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<\/a>It was an encounter Lerner was still reflecting on when Microsoft introduced its global allyship program last year. The course was offered to all employees, aiming to broaden Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella\u2019s push toward a more inclusive culture. But amid the global chaos of 2020 \u2014 including a pandemic requiring remote work and making relationships more challenging, acts of hate toward those with Asian heritage stemming from false rhetoric about the virus, widespread protests against racial injustice following violence against Black and African American people, and increased political tensions \u2014 the company made the introductory sessions virtual, and mandatory.<\/p>\n
The goal is to give Microsoft\u2019s 160,000 employees worldwide the language they need to discuss different viewpoints and difficult things in a way that offers empathy and inclusion to all, says Chief Diversity Officer Lindsay-Rae McIntyre. The program merges employees\u2019 increased enthusiasm around advocacy with the well-known \u201cgrowth mindset\u201d platform Nadella adopted from psychologist Carol Dweck. And it adapts that from the work-performance arena to address the culture of the company, where leaders have been trying to break down silos and address bias, intolerance and discrimination.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much around allyship is putting the growth mindset into action, learning how to empathize with and advocate with someone else,\u201d McIntyre says. \u201cI\u2019m not saying advocate for<\/em>. It\u2019s not a badge or cape. It\u2019s a practice that we\u2019re trying to embed so people can engage in conversation to learn from one another how to support and help one another.\u201d<\/p>\n While many companies have programs to foster diversity and inclusion, Microsoft worked with neuroscientists for two years to develop a new approach.<\/p>\n The Microsoft Allyship Program consists of 10 segments using various media to appeal to different learning styles. Employees can take online, self-paced classes, watch video scenarios with actors portraying and discussing various work situations, and participate in facilitated sessions focused on building skills and practicing behaviors. The program teaches that there\u2019s no limit to who can benefit from a focus on greater inclusion \u2014 everyone has an opportunity to be an ally, and everyone needs allyship in some form.<\/p>\n Rich Neal vividly remembers a meeting early on in his career with his manager and other leaders when he was the only African American in the room \u2014 not a new thing then, or now, he says \u2014 and someone made an inappropriate comment. Three seconds felt like 30 minutes while Neal contemplated what to say, when he suddenly heard his manager ask what the colleague had meant. The meeting turned uncomfortable, but Neal\u2019s shoulders dropped with relief.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like this person checked in part of their privilege, part of their fraternity, for me,\u201d Neal recalls. \u201cAnd the next month, when I got there, it was just different. My boss had created a new reality for everyone in that session. That experience taught me that it doesn\u2019t have to be this huge, Herculean effort to show up for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n Years later, as a senior director at Microsoft, Neal was asked to attend an event for LGBTQI+ employees. There he met a woman who talked about her privilege, as someone who was white and Ivy League-educated, and challenged him to extend his privilege to others \u2014 a concept he says he\u2019d never considered, having \u201ccorrelated the word \u2018privilege\u2019 to \u2018white male.\u2019\u201d Now he mentors and coaches people of all different ages, career stages and disciplines.<\/p>\n Members of majority communities often are portrayed as either offenders or saviors. But opening the aperture of the conversation to reflect topics such as mental health, age, disability and faith shows how everyone benefits from greater inclusion, McIntyre says.<\/p>\n Rather than shutting people down for offenses, the allyship program encourages employees to learn, grow, make mistakes and get better.<\/p>\n \u201cAllyship isn\u2019t perfect,\u201d she says. \u201cYou\u2019re going to fail sometimes. But we hold each other accountable for what we\u2019re aiming for. We show people what good and bad looks like so they actually understand some of the well-intended behavior doesn\u2019t land the way they want it to. And ultimately we\u2019re giving people the skill sets to deepen their connections\u201d \u2014 and improve their work performance as a result.<\/p>\n The two are inextricably linked for Steve Chu, an account executive on Microsoft\u2019s state and local government team in Kansas City.<\/p>\n Chu grew up in Alaska with a mother of German descent and father of Chinese lineage. He says he experienced \u201ca lot of harsh racism\u201d as a child and denounced the Asian-American half of his heritage, at one point telling his parents he wanted to change his last name. But while taking the Microsoft course last year, Chu began exploring ways to be more authentic to his whole self. He ended up having the most successful year of his career.<\/p>\n \u201cThat really changed everything for me, to embrace both sides of my heritage,\u201d Chu says. \u201cIt\u2019s freed me up. I don\u2019t expend energy anymore on covering the Chinese aspects of my personality, so I can focus that energy on more meaningful efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n Research backs up<\/a> Chu\u2019s experience and has shown that companies with greater employee diversity are more innovative and profitable<\/a>. But diversity and inclusion require intention.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we want to make sure our products are created for people around the world, we need to make sure those varied perspectives are represented, heard and acted upon,\u201d says Diana Navas-Rosette, who leads strategy and innovation on Microsoft\u2019s Global Diversity & Inclusion team. \u201cSo we need to have the space and the right behaviors in place for people to be able to speak up and to respectfully challenge each other and have conversations about different perspectives, views and values.\u201d<\/p>\n Recognizing that Microsoft\u2019s data-driven workforce would respond best to a science-based approach to allyship, Navas-Rosette\u2019s team worked with New York University\u2019s Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging and with the NeuroLeadership Institute to identify what prevents people from acting as allies and how to move them from fearful bystanding toward empathetic action. The institute partners with doctors, neuroscientists, researchers and educators who help create a scientific yet practical way to improve leadership effectiveness, sometimes hooking people up to various scans to watch where the blood flows in their brains and to measure cortisol and heartrates as they\u2019re put into different situations.<\/p>\n Discourse about privilege can divide people and make them feel threatened by each other. And the brain processes social threats, such as exclusion and rejection, much the same way it processes physical pain, says Katherine Milan, the institute\u2019s senior vice president of client experience and product.<\/p>\n So the group\u2019s work connects well with Microsoft\u2019s growth-mindset approach by emphasizing collaboration instead of competition, to lower the threat and encourage engagement, Milan says. While many allyship efforts urge people to muster up the courage to confront those who speak or act in a non-inclusive way, Microsoft\u2019s program aims to create a shame-free learning atmosphere for everyone.<\/p>\n And Microsoft\u2019s culture seems to be shifting since the first workshop in July 2019, with surveys indicating employees are feeling more safety and comfort in speaking up even when conversations are difficult, Milan says. But it\u2019s a journey, she says.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t just take one workshop,\u201d Milan says. \u201cIt\u2019s a muscle that you stretch and grow and build every day, and you have to practice repeatedly.\u201d<\/p>\n The pandemic has changed personal interactions in many ways, and some displaced teams have even managed to find greater unity by being more deliberate.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the office, there can be dozens of short interactions throughout the day, bumping into people in the halls and cafeteria and having quick conversations,\u201d says Parul Manek, a director of program management for Microsoft\u2019s Enterprise Cloud division. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t happen now, so you have to be a more intentional ally. Yesterday I observed someone in a meeting who just didn\u2019t seem like themselves, so I reached out afterward and discovered they had issues working from home and were overwhelmed, and I was able to help them with some strategies to cope.\u201d<\/p>\n Manek became acutely aware of how it felt to be excluded when she moved with her parents to England from India. Since her family hadn\u2019t had the privilege of learning English before immigrating, she felt she didn\u2019t belong in her new home. New friends were intentional about helping her fit in, though, and now she\u2019s spent a lifetime similarly on the lookout for anyone who might be struggling and in need of help.<\/p>\n Manek says she\u2019s seen a clear impact in her work from Nadella\u2019s focus on empathy, even though it\u2019s not an obvious element in a company where employees are so focused on excellence. But she\u2019s noticed that empathy encourages humility and understanding without judgment, which promotes personal connections and, accordingly, workplace collaboration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sara Lerner was fired up and ready to jump into the fray on an imaginary bus. The Microsoft senior program manager was exploring diversity and inclusion and chatting with her peers about a hypothetical scenario: What they would do if a bus rider made a cruel comment to a passenger who was transgender. Lerner started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[58,50],"class_list":["post-122267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-diversity","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>