[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
now my you started your TED talk
actually with a personal story when you
were working as a lawyer and you meant
client for the first time I was
wondering if you could share that story
with our audience and then maybe talk
about why that moment was a sort of
light bulb for you or set off a light
bulb that you knew you wanted to work in
this area in terms of that story I have
many stories trust me it so I was
reflecting on the fact that early on in
my career as a corporate lawyer I had
this one particular interstate client
and of course being the Chatterbox that
I am I you know had spent months
building rapport with her over the phone
and over email and I was the lead
advisor on her matter and so she’d
spoken to me you know a lasagne not the
phone but then we finally got to meet
face-to-face and so I’ve walked into the
meeting room and I said hello and she
kind of gave me some look and she said
ah you must work for Miriam and
obviously I wasn’t smuggling and
watermelon back then so but I guess the
point was that she the voice that she
had heard on the phone didn’t correspond
to this person that was standing in
front of her and yeah it was just I’ve
felt you know it kind of killed my
confidence a little bit because she
assumed I was someone else and and
particularly that the voice that she’d
heard didn’t seem to correspond as
someone who looked like me and so I
found myself losing a little bit of
confidence again having to work really
hard to build that rapport and then
having to kind of explain who I am and
and then doubting myself and I think the
thing to reflect on is that minority
groups in something like up to 30% of
their time worrying about how to fit in
so that’s a lot of wasted productivity a
lot of wasted energy
about what
c’est second-guessing yourself
questioning how you’re speaking you know
what’s coming out of your mouth because
you want to make a particular impression
and so I guess the point for me
in that moment was people do make
assumptions and and stereotype others
and it’s not only unhealthy from their
perspective but also from the person
who’s on the receiving end so you were
trained and you were working as a
corporate lawyer and then now you work
as a diversity inclusion in in
corporations and big companies and I
guess your experience is about well
having such an understanding of how much
of a waste of time or having to worry
about all of that sort of stuff is what
are some of the other like ramifications
or the other sort of downfalls of this
lack of diversity or this sort of lack
of inclusion in the workforce how does
that play out
um I think ensuring that you’ve got
diversity at every level so I’m not just
talking entry-level but in particular
into leadership levels it’s actually
produces diversity of thought and that
from a business perspective is
incredible
we need that we’re you know we’re facing
a changing economy we’ve got the gig
economy things are operating differently
to how they used to to be innovative you
need to have the diversity of thought
and that comes about from having general
diversity and it’s about then
acknowledging the barriers that exists
all diverse minority groups and why
they’re not moving through the ranks a
lot of those you know research and just
insights that we have that at an entry
level lots of corporations are
incredibly diverse I’m talking every
diversity stream but as you start to
move through the ranks of leadership
it’s not reflected and it’s you know
that diversity is not reflected and so
you’re missing out on several aspects
one it’s the morale and the right thing
to do to make sure that everybody has an
equitable opportunity to move ahead but
to there’s plenty of studies that prove
that diversity
at a board level and leadership level
produces innovative results and is
really good for your bottom line so it’s
you know it makes business sense so on
that I mean you mentioned that there’s a
lot of space I suppose for diversity and
people are trying to work on that more
and that you’re seeing that say at maybe
at the entry level but that when you
look at our TVs or you look at
university professors or you look at
isn’t a CEOs or you look at you know
pretty much at every level Australia
isn’t a very well that that diversity of
Australia isn’t represented on that sort
of visible top tier of our country
mm-hmm something that you said that
really struck me is kind of terrifying
was that a lot of our decisions that we
make and especially decisions that get
made in the workforce are actually
subconscious and I was wondering if that
was that a connection that you have
drawn that the fact that we
subconsciously kind of self-selecting
that or something huh
yeah so I spoke about unconscious bias
in particular and and that you know I
was Eric Kandel it was Nobel Peace Prize
recipient and said that up to 90 percent
of the brains function is actually
unconscious and so I guess the point I
want to make is that having unconscious
thoughts isn’t necessarily always a bad
thing it you know for example when
you’re driving you know the first few
times you put a lot of conscious effort
into learning and you concentrate and
then after a while you can literally do
it with your eyes closed although I
don’t recommend it but the point is it
becomes unconscious right and so so the
brain does have a lot of shortcuts and
that’s not necessarily a bad thing but
if those shortcuts that your brain has
learned over time and it starts at a
really young age
if those shortcuts all those rules are
wrong or have bias or prejudice in it
then it’s really hard to untie it’s like
learning driving of rules incorrectly
and you’ve been doing it for years and
then you have to worry your brain not to
do that and that’s the thing about
unconscious bias right unconscious
thoughts aren’t always a bad thing but
if you’re if you’re associating you’ve
got these unconscious associations with
certain things like for example whether
it’s gender so you have all these gender
stereotypes that you’ve grown up with
that you don’t even think about you know
that can be a negative thing if you’ve
got all these associations around race
for example that can be a negative thing
and that’s it comes out when you are in
the recruitment process for example or
you are making decisions and so you know
you’re you referenced earlier about the
top ranks of leadership and how we’re
not necessarily seeing that diversity
and you’ve got to do and think about
over the last you know historically how
did we get to this point where that
diversity isn’t reflected there and then
I think the element of unconscious and
perhaps conscious bias comes into it a
lot of work that you’re doing I think we
are especially the young people in the
audience going to be very happy that you
know you’ve forged ahead and tried to
make these changes because you mentioned
a study that it’s quite old I think now
but maybe 10 or 15 years ago there was a
study right that was the exact same CV
and they just changed the names at the
top they did it with men and women and I
think there was a Western Asian sounding
name and a Middle Eastern sounding name
and Asian or Middle Eastern you’ll have
to correct me with you know is that you
had to the same resume had to get a
submitted you know 50% more or something
interview that’s right and they did it
with indigenous names as well and they
also trialed it with Italian names as
well and what they found was the Asian
sounding names had to apply 68% more
times to get the same number of call
backs as an Anglo Saxon sounding name
and then if you had a Middle Eastern
sounding name 64% more times and then if
you had an indigenous name it’s 35% more
times
I think even an Italian name was 12%
discrimination and so this kind of like
unconscious decisions where we think
that person is not right for that job or
yeah I mean it could be in an
unconscious component it could be a
conscious bias but the reality back when
this study was done was that those
individuals with those names had to try
harder and so the reality was they would
have note that they weren’t getting
callbacks but when you do this research
in that way and you submit the exact
same Rashmi so you can’t even say it’s
not because you don’t have merit because
they were the same resumes the same
qualifications and same education and so
the reality is that we know bias exists
and that some of these fires is a lot
more prominent when it comes to certain
races and particularly gender as well we
know that um so then you know how do you
change that howdy and I’m hoping that if
they’ve replicated the study today that
that hopefully it wouldn’t be as bad but
this is where something that that the
industry is trying is anonymous
recruitment where we actually strip away
all those personal identifiers so we’ll
strip away the agenda for example we’ll
strip away the name and we’ll strip away
things that indicate where someone has
been brought up for example so address
and school details and those kind of
things and when you really remove all
those things that people have no choice
but to judge you purely based on merit
they can’t look at your name and say
this person might you know make an
assumption about your name or make an
assumption about a gender or your
upbringing based on where you live so
when you strip that away you create a
true system in which you can actually
enable a meritocracy but I would argue
that under the current system that’s not
always there because as human beings we
all have biases we all have prejudices
and a lot of what we’re exposed to day
to day feeds those assumptions and those
biases and you this is where I think we
need intervention to help change that
and you mentioned intervention I mean
quotas and things like that have been a
growing part of recruitment for
universities and for for jobs as you
mentioned before as well so
I mean our quotas the answer I mean
there’s always this counter-argument
about inequality and how you have to
apply inequality to attain equality you
know by giving people who might not have
had the chance before to have the chance
they might have have to step over
somebody who has more merit how would
you kind of argue that you know that you
need to sort of treat an inequality
problem with inequality yes so I guess
when we talk about quotas I specifically
say that and part of my talk was about
targets in particular rather than quotas
targets are aspirational we you know in
in the sense that you’ll have a women in
leadership target for example gender
diversity target all targets for other
diversity streams and the reason I say
that and I know what you’re getting at
around that sort of is a positive
discrimination and the thing is I would
argue that positive discrimination has
existed for ever right and if you think
about it from this perspective
historically who are the guys who who
are the persons that are in the top
ranks of society whether it’s sort of in
Australia or in other Western countries
and the reality is that you know if you
were to pose these questions to those
individuals because sometimes it is
those individuals who come up with this
but what about international men’s day
you know and things very bad and I sort
of say to them and of course this is not
across the board and I don’t want to
stereotype but someone who poses that
argument and I’ve had it ask people have
asked me I sort of say well what if you
didn’t get your job on merit what if
just possibly you got your job because
your male Anglo Saxon cisgender and
straight what if and that you could
argue that’s positive discrimination you
can argue that historically the system
has had a preference for individuals
that tick those boxes because if we had
a true meritocracy then you would see
more diversity at but
because the current status quo assumes a
few things it assumes that women don’t
have merit because if women had merit
there’d be more of them at the top it
also assumes that culturally diverse
people don’t have merit because again if
they did there wouldn’t be more of them
at the top so either those are
completely absurd conclusions and they
are you know it’s so that’s how I kind
of answer that you know what if and what
we know is a merit or the concept of
merit isn’t really what we think it is
and you do need to create the foundation
to create a true meritocracy because you
know I wish we existed in the world
where we didn’t have to worry about
positive or negative discrimination
where we didn’t have to worry about
quotas or targets but in as I mentioned
in my um when I take my den to the exit
ok I kind of ended it with because there
are lots of people who like cringe when
you say the word targets a little here
we go they think it’s sort of you know
like it’s at a superficial level that I
am NOT asking you know people to put
photos of diverse certain people on
their websites it’s got to be real
diversity that creates diversity of
thought but people who mount this
argument against targets I sort of say
to them well you know that famous quote
the definition of insanity is doing the
same thing over and over again and
expecting different bloody results and
the reality is we have been doing you
know you can’t do the same thing and
expect things to change if people say
well of you if you got married you’ll
get to the top well studies have proven
that those who have merit aren’t getting
to the top because those barriers in
place so that’s why we have to try
something different and that’s how I
mount the case the business case and the
moral case for why I think targets are
required that’s all we have time for we
could talk about this all day
thank you so much for joining us John
Masada is everybody
I didn’t fall I’m as America thanks so
much
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
now my you started your TED talk
actually with a personal story when you
were working as a lawyer and you meant
client for the first time I was
wondering if you could share that story
with our audience and then maybe talk
about why that moment was a sort of
light bulb for you or set off a light
bulb that you knew you wanted to work in
this area in terms of that story I have
many stories trust me it so I was
reflecting on the fact that early on in
my career as a corporate lawyer I had
this one particular interstate client
and of course being the Chatterbox that
I am I you know had spent months
building rapport with her over the phone
and over email and I was the lead
advisor on her matter and so she’d
spoken to me you know a lasagne not the
phone but then we finally got to meet
face-to-face and so I’ve walked into the
meeting room and I said hello and she
kind of gave me some look and she said
ah you must work for Miriam and
obviously I wasn’t smuggling and
watermelon back then so but I guess the
point was that she the voice that she
had heard on the phone didn’t correspond
to this person that was standing in
front of her and yeah it was just I’ve
felt you know it kind of killed my
confidence a little bit because she
assumed I was someone else and and
particularly that the voice that she’d
heard didn’t seem to correspond as
someone who looked like me and so I
found myself losing a little bit of
confidence again having to work really
hard to build that rapport and then
having to kind of explain who I am and
and then doubting myself and I think the
thing to reflect on is that minority
groups in something like up to 30% of
their time worrying about how to fit in
so that’s a lot of wasted productivity a
lot of wasted energy
about what
c’est second-guessing yourself
questioning how you’re speaking you know
what’s coming out of your mouth because
you want to make a particular impression
and so I guess the point for me
in that moment was people do make
assumptions and and stereotype others
and it’s not only unhealthy from their
perspective but also from the person
who’s on the receiving end so you were
trained and you were working as a
corporate lawyer and then now you work
as a diversity inclusion in in
corporations and big companies and I
guess your experience is about well
having such an understanding of how much
of a waste of time or having to worry
about all of that sort of stuff is what
are some of the other like ramifications
or the other sort of downfalls of this
lack of diversity or this sort of lack
of inclusion in the workforce how does
that play out
um I think ensuring that you’ve got
diversity at every level so I’m not just
talking entry-level but in particular
into leadership levels it’s actually
produces diversity of thought and that
from a business perspective is
incredible
we need that we’re you know we’re facing
a changing economy we’ve got the gig
economy things are operating differently
to how they used to to be innovative you
need to have the diversity of thought
and that comes about from having general
diversity and it’s about then
acknowledging the barriers that exists
all diverse minority groups and why
they’re not moving through the ranks a
lot of those you know research and just
insights that we have that at an entry
level lots of corporations are
incredibly diverse I’m talking every
diversity stream but as you start to
move through the ranks of leadership
it’s not reflected and it’s you know
that diversity is not reflected and so
you’re missing out on several aspects
one it’s the morale and the right thing
to do to make sure that everybody has an
equitable opportunity to move ahead but
to there’s plenty of studies that prove
that diversity
at a board level and leadership level
produces innovative results and is
really good for your bottom line so it’s
you know it makes business sense so on
that I mean you mentioned that there’s a
lot of space I suppose for diversity and
people are trying to work on that more
and that you’re seeing that say at maybe
at the entry level but that when you
look at our TVs or you look at
university professors or you look at
isn’t a CEOs or you look at you know
pretty much at every level Australia
isn’t a very well that that diversity of
Australia isn’t represented on that sort
of visible top tier of our country
mm-hmm something that you said that
really struck me is kind of terrifying
was that a lot of our decisions that we
make and especially decisions that get
made in the workforce are actually
subconscious and I was wondering if that
was that a connection that you have
drawn that the fact that we
subconsciously kind of self-selecting
that or something huh
yeah so I spoke about unconscious bias
in particular and and that you know I
was Eric Kandel it was Nobel Peace Prize
recipient and said that up to 90 percent
of the brains function is actually
unconscious and so I guess the point I
want to make is that having unconscious
thoughts isn’t necessarily always a bad
thing it you know for example when
you’re driving you know the first few
times you put a lot of conscious effort
into learning and you concentrate and
then after a while you can literally do
it with your eyes closed although I
don’t recommend it but the point is it
becomes unconscious right and so so the
brain does have a lot of shortcuts and
that’s not necessarily a bad thing but
if those shortcuts that your brain has
learned over time and it starts at a
really young age
if those shortcuts all those rules are
wrong or have bias or prejudice in it
then it’s really hard to untie it’s like
learning driving of rules incorrectly
and you’ve been doing it for years and
then you have to worry your brain not to
do that and that’s the thing about
unconscious bias right unconscious
thoughts aren’t always a bad thing but
if you’re if you’re associating you’ve
got these unconscious associations with
certain things like for example whether
it’s gender so you have all these gender
stereotypes that you’ve grown up with
that you don’t even think about you know
that can be a negative thing if you’ve
got all these associations around race
for example that can be a negative thing
and that’s it comes out when you are in
the recruitment process for example or
you are making decisions and so you know
you’re you referenced earlier about the
top ranks of leadership and how we’re
not necessarily seeing that diversity
and you’ve got to do and think about
over the last you know historically how
did we get to this point where that
diversity isn’t reflected there and then
I think the element of unconscious and
perhaps conscious bias comes into it a
lot of work that you’re doing I think we
are especially the young people in the
audience going to be very happy that you
know you’ve forged ahead and tried to
make these changes because you mentioned
a study that it’s quite old I think now
but maybe 10 or 15 years ago there was a
study right that was the exact same CV
and they just changed the names at the
top they did it with men and women and I
think there was a Western Asian sounding
name and a Middle Eastern sounding name
and Asian or Middle Eastern you’ll have
to correct me with you know is that you
had to the same resume had to get a
submitted you know 50% more or something
interview that’s right and they did it
with indigenous names as well and they
also trialed it with Italian names as
well and what they found was the Asian
sounding names had to apply 68% more
times to get the same number of call
backs as an Anglo Saxon sounding name
and then if you had a Middle Eastern
sounding name 64% more times and then if
you had an indigenous name it’s 35% more
times
I think even an Italian name was 12%
discrimination and so this kind of like
unconscious decisions where we think
that person is not right for that job or
yeah I mean it could be in an
unconscious component it could be a
conscious bias but the reality back when
this study was done was that those
individuals with those names had to try
harder and so the reality was they would
have note that they weren’t getting
callbacks but when you do this research
in that way and you submit the exact
same Rashmi so you can’t even say it’s
not because you don’t have merit because
they were the same resumes the same
qualifications and same education and so
the reality is that we know bias exists
and that some of these fires is a lot
more prominent when it comes to certain
races and particularly gender as well we
know that um so then you know how do you
change that howdy and I’m hoping that if
they’ve replicated the study today that
that hopefully it wouldn’t be as bad but
this is where something that that the
industry is trying is anonymous
recruitment where we actually strip away
all those personal identifiers so we’ll
strip away the agenda for example we’ll
strip away the name and we’ll strip away
things that indicate where someone has
been brought up for example so address
and school details and those kind of
things and when you really remove all
those things that people have no choice
but to judge you purely based on merit
they can’t look at your name and say
this person might you know make an
assumption about your name or make an
assumption about a gender or your
upbringing based on where you live so
when you strip that away you create a
true system in which you can actually
enable a meritocracy but I would argue
that under the current system that’s not
always there because as human beings we
all have biases we all have prejudices
and a lot of what we’re exposed to day
to day feeds those assumptions and those
biases and you this is where I think we
need intervention to help change that
and you mentioned intervention I mean
quotas and things like that have been a
growing part of recruitment for
universities and for for jobs as you
mentioned before as well so
I mean our quotas the answer I mean
there’s always this counter-argument
about inequality and how you have to
apply inequality to attain equality you
know by giving people who might not have
had the chance before to have the chance
they might have have to step over
somebody who has more merit how would
you kind of argue that you know that you
need to sort of treat an inequality
problem with inequality yes so I guess
when we talk about quotas I specifically
say that and part of my talk was about
targets in particular rather than quotas
targets are aspirational we you know in
in the sense that you’ll have a women in
leadership target for example gender
diversity target all targets for other
diversity streams and the reason I say
that and I know what you’re getting at
around that sort of is a positive
discrimination and the thing is I would
argue that positive discrimination has
existed for ever right and if you think
about it from this perspective
historically who are the guys who who
are the persons that are in the top
ranks of society whether it’s sort of in
Australia or in other Western countries
and the reality is that you know if you
were to pose these questions to those
individuals because sometimes it is
those individuals who come up with this
but what about international men’s day
you know and things very bad and I sort
of say to them and of course this is not
across the board and I don’t want to
stereotype but someone who poses that
argument and I’ve had it ask people have
asked me I sort of say well what if you
didn’t get your job on merit what if
just possibly you got your job because
your male Anglo Saxon cisgender and
straight what if and that you could
argue that’s positive discrimination you
can argue that historically the system
has had a preference for individuals
that tick those boxes because if we had
a true meritocracy then you would see
more diversity at but
because the current status quo assumes a
few things it assumes that women don’t
have merit because if women had merit
there’d be more of them at the top it
also assumes that culturally diverse
people don’t have merit because again if
they did there wouldn’t be more of them
at the top so either those are
completely absurd conclusions and they
are you know it’s so that’s how I kind
of answer that you know what if and what
we know is a merit or the concept of
merit isn’t really what we think it is
and you do need to create the foundation
to create a true meritocracy because you
know I wish we existed in the world
where we didn’t have to worry about
positive or negative discrimination
where we didn’t have to worry about
quotas or targets but in as I mentioned
in my um when I take my den to the exit
ok I kind of ended it with because there
are lots of people who like cringe when
you say the word targets a little here
we go they think it’s sort of you know
like it’s at a superficial level that I
am NOT asking you know people to put
photos of diverse certain people on
their websites it’s got to be real
diversity that creates diversity of
thought but people who mount this
argument against targets I sort of say
to them well you know that famous quote
the definition of insanity is doing the
same thing over and over again and
expecting different bloody results and
the reality is we have been doing you
know you can’t do the same thing and
expect things to change if people say
well of you if you got married you’ll
get to the top well studies have proven
that those who have merit aren’t getting
to the top because those barriers in
place so that’s why we have to try
something different and that’s how I
mount the case the business case and the
moral case for why I think targets are
required that’s all we have time for we
could talk about this all day
thank you so much for joining us John
Masada is everybody
I didn’t fall I’m as America thanks so
much
[Applause]
[Music]
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