 Quiz here, right? What is what is the common theme across these faces that you see on on the slide all of men? That's a good start Let's profile them a little bit. What else? What are the commonalities start-up founders? Yes, men start-up founders Thinkers Unicorns and not not everything is a unicorn yet Indians, yes. Wow. What else? Related to online Something more about people Actually, maybe just two or three Notice how we are Profiling in our head already, right? These guys are successful must be from IIT So let's summarize men young Indian start-up owners all All VC funded we should have put Bhavan Turakia here to make an exception. Indian who said that? That's a brilliant observation All of these guys if you notice where they come from Right pretty much everyone is a Baniya community You were about to say but you thought it might not be a nice term to use But that's the reality, right? All of these guys come from In India we call them Baniya community, which is a business community right, so So now I want to do a quick exercise. I want you to Go to the left of the room if you believe you can be one of those founders in the next five years I want you to get up and come to the left of the room all right and If if you believe that this is not something that you want to do or you don't you're not interested You don't stand a chance then let's come to the right of the room Left to the room and if you are in doubt Maybe then sit wherever you are Actually come to the middle. Let's get some energy, right? Let's let's move. It'll help us with some energy Get up everybody. Thank you to cooperate. Let's just quickly do this exercise In the middle is folks who are not sure in the on on this side Are folks who don't think or do not are not interested? All right, and then folks who are here believe that They would like to be or would see themselves on that in the next five years or ten years Doesn't matter five is enough five. Okay. We'll stick with five We'll stick with five is everyone done. I still see people making up their mind any second thoughts You want to reorganize any observations from the distribution that you see here age group Group is bigger. Yes, but again little deeper. What else one interesting observation is suddenly age group on this side Any other observations people who have some kind of loans or things better be on that side Testing level of profiling going on. Let's see here. What do you see here? Any any any special observations Yes Notice a lot of them over there have specs. So That must be the secret sauce waiting for funding. That's a very good observation Only three women here, but a lot more women in the other groups What about people in the center here? Why couldn't you make up your mind with the job? So in transition want to be here, but If it was ten years, maybe you would put yourself over there. That's cool. Thank you Please take a seat and we want to make a point about this exercise Let's look at one other example before we jump into a little bit more Theory theory or science behind Some of the thinking process that goes on okay, so here is again a profile of a sports person and You're going to look at some of the achievements of this person mind-blowing achievements Who could this be? Thank you, Vishal. So yes, so this was a much better example to get the point across So you were all part of this experiment today, right? So Federer and Serena Williams, for example, right same age 36 year old this year, right? And Federer got his 20th, right 20th Grand Slam, but Serena already had crossed 20. She had 23 So what was playing in everybody's mind when you categorically said that it has to be Federer? But you had this big context set of women's day still you all said Federer, why? Is there something that you particularly associated or expected to happen here? any thoughts on that is Sportsmanship achievements Is that something that you assume some people to do more than the others? I want to hear from you guys something like sports is generally associated with men and Immediately comes to mind So you responded first and then you are rationalizing your response. I'm using Linda's workshop details here So you already did something in your mind very quickly maybe subconsciously and you answered and now that you have to explain your answer You're using some logic, right? But what is probably going on in your mind or went on in your mind is this notion of cognitive schemas Okay, so what is a cognitive schema? We are going to get a little bit technical here So please bear with me for a couple of minutes. Okay, so a schema is some construct that you've formed in your mind Right, so what you're taking into consideration is attributes Characteristics and it's getting processed and converted into Expectations perceptions behaviors, right and attitudes most importantly the attitudes, right? now What are some more examples of these schemas that you guys can think of I have some examples here about generation X or myths about gay or LGBT population so Can you guys take a minute? And you know think about what are schemas that you already might be subconsciously operating by Just one minute exercise, let's do it quickly Very hard because some of these are there Just have to dig them out. So we've given three examples of you know Kind of things that we operate in our head And what we want is to think about one of those examples like those three and then share the person next to you Not these three like something else that you operate on like why in a lot of Indian ads for example when you see if it's an ad about Something household So any interesting insights there do you who would like to summarize what was discussed? Yes, fine. Can you not be a backbencher and come here all enterprises are very slow in their laggards in agile adoption and Startups are very quick I have the bias that all the ad industry that is there in general They look up to woman as an object rather than treating them as human beings as recently one of the example that I could See when is the swiggy ad? There are three ads that come Generally, I don't watch TV and I come from work. So I was watching the swiggy ad the one ad is There's a thardar Singh a guy who is waiting all the friends are watching your match And then there's a delivery happening. That's one man Then there's another ad where parents are out of turn out of town And there's the only girl alone and she just you know pulls over her shirt like this. So she's only home alone So what's the message that swiggy is trying to deliver? You know when the boys they're showing the boys as a group of boys watching a match Whereas there's a message very clearly saying that our parents are out of town and girl is alone So this is an industry when you look at the way the Portrait woman typically whenever I see an ad it means okay. I don't buy such products Even look at them That that's a good example. What we are trying to get to here Although is what is happening inside us, right? So we need to dig a little deeper into how is our decision-making or behavior or Thoughts in our mind when we are across in a situation. What is going on in our mind? At most personal level Okay, and why why are we even talking about this right any guesses? It's women's day narration introduced inclusion and why are we talking about this? Again, I'm gonna go back to the talks that I have attended in the conference Linda is here. Yeah, so our behavior is controlled by our biases. That's what I learned from her session I also picked up a line from Alan Cooper's presentation. He said Softwares are easy to change but minds are not right and on this day We want to broaden our perspective. We don't want to do anything ceremonial, but we want Our agile teams to succeed with the true feeling of inclusion and victory What I mean by that if I'm not bringing myself Whole self to work or I'm not being myself at work. It is going to affect Have an effect on the way I'm working and the quality of software. I'm Getting out of the door at the end of the day. So that's the reason we are talking about There are lots of things that the governments can do and the organizations can do But what is it that you are willing to do as an individual who is part of a team a group of people? So go down to that level think of what's going on in your mind. Have you come across a situation? Let's again take an example quick comments on all these three images. What do you see? Anything unusual and be honest now. We have said the context. So don't try to be a good boy or a good girl Anything unusual? Yeah, so when you don't expect a man to take care of a baby then If you were to see something like that, you know, how would you respond to that? What is the thought that is going on in your mind any examples anything that rings a bell here? He is neither happy Happy taking care of kid or actually doing the work Why why you think he's not happy taking care of the kid by looking into into his face By looking into his face. It's very evident So he's not happy at all. So it's is it something that men don't enjoy doing or not made or cut out for? I'm a man and I enjoy it. Yeah, the image. Yeah, okay from this picture. It doesn't look like so what could be the reason for that? You could be looking at crappy code for example Yeah, or an escalation email Could be a social media also Okay, so we are gonna again try to explain some of these things Maybe give a give you a model to kind of map some of the things even more if possible, right? So going back to the theory of social categorization again I won't I won't talk this language for more than a minute. I promise so What is what really happens is we have this notion of groups and we want to be associated and Recognize as being a part of a group, right? So I belong to a particular group called X The group has some characteristics has some clear attributes ABC So I as a member of that group is always gonna believe because I'm a part of that group I'm gonna inherit and internalize all the qualities of that group Right and that is what is gonna I'm gonna get programmed to do things that way. So that's what this Set of boxes on the down corner here are showing us as against the left side again So if some person belongs to Group X right and the group X has these characteristics. I'm gonna assume that oh for example, okay? No offense here. Just using examples, right? If Somebody belongs to Delhi, right? I'm gonna say oh all dailyites are loud. They love to have fun Right, so maybe this guy calls in that category too. Doesn't that happen subconsciously in our minds? always right so We want you to go down to that that level that depth and think about it any situation any experience that you Willingly or unwillingly brought to work, right? And maybe there was something that you did or some thought that crossed your mind and you think Maybe I shouldn't have done it that way. Maybe it is a completely Subconscious thing that you didn't even realize in that moment Is there something that you want to You know think about a minute to take these thoughts do come naturally Humans as humans. We are judgmental to different degrees The first thing to ask ourselves is it really wrong to be judgment Camera man, why are you asking questions because camera man also thinks a little bit Just trying to demonstrate something We've had this experience at this very conference a few times then when someone who's who's a volunteer Manning the camera started asking a question and people are like a camera man Why camera man's cannot be technical I was just trying to demonstrate something Go ahead The first question to ask ourselves is is it really wrong? Fundamentally, I mean if if that is a natural thought that has come Why should I really be having a guilt for having that thought that's something to be Looked at will come to that. We just give two minutes. I'll make a point and answer your question Okay, so us and them who's not familiar with this right again lots of examples a Wise friend helped me come up with this example employees and consultants, right? Yeah Maybe nourish has a lot of experience In defining attributes of employees and consultants Do you guys have in your mind when you look when you come to know that someone is an employee versus someone is a consultant Certainly, do you see a switch in your head go off and you treat people likely differently as it ever happened? All the sees are like that. Yeah, we can always find something to blame For sure. I at least as in my career. I've seen that distinct You know moments when people switch when they come to know that oh, you're not an employee Then suddenly what you're saying either will make sense or completely not make sense But you know, there's a switch the moment people realize something So there's this inherent profiling that has already happened They've kind of built a schema in their head and you kind of fit into a particular schema So it's it's a it's now a different experience or different feeling There's also a feeling of jealousy towards consultants That's unfortunately there that guy owns more than me Yeah, yeah, so again that goes back to the previous example of we think consultants have Attribute a B and C and then if you see someone demonstrating a B and C then that must be a consultant, right? A lot of times I have gone to companies and I'm usually in my uniform of shorts And people come down and they you know, they're looking for me And then they just walk away because they don't see me at all right this guy is a consultant cannot be in shorts Right, they expect someone in a blazer. They expect someone to be very tight shave green, right? And I don't fit the profile. So they just go back and they said we look for you, but you were not there Happens real-world examples So again, we are not specifically talking about inclusion in general and the kind of processes that we go to Okay, so now this is where we are going to try to tie everything together Vishal So we introduce the concept of cognitive schemas. There is some model in your head, right? And there is also a model of social categorization, right? When things shift from my personal opinions to my social expression of that opinion What happens is what we are going to try to explain now, right? So personal identity is important social identity gives us some meaning purpose and probably answers the question Who am I what are the things that I the values that I'm supposed to live by the beliefs that I'm supposed to inherit So social identity is extremely important, right? but But what happens when you have a very very strong? identification or investment in a social identity is you start marking territories, right? the boundaries, right? so Socially what goes on is there is a feeling of in-group membership to the group and being away from group I cannot identify with that group, right and as a natural extension of this, right? So the in-group members enjoy a higher status of power right safety dominance authority prestige, right? There is a sense of superiority and the group on the other side Obviously feels I am I do not belong to that powerful group. I don't belong to that dominant dominated group Hence I do not feel safe. I do not feel I feel powerless. Basically, I don't feel I have a say here, right? So that is what happens, right? So we shall to answer your question It's not wrong to feel that way But how do you express that feeling when you are in a group? That is what we are talking about essentially, right? And the impact it has because of that, right? So it may not be wrong because it intuitively kicks in but how you express it and how what impact it would have reaction to that is important. So we had some videos playing on outside I don't know if you guys had the time to go through some of the slides there. So we It was I agree I Saw all the people having their backs at the screen and Blocking it or not interested. So yes, we take that as a feedback indirect feedback and we will work on that Okay, so the because there were no other screens there Yeah, there were a few more That was a little bit more successful than the one here But I still think if we see a quick show of hands, how many people watch the whole thing All thing was 10 to 12 minutes. So thank you if you watch the whole thing again not trying to blame anyone It's just we are saying it's a feedback for us that this experiment was tried where we thought instead of bringing all of that here. Let's let it be kind of self-consumable Realize Yeah, so I'm going to take a couple of examples from the slides which were put outside and At the end of this these two minutes. I am going to make you guys talk and share your experiences I think I'm talking too much. So There was an Okay, so there is a there is an oncologist friend of mine He is an LGBT activist. He has shared his experience about this that He was not he's still not married. Obviously we live in India So people used to ask him all the time at work that you're 40 not married yet What's wrong? Anything wrong with you? When are you gonna get married? You know kuch tal raya kya, you know all kinds of things I'd like to draw your attention to obviously we live in India That is a bias there. Okay. So first thing first thing when I personally started researching this subject I found that gender sensitization all the issues that we talk about Discrimination inclusion these are global phenomenon the degree of things might be Changing depending on the geography, but this is a global phenomenon. So we that's one thing that you know We don't have to feel bad about that. We have it only because we live here That's again a bias. Yeah, you probably would give some space to the person So anyway, so that's one that kind of was tearing the person apart and the person could not bring his whole self to work And when he came out he felt that he could contribute much more positively to work. That is another Slide there. There is a blind girl who lives in Bangalore. She turned blind eight years back, right and The kind of things that she used to experience at work that some people are pointing to Objects probably which she can't see she felt left out of conversations all the time, right? And these are still examples of something very very obvious. We are talking about different diversity categories But there is a lot going on in our mind at such a subtle level that we don't even realize it, right? So there is there are certain examples here one more one more story there of Jim Turley who's Who was a CEO in Ernst and young so he was holding a meeting to take some strategic decisions And they had a good ratio of women and men on their team and he always wants to seek a bind from his Team right so there the there were three women in his team who were trying to make a point Right, they repetitively said something and he did not respond to that There was a man who said something same observation completely in line with what these three ladies said and then he said Jim, I think you're right. So but he was nice to admit it accept it and reflect on it, right? It was nice of him to have realized that so when these three women Approached him and said that we know you didn't mean it, but this is how we perceived it That's when it clicked to him that you know it was his inherent bias playing in his mind tricking in his mind and that's why he was behaving in that manner, right? So now that we have covered so many examples I'm very sure that you all can come up with one personal experience Please share it with your neighbor and you're most more than welcome to come and share it with everybody here Just to give a context. I am I'm an Air Force veteran Thus you would know that in Air Force or in military as a general women are women, right? So there was a big mindset where they said the fighting force can out be all clean But we have changed over a period of time that women are getting into military forces But one area one there was one area especially in Air Force Where they would never So they think that a woman cannot be a fighter So for 50 years probably they have been always And in 2015 we had first Three women who got into fighter pilot and it's it's very appropriate to say that couple of weeks ago Avani Chaudhary flying officer Avani Chaudhary made her Chaturvedi made a Tibet solo fighter pilot Flight just couple of weeks ago And I think I'm very proud of the fact that They went for it and she proved that it was done Yeah She did that and she flew a big 21 bison solo, which means nobody was there with her So she just proved that we wasted 50 years wasted 50 years That's a great story We are looking for again some personal experiences. We want to get into your head Logically All right, so let's take two quick minutes right think about a personal example Right and see if you've been in a situation either on the receiving side or on the giving side where you've experienced something like this And spirit of inclusion if you do not want to participate you're free to sit by yourself right, okay Any good examples, I think there are two people who want to share something go ahead, please At work probably one of the things that I thought about is It's mostly about the racism if we are Suggesting something Some idea sometimes most of the time that is not accepted The same thing So what what exactly happens when you are at a receiving end of something like this How does it change your thoughts and what kind of baggage do you carry? with an event like this Normally I Probably try to So it could be anything In a positive spirit Exact same point but if it is told by Available on the internet that gets a more priority rather than So Raji's question was when this happened what was your state of the mind after it happened like Does it encourage you to do it again? Definitely not So what is your state of mind? State of mind Definitely it is discourages at the same time I live in the same So I This would do Thank you, all right. Thanks for sharing that My general observation has been that the loudest person in the room always gets the authoritative attention and Yeah, I'm not very loud day and it usually takes some time to you know warm up my voice and you know put some power into it Right, so until then I'm not heard and then like really like hey listen to me and then it Again to answer that perspective, which is what do you do when you are in that situation? Like it tends to be like, you know, you have to fake that even if you are not In my situation when I'm not really loud I realize I need to make comments and then put some power into the voice and then people Like we are a products company we go to college campuses to hire when we do recruit Typically HR team comes along and we would have selected so we had gone to a campus in Bangalore We recruited close to 21 people so the target was okay short list of 15 So when we had 15 and give it to the HR the count was like more like 12 boys and three girls Okay, then the HR came back and told to all the panelists. Okay, this is not fair We would need eight guys and seven girls So we said no, how do you want to do it? We have selected 21 and it's up to you to choose So we were feeling very bad even though there was a mixed panel of both boys and girls as well So it was more of HR policy because they were very sensitive about Gender inclusion in the company and wanted to you know increase the percentage to have a right balance of men and women in the company and We did not really appreciate each of the panel member, but HR was very rigid about it. They said you will only realize it after a few years and So we just had to accept it so we had eight boys and seven girls join the company we had 15 of them and You know the after three or four years they worked along with us And we could really steal what HR meant then we could only understand after three years And then we realized oh they had a purpose and it could clearly mean how a work Especially an organizational routine when there's a fine balance of men and women in it It functions all together very differently Compared to only a men's team or only women's team that we could really relate Not many people can accept or you know talk about such things. So thank you for doing that. I had a similar kind of a baggage and that I inherited from my my ex-boss and He made a statement Women are there in the team when they won't probably perform and they won't stretch or something like that I let go that particular baggage Probably some three four years ago Another baggage that we had having the Muslim community people within the team I'm happy to say that 17 6 Sorry So what I gathered from these two examples was Yes, maybe your initial reaction was governed by your bias or assumptions and nobody likes quotas and mandates, right? But what I also sense that maybe it was not explained to you So even there I see a missed opportunity for inclusion, right? So maybe the things could have been explained to you in a better way there could have been Better DNI practices and it could have been a journey of the whole team or company instead of HR versus employees So I see a missed opportunity there Okay, so five to ten minutes more guys So now this is gonna be a little interesting We tried to take our biases to within our mind. What is going on in our psyche now? We want to trace it back to where did it all start, right? Two objectives here that Have we again made something part of our personality because we were taught that way in our school or at home, right? So here this is actually an exercise Unfortunately from my school my son's school That he got an assignment and I was wild But yes So you're asking them to choose and you're obviously enforcing a stereotype there, right? Again an extreme example Everybody has heard about this story. I'm sure so Jesse penny had released a t-shirt, right? I'm too pretty to do my homework. I'll have my brother do it Okay, and a kid is wearing that t-shirt Can you imagine the kind of message that is getting delivered here, right? Okay, we are gonna skip the Videos but again take it back to your upbringing to your environment You know the way you were brought up and honestly How do you feel about the messages that you received as a child today as an adult? Any thoughts there So what are the things that you approve of today and what you think should have been done differently in your home in your school That mothers when talking to their kids will use numbers more when talking to boy children and to women And so a lot of the differences that we think might be an eight mothers are instilling this from a very early age And I think what what if what if I had had that, you know, maybe it would have affected perhaps a lot in my life And I don't think mothers realize they're doing it So excellent point there it again reinforces that believe that you know Girl child not good at maths science technology, and we don't even realize from where we pick that up, right? So it plays on your mind for a long long time You will relate to it more because all of us have grown reading fairy tales once upon a time the prince will come and take the princess away but off late recently I saw a book which was more of Rebel girls bedtime story or something it's more about the ladies who have actually made a mark And I have been recommending it to many people who have girls in point 4 to read the book instead of fairy tales because that really gives a Different impression The choice of gifts that we choose for birthdays is very much feminine or masculine depending on who we are doing Instead of their interest what they're interested in so maybe that's one more choice Which people should look into that this dolls are not just for girls. It can be for boys as well and That's where we have to make that conscious choice to raise our kids according and that's what we have been doing With my nephews, these is and even the kids around me That's what I have been doing and that's where we have to look into it That's a brilliant point in fact on the fact that you should gift You should have boys You should have boys read rebel girls Right, that's that's the brilliant part. I think you know because we a lot of parents I know give the rebel girls to girls And you actually got us to the next point which was going to be the concluding point here that what is that? One thing that we can do what is that one thing small little step again? Linda's words first step right a little small step towards a change So she already explained that to us, but just one thought here So we we made it clear. This is about inclusion talked about LGBT talked about disability But why do we see so many examples coming from gender and women? It's not about women's day. So why do we see that? that's Yes, but correct, but why why why the why this men women? gender thing Why do we have so many common experiences that people share around this? Inequality, right? Okay, so just one piece of statistics that I'm going to share here so a lot of diversity categories are considered to be a Battle between minority and majority right because there are very few LGBT Community people very few people with disability not really in numbers, but yes in percentages So women this is one category, which is not a minority, but still we talk about discrimination against women And why do these examples come so fresh to our minds because we have interactions with opposite sex in every walk of life At home at school at work So these experiences are more prevalent because this is not a minority category present everywhere, right? That's one difference that if you may notice