confident white male".......damn near puked.”
“If a woman or minority can’t negotiate its their own problem. Why take away my negotiating?”
“This is the kind of immature nonsense that helps no one.”
“Why are Americans so obsessed with skin pigmentation? Is someone with more or less melanin than me unable to negotiate a salary?”
I’m not here to defend my idea. There are plenty of valid points to be made for and against it.
But instead, I’m going to point out the theme of the emotional objections to my idea. What I hear is, "I believe that we are already on equal footing, so paying attention to skin color or gender offends me."
And in some ways, I've been guilty of that feeling myself. I remember spending an hour with recruiters and managers, on the topic of hiring more BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) engineers, and providing mentorship to hopefully grow more into senior leadership positions.
Shortly afterward, I heard a BIPOC employee mention how Amazon's engineering teams were so non-diverse, and Amazon should do something about it. I felt offended! I thought to myself, "We just spent an hour focused on minority hiring, and career growth. This isn't racism, we just can't find anyone to hire!"
Except, I think I was missing the point. Because I was still seeing it from my perspective.
Let's say that you're interviewing at a tech company.
Imagine you’re a woman. This might not be hard if you’re already a woman. But I digress, stay with me. You’re the only woman on your interview loop. During lunch, you speak to your future team members, and they’re also all men. The recruiter mentions that you would be the first woman on the team, which would be nice. Do you feel you’d be more or less comfortable than an equally skilled man doing the same interview loop?
The same applies to the only Black man on the loop, or the old person on the loop. I mean, I've heard that plenty of times. The 52-year-old engineer interviews, and says that everyone on the interview loop is literally half his age. And I say "his" on purpose because again, around 80% of software engineers are men. Do you feel that a Black man, or the 52-year-old would feel more, or less comfortable than an equally skilled white 26-year-old male?
These are trick questions because I find it difficult to believe that anyone honestly views this as having zero impact on your psyche. If you're joining a group, and they have something in common, and you're the one person who would be different, you inevitably feel something.
Very few white males, particularly at tech companies, have ever encountered this feeling. But I do remember a story from a white male co-worker, which stuck with me.
Clifford transferred out of my organization to another team, because he was excited about their technology. After a few weeks in the new group, he asked to have a one-on-one.
"Hey Dave, I'm not sure this new team is going to work out." he said. "I like the projects, but I'm not sure about the team."
"Oh yeah? What's wrong?" I asked. I knew the team's manager by reputation, and he seemed just fine.
"It just feels awkward." he said. "I know it shouldn't matter, but there are 8 engineers on the team, and every single one of them is Indian."
I frowned. Was Clifford racist? Why would he care about the race of his team members?
"I feel like I don’t belong." he said. "They sit there and talk about movies I've never heard of. They grew up in the same towns, play cricket together, eat at Indian restaurants together, and sometimes even talk in Hindi. I know they don't intend to exclude me, but I don't feel like a part of the group. And I really liked the people on your team. I feel like I've lost something."
Beyond talking in another language (not technically allowed at Amazon), there was nothing wrong with how they acted. Those employees had similar backgrounds, interests, and it helped them connect.
Anything which differentiates you from your peers is a potential hurdle to equality. Could Clifford succeed on that team? Absolutely. Would he be more likely to succeed on a team with a bunch of 25-year-old white guys — his demographic? I'm sure he would. And to pretend otherwise is ignoring human nature.
A story of my mistake.
I was sitting in my office when I heard raised voices. Yvonne had a very loud voice. And I'd heard that loud voice more than once recently.
I peeked outside my office. The team which sat outside my office was one of the teams which reported to me (through the team’s manager). They were conducting standup, and I'd noticed them getting into some loud arguments lately.
Derek held his hands up defensively. "All I'm saying is that you have to do a code review first." he said. "It's stupid for you to push out changes without reviewing them first, when we've said that's against our processes."
Yvonne pointed her finger at Derek. "I'm the only one who cares to fix things here!" she said angrily. "If you want to be an idiot and hold up my changes, fine!"
Austin joined in to help things out. "Yvonne, you're being the idiot by blowing up instead of following our team's processes." Yeah, he wasn't really helping, just piling on.
Yvonne swung her finger to point at Austin. "The processes you made up! I didn't agree to any of this!"
For context, Yvonne had joined the team recently, so it was probably true that she'd had no say in the team's processes.
I debated interrupting, but I'm the skip manager. It took a bit of mental debate to decide if I should do something, or wait to see how their manager handled things.
By the time I decided I should do something, they all calmed down. But I'm not happy. The yelling and insulting isn't a professional way to communicate. I also fairly or unfairly view this as mostly Yvonne's issue, but I don't want to pull aside the team's only woman and ask her to be more polite. That's far too close to a sexist cliche.
I decide that no one acted perfectly, and if I talked to all those involved, it would be fair and all good.
So I scheduled a one-on-one with Derek, then Austin, then Yvonne for that afternoon. I'm strongly biased towards one-on-one discussions for constructive feedback, for better or for worse.
Derek walked into my office later that afternoon, looking a bit nervous.
"Hey Derek!" I said. "I just want to talk to you briefly, won't take up more of your time."
Derek nodded.
"I heard you three yelling at your standup earlier. But it's one thing to disagree, which is totally fine, and another thing to raise your voices and insult each other. That has to stop. It's not professional, and not how our teams should resolve issues."
Derek nodded in agreement. "I totally understand. I'm sorry for that, I lost my temper. We'll meet as a team and figure out how to solve these issues."
Derek left. A bit later, Austin came in for his one-on-one.
Similarly, Austin looked nervous. I gave the same speech.
"I'm really sorry Dave." Austin said. "I was totally out of line. I shouldn't ever get into personal insults like that."
Austin left. A bit later, Yvonne came in. She stomped into my office, and glared at me.
Uh oh, I thought. But I plowed ahead.
"I heard you three yelling at your standup earlier. But it's one thing to disagree, which is totally fine, and another thing to raise your voices and insult each other. That has to stop-"
"I knew it!" she yelled. "Every time a woman has backbone, a man will tell her she's being rude! Because in our world, a man with backbone is strong, and a woman with backbone is a bitch! You'd NEVER tell a man to be more polite!"
"Wait a minute there." I said defensively. "I absolutely spoke to your teammates about the exact same thing. And I told them the exact same thing, that the personal insults aren't acceptable."
"The only reason you're telling me is because I'm a woman!" she yelled again.
"No, I told you because you and your teammates called each other names, like stupid and idiot." I said, frustrated. "And that's it. I heard you loud and clear from my office. And regardless of who on the team is a woman or a man, that's not professional, so I had to say something."
"Fine, whatever, I get it." she said angrily. She left.
I thought I did things as well as I could have. I carefully spoke to her teammates so I wasn't being biased. And she'd blown up at me for no reason. I was in the right, she was wrong.
Years later, after some careful thinking and a long discussion with my wife, allow me to explain how I was wrong.