Learning Allyship Through Tech Leadership
I am a straight white male born to an upper middle class family, with a nobel laureate father and an ivy league alumna mother. I have been afforded many of the privileges our society has to offer, and while I would like to claim my career rise to CTO of Delphix was entirely self-made, the reality is that the two are inextricably entwined. So why am I here, writing about diversity and inclusion, a topic upon which I should have little to no moral authority? I aspire to wake up each day a better person, and I believe that I can positively impact individuals well beyond the walls of Delphix. By starting to tell the story of my personal growth at Delphix, I hope that others will listen and apply these ideas to themselves and their environment.
Much has been said about being an ally to underrepresented and disadvantaged groups, and others have already done a far better job that I could ever hope to achieve. I would never claim myself a shining example of an ally, nor am I here to give myself a public pat on the back. I am a work in progress, and my goal is simply to share a few personal lessons of allyship as I took on greater leadership and management roles throughout my career. Neatly summarized:
- Listen to your employees, and support your existing advocates for diversity and inclusion; they are your champions that will enact real change.
- Educate yourself, both by seeking out learning opportunities and injecting yourself into the conversation. Challenge your perspectives and acknowledge your own biases.
- Grassroots efforts are necessary but insufficient, ultimately requiring company-wide support with executive accountability and responsibility.
- It’s critical to engage not just advocates who are passionate about the topic, but everyone in the company — regardless of their awareness and interest.
When I started at Delphix almost seven years ago, diversity and inclusion was little more than a faint glimmer in my eye. I had always been interested in the topic, and being married to a neuroscientist, I saw first hand the challenges women faced in the academic world. But it wasn’t until shortly after I took over as VP of Engineering that it really took a prominent place in my professional life. It was 2013, and the dialogue around diversity in the tech industry was heating up, both externally through what I read and internally through the conversations within the organization. But what really hit home for me was an experience I had right after reading an article about gender bias in starting salaries and the role negotiation plays in the process. I was proud of the fact that our incoming class of college hires that year was almost half women, but when I looked at starting salaries I was shocked to find that those women were consistently paid 5% less than their male counterparts. Not because our recruiting team was actively malicious, but because no one realized that our processes accentuated this systemic gender bias. After addressing the salary imbalance and working with the recruiting team to adjust the process that created it, I realized this was a responsibility I bore well beyond any passing personal interest in the topic.
Thankfully, I have had the privilege of working with some amazing and passionate advocates of diversity and inclusion within Delphix. The first lesson I learned is that simply listening and responding with support will do wonders. We had lots of people that wanted to build groups to support women in engineering, create scholarships for underrepresented groups in education, provide unconscious bias training for the team, revamp our phone screen process to compensate for bias, and much more. All they needed was an ally in leadership to support their efforts and amplify the message to the organization at large. But an ally is not just a congratulatory name you give yourself after nodding your head to a series of good ideas from others. Rather, it’s someone that takes the time to truly understand and participate in the conversation. If you’re not part of the conversations where ideas on diversity and inclusion are regularly shared and discussed, if you haven’t sat through unconscious bias training yourself, if you haven’t challenged your own perspectives and acknowledged your own biases, then you’re never going to be a truly effective ally.
For years, these grassroots efforts permeated throughout the engineering and product teams. They became woven into our conversations and our values. But as the company grew, that enthusiasm gradually turned to frustration. We’d made great progress within engineering, but were failing to break through to the company at large. Efforts that required company-wide support, such as diversity reports, HR process changes, and external communication, felt stalled. Perspectives on diversity and inclusion at the company varied widely, ranging from disinterested to highly satisfied to deeply frustrated. Here I saw firsthand how grassroots efforts are necessary but insufficient. They need to be supported by a company-wide strategy with top-down executive responsibility and accountability for success.
Thankfully, our new CEO Chris Cook was of a similar mindset, having spearheaded the creation of a diversity and inclusion program at New Relic. He approached me with an idea, and together we teamed up to create the Delphix Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council, a group of senior leaders that would not supplant grassroots efforts, but rather support, align, and amplify them. This has been a fantastic experience, but has taught me that diversity and inclusion has limited effectiveness when you are primarily engaging those already aware of, and interested in, the topic. As I started to work with a broader audience, those that are less familiar with the nuances of diversity and inclusion, I had to return to first principles and focus on education and awareness. All of a sudden it felt like we were moving slower — more presentations, more iteration on charters, and more roadmap refinement — but the the time we took to build that alignment is already starting to pay dividends as we roll out initiatives across the company.
It’s been a long road for myself and Delphix, and yet we’re both really only at the start of our journey. I feel more capable of meaningful allyship, but acknowledge there’s still a lot of growth in front of me. Delphix absolutely has diversity and inclusivity today, but we’re not where we want to be. But I firmly believe that Delphix has the right foundation, from our values to our employees to our leaders, to build upon our early success and become a company that inspires and engages everyone through a diverse and inclusive environment. And I only hope that I can continue to grow by being part of that at Delphix and beyond.
