Supporting Diversity in the Workplace

(Photo credit @healing_photographer)

1. Listen.

2. Learn.

   • Scaffolded Anti-Racist Resources

   • The Anti-Racist Reading List

3. Be an employee or manager who is aware of how external events impact your team members, and what strategies/initiatives you can initiate or promote to help support those team members. Recognize the trauma around you. Start a conversation. You’ll make mistakes but you have to try. 

   • Black Professionals Are Going Through A Lot

   • How Managers Can (and Should) Address Race and Violence in The News

4. As an employee, when do you have to consider your complicity in some of the actions (or lack of action) done by your company? No company is ever perfect in their approach to diversity, but when does inaction or wholly inappropriate action fall onto an employee’s shoulders, as a member of the organization? When is resignation an action that is a sign of privilege or a sign of sacrifice, or both? 

   • Tech companies say they support racial justice. Their actions raise questions.

   • Facebook software engineer resigns with scathing criticism of the network's refusal to act on 'weaponized hatred' 

   • How to speak up when you see bias at work 

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Having a futurist mindset

(Photo credit @fabiolucas_foto)

While not everyone needs to be a futurist to work in tech, it helps to borrow from their mindset. Here are a couple tips to help you get started. 

1. Practice making decisions without much information.

• Make it small at first. 

  • Try picking a local restaurant or an activity without reading any online reviews. 

  • What are other cues or factors that help you decide if it’s going to be a good experience or not? 

    • Location? Name of restaurant? Write these factors down so you can review them later to see what information was useful or not useful.

  • Afterwards: evaluate how did it go? Did it meet your expectations, or exceed/underwhelm you? 

    • Ask yourself the critical question: Why?? What info would have helped you make a better decision? What proxy info could you have used to  

• Then, escalate the decision to something with more impact. Try thinking about a larger decision you need to make that you are or have been uncertain about. Is it related to choosing a new job or career? Deciding what city to live in?

  • Use the questions & criteria you saw above & modify them to fit this scenario.

    • Curious about whether you should become a programmer? Try Hour of Code & see what you think.

    • Thinking about a new city? Can you do a virtual visit there via a Chamber of Commerce site or similar? Can you find a friend to help you learn about where they live?

2. Imagine that this is an interview question - for life - and try to see how many experiences you’ve had where you didn’t have much information, yet made the decision anyway. 

• Prompt: “Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision without all of the necessary information. What happened? Why did you have to make this decision in this way? What did you learn from this experience, and how did it impact your future decisions?”

  • If you don’t have many experiences like that, go out and get some. 

  • Think of it like a muscle that you need to exercise regularly, not a skill that you can be ‘certified’ in. You have to practice it often, especially when the stakes get higher and higher as your career progresses. 

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Build high-performing teams

(Photo credit @samalex)

1. As you progress in your career, try to work on and/or to build teams that are full of people who are at the top of their game individually AND who think and operate like a team.

• The Important of Working with "A" Players

• A Study of Thousands of Dropbox Projects Reveals How Successful Teams Collaborate

• Creating a High-Trust, High-Performance Culture + check out ReWork by Google for guides

2. If you're not on one of those teams right now, it's ok! Most of us go through cycles of being on high performing teams and on 'normal teams.' To help your 'normal' team thrive & grow, consider two ways that you can help your team have more impact:

• Run more effective meetings (thereby saving time and demonstrating efficient decision-making/organization)

• Consider implementing OKRs & using these stretch goals to push the team

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Want a Career in Tech but aren’t sure where to start? Take a look at MY COURSE, ‘TECH SEARCH COMPASS’ FOR STEP-BY-STEP SUPPORT