Moving the needle on gender equity with David Smith and Brad Johnson

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Narrator
At a crossroads of uncertainty and opportunity. How do you navigate forward? This podcast focuses on making smart choices in a rapidly changing world. We investigate the challenges of being at a crossroads and finding opportunities that arise out of disruption. Listen in on future forward conversations with the brightest luminaries, movers and shakers. Let's navigate forward together and create what's next.

00;00;24;28 - 00;00;51;26
Lisa Thee
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Navigating Forward podcast. My name is Lisa Thee and I’ll be your host today. We love to bring you thought leaders, luminaries, movers and shakers to help you figure out how to navigate forward from here. And today is no exception. I have the honor of introducing Professor David Smith and Professor Brad Johnson, who are bestselling authors and professors in the areas of helping males be better allies to women in the workplace.

00;00;51;26 - 00;00;53;29
Lisa Thee
So, thank you so much for joining us today.

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Brad Johnson
Glad to be here with you, Lisa.

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David Smith
Yeah, great to be included. Thanks, Lisa.

00;00;59;11 - 00;01;13;23
Lisa Thee
Thank you so much. So, for somebody that doesn't know much about your area of expertise on why men would want to pursue being better allies to women in the workplace, can you give us an overview of what your perspective is and why people might want to learn about that?

00;01;14;20 - 00;01;51;03
David Smith
Yeah, sure. Maybe I'll kick off here Brad, and you can jump in there as well. We started this work over a decade ago when we were teaching together at the Naval Academy at the time. And one of the things that we saw, I think both from our personal experiences and as well as from our research, being a couple of research nerds, was that, you know, a lot of the gender inequities we find in the workplace, the biases, the discrimination that play out in so many ways that hold in this case, hold women back in more traditionally male dominated industries and professions out there.

00;01;51;22 - 00;02;17;12
David Smith
A lot of times the solutions to these, as you might expect, were programs designed to help women to succeed and to advance and to retain women and talent in the organization. So, women's leadership program, mentoring program, things like that. And, you know, interestingly, there were a lot of unintended consequences with that where we saw that often men would look at those and go, well, that's you know, that's a gender issue or that's a women's program.

00;02;17;12 - 00;02;35;23
David Smith
There's not a place for me there. There's not a role or a function for me. And so, they wouldn't, they wouldn't engage, and they wouldn't get involved with these programs. They didn't see a place for them there. We love to reframe these as leadership issues. And so back to why this is important for men, because we're, again, all leaders in our organizations out there.

00;02;35;23 - 00;03;00;07
David Smith
We have a responsibility to, again, to develop talent of all kinds in our organizations, not just 50% or certain percentage of the talent in our organization. And so, thinking about how we can engage more men and being more deliberate and purposeful in achieving the kind of success we're looking for, for everyone in the organization, let everybody thrive in and create that equitable organization.

00;03;00;07 - 00;03;20;24
David Smith
And so, a lot of the research that we did, you know, as to behavioral scientists, Brad, as a psychologist, me as a as a sociologist, have really gone into looking at the specific actions of behaviors that make a difference. And so, thinking about more of the best or better practices within an organization that people can employ today, things that are being used.

00;03;20;24 - 00;03;31;10
David Smith
And so that was a lot of the work where we started, and we started looking first at mentoring and sponsoring aspects and then more recently around the broader idea of allyship.

00;03;31;28 - 00;03;52;08
Brad Johnson
Yeah, and you know, so it was funny Lisa. When we got started on this journey together, here we are, two, you know, majority, maybe older white males thinking about gender equity and inclusion. We would share this with our female colleagues. Hey, we're really excited. We're doing this research. We might write a book, you know, relationship book about men and women in the workplace.

00;03;52;08 - 00;04;16;15
Brad Johnson
And they looked at us and kind of funny and said, hey, you realize you're two guys, right? And we really got that. And so to, you know, just assure everybody that we're not mansplaining what women need in the workplace. Our research methodology involves going out and interviewing women across industries and across professions and ask very behavioral questions.

00;04;16;15 - 00;04;36;15
Brad Johnson
You know, what does it look like to you when a male really shows up as an excellent ally or a mentor or a colleague? The way you would describe that. And what did you most appreciate? Can you give us illustrations and examples? And we want to make it very tactical and behavioral, and then we want to aggregate all of that data and essentially give it away to men.

00;04;36;15 - 00;04;49;02
Brad Johnson
You know, hey, gentlemen, this is how we can show up and be more effective, you know, improve our gender intelligence, but then also get really tactical about how we can be better allies to move the needle on equity.

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Lisa Thee
So, I think some of your insights, because I've had the luxury of seeing your keynote speeches before, are really eye opening in terms of the amount of bravery it takes for men to show up in the workplace as allies for women. Can you share a little bit about your perspective of what you've learned from your research about what are some more effective tools and techniques for people that want to see their colleagues all thrive in the environment?

00;05;16;26 - 00;05;37;12
Brad Johnson
Yeah, boy, there's so much I'll lead off with a few, and I know Dave will have some ideas. First of all, you mentioned the reluctance or the reticence, Lisa. And Dave and I certainly find that men stay on the sidelines often and don't engage. Dave mentioned that sometimes they see this is not a place for them, but there's other things, you know, there's genuine anxiety.

00;05;37;12 - 00;05;55;27
Brad Johnson
I don't want to say the wrong thing or mess up or step in it, as it were. If I'm trying to be maybe a mentor to a junior woman, I want to be careful. Maybe I'm worried about rumors and gossip. You know, all of that could be going on. And then when you get to the more public part of allyship, which can be much harder, right?

00;05;55;27 - 00;06;19;03
Brad Johnson
I have to make a real public commitment to this, maybe around the issue of disrupting other men, holding other men accountable for sexism or bias or whatever it may be. You're right. I think it does take a bit more courage there. And sometimes men fear things like the wimp penalty. You know, gosh, if I push back on other men, I'm going to lose my man card.

00;06;19;05 - 00;06;43;09
Brad Johnson
And I don't. That seems kind of risky for me. I'm concerned about it. So, I just don't disrupt. And bystander paralysis is a real issue, I think, especially when you have a lot of men together. And part of the irony here is that men assume that when some sexism occurs, maybe in a typical meeting, that other men are tolerant of that or they're okay with it and in fact, they're not.

00;06;43;09 - 00;07;03;28
Brad Johnson
The research shows a lot of men in the room are probably really uncomfortable. Nobody's saying anything, though, or disrupting. And we find that when one usually male, majority male will disrupt or say something or say, hey, we don't do that here, other men become unfrozen and they'll jump right in at that point. But, Dave, other thoughts?

00;07;03;28 - 00;07;22;02
David Smith
Yeah, I think one of the other prevalent things that we're dealing with today is there's a lot of this kind of zero sum thinking, right, around beliefs about how in some ways if women are advancing or any minoritized group is advancing and in our organizations out there that somehow we as men are losing or prone to lose something.

00;07;22;14 - 00;07;50;15
David Smith
And again, it's a fallacy, right? It's a faulty logic and understanding the fact that, you know, when we do this right, that there's more opportunity, there's more growth, there's more capacity for everyone in there. And so, it's not a fixed sized pie. It continues to grow and enlarge. And I think the other one that we don't often talk about are the benefits for men as leaders, as people, as partners and parents as well out there, that we get better.

00;07;50;22 - 00;08;13;11
David Smith
And so, becoming better allies and incorporating that into our, not just our personal brand, but our leadership brand as well of how we approach leadership in the organization. It makes us more effective and certainly we see that in a lot of the research today as we look at more senior leaders all the way up into the C-suite today, that you're more likely to advance to those levels today

00;08;13;11 - 00;08;49;07
David Smith
if you're a guy that if you incorporate some of these ideas around inclusive leadership into your brand and your style of leadership. Which means, again, having a little more humility, showing some vulnerability, being more authentic and staying away from a lot of the maybe your father's version or your grandfather's version of leadership from the 20th century. That was more command-and-control directive in nature, more about how you personally grew, but more about, you know, today it's more about how we are thinking about how our employees and other stakeholders for our organizations today are invested in doing this work.

00;08;49;20 - 00;09;11;22
Lisa Thee
Yeah, I love that perspective. When waters rise, all boats float, as they say. And so especially in these trying business climate times, it's so important to be able to incorporate all of the innovation available to your company because these are the moments where companies can really transform and become industry leaders and create a lot of opportunity for many more.

00;09;11;22 - 00;09;17;22
Lisa Thee
So why wouldn't you want half of your population contributing to the vision of what's possible? Right.

00;09;17;22 - 00;09;42;05
David Smith
Right. It's I mean, it's a true competitive advantage for organizations today. And I think seeing it that way, right, of doing this right in terms of making it sustainable and I think that's one of the challenges today in organizations is not paying lip service to this and not doing this in a kind of a performative way, but making real wholesale change that keeps us sustainable and creates that competitive advantage.

00;09;42;05 - 00;10;09;16
David Smith
And we see, you know, indicators of that already in some of the research where, you know, organizations that are making these changes and then talking about it internally to the organization, but also externally maybe through their website, their strategic communications they have, that investors are more likely to invest in those organizations. So corporate social responsibility and talking about your ESG strategy is important today because investors want to hear about what you're doing with that.

00;10;10;00 - 00;10;35;28
David Smith
And then, of course, more diverse talent if you're looking to hire more diverse talent. Of course, everybody is today that they're looking to see, hey, I see you have this great DEI message on your website. Wonderful. That's nice. Everybody's got one. What are you doing? And then how well are you doing at it? What's the progress? And again, being very vulnerable and authentic about how we're doing with that I think is important that that really shows up.

00;10;36;08 - 00;10;40;03
David Smith
I think with people from more diverse backgrounds.

00;10;40;03 - 00;11;06;00
Lisa Thee
Yeah, I think that you're spot on and we know from the research that more diverse boards, more diverse C-suites deliver better business value. I mean, at the end of the day, it's about making money. We're not all here to have hobbies. And so, this is a way to unlock potential and to accelerate your desirability with clients, your desirability with investors, your desirability with your employees.

00;11;06;07 - 00;11;37;29
Lisa Thee
People have choice in agency where they commit their talent to these days, and this allows you to thrive in that environment. So, with that said, I have a lot of empathy for male allies that maybe find themselves in an organization that is not as balanced as potentially it could be or should be. What recommendations do you have for someone who is in a leadership position today that recognizes that there are some systemic changes that need to happen but don't really know where to start in terms of making an impact?

00;11;38;09 - 00;12;05;01
Brad Johnson
Yeah, you know, we kind of think of this in three big categories and maybe I'll mention a couple, Dave, and you can take it from there. But I think I would begin with the with the clarity. Our senior leaders are really clear. Do they have their why are they comfortable telling their why about why diversity, equity and inclusion matter to them personally?

00;12;05;15 - 00;12;28;22
Brad Johnson
And then can they fold it elegantly into, as you said, Lisa, the business case for this? You know, all of those business outcomes that are on the table, all those opportunities if senior leaders aren’t not only agile but also convincing in delivering that kind of clarity message, I don't think the employees listen. I just don't think they take it seriously.

00;12;28;22 - 00;12;52;00
Brad Johnson
And if we're talking about things like male allyship or gender equity, they're not going to, they have so many things on their plate. This is not going to register unless I get senior, especially male, leaders really showing up with their why. The second piece, I think, is the transparency. And Dave was alluding to this, you know, are you authentic and are you showing people how you're doing?

00;12;52;12 - 00;13;15;01
Brad Johnson
Are you transparent about things like targets? You know, everyone shrinks back at the notion of quotas. I get it. But are you audacious with your targets? You know, you've already got this clear message about the why. So now what are you doing about it? What are your transparent targets? Does everyone in the organization understand that, how those targets are tied into the why and where we want to go from here?

00;13;15;14 - 00;13;23;29
Brad Johnson
And then are we measuring it? Are we actually showing how we're doing, as Dave said. And then there's the accountability piece, Dave, which is a tougher one.

00;13;24;10 - 00;13;58;23
David Smith
Yeah. And I think this is really important, though, as we think about creating change in the organization, that everybody has to be involved and bought into this. And this is hard work. It takes it takes time because we're talking about in this case, more, more cultural change. So, it's going to take a little bit of time and to do that and thinking about how do we hold people accountable at appropriate different levels of leadership, managerial levels in the organization and showing them that this is not just a priority for Human Resources or your Chief Diversity Officer, whoever is advising on these issues.

00;13;58;23 - 00;14;19;19
David Smith
But for now, these are core business outcomes. And as Brad said earlier, having that clarity around the messaging about why this is important to you as a senior leader in the organization and connecting it back into the core business outcomes that managers are responsible for. That's what's going to get the change we're looking for as they begin to say, okay, well, I'm responsible for it.

00;14;19;19 - 00;14;50;05
David Smith
I'm going to be held accountable. That might be through the performance reviews, it could be through different bonuses and incentivization that we see, incentive structures. There's a variety of different ways to incorporate that into the various levels of leadership so that everybody understands that they have something to do. But the transparency piece that Brad mentioned is important too, because again, I think there are different ways to do this and various teams and different business units within an organization and different practices that work that we need to share.

00;14;50;05 - 00;15;06;14
David Smith
We need to share those and how one part of the organization may be doing it very well. And we can look at that and say, okay, well, what are they doing differently? And then how do I apply that in a different context in a different business unit, right? What works for sales may not work for marketing, may not work for operations.

00;15;06;14 - 00;15;34;06
David Smith
And, you know, so we need to share and be transparent in how we're doing things and share those best practices. And the transparency and accountability kind of work hand in hand as we do that. One other thing I think that is often undervalued is back to just senior leaders spending some time not talking to people, but just listening and getting across the organization and collecting that data right from your people firsthand, as much as you can.

00;15;34;06 - 00;15;58;11
David Smith
But having that information about what are the things that you would like to see really change quickly, what are the things that are most important to you that would make it, make you feel more valued, make you a better performer in the organization, and see what's on people's minds. And again, listening, some listening sessions, focus groups, whatever. Find ways to really see what that is and start there.

00;15;58;11 - 00;16;06;19
David Smith
And then think about how can we begin to incorporate that into making that shift into a much more inclusive culture and then finding ways to keep it sustainable.

00;16;07;19 - 00;16;41;02
Lisa Thee
Yeah, I love that perspective because it's one thing to be seated at the table. It's another to have the opportunity to participate and engage in the conversation and start to actually have meaningful contributions. And that's what true inclusion looks like. It's not just hiring a certain number of folks but expecting them to conform to norms that will not let them shine with their authentic lens, which, by the way, probably reflects a lot of your customers’ perspectives when you're in product design, when you're in marketing, when you're in technology, your users are a broad base of people.

00;16;41;02 - 00;16;52;09
Lisa Thee
And so having that different perspective at the table where the decisions are made can really help you steer around some pretty sticky issues that companies sometimes find themselves in. It's a risk mitigation strategy, right?

00;16;52;28 - 00;16;54;22
David Smith
Absolutely.

00;16;54;22 - 00;17;09;29
Lisa Thee
So, you guys mentioned starting with your why. Do you mind sharing your own personal whys as to what motivated you to get involved in this work? You obviously are very accomplished people and I'm sure you have many different places you could focus. What was your why that called you to this?

00;17;10;19 - 00;17;29;16
David Smith
Yeah, I think for both of us it was so important. I think as we were doing the research for Good Guys, our latest book, one of the things that really stood out to us was that real allies kind of start with their why and really go from there, because I think people want to hear that. They want to hear why are you invested and committed to doing this work?

00;17;30;18 - 00;17;52;16
David Smith
Again, not that everybody is a skeptic, but again, I think people have been burned in different ways and want to hear that from others. And I think it's to majority men, we get asked more often than a lot of people about why we're so invested in doing this. But I think both of us found it to be so compelling that, you know, we actually in the book, we wrote this right up front in the forward.

00;17;52;16 - 00;18;10;27
David Smith
We thought it was so important that we include that why written and explicitly in the book so that people could read that our perspective on this, where we're coming from. It's really kind of an arc or a journey for both of us. But for me, a lot of it started with my wife, my partner. She’s a retired naval officer.

00;18;10;27 - 00;18;32;15
David Smith
We both had naval careers in our first careers, but early on we used to have a lot of conversations when we weren’t both deployed and we were at home and we'd have conversations about our experiences at work and how we were being treated differently and the experiences we had, the access to different resources and informations related to our careers and development as leaders.

00;18;33;06 - 00;18;52;08
David Smith
And for me, I would hear these things and one, it would just kind of piss me off. But two, I would then go, well, I wonder who else is experiencing this? How are they experiencing? So I look within my own organization, my own teams, and begin to look and see how they were experiencing these same ways and found a lot of connection.

00;18;52;14 - 00;19;10;09
David Smith
Right. So, there is a lot of overlap there and began to see more and more of that. And then of course my career I overlapped with a lot of the gender integration that happened in the military in the early years back in the eighties and nineties. And so there was lots of opportunity to kind of see it in action.

00;19;10;09 - 00;19;41;00
David Smith
How was a large-scale organization like the military handling this in so many different ways? And we got it right in a lot of ways and we got it wrong in a lot of ways. And I think one of the challenges we saw often was that great about putting rules in place, boundaries in many cases for the military, but not so good about talking about the relational aspects and how it was going to change the way we did work, the way we work together, and how we valued each other in that way, and the change that it was going to create within the organization.

00;19;41;00 - 00;19;52;08
David Smith
And it did. So, I think that for me that was just a huge eye opener and an impetus for when I got the opportunity as an academic to look at my research to begin to explore that.

00;19;52;12 - 00;19;53;06
Lisa Thee
Very interesting.

00;19;53;24 - 00;20;22;01
Brad Johnson
Yeah. And for me really, Lisa, is I think Dave and I have traveled some parallel paths. You know, I think for me it probably began with the more academic nerd side. I have spent my career totally immersed in the mentoring research. So, you know that that has been my area for almost 30 years. And I've always noticed the data showing that there are disparities in the kind of mentoring, the quality of mentoring, the frequency of mentoring that women and men get.

00;20;22;01 - 00;20;47;23
Brad Johnson
And women tend to be disadvantaged in those developmental relationships. And it's exacerbated with something like sponsoring. They get far less sponsoring than men do in most organizations. So that always I just found it really curious why men didn't engage. And then like Dave, I have somebody who's close to me. I've got one sibling and it's a sister and she is a very senior naval captain.

00;20;48;03 - 00;21;11;18
Brad Johnson
She spent her whole career in the Navy and is just amazing. Rock star, multiple combat deployments, aircraft carrier. She's done it all. And I started in the Navy, too. But I've listened to my sister over the years, and she experiences so many headwinds every day that I never did. And just one simple illustration that sounds very minor, but it takes a toll.

00;21;11;18 - 00;21;34;01
Brad Johnson
It's like death by a thousand cuts. Throughout her career, men have told her often she should smile more. I gotta just tell you Lisa, no one ever has told me that. And I don't think I smile more than my sister. And so, you know, I hear, I talk often to Shannon and just listen to the headwinds she encounters, and I shake my head.

00;21;34;01 - 00;21;58;29
Brad Johnson
And so, I think that's another piece of it. And then, of course, Dave and I both had the privilege of teaching at the Naval Academy, and I still do. And you cannot work around the young women going through the Naval Academy who are soon to be out in the fleet, leading Marines and sailors in combat as officers. You can't be around them and abide by gender stereotypes.

00;21;58;29 - 00;22;09;01
Brad Johnson
It just, it rankles. So, I think that's another part of it. I wish everyone in America could get a glimpse at the people that are in our service academies.

00;22;09;18 - 00;22;30;09
Lisa Thee
Yeah, I think my interest got piqued in those eighties and nineties years as well of watching my mother break into commercial banking in the eighties. And I remember being a child, being dragged along to a store to get her suits made when she graduated from her MBA program because they didn't sell them in the women's section, they had to be custom made.

00;22;30;22 - 00;23;04;04
Lisa Thee
And then as that progressed, I just remember my dad coming back from work and he was balancing his hobbies and his activities and his downtime. And I remember my mother coming back in the same way and just looking defeated. The emotion, the amount that it took to just kind of stay steady. Even though she was objectively thriving and objectively respected, there were so many headwinds that she encountered every day to just show up that it affected how much she had left for the family.

00;23;04;12 - 00;23;28;18
Lisa Thee
And so, I think that's what really piqued my interest and especially being a woman in tech. I never felt any headwinds early in my career. I didn't feel it to be a huge detriment. But what I did notice and what I wrote about my upcoming book was how that shifted when motherhood became a component in my career there was a very definitive moment where things shifted for me.

00;23;28;18 - 00;24;01;06
Lisa Thee
And I realized how naive perhaps some of us can be when you don’t get faced with it directly, about what the experiences are of people around you on your teams and how intentional you really do have to be to uncover some ways that you can create those moments that matter for inclusion. So, for folks that are listening to this, that maybe are sitting at a meal and somebody says something a little bit uncomfortable, or perhaps there's a presentation and someone gets interrupted, that's from a marginalized group.

00;24;01;06 - 00;24;12;26
Lisa Thee
What are your guys recommendations to have ready in your pocket? Because sometimes it's really hard to think in the moment when you recognize there's something a little off, but you have that intuition. What do you recommend for people at that time?

00;24;13;20 - 00;24;18;03
David Smith
Just throw rotten tomatoes at them.

00;24;18;03 - 00;24;42;09
Brad Johnson
You know, it's funny, often when we get to this point in a conversation with men, Lisa, about disrupting in real time and maybe disrupting other men, men have the erroneous notion sometimes that I have to go to DEFCON six and become all aggressive if I'm, and so much of our message is you don't have to do that.

00;24;42;09 - 00;25;06;21
Brad Johnson
There are so many really effective strategies. Dave and I have a lot that we like. We kind of think of these as own it statements don't attribute your discomfort to the minoritized person that that just happened to. Own it. You’ve got to own it yourself. So how about deliberately saying things like, hey, we don't do that here, or I didn't find that funny, or I have no idea what you were intending.

00;25;06;21 - 00;25;27;10
Brad Johnson
Was that supposed to be funny? Didn't land that way with me, or I don't appreciate the way you just demeaned my female colleagues. If I have to really address something egregious, those are some strategies. But there are some softer touch, more deft techniques, too. Like you mentioned the interruption, it's really an easy lift to just say, well, hold up there, buddy.

00;25;27;10 - 00;25;49;02
Brad Johnson
I really want to hear what Lisa was saying. I think she's really on to something. That's not, most people don't find that too aversive and it reminds everyone that she's got something important to say. Or if her idea gets stolen, which happens so often, women tell us, doesn't happen to me, but it happens to my female colleagues, bro.

00;25;49;02 - 00;26;14;11
Brad Johnson
Bro-propriation, right?. It's an easy intervention just to say, hey, you know, that's a great idea there, Charlie, but how is that any different than what Lisa said 15 minutes ago? I'm a little confused. You know, these are these are just techniques that remind everybody, they amplify her ideas, but they're not going to come across as too aggressive. And I think people are going to appreciate that.

00;26;14;11 - 00;26;17;26
Brad Johnson
But yeah. Dave, any other favorites for disruption?

00;26;18;00 - 00;26;40;12
David Smith
Yeah, I think, you know, just as a general rule, remembering that if we can just think about how would we want somebody to approach us, remember people generally have good intent. Maybe, maybe they didn't understand or didn't intend to offend or to hurt somebody or, you know, or cause any sort of disruption in that way. So start there with that in mind.

00;26;40;12 - 00;27;01;09
David Smith
And I think that that really kind of helps to guide the kinds of actions that, again, would be most effective. And I always like to remind people to think about what's the ultimate outcome you would like out of this? We're looking to change behavior or to maybe make somebody aware of something. And in some cases there. So what would help to do that most effectively?

00;27;01;09 - 00;27;19;05
David Smith
And remember that. The other one, I think that's important here too, is thinking about whether we're going to do this kind of publicly right there in the moment. If we're in a meeting, we're sitting there in a meeting, we're going to do something. A lot of great reasons to do it right there in public, because, again, with other people in there, they may be feeling the same thing.

00;27;19;09 - 00;27;36;25
David Smith
Brad quoted some of that research earlier that even most men probably feeling a little uncomfortable or offended in some way. But other people in the room probably feeling that same thing. And so, when we speak up again as an ally, speaking up in this case, that you're validating what they were feeling, we're like, oh, it wasn't just me.

00;27;36;25 - 00;28;00;15
David Smith
There's other people in the room who felt the same thing. You're also giving them the self-confidence to, again, you’re role-modeling self-confidence to speak up for the next time themselves and to do something. So, thinking about building a community of allies or a culture of allyship, that there's good reason to do this publicly. But again, some people have been through our leadership style or our coaching or how we've been socialized.

00;28;01;12 - 00;28;27;12
David Smith
We like to give this kind of feedback in in private, not public. And there are probably some good reasons to do that, too. Maybe it's somebody you have a great relationship with, you're close to, or maybe it's your boss and you don't feel comfortable doing this in public with everybody there. But if you have a relationship where you can pull them aside in private and have this conversation with them, I think that can be just as powerful and show them that, hey, I'm bringing this to you because I care.

00;28;27;12 - 00;28;44;16
David Smith
And you know, today when you said you said that, all the women rolled their eyes, well, here's why, and here's the impact it's having on the team. Here's what people are talking about. And I know you don't intend for that. That's not what you're trying to accomplish here. So, I'm bringing that in the spirit of care-frontation, not confrontation, because I care about you.

00;28;44;25 - 00;28;48;19
David Smith
I'm bringing this so you can become better. You can see a blind spot in your leadership.

00;28;49;16 - 00;29;15;13
Lisa Thee
Yeah, I love that approach of allowing people to save face in the places where maybe it's a true pure accident. I don't want to be held to a standard where I can't misspeak every once in a while and not just own it and apologize. I think we all want to live in a world where we can be authentic, and authenticity requires being vulnerable and taking risks, and that can't happen if you don't feel like there's space for you to make mistakes.

00;29;15;25 - 00;29;36;17
Lisa Thee
So, I think that's a really good point. Sometimes it's appropriate in the public setting to disrupt it, but sometimes, you know, you don't need to use a hammer for pushing in a thumbtack, right? We don't have to oversell it and overdo it. So as a parent of a son and a daughter, what are your thoughts about the trends going forward and the balance of leadership?

00;29;36;17 - 00;29;57;13
Lisa Thee
I see so much more information coming out about a higher ratio of women graduating from colleges and these top professions, and I would love to hear your thoughts on how do we support everyone to come up in the workforce. It feels like perhaps we're at a generational shift right now where the older generations had some bigger headwinds for women.

00;29;57;13 - 00;30;05;14
Lisa Thee
But perhaps as we advance forward, there might be some bigger headwinds for boys. And I would love to hear your perspective on that with your research.

00;30;06;03 - 00;30;31;14
David Smith
Yeah, boy, there's a lot there. And so, one of the places that Brad and I found in our own research and kind of a focal point for us moving forward today that we're taking a dive a little deeper into is this. We wrote a chapter in our book called Gender Equity Starts at Home. And the reason we do that is that you can't get all excited about being an ally at work, throwing your ally cape

00;30;31;14 - 00;30;51;27
David Smith
if you're not already doing this at home first, because it won't come off authentically, and if you're not doing it in all domains of your life, and home is a big part of that. And for those men out there who are, who have partners, who have who happen to be wives or women, they have children, so they have their father roles.

00;30;51;27 - 00;31;17;21
David Smith
And in here as well, that there's a big part of this that we have to show up as allies at home and recognizing that I think most men today understand the fact that if they didn't know it before the pandemic, certainly the pandemic opened a lot of people's eyes to the fact that women were doing at least two times as much of the domestic labor, including caregiving and home schooling during the pandemic, and up to 2 to 3 times that during the pandemic itself.

00;31;17;21 - 00;31;52;03
David Smith
So a lot of us got a front row seat looking at that and to see what was actually going on and understand what we're, in some cases what we were avoiding, and in some cases we were missing opportunities, too. Because the research is really clear here that, back to the kids for a second, as parents, that when we show up as men, as allies at home for our partners and they see it again, our kids see us role modeling, what that looks like and how we work together as a team, how we support each other's careers, we support each other personally in developing as well each other, but our kids see

00;31;52;03 - 00;32;09;05
David Smith
that and it makes a difference in terms of how their outcomes. And for our sons, as you mentioned, they have a more inclusive perspective of gender roles. And so, thinking about when they go into the workforce, they may look to combine work and family differently. And we certainly see indicators of that in a lot of the research today.

00;32;09;05 - 00;32;29;22
David Smith
And they have more egalitarian attitudes in terms about work and family when they go into the workplace. The other one, I think for our daughters, which is important too, is a little bit different, but in this case, when they see us as allies at home, they're more likely to persist in their careers. So, reach those career goals, enter into nontraditional professions in industry.

00;32;29;22 - 00;32;49;27
David Smith
So, tech, for example, more likely to go into tech if they see again, so you see their fathers enacting this with commitment at home and doing it very authentically. So, there's a lot in this as we think about how we do this at home. And certainly, we saw a lot of different aspects in our research maybe what Brad, tell you a little bit more about that.

00;32;50;19 - 00;33;16;03
Brad Johnson
Yeah, we have been involved in some brand-new research that actually just came out. PrismWork partnered with a Kellogg Foundation recently and did a massive survey of men across America, across industries and companies, men at all levels, and men who bring a lot of different kinds of diversity to the survey research. And I think the big takeaway from that is a lot of men are suffering right now.

00;33;16;06 - 00;33;38;24
Brad Johnson
A lot of men are struggling and especially mid-level to junior men, really struggling with how do I do this? You know, not only diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, I feel kind of lost with that. I don't know what it looks like. I'm not sure what the tactics are, what's expected of me. And I'm really struggling. And I and I'm by the way, I'm worried about losing

00;33;39;04 - 00;34;08;01
Brad Johnson
if minoritized people begin to advance, as Dave said, the zero sum. But then to Dave's point, back at home, a lot of junior men are really struggling with I, I don't want the traditional workplace and yet the workplace where I go every day expects that from me. They expect me to be on. They treat me like I have a stay at home wife and that may or may not be the case for most men.

00;34;08;05 - 00;34;30;19
Brad Johnson
For most men, actually we know today it's not the case, but that's how the workplace is approaching me. So, I can't even take parental leave. You know, when we have welcomed a new baby, it's frowned upon. I get shamed for doing it, even if it's available as a human resource benefit. So, men are struggling. They're, they're fed up.

00;34;30;19 - 00;34;52;08
Brad Johnson
They're getting exhausted and burned out, ironically, much like women have for decades past. So, I think we're entering this interesting phase where men are rejecting the traditional workplace and they want to be more engaged with their families and they want to have balance. We’ve just got to let them do that and create pathways for them to show up.

00;34;53;04 - 00;35;17;21
Lisa Thee
Yeah, I think that's a great perspective because what I find is people tend to cling on to more traditional ways when they feel fear, right? When like if you go up, I go down. And so, I wanted to open up the dialog for people that don't really wish anything poor on anyone else but maybe feel a bit exposed, especially in this era of layoffs and resets.

00;35;17;21 - 00;35;43;12
Lisa Thee
And new technology is disrupting with automation and the way that we do work. I wanted to be thoughtful about how we ask people to go above and beyond when it does feel like there's a lot of change happening around us broadly. But I do agree with your perspective. It seems to be that the newer generations have pretty fresh ideas about what does it mean to be in the workplace and how to contribute and how to create impact.

00;35;43;12 - 00;35;47;27
Lisa Thee
And that gives me a lot of hope. I don't know if that's what you guys are seeing as well.

00;35;48;11 - 00;36;11;21
Brad Johnson
I think so. If we can help senior leaders who are predominantly men, who predominantly grew up in a slightly different generation when it comes to this issue of work life, if we can help them shift, if we can help them increase some flexibility and embrace the kind of change that junior people are asking for.

00;36;11;29 - 00;36;23;03
David Smith
Now, in some ways, it's a complete business case. They need to understand it. There is something in it for them, not just as leaders, but to reap the benefits for their organization when they do this really well.

00;36;23;17 - 00;36;43;02
Lisa Thee
That is a perfect segue. I was just about to ask you for somebody who doesn't see why, who is not opposed to this, but doesn't see why it needs to be a line item that makes it over the line of things that get done in a day, right. I mean, I think we all have endless to-do lists these days and maybe we will get to ten things.

00;36;43;02 - 00;36;49;06
Lisa Thee
And why does this need to be in the top ten? Can you make the case for diversity and inclusion in the workplace?

00;36;50;12 - 00;37;18;06
David Smith
Yeah, absolutely. The business case, you know, has been made many times over about performance, and part of it is believing in it. And people are always asking to see the evidence and the data. And we continue to produce that data and evidence. But leaders still are skeptical, I think, about it. So again, I think continuing to show the evidence and to see how it is impacting the organization.

00;37;18;21 - 00;37;43;18
David Smith
And I think the accountability piece is important, too, because, again we're finding that investors, like I mentioned before, investors are making decisions based off of not just your policy, but more importantly about what you're doing and the impact. Because, again, people have choices, more choices today than ever about the different kinds of companies that they want to work with or work for.

00;37;44;03 - 00;38;05;29
David Smith
And so, when people, again, are being canceled or are being avoided because, you know, again, because of your practices or policies in this case, that's an external accountability, that that makes a big difference because it's hitting your wallet now. And again, at the end of day, businesses are supposed to be in business to make money.

00;38;06;07 - 00;38;14;19
David Smith
So, we need to be thinking about how do we do that very, again, we have a very ethically and we have a fiduciary responsibility to our stakeholders out there.

00;38;15;07 - 00;38;33;27
Lisa Thee
Yeah, I was just thinking that nobody wants to explain to the board why a major client walks away because they see absolutely no diversity in your leadership, or the investors are choosing to invest in the other company because they're not convinced you're going to have the most innovative ideas by having people that all have the same experience at the table.

00;38;35;00 - 00;38;36;23
Lisa Thee
Brad, is there anything you'd like to add to that?

00;38;37;26 - 00;38;47;14
Brad Johnson
No, I thought Dave nailed that. I think that's exactly it. You know, the recruiting, the business case, the fact that you are going to lose out eventually when it comes to talent.

00;38;48;01 - 00;39;15;20
Lisa Thee
Yeah, I think that's really critical. And I think we will see a time where even keeping people in corporations is a challenge because a lot of the innovative thinking is so facilitated in today's environment for people to go out on their own. It's critical that people recognize the change, that you have to be the place where people want to be because they're aligned with your mission, they're aligned with your why, and they want to help execute your vision, versus this is what you do when you graduate from college.

00;39;15;20 - 00;39;36;04
Lisa Thee
You go work for blah, blah, blah. Those days, there's a lot more choices these days than there used to be. So, for people that are interested in learning the research that you've referenced and are interested in getting some more tools under their belt for practical application, can you share with us a little bit about the two books that you wrote, the difference between them and where people can find them?

00;39;36;08 - 00;39;55;24
Brad Johnson
Certainly. They can find a lot of the stuff that Dave and I write frequently, for example, with Harvard Business Review on our web page, which is Workplace Allies dot com, you can find all our articles and podcasts and interviews and things that we're involved in, including this one shortly. But you can also find out more about our books.

00;39;55;24 - 00;40;20;16
Brad Johnson
And so, the two books might be differentiated, you know, just in terms of our writing journey. Athena Rising was our first book, and it was really, of course, kind of stage one of allyship, but it was really focused on developmental relationships, how men can lean in to mentoring, sponsoring, and why they should do that, why it really moves the needle when men do this boldly and without fear and anxiety.

00;40;20;16 - 00;40;43;02
Brad Johnson
And let's get right to the tactics for what women say they most appreciate in mentorships with men. And then we were out there doing a lot of talks on mentoring. And of course, MeToo comes along and that really changed the conversation. And so, Dave and I were getting pulled into much broader conversations about just, hey, how can we men show up more effectively in the workplace?

00;40;43;02 - 00;41;16;12
Brad Johnson
And that led us to really kind of retool and spend a couple of years researching allyship broadly. What does it look like across the interpersonal domain, the public and the systemic? What are the tactics that men can begin to demonstrate that women say again they really value, have been really high impact for them. So Good Guys is really the broader book that I think men can take and begin to employ immediately wherever they happen to be working just to show up as a better colleague every day.

00;41;17;01 - 00;41;49;29
Lisa Thee
Yeah, that that sounds wonderful and thank you for those resources that you're making available to everyone. I just want to end this conversation with a deep gratitude to you both. We met at a business event. It was very brief, but over the years you have demonstrated your allyship with action, consistent action, of making introductions, making suggestions for me, for keynote speeches with places like Anita Borg Organization and the Grace Hopper Conference or, you know, giving me guidance, even if my publisher is telling me to do something.

00;41;50;02 - 00;42;10;06
Lisa Thee
But hey, you might want to think about this, or here's what it looks like to have a submission to a publisher. This is roughly what you're talking about, to even get into new fields. I think you walk the walk, and you talk the talk, and that's incredibly refreshing. And your integrity is very inspiring to me and everyone that interacts with you.

00;42;10;06 - 00;42;14;12
Lisa Thee
So, I want to thank you so much for being here today with us to share your message.

00;42;15;01 - 00;42;22;04
Brad Johnson
Yeah, thank you, Lisa. That's very affirming. I really appreciate that. It does take a village. So, glad you're part of our village.

00;42;22;16 - 00;42;23;16
Lisa Thee
Thank you so much.

00;42;24;06 - 00;42;26;19
David Smith
That it's been fun to be on the journey with you, too.

00;42;26;27 - 00;42;42;25
Lisa Thee
Yeah, I always the first to be cheering you guys on the sidelines, and I feel the same in return. So, thank you for joining us today. I know that our listeners are going to be looking at things from a different perspective based on how you are showing up and how you're helping them show up differently. So, thank you so much.

00;42;44;02 - 00;42;55;02
Narrator
Hey everyone. Thanks for listening to the Navigating Forward podcast. We'd love to hear from you. At a crossroads of uncertainty and opportunity, how do you navigate forward? We'll see you next time.

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