 Want to start out with To tell you a little bit of a story about our job I had so it was back in 2017 And I just switched jobs to find a place that I enjoyed a bit more I was working before at booking.com and it was a little bit too big for me So I wanted to switch to a to a startup and five months later. I also left that job So the reason of that was a few days before I quit my job I was speaking at a different conference. It was one in Germany JavaScript conference And I was speaking there and a few of my colleagues came along and At one point during the second day of the conference. I heard that someone broke the code of conduct He was Told one of the female speakers there that with what she was wearing. She was asking for it I don't know what it was, but it's probably not something good Um So later I heard that that person was my boss There was something I did not expect from him because he was very Friendly and very talking about diversity and everything So when the crew of that conference tried to speak to him he became very angry and He told the crew that's then that's the next time the next year He would be on that stage and talk to them about what equality really means That's okay. Yes, it's supposed to be black. I just have my nose here and that's So I didn't speak to him at the conference anymore So all the all the things that I heard was from someone else But he did leave some messages on our our company's WhatsApp group because he didn't believe in slack So he just did what's up, but that's all the things that he said corroborated the story So a female colleague of mine decided to speak to him the Monday after but We actually already knew what we wanted to do. So we already wrote our letter of resignation But even after speaking to him the story only became worse and worse so To him equality meant that everybody should be exactly the same as him That you leave your beliefs and your religions outside of the of the office and be completely neutral Because that is what he believed that he was completely neutral so As a lot of people might have done in our situation is that we left that job And luckily we found something else pretty quickly And this isn't the first time that I left my job because of the atmosphere Or because my colleagues or because I didn't really feel part of the company I actually rarely left the job because I didn't like to work And I think that happens to a lot of people in tech even if they don't really realize it People are switching jobs constantly and they don't feel welcomed within the within their environment They feel excluded or maybe even worse are bullied or arrest But for me keep switching jobs I don't think it's gonna solve any problems and I want to try to make it better I want to try to make it awesome for everyone. So this is the talk of my the topic of my presentation So it's I cannot do anything more than that because otherwise the YouTube gods will block the talk So I'm a senior software engineer at confirm that means something completely different to me and it probably does for you because I am a front-end developer I'm also a designer sort of I've been doing development for about 12 years now and I've worked at a bunch of different companies and I've seen good and bad examples of Teamwork and inclusivity, but mostly a lot of bad examples and I decided to take these experiences that I have and see what I can do to Avoid falling into the same patterns And to find ways to improve it in the 1950s a journalist William H. White said the great enemy of communication We find is the illusion of it and what he meant by it is that people have tried to improve communication in the workforce and they tried to find a way to show that it has improved They documented whatever was said in meetings and they tried to make sure that everyone was in the loop of everything But he realized that that is just an illusion. It's sort of a paper-trill of fake improvements And he also said we have not talked enough. We have talked enough, but I've not actually listened and Especially if you haven't listened to those people that need understanding Our problems with listening to each other and our lack of compassion and our inability of understanding isn't just caused by lack of communication on the work floor I Study of by the Harvard Business Review show that many leaders assume that they are valuing Diversity there they assume that they are better at valuing diversity than they actually are they think that they think that they value diversity and inclusivity well a lot of them are solely Using diversity to get recognition themselves so to show the outside world how diverse they actually are So I'm saying the great enemy of inclusivity. We find is the illusion of it Because it's not that hard to count the percentage of women or people of color in your organization But just showing data about hiring and promoting diverse candidates. It doesn't make your company the most welcoming for the people there It's more about building a climate of trust and appreciation and also openness to differences in thought styles and backgrounds Now most of you here are probably not managers at big companies So you might think that you have little influence in the inclusivity of your company but You are part of the company and You can be a awesome co-worker who's welcoming and make sure that everyone feels included But before I start telling you how you can do that I want to take a little bit of a step back and see how the culture we have it now how it became that way because in the beginning of computer computer science men focused a lot on building hardware while women pioneered software and development and arguably one of the most famous software pioneers is Grace Hopper she Programmed in 1944 the mark one which was a super computer at Harvard's that helped design the atomic bombs So great hopper had an amazing ability to just take problems and turn those into mathematical equations and then turn that into machine language in 1945 the US Army created this computer. It was designed to calculate trajectories or the tractor Sorry, English is not my native language So some words a little bit hard for me. So it was designed to calculate trajectories of weapons used by soldiers on the field six women Created and programmed this computer Because those six women were already doing the same calculations manually. It was easier for them to program it as well But when this computer was introduced by the press there these women's were almost not photographed or even mentioned This was the only photo that was shown in the press with two women in and in it And they actually look here more like telephone operators and in 1960s the computer industry was growing and getting more lucrative and it was so lucrative that in 1967 the editor in chief of the Cosmopolitan decides to tell their readers about the healthy salary woman will get in this line of work and Alongside it had photos of and Richardson here who was a systems IBM IBM systems engineer She was wearing a sporty dress and pearly earrings and that way she wanted to tell everyone that it was a job any woman could do The article started the article starts out with telling the readers that a girl senior system Analysts gets twenty thousand dollars and up Now in today's money, that's about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year so if you compare that to a salary of a Female secretary in New York, which was back then a relatively high-paying job in a very high-paying city The average for that was about fifty two hundred a year. So you could make almost foreign times as much as being a programmer It also had a quote from Grace Hopper and she said it's just like planning dinner It is something that she said women are expert at because they have a patience and attention to detail Grace Hopper said women are naturals at computer programming Now the wages they were so extremely high because there were not enough programmers to fill these open jobs But at the same time the industry also started to shut women out so companies were desperate to find new programmers and recruiters began to Began working to find the skills and personality that was needed to become a good programmer and At the same time salaries went up and programing get was getting a better status In beginning was seen as a typist job But now it was becoming what they called a professional job Which was back then something masculine and companies were using the IBM attitude test That were the test was Designs to test for problem-solving skills But it was easy to cheat on that test People were sharing the questions and answers So they thought to start out with personality test something that was a little bit harder to cheat And there were two mill psychologists William Kennan and Dallas Perry who profiled about 1,400 programmers to make a vocational interest skill They believed that this could predict success in the field But only 187 of those were women which if you can if you think of it was really weird because the male-female ratio was almost 50-50 back then and Based on their studies they found that well good programmers are people that like solving puzzles that makes sense But they also shared one very specific trait Program is dislike activities involving close personal interaction now. You might think that's not something really focused on men but People be we're starting to get selected for being anti-social and not just for talent And that was the beginning of the now well-known stereotype of the seclusive developer But it did favor male programmers more than female programmers For example anti-social personality disorder favors men by a three-to-one ratio Autism in Asperger's was seen as high as seven times more in men But besides that women who have these characteristics are often seen as someone who doesn't like people All men are seen as a lone wolf, which is something to be admired So in this 2010 book the computer boys take over Alternated Esmerger Roads the industry was selected for anti-social mathematically inclined mills and therefore anti-social and mathematically inclined mills were over represented in the program population This in turn reinforce the popular perception that program is all to be anti-social and mathematically inclined and therefore mill And once this progress got underway every room related to computer science began to be filled with anti-social men So classes conferences labs and workplaces and then they became senior programmers They became bosses and they became teachers And in the 1980s when computers became normal to own at home It became a boy thing something to bond with a father and a son and The stereotypical nerd was so white widespread mid-80s movies like weird science revenge of the nerds and war games Romanticized the awkward geniuses who use a stack to win the affection affections of attractive women And even though popular media didn't create the stereotype. They definitely reinforced it and in the mid 90s There was a startup called trilogy. Has anyone ever heard of trilogy show hands. I see one in the back That's not a lot. Okay That's good. Then I have something to tell So trilogy was ran by a Stanford dropout called Joe Lehmond and After getting money from his investors for his software He had an idea how to hire new programmers and that is his idea is something that's still visible in today's hiring strategies So instead of hiring experienced programmers He would take talent that's over achieving students director directly out of graduation The ethos of the company was we're elite talent and its potential and talent not experience that has merit Basically, they were looking for what they said only the best and To get those students they passed out laptops in universities and Hosted extravagant dinners at top restaurants in San Francisco and most importantly the recruiters were mainly young good-looking women The reason for that is that Joe Lehmond had the idea To hire women that would never look twice at and geeky engineer But once a student was interested in working for trilogy they had to undergo a series of brain teasers and These kind of brain teasers might sound very familiar to you They would ask them questions like how many piano tuners are in the world's how many golf balls Since fit into a stumble a standard double-decker bus and how much would you charge to wash all windows in San Francisco's and These are this is a hiring strategy that was used by Google till 2013 and is still being used by a lot of companies right now But those questions they have nothing to do with being a good programmer. These questions are only for cultural fit Because the company was looking for people with extreme confidence people that would answer answer these questions without any actual expertise And the company culture was work hard play hard Holidays were called competitive advantage days because no one else was working and At the end of the week everybody was so tired. They were ready to party and that loose and Sometimes they would spontaneously hop on a plane to Vegas with Lehmond himself stay up all night and go to casinos and strip clubs He expected his employees to bet all our nothing sometimes even up to tens of thousands of dollars at the time and These insane working hours to drinking the gambling Vegas strip clubs, etc. and Felling potential over expertise made the culture very male dominated. It was completely hostile towards women Not really was one of the first among a long line of tech startups that required the simulating into a culture of masculine arrogance That many people especially women might not want to sign up for And in the past 20 years much has changed, but the broke alcher still exists Two years ago Susan Fowler shared her experience at uber. She detailed the sexism and harassment She had faced at the company where she was a site reliability engineer Her story where she told how managers and human resource department did little to rectify her issues showed how high performance high performers were protected when accused of harassment and other intolerable behavior Now Susan Fowler kind of brought uber to its knees and it ignited a 2017 me too campaign And many other women including women in upper management at big companies shared similar stories of harassment and sexism But it's not over yet. There's still a lot of work to be done to make sure that everyone is treated equally Now this story has focused a lot on women in tech, but it's not just the women It's also people of color the LGBTQIA community people with a disability and people in economic and social hardships Who are being marginalized and have to undergo a lot of harassment and discrimination? But What's the point of this when I'm saying talking about this my thing is is how can you help with that by? How by just being a better co-worker and Also, what does all of this have to do with Lego? Nothing, sorry A little bit Lego as everything like us to do without being creative But the Lego move itself is also a lot about teamwork and about how everybody is unique and If you let everybody be their unique selves and value each other and believe in yourself as well You can achieve great things Much more than when everybody just follows a set of rules and lives in routines and conformity and is equal And that is where the idea of this talk came from I wanted to take that idea and see how we can put it into practice to create a more inclusive and welcoming environment So this is actually the start of my talk that addresses all very long introduction. Sorry for that So a good way to start is to make everyone feel welcome and included So onboarding new people is mostly just a simple to-do list Just think about how you would onboard people at your company. I think it's a little bit of paperwork You probably have some sort of Excel sheet or something that says what you need to do it's As a new person you have to write write down some forms you have to do some handshaking Forgetting everyone's name. Maybe you're meeting with some manager that tells you about The mission and vision of the company which you probably don't even care about But what's being left out here is to make you feel like you're actually part of this company and That you as an individual feel welcomed But it's not just something that you should do with new hires Making people feel welcome and included is something that is ongoing But it does start out with new colleagues When a new hire joins your company or your team try to actively include them as much as possible Because not everybody is going to be comfortable with getting to know new people and It's hard for them to reach out themselves So think about your first day at the company you're currently working at and what you wish people did or told And I noted that when I started a new job, which is more often than I actually want to admit But looked at my LinkedIn profile and you notice I Would I would love to have an onboarding buddy Something someone that just helps me out the first few weeks with getting to know the new people for me That's least new Getting to know the company's culture and how everything works someone to Make introductions for me And to keep reminding me of everybody's name because I'm terrible with names That's why I love these name badges that all of you are wearing. I hope that everybody would do that in company But preferably would also be someone who knows the code, but that's not extremely important It should be someone who tells me things proactively like where to find certain documents and how and who to ask for the things that I need and Someone who introduces me to other people at the lunch area or something like that But if your company doesn't really have onboarding buddies or if they they don't want to do this You can still go to the new people and just Chats for a while could be about anything could be about themselves could be about how it's going just Try to ask what problems they currently have just and take an interest in their personal life It makes them feel part of the company instead of someone who just kind of invaded a tight group of people And when someone joins your team remember that your whole team dynamic changes just Think of it as forming an entire new team because everybody's going to be Communicating differently and working together just slightly different. So think of what would you do when you create a new team? And how you would handle that? So maybe have a lunch together and do a brainstorm about Priorities something like that and try to make sure that these new new people are Are feeling like an equal member so try to avoid any inside jokes or talk about new features in the products That you haven't explained to them first And don't assume that they will eventually learn Because that's just going to exclude them and they will probably leave sooner than actually they want to So for example if a meeting is coming up Where there's gonna be a lot of talk about things that happened in the past or things that is going to happen in the future Talk to them a little bit beforehand and explain what's going on Not just to make them feel welcome, but also that they can be as valuable For your company from from from the very first day So language is a tool that we try We used to try and create a common understanding It is powerful and it's essential for creating an environment where everybody feels welcome and included but it's sadly also used to leave people out to discriminate or marginalized and This has been done for so long It's becoming an unconscious habit and it's such a habit that people actually disagree that some terms are excluding people and to create a more inclusive environment we need to take a look at these words and these phrases that we use and Try to dig into empathy and imagine experience that is not our own There's some things I want to point out And some of those changes they might seem a little bit unnecessary or maybe even silly, but I hope you would have a open mind So first off whenever you talk about some this by the way very weird to me. I'm gonna talk about Language English language to a bunch of people who probably know English a lot more than I do. So if I'm wrong, please tell me So whenever you talk about someone try to make your sentences people first so instead of saying a blind man use a man who is blind This keeps the individual at the most essential element because if you say a blind man You focus on the disability first and you might unconsciously dehumanize them you probably see a man with Dark glasses and a walking stick But if you say a man who is blind you will think of the man first before focusing on the blind part It makes them a little bit more real. So it's very useful if you want to talk about accessibility or things like that Jargon abbreviations they can exclude people who might not have specialized knowledge of a particular subject and it's can Impede effective communication as a result. So try to use them Try to only use the ones that are widely used you can use things like SQL or PHP you're not gonna keep saying What's in for PHP hypertext process? It's gonna be an end-to-tooth anyway, so so if necessary explain what you what you mean, but So if it's like Abbreviation that only using your company try to explain what you mean and if you give a presentation where it's being used Try to add the full phrase of of it on the slides it first comes up And this is the one I have people sometimes walking out of my talk because they don't really agree with me But guys is not gender neutral This is something that has been discussed a lot and I'm if you don't agree with me That's fine, but people say that's using guys instead of something like people folk or everyone is very normal And yes, it is normal in the sense that a lot of people you are using it like that But using guys assumes that the normal default human being is a male and although he or men are said to be noob neutral There's numerous of study that show that boards like these cost people to specifically think of mills for example when you Talk about your user and you say he clicks on that button. You're gonna unconsciously picture a man clicking on that button Which could then impact how you will how you will design or write your code Or you're probably not your code, but you're how you're gonna design your application so Instead of he or she tried to use the user The user clicks the button But also just with normal conversation if you're if you're gonna do a presentation At your your job and you keep referring your user as guys then the women in your company might think Or the other other people as well They might think that you're just thinking of all your uses as men and Well and instead of guys you can also use people things like people folk everyone or I prefer y'all because it just sounds fun And I also hear people saying things like she's just a little bit OCD or Bipolar which is terrible. So terms like bipolar OCD and ADD There are real psychiatric disabilities that people and maybe some of your co-workers actually possess and This should not be used as metaphors for everyday behavior also Terms that stem from context of mental health like crazy or mad or schizo or psycho Try to avoid these as much as possible and all of these above also Counts when you're coding don't use the terms in your comments or in your commit messages or your PRs Don't use profanity that just makes you seem childish and Try to keep it as exclusive inclusive as possible. Just don't assume. That's just men are going to read your code So another way to be an awesome co-workers to by being humble and recognizing your own limitations and shortcomings and Being humble doesn't really mean to think less of yourself. It simply means to think of yourself less And by doing so you can help with making others feel more included For example knowing that you don't have all the answers right now might lead you to ask others for their input And this signals to your colleagues that you're open to other ideas and to their ideas So as I just said the first step of being humble is by accepting your own limitations and here's the hard truth You're not the best at everything. You're probably not the best at anything. I know that I'm not and Nearly everyone knows things that you don't and by accepting this you can learn from everyone You will become more empathetic and people will understand you better And if you're not afraid of making mistakes and be honest about them It also shows that the company doesn't have a culture where everyone has to be perfect and This will relieve stress in you and in your colleagues and it opens up a lot of conversations But to learn how this all work. We also need to listen to each other And when someone listens to you whether it's an idea you're sharing or a project challenge You're working on it feels supportive to have someone all in just witnessing what you're going through So how many times do you bring your laptop to a meeting? I think for me always I used to always do that Or maybe you're trying to tell Something in a meeting or giving a presentation and everybody's just looking at their phone, which is very frustrating The easiest solution for this is also of course you just do not bring your phone a laptop with you But that's not always possible But if you don't if you have to bring them with you but You don't really need all the notifications try to turn all the email notification and other channels off or just mute them and Be there for your co-workers because they have prepared a lot of effort into preparing this meeting so also look at people when they speak and Try to make notes because that's all my also Looks like you're more engaging and If you don't understand what someone in someone is saying don't think that you are dumb or that everybody will think you're dumb Just try to ask them to explain what was what's going on And also try to talk less and listen more so don't interrupt someone or make correction He's even if they're even if something is wrong So you can make correction if something is wrong and that's really important to make a correction But if it's just to show off how much you know no more just don't do that um And maybe try a little bit more to understand someone else's few points and be interested in what they have to say Yeah, so it also goes the other way around At meetings, there's also always one or two people that seem to dominate the conversations they take the longest and and Have an opinion about ideas about everything this person could even be you and these people are not bad people But it could be that they make other people seem more insignificant So in a recent study a question was asked to employees at a global bank is when you have a Contribution to make in a meeting how often are you able to do so and only 35% said that they felt they were able to make a Contribution when they had something to add and Those other 65 mostly consists of four group of people There are introverts people have an unconscious bias that someone who talks through information is smarter But introverted people they make the best contributions when they have some time to process and choose the words carefully So while extraverts are talking introverts remain quiet and this might be seen as Disengagement or lack of experience and that will lead introverts being demoralized. I Will also tell you a little bit about how you can avoid these things I'm either a remote worker at a company where no one else is remote I'm just constantly at home and it's very hard to make a contribution via a conference call If the connection is not perfect It takes some time to process what the other what the person on the other line is saying which can just lead to Not saying anything at all A lot of studies have shown that women are far more likely to be interrupted and Are taken less seriously. It is so common that our terms like men dropping and men's planning But I will not get into that for now And so these also show that they're often people of colors are often re-ignored during meetings They also need to work harder to be recognized and acknowledged than More often than white the white co-workers So if you're the facilitator of a meeting, there are some things that you can do to make sure that everyone is valued equally So before the meeting Share the purpose of the meeting the chat of presentations and any relevant data That way introverts can process some of the data before the meeting and they can ask additional questions during it And it's also useful to help your remote workers to follow along if you're working with video conferences Ask the remote participants to use a chat feature to let everyone know that they want to chime in Another way to include remote workers is to have everyone use video What we do at our company is that everyone you would just be with their headphones on and have the meeting on their own screens Which will help well at least for me help me feel more included because everybody has the same issues And try to set some ground rules things like no talk talking over each other and make sure that everyone keeps to it When someone Interrupts someone else say something like I'm actually interested in what they had to say so that people can actually talk a little bit more and Try to keep it central note subgroups or talking when someone else has as the floor and After the meeting send an email with a summary and the decisions and actions This will help remote workers that might have not have heard everything to due to bad connections But also do not forget about yourself because you are awesome too being humble doesn't mean you should be quiet You should but know your limit limitations, but also your strengths Because your opinions are unique and you are valid and you should not be afraid to let your voice be heard And it's very important to be aware of because if you do not recognize your own awesome and awesomeness It's hard to be a great co-worker So find people who believe in you and keep away the people who try to belittle your ambitions Encourage and support them and welcome their sport in return Spend more time with those who sharpen you and make you better and less time with those who drain your energy The truth is friends and colleagues who speak encouragement into your life are priceless And your opinions are valid and you should not be afraid to let your voice be heard I Stand up for what I believe in I think you should do too and Sometimes people don't agree with you which happens to me very often But if you have surrounded yourself with people that share your viewpoints and who encourage you and support you You will be less afraid to say what you believe because there are always people that will help you But mostly just be yourself Respect your co-workers and help them be themselves as well Because you're awesome and it's up to you to help make everything awesome as well And this is a very terrible cliche a little bit of kindness goes a long way But it's a cliche, but it's also the core of this whole talk If you want to have a more welcoming environment people have to be kind to each other And it will generate a ripple effect if you start being more inclusive and kind to your co-workers They will start doing the same to you and others as well