[Music] um [Music] hi i'm lara i have the privilege of leading strategy here at servicenow i'm also a mother daughter friend ally advocate and i'm a woman in tech it means a lot for me to support women in underrepresented groups so thank you for tuning in today so let's start with the story many of you know david schneider are president of global customer operations shortly after i joined servicenow david and i went to on a trip to visit a partner now keep in mind dave and i are peers we both sit on the executive team here at servicenow so we got to the meeting room first when the partner walked in he introduced himself to all the men in the group and then sat down and started the meeting without introducing himself to me so in the interest of time getting to the topic at hand i sat down too and i didn't say anything in that moment i probably thought i chose the wrong spot to sit in the room or i wasn't assertive enough when he first came in i'm sure many of you have your own version of the story that you could tell fortunately david is an ally he's made a huge effort to educate himself on inequities and bias however might grow david interrupted the partner to introduce me and he even made a point to stress that i was playing a role leading the strategic agenda in that partnership then on the plane ride home that evening david went even further to apologize on behalf of the partner bottom line even in the c-suite women can face bias but despite the potholes we have to go through we can carve strong pathways all the research tells you that men and women get an equal start in education and in the workplace for example the national center for education statistics tracks bachelor degrees since the early 80s women have actually received more bachelor's degrees than men and in the most recent study in 2017 women received 57 of the bachelor's degrees in the us that's a great sign but what about women in work few research in the u.s bureau of later statistics said in 2019 women age 25 plus accounted for more than half 50.2 of the college-educated workforce so what's the takeaway all things being equal in education and in the workforce why does female representation decrease in business especially the higher you go in leadership roles so let's take a look at some of the forces at play force one promotion as you can see in this funnel the gap in advancement begins at the first level manager role meaning more men get promoted into first level manager roles in women this trend is called the broken rung and it's even more pronounced in people of color especially women of color as you advance through promotions and go into roles of increasing responsibility there are fewer women to choose from and the gap gets exponentially larger force number two confidence and aspiration research from bain and linkedin shows that women and men start their careers with equal confidence and aspiration but after only two years both decreased dramatically for women compared to their male counterparts why is this here's my hypothesis the fewer women advancing their careers the fewer role models they have and with fewer role models there are fewer women to learn from and women coming up in their careers have to navigate these potholes for themselves and as many of us have experienced that's not so easy let me share with you an example being a working mom one of the potholes i experienced was implicit judgment while working in consulting i shared with a trusted senior colleague that i was having some struggles balancing my personal life and also maintaining the you know high demands of my job and his response i'm so glad that my wife has decided to stay home with the kids at that moment i felt two pothole bumps one obviously from the impact of his words but the second i didn't have a great female sponsor or frankly even a male sponsor who understood who i could turn to so let me take a moment to bust a myth the myth of motherhood i've heard a lot of people say that women leave the workforce to start families this isn't true it's bias research shows that women and men leave companies at similar rates and women are not leaving faster to start families in addition lean in and mckenzie found that very few women or men say they plan to leave the workforce to focus on family that is until now covid19 has created a staggering amount of crisis throughout the world and a lot of new research shows that women especially working moms are heavily impacted they carry the weight of work from home and school from home more heavily than than men do for example i read a story and fortune about a study that suggested that 14 percent of women say they had considered leaving their jobs during this pandemic so they could better manage their household responsibilities by comparison that's a higher percentage than what the men reported when broken down by race percentages for women of color were higher than for white women so what can we do i see two areas of focus let's first talk about business number one we need to minimize bias we need to educate ourselves on the types of bias don't assume if you don't know someone's preference or motivation just ask the second is sponsor and this is very different than being a mentor especially for women of color mentors give guidance and help you navigate sponsors are advocates especially of you to others they float your name for new opportunities they support you in promotions they're always thinking about ways to increase your visibility and third normalize paternity leave especially now during covet 19 this is actually becoming easier we're seeing people's lives even at work because they're home we have more empathy and we're more willing to embrace parenting let's keep that humanity when we return to the office for example a man on my team ale has a new baby that he holds sometimes during our zoo meetings it's fine it's the new normal now as our work lives and our home lives intersect and the second area is in our personal lives and here's what i do first is i practice intentionality i say yes to what matters and no to what doesn't until i had my first baby i didn't really need to set boundaries for me work was everything but when i had my first baby i suddenly had to reteach myself how to work i didn't have time for everything i needed to focus on the critical few rather than everything that came to my plate i taught myself to say yes when it mattered and no when it didn't and i still practice that intentionality today the second is i take charge i create my own work life integration i also make a point to manage my work schedule more instead of letting it manage me remember my point earlier about having confidence this takes a lot and to make sure i was able to spend quality time with my my new baby i asked for local clients i held time on my calendar to get work done and then finally i made sure that my managers and clients knew and respected my boundaries so i could enjoy my family time uninterrupted helping people understand these priorities was a huge help and then finally lead by example i also call this normalizing parenting i keep photos of my kids around my office and in this work from home environment my kids have been in the background with me as i'm sure many of yours have if i have to be out of work uh because i have to attend a child event or a doctor's appointment i tell people why it's how i thrive at work if people can see that i can do it they can believe that they can do it too so finally in summary you could say that i've become an ally against potholes i didn't have a large slate of role models helping me chart my pathway to the c-suite so i'm sure to be an advocate for other women as they chart theirs we all have work to do and we're certainly not done but i'm confident that we are making progress thanks for tuning in