[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: So it's my
absolute pleasure
to introduce my friend and
author and speaker Nilofer.
Nilofer and I met about seven
years ago at TED in Europe.
And when I moved to the Bay
Area she said, "Oh, look me up."
And I thought that's
the kind of thing
that Americans say when
you move to the Bay Area.
But when I called
her up she said,
"Absolutely I'm going to
throw a dinner party for you."
And she threw a
dinner party for me
with 10 women who then
became friends and was
sort of like the
beginning of my friends
and my network in the Bay Area.
So I've been eternally
grateful for that.
She also introduced
me to the concept
of walking meetings instead
of sitting meetings, which
absolutely transformed my life.
So I've been pacing around
Mountain View ever since.
And that's actually
like her super top rated
TED talk is a very short
talk about how walking
is important because
otherwise sitting
is the smoking of
our generation.
So she's written on a
whole number of topics.
And it's great to have her here
to talk to us about her latest
book, which is called
"The Power of Onlyness".
And she'll obviously tell you
much more about this concept
and why she came up with it.
But it's basically
about how each of us
is unique in their own right.
She's drawn from a whole load
of different examples of people
she's interviewed for the
book, but also from he
sort of own
experience at working
at companies like
Adobe and Apple
as well as startups
in the early days.
So she's got this sort of
really kind of very wide career.
And she is now a
recognized thinker.
And she just told me that she's
now like ranked as number 22
on the top management
thinker list.
So it's a pleasure
to have you here.
And I'm going to
hand it over to you
to try and make
these slides work
or just tell us
about your ideas.
NILOFER MERCHANT: Or
sing and dance, yeah.
SPEAKER: Thank you very much.
NILOFER MERCHANT:
Thanks [? Obie. ?]
So thank you for coming and
actually for all your patience
through the last few minutes.
And what I want to just
do is share with you
a thesis about how the
world can and should be.
And it starts with
something really simple.
I don't know if you
guys have caught this,
but in the economists'
world right
now, there's a conversation
going on about ideas.
We've run out of ideas.
And therefore productivity
and prosperity
is doomed because, specifically,
America has run out of ideas.
And I don't know about you, but
I find that idea ridiculous.
Because actually my experience
is just the opposite.
I bet yours is too.
Most ideas are dismissed,
not because they're
considered and
evaluated and deemed
unworthy, but because of the
packaging that the idea comes
in.
So if that's person super
young or maybe a woman
in a male-dominated culture or
a person of color in a mostly
white culture--
and fill out the list
however you choose to--
most ideas are dismissed
because the person who brings
it lacks power and status.
This problem that we
have of ideas being gone
is so fundamental
to our economy,
it's so fundamental
to our future.
It's because ideas,
when we give them reign,
pull us into the future.
And so if we don't have
ideas, we have nothing.
And so here at Google we know
how ludicrous that idea is.
But we actually
have to figure out
how to change the very framework
by which we evaluate ideas
in order for us to
change the world
and ultimately change our
ability to create the future.
Now one of the
people-- so [? Obie ?]
mentioned that I did
a bunch of research.
I actually studied
300 examples in order
to actually write this book.
I didn't mean to have
to study 300 examples.
But every single
person I was studying
to understand, how did they
get their idea through,
had a different idea of what
made them successful than what
was actually true.
So there was no
repeatable pattern
until I studied 300, until
I found the through line.
And one of those stories
is Franklin Leonard.
Franklin started an organization
called The Black List which
reinvented Hollywood.
But when he actually showed
up, he was this young
20-something-years-old guy.
He had worked for a congressman.
He had worked at McKinsey
and gotten fired.
And then he showed
up in Hollywood
after-- get this-- he had done
a weekend of Netflix binge
watching and realized the only
thing he had ever really loved
was storytelling in movies.
And so he thought, I'll
just show up in Hollywood
and figure out how to break in.
So he schlepped coffee.
And one of the jobs
that junior people do
is to actually read scripts.
And he found most
of the scripts had
these really trite storylines
that just kind of repeated
the same heroic
architecture and didn't
reflect the stories that he
wanted to see in the world.
And one point he
thought, there's
got to be a different way.
So he went through his
entire Rolodex of people
he had met in the last
year, and literally
like went through and said, oh,
I saw this person for lunch,
I saw this person for dinner,
and organized an 89% email
list under an alias--
Google-- and actually
sent out a note saying,
if you share with me the movies
you've seen in the last year
that you've loved but haven't
been put into production--
excuse me, scripts, not movies--
I will collate it that up,
using his McKinsey skills,
and I will send it back to you.
So that's the give and the get.
Do that and let's
see where it goes.
And people cooperated.
In fact they shared
it with friends.
And he ended up doing
this tabulation process,
only because he wanted to find
the scripts his boss would
need.
And the reason he
used an alias is
because he didn't want
his boss to think he
wasn't good at his job.
So he does this.
This is back in the days when we
actually all went on vacation,
actually logged off.
So he printed off the top five
that he got from the master
list, took off.
He comes back two weeks
later and his inbox
full of this roll up
list, this blacklist, all
sent back to him saying,
this is the most amazing list
of scripts.
We should all be
taking a look at it.
And so literally hundreds
of emails are in his inbox
because no one knows it's him
that has started this process.
Now if it was a
build, you could see
that some of the movies that
have been put into production
because of The Black List are
"Juno" and "The King's Speech".
Who would imagine, right?
And so these were
these scripts that
were destined for the dustbin
and pulled out and put back
on the master list, that
we should really consider
these odd ducky stories--
"Moonlight".
One of the things
that Franklin did
is he asked a
brand-new question.
And I said it in such a quick
way when I first rolled out,
what did he ask his people, that
it's worth kind of pausing on.
He asked, what movies
do you love that haven't
been put into production?
What scripts do you love?
And the reality is, that's
not how Hollywood has been
formatted up to this point.
What's Hollywood sort on--
what will make us money.
And by doing it
through an alias he
actually found a
community of people
who cared about
the same question
as that, a different
kind of purpose
pulling people together.
And it provided enough anonymity
that people could essentially
vote the way their
heart felt, not
vote the way their boss
might want them to vote.
And so it changed an
access of orientation.
And one of the
things that shows us
is really the power of
community in that process.
So often we think about
power, the ability
to get things done, as personal.
And so we'll often
describe-- like Franklin,
in fact, gets featured in "Fast
Company" and stuff as the guy,
as he changed Hollywood because
he produced The Black List.
And it's a singular
hero that is carved out
as if it's not in context
to all the other people who
participated.
And so surely he had
grit and surely he
asked a brand-new
question and surely he
did absolutely an
amazing set of things.
But the thing that
actually made The Black
List powerful to
get that effort done
is a social act, a communal act.
And that's community in a
different way than, let's say,
how Facebook used it.
Facebook uses the term
community as a group of people
that we can then monetize.
That's not an actual
community, right?
Community is a
group of people who
are held together by
shared beliefs, a shared
set of purposes.
And then together they can do
things in a meaningful way.
This is important
also because I think
it changes how we
might think about how
we conceive of our work.
Instead of thinking,
what can I do,
you start to think, who can I
organize around a new question?
And if you walk away
with nothing else
other than that
vignette and that story,
it might change how we
think and conceive of how
we gather power in our lives.
Because if the story's
always a singular
hero on top of a magazine
cover, we miss the real point.
That's individuating something
that is deeply connected.
Now most of us lack that
connection, that ability
to kind of think about, what
is it that gives me meaning?
In fact 61% of us, the data
says, cover or hide ourselves
at work--
covering being defined
as, we actually
don't show up as
our true selves.
Some of the vignettes
in the research--
a guy wearing glasses
because he didn't
want to look young, a young
man who didn't talk about how
he wanted to be a co-parent
because he didn't want
his colleagues to
think he wasn't
interested in his career,
and so on and so on.
What was most surprising about
that detail, that 61% of us
cover or hide ourselves at
work, is that it didn't just
affect traditional groups
of underserved and underseen
people.
45%, nearly half of
straight white men,
also say they cover,
which makes sense
if you think about all the
different ways in which people
believe they have to fit to
an archetype or some mirage
of normal in order to
actually fit in at work.
And as long as we're
fitting in that way,
we're not actually
being our true selves.
And from that place
of true self is
where we understand what gives
us meaning, what gives us
purpose, and what things we
actually care about, therefore
the genesis of our ideas.
Now this lack of social
standing-- we show up at work.
Fitting in is the greatest
barrier to belonging.
When we lack that ability to
belong as our true selves,
we also lack the ability
to generate ideas
that we care about.
I was talking with a banking
executive not so long ago.
And this woman was saying she
had a really innovative idea
for how to change the
low end of the market,
how to serve the deep poor,
the people who use those cash
and carry kind of places where
the check-cashing places are
used.
They typically take between
5% and 10% of that check.
And she said she had
a way for her bank
to serve that marketplace
with less than half a percent.
And I was like, oh my God.
You could get a whole
bunch of new customers
and it would change an entire
group of people's lives, right?
And she says, "Yeah,
but I'll never
tell the people
sitting at this table."
And I looked at her with
that sort of tilt in my head.
I thought, why would
you not say it?
Why would you not own it?
And it wasn't hard to
think about for a second.
She sat there and
she said, "Yeah,
that person has an Hermes bag.
That person has a
such and such tie."
And she said all these people
have wealthy backgrounds.
And she didn't ever
want to show that she
didn't have that same
background, because what
was she doing?
She was fitting in
in order to belong.
And as long as she was
fitting in in order
to belong in that
half soul kind of way,
she was never also going
to claim that thing that
was true for her, her history
and experience, her own visions
and hopes based on that
history and experience.
Without social standing, we lack
the ability to actually create
change, real change,
the change we actually
want to see in the world.
Now I've written--
[? Obie ?] alluded to it.
I've written two books
before on collaborative work
and how power should
be distributed
within organizations,
so basically talking
about flat organizations
and breaking down
the perimeter of organizations
to open up innovation.
And a lot of times
people say, well, you've
studied these business
models for years.
You've done
innovation for years.
This must be why you care.
And actually the
real reason of why
I noticed this grouping problem
is because of my own heritage.
You see when I was
18 years old, I
was actually supposed to
get an arranged marriage.
And I had returned home in fact.
When I was 18 I'd gone to
community college for the day
and returned home.
And there my aunties and uncles
and stuff had filled the house.
And if you know Indian
families, they're
just all like over the place.
And they had been
there to tell me
that my arranged marriage
was, well, arranged,
and the sort of terms
of the deal were set.
And I had turned to my uncle
who was sort of representing--
because my father wasn't in the
picture-- who was representing
me, or representing our
family, and said, "So did you
ask the guy if I could
get an education?",
because that was the only
thing I had ever said.
If you could please make
sure that was taken care of,
I would be OK with that.
Because ever since I was 4 and
1/2 and moved to this country
I understood my job to be that
of taking care of my mother
and getting this arranged
marriage as a way of serving
the family.
And my uncle had
turned to me and said
no, "She won't let me ask
because she's negotiating
for a house and some other
things so her future is taken
care of.
She doesn't want to also ask
for your needs and interests."
So I was polite enough
to wait until my aunties
and uncles left, and then
I turned to her, my mother,
and I had done this sort
of theatrical thing, which
is not my style normally.
And I had gone to Future
Business Leaders of America,
so this sentence is
entirely informed
by a Future Business Leaders
of America club in high school.
And I said, "I am the product.
You cannot do the
deal without me.
So ask the guy if I can
get an education and this
will be done."
And I had turned the closest
thing next to me, a cardboard
box without a lid or
anything, like grocery box,
and I grabbed it and I had
put in five books and one
outfit, no toothbrush, no money,
because I didn't have any.
And you can tell my priorities,
right books, one outfit.
And I was just doing
this theatrical thing of,
and I'm leaving unless
you change your mind.
And I actually thought this
would end in about an hour.
And so I walked down the
street to the local donut shop,
as one does--
carbohydrates, everything.
And I thought I was just going
to wait it out and then call
home and be like, it's done.
When I called home, the
situation only escalated, like,
we're never going
to change our mind.
But you come home right now.
And one day turn into two.
Two days turned into three.
And well, it's been 30 years.
And I got exited from
my family homeless,
uneducated, no cash in
the pocket kind of thing,
to go off and figure out this
new direction in my life.
In that moment, my
identity was being defined.
My value of the
world, my ability
to create my own
space in the world
was being defined by what--
a group I belonged to, in this
case being an Indian or Muslim
or woman, some
combination thereof, that
said the only value you
have to us in the world
is to serve in this
way, in this box.
That was the first
time I saw groupings.
And I thought, well, it's
probably true to my family.
But then I would go on and do--
one of my first jobs was
as an admin at Apple.
And I showed up in one
of those early meetings .
I was such an eager kid to
want to prove myself and stuff.
And at one time they
said, "Hey, we're
going to brainstorm about
X. Come to the meeting.
We're going to do this."
And I remember doing all
the research I could find
and formulating
questions and showing up
and being so excited.
You can totally
picture it, right,
like this sort of like, yay.
And it only took a minute
or two, maybe even three,
to realize no one was
making eye contact with me.
Because it turns
out in that room
it was the MBAs
who had the ability
to qualify for having ideas,
seeing through that category,
not for everyone.
In later jobs it
would be engineers
were the people we
expected to have ideas, not
marketing people.
[? Obie, ?] you might
recognize that one.
Or in other jobs it's only
the top executive management
team is allowed to have
ideas, not this other group.
And so this thing
about groupings
ended up showing up
throughout my career in tech,
throughout all the different
ways in which I was driving
strategy and innovation
and realizing
that's actually the biggest
limiting factor is that we're
not noticing the one thing
that actually counts,
the individual that's
standing right in front of us,
invisible to some, but purely
able to offer that perspective,
that idea that they have.
Sometimes they're
invisible to themselves.
I'm not suggesting
it's just external.
But it is denying the power
of the singular voice,
and making invisible
that which has value
simply because of the packaging,
not because of the idea.
So I'll fast forward
and just point out
that this is actually
a trend that allows
us to do innovation, right?
So Apple and Google helped
change the mobile marketplace.
I was around back when
companies like Apple or Samsung
used to actually choose--
the term was choosing on deck
which apps they would provide,
one or two or three apps costing
about $1 million to $2 million
in development, probably about
the same in sales and marketing
expense.
And those companies
would then decide,
choose for the consumer-- here's
the thing they would offer.
And Apple came along and
changed that developer platform
so it only cost $10,000
to be able to participate
in that ecosystem, allowing
a marketplace of ideas
to happen in the form of apps.
And then Google came along
and did it one better, always,
and dropped it down to $500
and changed this opportunity
for people to come
from everywhere
and be able to participate.
And when I started
spotting that I was like,
is that a pattern that would
allow a whole bunch of people
to suddenly become available
in the marketplace of ideas?
Could that idea transpose the
immediate of a smartphone app
or a platform-based model?
And that's when I had actually
coined this term onlyness.
Essentially it's an
economic thesis, right?
It's basically arguing that
value can come from anywhere.
Ideas come from that spot in
the world that each of us stand.
They can scale in connectedness.
So you can see the two
parts, "only-ness".
I should not go into marketing.
But I was basically
arguing, this
is the way in which we will
create value in the future.
Now I still believe this.
Oh, the build's
not going to work?
But it's a really pretty build.
The opportunity for each of
us to finally get a chance
to actually stand more
deeply in our own truth,
and like Franklin,
be able to ask
new questions of our workforce,
of our work environment,
and even outside that.
It could change not only
what we individually do
but what we're able
to create together.
I think to those economists
who say we've run out of ideas,
I think they've only counted
about 30 some percent
of the ideas, the ideas that
come from traditional power
base, which in America is
mostly white and mostly male,
and mostly from places
that sound like "Hah-vuhd",
when they could actually come
from each and every single one
of us.
In fact if I could ask you to
do one little exercise with me,
close your eyes for a second
and think back to that time
when you first were
valued just as yourself.
Somebody saw you and
said, this is who you are,
and it's special, or
this is what you can do,
and that's good.
They saw some light in
you, some shining capacity,
and wanted that to come forward.
Imagine now if everyone
was given that same idea.
I think that's the power of what
we can do next, that each of us
as we stand in that spot in
the world only we stand in,
we can be deeply
rooted in our purpose.
And as we do that,
it will help us
find the people who care about
the same things as we do.
And as we do that, we end
up being able to actually
shape the world around
us, to not just include
those opinions
that are currently
heard but the set of
opinions that are everywhere.
That can reshape the world
to include all of our voices
in a much more equal and
fair way, and also of course
allows the power to innovate.
So that's what I came
to say and share.
And the rest of the time is
really just about a chance
to do Q&A. And
[? Obie ?] can come
and-- she probably even
has a question knowing her.
But we'll pass
along the mic too.
You can ask anything from
what's it like to write a book--
some people like to
ask that question--
to-- go.
SPEAKER: Excellent.
So just put your hand up
and I'll pass you the mic so
that people can hear it.
So I'm going to kick
off with a question.
So one of the things
that intrigued me
about onlyness and this
sort of relationship
between the individual
and the groups
is that when we talk about
diversity and inclusion,
we often talk about
specific groups, like women
or gay people, et cetera.
And as we kind of experience
at Google, that some of that
can be very exclusionist
and people sort
of saying, well, why are you
giving privilege to this group
or why did that group have
privilege in the first place,
and so on.
And so one of the things
I think is interesting
about this is that you bring it
back to the individual rather
than the group.
So can you talk a
little bit about that,
what the implications
would be if we
thought about diversity and
inclusion in a different way?
NILOFER MERCHANT: Sure.
So in fact I felt so
bad for the situation
that happened this summer
because it was completely
predictable, that if you
start doing, oh, we're
going to try to
include this group,
it feels to the group on the
other side of the teeter-tot,
that power is being displaced,
that they're being replaced.
And if we're actually talking
about a limited sum of the pie,
then you understand why people
are fighting over that pie.
This model actually says
something different, right,
which is that as you
open up the opportunity,
more opportunity exists,
just like that Apple example.
So let's just use a specific.
In fact you helped
me find this story.
So one of the stories in the
book is the story of Foldit.
Does anybody know this
story by any chance?
Cheater, she's read the book.
So Foldit is an
online platform that
was started based out of
University of Washington.
And they were trying to solve
a problem in the bio sciences
space where if proteins
fold incorrectly,
they basically cause
disease, bottom line.
And so things like
Alzheimer's and stuff
are all diseases caused
by misfolded proteins.
And they were
realizing, this UW team,
that every research
team around the world
was recreating the
problem of how proteins
were misfolding in order
to do the actual research
they wanted to do.
And they thought,
this is kind of silly.
There ought to be like a
repository you can draw on
so that the foundational
work is there
and people can build
on it, therefore
accelerating the research.
And they started an online
app to basically crowd science
this process.
And at first they
thought, their first step
was, we're going to get
PhDs from around the world.
So think globalization
of talent, right?
And that didn't turn out to
have any breakthroughs at all.
They let it run
for almost a year.
And so then they thought,
maybe there's another way.
What if we actually
allow anyone?
Could we actually allow
anyone, quite possibly everyone
to participate?
Why don't we build a
game that would teach you
the fundamentals, like
basically teaching
how proteins fold, and then
you can take it from there.
And that created more resolve.
But then they
realized actually--
they were sitting
there watching the game
and noticing that people were
crowding around the people who
had degrees from certain
schools or that were men
and not actually
noticing who actually
was good at the
protein-folding problem.
And they could
spot the difference
because they themselves
had actually-- you
know, they were studying it.
And they just thought,
well what if we actually
hide those social
signals and just tune
them down so that if you really
want to know, you could know,
but the focus is entirely on,
oh, that's working better,
and people can notice that.
That was one thing.
And then the other thing they
started to do was they actually
just realized they were
rewarding individuals instead
of rewarding group work.
So most work today is
complex problem solving.
Complex problem solving
is not [? Obie ?]
sitting by herself or
Nilofer sitting by herself.
It's how we start to
play off each other.
And so then as soon as they
changed the reward system to be
we all win together if we all
help each other go through this
thing-- they'd share
in the credit--
it changed how people actually
responded in what they work.
And then they created
these breakthroughs.
So I think the
problem is most of us
have too many social
signals in the way,
and we're focusing on
that instead of the work.
And so I don't think about
diversity and inclusion as,
I want to go recruit
X number of people.
It's, what problems
do we have, and what
is the mechanism
in place that would
allow a whole bunch of
people to come and play
with that problem?
So if I'm really practical, when
I was doing consulting work,
one of the things
we would do is go in
and we'd signed a
contract with the company
and say we're going to
help you solve X problem.
And this is typically after
they had failed at it themselves
and hired a BCG or
McKinsey or whatever
and failed at it with them.
And then we were in the
room and we would say,
we're going to be in
charge of the process.
They would of course
nod their head because,
by the way, who wants to be
in charge of the process,
and completely signed off
to that, without a thought.
And then the first day
we'd say, well, we're
going to send out an email
to anyone at the company,
as broad a group as
possible, sometimes
the entire company
roster, and say,
anybody who wants to come
help us with this can come.
And they would always have
this total look of panic
go across their
face, like I don't
want the ad man or the
salesperson who's not happy
or the--
it's almost like
the thought that
would go through their head
is, I don't want the crazy.
And I'm putting that in air
quotes for a reason, right?
I don't want the crazy or
the wild one in the room
because we have
a process to run.
And I'm like, trust us,
we'll actually get there.
And as soon as you can have all
that difference around the room
and allow each difference to
actually have their own voice
or create the space for that--
so it could be sometimes
we had Post-its
and let people have their
ideas and it turns out
the Post-its came from a person
who had relatively low power.
But as soon as you disassociated
the power status to the idea,
you could see the
idea for what it was.
Then all of a sudden two,
three, four weeks later
we'd have this
breakthrough in the room.
And it always--
I mean always, I say
this universally--
came from that crazy and
wild person in the room.
And so how do we do that then
for all of our organizations?
How do we actually start to
go take down the signals,
tune it down?
So how do we recruit
engineering people
without knowing that
they're a women first?
The data says that if
we don't know that,
we're more likely to
use that person's code.
So how do we just engineer
more in the system a way
to tune down social signals?
And so that easy,
practical thing
of using Post-its in a
room to generate ideas
instead of going around
the room, because we're
more likely to dismiss an
idea based on power status,
would be an easy one.
There's probably a hundred of
those methods that could just
be streamlined into the business
that would allow us to actually
see and contribute those ideas.
Soon as you focus on the
ideas and not on the person,
I think we start
to change things.
SPEAKER: They do.
And by the way, the best
protein folder in their set
was an admin assistant
from Manchester, England.
NILOFER MERCHANT:
Who by the way,
it's not irrelevant
to this, given
the climate of
sexual harassment,
she had left the industry
because, as a nurse,
she had experienced so much
sexism that she actually
left the medical field.
This is a pattern that we've
seen over and over again
in recent weeks.
If you read all the vignettes
of the stories of people leaving
Hollywood or people
leaving tech,
it's so much sexism, just
at some point you're like,
OK, OK, I give up.
I'll leave.
I'll tone down my ambitions.
I'll go to more
female-oriented careers.
And of course that's why
women don't have as much power
and status in industries.
Questions?
Really, we answered everything,
or you guys just really shy?
We have one here too.
AUDIENCE: I guess I have
a question about unlocking
the onlyness early on.
NILOFER MERCHANT: By the
way, what's your name?
AUDIENCE: Ooh,
sorry, I'm Bridget.
NILOFER MERCHANT: Bridget.
AUDIENCE: If most
of the conversation
has been centered around
your professional life,
how can you catch this early on?
So I'm thinking about my
little sister who's in college.
When I went to visit her,
I was disturbed again
by the amount of
Greek life and kind
of like the groupthink that
centers around that and kind
of like, how can I help her
unlock her onlyness early on?
That's my question,
stay away from it?
Have fun, but not too much?
NILOFER MERCHANT: So I
think one of the things
is it early on in life
we're often trying
to figure out how to fit in.
So we're actually giving up
ourselves along that process
and we're just doing it
for basic survival, right?
So in Maslow's
hierarchy of needs,
the bottom two levels are
the food, shelter things.
The top two levels are
about self-expression
and self-actualization, which
is where ideas come from.
In the middle is this big block,
the biggest block of the thing,
and it's belonging.
So the question is,
do we understand
how to find people who care
about the same things as us?
Most of us are
actually socialized
to look and say, OK, where
are people already gathered?
And then do we join in without
much intentional thought
about, that's not
really my people, right?
And so this question about
who are we to one another
is a question we
need to learn to ask,
like who am I in this mix, and
then who are we to one another?
And if you're asking
yourself, gosh,
I really don't feel
like I belong here--
maybe your sister
really loves it, right--
but to ask that and learn
that skill about who am I
in relationship to this.
And I had a young
entrepreneur who
I think she was
like 20 something
when she asked me this question.
And she said she
had gotten her PhD.
She taught-- this was a
very accomplished young
entrepreneur--
was a yoga fanatic, and
had a boyfriend that she
was thinking about marrying.
And she said, "In order for
me to decide what's next,
which of these four
things do I have to cut?
Should I quit teaching?
Do I quit doing my
entrepreneurial stuff
that my PhD is based on?
Do I stop all of
my relationships
because that's
such a distraction?
And should I quit yogi
stuff because that's also
a distraction?"
And I was like, "Why
don't you do all four
and live in the Venn diagram
of everything that is you?"
And maybe because she
was actually doing really
cutting-edge science
stuff which allows a cell
to act like a heart,
and so on-- so it
has really strong ethical
implications for if you
can grow things from nothing.
And I said, "Maybe it's your
yogi sense that will actually
help guide your ethical
usage of this stuff
because it will remind you
of how connected we are
and what those decisions are.
Maybe your relationship
to your students
will remind you
that you're trying
to teach the next generation
about those same set
of ethical implications, not
just the pure science of it,"
and so on.
So maybe all of
those things actually
can belong together,
because she was really
trying to figure out
how to fit herself
into a pigeon-hole thing.
So the greatest
thing we can do is
to actually notice all
of the person and to say,
you know what you really seem
to care about is X, Y, and Z
and be that.
I like to say that
most of us can't
understand our own onlyness
because we're living it.
It's so obvious to everyone
else what we care about,
but it's actually kind
of hard because you're
in the fuzz of it.
You're literally like mashed
up against the glass of it.
And so friends can say, this is
something that you care about.
[? Obie ?] totally gets me too.
So I'm waiting for her to tell
me my onlyness for a second.
But it's like a light
bulb above your head.
When you walk into a room,
the whole room changes.
So if that light
bulb is tamarind
orange versus neon orange, it's
a different thing in that room,
or mallard blue, right?
And so if your friends
can say to you,
this seems to be this thing
you really care about,
it helps reflect it back.
And so maybe that's
the one thing
you can do for her is
to help notice, what
is it that's so true to
her history and experience
as well as her visions
and hopes, even
something that's just a
thread she's ultimately
going to pull on.
Does that help?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: Hi, my name is Jason.
NILOFER MERCHANT: Jason.
AUDIENCE: I noticed that one
barrier for participation
is the ability to
speak the language.
For example, if you are in
a room with a bunch of MBAs
and if you don't
have the background,
you can hardly really talk
with them in all those jargon
that they use.
Same for engineers-- if you
don't have a computer science
background, oftentimes
you don't really
know what they're talking about.
And when you talk in
your own language,
they can easily
dismiss your ideas.
Do you have any comment on that?
NILOFER MERCHANT:
No, language is
one of those invisible ways
in which we group people,
absolutely.
We use jargon to say we're
in this industry in this way.
And in fact the UW team, that
was one of their big insights.
It was Adrian-- and I
interviewed him here.
He actually worked at
Google X for a while.
And he said to me--
we were sitting
in a room with one of the
top physicists in the world,
and he used
absolutely no jargon.
And that's what gave him the
clue to go from PhDs to go
solve this problem to citizen
science-- that was the shift--
is jargon was
becoming the barrier
to actually allowing
people to innovate.
It's one of the reasons why,
in the last five or so years,
I actually use very
little innovation jargon.
I'm simplifying my own choices.
And I'm doing that because
I'm trying to make--
I'm trying to get past
my own bullshit, right?
And I mean that in
the greatest-- like we
go through all this
training to learn stuff,
but sometimes you have to
go, OK, I actually know that.
So now how do I communicate
it in a much simpler and more
elegant way?
So you've actually reached
a really profound truth,
which is most of the time most
of us are using jargon to say,
I'm in this club,
and that can mean
I'm educated and credentialed.
It can mean I'm an engineer and
not one of you marketing people
that doesn't talk this way.
My husband is a chip
designer, and I'm
fascinated when I read
his resume because I
don't understand most of it.
And he asked me for some help
recently in looking at it
and I was like,
"Well I can give you
the gist of it, like if the
sentence structure is right
or if the main idea
is popping out,
but I can't really talk to
you about anything else.
You might want to have
somebody else do that part."
But I was really saying,
we do this thing where
we create separations,
partially to say,
this is the club I'm in.
And the question is when
we're talking in meetings
then maybe we can actually
kind of find a way to tone
down the jargon.
And you can even say
that right, right?
Hey, jargon might be
getting in the way
for us finding a
breakthrough idea,
so why don't we just figure
out how to dial it down?
Which is why that Post-it
example-- and I could probably
give you another hundred
examples like that--
can be the way to get
past language choices.
It's intentionality.
It's intentionality.
It's a great question.
- Hi, my name is Ada.
I can only imagine--
NILOFER MERCHANT:
Like Ada Lovelace?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, people say that.
I'm not named after that.
I'm more about the palindrome
because my mom's name is Anna,
which is also a palindrome.
I don't know where she
got that idea from.
Anyway--
NILOFER MERCHANT: Well there's
an onlyness story there.
AUDIENCE: It totally is.
NILOFER MERCHANT: Yeah, totally.
AUDIENCE: I can only
imagine the courage
you had to have
in order to speak
in that room of people who
won't even give you eye contact.
As Asian women like
myself, like at first
my English wasn't
even smooth enough.
And going into the
room with people taller
and bigger male guy, I have
often had that experience.
And sometimes I
really try to fit in
in order to make someone
notice like I'm actually here.
I'm curious, from
your experience,
how do you give
courage in that moment?
And how do you even make your
voice heard, because I actually
believe that you need
to make yourself belong.
Then you take a step back
and show that, by the way,
I also have this uniqueness.
But I don't know, maybe there
is another way to do it.
NILOFER MERCHANT:
This is the tension
of how do we belong to a group
that we have to influence
and also assert our own ideas?
So one way is to actually have
an invisible network always
there with you.
So there's a group
of people that you
have to get along with,
but you can actually
build an invisible network of
people in the room with you.
So for example, I belong
to-- it's in the book,
if you get to chapter 4,
this group called the list.
And it was a group
of women started
trying to figure how to
change the ratio on stages,
in boardrooms, et cetera--
entrepreneurial settings.
And so it was a private list.
And so you'd ask
questions like-- one
of my favorite ones was, so this
one VC always smells my hair.
Should I worry about the
smelling of the hair?
And other people shared,
actually that guy
smells everyone's hair.
It's genderless.
That guy has a hair fetish.
And so it's the weirdest
thing to discover,
but it became the whisper
network made visible, right?
So then all of us were
starting to share stories
about what was working
in venture funding, who
was doing what.
It became the back channel.
So at any given point I
could be in a meeting saying,
I'm experiencing this.
Anyone have ideas?
And honest to God within
a couple of seconds
someone would be like,
why don't you try this?
And it would become this--
there's this invisible
group of 409 other people
who are available on
call through texting
to be able to help me
get through my situation.
And it could be here you might
end up choosing five people who
are often in that room or
in that setting on your team
and say, hey, could
we actually figure out
how to help each
other more, be more
intentional about helping each
other's ideas get promoted?
So maybe if somebody else
is in the room with you,
they could say, "You
know, what Ada just
said is really
worth expanding on,"
so that people then draw more
attention back to your idea
if she felt it was getting
skipped over because of that.
You could find ways of building
a network despite the room
that you have to be in.
Does that make sense?
So it's an intentionality
of design of who else
could join you, whether
they're in the room or not,
and figuring out how to
have that set of resources
available to you.
That ends up improving your
social standing because now you
don't get to feel like
the weirdo in the room,
because at any
given point you have
a posse invisible to the room
that has always got your back.
And as long as you have
that social standing,
you have more
confidence going in.
And I ended up
leaving home that day,
but I showed up on community
college campus the next day.
And literally I walked down
to the financial aid office.
I knew the guy who happened to
run the financial aid office
and said, so this just happened.
And he said, oh, and he
literally took my hand
and walked me around the campus.
And he convinced three
people to give me jobs.
One was a coding job.
One was an usher job.
One was an accounting job.
The usher job I could
do Saturday nights,
so I could still study.
The accounting job was
a Friday afternoon job
where once a week I would
sit there and do the history
museum on campus accounting.
And the other job I
could do basic coding
to ultimately build the
matriculation program.
I could do it flexible hours.
So between classes I could show
up and do an hour worth of work
here and there.
I literally pieced together, in
that one afternoon, viability.
But this person wanted
me to have an education.
So my family did not, because
they saw me through one lens.
But this person belonged
to a different group.
He believed in the
same thing I believed,
which is that a
woman, despite her--
I mean a person despite her
gender can have an education.
And here is something he
could do to come lend support.
And as soon as you
end up walking away
from the people who don't
believe in you that you
actually don't belong to
in any kind of real way,
you will ultimately
find the people to whom
and with whom you do belong.
That walkway, that gang
plank is treacherous.
You feel like you're
going to end up nowhere.
But you ultimately do get there.
So that's what I
think gives me courage
too is studying
all that and seeing
that every single one
of the 300 stories
had to walk the gang plank,
and then they ended up
with a group of people who
actually believed in them
and could stand with them.
AUDIENCE: Hi, I had a
question, but it turned out
to be a comment now.
So thank you for the topic.
I'm new to Google and I
think I sometimes experience
some of the things
that you talked about.
But I think the heart of it I
think what these people have
been asking is,
how do you create
your credibility in
front of those people
you are looking for?
It is not necessarily about how
much language barriers you have
and what not.
I think what you're
trying to say
is, how can I be more
credible to this audience who
are establishing their own
credibility with their MB
degrees and whatnot.
And the second
point I want to make
is I think what
you just explained
in the previous question
was about the heart of it,
you are trying to look for
mentors who can guide you
through this process.
And it's still the
end of the day,
you still have to walk that
path to make yourself--
establish your credibility
for those people,
the group you are
trying to work with.
NILOFER MERCHANT: Yeah, it's a
beautiful set of reflections.
What was your name by the way?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
NILOFER MERCHANT: "A-bee-chee?"
AUDIENCE: "A-bee-chit."
NILOFER MERCHANT: "A-bee-chit."
So one little-- sorry, your
first one, go back to it
for a second.
It was credibility, right?
We're trying to
establish credibility.
Most of us have been
conditioned to believe
that the outside world gets to
identify for us whether or not
we have value to add.
This is a different
thing to do, which
is to believe that you
already have something to add.
You already have
some value to give.
And so that first step is, how
do we conceive of ourselves
in such a way that we understand
even if we're not educated
or we're poor or whatever, that
we have value to offer and tilt
the system, and then
say as I value myself,
I will get valued?
So just standing in that truth
is probably the biggest step.
Because I mean, I do
this all the time.
I was just emailing
with a girlfriend
and saying I'm having a
really hard time with some
of the speaking work I'm doing.
Because she said, "Well
what you're trying to say
is this is the biggest
management idea ever, which
is if we're going to be able
to create ideas out of people,
and that's the entire economy.
What you're saying is onlyness
is the biggest management
idea ever because as you
lead people and recognize
their individuality,
you will actually
create the kinds of teams,
organizations, blah, blah, blah
that will actually
create outcomes."
That is a huge idea.
And I wrote back to
him and I said, yeah,
that's really easy
if you say it.
But by the way, the whole
world hasn't said it yet.
So for me to assert that
as a truth feels crazy.
For you to assert that
as a truth does not.
And then I shut the
computer and I went, yeah,
so I'm having a hard time owning
my onlyness, right, totally?
It's this weird
thing because what
I'm waiting for is some
credentialed moment to say,
you're allowed to claim
something as an idea.
And so it's just it's just
a flip to actually say,
I can actually claim that.
And there's enough
data in the system,
there's enough
signals in the system
to say it's based on evidence.
The research has been done.
The social science
behind it backs it.
But I still can't
make myself say it.
Does that make sense?
So I understand what you're
talking about influence.
But the first step is about how
do you conceive of yourself,
because it changes
the value equation.
SPEAKER: So I think
actually for those of us
who have children, that's
probably the biggest gift we
can give our kids is to not have
expectations of what they're
going to do but just
give them the confidence
that whatever they choose
to do, they can do.
NILOFER MERCHANT: Yeah.
SPEAKER: All right, we have
time for one more question.
NILOFER MERCHANT: Who
wants to bring it home?
SPEAKER: No more?
OK.
Otherwise we're going
to end it on that.
And thank you so much
for coming in Nilofer.
Thank you for those of you who
joined us on the livestream.
Thanks.
NILOFER MERCHANT: Thanks.
Thanks for just a
great conversation.
[APPLAUSE]
