The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer

Despite efforts to eliminate gender bias at work, women still face barriers their male colleagues don’t. How can companies today identify whether gender bias has crept into their organization and create cultures that are supportive of women?

On this episode of The Culture Kit, hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava are joined by Laura Kray, a professor at Berkeley Haas and the faculty director of the Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership. Laura has been studying the psychological barriers that hold women back at work for decades. Her work sheds light on the hidden biases that persist today. 

Jenny, Sameer, and Laura chat about the perceived differences between male and female leaders in terms of power versus status, as well as how age plays into how women are perceived. Laura discusses her research debunking the notion that pay disparities between men and women come from differences in negotiation skills and shares strategies for business leaders to uncover and correct inequities.  

1. Be open minded to the possibility that gender bias may have crept into your company’s culture.
2. Engage in systematic tracking and auditing of things like pay and performance reviews and adopt a data-driven approach to correcting inequities.
3. Be a confronter rather than a bystander. You don’t need to be at the top of an organization to inspire change..

• View the Full Episode Transcript.
• Laura Kray’s faculty profile at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
• Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership at Berkeley Haas
• Not All Powerful People Are Created Equal: An Examination of Gender and Pathways to Social Hierarchy Through the Lens of Social Cognition, by Charlotte Townsend, Sonya Mishra, and Laura J. Kray. Psychological Science
• From politicians to pop stars to professionals, gender stereotypes shape how we view power and status, Haas News
• A gender gap in managerial span of control: Implications for the gender pay gap, by Maragaret Lee and Laura J. Kray, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
• The pay gap for women starts with a responsibility gap, by Laura Kray and Margaret Lee, The Wall Street Journal
• Now, women do ask: A call to update beliefs about the gender pay gap, by Laura J. Kray, Jessica A. Kennedy and Margaret Lee, Academy of Management Discoveries
• New research shatters outdated pay-gap myth that women don’t negotiate, by Laura Counts, 2024
• Agentic but not warm: Age-gender interactions and the consequences of stereotype incongruity perceptions for middle-aged professional women, by Jennifer A. Chatman, Daron Sharps, Sonya Mishra, Laura J. Kray, Michael S. North. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
• Creativity from constraint? How the political correctness norm influences creativity in mixed-sex work groups, by Jack A. Goncalo, Jennifer A. Chatman, Michelle M. Duguid, and Jessica A. Kennedy, Administrative Science Quarterly
• Cultures of Genius at Work: Organizational Mindsets Predict Cultural Norms, Trust, and Commitment, by Elizabeth A. Canning,  Mary C. Murphy, Katherine T. U. Emerson, Jennifer A. Chatman, Carol S. Dweck, and Laura J. Kray,  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

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“Tribalism” has a generally negative reputation these days. It’s often used to refer to an us-versus-them mentality, or a culture that’s divisive and exclusionary. But that perception, according to cultural psychologist Michael Morris, “could not be more inaccurate as a description of what human tribal instincts are. They're instincts for solidarity, not for hostility.” 

On this episode of The Culture Kit, hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srviastava interview Michael Morris, a professor at Columbia Business School, about his new book Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together. 

Jenny, Sameer, and Michael discuss how tribal instincts allowed humans to break away from the primate back, and how these deeply ingrained instincts show up in organizations today. They also delve into modern and historical examples of leaders utilizing tribalism to adapt culture and even heal rifts.

Leaders can recognize and harness the three main types of tribal psychology:

1. The Peer Code – This is the impulse to match the behavior of the people around us.These norms allow for the smooth functioning of human interaction and are the basis for collaboration.
2. The Hero Code – This is the emulation of those with status or prestige. This instinct is triggered by symbols.
3. The Ancestor Code – This is the curiosity and urge to maintain the traditions and customs of past generations. This instinct is triggered by ceremonies and rituals.

• Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together, by Michael Morris
• Michael Morris’ Website
• “A Language-Based Method for Assessing Symbolic Boundary Maintenance between Social Groups.” By Anjali Bhatt, Amir Goldberg, and Sameer B. Srivastava. Sociological Methods & Research, 2022.
• “Two-Sided Cultural Fit: The Differing Behavioral Consequences of Cultural Congruence Based on Values Versus Perceptions.” By Richard Lu, Jennifer A. Chatman, Amir Goldberg, and Sameer B. Srivastava. Organization Science, 2024.
• 2025 Culture Connect Conference, Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation
• Full Episode Transcript

Learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

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Should corporate leaders speak out on social and political issues? And if they decide to do so, what’s the best approach?

On this episode of The Culture Kit, hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava chat with Matt Kohut, a leadership communications expert, about his new book Speaking Out: The New Rules of Business Leadership Communications. 

Jenny, Sameer, and Matt dig into historical examples of corporations and politics colliding, the potential pros and cons of deciding to weigh in on social issues, and strategies for business leaders to evaluate risk and maintain accountability when deciding to speak out. 

This episode’s question came from Laszlo Bock, co-founder of Humu and former Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google. 

1. Should you take a position at all? This should always be the first step before deciding what the position is or how to communicate it.
2. Mission relevance: What are your organization’s values and how will taking a stance on an issue align with those values?
3. Evaluate risk: How might this position potentially backfire? Hold a pre-mortem meeting to help determine risk.

• Speaking Out: The New Rules of Business Leadership Communications by Matthew Kohut (October 2024)
• Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential by Matthew Kohut and John Neffinger
• “When to Talk Politics in Business: Theory and Experimental Evidence of Stakeholder Responses to CEO Political Activism.” Working paper by Tommaso Bondi, Vanessa Burbano, and Fabrizio Dell’Acqua. Cornell Tech and SC Johnson School of Management, Cornell University, New York, 2023.
• Full Episode Transcript

Learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

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In the season two premiere of The Culture Kit, hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava tackle the complex question of how to create a culture of inclusion and belonging in the face of growing polarization in the workplace and society at large.

To help answer this question, Jenny and Sameer turn to DEI expert Jarvis Sam. Jarvis is the CEO and founder of the strategy firm, Rainbow Disruption, which advises organizations on developing practical solutions that champion DEI in the workplace. Before that, Jarvis was the  Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer at Nike, where he spearheaded initiatives to enhance diverse representation and foster inclusive leadership. He also led organizational efforts around DEI with athletes like Serena Williams and Lebron James, as well as leagues like the WNBA and NFL. 

Jenny, Sameer, and Jarvis discuss what an inclusive culture really means, go over actionable steps leaders can take to create and manage a culture of inclusion and belonging, and address some of the biggest myths and misconceptions surrounding DEI. 

Full episode Transcript here.

Resources referenced by Jarvis Sam:

• The Rainbow Disruption
• DEI C.R.E.D.E.N.T.I.A.L by Jarvis Sam
• Amy C. Edmondson on psychological safety
• Uncovering Talent: A New Model of Inclusion, by Christie Smith and Kenji Yoshino, Deloitte, 2018.

Research by Jenny Chatman on group diversity: 

• Blurred Lines: How the Collectivism Norm Operates Through Perceived Group Diversity to Boost or Harm Group Performance in Himalayan Mountain Climbing (PDF), By Jennifer A. Chatman, Lindred L. Greer, Eliot Sherman, Bernadette Doerr, Organization Science, 2019
• Political Correctness and Group Composition: A Research Agenda, By Jennifer A. Chatman, Jack A. Goncalo, Jessica R. Kenndy, and Michelle M. Duguid. Research on Managing Groups and Teams
• Being distinctive versus being conspicuous: The effects of numeric status and sex-stereotyped tasks on individual performance in groups, By Jennifer A. Chatman, Alicia D. Boisnier, Sandra E. Spataro, Cameron Anderson, and Jennifer L. Berdahl. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
• The Influence of Demographic Heterogeneity on the Emergence and Consequences of Cooperative Norms in Work Teams Academy of Management Journal, by Jennifer A. Chatman and Francis J. Flynn, Academy of Management Journal.

Research by Sameer Srivastava on measuring culture through language using AI tools: 

• The New Analytics of Culture, by Matthew Corritore, Amir Goldberg, and Sameer B. Srivastava, Harvard Business Review, 2020
• How can AI Enrich Our Understanding of Organizational Culture? By Amir Goldberg and Sameer B. Srivastava, Management and Business Review, 2022
• Language as a Window into Culture, by Sameer B. Srivastava and Amir Goldberg, California Management Review, 2017

Related episodes of The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer:

• Amy Edmondson & Steve Brass on Psychological Safety
• How to Keep Remote Workers Connected to the Mission, with Hubspot CEO Yamini Rangan

Three main takeaways from Jenny & Sameer’s interview with Jarvis Sam:

1. Know your “why”: Organizations need to ask, “Why are we doing this work from the very beginning? And how does that link to key actions that we may have taken previously?
2. Comprehensive integration is key: Inclusion can’t be an add-on. It should be a key attribute in every area of the organization including talent acquisition, management, and succession planning.
3. DEI Is not just for underrepresented communities: Inclusive cultures are ones where every team member feels that they can show up as their truest selves.

Learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

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While “psychological safety” has become somewhat of a buzzword in management circles, it’s a concept that forward-thinking leaders dismiss at their own peril. 

“I cannot think of a place where lower psychological safety would help you in any way,” says Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson, known for her pioneering research on the topic. “Lower psychological safety would make you take fewer risks, but not necessarily better risks. So having anxiety about what other people think of you isn't a great state for optimal performance.”

In this bonus episode of The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer, Edmondson, along with WD-40 CEO Steve Brass, joins hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava to discuss how to create a culture of psychological safety—and why it matters. This session was held November 13, 2023 as part of the Culture XChange series sponsored by the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation and is being broadcast publicly for the first time. 

• The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. By Amy C. Edmonson. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2018.
• “What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team.” By Charles Duhigg, The New York Times Magazine, Feb. 25, 2016.
• “When feeling safe isn’t enough: Contextualizing models of safety and learning in teams.” Sanner, B., & Bunderson, J. S. (2015). Organizational Psychology Review, 5(3), 224-243. https://doi.org/10.1177/2041386614565145
• Tribe Culture: How It Shaped WD-40 Company. By Garry Ridge. Telemachus Press, 2020.
• Full Episode Transcript

Learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

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When Patrick Collison and his brother John Collison founded digital payment company Stripe in 2010, he didn't come in with “any kind of enlightened leadership expertise or genetic muscle memory.” As the company took off and grew to a dominant platform with $1 trillion in total payment volume and millions of customers, its culture grew more intentional—and strategic. 

“Because Stripe's domain is really complicated and the details really matter, if we make a mistake—just one mistake—there's a very good chance that somebody's paycheck is wrong…There's a culture at Stripe of just really prizing the small details,” he says.

In this bonus episode of The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer, Collison shares his leadership journey and the evolution of Stripe’s unique culture in a fireside chat with hosts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava. This interview took place on April 16, 2024 as part of the Dean’s Speaker Series, co-sponsored by the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation. Bringing in a diverse mix of preeminent business leaders, the Dean's Speaker Series provides the Haas community with insightful perspectives on effective leadership and opportunities for thought-provoking discussions.  Learn more.

Full Episode Transcript here.

Learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

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What are the benefits and challenges of running a fully remote company? What does research show about the shift to “work from anywhere”? In this bonus episode of The Culture Kit, host Sameer Srivastava interviews Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, the Lumry Family Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School, and Brandon Sammut, Chief People Officer at Zapier, on how to use technology and organizational insights to create high-performing, inclusive, and engaging remote work cultures.

Choudhury is one of the pioneers in research on the future of work, especially the changing geography of work. He was included in Forbes’ Future of Work 50 list last year and Time’s Charter 30 list of thinkers and innovators shaping the future of work in 2024.

Sammut is a two-time chief people officer currently at Zapier, a software automation platform with an all-remote team that spans over 40 countries. He believes that remote work is the way to expand both individual opportunity and business results, drawing on his prior experience in talent acquisition, talent development, strategy, consulting, business development, and venture capital.

This episode is based on a CultureXChange forum held on April 11th, 2024 by the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation. Learn more.

Full Episode Transcript here.

Learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

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In a fireside chat with host Jenny Chatman, best-selling author Michael Lewis shares the inside story of the strange culture Sam Bankman-Fried created at his failed crypto exchange, FTX. Lewis got to know SBF for his latest book, "Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon." The story is a fascinating example of a strong organizational culture gone terribly wrong. 

Lewis is known for his New York Times bestselling books, including Moneyball, The Big Short, Liar’s Poker, and The Blind Side. He started his career in finance on the bond desk at Salomon Brothers, and then left the business world to become a journalist. His books tell stories about real characters and provide insights into the business world—from working on Wall Street to the 2008 financial crisis to the rise and fall of cryptocurrency. 

This interview was held on November 8, 2023 as part of the Dean's Speaker Series at Berkeley Haas. Bringing in a diverse mix of preeminent business leaders, the series provides the Haas community with insightful perspectives on effective leadership and opportunities for thought-provoking discussions.  Learn more.

Full Episode Transcript here.

Learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

With the world of work constantly evolving and the introduction of new technologies like AI, how can leaders prepare themselves to successfully lead their companies into the new frontier?

On the season finale of The Culture Kit, Haas School of Business professors and organizational culture experts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava are joined by a special guest. Laszlo Bock, one of the leading industry voices on people management, was the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google, served as the CEO of Humu, and then co-founded Gretel AI. He's also the author of The New York Times’ bestseller, Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead. 

Jenny, Sameer, and Laszlo answer a question from Melissa Wernick, the Global Chief People Officer for Kraft Heinz, on what key skills leaders will need to be successful in the evolving workplace. They also announce the Berkeley Transformative CHRO Leadership Program that they just launched through Berkeley Executive Education.

Do you have a vexing question about work that you want Jenny and Sameer to answer? Submit your “Fixit Ticket!” 

You can learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

1. The best leaders are diagnostic and deliberate. They look at things on a situation-by-situation basis and ask themselves: How can I add value here? And they plan for that.
2. Cultivate a broad and flexible set of leadership styles. Situations are varied and vast, so have a broad and flexible leadership portfolio that you can draw from depending on what the circumstances are.
3. The best leaders recognize that they're never actually done learning. Leadership development is a lifelong pursuit, so keep working on it and be a student always (as we say at Haas).

• Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead by Laszlo Bock
• Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality [Harvard Business School]
• Getting to Diversity: What Works and What Doesn’t by Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev
• Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well by Amy Edmondson
• Creativity from Constraint? How the Political Correctness Norm Influences Creativity in Mixed-sex Work Groups [Administrative Science Quarterly]
• Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner
• CEO Fires 90 Percent of Support Staff, Saying AI Outperforms Them [Futurism]
• How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management [Harvard Business Review]
• Chatman, Jennifer A., Sameer Srivastava, and David Rochlin, “How Lyft’s Strategy Informed their Return to Work Approach.” University of California, Berkeley Haas Case Series, 2024. forthcoming.
• Maersk: Driving Culture Change at a Century-Old Company to Achieve Measurable Results [Berkeley Haas Case Series]
• Kaiser Permanente: The Electronic Health Record Journey [Kaiser Permanente International]
• The Next Normal: Let’s Rewrite the Rules Together [Mars]
• Vodafone: Managing Advanced Technologies and Artificial Intelligence [Harvard Business Publishing]
• The Berkeley Transformative CHRO Leadership Program co-led by Laszlo Bock [Berkeley Exec Ed]
• Full Episode Transcript

Learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A “yes man” culture that is adverse to dissent can not only be stifling for employees, but in some cases, can be downright dangerous. So how do you create a culture where everyone feels empowered to bring their ideas to the table? 

On today’s episode of Culture Kit, Haas School of Business professors and organizational culture experts Jenny Chatman and Sameer Srivastava answer a question from Shuchi Mathur, the Vice President of Customer Experience at Reelgood. Jenny and Sameer share examples of companies they’ve worked with like Pixar and Netflix that have built cultures around celebrating failure and farming for dissent. 

Do you have a vexing question about work that you want Jenny and Sameer to answer? Submit your “Fixit Ticket!” 

You can learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

1. Be intentional – recognize that you need to go out of your way to prioritize dissent; otherwise you might inadvertently stifle it.
2. Build systems – some organizations even establish processes to encourage people to take deliberate action to surface dissent. This is mission-critical in an organization where life and safety are on the line.
3. Model what you want to see – leaders need to actively model a willingness to admit when they’re wrong and own up to mistakes. At the same time, they can seek out and defer to expertise, rather than acting like they always have the answers.

• Boeing Hit by Damning FAA Report Faulting Safety Culture [Bloomberg]
• Fixing Boeing’s Broken Culture Starts With a New Plane [Bloomberg]
• Boeing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) [YouTube]
• The Lasting Leadership Lessons From The Challenger Disaster [Forbes]
• The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA [University of Chicago Press]
• Sales Misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank [Harvard Business Publishing]
• Zappos has quietly backed away from holacracy [Quartz]
• Structure That’s Not Stifling [Harvard Business Review]
• 'Farming for dissent': The strategy that helped Reed Hastings turn Netflix into a $240 bn company [Business Today]
• Reed Hastings: This 3-word tactic helped make Netflix a $240 billion company [CNBC]
• Netflix: A Creative Approach to Culture and Agility [Harvard Business Publishing]
• No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention [Penguin Press]
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success [Random House Publishing Group]
• Lessons from Pixar 2: Failure Is an Ingredient for Creativity [Medium]
• Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Apologizes For Comments On Women's Pay [Forbes]
• Microsoft's CEO Sent an Extraordinary Email to Employees After They Committed an Epic Fail [Inc]
• Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a Growth Mindset [Harvard Business Publishing]
• Managing High Reliability Organizations [California Management Review]
• Must accidents happen? Lessons from high-reliability organizations [Academy of Management Perspectives]
• The Opposite of Complacent: How Risky Businesses Avoid Disaster [Berkeley Haas Newsroom]
• Full Episode Transcript

Learn more about the podcast and the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation at www.haas.org/culture-kit.

*The Culture Kit with Jenny & Sameer is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.