Future Forward: Shaping Identity with Diversity & Expertise

Even though I think the line is still 12 million miles long, all my panelists are here for the morning. Are you? Yep. Just started. Just started to vamp. It's all good.

So yeah, welcome everybody. Thank you.

York, this is something coming out of ID Pro. How many of you know what Id Pro is one. Thank you very much.

Okay, so Id Pro is a professional organization for identity and access management practitioners. And that's, that's our focus. Our focus is on the practitioner. This is themselves. We're not a standards body.

You know, we're not, we're not saying what's the best practice in authorization. We're giving a place for people to convene and to talk about what is it, what does it mean to be in the industry, what are your challenges, you know, what questions do you have? Things like that. So our schedule's a little blown out of the water, but that's okay. I can speak relatively quickly.

What we're gonna do this morning before coffee break is Keisha Par is gonna talk a little bit about some of her observations about diversity, equity, inclusion, and how we may or may not be actually looking at the right things she'll present on that. And then we're going to have a panel and just discuss something that's been an observation, particularly in the us. I'm not so sure so much in Europe how DEI has become a naughty word, bad word. They do not like you to use it.

And so we'll talk a little bit about the backlash, then We're gonna take a break and if the conference gods are kind, there will be coffee. 'cause there isn't coffee now. And then we're going to have something a little different in the afternoon, which is focuses on, you know, what it's like, you know, remind yourselves, what's it like to be new in the industry? What do you wish you had known while you were, you know, when you were starting? And maybe help raise the awareness. So when you're welcoming new people into IAM, you get, just, just remember a little bit what it was like.

We're gonna talk to the Kim Cameron award winners and Ian Glaser is going to be moderating that panel. All right? So there's a whole bunch here about what Id Pro is and why we are awesome. Since I am Heather, the executive director, Heather Fla, the executive director of ID Pro, I, of course am just a little bit biased in favor of this organization and making sure that it's not just like a random collection of people, it's actually an a professional industry of expertise that should be recognized for what it is.

A little bit more about, ID pro the fact that we're bringing vendor learning, vendor neutral learning material. We have a body of knowledge that's written by, largely by the members, though not exclusively. And it's not promoting any particular vendor or any particular tools that's freely available and it's Creative Commons license. So go to the ID pro.org website and you'll find it. We also have a foundational certification exam that was, again, put together by, by and for practitioners.

And it just assumes, it starts with the baseline of, if you have about two years of experience in the identity industry, you should be able to pass this exam. We have our Slack environment, that's the single most popular resource that we have because it's absolutely, it's like, do you need five seconds of consulting with a friend of yours to just find out what's going on with Azure AD or the late, you know, why is this SAML metadata not working? Or what's happening in authorization? Or did this conference call for papers open?

All these things are happening in Slack and there's a bunch of other benefits as well. Today's workshop, you know, the ID pro skills survey, which is something we do every year, does have a section on diversity. And we've got four questions in particular that we tend to ask.

You know, we, we, we ask for, you know, okay, what's your, what's your feeling about, does your organization, is it dedicated to diversity and inclusiveness? Yes.

No, maybe kind of sorta, does your company or organization hire people from diverse backgrounds? Yes. No. Maybe kind of sorta, you know, do you feel like you belong there? And how much of a priority is diversity to you personally? So the answers to all of that, and more for things like how long have you been working in the industry?

That was an interesting part of the survey because more and more people are, we're getting top heavy in terms of just how many senior folks are in the field, which is great, except what we've noticed is they are, a lot of the jobs that are open are looking for senior people. A lot of people that respond to the survey, senior people, a lot of the people in ID pro senior people, that's great until they retire. And we don't have, we are not backfilling particularly well.

And I, I get it, I understand the economic complications of you're really, you know, companies don't have all the money in the world to spend, so they want to get the biggest bang for their buck, which is the most senior person they can afford, which is losing sight of the fact that if you don't plan ahead, you're, you're setting yourself up for failure later. With that, we're gonna switch over to Kay, who's going to talk about getting stuck at awareness. And I think that means we switch slides There. That was how fast can I do it? There you go.

Ah, thanks. There we go.

See, we should have coordinated better on the whole title thing, but sorry, I'm, I'm kind of losing my voice today, so apologies upfront. I just had a cup of tea hoping that would help.

But when Heather and I first talked about doing this session and talking about this, I had been working on a presentation that I called the new, the dawn of the new age in DEIA, which is not necessarily as promising as it sounds, but in our conversations, what was really apparent was that I think, and some of these are going to be my personal opinions, as she said, I'm Kay Chopard and I'm the executive director of the Qatar Initiative, but I'm not speaking for Qatar today.

I've been working in this area of diversity, equity, and inclusion for a very long time, long before I even came to the identity world. So I wanted to kind of, I guess, level set, make sure we're on the same page about when we use this acronym. And I know many folks are starting to get away from it, especially any of you who work in higher education. I know that there's been a lot of problems in the US with being able to have this conversation. Excuse me. So to be clear, so the D would be diversity, right? Meaning the participation of individuals with varying backgrounds and perspectives.

One of the things that I really think we should keep in mind is that when we're trying to talk about the implications, either in identity or in the business world as a whole, we're look really looking for diversity of thought. We're looking for diversity when it comes to innovation and creativity. This is traditionally really underrepresented groups, which is often gender, race, sexual preference, disability and so on.

But, but keep in mind, in the business world, part of the reason for bringing in those underrepresented groups is in order to have that diversity of thought equity, the e is meaning equal access to opportunities. And typically, when we say equal access, and this is where it becomes the challenge, that doesn't mean the same access. So that doesn't mean that if you are a blind person, I am going to give you access by giving you the same thing that it get every, every other site seeing abled person, right? I'm going to give you equal access.

That means I have to give you something that allows you to have the access that otherwise you can't. That's sort of the point. But sometimes people think that we just have to give everybody the same thing. That's not exactly what that equity means. Inclusion is a sense of belonging in any environment. And this is something where I'm gonna talk a little bit more about in a minute, but the thing about inclusion and that sense of belonging, it really has to be something that all of the employees in your organization have a sense for and feel.

And, but when I say that, I, I think it's important to know that that means whatever the dominant culture or race or whatever is, as well as those who are underrepresented. And sometimes we also don't think about that, that sense of belonging has to permeate the culture of your organization. And then accessibility, I kind of mentioned this before, especially when it comes to digital identity means going beyond mainstream users to include those that are underserved to those who have perhaps had more difficulty in participating in digital identity.

So that's just to kind of make sure we're on the same page about what all of that acronym means and the concepts so we don't get too stuck. So why did I call this the dawn of the new age? So there's a, a variety of reasons for this and I'm, I'm anxious to hear if you have seen some of the same thing. So we've seen a lot of changes in the business environment across industries and across regions. And the business case for gender and ethnic diversity is very strong.

In fact, McKinsey came out with a report in November of 2023 saying that diversity matters even more. And I'm gonna give you some more information about why that's the case and what that implication is. But one of the things that I am seeing, and I'd be curious to know if you have seen this too, is that there are a lot of companies who seem to have hit a wall, they've gotten so far and not been able to go any further.

So, so what, what we are seeing is that progress seems to have stalled in a lot of organizations or plateaued. It's gotten to a certain point and not advanced any farther. We're also starting to see a backlash. So you may, in the US we've seen state legislators actually passing state laws, prohibiting government agencies from having any type of DEIA programs of any kind. And in some states they've extended that to say, if you have a government contract, you cannot have a diversity equity and inclusion program. And you have to be able to certify that you're not doing that.

That there are 10 states in the us I'll pass this legislation. I see you shaking your head. Is this in unbelief?

Sadly, it's the law in 10 states in the us and there it is, about 30 other states have introduced similar legislation. So it's a real backlash that we're facing and it impacts even, you know, the commercial world if you have any kind of government contracting that you're doing. And there's also the fact that the underrepresentation, particularly of women in, in various ethnicities still exists in all regions and in all industries. So it's not changed, but we seem to be, in my opinion, hitting a wall.

So here's what I propose that we need to pivot to a new way of looking at diversity and equity and inclusion. So it often has felt like in the last several years, and in the, I can just tell you in the US I think a lot of interest came about after George Floor, George Floyd was killed. And that was very much in the public eye and in all the media. And suddenly people became even more interested than perhaps they had in the past. And yet that has now started to wane whether the memory has faded. But I think there's other things.

So in order to, to move beyond where we've gotten so far, my, my concern is that we've gotten to the point where awareness is all we really accomplished. So let me see if I can describe this a little more. So if you ask most CEOs, you know, how they feel about diversity, about equity, both for their employees as well as for their consumers, the people who buy their products, most people are gonna say, you know, of course I believe in it. It's like motherhood and apple pie, right?

Yes, we're all for that. But the difficulty has come is that so much of the effort to date has been very focused on what I would say is awareness. So raising this to our, the level of visibility that we have issues, you know, where I, I mean certainly for me, when I first started in this field and I would go to conferences and the majority of the people were white men. There were hardly any women in the crowd and there was hardly any diversity in race. I think that's actually improved over time. I certainly see many more women involved and I see a lot more people of color.

So I think that's great. But the problem is, is that most of the DEI programs that I've seen are very focused on making the point that it's important and that we have underrepresented groups that difficulty with that is it's not very actionable. So it's one thing for me to say I believe in this, it's another thing to figure out, okay, so what does that mean? How do I take action? So here are three suggestions and some of them are gonna look like we were talking about strategic planning initiatives in your organization, right?

So the first one is to commit to a systemic purpose-led approach that benefits all your stakeholders. So it means actually being deliberate about what your approach is going to be and how and how, what sort of systematic way you're going to do something concrete. The second thing is to embed that strategy in all the parts of the business enterprise.

So what you see a lot of organizations do is they do some kind of DEI training and they do that maybe at onboarding or maybe they do it once a year, but doing training that mostly just raises awareness, doesn't move the needle, right, doesn't make any changes, it's not actionable. Again, we got stuck at awareness in my opinion. And the other thing, and the third recommendation I have here is that we need to try to move away from the abstract ideals to actually concrete actions. And at a certain point, we don't have to call it diversity, equity, inclusion, you can call it whatever it is.

But we really need to have discreet actions that we've come up with for the things that we want to try to do to incorporate this kind of change and culture change in our organizations. So let me just describe for you some of the backlash. So I took these headlines from a variety of, of articles, newspapers, professional journals, association articles, some higher ed, all of these things about how the backlash is real. The rise and fall of D-E-I-D-I is a lightning rod for controversy. DEI efforts are under siege.

There's just, you can find lots and lots of these and I just picked a few to just indicate how in the media they're saying there's a, there's a real issue with this now and what does that mean for us? So one of the things that I think, again, this is in the US but that really kicked off this backlash, was the US Supreme Court struck down affirmative action programs in colleges and universities.

This, the case SFFA is an organization which is essentially, as near as I can tell, created to attack affirmative action programs, really made a concerted effort. They sued Harvard and the Supreme Court upheld their opinion that affirmative action programs are not appropriate and should not be used in colleges and universities.

So that's, I'm sure I, I don't work in academia, but I can only imagine that's really been pretty tumultuous to try to figure out where they go from here. As I mentioned before, there are 10 states that have already banned D-E-I-D-E-I funding in agencies and schools in companies with government contracts and so on. There are more bands that have been proposed that haven't passed at this point. The other thing that we're seeing is some big companies that you probably have heard of are actually cutting their DEI staff and cutting their programs.

So Meta Zoom, home Depot, DoorDash, all of these have cut their staff and cut the resources they're putting into it. Some of the, the organizations are now listing DEI as a risk factor in their shareholder reports that was reported by the Wall Street Journal about companies like JetBlue and Molson Coors and so on. And then there are some who are actually dropping any reference, any references to diversity goals in their regulatory findings. This was also reported by the Wall Street Journal.

So whereas they used to have goals that they listed in their filings, they've just taken them off, they've removed them, so they don't have those listed anymore. And those are three companies who've done that. So when it starts to reach that level, we have concern about what that trickle down might look like. Before I talk about the benefits, has, have any of you experienced any of this?

Is, has this permeated any of your organizations? Yes, I have a question.

Yes, Because make it actionable. I species 50 plus male, for me, it's logical. You take the best candidate race. Absolutely. Yeah. So your question about that you think that if we embrace anything about diversity, that that means, you know, I think your example was a 50 plus white male is now an endangered species. And see that's, that's where all of our awareness training has made it sound like it's us versus them. And that's just not the right approach. It should never be the right approach.

In fact, I'm gonna talk a little bit more about the fact that, that we need to all be in this together for exactly what you're saying. We need the best candidates regardless. And how do we do that so that we don't insert bias by accident and yet still have opportunities, right? For everyone, including 50 something white males. You should not be an endangered species.

In fact, you should feel when I said inclusiveness and belonging needs to feel like it's all employees. That that's everybody that we can't, we can't do an us versus them. That doesn't get us anywhere. And that's where I feel like that awareness or the training that we've seen has really sort of sold this short and has created issues instead of helping people understand why it's important to, to really embrace this and how it can benefit everyone, which ought to be our goal. So I'm gonna transition over to the benefits with that.

So, excuse me, there's a lot of research about the benefits. As I mentioned, McKinsey has a really, it's really a good study and it's one of the most thorough ones that they've done. And it really walks you through why it makes a difference and why it actually is important. And let me just describe some of this for you as to why it's worth putting an effort into this. So a lot you can see here, the gender and ethnic diversity and executive teams has more than doubled over the past decade. Now that, I don't wanna make it sound like suddenly, you know, half of all organizations have that.

They don't. It's still a small percentage, but still from where we came 10 years ago, you see much more diverse executive teams. And one of the first things that they point out is that the first time they did research on diversity and inclusion, they found that the financial, that the companies with the most diverse executive teams outperformed in the top 15% of all other companies, right? So they were in the top 15% for financial output. They had more revenues than about 15%.

Now, in 2024, which is almost 10 years later, that actually that increase for companies with diverse executive teams is now 39%. So there's more of them. And those companies are making more money. So if for no other reason than the fact that we could all make more money, we might wanna think about diversity in, in, in the executive teams and in the organization, in the management for that reason.

The other interesting thing is that in all industries where there's diversity in the leadership teams, they are seeing that that also correlates with higher social and environmental impact scores, which I think is just sort of an interesting as if the company has a different type of a footprint. When they have more diverse teams, there seems to be greater workforce satisfaction. And this in the study is workforce across the board. It's not just workforce for those who are underrepresented, right? The entire workforce reported a greater satisfaction.

And I think this goes back to embracing the idea that that diversity needs to be not just actionable, but favorable to everyone. And they found that the, the ratings organization, Moody's found companies had higher ratings who had greater racial diversity on their boards and in their executive ranks. So the other thing that this study found is that it seems to foster more innovation, more creativity. There was greater employee satisfaction, better decision making, and a stronger brand reputation. So there were a lot of positive impacts about incorporating diversity.

But how do we sort of get there? What does that, how do we make this happen? And I guess I would suggest that all the things I just described are benefits that most companies would like, right? We wanna make more money, we wanna make better decisions, we wanna have better brand recognition.

I mean, there's all kinds of benefits to this, but how do we translate that? So my recommendation is moving to what is what I would call more bold action things that are really action and concrete and not just everyone can agree to, like I said, motherhood and apple pie.

It's, we're all there, right? So one is, I mentioned before, a systemic purpose led approach that benefits everyone embedded in your company strategies and begin to prioritize belonging and inclusive practices. So in order to do that, again, it has to embrace the whole workforce, right? It has to embrace everyone in the company for all of these things. And one of the things to think about is emboldening and activating champions and allies. And some of that means providing adequate resources and support and acting on feedback, including dissenting voices.

So if some parts of your organization, like the 50 plus white males are feeling like they're an endangered species or they're under attack, then you have to listen to that feedback. 'cause you're not really making for a diverse program if you're trying to just change, get rid of one part, one part of your organization to hire someone else, right? That's not diversity.

So, okay, so here's, these are some of my pet peeves. I think you have to change what that action strategy looks like. So instead of this being people who are passionate about DEI to make it actionable, you need to treat it more like a math problem. So instead, what I often see in companies, so first of all, they decide they wanna do this and so they, maybe they don't hire someone right away. Instead they pick someone from the underrepresented group. Might be a woman, might be a person of color and say, you're gonna lead our efforts.

Even though just because you're part of an underrepresented group doesn't mean you have any skillset to do anything like that, right? And I think a lot of the problem that we see too is that people are willing to volunteer because they care about it and they think it's important, but they don't have the skillset to solve the math problem.

So, you know, what is the issue? What do we need to try to do? And I'm just, I'm gonna give you some of my personal experiences, my attempts, some that worked and some that didn't. So by example, I ran a much larger organization before cantara, I was also a nonprofit and we really didn't have a very diverse staff in my opinion. So I really wanted to try to make a difference. So I talked with my HR folks and I said, I want there to be at least one woman or one person of color in every candidate panel, right, of the finalist.

So let's say we have four finalists, I want at least one to be like that. And so, okay, fine. So that's what they did. Didn't make a difference. We were not hiring more women or people of color at all. The diversity did not change. One I ota well, so then I read a research study after I had left there 'cause I wasn't quite sure, you know, now what do I do? I didn't wanna give up, but I didn't seem to make any progress.

Well, the research shows that actually in a, if you only have one candidate that is a gender, one can, that is, you know, a woman, one candidate that's a person of color in a panel of four, the statistical chance that they will be hired is zero. And the researchers say it's because you've now singled them out as being different. You've now made them the token and nobody looks at their credentials.

Instead, what you have to do is you need to have at least two or more. So you have a finalist, four finalists, two women, two men, you have two people of color, you have two white people, whatever. So that now it's more even. And what they found is that the hiring groups then focused on the merit instead of seeing that person as singled out. And what happens is it raised their chance of, of being hired by 79%. So it was a huge difference. It was a small change. I thought I was doing the right thing.

The research said I wasn't, I was actually doing those people a disservice because now they were being singled out because they looked like they were on the panel because they were a person of color instead of really focusing on the merits. And when they did that, now the chances that those other folks, when it was more even in the candidate pool, according to the research, their chances of being hired went up dramatically. So that we are focused on merit ability, capability, expertise, all the things that you want.

So you're hiring the right people and yet you're still able to hire for diversity. So that's just one example for myself where I thought I was doing the right thing and it didn't work out. But I think the thing that that points to is that this is a difficult problem and it's not something that you really can address and tackle and solve easily. I see a lot of, I see a lot of organizations, especially folks in the c-suite, and having been a CEO myself and many different organizations, it was a lot easier just to figure out, you know, what's the checklist?

You know, the check, the one and done. And I wanted it to be that simple, but it's not that simple. And so for a lot of organizations, you really need to have that kind of support and understanding and commitment at the top levels. It can't just come from the bottom up.

And I'm, I'm going to force you to listen to another example for me, but I, I'm actually an attorney and I started out my career as a prosecutor and midway through my career, I went to Washington DC, which is where I'm based. And I was asked to create educational programs for prosecutors around the country. And the federal agency that hired me was frustrated that they'd been trying to do this and they weren't having any success. So I went and I looked at what they had done and I was like, we, we need to make some changes. And so then I asked them, so talk to me about what you've been doing.

Well, they said, we are, this was around the issue of impaired driving. And they said, well, we've been talking to all these prosecutors who handle these cases and they say they're all fired up and they're willing to change their policies and they're going to do things different, but then it never happens.

And I, and I said to them, well, having been in that career path myself at one point in time, all of the prosecutors that are doing these that are like traffic offenses and impaired driving offenses in the prosecutor world are often referred to as baby prosecutors because that's what they do when they're fresh out of law school and it's the first kind of case they do and they figure it's less risky. And there's lots of those. So they are brand new right now who sets policy in those offices? It would not be the guy that's fresh outta law school, right? That has to be the elected official.

That has to be the senior management. They set the policy, not the brand new, you know, kid who's just getting started out. And so I of course had to change their model and start working with the higher level folks in order to get that policy to change. And I was there for 10 years and a lot of things did change and they, and they improved dramatically. But I guess that's just an example of saying my comment before where somebody will say, well, you're a woman or you're a person of color, so I'll have you lead this.

And often because they're the underrepresented, they already have difficulty having their voice be heard. Now we're going to elevate them, usually not with a promotion and usually with no kind of, sort of upskill upskilling for what they need to be able to do. So it's really important, I think that we try to find ways that we are bringing in that, that leadership and the, the other thing to think about is, I often see these programs for mentoring and mentoring programs are terrific, right? There's really good things that can happen.

And I think it helps a lot of underrepresented groups to kind of get a sense about things that they should think about that maybe no one ever told them, and ways that they should approach their career and all of that kind of stuff. But in the grand scheme, who does the hiring, firing, and promotions, not the new kid that we're bringing in and doing the mentoring with, it's that higher level. Why don't we have mentoring programs for c-suite or for executive teams?

If this is really something where it's gonna impact their bottom line, it's gonna have great positive impact on their company and their organization, then someone needs to help them to figure out, like for me, I had no one to talk to, so I made this hiring policy that wasn't working and I, I didn't really know where to go from there. And the only way that I've learned some of that is by doing my own research. And that's one way to do it, but it can be painfully slow.

So, okay, so the other thing, as I mentioned is the need to foster a sense of belonging for all the employees. And that's again, where this really has to be a team effort. And what you don't wanna create is this us and them or for, you know, the majority of your employees to feel like they're the outsiders or suddenly they don't have any chances for promotion. That doesn't help your organization either, right? And be an authentic leader.

We hear this a lot, but I think this is important again for your executive teams where they need to be genuinely interested in this and supportive and to really have an authentic approach to it. Here, here's a Gartner report that came out about how you can use diversity equity inclusion to build high performing teams.

You know, you get better decision making, you have varied thought and you really are trying to foster cognitive diversity, which I thought was a great term, but that is what we're looking for. And so it has to go beyond that awareness that this is important. Instead we have to figure out how do we make this actionable measuring the results, you know, assess what your current situation is and whatever your area of responsibility is. And I've talked a lot about the need for this to be something that starts at the top, but the same is true at any kind of team that you're in.

Take a look at the teams that you're on, are there some areas for improvement? And come up with some kind of an action plan. Just to give you a another example of something that I've learned based on research that came out of Princeton University. So there were two researchers who were actually looking, there were like behavioral scientists and they were looking at group interaction, group activity. How does a, how does a, like a product team work together? And what were those dynamics like?

And they were trying to figure out what makes high performing teams, what makes teams most productive, those kinds of things. And they discovered sort of by accident and not intentionally that in any kind of a team, if you put just one underrepresented person, so if you have only one woman in a, in some kind of a work team or you have only one person of color, typically their voice will never be heard, that they really won't have the opportunity to say much.

If you look at teams where there are fewer women or fewer people of color, what often happens as the team is working together is that they get interrupted more often. Many times their ideas are not listened to until someone else from the dominant group says the same thing. In the US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once described in interview how that would happen to her when she was the only woman on the court. She would present something and no one would accept it. And then a half an hour later, a different justice would say the same thing and now suddenly was acceptable.

It, it's some kind of a strange cultural thing that seems to happen. It's not just for women, it's for, it's for people of color as well. Or if you have folks with disabilities, it kind of, or L-G-B-T-Q kind of folks. And anyway, the point of that was that in their research they found that women or underrepresented groups can't just be half and half. You really have to have a majority of whatever it is in order to make sure that women's voices or people of color or L-G-B-T-Q, that their voices are actually heard, which I think is incredibly challenging.

But one of the interesting things that came out of that is several companies who said, we will never put a single, you know, person of color, we'll never put a single L-G-B-T-Q person on some kind of a work team because we know that that is kind of a recipe for failure. So what does that say in terms of the action plan?

Well, one of the things that I often talk to people about, and I have many white men who I think see the advantage and see the importance and want to try to, to do something about it. In fact, I, I did a talk during COVID and Victoria Bert was on my call and in the chat he said, I like to think that I can share my white boy power. And it was a wonderful thing. And I think that's very true that we all have to be in this together because we're trying to get to a better place for everyone.

And so, by example, when you're in a group, pay attention to the dynamics. Are the, are the, you know, the underrepresented folks getting interrupted a lot more often? Are their ideas not getting picked up? It's an easy thing. I I think that, you know, Joe Smith had a great idea. I think we should come back to that, right? It's not something that is necessarily a strategic plan that you've written out, but it's, it's action that you can begin to take. And we know from the research that it actually can make a difference.

Implementing your plan and, and building and, and measuring that effectiveness over time through the life cycle of whatever kind of development you're doing, incorporating accountability to stick to the goals. I think when we say incorporating accountability, it's really trying to make sure that those in leadership feel accountable that we're going to be committed to this and if the first thing we try doesn't work, then we're gonna try something else, right?

Not, not just to give up. I mean, if nothing else, making 39% more than your competitors ought to be some kind of an incentive. And then keep the, the DEI strategy and your action in plan in mind in the day-to-day kind of leadership opportunities that you even have.

Like that, what I just described in group dynamics. These were some questions for you to think about. I don't know that we need to spend time talking about that, but we're, I, I'm really trying to suggest that while we can all believe and understand that this is important, we have to get beyond our beliefs. We have to get beyond that. We're aware it's an issue and we have to solve this math problem and figure out how we do it. And if the first solution that we tried doesn't work, then we need to try another solution. So that's my contact information.

Both Cantara and women in identity do have specific initiatives that they're doing around this issue. And I encourage you to contact any of the folks I have listed on the screen and if there are are any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Although I know there's a panel still to talk, so maybe you wanna move to that, but thank you. Thanks. Thanks.

Alright, so We do have a panel. Thank you for Kay, who will be on the panel, Elizabeth and my token male mike.

So while, while we're getting ourselves sorted, come sit. Okay, relax. I wanted to note that there was, you know what, you should sit here Okay, because then I can look at all my pencils. All right, I didn't wanna cut across You. You're all fine. Once upon a time, I, I worked, probably the single most diverse company I worked for was in the mid nineties. Some of you may have been working in the mid nineties. Do you remember that as kind of a really, you know, innovative time with.com being the thing. They couldn't find trained people, so they just found smart people.

And we had French majors and political science majors and history majors and library science majors and young people and older people. And it just didn't matter because they were desperate to hire who, you know, whoever could learn how to do the work. And it was, it was really, really glorious. We were definitely innovative in what we did.

I was working for an ISP at the time, and the men that were working there definitely found a lot of benefit from it because things they got to do, things that weren't really so much a thing before, like parental leave, which, you know, that suddenly became this, this mutual benefit that everyone could take advantage of. You know, little, little, little things like that were perhaps one of the biggest changes of, of having a diverse workforce.

With that, why don't we, Kay has already introduced herself, but Elizabeth, why don't you tell these people who you are, Elizabeth? Nope. Is that on? Try again. Hello?

Yes, it is on. I'm Elizabeth Garber.

I, I'm independent. I work a lot with a lot of organizations in the identity industry. IG pro being one of them as well as the Open ID Foundation and an organization called City Hub, which is not an organization, but I don't need to try and describe it to you now.

And, but I, I have worked for a long time in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Specifically founded a community in the United Kingdom with about 500 members that was a peer development community, part of the Lean in global network. I have met Cheryl Sandberg as a part of that effort, which was pretty neat. Been in her house, that was fun. And then I got a, a master's degree in, in psychology focusing specifically on social identity theory and the workforce.

Mike, do you wanna introduce yourself? I would love to. I'm Mike Kaiser. I'm not independent. I work for SailPoint. I have a theology degree in my background and I'm white and I'm male. And that All Good male species at the university in Belgium, a lot more women graduated. Wow.

Pat, you know, that was one of the before. As we were putting this panel together, I really wanted to get diversity of geography. I wanted to find people in Europe or Africa, or even if anyone was coming from Asia to be on the panel. And I couldn't find anybody. So I know that this is a fairly US heavy point of view as to what's happening. So hearing what's happening in the rest of the world is actually fascinating to me. Should we pull up a chair, But thinking about that, thinking about the sort of the global impact of, of diversity and change and identity.

I mean, what's, we'll start with, we'll start with Elizabeth. What's your first thought about what that means for, for us as a, as a field and what we need to do?

I mean, I have a lot of competing first thoughts like rushing into my brain when, when you ask that question. But I, I think as, as an industry, if you don't have diverse voices around tables, when you're making policy, when you're making products, what does that mean? That means that your biometric algorithms are gonna be potentially biased. It means that you are not reaching into markets that may exist because you lack insight about those markets.

It means that all, there are all sorts of ethical decisions that you might not even realize are decisions are even questions that are being completely overlooked. So it's, it's fundamentally important as an industry, specifically an industry with such direct human impact that we bring those voices a around the table.

Mike, what do you think? What's your first thoughts? I was thinking about how you actually put this stuff into action in concrete ways. I think everyone agrees with the ideals. I'm trying to decide, I even as I sit here, I've been thinking about this for a while. How do you be active in including and enabling people who have been marginalized in ways that don't make people feel like they're being targeted? Is it phrasing, is it how you think about it?

Yeah, so I have, I have more questions than answers. I suppose One of the things I do is I spend, she's got the thing, one of the things that I've observed, I do a lot in the standards development space. And if you've ever been to an IETF meeting, it's about 90% men, 10% women. And I absolutely loa that. When people look at me and say, oh, you're a woman. Obviously you're interested in diversity, so you should be, you should be going to this thing. And I'm like, no, I don't want to some, you know, okay.

Some of what you were pointing out about how, you know, it's important to have, you know, the math workout that at least two people be engaged, just always felt really, even that felt awkward to me when, you know, the general population that it's not representative of what's out there. How, how do you balance that? The need for action with just the, but it's not a representative sample of the organization. That's not an easy answer.

There's, oh, Did you think you were on an easy paddle? Well, that's next Door. So there's a couple of things that come to mind. One of the things is that, like you were saying, they're, you know, people often think, well, you're from, you're a part of this underrepresented group, so you should be wanting to do this work. When really in my opinion, we need, if you really wanna tackle this, you need people who have entrepreneurial skills. You need somebody that knows how to run a business or, or start a new business. Those are the skills you need.

And if that is a white male, then I think that would be a better fit because you've got the people with the skills. I don't know if you remember, like 20 years ago, there was a book written about crowdsourcing and how they were talking about how you bring all these different viewpoints together and you can solve these problems so much faster. And that was really not about diversity at all. It was about decision making and sort of saying, it's amazing how this happens when you get all these folks that come together.

But nowadays we think of it as diversity when really we're problem solving by bringing everybody together. And one of the things that the McKinsey study talks about is you don't have to have complete parody, right? So it doesn't have to be now, you know, 25% of the workforce is white male and 25% is women, 25% is people of color. And you know, instead what they recommended was that a company's demographics ought to reflect the population where you're doing business.

So if where you're doing business, you know, is predominantly a specific race, then that's probably what you want your demographics to look like. But I think where the math comes in, like my example about the hiring is, what you can't do is assume that you can get that demographic by, by doing the same thing in like the hiring panels, right? So like my example in the hiring panels, what what you don't wanna do is make people stick out like a sore thumb either. So it's finding that balance that I think is a challenge. And I'm pretty sure I didn't answer the question.

It wasn't an easy question. Elizabeth, do you have thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, I, I think it's really critical that you don't take somebody who is different and then put them in a place where they're trying to make change in an organization. Because what they're doing, what you're bringing them in to do in that case is, is basically create conflict. And that can make matters worse. And that's why you see such heavy turnover when you just have, you know, a, a a token person of color or a token woman at the table, you see that they actually really struggle in those environments that psychologically they, they, they feel different.

And they are, as you pointed out many times, Kay, they struggle to get heard. And so that, that that doesn't reflect an organization that values both diversity and inclusion. It reflects an organization that is trying to solve, I don't, I don't, I don't even know they're trying to solve a math problem, but they're, they're taking only the first step, right?

And, and, and that conflict creates Problems in the organization. So, you know, I think it's, it's really important that we're focused more on the recruitment points that you, you mentioned, but also inclusion and ensuring that the organization is one that is ready to foster and, and welcome people with diverse thoughts, diversity of thought. And that's why we see such a positive cycle in, in those business results. This is my theory. I I have no proof that this is, that this is true, but, but I, I think that this is why we see such positive results.

It because it reflects and organizations are becoming more inclusive. They're valuing critical thinking, they're valuing the human experience of their workforce. And that's why the diversity is actually beginning those positive financial results. Did that make sense? I don't think it did. I I think that a lot of this may be somewhat universal, but also somewhat very specifically cultural. Growing up in the states, there are massive sociopolitical issues that exist that don't exist elsewhere.

The existence of slavery, the concept of reparations in the states, I think similar, similar mechanisms can exist other places. But there's also, I think that ties into some of some of these efforts. I prompted a group of friends of mine that I know had strong opinions on this topic, and I, for once in my life, I said, I want you to tell me about your opinion about DEI and I'm not going to respond. 'cause usually I argue with whatever they say.

And so they, they laid out their arguments and basically they said, any quota that you put on hiring or otherwise they feel like is automatically not even necessarily disenfranchising them, but they felt like it was not hiring the best candidate. So that, that leads to, to two thoughts. One is maybe the phrasing needs to be different. I don't know, like, because what you're actually doing is you're saying the best candidate is someone who is diverse, that it's not just training and education is part of what you're saying by putting those numbers on it.

And so you can discuss that one way or the other. Just trying to think about is there a way to do it without, and it may not be possible. Is there a way to do this without having hard numbers that are required? Can you engender do your work on the front end, so to speak? Like if you were a hiring manager, you could look for pools of talent that were divorced, diverse, not divorced. So for example, in the states, we need diversity. So you could look for historically black colleges and establish recruiting efforts there.

You're not saying I have to hire someone from there, but you're broadening your pool automatically. So you bring that in. I guess the question then becomes is that, is that entity wide enough? Probably not.

I, I, again, more questions than answers, thoughts. I mean I, I, I founded a startup and one of the things that I was really determined about was that we were gonna have more than just me as the woman in the startup, right?

And we, we sought out recruitment agencies that were supposedly focused on diversity, equity and well diverse hiring. And I met a total of zero female engineers as a result of that effort. So I think we need, we need to work harder to reach, and I think it's a real problem. It's a real problem for organizations, even those that have the right ambition to actually create those spaces, find those spaces, build those pipelines. And that's why the work that that, that we're doing at an industry level with ID pro and with women in identity and is so, is so important.

We have to really be fostering these spaces where, where we can find these professionals and, and companies that have the right ambition can actually find those talented individuals. You meet them on the market. Yeah.

So in, In Europe, ultimately they focus very much to stimulate stem direction education also for the the female. Yeah. Also Possible candidates.

Yeah, you're right. They Push for that in the schools.

You're, you're right. And we do that in the US too.

And I, I will just point out that like I think that it's more than just a lack of female engineering talent that was hindering my startup. I think there are are perhaps other structural and societal forces that mean that women are not necessarily on the market for a very early stage startup at the same rate that men are. Yeah. But certain things that they say its gender exists is that it's more the level of testosterone or whatever push that people have.

That's, that, that makes also different between typically men or more pushy than, than women. I don't know. I know some pretty pushy women. I think I've been Called that before.

So it's, yeah, well this, well this, the ceiling and sea level, you see perhaps the wrong words, A lot of more sociopath type of people 'cause they use their elbows to get to the top and men do it more than women Could be. So it's, yeah, I think it'd be neat to have some like elbow free people at the top of organization.

That's, that's what you see a lot of companies, certainly old school, but it's people look not now more and more for other, it's, it's, it's a way of thinking. You can yeah, put whatever, whatever percentage you want, but it's the way of thinking. You have to think, okay, no, no matter what the origin is of anyone, I take the best or I I do that. If you don't change thinking of people, that's then it'll be difficult to, to the question Please. Yeah. What I'm hearing hear diversity and so on as well. But many of the things just cl in the normal group behavior analysis.

So there's only one person that stands a little bit out no matter what. I mean, I've been where I was the only male, I couldn't get a word.

It's one of the things we had in a former company where I was, was you could not be hired as a manager, not even from outside, but even as a CEO on board, unless you passed the internal leadership academy, that internal Leadership academy had like notching behavioral analysis and this all kind of things, but also have indirect recognition, meaning that you always have these tools, like the one who does the same market, has the opinion, all these kind of things make that company very diverse because they certainly add the small voices that are not that visible.

So everything just became much more dynamic. So it probably not as so much as we do a lot of things accompanied by very easily makes and rules saying, well we don't hire those with, with the, with step out because if NEUROPATH or leadership academy, So you could actually fail the leadership academy and Then it'll be fine again if you're CEO past that or not the CE that they want.

See, that's to me an a perfect example of what I was trying to suggest. Something that's very concrete, it's actionable.

I mean, pointing to something like that and you could see the difference clearly in the, in the company. And, and that's what we need more of, in my opinion.

We, if we did more things like what you've described, then I think that diversity would kind of naturally happen. That otherwise the problem is it's not, and unfortunately, I think there are some people who think they want the best candidate and don't realize that they still have a, a bias, they're partial that that best candidate will probably be, you know, someone who looks like me. And if I'm a white male, that's what I'm gonna look to. They seem like the best candidate. I think I'm doing it for the right reasons when in fact there's probably some unconscious bias happening there.

Or, or your comment about a lot of this is cultural. In fact, remember the study I was telling you about the Princeton researchers and they were talking about if there's only one woman in the group doesn't, they don't get hurt. They commented about the fact that even if you put like 50 50, that other women in the group would not give other women credibility. So they were like, this isn't like a men bashing women thing, right? They were just like, it's, it's a, it's a cultural group dynamic and so everybody has to work to try to overcome that. But I think the example you gave is outstanding.

Yeah. I should find out where that is because I should read that to my talk And that investment in leadership as well, that doesn't just solve the math problem, right? It also solves the results problem.

So it's, it's that investment in quality leadership and inclusion in as a leadership skill that solves more problems than just the math problem. Yeah. And that's why, yeah, that's back to my cyclical thing.

So I, I wrote on LinkedIn a while ago some observations about four different women that I was familiar with and how they, you know, look, coming back to the culture perspective, just how they handled adversity. And it comes back to like the pointy elbows things right there, there was, you know, my, my my perspective, what do I do? I just say, well, that's cute. And then I walk around the person that's giving me grief and I either, you know, do something else because I do not have time for that nonsense, right?

Or I just, I just like, you know what, I'm not even, I don't have time for you and I ignore it and move on. Which, you know, sounds very calm and character building, but it means I've walked away from a lot of opportunities because I don't want to have an argument. I have a good friend who's very Canadian. She's extremely Canadian, and Canadians are just notoriously nice people. They're not like where I grew up. And she does her ever love and best to make friends with everybody.

You know, if someone is giving her grief and aggravation, she'll do her. She will put so much effort into, you know, turning them around and making them an ally and, and let's all be friends together, which is great.

It can be, it can be very effective. It's also exhausting. Then there's the, the next person who she made sure that not only would you regret giving her grief, but all of your descendants would regret it too.

I mean, she, her elbows were beyond pointy. She, she had like swords and knives and, I mean, she was just ready to make, make the pain be felt if, if someone did not respect her in the, in the manner to which she felt she should be accustomed. And then the last person, her, her category of this was, I'm, I'm just going to be better. I'm just gonna be better. I'll be better than everybody in the room. Whatever I have to do, I will be better so that it becomes obvious that I'm, I am smart and worthy and everything, which is again great.

I mean, she went very far. She was also very burned out and very tired. But those seem to be like the four categories of, of how I see people res responding to adversity when DEI is becoming an issue now, is that just me or have you, you know, Kay, have you observed that?

Is that, does that resonate with you? I think that, I think that all four of the things that you've described, I think are, are very common.

I do, I do think that there's another approach that isn't necessarily easy, but, so for example, it, you could, I mean, it's not just a one-on-one situation, right? It's really sort of how do those relationships and net and networks and how does that conflict develop? So by example, I've certainly had, you know, that headbutting kind of situation. And most of the time for me, I have to try to figure out what's in it for that other person.

Why, why are they approaching me this way and what, what are the ways that we can maybe collaborate that would make this an easier thing to do? What, what's their interest? How can I help them kind of see the bigger picture, if you will? And that usually takes more time. And that's usually more about relationship building. And that means trying to get into understanding where they're coming from and what may be motivating some of that. Sometimes that means also figuring out who do they listen to?

Who are people that they think have either expertise or credibility and working, I don't know that you wanna call them surrogates, but essentially working with the people that I know that they're gonna pay attention to who I may already have a relationship with. So they sort of help me reinforce with this person. So I think that's a different, and that can be hard work and, and my husband accuses me of being manipulative because I'm trying to figure out, but what I'm really trying to do is meet that person where they are and figure out what that, what it takes to do that.

And sometimes it's me, sometimes it's getting someone else. Sometimes it's presenting them with other information in a way that's easier for them. And sometimes it's acknowledging whatever kind of negative experiences that they've already had.

So, I don't know. I, that's another, I don't know. It sounded very Canadian's.

A lot of, It's not about making friends though. It's about, about credibility and respect.

And, and so sometimes that has to be in, that has to be intellectual. Not necessarily, I'm, I'm thinking of a couple people right now that we are definitely not friends, but I think they respect what I have to say and they listen. They didn't start that way. So What I observe is like, it's, I think you're, you're playing the long game, but you're also doing in those scenarios a lot of work. You're doing a lot of the emotional labor of managing that relationship. This kind of category four there where you're having to be better.

You're having to do a lot of work in order to make those relationships constructive, positive. It reminds me of a comment that I, I had the opportunity to hear Emmanuel Macron's ministry or minister of, I think it was diversity, equity, inclusion, speak at an event a few years ago. And she said, you'll know when we've cracked this problem when you start to see a bunch of mediocre women at the top.

Okay, that was bad. Which I think, I think drives home the point that like, we have to put in quite a lot of extra effort in, in those scenarios. And sounds like you do a smashing job. Kay.

Well, depends on what I need from them, Mike. Yeah, no, I think it, just agreeing with what y'all are saying, it's, on one hand it's emotional labor that you're doing. On the other hand, everyone comes to this issue with their own baggage, with their own experience. Those guys I talked about before, several of them feel like they have been passed over because of quotas. Whether it's true or not is very hard to say. But if I walk in guns blazing to use a bad Texas metaphor and tell them how they should think, I'm not gonna get anywhere. They're not gonna listen to me.

Also, 'cause my personality is very argumentative, but instead asking questions and making sure they feel heard helps me phrase things better and helps me communicate that I've listened to them first is that emotional labor on, on my part, maybe it's also an us versus them individual versus collective vibe that's going on this whole time. Right? Throwing elbows all about me like, and human nature is to play zero sum games. If I don't defend myself, if I'm not aggressive, I'm going to get passed over. I'm going to miss an opportunity.

Whereas if I identify with a collective, and Americans in particular are terrible at this, if I identify with a collective, then I am, I'm advancing because we're all advancing, right? So it's an interesting identity vibe there as well. I'm not saying I feel one way or the other all the time, by the way. I see you laughing. But It's, it's difficult.

It's, I'd also just, I just wanna clarify. I don't think it's a bad thing to do emotional labor. And I think that it's probably better if more people have to do it. If more people have to make the effort of, of making relationships work, right? There is a privilege in being able to throw your elbows around and doing the labor of maybe reigning that in a little bit is, is probably better for the groups that you participate in. So I'm all for emotional labor all around.

Well, and, and, and believe me, it's not just women who do that kind of thing, right? Because I have men that I work with in circles and we, we've talked about and strategized about how we're gonna manipulate the situation or the people or whatever to get things done.

But I think the other thing that women maybe do more easily, and sorry, I kind of leaped in if you had something else you wanted to ask, but the other thing that I encourage people a lot and because I come from a, a, a lawyer background and I have worked with lawyers my whole career, this is another place where you have to say this more often. And that is, if you don't care who gets the credit, sometimes it's easier to get things done if you can set aside your own ego.

And the other thing that I find is that if I am doing some kind of work and I'm trying to get a group to come together and we actually make progress and we develop something, we put something out there, whatever. And if I'm not trying to take the credit half the time, people still give me the credit anyway. So it's like a recognition for the hard work that you've done without having to put yourself out there and say, Hey, look at me. I did this great thing. But it ends up being that that collaboration and that diversity of the group that came together that really makes for the success.

And so I think what I've described is something that many men do, and to be honest, maybe better than most women, because it's almost, it's like politics with a small p and you just see a lot of folks that are successful at trying to accomplish things because they could see the path, they could see not just the details. They could see what are the increments and the steps and the people have to get to come to the table in order to make this happen. And that's not necessarily about diversity, that's about getting things done in the workplace. There You go.

Well, that brings us about to coffee break, which means we can do the wrap up. One sentence, last thing to say, what do you have? One sentence? One only one.

There can, Only one. It can have semicolons, it can have all sorts of punctuations. The what changes people's minds is intense conversations and experiences. One of my other friends was quiet for most of that conversation and then he chimed in and he said, I wrote a paper in high school advocating against affirmative action. It's my senior thesis, he said. But since that time I've changed because I have a differently abled daughter. And I have seen firsthand the idea that it's not, everything is not by merit straight up.

And so it shouldn't have be that way, but his voice was loudest in the room and no one could say anything because it wasn't me just arguing from some theoretical high ground. It was his experience.

So that, and maybe we need a new acronym. Hmm. Just because it's been charged. 'cause new acronyms solve everything. Exactly. I need more acronyms. Hmm. I think there will be a lot of punctuation in my sentence. I bringing this back to what we are here in the room. So we are here at an industry conference, right? I think it's super important to think about what we can do in our organizations, but what, what is possible at an industry level. It's participating in events and organizations like ID pro.

And it's like thinking about how how can these bodies that we participate in include more people Bringing new voices into standards organizations is critically important. I think that the Victoria Troche award, I see Ian back there, that that is so important for bringing new voices into our industry. The work that EIC does. I was speaking to Yorg yesterday about the work he does to try and recruit different voices, not just women or people of color, but, but new voices to, to come to this contra conference. So it's not the same iati year over year doing the talks.

There's a lot of effort that goes into that. So consciously thinking, where, where is my power to influence this and to make this a more diverse and inclusive organization, diverse and inclusive industry. Taking that away and, and thinking about it carefully is, is super important. So that's my one sentence One I I'm really good with, with semicolons.

Hyphens, m dashes. You got it. It's a really long sentence. We'll talk. Yeah. You might wanna correct it. Okay. I'm still struggling here with what my, even if it's a long sentence, what to say.

I think I, I've just seen the benefits, like what you described. When we find a way to allow more voices to come together, and I have, I have sons, I have no daughters, but I have sons who have somehow decided to stand up for, for women in the underrepresented in many ways.

They're, they just graduated from university and the one took a class in advanced feminist political theory. Okay? He doesn't ask me what to take.

So I, apparently he's been listening and I had no idea. 'cause most of the time I think he thinks I'm dumber in a box of rocks. But he wrote a paper that he shared with me and he basically said, I'm a feminist because of the women in my life. And in order for women or any other underrepresented group like your, your friend's daughter, right? Who's disabled, we, in order for us to make any progress, we have to have white men at the table.

And, and he, he's a very, you know, average looking, you know, white guy, six foot tall. And you would not have guessed he had these thoughts, but he said, it makes us all better. It makes men better, it makes women better, it makes people of color better. And he said, that's why we have to do this. And that's why it's important that people who look like me are a part of this and we do what we can. And I appreciate what you share because I'm hoping my son will have stories like yours when he's out there in the workforce.

So, All right with that, it's coffee break time again. This afternoon we're gonna talk a little bit more about what it's like being new in this industry to remind folks who it's might have been a while, and then talk about how we can make the new experience a little bit better. So thanks for coming in this morning. I really appreciate it.