 Hi everybody. It's good to see all of you. Thank you for coming to my session Sunday afternoon. I know it's the last day of DevComp CZ, and it's so beautiful outside. Glad that you're going to spend the next 30 minutes or so with me. I'll wait for folks to sit down. So I'm here to talk about DEI from a global context. So we talk about DEI, and it's something that feels difficult to a lot of people, because it's like, how do we even have a conversation about diversity, equity, and inclusion on a global context? And I personally believe that there are commonalities across having conversations that any team can use. It doesn't matter which region you're in. Really, it's determined by several factors that I'm going to go through today. But before I get started, I'm going to introduce myself. So I'm Jen Madriaga. This is me, Shamanee. That's near Mont Blanc. I've been working at Open Source for nearly nine years. This is, I guess, my third or fourth career. Before I worked in tech, I worked in higher education administration. So I did stuff like academic advising. I did stuff related to basically working with students. And I also worked to a number of nonprofits, as well as arts organizations. And somehow, I don't know. I landed in the tech industry. I've lived a bunch of different places, including abroad. So I lived in the Philippines for a little bit. I also lived in France for a bit. And I've been all over the United States. And each of the regions of the United States could be its own country, honestly, culturally. So I was born in Hawaii, and I lived in California, Virginia, North Carolina, Rhode Island. And I'm actually back in North Carolina. And I'm about 30 minutes north of Red Hat Tower in Raleigh. So for those of you who have not met me before, so I am in charge of community developer and emerging tech events on a global scale. I tried to allocate it to people in region, but there was really not an interest to manage community events, because they said it was not legion oriented. So the good news is that I get to travel all over the world to be able to meet people in the region. I have to talk to folks about what it's like in their region, what are their needs, what are their priorities in the community space. And honestly, it's a super fun job. I'm glad to be traveling again. It was really hard to be home for three years. So I'm really happy to be in Brno, particularly because it's warm for the first time ever for me. So I've been working in the diversity, equity, inclusion space for a really long time. I actually was working as an undergraduate and also as a graduate student. And so I did a lot of work related to issues of diversity, equity, inclusion from a lot of different contexts. And I actually got a certificate in it. And I used to actually do it for a living when I left grad school. It's a really hard area to be in. So I left it thinking I would never, ever, ever touch that space again. And here I am now talking about it years later. So I think everything does come full circle. So I'm one of the co-founders of the Red Hat Asia Network. And I currently serve as the chair. And one of the things that I am very interested in is intersectionality. And intersectionality, of course, involves how do we have conversations about different things that create identity because every single person in this room is intersectional. OK, so I wanted to go through a version, a definition of diversity, equity, inclusion. And there's also justice in here. You don't hear the terminology around justice very often. But I actually really, really like the way that these definitions are phrased in the form of questions. Because it's kind of open-ended. It's not yes or no. By its very nature, DEI can't be yes or no. It really is about questioning. So you've got diversity, like who's in the room? Who's here with us? And then equity is like, OK, we've got a bunch of people in the room, but there are people outside the room. How do we bring them into the room? And once you have people in the room, are people allowed to speak up and share what's on their mind? And then justice, that's a very interesting component that we don't talk about very often. So we hear about DEI. We don't hear about the justice part. And actually, I think the justice part really speaks also to issues of equity and inclusion. Because part of what we want to make sure is that when people's voices are heard, that they're taken seriously. That we treat them with the same amount of credibility that we would from a stakeholder or a person involved that you know really well. So I wanted to talk about examples of team diversity. Because one of the things that I hear on a pretty common basis is that the way that we talk about DEI, Red Hat, is very mirror-centric. It's all about the United States. And we want to talk about it from a global context. And so I wanted to talk about examples of team diversity. So in the United States, it's very true. We probably think about the demographic diversity the most, which is basically you have a bunch of identity groups. We would call them underrepresented communities at Red Hat. They're working together that may not have worked together in the past. And so it's stuff that we've talked about traditionally, which is culture or gender, race, age, sexual orientation, gender identity. And so there is the demographic version of team diversity. But then there are other types of diversities that we can address with some of the things that I'm going to walk through today. One is expertise diversity, which is like you've got someone who is really an expert at what they do. And then someone who's completely new to a community and they have no idea what they're doing. You can use the same tactics, the same methodologies to treat a team that has varying levels of experience. The third variety is location. And we have been dealing with this a lot because a lot of this work on distributed teams, like I work with folks all over North America, and APAC, and EMEA, and even LATAM. And so part of it's like, how do we account for the fact that people are in different regions? And how are they able to have a conversation? How are they able to drive consensus? Again, the things that I'm going to be walking through should apply to that. And then status is the final one. And it talks about disparities. Like there are different levels. I think it's slightly related to expertise, but this is a little bit different. This is about an emphasis on job titles. So if you're like, I guess, like a vice president and then I'm just an individual contributor, you may have a hierarchy or a way of communicating that does not encourage interaction that's authentic or valuable, right? So we're going to talk through different factors that I think you can use in evaluating whatever team diversity you have. You may have all four. You may only have one. You may have two. But I think what I'm going to talk about is going to be relevant to all of these types of diversity. And just as a note, this table is taken from an article. It's called Leveraging Diversity Through Psychological Safety. It's by a person named Amy Edmondson. And she was the one that helped create the term of psychological safety, which is what we're going to be talking about next, right? So I just want to talk about what people care about, at least from my conversations. Like I said, I've been working in this space for a really long time. Like I worked on it from an education context. I worked from it in a nonprofit context. And now I'm working on it here at Red Hat as an ancillary to my day job. But I am a community builder. My identity first and foremost is building communities. And so when I talk to people, I realize that there are things that everyone seems to care about. Doesn't matter what your background is. Doesn't matter what country you're from. Doesn't matter if you're a man or woman on binary. These are the things that I hear time and time again from people. And the number one thing is a need for belonging. What's my place in the world? Can others understand my experience, right? So it's really related to the next need, which is the need to be seen and validated. Like I want to feel that my contributions matter and I'm recognized appropriately for them, right? And also, can I bring my whole self into situations without fear or self-consciousness? Because one thing about building a community is you want it to be a true community where people feel like they're a part of something. Something that feels very, very safe. And then also fairness. Like I think the one thing that always comes up when I talk about DEI is the issue of fairness. What does fairness mean? And so for me, I define fairness as I want access to resources and support. I want access to opportunities. And that everyone should have the same access to resources, support, and opportunities, right? And I think if you look at it from that vantage point, the fairness aspect, you know, okay, now I start understanding why we're talking about stuff related to diversity, equity, inclusion, because we can see situations, whatever the situation is, that people do not have access to the same resources. All right, so I'm gonna talk about psychological safety. I feel like we've been talking about psychological safety for a long time at Red Hat, but I don't know that it's been particularly well defined. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how psychological safety is defined within a team setting, because really, it's about the team setting when we talk about psychological safety, right? So what it really is, is giving permission for people to fail, you know? So instead of saying, I blame you for the failure of this project, you frame it in terms of what did we learn, you know? You know, I don't know how long people have been at Red Hat or how many Hatters in here, but we used to have a saying, and we had it on stickers that said failed better, you know, and then they took it away because they felt like people were misinterpreting what it meant to fail better. But I thought the sentiment behind fail better is really, really important. We have to allow people to make mistakes. We have to make an allowance for people to grow and learn, right? So if someone takes a risk and it doesn't work out, people should not be punished for taking that risk. And I think for years, I think Red Hat has done what it's done well because we took risks. And then if something didn't work, we were kind of like, okay, that didn't work. We know not to do that again. Let's go ahead and try another avenue of doing things. And that's one of the things that I really, really, really loved about Red Hat. I think that's actually related very closely to open source methodologies. And so I think the context of psychological safety is actually something we're already very familiar with, you know, as a company, and also if you're in the kidney space, you know, you're always having to iterate. You're always having to see what works and does not work, right? So when you have psychological safety, you can talk about your failures in a way that becomes very solution oriented. And I think that is super, super, super important to realize that that's what we mean by psychological safety. And then like I said, when you talk about psychological safety, it's always within the context of a team, right? So the one thing about psychological safety, if it's present for one person, it should be present for everybody on the team. You know, so if you only have one person that feels psychological safety and no one else feels it, you don't have psychological safety. You actually don't. It doesn't meet the definition of team psychological safety. If only one person is comfortable enough to talk about the things, you know, that may be uncomfortable. If there's only one person that's interested in talking about failure or what to do next and no one else speaks up, you do not have psychological safety, right? So it is a group feeling. So that's one thing I want you to remember is that a lot of times I think we contextualize psychological safety in terms of an individual, but it's really, really important to note that it actually applies to teams. So if you have one person that doesn't feel like they are safe on the team, you have not achieved team psychological safety. Okay, so we keep hearing about diversity. Hey, diversity is really important. You know why? Because it's gonna outperform less diverse teams. You're gonna have different perspectives. It's gonna be awesome. This is why we want diversity, right? What's really interesting is that just because you have diversity in your team does not mean your team is going to do better. In fact, there are numerous studies that say that the first teams often underperform relative to teams that are homogenous, you know? And do people find that shocking? Do they find that shocking that those teams that have a variety of people involved don't perform their best? So obviously, diversity is not what causes teams to excel. In fact, it can detract from achievement. It can detract from getting things done. And why would that be? Like if we think diversity is so important, we talk about how important it is to have diversity in our team, why are they not doing as well? It's because we have to have practices of equity, inclusion, and justice along with the factor diversity, right? And this is really about ensuring psychological safety across your team, right? And so from this particular article also co-authored by Amy Edmondson, she was one, like I said, who coined the term psychological safety. She and this other collaborator, John Rutgersman, basically said there are three things that you want to talk about, things that you need to do as practices to ensure psychological safety, right? And so the first one is framing, right? So you have to make sure that when you frame meetings, the meetings are meant for information sharing. And the information sharing can be good, it can be bad, but everybody is going to have information that they're gonna share. And then the group is gonna listen and they're gonna weigh, okay, here's all the information that we have. And you know what? Because you have a variety of stakeholders on your team, they're gonna describe things differently. They're not necessarily gonna experience information in the same way, like you may give a piece of information and someone's, I had no idea, like I didn't even think that that was a factor, right? And so that's part of what's important. When you have meetings, you frame it as information sharing, information gathering, and it's without judgment. You just basically make a list of things that people want to share and you think that people need to know about, right? And so after you collect all that information and you're like, I didn't know about that, I didn't know about that, okay, now we've got all these pieces of information, what do we do with those pieces of information? We have to listen, right? Because you may be sitting in a room and someone shares a piece of information and you're like shaking your head like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It is not that way, right? And sometimes it's hard if we have an opinion or we're very wed to a certain viewpoint to do the deep listening. And so one of the things if you have a team where you're sharing information and then you have to have people elaborate on why they are seeing what they see, you have to allow space for people to first of all speak about it and then everyone has to listen. So there's this really cool practice that the native and indigenous DEI group does at Red Hat when they have group meetings, they have something called a talking stick. And so if someone is holding the talking stick, no one else is allowed to talk except the person with the talking stick. And it's a good visual reminder that hey, when the person holds the floor, we give them the space, we give them time to be able to explain themselves without interrupting. And I think there's a tendency to interrupt. Like I grew up with that kind of practice. It's not a good practice, right? And so this entails a lot of mindfulness. And then when we're allowed to ask questions, the question should be open. They should not be yes or no questions because that automatically shuts down conversation. And then we also have to ask, how did things get to this point? Like if we hear things that this is happening, we want to hear about what's causing it and what role do I play on the team that contributes or doesn't contribute? How can we shift it so that people are doing their roles properly so that we can get things done? There's bridging boundaries, right? This is a little bit about learning about people on your team. Like we don't necessarily want to share everything about ourselves and where we're at work. Like that can feel very vulnerable. But asking about issues that are larger than a task at hand I think is really important. So you want to ask about people's hopes and goals for a project. What would you like to see happen? For me, my continuing hope and goal is that corporate marketing is gonna care about open source communities and start incorporating it in our corporate events, right? What do you bring to the table? I work with communities all the time. I would love to help out in this space. Concerns to obstacles, what are you up against? Nobody seems to care about communities anymore in some of the segments of corporate marketing. What am I worried about? I'm worried that Red Hat's not gonna be seen as an open source company. I'm worried that they're not gonna be seen as a place that's safe for open source communities to thrive in the course, right? So when you ask those kinds of questions related to your project, you start realizing what people's priorities are and then it becomes a lot easier to map things out. So when people talk about personalities, one thing that I'm really proud of at Red Hat is my reputation to deal with difficult people. They always say that. They're like, Jen, you can deal with people who are really difficult, who are really challenging. How do you do that? The way that I do it is I ask each of my stakeholders, what are we working towards and how can I help you get there and how can you help me get there? And because we can come to sort of consensus what we're working towards, I can get a lot of stuff done. Even with people, I mean, I personally like them and they think, I don't think I'd be friends with them outside of work, doesn't matter because we are working towards something singular and purpose, all right? So one thing that's also really, really interesting, so we talked about the importance of psychological safety in a team setting is we also have to figure out a way to evaluate people and whether or not they're able to do these. And so this is targeted towards managers, but I think individual contributors can benefit from this too, right? Like I'm thinking, because you're here at the Comptez, you're already part of the community, right? And so everyone has a role to play. And so one of the things that I thought was pretty useful was this rubric that was done by someone named Chelsea Troy. And they've been doing work around DEI for a long time in the tech space. Like this was actually several years old but I think a lot of it is still really, really relevant to today. So there are certain criteria that Chelsea says that we should be talking about. One is moderation. And moderation is basically referring back to what I was on the last slide about allowing space for people, right? And like is everyone's voice being heard? So that carcans back to those definitions we talked about with diversity, equity, inclusion, and then justice earlier, right? Do people have their fair share of time? And then if people disagree, do they allow the space to talk about the disagreement, right? Like we always talk about how good we argue at Red Hat. I don't know that that's always true, but I think this moderation piece framed by these questions I think is helpful. Related to moderating conversation or discussion is soliciting opinions, right? Are we making sure that people are in a state of inquiry around things, right? And we have all been in meetings where people are the self-proclaimed expert about something and they're talking and you're like, I don't think they know what they're talking about, but you don't say anything. Really a manager should create a space where everybody's heard, right? And also people process very differently. One of the things that I always ask people to do if we're in a group conversation where people don't speak up, they don't necessarily have to say something in the meeting. I think it's very, very important to give people permission different ways to provide feedback, because sometimes people need to sit with what they've heard and maybe they're better at writing it out or maybe they wanna do a one-on-one with you afterwards once they've had that time to process. And so part of this, we can't continue to value just the people that speak up at meetings, like that's really celebrated in a lot of spaces, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we're getting the best information. What it does is it shuts down avenues to make an informed decision. And so I want to encourage people to really think about that. Like I love having real-time conversation with people, but that doesn't necessarily bring other people's best selves out. And so I think we have to be really, really mindful about that. Attribution, so earlier I said people really care about their contributions mattering, but also they wanna be recognized for their contributions. Like I can't tell you how upsetting it is for someone to work really hard on something, they share it, and then they get no credit like at a team meeting for the work that they've been doing, you know? I mean that's a demoralizing feeling to feel like you're working really, really hard at something and then there's no attribution or recognition of the skills and talents you bring to the team, right? And so you need to be careful of people that won't attribute, right? And they need to be called out. So if someone says hey, yeah, you know, Misk was working on this project, you know, he did really great work, but then Carol is not recognized. And Russia can raise her hand and say, you know what, we actually need to mention Carol too because Carol did significant work in this space. And so that's what I mean, like managers have to provide the space, but individual contributors can speak up about it. And if you don't wanna do it in real time in a conversation, you can always send an email because that way it's documented, right? I like email trails. All right, so most advanced assumption, again this is like related to the people that want to be the self-proclaimed knowledge experts, right? I mean one of the things that I think is important about open source and about community, you know, we always talk about the best idea winning. Well, how can the best idea win if we don't hear all the ideas, you know? And so we have to be cautious about, and I'm guilty of this too because I've been working in this space for several years, is that we can't be trapped by the expectation that because I've done this a long time, I have all the answers. Like I call myself out all the time on this. There are things that we cannot see in our space, you know, it's kind of like driving a car, you can see straight ahead that you can't necessarily see what's behind you. You might be able to see it in the rear view mirror but you don't have the complete 360 view, right? And so it's important to hear from like our interns. It's important to hear from our junior engineers because their problem sets are probably very different from what you see as a manager because you don't have to deal with it on a daily basis. You have to be really familiar with the pain points of what people are experiencing. And that is a way to practice inclusion. So hopefully you're seeing that, I think that we can apply this in any situation. So again, this is kind of a continuation of what I've been talking about, capitalizing alternative perspectives. So this is really about driving consensus, right? So this is bargaining back to the stuff that I was talking about with teams, psychological safety, right? Is that we have to be careful about rigidity. Sometimes people are right. However, we still have to give space to alternative opinions because you know what? It may be that you're right, but you know what? Your argument's even stronger or more relevant because someone else has contributed a piece of information that you're missing. And now the information that you are providing is even more complete, right? So I also just want to talk about structure. Like I've studied systems and structure. So I've talked about managers, I've talked about individual contributors, I've talked about teams. But I will say that the reality is that if you don't have an organization that has formal structural processes around this, you know, if they don't set it as a value system, that you know, it's really, really hard to keep it going. So I do believe in the power of individual. You know, I was one of the co-founders of the Asian Network, there were five of us and we were able to implement a lot of things. You know, we've created some really great things, but it's so reliant on us as individuals. So like one of our leadership team, Jeff Sassai, who was a Chairman's Award winner was part of the layoffs. And he was such an instrumental part of creating committees and we have no way to really account for his absence anymore, right? So the power of individual is awesome, but the leadership matters. Like you have to have an organization that is willing to create structural change and you know what, it's gonna make people mad because you know what, people do not like change. I don't like change. I mean, you recognize that things have to change and that I have to change my habits, but you have to have leadership that says this is important. And the way that I would explain it is that people pass laws for a reason, right? So we like pass laws, and you have to have a driver's license to drive, you know? You have to basically not harm anybody, like you can't go on the tram and like punch somebody for a random reason. And if you do, there are consequences associated with that, right? So you have to have a structure related to process and also consequence. And if you don't have that organizationally, unfortunately the individual efforts that are created are very, very limited. What happens is that people have very inconsistent experiences across the organization. And then like I said, if you have someone that leads, you know, you may not see that lasting change, you know? I still wanna say that those ad hoc things really matter, like it matters to individuals greatly, but if like the entire Asian network leadership decided to like leave, I don't know that, you know, that any of the work that we have done would actually stay around. So I wanna talk a little bit about contact theory and I know that I'm running out of time, but I think this is really, really important. So contact theory was related to race relations. It was, again, another Harvard professor that talked about this. And this is a really interesting article. I'll make my slides available, but there was an article, this was a journalist who discovered that he was biracial. He thought he was just a black American. He ended up realizing that his mother was white. And so he had to learn about his white family and his white family had to learn about him. And there was a lot of discomfort because, you know, when his mother got involved with his father, there was a lot of opposition and nobody ever talked about it. And then she was hospitalized with psychiatric issues because she had schizophrenia. And so he never met her until he was much older and his father said, you know what? You have a white mother. And he talks about the pain of interacting with his white family the first time. And he's like, why didn't you come to find me? And nobody wanted to answer that question because it made them look bad. So he's just like, I don't wanna interact with you because you're a different race from me. But one of the things that he found out was that both he and his white family had a greater purpose. And that was we want to build a relationship together. We want to come together for a larger purpose, which is to get to know each other and create a real family together. And that actually is the embodiment of contact theory. So as a reminder, diversity does not ensure equity or inclusion by itself. But if you can work towards a common goal that's larger than you as an individual, it's very, very, very powerful. And not just in a business context, but also in a personal context. So again, I wanna come back to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. And remind you to be asking questions. And I'm not gonna go through this part of it in detail, but I wanna talk a little about the Asian network and why it's important to have DEI communities, at least for me personally. We don't have structures in place right now around DEI. And so it's important to create safe spaces for people. And one of the things that I think has been most gratifying about the work that I do when I volunteer basis is people telling me I now have a space to talk about things that I worry about. Maybe my manager doesn't care about it, but I now have a space where I can talk about those things. And so one of the things that I would encourage people who are in this room is where are your safe spaces? Where are the places where you can have people bring everything to the table? Bring their best selves, and maybe their worst selves, but they know that we can be encouraging to let people know that they're in a safe place where they can learn to be better. So we have three minutes left. I'm gonna stop here and just see if anyone has any questions. Yes. So basically someone was asking, as a senior most person on a team, how do they make interns feel comfortable with speaking up because they may not share what's on their minds because they're afraid, right? That's really, really common. I think all of us have that fear. And one of the things that I think is important is that you ask, like I said, open-ended questions, right? So you ask, hey, what have you been working on? What do you think went well? Is there anything that's preventing you from doing the things that you wanna do? Is it because you're missing a resource? Is it because you're not getting what you need from another team member? And so it's asking the open-ended questions that's really, really key. And I will tell you that sometimes people don't want to do the open-ended questions because it leads to complexity. Like it's so much easier to say, hey, everything's okay, right? Yes or no. And then, oh no, oh well, you'll just have to deal with it. So part of it is also encouraging them to help them find solutions. So if they say, I have an issue with a team member or I'm not getting what I need to be able to fix, create the solution, ask them, well, what do you think you need? What is it that you think needs to be provided? Instead of going right into a solution making yourself as a senior leader, ask them what they think it is because they're the ones that are working on it on a very direct basis. And so I would say the process of open-ended questions is really, really key. That takes practice on the part of managers as well. But I would just say that remember what it was like when you were an individual contributor. Remember how intimidating it could be, particularly if you're very, very junior. And so one of the things that I think is very important when we talk with team members who are more junior, who are still gaining experience, is that we provide an atmosphere of mentorship that we really care about you developing your skills. And we want you to help us find what works for you, right? So again, open-source ethos collaboration, transparency. Like I just feel like all this work has a lot of the value system associated with open-source. Are there any other questions? Yeah, Paul. Yeah, that is such a great question, right? Because it also talks about what the nature of allyship is. Allyship is, right? And the thing is, is that Asian Network, we officially have a North American chapter, but really I deal with associates globally. I'm dealing, I'm working with people within APAC, AMIA, and LATAM, which we weren't expecting because all of us who are in the leadership team, and actually I'm gonna show my leadership team because they are amazing people. We represent all parts of the Asian diaspora. So I represent Southeast Asia, others represent East Asia, and then we have Tash who represents South Asia. But you know, the fact that you're asking that question is actually really, really important because I think one of the things that people don't like when allies come in is they're like, we're gonna fix this for you? And again, it's actually related to the question that I just answered with the junior engineers, is you have to ask them, what do you think is needed and what role can I play in that, you know? And part of it maybe you just need to go ahead and like read up on something, you know? Like I have a familiarity with all sorts of things globally just because I travel so much is something that maybe some of the United States wouldn't pay attention to. I would have a deep familiarity with because I've gone to the region or I have colleagues or friends that live in that area. And so one of the things that we just have as a priority in the community is again, providing that safe space for everyone to have a conversation. And I think it's always very important for people to come from a place of curiosity. For me, when I deal with folks who are unfamiliar with the experiences of being like an Asian associate and a place where there's hostility or if I'm fearing for my physical safety, you know, one of the things that I think is really, really important is to remember, you know, just because you're not experiencing it doesn't mean it's not real, right? And so we have to hold space for experiences that we may never experience. So my husband is a white man from Knoxville, Tennessee. And he's like, I've never thought about these things. Like when I see you, I don't think about that stuff. I just think about you're the person I love and that's it. But we have to acknowledge that we're shaped by our, like all of us are shaped by our experiences, right? And we've had very hard conversations, you know? But I don't put it in the context of right or wrong. I put it in the context of there's a lot for us to learn about. What is it that I can learn? You know, and what can I teach? But first, I think the learning part is very, very important. Particularly if you're entering as an ally, you're entering spaces that are meant to be safe spaces for others. And it's very, very important to respect that as an ally, you know? And allyship is a very, very key to the work that we do in the DEI space because usually allies are in a position of greater privilege than people in the DEI communities. Like it's meaningful for my husband who works at Finance at Red Hat to talk about it with his own team and they're like, why are you talking about this? And he's like, because it's important, you know? And so when we're managers and we have privilege, use it, use it in a way to basically encourage a way of being and a way of interacting. So sometimes it's very small steps. It's very, very, you know, I don't want to say easy, but it can be a very small step. All right, I know I'm way over. If you want to talk to me afterwards, I'm glad to have a conversation with you. But keep in touch. Thank you. Thank you.