Thank you for your interest in being a participant in this article. This is clearly a topic which has meaning to you. Please share a bit about your background with emphasis on how and why you became interested in a career in a STEM focused field. Also share some of the insight you have gained working in a STEM field as it related to underrepresented groups such as young women.
I was in college when “micro” PCs were first released. Apple and IBM had both just started to release direct to consumer PCs and they were offering great discounts to students. During my college years I was able to use IBM, Apple and Radio Shack PCs and I fell in love with all of it. I went to work for my friend’s dad’s software company right out of college and I’ve never looked back. While there are issues with working in technology, it has been the most interesting, exciting and dynamic place to build a career. And I’ve always felt valued and on equal footing to everyone else.
“Go Science Girls” quotes the following statistics, “…in the United States, women make up only ¼ of the entire STEM workforce. Contrarily, women dominate men when it comes to a STEM degree. Further statistics show that women constitute 15% of the engineering force and 25% of the computer and mathematical sciences. In Australia, women made up 27% of the STEM workforce in 2016. There are various reasons for such a meager constitution of women in STEM. The prime reason is the lack of practical experiences. Women have been quoted saying that they love STEM activities, but the lack of practical exercises discouraged them from building a career in the field.”
These are not new facts and figures but rather ones that have been heard time and again. What do you feel can be done to decrease the implication that women are not well suited to these careers while increasing the number of young women pursuing a career in these fields? (Editorial note – this is a very broad question. I encourage you to respond as your own experience & life choices/lessons dictates.)
This is such a great topic because it gets at the heart of what makes people want to work for a company, a manager and a leader. It’s critical to value diversity – which is so trite I can’t believe I’m saying it. Don’t define diversity as gender, skin color, or nationality, but define diversity as the core skills, IQ, EQ, and personality that comprise an individual. And then we have to go a step further and realize that teams with diversity (meaning people who think differently and perform different roles) are better. They’re better for the company, better for the product and service and better for the individual. When we value people for their uniqueness, not only do we get diversity, but we also get people who are much more likely to be happy in their jobs because they are valued for who they are and what they bring to the job. I’ve worked in technology for 35 (!) years and the reason that I love the industry is because my management and the companies I’ve worked for have valued me. It’s that simple. I quit Microsoft when I realized I was no longer valued. I was never loyal to Microsoft, but I was very loyal to the people I worked with – and once that went away – so did I. I’m not unique. That’s the core value prop for nearly everyone.
Since women make up half the population, it’s crazy to even think it’s ok to build ANY product without significant representation. I don’t even think that’s up for debate; the problem is hiring and retaining women. And, if you treat women like crap, because they’re often heavily recruited, you will lose them.
Many of us have worked for companies that require, value, and reward critical thinking, problem solving and collaborations. These skills, along with other skills, are key elements to all aspects of living and is especially required in areas such as technology, science, medicine to name a few areas. What are the positive ways to engage underrepresented groups in acquiring these skills?
When I was a kid my mom signed me up for a nerdy science club – this was back in the late 60’s – and I was too young to know that it wasn’t a girls’ thing. Being part of that club and learning about radios and transistors and science set me up to love all of that stuff. For this generation of kids, we need to expose them to programming and robotics. FIRST is a great program and I wish every kid in the world could be part of it. Not only does it teach kids about robotics and STEM, but it also builds teamwork and leadership skills. We keep hearing the future is automated – let’s teach our kids how to program and run the automation.
After I quit Microsoft I felt like my skills were atrophied because I’d been working in a large org for so long. I started rebuilding my skills and one of the things that brought me a lot of satisfaction was learning how to build and run a website plus learning HTML and JavaScript. I am by no means an expert but now I know enough to get things done. Very satisfying late career learning. 12 The cool thing is that there are SO MANY online resources for learning technology. Plus open source has become standard so most of the time someone has already written the feature you need and all you have to do is refine it for your scenario. This is an amazing time to be in technology.
Finding a good mentor in a career is one key element to success. Each of you have been both mentee and mentor. As a mentee what was the most valuable advice or experience you have had thus far in your career? How can underrepresented individuals become adept at seeking mentorship? As successful individuals, how can we ensure we look to be more inclusive in tossing out our ‘mentorship net’?
I wish mentoring were something that could be setup programmatically… My experience is that the most effective mentor/mentee relationships happen organically; although I have definitely gone out of my way for some people. Bottom line, we all have to step up and digest the fact that just like raising a child takes a village, so too does helping someone in their career.
One of the most visible challenges women face today is patriarchy. As a general rule, the way women and men are taught to speak, and act is often very dissimilar. Men are taught to problem solve and speak with authority while women are taught to be demure and defer. This behavior is exhibited in the home, in school and extra-curricular activities as well as the workplace. How can we impact change to eliminate these stereotypical actions? What change do you believe it would have the most impact on ensuring young women step more fully into leadership roles?
I feel wholly unqualified to answer this one. I watch with total awe and admiration as the younger generation absolutely and totally rejects all the shit I put up with. I don’t want to say anything for fear of jinxing it.
It’s got to be a culture shift – and I do think it’s happening. I think if I had a magic wand I would make these changes: #1) Companies valued diversity – meaning they appreciate people with vastly different skills, backgrounds, experiences, interests and personalities than themselves. #2) As individuals each of us followed #1 (meaning we’re the ones who have to take lead). #3) Half of CxO roles went to women.
I always think of the example I’ve seen in play many times when someone of one country is speaking to a non-native language speaker and the speaker increases their volume in hopes that translation will instantly occur based on a louder volume on their part. In retrospect, have you found you may have responded oddly to someone who is different than yourself? (age, country of origin, sex, race, etc.) How did your response help/hurt your business needs? What would you do differently today? How does this apply to being more inclusive in our thinking with regard to women as underrepresented individuals?
The hardest part of life is being accepting of people who are different from us. We all want to believe we’re not bigots. Forcing ourselves to acknowledge that we have prejudices and triggers means that we can change. In my case, I have to force myself not to look at certain actions as “bad” and instead accept that people handle situations differently. As I get older I try harder to understand why people do things vs judging them for it.
When you think about giving advice or providing your input on issues facing young women entering into STEM field jobs, what would your biggest piece of advice be? As you respond to this question, think about the following: Why would you give this advice? What difference could your advice make in someone’s life? Did you have a similar experience and who helped you through it?
Performance proves value. If you bring it every day – that effort adds up to contribution and that’s something you can point to and show your value with concrete examples.
The most successful products I’ve been involved with came from the most diverse teams. For example, when I worked on Visual Basic in early days at Microsoft, it was during a time when white guys dominated the company. We were a team of 50% women and I’ve never seen a higher performing team. We each brought our own “mutant” skill to the team – some of us brought great technical skills, some brought customer empathy, others had off-the-charts relationship skills. The underlying theme to everything is that we each appreciated everyone else and their unique contribution. Likewise, the diversity in skills helped us to create a product and Go To Market that propelled us to unprecedented success in the developer tools market. We sold more copies than most consumer products – which was unheard of. I wish everyone could experience that type of team because they’d never be willing to go back to a one dimensional team again.
Years ago I went shopping for powder skis. I wanted a pair that was optimized for women because all of the powder skis I tried were too much for me and I couldn’t turn them or even stop very easily. When I went to ski shops, I was told there wasn’t (and never would be) demand for female ski equipment. I was floored. Even more funny, when I was being told there wasn’t demand for it, there were usually other women in the shop saying “I would buy it!’ So my question is, why?? The consistent underrepresentation of women in literally everything is anti-capitalist and makes no sense. Women drive 70-80% of consumer purchasing. Why do companies not want to tap into that? The answer is, they do want to tap into it and increasing representation is one big step they can take.