Today's episode is all about diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Our guest, Cynthia Owyoung, is a DEIB leader and author. She is currently the Vice President of Inclusion, Equity, and Belonging at Robinhood and the Founder and CEO of Breaking Glass Forums, which aims to accelerate diverse talent and inclusive organizations. She also recently published a book entitled, "All Are Welcome: How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion that Delivers Results."

Cynthia has always been interested in people's thought processes and decision-making processes. So, she majored in marketing at Haas with the intent of going into advertising. She thought marketing seemed like the perfect way to get into people's minds from the consumer perspective. But after several years, she got burned out and decided to go to grad school, intending to launch a nonprofit for adults with developmental disabilities in the Asian community. 

When she got into school, she took a diversity management course and met somebody with a diversity manager job who talked about how she created access to opportunity for everyone. That's what started her 20-year career so far in the DEIB space.

In this episode, Cynthia talked about how DEI has evolved through the years, why it is important, and her personal story that made her so passionate about it. She also shared how to create a more inclusive organization, especially for women of color, and how each of us can take bite-size chunks toward a more inclusive world. Finally, Cynthia talked about her book and what the biggest takeaways are.

Episode Quotes:

On going into marketing and advertising

"I've always been interested in people and what motivates them to do the things that they do. I've always been really curious about how people make decisions. And so, for me, marketing seemed like the perfect way to get into people's minds from the consumer perspective. How do you actually persuade them to change behavior and buy something that they maybe hadn't considered?”

Driving inclusion and diversity in different cultural contexts and why it matters

"There is so much diversity even in places that you don't think about necessarily having diversity. And the definition of that and how we actually drive inclusion is going to be different in different cultural contexts. How we think about diversity here in the US, with our history of slavery and discrimination and different groups, is a very different context from China or India, right? In India, there's discrimination based on social-economic status as being a much more prevailent thing versus, as you mentioned, all those minority groups that are definitely treated differently in China. All of that is very nuanced and we have to make sure that we're not approaching it from a one size fits all kind of perspective. 

There is difference among all of us everywhere. And it's less about in-groups and out-groups necessarily and more about inclusion and exclusion in my mind. Because even if you take it down to the level of a team within an organization anywhere, if somebody is feeling excluded from that team, like they don't belong and they're not being valued for who they are and what they bring, that person's not going to be productive and not going to stay very long.

And so, if we're all driving for effective organizations and effective teams and effective and productive output and things like that, then you have to care about this. To drive that no matter what your team looked like or what cultural context you're in."

Why she is passionate about building an inclusive culture everywhere

"I've grown up always feeling like I didn't belong anywhere. I'm kind of this misfit, and it took me until high school to really find a group of friends who had similar kinds of multiculturalism elements to their backgrounds that I started to find people who I could connect with.

That, along with the fact that I have brothers who clearly have their struggles in life in ways that most of us take for granted, has always weighed on me. Why do we treat people so badly just because they look a little different or they love a little different? So, those are the things that have made me be like, if I have an opportunity to change that, then that's what I'm going to try to do."

How do we take bite-size chunks toward a more inclusive world?

"I think it is all about starting small. It doesn't take much to read an article in this space, find out about something that maybe you aren't that well versed in. Just pick one, start reading about it, start asking. I think asking questions is really good. Not to the point where you're overburdening any one person to represent their entire community because that's not what we want, but to extend your curiosity, right? Ask people about their experiences so that you can get more of a window and develop your empathy for other experiences that are very different from your own. It costs nothing to ask, and you can learn so much about people who are willing to open up. 

And then the last thing that I think is super easy for anyone to do is to just engage and practice. Oftentimes, we're afraid to open our mouths and inadvertently offend somebody, but it's really about moving through that, and just engaging in the practice on a regular basis to ask people how they want to be identified, or if you're using the correct term that they go by, or even as simple as just making an effort to pronounce somebody's name correctly. It's all those little things that I think anybody can do that will just really add up to creating connection and welcoming and belonging."

Show Links:

• LinkedIn
• All Are Welcome: How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion that Delivers Results
• Breaking Glass Forums

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