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There is one catalyst that can amplify your organization's creativity and ignite itsimpact.
Today, we will talk about the importance and value of diversity in our socialnetworks.
I'm Matt Abrahams and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School ofBusiness.
Welcome to ThinkFastTalkSmart, thepodcast.
Today I am super excited to be joined by AdinaSterling, who is an associate professor of organizational behavior at StanfordGSB.
Adina studies the causes and consequences of human relationships and organizations inmarkets, and she teaches a popular elective class called equity by design and runs a lab by the samename.
WelcomeAdina, I'm super excited to get a chance to talk withyou.
ThanksMatt, it's great to behere.
Yes, well thanks for beinghere.
So let's go ahead and getstarted.
A lot of your work focuses on socialnetworks.
For many ofus, social networks refer to applications like Facebook or Twitter andLinkedIn.
What do you mean by social networks and what types of insights can you learn fromthem?
Right, so that's a great question to beginwith.
And you're absolutelyright.
We hear social networks and we think about Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram and things that 12 and 13 year olds are more savvy at us than weare.
So what they are are the patterns of interactions and communication that happens between variousentities.
So social scientists will study social networks that occur betweenindividuals, betweengroups, betweenteams, betweensocieties,organizations,institutions, and social networks is a construct that travels different levels and levels ofanalyses.
And we care about them because a lot of the outcomes thatindividuals,groups, and organizations experience have to do with the social networks that theyhave, where they are within this pattern ofrelationships.
And so oftentimes we get a lot of our social resources from social networks and so they can be awfullyimportant.
Isee. So a social network is essentially a way of mapping the different connections and relationships we have within groupings ofpeople.
That'sright. As youknow,Adina, this podcast focuses a lot oncommunication.
So I'mwondering, what role does communication play within socialnetworks?
And have you been able to determine any best practices that organizations use to maximize the impact of communication within theirnetworks?
So communication and social networks are foundational to why social networksexist.
So if I can't communicate effectively to you or you tome, our social tie goesaway.
So a lot of the way that we understand social ties is the transfer ofinformation,advice,care, socialsupport, and of course being able to communicate those aspects of lifeeffectively.
So the care that somebody would express to another depends on their ability to communicate that in a way that's empathetic andreal.
And so communication is foundational to socialnetworks.
What can organizations do to help employees communicate and help employees communicate with clients and otherstakeholders?
I always hear Matt go back to the importance ofculture.
So if the organization can put into place the rightnorms, the rightexpectations, the right language so that people can communicate and they sort of know where the boundaries are and where not to crossboundaries, those can be really helpful ways of helping employees communicate their wants andneeds, their ideas to one another and to otherstakeholders.
Wow. So I just learned that I've been a social networking researcher for all these years and I didn't know that that's what Iwas.
No, that'sgreat. So thank you for sharing that communication is absolutely critical in understanding social networks and it sounds like organizations that put a priority on helping people communicate the value of communication and allowing people to feel that notion we've talked about before in this podcast of psychological safety to feel comfortablecommunicating.
That'sright. It can be much moreeffective.
Do you mind if I addone?Oh,please.
Yeah. Peace to what organizations cando.
What you just teed up made me think ofthis.
Another important part of communication that organizations can tap into is the notion that it can bemultifaceted.
So verbalcommunication, ofcourse, is one way of communicating auditory communication but it's not the onlyway.
And so especially organizations that recognizeneurodiversity, forexample, will do things in a team setting like takepauses, give people thinktime, allow people to write down ideas in the middle of a meeting so that people's natural strengths because we all have differentstrengths, don't all dominate so that only certain people don't get to communicate theirideas.
Organizations that do this well collect ideas from many different people and allow for communication to come through many differentmediums.
I love that idea and it brings us really nicely into my next set of questions around what you teach in your equity by design class and in the lab that yourun.
So it's really important from what I'm hearing you say that organizations don't just lock into one way of communicating that they be very open to multiple ways and they put a priority oncommunication.
I will often recommend that organizations take time to reflect on their communication at the end of meetings or one-on-oneinteraction, spend a few minutes just talking about the quality of thecommunication, not rehashing what was said necessarily and also as part of performance reviews and other big meetings talk about communication and what you add so nicely to it is it's not just one monolithicthing, there are lots of different ways to communicate and we want to make sure that everybody can bring their best selves to thecommunication.
Can you share with us some of the concepts you teach in your equity by design class as well as the topics you study in your equity by designlab?
What role does communication play in theseefforts?
Sure. So my class as you mentioned designdiversity, equity and inclusion and those are really three differentideas.
When thinking about the importance ofcommunication, it is awfully important fordiversity.
So let me say a little more aboutthat.
We've now had several decades of work done by social scientists on what diversity buysyou, what is the diversity bonus has been thequestion.
And when people from different backgrounds that have different ideas cometogether, what research has shown is that they tend to outperform from creativity and innovation standpoint groups that are morehomogenous.
But the key to having those benefits come about is the ability for people to be able tocommunicate.
So you could have a really diversegroup.
Right. And if everybody shuts down and nobody'scommunicating, it becomes really hard to build off of each other's ideas to have those creativebreakthroughs.
You need people to be willing to share their thoughts and theirideas.
And so that's one way communication is reallykey.
The importance ofdiversity, equity and inclusion are critical for many aspects of anorganization, forsure.
And I'm curious to hear evenmore.
But in terms ofcommunication, they drive creativity andinnovation.
And it seems to me that it's so important for organizations to recognize that and celebrate it and to encourageit.
Have you seen best practices or do you teach best practices to really help leaders amplify the diversity that they have so they can get those results that they're lookingfor?
Yeah. So for myclass, what I call a better practicesplaybook.
Oh, I loveit. So first before wego, why better practices and not bestpractices?
Okay. So that is a goodquestion.
The reason is that when it comes to thistopic, what I found is that sometimes the great can be the enemy of thegood.
And so when I first began teaching this topic atStanford, I had people say tome, oh mygosh, one of the things I'd like about your class is that we're taught to incrementally just getgoing,right?
Itdoesn't, we don't have to have the perfect plan fordiversity, equity andinclusion.
What we can do is begin and have better practices from where we'reat.
Soanyway, it'sjust, it's the idea that the great shouldn't be the enemy of thegood.
I loveit.Yeah. Better practices from where we'reat.
So what are some from yourclass?
Yeah. So one important one is to understand that because diversity hasbenefits, sometimes you need to do things differently as aleader.
The thing that diversity really helps you with is sometimes slowing down to take the time to be creative to make better choices and have bettersolutions.
So there was this terrific study done that was actually looking atjuries.
And they found these researchers that juries that were morediverse, they were moredeliberate.
People came more prepared and better able to argue their ideas and outcomes generally reviewed as being better when they're at these more diversegroups.
And so thefirst, youreally, it's about buying in and understanding that it might take a little bit longer to build a diverseteam, but that has some benefits in the longrun.
So taking the time and being thoughtful about putting the team together and then giving the team space to actually leverage the diverse perspectives that they bring can be reallyhelpful.
That'sright. That'sright.
A lot of business is so much about rushing and being first and fast and it sounds like what I'm hearing you say is sometimes being more deliberate and slowing down can give you an advantage aswell.
Yes.Great. And also building up the right culture around the team becomeskey.
Right. So that helping people feel connected and safe and that their voice hasvalue.
Exactly.Yeah.Great. Many of those listening into our podcast today work for organizations that are in various stages of implementing their DE and I programs based on yourexperience.
What are some of the best ways toimplement, assess and reinforce theseprograms?
Sure. So I like to say if you can't get buy-in from thetop, oftentimes there are grassroots efforts within organizations that are terrific around DEI and leadership can feel as though they're responding to DEI efforts and that'sfine.
But if there can be leadership from the top and a collaboration with employees and what their DEI needs are and B needsare, that can be a really effective way to go aboutthings.
The other concept I would just add here is that I do like to talk about within organizations what I think of as edgecases.
So we all think about innovation and going to be at the pleadingedge.
The analogy doesn't quite work the same way but traditionally there are more marginalized groups withinorganizations.
And so sometimes sitting with and taking the temperature of those groups and figuring out how to implement policy changes that are effective there can have enormous spillover effects foreveryone.
So for example if an organization goes on and surveys all recentparents, formothers, fathers and thelike, about time offpolicies, well here are a lot of things in there that could also help older individuals that are taking care of theirparents, individuals that have family that are furtheraway.
And so organizations that sit and listen to more marginalized groups oftentimes can use those insights and blow them out and have effective policies for multiple groups withinorganizations.
That's reallyfantastic.
It starts with listening and then collaboration and it has to come not just from the grassroots but also from the top and that's what leads tosuccess.
More and more as I do these podcasts the role of listening and taking the time to hear what others are saying is really a key ingredient to success in many aspects and it sounds like DE and I is nodifferent.
I wanted to address another area of your research that I found reallyfascinating.
You've identified something you term the confidencegap.
As a potential contributor to gender differences we see in the workplace such as equity andpay, can you explain what the confidence gap is and how can it beaddressed?
Sure. So I'm glad we're chatting about this because sometimes the confidence gap can bemisunderstood.
So I'll first explain it and then talk about where it comes from because that's a real key tothis.
So the confidencegap, that idea came from a study that I and some researchers here at Stanford did where we tracked the outcomes of college students in engineering programs at 27institutions.
And it was a longitudinalstudy.
We were interested in people's what we called selfefficacy, how much confidence they had in their ability to do engineering and STEM and mathematics typeproblems.
Early on how that changed over time where they were with respect to self efficacy as they were entering the workplace and then what happened after theyentered.
And what we found is that women and men did differ in the level of efficacy they felt or theyreported.
So this is a self perceived measure if you will of your own confidence in your ability to solve engineeringproblems, so on and soforth.
So we did find a gendergap.
We found that men had higher levels of confidence thanwomen.
We found that this effect held within specific kinds of engineeringprograms.
And soengineers, I was an engineer as an undergraduate at OhioState.
SoI, thechemical, there's a lot of engineeringsnobbery.
So sometimes it'slike,oh,well, the aerospace engineers are the smart and the electrical are the smart and the chemical are thesmart.
Soanyway, we wanted to look within engineering major and we still found thiseffect.
So it wasn't that women were only going into some engineering fields and menothers.
And that was leading to this difference in the confidencegap.
It remained within engineeringmajor.
It also remainedwith, we looked withinGPA.
So when we looked at only those with sort of a 3.9 GPA orabove, which believe it ornot, they put the number of students in our study had thatGPA.
It remainedthere, remained within every GPAcategory.
And so one of the things we thendid,Matt, wassay,okay, does this help explain the gender wagegap?
And we found that itdid.
We did a mediation analysis on the first salaries that people received and itdid, that turned out that once we accounted for the level of selfconfidence, peoplehad, most of that gender gap could be explainedaway.
Now, the thing I want to emphasizethough, is that this gap doesn't come from either of thesky.
It comes from our society that provides expectations and norms about who can be anengineer, who should be confident in their ability to be anengineer.
So I want to be really careful that this is not about blaming either women that are lessconfident, this is coming from the society that conditioned women in different ways from men to be confident in theirabilities.
And so one of the things that sometimes I'll get askedis,okay, what can we do aboutthis?
And I'm really quick tosay,okay, this is not a fix the womenthing.
There's lots of things that we cando, especially within STEM where our studyfocused, we know that when you diversify the faculty and you have more femalefaculty, that can have important signaling value for women and increase theirconfidence.
You can structure teams in ways that there aremore, there's greater genderbalance.
And so something that can happen in engineering and this doesn't necessarily reflect myexperience, there's some research and also anecdotes I'll share that in engineeringprograms, we'll have five personteams, sometimes one woman and then that one woman is the notetaker.
So there's all sorts of small daily kinds of interactions and ways of communicating within groups that can lead people to have different levels of confidence in theirabilities.
And we just need to figure out ways to stop all ofthis.
Because there's been an underlying theme in our conversationtoday,Adina, around the impact of the culture and the norms within organizations or in the case of what we just discussed society and what I'm taking away and I'd love for you to verify this is that to make the kind of change that you're talkingabout, we've talked about in other episodeshere, it's really about looking at the larger factors that are influencing the communication orbehavior.
And that's where you have to adjust and adapt and focus to have the kind of impact that we're talkingabout.
And while that can feeldaunting, I think you've got some evidence and I know in what you teach some better practices for how to go about doingthat.
So thankyou. Before weend, I'd like to ask you the same three questions I ask everyone who joinsme.
Is that soundalright? That soundsgreat.
Alright, if you were to capture the best communication advice you have ever received as a five to seven word presentation slidetitle, what would itbe?
What aquestion. What came to mind for me is paint apicture, tell astory.
Oh, I loveit. Paint apicture, tell astory.
So we've talked a lot about storytellinghere, but give me some more detail about painting apicture.
Sure.Sure. So when people are hearing your story that you'recommunicating, if they can put themselves in your shoes or your sets ofexperiences, that's the picture I'm talkingabout.
And I do think so much of DEI comes from perspective taking and empathy for those that might be different fromus.
And so that ability tosay, here's how I felt in this moment and why that can bea, Ithink, an effective way ofcommunicating.
Sotrue. And as acommunicator, if you're looking to paint that picture so people can understand yourperspective, it changes yourfocus.
It changes what you're going to say and how you sayit.
It's going to be aboutemotion.
It's going to be aboutdetail.
And that's socritical.
And I think when we reflect on the speakers that move us the most or the ones that can do thatwell, which leads menicely, Ithink, to our secondquestion, whichis, who is a communicator that you admire andwhy?
Right. So I'm going to not directly answer thisquestion, that's right in the way that this came tome, which is I grip going tochurch, I grip going to blackchurches.
And within thattradition, there are wonderful orders with just really rich linguisticstyles.
And so I thought about a number of black politicians today from thattradition.
So StaceyAbrams, RafaelWarnaq, BarackObama, I could nameothers, you could nameothers.
That also was a very rich oral tradition because during various parts ofhistory, when black people weren't allowed to be able to read andwrite, what you understood came from the black church on the Sundaymorning.
Soanyway,those,those, I really admire that linguistic style andways, but that way ofcommunicating.
So thank you for sharing and thank you for taking a very different perspective onthat.
When I think of the orations I've seen in blackchurches, the emotion and the ability to move those in the pews isfantastic.
And while that style is very appropriate in thatmoment, many of the aspects of what makes it effective apply and other types of communication aswell.
So I appreciate you highlightingthat.
Jordan, finalquestion, what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communicationrecipe?
Sure.Okay. So the first is think about youraudience.
Yeah. Think about your audience'sperspective.
And I feel privileged to be able to practice this as aninstructor, as aprofessor.
And forme, that was a big shift that I made in my teaching trajectory when I stopped trying toteach.
And I started trying to communicate thoseare, I thought about those two thingsdifferently.
And infact, I think that communication is just keen from thatstandpoint.
The second one is use emotion rather than shy away fromit.
Okay. I think lean in is as fine as that can beeffective.
And then less is more is my thirdone.
So it does not surprise me at all that audience is something that you would absolutely see as important and that distinction between teaching andcommunicating.
I think all people who are really good instructors have that moment where they realize it's not just about relayinginformation, it's aboutconnecting.
Emotion iscritical. I think your other answers have highlightedthat.
It takes a confidence to be able to come to that place to go inwith, I've just got a coupleideas, not all of theseideas.
And I appreciatethat.Well,Adina, thankyou.
This has beenreally, really insightful and a lot of fun and reallyhelpful.
Thank you for taking the time and for making us better and for sharing your better practices withus.
You'rewelcome.Matt, it was a lot offun.
Great. You've been listening to another episode of ThinkFast, TalkSmart, ThePodcast.
A production of Stanford Graduate School ofBusiness.
This podcast was produced by JennyLuna, KevinPatel, andme, MattAverham's, with special thanks to Podium PodcastCompany.
To find moreepisodes, visit our website at gsb.stamford.edu or find us wherever you get yourpodcasts, includingYouTube.
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