 I'm Daunte Barks here to talk to you about breaking down diversity in tech one company at a time. But first I want to tell you a little bit about myself. So what I've learned over the course of writing this talk is that what I enjoy doing is kind of painting myself into a bit of a corner. Because I don't know if any of you have spoken at conferences before, but the way that typically works is you submit your abstract, your description of what it is that you're going to say. And then later on is when you actually go figure out what it is that you're going to fill in the content later. So when I wrote this, I wrote the title first. And I was like, yeah, breaking down diversity in one company at a time. And I was like, yeah, that sounds good. And then I wrote like 100 words about, it's like, yes, I want to change everything. And it's like, my talk is going to change everything. And everything's going to be amazing. And we're all going to go out and change the world. And then they said, OK, you're in. And then I had to figure out what I was actually going to say. And that kind of changes things because you have to bring it back down to reality. It's like it's really easy to be life changing in your own imagination. So what I'm going to do today is I'm going to hopefully give you some tips about what you can do to take back to your own organizations and your own companies. So I'm not going to say it's going to be the most life changing thing in the world, but hopefully the framework is going to be useful to all of us. And this is going to be based on the experience that we've had at my company, Substantial. So at Substantial, we build apps. This is the longer description from a sales deck. And it's like, yeah, that's what we do. Short version is we do client services. We build apps. So we're 75 people. We're on Capitol Hill. We sponsor a lot of events. We sponsor ADA. There are a lot of ADA students here. It's like we sponsored this. So it's like we do a lot of things in the community. It's one of the things that we hold very dear. And my role there is I'm the VP of culture. So in general, I describe that as my job is to make people happy. It's to keep people at a place where they're comfortable, productive, and happy and that they want to work at Substantial instead of working somewhere else because they can. But one of the things that I will say about Substantial is that we're not perfect at all. Despite my best efforts and everyone else's best efforts, we've made mistakes at various points. And it's like in a recent-ish example, we had somebody who was working for us did not have the best experience. And one of the things that I told them when they left, because I didn't actually even know that they were having a lot of the issues that they were having, I was like, all right, well, here's what I can tell you. I can't change the experience that you did have, but I can change the experience that people later on are going to have. And so we started this program called Spectrum. I announced it at the beginning of this year at our annual company meeting. And the whole idea was what can Substantial do to promote diversity? And that extends in a few different ways. It's like, well, what can we do within ourselves to make sure that we're providing a safe environment for everyone that's working for the company? The next level is, well, what are the things that we can do to share that information out in the world? And then, overall, what are the other things that we can do to just support the overall work that people are doing to support diversity in the community at large? So you've got these three levels. And to me, I kind of regarded them as relatively simple goals, but clearly, they're not really. That's like, there's a lot to every single one of those areas. But as a place to get started, I was like, sure, we're going to do this. And much like painting myself in a corner with this talk, it's like, I announced it without really knowing what that meant. I was just like, well, here's what we're going to do. And I can fill in the details on how we're going to do it later. And so what I'm going to do today is basically tell you kind of the approach that we've been taking in terms of tackling diversity at substantial. I think this is going to be generalized enough to where this is going to apply to everyone. I've intentionally tried to make it so. But one of the things that I want to make sure that everyone gets out of this is that all of us have the ability to affect change in the organizations that we're at. And it's not necessarily about being in a position of power. It's like, yes, I have the luxury of being in a position of power, so I can stand up in front of the company and say, we're doing this. And then we do it. Not everyone has that ability. That doesn't mean you can't do something anyway. And so a lot of what this is going to be about is, how do you do something when you don't necessarily have the authority to do everything? So it's going to be eight steps. I'll go through it. I'll tell you a little bit more about how we've managed to do this. And over the course of that, hopefully we'll get through all of it and then give you some time to ask us some questions. So number one, first thing that you need to do, state your intention. For me, it was largely getting up in front of the company and saying, you want to know what we're going to do this year? We're going to do something about diversity. And for that context, I had about two to three minutes. It's all I needed. And at that point, it's real. I had hinted at this idea to some of the other executives. I didn't really tell them that this was going to happen. But once you've announced it in front of the company, guess what? It's going to happen. So you couldn't walk that back. But I stated at the time that it wasn't about doing something controversial. It wasn't about doing something to where there was never going to be a reason for anyone to say no. And so another thing that I want to stress as part of this is that it's not necessarily about making people do exactly what it is that you want them to do. As much as it's about bringing them on board, however you need to do that, in some ways it's going to be a bit of making friends and influencing people or Jedi mind tricks. But it's not meant to sound evil because that's not the point here. But there is some subtle psychology that you're going to have to apply here. But it's going to be OK. So first off, you're going to have to just state your goals. What is it that you're trying to do? And do that, that's going to get you started. And I said for us, it was the internal part about what can we do for ourselves, what can we do in the community, and how can we share this information. Next part, build a coalition. Chances are you can't do all of this yourself. It's like whatever the organization is that you're in, it's like you have your actual job that you're supposed to be doing. And this is going to be something that's relatively outside of that. Again, in my case, well, this is my job. But I have other things that I need to spend time on as well. And so one of the things that you're going to have to realize in building this coalition of people is that everyone has different motivations. And you're going to have to understand what those motivations are and then use those to your advantage. It's like you've got this greater goal in your head of I want to promote diversity within this company or this group. Now, for whatever reason, that's where you ended up. For someone else, if they're in the marketing department, they want really good stories to talk about. In the recruiting department, they just want to help recruiting. In the HR department, they want to help retention. All of those things play into this. Because as with most things about company culture, it affects every part of the company. So use that to your advantage. It's not necessarily about altruism always winning out as being the reason why people do things. That's not why people do things. Sometimes people do things because it affects their performance and if they want to look good. So figure out how you can make them look good by having them help you do the thing that you want to get done. And so that's how you build your team. In our case, by creating this spectrum group, we've got about 10 to 20 people that are regularly attending these meetings and work sessions to push these things along. Next up, you're going to have to listen. So one of the things I'm not going into here is specific topics like implicit bias or recruiting or parental policy, codes of conduct, messaging or accessibility. All of those things are perfectly valid topics. And I could talk about any one of those for this entire time. But at your specific organization, those might not be the things that are most important. So I'm not going to pretend that I know what's most important for your organization. And the chances are you as an individual don't know what the most important things are either. But you know what the most important thing is to you. So once you've got this group of people together, ask them what are the things that you should be talking about. In our case, we actually did a poll. And we had people, we listed all the things people were concerned about. We prioritized them. And we've been tackling them kind of one by one. And again, this is another case where you're going to have to show some empathy and understand that it's like, the thing that you may hold the most dear isn't necessarily what the group is going to hold most dear. It doesn't mean that you're not going to get to it, but you have to kind of take a long view. Because again, this is a very big topic. You're going to have to break it down. So the next one is where this gets a little interesting. It's going to get uncomfortable. In talking about diversity and talking about a lot of these things, it's going to get a little weird sometimes. In my case, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm black. It can be a little different trying to explain to a well-to-do straight white man why diversity is important, especially when you're working in tech and basically you're working in a room full of high achievers. And it's like, well, clearly we've all figured it out. It's like, yeah, but it's not necessarily about us for one. And it doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't work that we can and should do. And so that can be an uncomfortable set of conversations that you're going to have to have. Doesn't mean that you don't have them anyway. And then one of the other things to realize here is that just because it's uncomfortable doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. One of the early things that I had to talk through with our VP of operations who handles HR for us was, it's like, yeah, you're right. There are all of these kind of landmines that we just can't deal with. But I don't think that's a reason to not do this. It's like, yeah, we might say something wrong sometimes, but just own up to it when you do. And so a lot of it is just accepting that that discomfort is going to happen and then moving on. So once you've decided to work through your discomfort, now what? Well, chances are, again, the same way you had to get more people because you can't do it all yourself, it's like, don't try to tackle everything at once. Start small. In our particular structure, we meet, I'm going to say monthly, supposed to be twice a month, but scheduling things happen. But the overall idea is that we get together as a group, we meet, we talk about a topic, one session is going to be about what is the topic, what is it important, what are the things that we could and should do. The next session is actually a work session where you talk about how are we going to enact these things that we talked about in the first because, chances are, there are more people that you need to involve and all of that. So you can't tackle everything. You can't talk about, yes, you can have a conversation that spans, that runs the gamut from recruiting to retention to parental policy to disability insurance. It's like, you could, but are you really going to be able to wrap your hands around all of it at once? Probably not. So it's easier to just sort of break that down a bit. Rome wasn't built in a day, and diversity isn't going to get solved in a day either. Despite the fact that I just said start small, it doesn't mean that you don't want to think about the big picture. It's like, one of the things that people often forget is that some people think, oh, it's about diversity. It's like, well, that just means you're worried about recruiting and getting more people into the door. It's like, no, it's actually about once they're in the door, keeping them there as well. So you can't spend all of your time and attention focused on recruiting if you then bring people into a toxic environment. So you have to kind of think about the whole thing. Next area is making everybody a winner. So earlier, I said, brought about the idea of the coalition. The same way that you had to understand everyone's motivations to bring them on board, everyone is supposed to then be a winner. So as you're doing all of these things, like make sure that the marketing person has the story that they want to tell. Keep track of the recruiting wins that you're getting. Make sure that you are looking at how these things may potentially affect your sales or the performance of teams or whatever it is. But the point is that you're doing all of this work and there are these greater gains outside of just the feel good and the altruism aspects to it. So keep track of those and have those advocates understand that those wins are happening even if they're small ones, because that's what's going to keep them as advocates. It's gonna help you to allow this to grow over time. And then lastly, you're gonna have to be realistic. Again, the same way that you're not gonna be able to convince everyone to be part of your efforts is the same reason that you're not necessarily going to be able to tackle everything that you would want to tackle. It's like, that's okay. The point isn't necessarily that you're going to be able to tear down the entire mountain yourself. The point is that given everyone in this room, if we all go out and do something, we can help to make things better in general. It's like a rising tide lifts all ships. And then one of the things that also happens is, you know, especially in tech because it's as competitive as it is. If let's say substantial is doing something good and nerd is also doing something good and Amazon is doing something good, then the floor for how good you have to be is constantly getting lifted. So, and then you can start to focus on more things because you're trying to look better than everybody else. You know, it is a competition as much as it's not supposed to be. So use that to your advantage, but realize again that it's a long play, not necessarily something that's gonna be solved in a week or a month or a year. It's like, you're in this for the long haul, hopefully. And so think about it that way. For those of you that want it, here's the full list of everything that I just said. This will also be online on place in places. Um, so thank you. And if you want to give a touch, here's my info. I am a little over on my time. So if anyone has any other questions, feel free to find me. I will be around. Thank you.