- [INTRO] Welcome to SkyeTeam's "People First" with Morag Barrett.

- Karen Cornwell spent her career in Silicon Valley in tech, from optimizing nuclear power plants to driving for efficiency at the companies that make cute computer chips, so from big to small there Karen. And she is a recovering Corporate Executive and is pursuing her lifelong quest to improve innovation, and drive top-line growth for technology companies. Karen brings and delivers a wealth of experience in her stories, in her books, and from the stage. She demonstrates her uncanny ability to combine aspects of neuroscience, psychology, sociology, and linguistics that leave you thinking, that makes sense, and now I get it, and she has a BS and MS in engineering, and an MBA from Santa Clara University. Karen lives in Silicon Valley with her chef husband and their three boys. And today I'm looking forward to our conversation, and learning more from her book, "You Can't Fix What You Can't See". So Karen, welcome to "People First".

- Thank you very much, I've been looking forward to this all weekend, so this is great.

- Well, I love the title of your book, "You Can't Fix What You Can't See", but I'm actually going to take you back 'cause you can't fix what you don't know, so if you flash back to when you were at elementary school, what did you think you would be doing at this stage of your career? I mean, what did you want to be when you grew up?

- You know it's funny, and I'm going to go back to my... Well, I'm going to flash back to my mom. And you know, I asked her once 'cause you forget what you were like-

- Yeah

- when you were in elementary school. And she says, "I always knew when you were up to something because half the neighborhood was following you around, so I knew you had come up with something that was going be amazing, and you were collecting the people that you needed to do the work."

- Mm-hmm.

- And so maybe I really knew I wanted to be a leader, way, way back then, but somehow I got sidetracked, and managed to end up in engineering.

- Well, I don't think that's a side track, 'cause I was going to be an engineer, but ended up in finance, that's definitely a sidetrack. So what was the pivot point then that took you into engineering?

- Well you know, it's interesting for me, and it was a toss up between engineering and medical school.

- Mm-hmm

- And then I found out how long you have to go to medical school before you are released to have a real life, and go do something, and that's-

- Yeah.

- when I switched to engineering.

- Mm-hmm

- Because it was I really wanted to make an impact on the world sooner rather than later .

- Yeah. So what flavor of engineering did you go for? 'Cause nuclear power plants to computer chips, I mean there's a broad spectrum there.

- No, and it's interesting, mechanical engineering are both my degrees, and they kind of set you up for almost anything that you want to do. So it was a good, it was a good choice. Many people think I'm a nuclear engineer when I finally gave up correcting them, and said, "fine, whatever," I can talk that language too .

- Yeah, wear that badge with honor, so as you reflect back on that first career then, as a mechanical engineer, but in different industries, what were some of the highlights for you, your proudest moments?

- You know, I hired on to GE as my first job, right? And they do a lot of management grooming.

- Mm-hmm.

- And I hired in through their technical training program, which is you know, it's supposed to put you on that leadership track, right? So getting into that program was a major coup I think, but the best coup was landing the boss that I landed, and it wasn't years later that I really figured out how powerful he really was because he taught, he had one of these fabulous teams, and he taught us all to work together, and that we were a team, and that no you don't leave people on the side of the road, you just, you know, everybody comes along, everybody agrees or we'll talk about it until we figure out what we ought to be doing. And that was highly unusual in that era, and I didn't know it, right? Because you walk into, and you think everybody lives like this, right? And so when I finally, you know, when I went out and left the company, and I discovered, well, there are a lot of companies that don't run this way.

- Yes.

- And in fact, a lot of companies to use the term management would be a misnomer.

- It was like almost like accidental management, right? And as I, and I looked when I went out into the rest of Silicon Valley, and said, "Wow, look at, and what are they doing? What are these companies doing? Why are they doing this?" Because I had seen the fabulous results, I mean, he had teams that you could not stop.

- Mm-hmm.

- We were well, we were known as the cowboys.

- Okay.

- Because we shot from the hip, and what his group did was what no one had done before, that was our job.

- So-

- And that was absolutely fabulous.

- Oh, I'm sure. And those best bosses, I mean they feature in my first book "Cultivate", that you can see up on the screen here, and the concept of being an ally where everybody, you still disagree, but you learn and grow together, you are empowered, you are challenged to be creative and innovative. I'm picturing now, as you as a young girl and that tribe of kids following you. When you think about that best boss that came to mind, what element, how has that informed your leadership philosophy, and how you up in your work today?

- You know, it's interesting for a long time I love technology, and it took me a long time to be disenamored with it enough to realize that it's really people that power everything.

- Mm-hmm.

- Absolutely everything, and if you do the right things with people, amazing things will happen, and if you stifle them, and try to control them and cause them to lose their freedom, you can be in a nightmare.

- Mm-hmm.

- And I've worked in a few nightmares, and it's like, no why would anybody do this, right? This is not-

- Yep. It sounds like we're on the same page, I mean, it's my adage, but all businesses' personal relationships matter. And it doesn't matter the widget, or service, or industry you're in, if you don't get the human side right, then you're not going to deliver the business results that your team or your organization are aspiring to.

- Correct totally, and it's the hardest part, it's the part that's not taught.

- No.

- You know, I mean GE leadership training got me a lot of that, but other companies don't focus in so much on this, and I think it's a huge shortcoming, right? You invest in your people and they'll reinvest in you. And if you don't, well .

- Yep.

- They walk out the door every evening, or, well we used to walk out the door every evening.

- So, let's talk about your book, I can see a copy of it there behind you, "You Can't Fix What You Can't See". So tell me what was the inspiration behind writing a book? 'Cause that's a big undertaking.

- Oh well, some people say I'm crazy, and there are days I'm inclined to agree with them. I decided to write this book. you know, I had a big full long career, and then I had kids, that's like another part of being a woman in tech is you forget the rest of life, and then you have to play catch up. So, and then I had kids, we sent them to a parent participation elementary school, so you get to be in the classroom for portions of the day, and interact with all the children, which is-

- Wow.

- actually very awesome. And I listened to the teachers talking to the children about how life was fair, and I listened to the other parents, you know, talking about all these wonderful things, and then I would go to work. And I'm like, you know life is not fair. One day, these kids are going to grow up, and they're going to look at us and go, "you lied to us, you knew it wasn't fair, and you'd kept telling us it was, why did you do that?"

- Mm-hmm.

- And I couldn't stand it. It was like, no, we should really change this world, so what we're passing on to our kids is where we want them to thrive because this is not the world that I have worked in is not conducive to that, and we have the power to do that, we have the power to change it, and hand them over something, and of all the things that we could do in our lives, I happen to think that's most important to hand something decent that the next generation can make better.

- And I think that's the challenge, the participation trophies for just showing up, the anecdotes of helicopter parents, who are removing hardship, and challenge from their child's lives with the best of intent has unintended consequences.

- And we're seeing that now, you're so right.

- Yeah, and this is our future, and learning how to be resilient, learning how to be creative and innovative, and solve problems and overcome them, or move around them, are key skills that we're all going to need to be successful in the longterm. So why now? Why this book this year?

- I think it just, it came to fruition, I've been working in this area for probably 20 years. So this has been kind of a side job. It's funny, it started at GE, they said, "we'd like you to lead the diversity council." And I said, "what's a diversity council?"

- Mm-hmm.

- And they said, "oh well as a leader, you'll have to figure that out." Oh, okay. And this was in the eighties, okay so-

- Yeah.

- we focused on cultural diversity because we were an international company who had many international clients, right? And we did that for a couple of years, and then we looked at what the leadership was doing, and they were doing nothing, anything that had to do with diversity, they were dropping in our lap and it was we're done, you know? And it was like, no, so, we really got entwined, if you will, and we went back to the leadership team, and we said, "we quit." Because you are abdicating your responsibility to us, and you need to go on this journey yourself.

- Mm-hmm. And that was not, let me say one of my most favored decisions, right? I thought oh, you could probably lose your job over this, right?

- Yep, some career risk in that one.

- You know, so it started back then, but it really comes to a fruition, and you know, we have been fixing this problem for 30 years.

- Mm-hmm.

- Since I got out of college, it's, we're just about ready to get it solved, but we really haven't made that much progress. And then I finally figured out, and it took me forever, that many people don't see the problem at all.

- Okay.

- Which stunned me because how can you not see this? But as you read the book, and look through and go forward, you can see that it's easy to not see it when it doesn't cause you pain.

- That's the thing, I think when doors aren't closing in your face, when you aren't being told that you need to change your name, or change how you show up to fit in with the implicit unwritten rules of business, it can feel completely alien. And I love the subtitle here, it's an eyeopening toolkit for cultivating gender harmony in business. So let's talk a little bit about, if I open the book, if when readers and listeners open the book, what are they going to discover that's eye-opening for them? And you talked earlier about just even being able to see the problem. So where do we start? How do you start influencing someone who just doesn't get it at this point?

- Well, and I do a lot of it through stories, right? 'Cause that's what people understand, and so I tell a lot of stories, you know, one of the stories that cemented it for me was when our Vice President of Human Resources told me very seriously one day in a career session, that I had really looked forward to, 'cause you don't get to meet with that high up a person, right? Very often. And he says, "you know, Karen, your voice is really deep, you could have surgery, and probably make it sound like a woman's voice.

- What?

- And this-

- I'm sorry.

- This.

- I'm processing that one, because I've heard, and I've been on the receiving end of some pretty crazy gender biased comments, where you think really did you not understand how that was going to land? And you've got somebody here telling you that you've got too much of a manly voice, and that you could get-

- And it was, you know, it was one of those things you never expected to hear, and then you hear it, and you know, I've never been able to get it out of my head, and I'm like... And as I've moved up, and I started speaking, right? People say, "oh, you have the best, this is a great speaking voice, you command attention," you know, because it's deep, because it's, and it's-

- Resonant.

- And yes, and they're like, "oh, this is perfect." And I'm like well, what was he talking about?

- So help me understand then when it happened, how did you respond? And with the research in your book, and the work that you're doing, if that were to happen to you today, how would you respond differently? So what happened-

- Oh, I mean-

- Back then.

- my response was totally contained within my head. And that was a good thing, that was really good that it didn't get out of my mouth.

- Okay.

- Because I was shocked, how could you say that to somebody? How can you even think, how can you even suggest surgery for something that's... my voice works.

- Mm-hmm. It talks, it does what it needs to do. why would you suggest that I changed that? I was kind of appalled. Right, but it came from the head of HR, so you know, at some point when you're really young, you go, well maybe they know something that I don't know.

- So silence and certainly early in my career, when I was less confident about who I am, I did the same, the comment was in here, or the comment was at home when I got, and I said you won't believe what so-and-so said today. But I know I would have showed up, and worked harder to try and prove them wrong in a different way. And I wish I'd had the courage then, I wish I had the courage today even, to step up in those moments where somebody says, or does something either directed at me or somebody in our circle, and yet I still find myself staying quiet. So let's bring you up to date now, let's say you're sitting down with our HR leader today, how would your response be different?

- Oh, it'd be completely different. I mean, I think I would look at him and go, "well, I'm really kind of shocked that you said that. Why do you think, I mean, it sounds like you believe that my voice is inadequate, and it's what has been provided to me." Okay, this is what I came with, it's no special equipment, it's just me. And I think I really would've called them on it, and said, "you know, why are you suggesting this?" And sometimes when you make those comments, so there often are comments made in a meeting, and I think I heard this from Adam Grant. And he says, "you know, come back to people, and ask them what did you intend by making that comment?" And actually say it that way.

- Mm.

- And you will often not get an answer, but you're not necessarily striving for the answer, what you're striving for is to get them to think why they said that, particularly if it's a hurtful comment, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- It's like, what was your intent? You know, did you want to poke that person in the eye just now? You know, we can act like we're back at recess in elementary school, right? Did you really want to poke them in the eye? Because sometimes people do not hear themselves, and so when you echo it back, I think it's very powerful to echo back, and let them think about it. Now, sometimes you might have to actually go talk to them, you know, on the side.

- Yeah.

- And, but sometimes just that comment will make them and not just them, but other people in the room reflect, and go, "Hmm, what if she asks me?"

- And ties to your book, doesn't it? "You Can't Fix What You Can't See", and by reflecting back and asking about intent, it gives me an opportunity to pause and replay that movie, and hopefully learn something from it for the next time, even if I can't articulate-

- Yes.

- what they intended in this particular occurrence.

- Yes, and I think we need more and more people, it's my intent to start a movement, right? Of more and more people speaking up, so people who aren't thinking about it, start thinking about it because it's not going to change until we see it. And when we see it, we can start changing it.

- So I love that what the themes that have come from our conversation so far is that the reason affinity groups and the needle hasn't moved so far, not just over 30 years, but hundreds of years of discrimination, or exclusion of different groups for different reasons is that it hasn't been an inclusive process, that you can't pass this off to women to fix the gender issues, to people of color to fix differences in race, and how we are invited to the table or not. We need representatives from across the spectrum.

- Yes.

- Because diversity has never been an issue, you walk out your front door diversity on the planet.

- It's there.

- There.

- It's there.

- And belonging, we're not letting people in, and once they're in, the locker humor, in my case as I remember back, or whatever might be, the behaviors once we're in the group aren't ones that I want to stay around, and so there isn't that sense of belonging, and I may self-select out.

- Yes.

- So what does your research, and the work that you're doing show around how do we bridge that gap? Once we have the awareness and we can see it, what do we then do to bring us closer together, and want to stay together?

- Well to me, part of it is really understanding some of these differences and how we trip over them. So the book is filled with differences that are gender based, and I don't use men and women interestingly enough, because one of the things that I discovered, and I think it probably threw me off in my looking at this work and doing research is I behave very much like a man.

- Mm-hmm.

- Why? I don't know. Okay, I don't know if it's just how I am, and that makes me very comfortable in that way. Or you know, did I go into technology because of this? Or is this why I've been successful in it, right? So.

- Chicken and egg.

- So, behave very much like a man, so in my model, I talk about independent minded and community minded people.

- Mm-hmm.

- And what I find of course is there's a lot of men that are community minded.

- So what do you think-

- Particularly-

- Help me understand independent minded and community minded and that-

- So independent minded person, your independence is of the utmost importance.

- Okay.

- Okay, you have a status that needs to be maintained, is it's kind of all about you, and that's how you approach the world, it's a mindset. Okay. And community minded, so the independent minded take care of themselves, I'm taking care of myself, that's what, that's my job. The community minded take care of the community, so, they feed the whole group.

- Mm-hmm.

- They would never go out to lunch by themselves, they would, you know, what are we going to do for lunch, right? It's what are we going to do? It's a different outlook. And I don't restrict it to men and women because like I said there's a lot of crossover between where you sit, and what's most important is that we have both of these representative because when one or the other becomes dominant, decisions start to lean in a given direction. When you have both, you actually have conversations, now it's a little frustrating 'cause it takes longer.

- Mm-hmm.

- Because you're hearing different opinions, and you have to reconcile well, how are we going to deal with this, right? I don't, you know, we have to figure that out. But when you actually take the time to work through all that, you get a lot better decision, you get a lot more innovation, you get people that are totally engaged. I mean, I've had several teams that I had to be very careful with what I asked them to do because they would do it no matter what. And I was like, whoa, wait a minute.

- Okay.

- Right, because you know, you can take that too far, right? But it's very powerful when you engage people like that, and when they feel like they can bring their full selves into work, you get a hugely different response.

- Mm-hmm.

- To me, it's just it's amazing, and they have fun. I mean, in my world, you jump out of bed in the morning going, "what is going to happen at work today?" Right? Oh, this is going to be fun.

- Yeah.

- And a lot of people don't do that. You know, that's not how a lot of people show up at work, right?

- Somebody realizes that they dragged themselves out of bed this morning, that they weren't excited to go into work, what can they do rather than just waiting for the boss to get it, or the other person to get it, what's one baby step that I can take to start tapping into bringing my full self to the workplace?

- I think the biggest step is self-awareness and understand where you are, and then start looking out at your peers, at your boss, at your coworkers, and say, "where are these?" I develop a bunch of dichotomies, right? Of one side or the other, you know, are you a gift person or a cake person?

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay, so those are that's one dichotomy, look around you, figure out what you are. And by the way, when you do that, if you look at a work situation, you might be one way, if you look at a home situation, you might be another way, right? If you look at you're out with all your best buds, you might be different. Okay, so it's situational. But look at that, understand what your preferences are, and look at what other people's preferences are, and then you can leverage them. Because when you understand people are coming from a different place, and then you for example, want to, let's say, you want to convince your boss to send you to a marvelous conference in Hawaii, right? I mean, we might as well have fun since nobody can travel right now, right?

- Yeah that's right, I love it, the fantasy idea.

- And let's think, let's say you're an independent minded person, but your boss is a community minded person. So how are you going to convince them? Well, now you can use that power, so the independent minded wants a bunch of facts, you know, figures right? Give me the stats, no feelings, none of that stuff, keep that out. But the community minded wants to hear the feelings, how you got to there, right? There's a whole list of things that they want to hear, so if you had a community minded boss, you could say, "you know, a lot of our clients are going to be at this site, and you and I had agreed that I needed to have more client interaction, and so this would help us achieve that goal." And do you hear how it's not about there's 257 clients that will be there. It's, here's how we're, so it's a different conversation. And when you approach people with their preferred style, it's much easier to get an answer, but you have to do double-time thinking to do that, right? So.

- Yeah.

- But it makes a huge difference, it just makes a huge difference.

- It did, and that's what I loved about my opportunity to look through your book, "You Can't Fix What You Can't See" is that to your point it's an eyeopening toolkit, there are stories and anecdotes that bring to life the pluses and the minuses of working in a diverse workforce, but also some concrete recommendations for actions that we can take now, but also in future moments to help bridge that divide, and bring us closer together. So Karen, as we come towards the end of our time together, what final thoughts do you have? And what's next for you in the evolution of the work that you're doing?

- Well, now I have to share like you I've started a podcast, and my podcast is a little bit different. You know, when I went through it for the book, I interviewed a bunch of people, and I got all these horror stories, right? I mean, they just come at you like a fire hose, right? And I said, where are the success stories? Where are there companies that are doing fabulous things for their women? Let's hear about those because this is not rocket science, this is about getting your mind in the right place, and that's, our mind is harder to move than anything else.

- Yep.

- So I said, I'm going to start a podcast about all the success stories. And I have to tell you, I am having a total blast. So I just did a series on a company in the Midwest called SageGlass.

- Okay

- And I interviewed some of their women, and the CEO, and the Head of HR, and they shared stories and the things that they're doing are amazing, and they're not complicated, they're not hard, but it is a mindset shift. And you hear it in the stories that they tell, so that's been kind of my next, my next big step is to share those success stories 'cause this is not rocket science, we can do it.

- So I was sitting here thinking, well that's your second book there, Karen. 'Cause if the first one is all what went wrong-

- Really.

- "You Can't Fix What You Can't See", the new one is all the success stories of you can't emulate what you can't see, and you could showcase those. I'm sure you-

- Oh, you're wonderful, you're good, I'm going to hire you as my PR agent.

- Oh my goodness, I can't wait to see that one hit the shelves too. But this is such an important conversation, and I know I wrote an article on equal payday earlier this year.

- Yes.

- Because it took several months for women to earn the same as men from last year, and it gets worse as you look at other minorities, and you cut that data. But the recent research is saying it's still going to take more than a hundred years for the gender equity pay gap to close. And I don't know about you, but that's ridiculous, I mean, that's less than a snail's pace. And the time for change on all of these facets is now, and we have it within us. We just have-

- And I am hoping that all the current state that we're in, right? The current, you know we're in this crazy coronavirus, right? The elections are all nuts. People are at each other, the Black Lives Matter, right? I mean, all these things are about people, and they're about people saying, you know no, this is not working for me. I don't want to go back to the way we were because that wasn't working for me either, we need to invent anew where we're going, and I think we're ripe for change. And you know, those companies that can't change, well, we know where they'll end up, right?

- Yeah.

- Eventually we know that a chapter 11 was written for you.

- Okay, so Karen, I appreciate the brief insight that you've brought to the conversation today, and I wish you every ongoing success. Can you just share for people where we've peaked their curiosity, how can they learn more about you, your podcast, and of course the book?

- I think the best place to go would be the book website, so it's youcantfixwhatyoucantsee.com, just leave those apostrophes out.

- Yeah.

- That'll be really easy, and the podcast is there too.

- Brilliant. Ad you hook up with me on LinkedIn, I love to hook up with new people 'cause I always learn new things from them.

- Fabulous. Well Karen, I look forward to building on our ally relationship, and I'll make sure all of that information is in the show notes around this video.

- Oh good.

- Thank you for being a guest on "People First".

- Thank you, thank you so much, this was great fun.

- [Narrator] Thank you so much for joining Morag today. If you enjoyed the show, please like, and subscribe, so you don't miss a thing. If you learn something worth sharing, share it, cultivate your relationships today when you don't need anything before you need something. Be sure to follow SkyeTeam and Morag on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And if you have any ideas about topics we should tackle, interviews we should do, or if you yourself would like to be on the show, drop us a line at info@skyeteam.com, that's S-K-Y-Eteam.com. Thanks again for joining us today, and remember, business is personal and relationships matter, we are your allies.