“The root causes of workplace injustices are bias, prejudice and bullying. Bias is not meaning it, prejudice is meaning it, and bullying is meaning harm.”
Trier Bryant is the co-founder and CEO of Just Work, an executive education company, and is a combat veteran of the US Air Force. Kim Scott is also co-founder of Just Work and creator of a workplace comedy series based on her best-selling book Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity.
We all want to do good work at our jobs, but many times workplaces injustices or inequities can get in the way. The root causes of workplace injustices are bias, prejudice and bullying. Developing shared vocabulary can be effective in identifying and addressing these instances. “Bias, prejudice, bullying; There are no organizations in the world where these problems have been eliminated. It’s like staying in shape or eating well. They’re things you have to do every day, but they’re worth doing.”
Leaders and decision-makers in organizations play a major role in creating healthy workplace environments. This includes creating checks and balances that allow people to speak truth to power.
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKERS
Kim Scott
Author
Radical Candor
Trier Bryant
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Just Work
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darcie: (00:07)
Hello everyone. And welcome back to salt talks. My name is John Darcie. I'm the managing director of salt, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance technology and public policy. Salt talks are a digital interview series that we started in 2020 with leading investors, creators and thinkers. And our goal on these salt talks is the same as our goal at our salt conferences, which are resuming in September of 2021. I might add in New York and we'd love to have our guests join us at that event today, assuming that we're able to host that safely, but our goal is to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future. We're very excited today to welcome two guests to salt talks again with our guest moderator, uh, Sarah Koontz.
John Darcie: (00:56)
I'll read you a little bit about our two guests and also, uh, introduce Sarah before I pass the Baton. But tree or Brian is the co-founder and CEO of just work. Uh, she's a strategic executive leader with distinctive tech wall street and military experience spanning over 15 years, she's previously held leadership roles at Astra Twitter, Goldman Sachs, and proudly serve as a combat veteran in the U S air force as a captain leading engineering teams while spearheading diversity equity and inclusion initiatives for the air force academy, the air force and the department of defense. Additionally trigger advisors, leading companies like Equinox, Airbnb, SoundCloud Alto, Rockefeller foundation, and others on their talent and DEI strategies, uh, trio earned her bachelor's in system engineering with a minor in Spanish. You're all doing poquito Espanol Tomby entry or from the United States air force academy, beat army sink Navy, right.
John Darcie: (01:53)
Um, where she played division one volleyball. Uh, Kim Scott is our other guest today. She's the co-creator of an executive education company and workplace comedy series based on her bestselling book, radical candor, be a kickass boss without losing your humanity. Kim led ad sense, YouTube and DoubleClick, online sales and operations at Google, and then joined apple to develop a, uh, to develop and teach a leadership seminar. Uh, Kim has been a CEO coach at Dropbox at Qualtrics Twitter, and several other major tech companies. Uh, Kim received her MBA from Harvard business school and her bachelor's from Princeton university. I feel very unaccomplished sitting in this virtual room here today with Trisha and Ken, but we're very grateful to have them here. And as I mentioned, uh, hosting today's talk again is our recurring guest host Sarah. Uh, Sarah is the managing director and founder of Clio capital, a venture capital firm. With that. I'm going to turn it over to Sarah to begin the interview and I'll pipe in, uh, at the end, if I have some, some questions I'm always lurking during these interviews, Sarah.
Sarah Kunst: (02:57)
Awesome. We love your lurking. Um, well, so excited to be here today, um, with, with two friends who are just doing something really, really amazing that the workplace desperately needs, uh, always, but, but maybe even more now, uh, in the crazy world we live in. So, you know, let's, let's just kind of jump right in. Um, so Kim, how did you go about writing from giving about writing about giving feedback in, in radical candor, a term that I use as a radically Candice, uh, candid person, a lot in my life, uh, to, to addressing kind of workplace injustices with just work, you know, what Sarah,
Kim Scott: (03:35)
You played a huge role, probably a bigger role than you realize in that. You and I were on a panel together, and I was sort of making some comments that were encouraging people to kind of go along and get along, which is not really in the radical candor. Uh, I was not walking the radical candor walk and you, and you said to me, you know what the problem here is, Kim, the problem is people will listen to you. And I had never thought of that as a potential problem. And you helped me understand that I was kind of in denial about the things that were happening to me in the workplace and the things that were happening to other people in the workplace. And, uh, and I was also sort of succumbing to the default to silence. And there is the thing that gives me optimism about the world today is that people are speaking up more than more than they have in the past. And you can't solve problems. You refuse to notice. So thank you for forcing me to notice this problem of workplace injustice.
Sarah Kunst: (04:42)
Yeah. That, that
Sarah Kunst: (04:43)
You are welcome. Um, there's a lot of it. So that's awesome. And interior with your kind of deep expertise in sort of DEI, you know, the, this partnership, uh, seems ideal. So, so one, you know, kind of tell us about the partnership and, and how, you know, you kind of got excited about, about working with Kim and Kim, you know, how you found trickier and then like how, how did sort of creating the company come about?
Trier Bryant: (05:06)
Yeah, so I, uh, I've known, uh, about cam and radical candor. When I first read the book, uh, coming from the military, I was like, yes, civilians, this is how we do feedback in the military, do this, read this book care and just give direct feedback. And so I feel like, you know, if you're don't have radical candor in your leadership toolkit, you're kind of missing out. So it was already a huge fan. Then Kim passed on, you know, an early edition of just work, uh, her new book. And I really just had several aha moments. Um, I really reflected and, you know, put my own stories and experiences from the military wall street tech, putting them on the framework and realizing there were things that, you know, I wasn't taking responsibility for, of like causing harm, but then also a person who has been harmed and not being able to name certain things.
Trier Bryant: (05:56)
And I thought it was incredibly powerful because in the DNI space, we don't have a lot of frameworks, right. We don't have a lot of frameworks that people can add to their kits that organizations can use to say, Hey, this is a methodology. And so I was like, Kim, this is really good. Like, how do we get this into as many organizations as possible? Now I also give Kim a lot of radical candor, um, on, as a chief people officer things that she recommended being like, Kim doesn't really work that way, but I think we get understand what you were getting at. Um, and so then we just started discussing how we could partnership and do that. And that's how just worked. The company came to be.
Sarah Kunst: (06:32)
I love it. And then Kim, tell us a little about, or kind of how, how you, as you were thinking through the process of, of bringing on a CEO for this effort, you know, how, how did you realize like, drear is the one I need this person?
Kim Scott: (06:45)
So several things, first of all, it's hard for an author to admit this, but people rarely change their behavior because they read a book. It usually takes a few other few other interventions. And so I knew, I knew that we needed to help leaders roll out the ideas that, that I had put forth in the book. And then a lot of ways, actually, Sarah, once again, you helped me realize this. I was, I was talking to you about this idea and you said, you really need someone with deep DEI experience because in some ways I'm sort of like a person who's had several root canals, but I'm not a dentist. And so, so I needed to go to, to go find someone who had real deep DEI experience, but I also needed someone who had been an operating leader and great companies who knew what greatness looks like.
Kim Scott: (07:42)
And I also really love working with people from the military because I find that people who are in the military have two things going for them in terms of their leadership skills. One is that they got leadership experience. Hands-on leadership experience management experience, usually very young, very early and two, they got exceptional training, much better training in the military than we have in the private sector. And so when I saw tree resume, I, I, you know, I was already sold. Uh, and then when I met Treer I loved her even more. And then when I started working with tree air, I really got, uh, I really got a sense of what it's like to work with with, with a leader who knows what it means to walk the walk. Yeah,
Sarah Kunst: (08:29)
Yeah. That, that authenticity is so great. And I, I, I agree. Um, I love working with people military or anywhere, you know, where being very direct is, is just good. Um, and versus I I'll never forget my, my dad was in Vietnam and I was talking to him once about basic training. And he was like, oh, you know, like when you're crawling through, on your stomach and there they shoot real bullets. And like, what happens if you stand up? He's like, Sarah, you don't stand up. Right. Like the I'm like, oh, okay. People learn how to do things, because there are real things at stake versus often in workplaces, particularly in technology, you know, it's people have, I'll never forget a friend of mine talked about how there is a huge mutiny at a huge tech company once because, um, the quality of their lunch had gone down a little bit and, and the engineers were threatening to leave.
Sarah Kunst: (09:21)
Right. So there's a slight difference in, um, of different places that we, that we work in. Um, so that, that's awesome. Um, so, you know, give us a breakdown of kind of the, the just work framework, right. And, and the title says a lot, but, but really walk us through BR IRL cliff notes of kind of, you know, what's, what's the book about, and, and you know, who should read it and what do you come out the other end knowing, and then what's the kind of framework in it. And then to really turn it into like a quadruple question, you know, what are the various roles that people can play, you know, inside of these frameworks, inside of these, these situations and in candidly inside of these injustices, you know, in the workplace.
Trier Bryant: (10:04)
Yeah. So, um, one thing to think about is that we all want the same thing that organizations that we work at, right. We want to do our best work and that's what companies want from us, but yet something gets in the way. And oftentimes what gets in the way are these workplace injustices that just it's noise. It, it, you know, detracts from getting the work done efficiently and equitably. And so this framework, you know, gives people, um, you know, something to put, to, to have, and to leverage, uh, thinking about how it shows up, but then not only just how to name it so you can solve for it, but what are actual tactical practical solutions? We know that that is Kim's superpower is taking nuanced things that we have in our life experiences, and really being able to organize it in a way so that we can actually do something about it. So the root causes, the, the, the, the basics of the framework are the root causes of workplace injustice, redefine as, you know, bias, prejudice, and bullying and simple definitions. Our bias is not meaning it prejudices, meaning it. And then bullying is just being mean. Right. Um, and so, but to kind of like bring that to life, there's all these things that you can think about in your own professional experiences that really, um, contextualize like, okay, what does bias really mean? So
Kim Scott: (11:21)
It is, it is so common bias happened pretty much in every meeting and every day in every company. So here's the UN. And very often we respond with silence, but here's, here's the situation where somebody didn't respond with silence. So a friend of mine, Ayleen Lee wa walked into a meeting with two, two colleagues, both of whom were men. They sit down at the table and they're waiting for the people to come in on the, from the other company who they were hoping to do a partnership with. And the first guy comes in and he sits across from, from, from the guy to aliens left. And then the next guy comes in and sits across from the other guy. And then the others filter down, leaving a lean sort of dangling off by herself. So kind of unconscious bias in the seating and unconscious exclusion and the, and just in the way that people sat down and then Eileen starts talking and she has the expertise that's going to win her company, the deal.
Kim Scott: (12:21)
But as soon as she opens her mouth, the, they were all men. The men from the other company just ignored her as though she hadn't spoken and started talking to her colleague, and this happened two or three times. And eventually her colleague realized what was going on. And he stood up and he said, I think Elena and I should swap seats. And they swapped seats. And the whole tenor of the meeting changed because everybody realized what they were doing. So, so he was just sort of holding up a mirror and using an I statement to, to help people understand what was going on and to change it. However, this almost never happens. It sounds so simple, but it almost never happens. So what can leaders do to make that kind of thing happen more often?
Trier Bryant: (13:07)
And so, you know, one of the things that we recommend is having a shared vocabulary and a shared norm when bias happens. So for example, we call these bias interrupters. So a shared vocabulary, it could be, Hey, as a team, when we see bias, either being exhibited through behaviors or attitudes, there's a word or phrase that we're going to use. And then everyone knows, okay, that's an alert. So it could even just be biased alert. Um, one of the things that we've been doing in our course is we throw a purple flag and Kim actually went and got purple flags for people in the course. And you, you, you, you say like purple flag, or we drop it in chat. And then, because it's zoom, which is really great. Someone says what the bias is in zoom or drops a link to educate. So that it's a learning moment for everyone, but, you know, we can continue to do the work.
Trier Bryant: (13:53)
So that's the norm for us, but also understanding what is the norm, if someone doesn't understand. So what happens if someone throws a purple flag and they're like, um, I really don't understand what you just said, but let's connect after the meeting. And then a conversation can be had, but then again, really following up to make sure that that can be a learning experience for everyone. So that's bias. Um, and, but what's harder is prejudice, right? Um, and so the next and the next, um, workplace injustice that we call is prejudice, which is not meaning it. And that's harder. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Meaning it. Um, and that's harder because people do mean it, and it's not unconscious bias and people can believe whatever they want, but you can't bring those thoughts and attitudes into the workplace and force others to believe what you believe.
Trier Bryant: (14:37)
Uh, so, you know, I recall a time I was working at a company that is very much known for hiring the best and brightest talent. And at the end of the day, when we were debriefing on the candidates, the strongest candidate that, you know, we had interviewed was actually a black woman who wore her natural hair out to the interview, the way that I'm wearing mine. Um, I was not wearing my hair like this at the time. And, um, so at the end of the end, at the end of the debrief, it was very clear that this black woman was the top candidate, except for the hiring manager said, I'm not quite sure we're going to be able to go out to offer with her. And so I dug into that to say, well, why not? Like what's the issue? And, uh, the hiring manager said, well, TRIA, her hair is not like ours. We can't put her in front of the business. Right? It's not professional now that's prejudice because she really meant that she really thought that a black woman wearing her natural hair and working in front of the business was not going, it was not, you know, professional. Um, and so I had to, you know, we had to, um, confront that and deal with that. And so that's where we talk about using an it statement. So I
Kim Scott: (15:38)
Would love to think that if I had been on trainers team at the time, I would have used an it statement. And then it statement as an upstander. And then it statement can either appeal to the law. It is illegal not to hire someone because of their hair. It can appeal to company policy. It is an HR violation not to hire someone because of their hair, or it can appeal to common sense. It is ridiculous not to hire the most qualified candidate because of her hair. And so there are things that, that leaders can do to combat bias and prejudice, but there are also things that we as upstanders can do, or, or even we, as the people who are harmed can do using this I statement or the it statement, but sometimes it's bullying. So what do you do if it's bullying?
Trier Bryant: (16:25)
So with bullying, you know, just being mean, and this was really Sarah, my aha moment with like the strongest aha moment is because if you would've asked me true, have you ever been bullied in your career? I'd have been like, have you met me? Have you worked with me? Like, no, like you come from me, like I'm going to come for you. Right. And then you're reading this chapter on bullying and being mean, and Kim, again, brings it to life with their own personal stories. And then I was like, oh my gosh, I've actually been bullied a lot in my career. Um, and I couldn't name it in that way, so I didn't stand up for myself and I couldn't address it. Um, and it could even be something as simple. We've probably all been in this situation. I was at a company you're hired to build out a new team.
Trier Bryant: (17:05)
And when you build out a new team and, uh, you know, they may take budget and headcount from other teams and that's not going to make other leaders happy. And so this happened at that company. And, um, and so this leader who was more senior than me ended up just being really mean and bullying, um, and you know, making comments like, you know, they, they, uh, also part of their strategy got shifted to our team and they didn't like the way that we were executing it. And at one point made a comment will trigger. Whereas you, in the military, don't, you just know how to do what you're told and take daughters. Right. That is just mean. Um, and so, you know, what do we do in those instances? And so in those instances, you know, we encourage folks. If you're the person being harmed or an upstander where you can use a use statement.
Kim Scott: (17:50)
And it was my daughter who actually explained this to me with a use statement. She was getting bullied. She was in third grade, she was getting bullied on the playground. And I was sort of encouraging her to use an ice statement. I feel sad when you do this. And she kind of banged her fist on the table. And she said, mom, he is trying to make me sad. Why would I tell him that he's succeeded? And I realized, gosh, you're exactly right. So we talked about it and we realized a use statement was going to work much better than an I statement. So if an I statement invites the other person in to understand things from your perspective, a use statement kind of pushes them away. So you can't talk to me like that. Or if it feels like that's going to escalate in a way that's not productive, you can say what's going on for you here. Actually tree are explained to me, this was part of her training in the military. That very often you're dealing with people who, who are hostile and so sort of to calm them down. You put the spotlight back on them, but you're making them answer the questions. You're you are not in, in the sort of submissive position of responding to how they behave. You're you're asking the questions now. So that's a use statement for bullying
Trier Bryant: (19:03)
And then for organizations, when you're dealing with bullying. And this look, when I think back into my roles as a chief people, officer leading people, organizations, this is really hard to do, and we want to acknowledge that I'm dealing with bullies, but the way that we deal with bullies are consequences, right? And so we have to have consequences. We have to, and there's three types of consequences that we talk about, conversational consequences, compensation, consequences, and then career comp consequences. So conversational consequences, get rid of the platform, remove the platform from that bully to keep bullying, right? Maybe it's someone in a meeting where it's like, okay, you know, tree, or we've heard from you enough, why don't we hear from Kim, right. Removing that platform, um, and compensation consequences, or why do we keep, you know, giving bonuses to the brilliant jerk, right? Who's causing so much harm in the organization, but, um, giving them more money based compensation, equity, and then career consequences are promoting them, right.
Trier Bryant: (19:58)
Are we looking at, we definitely don't want to make them people, leaders and managers and give them more responsibility and more opportunity to engage more people. But ultimately if we can't change those behaviors and attitudes, then the career consequences getting rid of them, right. Removing them from the organization, which we acknowledge. You know, I I've been in organizations where, um, the, the biggest bully that was causing the biggest harm was also like our critical point of failure of our, what we needed to get done. So it was like, how do you do that? Right? But there's that tipping point in an organization where if we don't manage those attitudes and get rid of those boys in an organization, they truly can just impact the culture in a very, very negative way. So that's,
Kim Scott: (20:36)
Those are sort of the core, the core problems, the, the, the root causes of workplace injustice. Because of course, when you layer power on top of bias, prejudice, bullying, things get much worse, much, quickly, very quickly. And so when you layer power on top of bias or prejudice, you get discrimination. When you lay our power on top of bullying, you get harassment. And when you lay our power on top of touch, you get physical violation. So, so we can talk more about that, but Sarah, it looked like you had a question. Yeah,
Sarah Kunst: (21:11)
No, this, this is great. Um, I, yeah, workplace bullies, man, this is, this is like real, real stuff. Um, but my personal favorite intervention, which is, is, uh, probably more effective outside of organizations and insight is like, I'll just go full Karen. I go talk to people's bosses. Nothing makes me happier than when I'm like, oh yeah, I know your bosses boss. And guess who's about to have a conversation. And you know, it, it's a great way to help. Uh, I used to watch a lot of, of like rehab TV in college. It was very popular, like intervention. You bring the bottom to someone and you help them understand that their behavior is just not really going to be possible much longer, you know? So, so that's my favorite.
Trier Bryant: (21:55)
I, and I think that's a consequence too, right? Like bullies have to understand within organizations that if you are going to engage and treat people in this way, there's going to be consequences. Right. So I love that. The
Kim Scott: (22:05)
Key, the key thing there though, Sarah is you've got to, you've got to have some faith that their boss is going to create a consequence for them, which is not always the case. And
Sarah Kunst: (22:14)
Oh, totally. It is a very privileged and in kind of odd least it's an interesting situation to be in. Right. Um, as, as somebody who has both a kind of a parent or visible lack of privilege, but then sometimes, you know, behind the scenes actually has that leverage is, is not something that most people are in. And so when I'm in those situations, you know, sometimes they just sort of explained to myself and other people like, you know, I might be the two or the three, but I am not the one today. So, you know, you find something out. And I think that those are good reminders to people that, you know, no, no, no one is above. Uh, no one is out of reach. Uh, if there's somebody, you know, more powerful who decides that they don't get to behave that way anymore, but you know that that's not always the case, but sometimes it is. Um, this is great. So, so perfectly dovetailing with that, Kim, you know, there are a lot of personal stories in the book, you know, for you, other people, um, you know, you write about, about conversations between us even, you know, w was this book harder to write than radical candor. And then also was harder to get permission to include anecdotes than radical candor.
Kim Scott: (23:23)
This book was, was way harder to write than, than radical candor. It was, it was really, at some point it was me wrestling with, with, with all my own demons and, and, and really struggling to overcome this sense of denial that, that had pervaded too much of my career, but it also was way more meaningful, more satisfying than writing radical candor. I really felt a sense of, I felt a sense of accomplishment when I finished that. I mean, I felt that with radical candor too, but I felt a greater sense of accomplishment. I think it's also a harder book for people to read, frankly, than, than radical candor. There, there are a lot of hard stories in there, but the people, the thing that has been really satisfying to me talking to readers since it came out is that people are starting to take action.
Kim Scott: (24:16)
And in very specific ways, Alan Eustace, who is a, an engineering leader here in Silicon valley sent me an email. And he said, you know, I read the book and I, I just made an offer to a woman yesterday. And he said, before I read your book, I would have asked her what her salary was and matched it. And now I asked her what her, the salaries of the men who she worked with was, and I matched that. And I'm like, yes, success. Uh, that is, those are the kinds of, of simple things that people can do. Reading the book. I also have found it really interesting the way that this framework plays out in different cultures. One of the companies that I advise is a, is a unicorn in Turkey and, uh, Turkish gaming company. And, and the leader there said, you know, this is really helpful for me to, to not just work on, on gender bias on the team, but also there's regional bias. There's religious and, and we all have to work together as a team. And so that, that was very satisfying for me, uh, to, to hear that. So that's been really, really cool. And then you had a third part of your question, which I've forgotten
Sarah Kunst: (25:27)
About. Uh, so, so was it harder to get permission from people to tell their stories this time? No. What it
Kim Scott: (25:34)
Really wasn't. I was really inspired by, there was not a single person who I sent. I said, I want to, I want to write this. There was not a single person who said, no, you can't write it. I mean, there were a couple of people who said, maybe take that part out, but this part out, I didn't name organizations or people in the story for the most part, except when it was a very good story as with you. But, but there were a lot of bad things that happened. And the reason why this is a controversial decision, so feel free to push me on it. But the reason why I didn't is because the kinds of things that I describe in the book don't just happen in one place. And they, that they, it's not just, it wasn't just one company or one person they happen everywhere. They're sort of universal, universal kinds of things. So I wanted people to realize that what I want to focus on in this book is solving the problem, not sort of calling out one individual or one company.
Sarah Kunst: (26:33)
Yeah. That that's so true. You know, I was in involved in, in a me too situation. And after there's sort of this big IX, like, you know, oh, good, we got the bad. And it's like, no, no, no. Like we are all bad guys in, like, we all are a part of these power structures. Um, white male, patriarchy is not a person. It's a power structure. So, you know, John, John can be fighting against it. And somebody who looks like me can be helping uphold it because that's how it works. You know? And so, so I, I, you know, I always want you to tell me the names, but that's for like, you know, wine the mountains. But, but I think in general, it is important to globalize that it's not just one bad actor. It is, you know, uh, an entire bad theater production that we are a part of. So, so I agree with that. Absolutely.
Trier Bryant: (27:19)
And the thing about that is it Sarah, like I get the question very often, like what the company is doing, you're right. You know, like what's the company that's doing it, right. It's not having these issues. And the answer is there, there isn't right. Are there some organizations that are doing better than others? But what I also have told my recruiting teams and my people teams in the past is that people join great companies and then leave bad bosses. Right. And so we really have to be thoughtful about who are the leaders and the decision makers within our organization, because they have such a huge impact on, you know, um, preventing and mitigating these workplace injustices. And so, you know, I always tell people like, yeah, go work at a great company, but really gets to know the leader that you're working for and how they would handle with these situations and not put you in a lot of these situations. Right. And so having those conversations, when you're thinking about your next role or taking something on or who you partner with on your next, you know, um, company. So those are, those are some of the things that, you know, I encourage folks to think about as well.
Sarah Kunst: (28:16)
The reverse is interesting that I've seen too where, you know, sometimes if you're really disillusioned or if you're not sure you love somebody, who's like five levels above you, you can be nervous. But if you like your manager, then you know, that is better than going to a job where your manager might not be great, but you idolize the CEO. And I've, I've personally had that happen to me where a founder, I was just, I wasn't a fan, but I never, you know, I would have talked to him three times over my entire 10 years. So that might've been a miss. So it's, it's interesting how, how much importance we place on good companies when the companies are just a bunch of people who all get paid by the same company. Yeah.
Kim Scott: (28:52)
And also companies are not monolithic, uh, bad things happen at good companies, unfortunately. And even within a company, you may be, as, as tree are said, working with someone who is going to shield you from a lot of other bad stuff, but that doesn't mean bad stuff isn't happening. And I think it's, I think it's also really important with these things. People, people really want this example of this perfect place. And I think it's dangerous because because bias, prejudice, bullying, these are not problems. There's no place in the world where these problems have been eliminated that that I can imagine. And to say that they have been at a particular place is, is a form of denial. I think that rooting these things out. It's like staying in shape or eating well or doing the dishes. Like these are the things we we're going to have to keep doing every day, but they're worth doing every
Sarah Kunst: (29:50)
Day. There's no crash diet for injustice. Um, yes, yes, yes. I love it. So the tree, or when it comes to the power dynamic, like where do you see organizations just completely fall short most often.
Trier Bryant: (30:05)
Yeah. So when you introduce power and then you get discrimination, harassment, and physical violations, and then even with, you know, the root causes of workplace injustice, I think where we fall short, where a lot of organizations fall short is actually thinking about what do you do when these things happen at the very top? Um, even the organizations that look down and to say, Hey, how are we taking care of our employees? But like, what happens when your CEO is the bully? What happens when, you know, your, your chief people officer is a person who is being harmed, right? But there, there was a person responsible for solving it, or it's really interesting. We've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of groups of, you know, um, we, we did a, um, a talk with a, uh, an organization of museum directors and we got so many questions about injustices incurring between them and their trustees.
Trier Bryant: (30:58)
Um, and also, you know, um, founders talking about engagements with their investors or board members. And so I think that's where we're not thinking about the pirate ha the power dynamic. And we're not thinking about like, you know, what happens. I don't recall the first time I was in a board meeting as a people leader at this company. And I was one of two women in the room, but it was, we had both recently just been hired. And that first meeting was so terribly uncomfortable simply just because of language, like the language that these men had been, you know, very comfortable using. And now you have two women and no one really thought twice to just continue to use some very inappropriate language. And, and it was that moment. And I was taking notes, you know, cause this is my first board meeting meeting. Um, you know, some of the other board members and afterwards I went to the CEO and I said, so look, this is not going to happen again.
Trier Bryant: (31:51)
Right. Here's here's what happened. Here's the feedback. You can send the email, I can send the email, but next time I'm going to call it out in real time. And next time I need you to step up and call it out as well, because you do, you do acknowledge that this is not appropriate. Like it shouldn't have been appropriate before you had no women in the boardroom, but it is definitely not going to be tolerated now. Um, and so those are the conversations that we need to start having before the injustice occurs before the bias pops up, or, you know, the, the, the harassment, um, so that people in these leadership roles know how to handle it though. That's where I think that we're not having the conversations, not creating
Kim Scott: (32:28)
The kinds of checks and balances that make it, that make it, it's never going to feel safe, but that make it at least not suicidal to go and, and call this kind of behavior out because, because it is, so it is hard. It's hard to speak truth to power. And the only way to make sure that people will do it is to limit power with checks and balances. So I think that is one thing that's really important. And even in organizations that have done a really good job creating checks and balances, so they've sort of systematically stripped a unilateral decision making authority away from managers at the company. So a manager can't hire somebody unilaterally. They can't fire somebody unilaterally. They can't promote somebody in a there's checks and balances in every system. So that at every, at every point in the process of the employee life cycle, so that if a manager has a problem, the employee has someone to turn to and somewhere to go.
Kim Scott: (33:33)
But even at those companies, there's, there is a problem which is money basically. Uh, they, they haven't created the CEO is, is a billionaire many times over and some of the entry-level employees at one point I was, I, my husband was at a big tech company and I was at a fast growing hot startup. And we both had employees who were living in their trucks. And that just shouldn't. And we, both of those companies, the CEOs were billionaires many times over. And so even when there were good checks and balances in terms of power, when there aren't, when there's, when there's that level of, of inequality, uh, it's a real problem.
Sarah Kunst: (34:18)
Great time for me to push my favorite topic, which is build more housing because the sad, terrible thing is those people were probably making six figures. It's just in major cities where that plus a million bucks can help you try to get in a down payment on a house. So yes, um, that, and, and rant and soapbox. Um, so, so Kim, what radical candor feedback have you received since just work was released? So
Kim Scott: (34:47)
Some of the feedback on just work that I've gotten is that it is very hard to read that, that people, several people have said, you know, what if I didn't know you, I, I may not have gotten through the book. In fact, and one person in particular said, the reason that he wouldn't have gotten through the book is that he didn't think that these issues applied to him. He didn't think he was biased. He didn't think he had any prejudices. He didn't think he ever bullied anyone. And he said, I was halfway through the book before I had this revelation that, uh, oh, this does actually apply to me. I'm not reading this as a favor to Kim. This actually is helpful. So he said, you need to make, you need to figure out a way to help people understand, to help people notice that these, these are problems that, that apply to them.
Kim Scott: (35:40)
So I think that's one of the issues. I think the other feedback I've gotten is that we are all exhausted. We're all tired. And when we want to read something right now, we might want to curl up with a good novel or a mystery, more of a beach read. And so I have no solution to that. I don't know how to turn this book into a beach read, but, but the one thing that I will say that, that I'm trying to do is tell more positive target identification stories. So there are a lot of stories out there of people getting this stuff, right, doing the right thing. And I, and I think that part of the reason why we have such burnout around these topics is that it feels a little bit like being stuck in traffic. It's not clear what you can do about it. And so by focusing on stories about people who are doing the right thing, and it wasn't even that hard to do like the alien Lee story at the beginning of, of our conversation and it made a big difference. And I think if all of us can take a couple of little steps every day, we can actually begin to turn this, turn this thing around. I love it.
Sarah Kunst: (36:50)
Um, John, what steps are you taking?
John Darcie: (36:55)
Well, um, I'm, uh, learning a lot from this conversation need to pick up Kim's books. You know, I'm not yet a, I wouldn't say a senior executive at the organization in which I work, but as somebody who increasingly manages people, I love some of the conversations, especially that Sarah brings onto salt talks. And one of the things that, that bothers me to hear stories of his situations, you talked about checks and balances. You've had a couple of guests on Sarah that have talked about this, where they're brought in to, you know, do DNI work, DEI work, or, or be chief people, officers. And they come in and they observe an environment that's extremely toxic and, and in a lot of ways offensive and they're fired within three months of working there because the CEO says, oh, this is not what I signed up for. I was trying to tick a box, not actually hear truth to my face.
John Darcie: (37:40)
So this just, it's fascinating to hear you guys talk about how do you construct those systems without creating the fraud stabbing? I was, I was laughing at that Kim because my, my boss, uh, Anthony Scaramucci, who you might know, um, he used that term during his brief time in politics, but, you know, front stabbing, isn't productive either, uh, where people are so, so aggressively, uh, obnoxiously aggressive, as you say. Um, but yeah, it's just fascinating to hear these stories. A couple of questions I have for each of you. Um, you talked about how bad things happen at good companies. And a lot of times that happens at scale. And I think when I, when we've talked to other people on salt talks, or I've talked to other people that work at big organizations, you've also read news stories about founders at startups that get acquired by a big tech company. And they, they struggle to translate that culture into a bigger environment. So my question Kim is when you get into these massive environments and you've worked at big tech, how do you maintain a culture in a large organization? How do you, you know, not let it run a muck where you have managers that, that ramp up the level of politics and the different destructive behaviors that you mentioned, the matrix, how do you create that strong culture at a large organization? So you don't have to go around putting out fires so frequently.
Kim Scott: (38:54)
So I think there's several things you can do. And in big organizations also useful to do this in small orientations. But one of the things that we recommend is that you start to quantify your bias. So if you, if you start to look at who you're promoting, and then you cut that data by, by gender, by race, you will begin to notice that there is some bias. Yeah, you can believe one of two things either. Uh, the, the, the underrepresented people in your organization don't deserve to be promoted, or there's some bias. And I choose to assume that there's some bias. So how can you begin then? So now you've you see it, you get what you, and so now you're going to fix it. And it's, it's, you're probably not going to fix it right off the bat. You're going to have to do some digging to fix it.
Kim Scott: (39:46)
You, you, for example, in orchestras, they, they realized that it couldn't be the fact it couldn't be right, that they only had 6% women. They didn't believe that that women were worst musicians. And so they really worked on solving the problem and they kept digging. First. They put a sheet up when somebody was auditioning so that they couldn't see the person, and it didn't have an impact. And so they kept, but they didn't say, oh, well, it couldn't be biased. Then they kept digging and, and they made people take their shoes off. It turned out that the high heels were giving away the gender of the person who was auditioning. And so I think if we're willing to really do the work, there's a great story, uh, about Salesforce. So mark, a couple of leaders on Marc Benioff's team went to him and they said, we think that we're systematically underpaying women at Salesforce. And mark just couldn't believe that this was happening. He was certain that it was a meritocracy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they said, well, okay, we'll do the, we'll do the analysis. We'll run the numbers, but you have to promise us that if we run the numbers, you'll fix the problem. If we identify that and, and to his credit, he did promise and he did fix it, but it's not trio has a lot more detail about how you fix it. Cause it's not enough to fix it once.
Trier Bryant: (41:11)
Yeah. One thing, John, also the organizations, even large organizations that have been around for a few years, it's, it's really odd and strange to me that they haven't done this. But one of the things we talk about is also, you need to have a code of conduct, right? And it doesn't need to be called a code of conduct, but there needs to be something with some teeth in there that your people, HR team can hold people accountable to that peers, everyone, colleagues can hold each other accountable too, to say, this is how we expect, you know, people to behave and act at work. And somebody will say, oh, well we have values. But the thing is, is that yeah, values are great. You can put them on the wall, but you need to be a little bit more specific. Right? So for example, at one of our companies, we had six values because they were important.
Trier Bryant: (41:53)
They should be short and clear for everyone to understand, but under each value, there was a, we statement three we statements and that really helps people identify. What does that value look like of how it shows up every day as an employee in this organization? So you can have a value that says communicate fearlessly, but you also need to have some statements of what that means because people can take that and be really disrespectful and say, well, I'm communicating fearlessly, right? So we need people to understand. Um, you know, and so what is it that we expect day to day from our employees? And then we don't have to run around and put out fires when we manage people's expectations and set those expectations up front of what we expect in our organization.
John Darcie: (42:32)
Right. And trio, you've worked in a lot of different environments. So you have a military background. Uh, you worked at Goldman Sachs, you worked at Twitter. So you've worked across a variety of different industries and in different environments, are there different industries that you think do a better or worse job at rooting out these biases and prejudices and you know, why do you think some of those industries are more successful? And, and where do you think the ones that are lagging behind, first of all, why do you think they're lagging and how do you think they can reverse that? Yeah.
Trier Bryant: (43:01)
Um, I appreciate the question because I do think that there is a difference. And I think that, that comes down to when organizations understand and tie this work to their bottom line. That's when people are held accountable and that's when things change. Right. Um, what I have found is Goldman and no organization is perfect, right? Goldman does a really good job in a lot of these areas because when they find out that this impacts their bottom line, cause everything a Goldman is about making a dollar or losing a dollar and where they're trying not to lose a dollar. Right. So when they find out that these things are impacting their bottom line, oh, they handle that very, very quickly. Right. Versus, um, in tech, it's so interesting that a lot of organizations in tech are like, it's the right thing to do. Like, it's, it's, it's nice, like all the softness of it.
Trier Bryant: (43:49)
And it's just like, that goes out the window. When you have a bearish quarter, a bearish, you know, year it's the first thing that gets cut. We saw that with COVID right. Um, COVID revenues started changing D and I programs and, and programming initiatives and teams were getting cut left and right. And then what happened? We had the summer of 2020 with all the black lives matter protests and demonstration. And then companies were scrambling because they had just cut their DNI budgets. Right. So when you can tie it to the bottom line, when you tie it to your revenue, the things that you actually care about and that your, your leaders care about and your board cares about that's when you're going to hold people, that's when you're going to really start to drive that change. Um, and we just have to stop talking about it and we got to get tactical. And that's why that is what really excites me about just work by no means is this one framework going to solve all their problems, but hopefully it gives people something to add to their toolbox. And also, hopefully it inspires others to give us more tools that we can add in the DNI space that organizations and leaders can leverage.
John Darcie: (44:52)
Right. And I would love to have you guys both at our salt conference in September that I mentioned, we're having a couple of panels on this exact topic. One with, uh, Les brown, who's the CEO now of Ariel investments. Project is called project black, where they're investing in, in black leaders, um, and using data that shows that investing and diversifying your companies, uh, just increased to the bottom line. We're also going to have representatives from Goldman Sachs. They're your, uh, my mater, uh, they have a new initiative, 1 million black women. Uh, so we're going to have them, they're talking about that. There was also a study. Our conference is actually right before the UN general assembly that the UN commission it's called Capitol as a force for good, that studied empirically all this data around impact investing, uh, you know, diversity and inclusion and equity being a big part of it.
John Darcie: (45:37)
The URL is forced for good.org, a very comprehensive report. So it's just, it's great to see data, more data coming out about these topics. And it's going to be a featured part of our, uh, discussion at the salt conference. I would love to have you guys there, Kim and, and prayer, you can respond to this question as well. But as I look at the radical candor matrix, which I find fascinating ruinous empathy is on there. And I also find, I think maybe personally as I manage people sometimes, and I've seen this around organizations that I've worked in, you have people that are extremely nice, but they don't communicate clearly in a way that sets expectations. This is both in terms of eliminating biases and maximizing performance. So how do, how do you observe ruinous empathy and what does that do in an organization when you have leaders? That, that aren't honest. Not because they don't care, but because they don't know how to communicate properly.
Kim Scott: (46:28)
Yeah. It's a really great it's, it's a really important and, and all too common manifestation of, of unconscious bias, this, this ruinous empathy. So I'll, I'll give you an example that, that someone shared with me, he was working on increasing diversity at, uh, at a big bank. And he said, I would observe the following over and over and over again. Senior banker goes to a meeting with a client and brings along and analyst week one, the analyst is a man and the senior banker is a man. The analyst screws up makes a mistake. And after in the cab ride back to the office, the analyst hears about it in no uncertain terms and the next week, similar similar clients, same senior banker. This time, the analyst is a woman. The woman makes the same mistake that the analyst the week before did, but this time the senior banker does not tell her in a way that she understands what went wrong.
Kim Scott: (47:26)
And not because he's a misogynist jerk bent on ruining her career. But because he's been taught since he was a child to be gentler with women, and maybe in this environment, he's, he's concerned that he'll get in some kind of trouble if he offers feedback. And this is, uh, an irony that we have got to fix, because especially when you're underrepresented, you need that performance feedback. You need it even more. And it is the job of the leader to give that performance feedback and not to be ruinously empathetic. And, uh, and yet all too often leaders leaders fail to do that. They, they failed to do their job and they, and usually it's because they're afraid of being seen as sexist or racist, but then ironically they do the sexist or racist thing by not giving the feedback. So I think it's really important to, uh, to, to focus on this. One of the best, uh, one of the best descriptions of this problem is in Claude Steele's book whistling, Vivaldi, where he, he talks about how this happens over and over and over again. So, so really important to be radically candid, not only about things like saying, um, too many times in a meeting, but about bias that I say on that many times, I wasn't, I did not. I said, that's my canonical radical candor story. I don't
John Darcie: (48:51)
Imagine that ruinous empathy is a problem in the military, which is maybe why the military is such a highly effective, but, but is it a problem in the military or how have you observed it in other environments?
Trier Bryant: (49:01)
You'd be surprised. Um, actually in some cases it is for the same reasons that, you know, Kim just explained. I know for myself, I remember the first time, um, this white male general sat down and gave me a lot of feedback very directly. And I was about all, I was, uh, I was a first Lieutenant, so I was like probably two and a half years into my career. And it was like obvious stuff. Right. It was so obvious. I was like, Sarah, thank you for that. But like, why hasn't anyone told me that? Right? I mean, it was, so it was obvious stuff as if I had spinach in my teeth for two and a half years, and no one told me to take it out, how obvious it was. Um, and he's looked at me and he said, wheelchair. He was like, you're intimidating.
Trier Bryant: (49:44)
And I was like, okay, sir. And he was like, and he was like, and I don't think you are, but you like, you are a black woman. You are an officer, you're an air force academy grad, and you are intimidating. And he said, so people are not going to give you that feedback. And, and he gave me, um, he gave me a lot of advice and one of my best mentors and sponsors, but one of the things he said is he said, you know, because of that bias people, aren't going to give you feedback. So you have to go out of your way to go and get that feedback. Um, and then the other thing that he told me that I will share, because I think that this is powerful on either. Are there ways he said you should always have a strong white male mentor.
Trier Bryant: (50:21)
And he said, because that you can have a really good relationship with that will mentor you the way that they are mentoring other men. Because like a lot of times we mentor, we have bias through our mentoring as well, right? Like, oh, well, I'm not going to tell you what to do that because you're a woman. So I'm gonna tell you something different or you're black, you're going to do something different. And so he would mentor me. He was like, I'm going to tell you what everyone else is telling all the other white guys that you have to compete with. And I took that with me throughout my career at Goldman. I found someone like that at Twitter. I found someone like that in tech, you know, and it's just been really powerful. But the other thing that's powerful is that when I do have those conversations, I also go and encourage them to go and mentor more people that don't look like them and to not have that bias filter when they are giving them, you know, perspective and guidance.
Kim Scott: (51:04)
Can I throw a purple flag on the general? Like, do you think that I thought
John Darcie: (51:08)
I was getting a purple flag for a second carry. I
Kim Scott: (51:10)
Was nervous. The General's getting a purple. Do you think that him telling you that you were intimidating was, was bias, was a reflection of, of racial bias? Or do you, I
Trier Bryant: (51:23)
Think that he was just naming a stereotype and like a just obvious stereotype. Yeah. I think he was just naming a stereotype. That is true. Right. Um, I don't have to, Sarah, I don't have to open our mouths. Right. Like, it's just like the stereotype of the angry black woman, you know? So, um,
Sarah Kunst: (51:41)
And that's just, what I heard is when like a thousand years ago, I'd be like at a bar with friends for happy hour and guys would come up and they'd be like, like that, one's pretty, but she looks scary and they just say it. And you know, it's like, I don't want your, you know, small man energy around me, so that's fine. Um, but, but it, it, it is if people don't name something, you know, I always love the quote that are you, are you intimidating? Are they intimidated? But naming that is, is a lot more important than not because you, you otherwise, you're a sort of shadow boxing. So, so it's great to hear somebody say it out loud. It like takes the gaslighting out of the moment. Um, and I, I totally agree. I, I call it white dude energy, like having some white dude energy around you will, you can do whatever you want with it, but understanding like, you know, what, what, what the average white dude would do in this situation, in any situation. I, I get that when I, when I get to hang with, with Anthony, there's so much white dude energy, it's helpful. It's good. It's interesting. And you know, there there's, there is a place in the world for everyone and even white dude energy. So, you know, we're, we're glad to have it. And I agree it's important to seek it out.
John Darcie: (52:52)
Well, I'm still there. I'm still glad there's room in the world for white dude energy. Sarah, I, you didn't call me out. I appreciate that you call Anthony. So, um, but thank you guys so much for joining us. I feel like I got a free coaching session here. I hope you don't send a bill after, after the session, but, uh, it was a pleasure having you guys on and, and love Sarah bringing on, you know, one of the pleasures to having Sarah as sort of a recurring guest moderators meeting. People like yourselves that I don't know that we would necessarily meet, uh, in the other setting, but we would love to have you guys again, in our in-person conference, assuming it's healthy and safe and everything to do. So in, in New York, uh, you know, I think you'll meet a lot of people that probably need a lot of your advice.
John Darcie: (53:29)
So, uh, and we're, we've struggled with that at our conferences over the years in an industry that's so white. And so male dominated, we, you have to work extra hard to, to create an environment at those events that a woman and a person of color even feels comfortable coming into, or else you just gonna, you're going to extinguish any ability that you have to diversify your audience if you don't create that environment, uh, proactively. So, uh, thank you guys for doing this and it's a pleasure to meet you and hope to see you in person sometime soon. Thank you so much really enjoyed it. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, John. Thank you guys. Thank you. You everybody for tuning in to today's salt, talk with Kim, Kim Scott, and tree or Bryant, uh, of just work. And Kim also authored the book, radical candor, both great books that I would highly recommend that you pick up.
John Darcie: (54:13)
You can see them over Kim's shoulder. If you weren't observing that during our talk. I just remind you if you miss any part of this talk or any of our previous talks, including all of our, our talks with Sarah, some of which have covered these, these topics around, uh, you know, uh, the workplace and diversity inclusion and equity, uh, just reminder you can access them all on our website@sault.org, backslash talks as well as on our YouTube channel, which is called salt tube. And please spread the word about these, these talks, these talks in particular, and we're covering subjects that people often don't like to talk about it in the workplace. We think it's important that you share these with your friends, your coworkers, and your family, uh, but just on behalf of the entire salt team and for Sarah, this is John Darcie signing off from salt talks for today. We hope to see you back here soon.