 Here's your host Jeff Frick. Hi Jeff Frick here with the Cube. We are on the ground at the VM Women of VM World kind of side presentation that we're really excited to be here. Great keynote given by Laurie McKenzie, the executive director, Claimant Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. Terrific talk. Thank you so much. So before we jump in why don't we give a little shout out for the Claimant Institute. What's it all about? How long has it been around? What's kind of your mission? Claimant Institute was founded in 1974. It's been around trying to figure out how can research help us solve the most difficult questions around gender equality. We do all sorts of research and right now we're doing research on blocking bias in the workplace. Blocking bias workplace. In the workplace. So bias is an implicit foundation of our thoughts and feelings and we can't stop that process but we can figure out ways to block the impact in people processes. I think about it if you're nearsighted you can't help that you're nearsighted but if you don't wear your glasses and get in an accident then we can say there is something you should do about that. It's interesting because people a lot of times especially like news I think is fascinating with news people think oh there's such a thing as an unbiased news. There's no such thing we all put a filter on everything we see everything we communicate and you brought up a really interesting point I think in terms of the language. There's so many opportunities again I really find interesting about news even something as horrible as 9-11. How is it described? Is it an incident? Is it a tragedy? Is it an attack? Is it a murder? In all of those different vocabulary words have very different connotations. So talk about how kind of vocabulary either continues bias or can be used to fight against it. It's a great question. One of the things we know is language is the most common way that we replicate and maintain culture. That means how we describe people in terms of their potential and their results affects how we perceive them as leaders. It turns out we've done some research by calling through hundreds of performance reviews. We found that women are more often described through their personalities and men through their accomplishments. So that when I read them I say oh she's a great personality but look how much he's accomplished. By describing the same accomplishments differently what that does is make us perceive them different and provide different outcomes for different kinds of people. And why do you think that that different language strategy is used kind of across the sexes? Is it something that's encouraged? They learn that vocabulary coming up? Is it that's what your advisor tells you use that word not this one? I mean is there a basis for kind of that difference in the language? So we grow up and very early learn to categorize people into men or women and based on our expectations we think men should be more assertive risk-taking and driving and women should be more nurturing and supportive. So even you're told to tell a little kid if you're lost go to a woman. So from very early on we just learn to make these associations but then don't see that someone can be all of it. That a man can be nurturing and a woman can be very assertive. So we just learn that from socialization. The trick is if we don't think and automatically use language when we're trying to describe somebody at work we can accidentally present someone more as a leader and have that person get promoted when the same qualified woman described differently would have less an advantage. You share some really interesting studies are in the talk in terms of basically the same exact resume with a different name on the top had a completely different result. But the other thing I want to talk about is psychology is all about you know behavior versus the bias. We can't change bias. We grew up right where as ever old as we are and we've seen what we've seen and here we are. But really we can change behaviors and it's interesting how changing behavior over time does change perception. My favorite example is seatbelts right. When you and I grew up we never put a seatbelt on. Our kids would never imagine getting in a car without them because of the behavior. So talk about how people can don't try to bite off the whole thing but really start to use specific behaviors to start to change and get away from this bias. Well you mentioned the study I talked about the orchestra study that before orchestras were only 5% women musicians and then they introduced a screen so that when musicians are auditioning they can't see the gender of the musician and simply introducing that screen had more women advanced into orchestras. So we can't all work behind screens. We can do other behaviors that act as that block so gender doesn't influence us in a negative way. One thing we can do is when we're screening resumes just take the name off and look at the qualifications of the person. Another thing we can do is that when we're reading a letter of recommendation and we say oh the letter of recommendation for the man is stronger for the woman maybe it's not her qualifications but question whether maybe the the writer accidentally used a certain kind of language. So I always think take one moment to question whether what we see is really the qualifications and always investigate more. And do you see any companies that are really formalizing something like that like the orchestra study where they're you know put a piece of tape over the top of the resume or other things where they're really formalizing these types of activities? Absolutely there are a lot of investigations in the valley for not only blind resumes but blind tryouts. So doing a technical test and the manager will see the result of the technical test without knowing whether it was a male or female so it's being done with resumes with entry-level screens but also at the calibration level sometimes they'll have somebody in the room whose job it is to make sure that men and women aren't talked about differently. So there's having a diverse slate of candidates making sure that we don't just go to the people we know more familiarly but we make sure that the slates are very diverse there's lots of great programs being done in the valley. All right great so wrapping up I know you got a lot of people want to talk to you. Talk a little about lean-in. That was a big deal very positive and it got kind of controversial it just seems like in the media world that we live in today that people just have to take a side everything just seems so bipolar extreme one way or the other and I think one of the questions was talking about are you a feminist? What does that mean? It doesn't mean you're like way at the other side or the other but how does this kind of this stratification you will of the voice that we hear in the media place really impact trying to kind of get everything back in the middle. Well I think there's room for all sorts of conversations around what it will take to create equality and I love that different people are taking different parts of that conversation I think lean-in took a really important role. You can actually control how you perceive the opportunities you have and that message is really important for women. Another message is companies they can't do it by themselves they need not only to lean in but you need to have a place to lean into so work really hard right to have structures in place that are welcoming to women and then there's the family life how do we make it so that women don't do all of the housework that if they do lean in that work that they have a partner at home and that partner supported through their workplace and being an equal partner so I think there's many steps towards equality and I love that each group is taking the piece of the conversation they think they can do the most with. Last question I promised I'll let you go. What are you working on now what's new what can we expect coming out of the Institute in the next little while? Well we're looking at launching a national conversation on bias calling it beyond bias looking at how we can have processes that get us beyond relying on bias but also what's after this we want to create great leadership innovation and inclusion what would be next after this conversation on bias so we're looking at launching that in October of next year. We'll look for that well Lori thanks for taking a minute great presentation really enjoyed it and best you will look forward to more work coming out. Thank you so much it's a pleasure. Absolutely Jeff Frick here we are on the ground at the VM women at VMworld 2015 thanks for watching.