 From the VMware campus in Palo Alto, California, it's theCUBE, covering women transforming technology. Hey, welcome to theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at VMware in Palo Alto at the third annual women transforming technology event. Really excited to be here. I'm joined by Shelly Carell, the director of the Claimant Institute for Gender Research at Stanford. Shelly, exciting day. Welcome to theCUBE. Thank you, good to be here. Big news. Very big news today. So you're also the founding director of the Center for Advancements of Women's Leadership. That's correct. The Claimant Institute has been around since 1974, but you've been partnering with VMware for the last five years. Yes, in a variety of ways, yes. So talk to us about the big announcement today with VMware and the Claimant Institute. Well, we're very excited. We've been working with VMware for five years, as you said, in a variety of different capacities and have really been engaged with them over the idea that we could better connect academic research with practice. And so the news that we had to announce today is that they are investing $15 million into our efforts and we're going to be launching a new lab that's going to be focused on advancing women's leadership. Phenomenal. Talk to us about some of the foci that you're going to be focusing on to accelerate the change that we need. Not just to bring more eyes and ears and dollars, but accelerate it. And it really, I'm glad you used that word. That's exactly what it's about, is accelerating. I mean, we come into this with research that shows very clearly that the progress in terms of moving women into leadership is just all but stalled. And the progress we're making is very, very slow. And if we just sit back and wait, we're not going to see, you and I are going to see gender equality in our lives, our daughter's lives. I mean, it's not going to happen. And so we're asking ourselves, what can we do to accelerate change? And so, to me, one of the most important things that we need to be doing is bridging the gap between academic scholarship, which tells us a lot about the barriers to women's leadership with the kind of activities that organizations are doing, the diversity initiatives they're putting in place. If we can join forces, then I think we could better accelerate change. And so that was kind of the idea behind this lab. And we really have three main things that we're hoping to accomplish. One is to diagnose the barriers to women's advancement across all kinds of diversity that women occupy and own. So understanding those barriers. And then second is piloting solutions, working within companies to develop some interventions that we can put in place so we can learn how to get beyond the barriers. So that's the kind of next thing that we're doing. And third is just to be a hub of information. We're going to take these learnings from our research and translate them into tools that people can use to be able to put research into action and in their own organization. So that's the three prong goal of this new laboratory. It's so exciting, you know, and it's something that, you know, as we talk about, it's 2018 and this is still such a massive issue. There are, it's been very widely known for a long time that the numbers of women in technical roles in technology is what, below 25%. But something that I found interesting when I was doing some research on you is that there's also this motherhood penalty that I was unaware of. Tell us a little bit about what that is and how is that something that maybe this new innovation lab will help to eliminate? Right, I think it's important because when we think about putting solutions into place, we know that they're not going to be sort of one size fits all solutions. They're going to differ for different kinds of women. And in my own research on the motherhood penalty, I mean, what we found are sort of very clear gaps between women who are childless and women who are mothers. And in fact, the wage penalty that we usually talk about, the gender wage gap is largely a gap between mothers and childless women. And so we got to asking ourselves, why? Why would a woman who's a mother be so penalized relative to a childless woman? So we've got gender inequality and now we've got this motherhood penalty on top of that. And so our research found that if you take a resume for a woman and just add an information that she was, a subtle information that she's a mother. Like on the PTA or something. Like on the PTA or something. Yes. That people are 100% less likely to recommend her for hire. 100%. 100%. Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, it's a huge gap there. And so, you know, as we dig deeper, what we see is that people's stereotypes about mothers are that mothers are sort of so committed to their families that they couldn't possibly be committed to their job. And we, every one of us who work with mothers in the workplace know that's not the case, right? But yet that's a stereotype that is kind of, that's holding mothers back in addition to what we find for women in general, if you will. So if a man on his resume has that he is a soccer coach or a baseball coach, that is not factored into the decision to not hire him? Well, it is, but guess what? It advantages him. It doesn't disadvantage him. Advantages. Yes. Yes. So for fathers, we find that people see fathers as more committed to their, to the job than childless men. So we're seeing how so parenthood works differently for men and women in the workplace. And so I think one of the barriers that we want to get past is the effects of biases on how people are evaluated. And they're not just gender biases. They're biases about gender, but also about parenthood, about race, about ethnicity, about sexuality. I mean, all of those things intersect in complex ways. So it means that we're going to see different barriers for different types of women, if you will. And that means also that we're probably going to need to have different kinds of solutions as well. Absolutely. So something that interests me is, you know, in the last six months, the Me Too movement exploded on the scene, times up, Brotopia, a recent book out by Emily Chang that is shocking to say the least, very informative, enlightening. When those movements popped up, and there was a sort of unlikely alliance with Hollywood, I'm curious, were you like, yes, good, we have some momentum here that we need to be able to leverage to start making the gaps. As you said, there's so many that women face more ostensible in tech. Was that kind of a, let's get on the same bandwagon? Yes, you have to ride these waves when they happen. I mean, the problems that Me Too is identifying are certainly not new problems. This has been going on as long as women have been in the workplace, but the attention to it is what's new. And so as a scholar, when there's attention to an important social problem that you research, you ride that way. We've got the world's attention now. Let's use that attention to take the messages about what we know from research and the strategies we have and get them out to people that need them. So it is an opening that allows us to take the Me Too kind of moment that we're in and really turn it into a movement that produces sustainable change. We need to get our own hashtag. What are some of the things that say in this next, what are we almost halfway through 2018, which is kind of scary? What are some of the, maybe the small wins or the quick ones that you think with this new VMware partnership that you're going to be able to identify and uncover in 2018? So we've been working a lot on ways to reduce unconscious biases in the workplace. And so I think some of the projects that we're launching are really about going into organizations and diagnosing where bias might be affecting how they're evaluating women at the point of hire, at promotion, as we're thinking about who to put on stretch assignments. And so identifying the way those biases are occurring in workplaces and then working with managers in those organizations to design tools to help get beyond those biases. And so this is some work that we had started initially that we're now expanding to more research sites. And so I think that's one of the first things to do is to really go in and try to remove these biases that don't, they're not good for women, but they're not good for the organization either. I mean, if you're biased against women, what that means is you're not valuing women's talent and any organization wants to be accurately assessing the talent of people in their workplace. I think I read in the press release this morning that a McKinsey report that said that organizations, if I can put it, yes, according to McKinsey, companies with diversity on their executive teams are 21% more profitable than those who lack diversity. Profits. I know, it's profit. Yes, we see it with innovation too. You know, and it makes sense if you think about it, right? If our biases were causing us to see women as less talented than they are and maybe men as more talented than they are, that what that means is we're not hiring on average the most productive, talented people. And so I think all organizations want to source and hire the best people they can. And so removing these biases is one way of doing that. And when we remove those biases, I think improvements in diversity will follow. When you look at a company that's been around for a long time and you think, wow, culture is very slow to change, how do you advise organizations that have been around for decades that are predominantly male led, especially at the executive level, to just be more aware and open to changing the culture to maybe it's, hey, you could be 21% more profitable. Exactly. Who doesn't want that? How do you have the conversation with an incumbent about cultural change? Right. And I think sometimes people think culture is just sort of what it is and it cannot be changed, but we can make small wins, small improvements in that culture. And so one of the things that has been most effective in our research is to go in and work with managers on trying to improve how they're hiring people, how they're promoting people. And so the conversation isn't really about culture. It is at a deep level, but it doesn't seem like that at the surface level. It's really about how can you more accurately assess talent? And when you start asking that question, what you start seeing is that the ways you were assessing talent before were flawed in some ways and they were flawed in a way that was limiting your ability to see women's abilities and their talents. And so the conversation really is just about doing what I think we all want to do, which is truly evaluating people based on their merits. And I think if that's the message, a lot more people are on board with that. And the other thing I'll say is when we had, we were working with a company who was telling us that one of the ways they assessed people for promotion was they wanted their leaders to be very responsive to people in the organization. And that's a great value to have, right, to be responsive. But when we probe them about, how do you know when someone's responsive? They didn't really, first they couldn't articulate how they were evaluating that. And so what it became clear is without clear criteria for assessing responsiveness, their implicit measures were like, how quickly does this person respond to email? And they realized that women were being as quick responding to email, especially during the dinner hours. And I think you and I could know exactly why that is. And then they got to start thinking, well, that isn't maybe the very, that's not a very good measure of leader responsiveness. And they went back to look at their responses from women and they were more elaborate, they were more detailed, they were more helpful. And so the measure they were using was sort of, it was biased against women, but it was also not productive for what they were trying to do. And these are the kind of small wins that open people's eyes to the fact that they could do things differently that would be good for diversity and inclusion and would be good for what they're trying to do as an organization, the bottom line as well. Wow, one of the other things, so we talked about the numbers of women in technical roles was very small under 25%. Another big challenge that we have in technology is attrition and the fact that more women leave tech for other industries than women leave other industries. Exactly. What are some of the things that your research has shown that companies can do to also not just focus on bringing in young talent or working with universities on STEM programs, but for women that are maybe in the middle of their career, whether they're thinking about leaving to start to have a family or simply, this is not the right environment for me. That retention from middle career, what are some of the things that you found there? Yeah, and I'll say too about, I think one of the sort of narratives that people tell themselves in companies is that women are leaving tech to have children, but women don't leave tech to have children at any higher rate and actually at a lower rate than other professions. That's not the reason they're leaving tech at a higher rate than some other places. There's something else going on there. And so I think working on improving the inclusion and the environment is really important for retaining women. Surveys that sort of show why people left their jobs find that in tech, a big reason women leave tech compared to other places is they don't feel like they're supported in the workplace. More so than in other places. Even including other STEM fields, so in science and things like that. Higher exit rate because they don't feel included in the workplace. So the question is, what's the barrier there? What are we doing in our workplaces that women in tech don't feel included and what can we do to change that? And I think again, removing some of these biases, if you're in a workplace where you constantly feel like your talent is not being appreciated, that's one way you quickly don't feel included as a technical worker. So I think working, this sort of cultural change that we're talking about is probably even more important for retention than it is for hiring. Do you think that younger companies, maybe startups, maybe three to four years old or less than 10 years will say, have a better chance at being able to morph quickly and pivot than a larger company that's been around for decades? Yeah, it's much easier to get things right to begin with. And so people sometimes ask when they're founding a company, how soon do we need to have a woman on board? And my answer is always as quickly as possible. And if you get to 10 employees with no women, you're already behind the curve. And so really kind of starting off with the idea that we want to get the culture right to begin with so that we don't end up having to unscramble the eggs later down the road. And that's one of the things we've learned from working with VMware is early on in the founding of this company, there was an attempt to create the kind of culture that I think more companies are wanting to emulate today. We've got Betsy Cetter coming on a little bit later and really curious to talk to her about coming on years ago when VMware was a startup with a hundred people and now being in this Chief People Officer role of an organization of 20,000. And here we are at VMware today, walking into a room of females who are here to really kind of embody what the charter of this consortium of WT Squared is, is connecting and inspiring, but supporting women in tech of all levels. Not just here in Silicon Valley, but beyond as well. And having the powers coming together from industry, from academia, from nonprofits is, it's a very, the vibe when we were in the keynote just an hour ago was so palpable that there's certainty that we will create change. Yeah, and Betsy's so inspirational to me in this regard is that she has been here since 2001 and was sort of critical to getting the culture in place at that point in time. And it's not that VMware doesn't have challenges with hiring and retaining a tech woman, all companies do, but they created a culture from the beginning that I think is kind of a model for what companies are wanting to do today. And last thing before we wrap here is we had the opportunity to listen to Leila Ali and so cool. I mean, just to hear a confident woman who was probably born with a lot of natural confidence that some women have some women don't. But to hear her talk about, hey, sometimes this inner wear is the flame is out or it's low and I too have to say, this is my purpose, this is my passion. I don't want to have to look around and constantly think I'm in a man's sport. I know this is my sport. I thought just that having that world kind of talk to us women in tech to say, hey, it's going to take reminding yourself often what your purpose is, what your passion is, but she challenged us to do that. And I just thought it was a really encouraging, inspiring message for everyone to hear. So early on a Tuesday morning. We run a leadership program for high school girls and this whole issue of purpose is something that we really stress as well is that when you're trying to lead and people aren't following, stop and ask yourself what was the purpose in doing what you're doing and articulate that purpose to others. And that's the way you can kind of bring people along. And so I just loved her example today about when you're not feeling confident, go back and ask yourself why. The question of why? It's too easy to go through life just doing things and losing our sense of purpose. And that really is a good source of confidence because if you're doing something for a reason that really matters to you, that will help recharge you. Absolutely. Well, Shelley, thanks so much for stopping by. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. The CUBE this morning and sharing your purpose and the exciting news of what VMware and the Claimant Institute are going to do. We look forward to hearing some of the great stuff that comes out in the next few years. That sounds great. Thank you. Nice to talk to you. And we want to thank you. You're watching theCUBE. We're at the third annual Women Transforming Technology Event. I'm Lisa Martin. Thanks for watching.