The power of inclusion. My learnings from one week at Stanford.
“Do you feel like you belong ?” In the last 18 months, I’ve met a lot of employees that would answer “no” in their startups. They would say “I feel needed” or “I have to make an effort to fit the culture.”
However, we all believe in the power of feeling valued, recognized, respected and accepted for being our authentic self.
Startups are still the role models for big teams in companies that regularly come in the Bay for “learning expeditions:” mission driven, people matter, horizontal organizations based on skills and collaborative work are what they would mention spontaneously, convinced that understanding them can help to be more agile and better innovate.
Daily reality seems quite different. Listening to minority founders or freshly hired employees testimonials, reading my Twitter timeline about the gender “grey zone” for raising money, or just bad news about corporate culture in pre IPO companies, we still have room to improve, including in the Silicon Valley.
So let’s try to see how we could contribute as male and female leaders, helping each others.
At the Stanford Business school, I had the pleasure to work on leadership, art of negotiation, and business strategy for growing ventures, invited by the #WomenEntrepreneurProgram — BNP Paribas Wealth, Nandita Bakhshi President and CEO is their amazing leader.
I spent the week with thirty awesome women from different continents: startups founders, executives in global corporations, non profit organizations leaders. All full of energy and eager to learn from each other.
I had the pleasure to listen to Fern Mandelbaum lecture : “Power of inclusion.”
An opportunity to think about how we could move forward in the Silicon Valley, and also to look back at years as a C-suite executive in global companies, to see what I could share.
FIRST REMINDER : DIVERSITY IS A MATTER OF PERFORMANCE… AND WE ALL HAVE BIASES.
Ethnically diverse firms are 35% more likely to outperform industry peers (McKinsey 2015). Speaker Mendelbaum also mentioned an in depth Stanford study about growing startups : they scale better when inclusion is part of their DNA.
We have visible traits : physical, gender, skin color.
And invisible ones : education, background, values, location, ethnicity, communication skills…
Mendelbaum says “We all have (unconscious) biases. We are well intentioned but often not inclusive of others that are different from us. We make short-cuts. We have pattern recognition.
Our biases impact actions and judgments that happen automatically without our awareness.”
Let’s talk about our own biases about ourselves. I’m a woman. Women apply for jobs when they meet 100% of listed qualifications, men when they meet 60%+. The given example reminds me of the time I refused a job as a CEO in New York thinking I was not ready to lead the team especially the sales team, prefering to stay a competent « number two » in charge of operations and product development. My boss (at that time JP Agon) was frustrated by my cautious behavior as it did not fit his plan.
Margaret A. Neele had reminded us a few hours before that women don’t negotiate their package. They expect to be recognized for the competences, hard work and loyalty.
It have already been about to resign as a young Chief Marketing Officer, and even to spend time interviewing for the same job for a competitor, before having (still without asking) a raise in my wages and bonus. Now, if I had to do it again, I should have asked first.
Let’s continue to talk about our own biases. It’s also about culture and backgrounds.
Before joining Orange (telcos vertical, engineer culture), I was convinced that the best leaders were coming from MBAs (all CEOs at l’Oreal were coming from Insead or HEC, and most of the General Managers were having MBAs in the different countries) : excellent at managing brands, Profit and loss, and business strategies. As an MBA, I was feeling comfortable in that environment.
I happened to change my mind. I met leaders at Orange, taking care of their team and eager to share the strategy before implementing it, listening to operational teams, thus improving their action plan.
I learned the power of sharing.
Six years ago, I became a business angel with 50 Partners.
I discovered entrepreneurs that had left school very early, founding their startup and now leading big companies in market place, data analytics, Saas, cloud businesses. They were inspiring Founders, traveling as a team every year in a market ( Sao Paolo, Tel Aviv, Stockholm) to discover a new ecosystem and learn from it.
In the Silicon Valley, I met some founders only recruiting people like themselves. Loving analytics, design, or product roadmap. Obsessed by creativity or processes. And I also noticed they liked better people like them.
I don’t judge them. I managed as a global CEO more than 17 nationalities in my team and I acknowledge that it was sometimes a challenge to listen to all of them, facing quarterly financial results and the pressure to innovate every year with new products. Now, I must say, what I miss the most is the positive confrontation with local teams when visiting markets . I’ve learnt that an assertive beauty visual in Shanghai doesn’t work in Tokyo, if Seoul loves cosmetic waters and oil cleansers, it contrasted with New Yorkers skin care rituals. I grew as a global leader thanks to the team, learning from our differences.
I’m sure you have read the Harvard Business Review article about VCs questions to female founders compared to those for male ones. Female VCs were having the same questions as male VCs according to their target.
The follow up of the study (source our favorite Professor Deb Gruenfeld) — let’s have a message of hope, shows that if Founders answer to prevention questions by promotion answers they’re doing a great job and raise more funds. So let’s work on being inclusive leaders.
WHAT IS AN INCLUSIVE LEADER ?
Fern Mendelbaum defined them as follows, they…
- Respect all team members
- Value intersectionality and different perspectives
- Empower people to do their job
- Give and get direct feedback
- Ask questions, are active listeners
- Establish clear, unbiased criteria in advance of making decisions
- Enable your people’s futures
As a growth mindset culture, people are interested in how to improve. More likely to share information. They’re more collaborative, likely to take risks. And less interested in proving themselves.
Creating a growth mindset culture means reward risk taking, discuss mistakes publicly, focus on the process, not the person.
Easier said than done.
I attended hard meetings about failures at l’Oréal, whoever was concerned was not enjoying the moment.
When we experienced a 12 hours black out of the mobile network (no data, no texto, no voice for our nearly 25 Million customers), I was amazed by my CEO’s behavior, at that time Delphine Ernotte Cunci. She was super calm in all crisis conference calls, only eager to find the solution, and transparent on social media about it.
So let’s come back to a few insights given in the lecture.
- BUILD A SENSE OF BELONGING
Your Mission and Values are part of it.
- HIRE WITH AN OPEN MIND
Avoid the « similar to me , I like the candidate ». Common interview biases.
You can create clear expectations for roles, support feedback with examples, write down reasons for. hiring and even use score cards.
Use apps to better write your job posts (Textio , etc) « you have many of the following » instead of. simply « requirements » (don’t forget of our women biases!)
- ACT IN DAILY LIFE
I’m proud to be a mentor and to folllow Fern Mendelbaum’s recommendation to choose people different than myself
Else make space for everyone (Slack, one to one…)
Encourage Radical (I liked the book written by Kim Malone Scott)
Advocate for those less representated.
- HAVE EMPATHY FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS
Create a code of conduct. Bring multiple lenses.
At the end of the week at Stanford Business School, I had the feeling to be more aware, ready to take action. I’m feeling grateful to fantastic Professors and to the great women I met during the week (including at the sport at 6.00am in the morning).
A special mention for Rania Belkahia Founder CEO Afrimarket (e-commerce platform, serie B funding) and Claire Jolimont. Founder CEO Pingflow (data solution, vizualisation). Go #WomenInTech and great #entrepreneurs! A pleasure to have met you.
Let’s allow women to show their true potential by risking up to the top, based on their abilities and talents. Are you ready ?
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