Transcripts For CSPAN2 Cecilia Munoz More Than Ready 20240712

She would much rather talk about other people than herself. She would much rather promote and help other people then put herself forward. Given thats what we know about you and thats what so many of us love about you, why did you write a book about yourself . [laughter] thank you everybody for being here. This is amazing and thanks annemarie and tyra. I didnt set out to write a book, certainly not a book about myself. I left the white house i did what a lot of, certainly women, do. I found wonderful work at new america i hoped would be good for the world i kept my head down and focused on network. A number of people, women in particular, challenge me for some annemarie, you are one of them. To think about whether i had something to say that might be of value. I did what we do, i thought, what do i really have to say that would make any difference to anybody . I put it out of my mind. But i got pushed and that forced me to really think about it. Like, what do i have to say . Who might i have to say it to . Then i realize, i do a lot of public speaking on policies i speak to student groups, i speak to group of interns all the time and i tell stories from the course of my career all the time. I tell the same stories because they are the things that resonate. Invariably someone comes up to me when im done and hundred percent of the time that person is a woman and most of the time that woman is a woman of color. She says to me, that thing you said im so glad you said that because i thought i was only one. I put myself in the presence of those women and there have been a lot of them over the years and realize i do have something to say and i say all the time. The moment i gave myself permission to believe i had something to contribute. I immediately knew what was going to be in all 10 chapters of the book. I spoke to seven awesome women commit tyra as one of them, also women of color who we have stories to tell. I learned that some of the stuff i have struggled with over 30 years is the same stuff everybody else struggles with but we often dont talk about it we often think it shows sign of weakness rather than strengths. I learned i was just wrong. In fact, we are leaders already, women and certainly women of color. In the world needs us right now. The book is really an offering of stories from my own experience, stories from theexp of the women genera in ab generous enough to share their story. When we are aware that people around us, doubt us, we are afraid. The idea is to remind all of us weve got what it takes and the world is not only ready for what we bring but we are ready to bring it. For anyone who doesnt know, listening to us cecelia is now the Vice President for Public Interest in Technology Local initiatives here at new america. She came to us after being the head of the domestic colony counsel in the Obama White House, which is behind domestic policy position there is in the white house before that she spent 20 years she would never want me to say this but she was one of what we always talk about. Im certain there are people out there who think nobody with that kind of a blithering resume could ever have doubts. We all look at each other and we think, you are 100 secure it is i who are worried. So im going to invite you to join the conversation. And talk about cecelia who interviewed you and your also women of color who made their way. Dont talk about that dose ab talk about that for a minute. To show would ask me questions she talked about the things that we do to compensate for the underestimation or knowing that people are doubting that. I told the story of putting on makeup when i was in my 20s and went to work at Chicago Public schools. Lots of folks have been there for decades. I learned that i look younger then i actually am. At the time i really was young so i thought, underwear makeup to make myself look more mature. Cecelia and i, said what about heels . Its extremely affirming and i loved reading cecelias story but the other woman story as well. In sharing that, she and i really connected on a deeper level than we already shared as women of color. A story that part of the process. Some of the stories of the other women here outrageous like my eyes literally got big at some of the obstacles in the doubts they encountered. [inaudible] thats the story as you might want to tell it. Marvelous about elbowing your way. Is a section of the book called sharp elbows and other tools. When i first got to washington i was all of 26. I got thrown into a circle of people advocates on immigration policy pretty much all men. My immediate boss is a wonderful man there i was with the guy. I took up swearing on purpose was is not something i was raised to do to compensate. There was one point we were working on immigration bill and may be in the congressional markup which is where bills get amended and changed. I said im just never going to fit in with these guys he said, look, you are new, you are short, you just gotta elbow your way in and literally you and your elbow and say, come on, can you let me in the circle . Thats what it was like and the over and over again i find that still frequently the only woman in the room, the only hispanic person in that room were the only person of color in the room, i know tyra its true of you and the other woman i spoke to, hopefully like an elbow isnt a strategy but you need to use terribly often but we do need strategies and i think it helps that we talk about it because its not easy to be the one person speaking for everybody which in some ways is a new possibility. Tyra you had a story about someone who spoke to you and said they feel their blackness all the time. A High School Student actually in bergeson missouri. We went there as part of the administration to talk to the students of what was happening there. She described that, she said i feel my blackness all the time. Obviously that stuck with me its been several years ago and i thought, its true, both as what comes with that but also a athe joys that come with that but also the challenges of people doubting you have preconceptions about you. We carry that weight and that weight comes with responsibility. We have to own that that that is something thats unique to our experience. I want to ask you actually to talk a little bit more about being underestimated because part of this book is how we underestimate ourselves. How we think we are imposters. How we are constantly worried Everybody Knows what they are doing and we dont. I have to point out the intersection malady here, most of the time im aware that im a woman. Not always. As ive gotten higher up walk into a new america meeting i dont feel like im a gautama woman in a mans world but i certainly felt it often but ive never had i also abive never had that double in the sense of im a woman im a woman of color and people dont. Tyra come you might want to talk about what you do when you feel like people are underestimating you. When you can feel that i think george w. Bush called it the bigotry of low expectations . For one, i wear a shirt. I love it, if you cant see it use it says underrepresented, overestimated. [laughter] i think theres something in the explicit of things. We cant attune that for everyone but even just wearing this shirt. It was an all staff meeting we are talking about our diversity. I wanted to make that point without saying it and wearing it and i could tell i saw i remember seeing some of the women of color in their faces lit up i could tell when they read my shirt. It was my way of saying, this is what i think people think about me and this is what i know people think about us and whatever the other and the only is. Whether every american, latinos, women of color, women in general to say this is this lived experience and i see you and i want to create space for you to show up in the workplace as who you are. I do that in part to my clothing that i wear, African Clothing sometimes i will wear mud cloth person and ab patterns of color you dont see a lot in things. Cecelia and i remember sharing about this as well that you know that your competent and your skill but you want to make sure that you take out any margin of error of having a bad day by being prepared. We tend to over prepare to say i am so you and i been invited to spaces and places and conversations and i show up saying you mightve invited me for this reason in some ways im looking to over perform to prove the what i know is in underestimation. Cecelia, why did you call your book more than ready . Its a wonderful title, i had help from my editor in picking it up. It refers to that but it refers to multiple things. I think the world is more than ready for what we bring and we are more than ready to bring it but also it refers to exactly what tyra said. All seven of the women i spoke to landed on the steam strategy which is that when we are concerned about when were not quite sure we got what it takes what we do is we over prepare. We do the work, we show up knowing our stuff and that is what kinda leaned back into that that gives us the strength to compensate for whatever doubts we have our whatever doubts we think other people have. In the stories i tell in the book has to do with a time when one of the chief of staff i served under told a couple folks writing books that when i was promoted to domestic policy director that you describe it as the last draw leading to his departure in the white house. I dont think he said it in so many words but the impression that the two people wrote books that said that to the impression they got was that namibia was less qualified maybe i was in affirmative action and because i saw those books, it cost me probably about two years i was in that job for five years but i did think if even that person the very prominent person felt, thats not what everybody in the world is thinking. How do i know if im having a bad day or boned up on this set of stopped but the thing that blew up that day was this set of stuff that i wasnt quite ready for. I dont want there impression of that to be we need to surround this person with other people who could carry the water because were not sure she can. When folks sense youre not quite on your game you dont get feedback unless you ask for it and maybe even not them. They just kind of organize meetings without you. Its constantly going for is their reading happening about in . You really do a number on your cell. I learned and i learned from talking to other people its not just me this happens to. The way you compensate for that is you make sure youre doing a really good job. Make that ensure you doing your homework. You make good and sure youre prepared and then when you invariably have to answer a question you dont know the answer to sometimes you own it up and you go find out. I think thats very much part of the strategy that we adopt. Kathy coutu and who i think i can see on the chat i think shes participating shes one woman i spoke to she called being ultrarepaired. She was somebody who was thought oshi was a special secretary its an incredibly High Pressure job she was viewed as an unconventional choice for that job because the people get picked for that jobs kind of have like the emily post pedigree shes amazing. But the press was watching her because she is somebody who didnt fit their image of spa who supposed to operate in that job and thats what people happens to people of color and women all the time. In the way we deal with it as we show up with some extra. Its interesting. I think every woman has had that experience of worrying or feeling like or just not heard so often. A fair number of us probably also develop like men around us who think we are in affirmative action hire. [inaudible] when i look at women of color its become almost reflective of somebody who hires people, i immediately assume they have something extra because how else would they have made it this far. Its flipping the script, looking at people and saying i know how the cards are stacked against you. If you even got to the point that you could be considered to be promoted, thats because you had the grit and the determination and the preparation and the sheer smarts to make it. I often wish i could give people different lenses to understand what it takes to battle not only your own selfdoubt but also that pressure on you as coming at you from society all the time. abwrote a wonderful book called my beloved world. She talks about how she know shes got the prince and through affirmative action which he describes as, that may got to the starting line of the race i didnt even know i was running. You get to the starting line but then you have to run the race. Nobodys gonna let you take shortcuts. Thats what we have to do. I love the metaphor because in our conversation i describe i had this incident where my confidence was abexcessive that i had after that i thought were more about luck then about my preparedness or my competency and skills that i brought. I thought any moment now my luck is gonna run out. Then i came to realize its not that i had the wrong mitch. Its about opportunity. You need to have opportunity to get to the starting line but its as much about im here because of my confidence because i have prepared as part of that. But when you get those knocks in your career it can be tempting or those doubts and not wanting to prove anyone write about those doubts to get the narrative wrong in your head. To allow you to show up as fully and with as much power as you bring to the table. Do you feel like you are also carrying other expectations on your shoulders . Like you are the very high position in the white house as a latina. Do you feel like youre also carrying the expectations and reputation of other people on your shoulders all the latinos will come after you . All the people of color period . Is that a burden you feel . Several people i spoke to describe it as like a weight that you carry. Im the first hispanic person in this role, i better not screwed up because it can be that much harder for whoever comes after me. I was the senior most person in the white house. Thats also my expertise. I know the community fairly well. I know a lot about it. I was carrying the communities water along with lots of other people on the team i described in the book called team alvino which is Amazing Group of people. There were a lot of us. Theres this tension i feel all the time i never understood why i got the balance right or not that sometimes your job is to push their folks you dont necessarily know what you know and in order to do the job well your piece of knowledge has to be part of the equation you have to push and insert it. Sometimes your job is to actually hold back a little bit because your job isnt to be an advocate 100 of the time. Your job is to make sure the team serves the whole country well and if you are only understood as commit shes a latina. We have to let her have her five minutes of talking and then were to go on and do our thing. Being if it doesnt be effective that way either. You have to represent. You have to calibrate rights of people can hear you you have to figure out which of the times when they just theres a thing they just dont know and its going to be uncomfortable for them to know it but ive got to say it and which of the times when you push too far. Its like a constant calibration but there is a sense if you screwed up its going to be harder for the next person who comes after you. The other thing which i to do, this is really an example that was sent by the president himself but also by people like Valerie Jared is really amazing about this is to try to create safe space for people to ask for feedback, to up their game and kind of do that calibration so this is one of the strategies one of the things outlined in the book is to find, i had a conversation just this weekend with another latina who is looking for advice this is the advice i gave her was to find people who see you at it and who are safe enough you can go in and flip the door and say how did that go . Or that didnt go well, help me see where i got off course. Valerie was one of those safe places for me. There arent a lot in that kind of environment. I could go in and shut the door and say im not being understood in this point im trying to make or i cant tell how others are receiving me. And she was both committed to her colleagues but also committed to making sure theyre doing the job well and getting feedback even if it was hard to hear. Thats one of the strategies i recommended is the relentless asking for feedback. But find people who you can trust to give it honestly and wont hold it against you that youre asking. For some people see as a sign of weakness i actually think its a sign of strength youre saying, im trying to up my game give me the information i need to do it. But its not always safe to do so its important to figure out who you are team is and it was important to me, valerie was my boss the first three years but i didnt just ask for feedback from the people that i reported to i also asked her feedback for the people who reported to me and that was really really important in making sure that i did a good job. Tyra, youre nodding. Tyra was the deputy chief of staff for the department of education. abyou were chief of staff. You were pretty high up there. Are there people you asked for feedback from . Yes. The three of us do that. Thats what makes it so special. For good and for bad. Cecelia and i will talk and see how tobacco. Thats the beauty of working at new america is the opportunity to work with abbecause it never ever stops. Theres a saying the higher you go the less you hear the less you hear whats going on within the organization so its critical at all phases in the career but even more critical within the Senior Leadership role. So yes, jim still asked me for feedback today because he knows him to give it to him straight. You have to look for those people because people will tell you what they think you want to hear but it doesnt make you better to hear what they think you want to hear. In fact, im skeptical of a person whos unable to come with anything like you can up with anything . Its not possible were humans. There is a point that i was kind of a feedback junkie because i was always looking for the feedback and i had to wrestle with my own sense of self and how i was doing but to find that Close Network of people that you know will be an agent to help you calibrate and knowing sometimes you have to push you want to push and you can make people uncomfortable and maybe go too far or maybe not far enough but all in your own calibration with ultimately rests with peace within himself whether or not you did that and using others around you to that end. I think tyra has taught me more about feedback. We Work Together many different ways but youve taught me more about asking for feedback and giving it. You normally report to me but ive heard learned far more about how to improve myself from the way that you provided. I think the thing that we forget that we failed to take into account enough or at least i have failed to take into account enough is that for women in the women of color in the room, almost by definition there is two more perspectives there then the way decisions are traditionally made. Certainly on policy issues, certainly in Corporate Board rooms and many many settings that determine the course of our lives in the united states, the decisions are made frequently by men and frequently by men who are not people of color. So just by virtue of being women were bringing something which is too infrequently there and there is a lot of evidence that if you have a Diverse Group of people from a variety of backgrounds making a decision that that Diverse Group tends to make better decisions they tend to make decisions that are more effective and this is true in every sector. So the thing advised people especially people early in their careers to just know when they walk into the room there feeling all those things that we feel is that the people you are in the room with need you and they need what you bring. They may or may not know that they do but they do and its important that you know that they do because thats one of the places you will get the confidence to say the hard things that sometimes you need to say or to just hold your own in a setting where you might feel like youre on your own or you might feel underestimated. And there is a lot of evidence to support it but the key is to have that at your core as you walk in. Absolutely. There is a comment in the chat to tease up the next question is going to ask you theres many of you commenting asking questions we will turn to you quite soon. But absays, one of the things i think is special about this is that you come from a place of kindness and generosity. She talks about the superpower schools. Theres a chapter in the book called kindness. Im not sure thats what many people would expect. I read lots of corporate leadership books and kindness is not exactly the first thing they recommend. Talk about why kindness is in the book. I thought about this long and hard. You become it. Ginny herself is an episcopal priest. I think she knows a thing or two about being a woman in an occupation widely held by men. Kindness is in the book because its too frequently mistaken for weakness. I think thats a mistake. It talked about how the beginning of my career i took up swearing in order to show it can be tough. We understand leadership and toughness through a very male lens. Not that men cant be kind but kindness is not necessarily a virtuous of good leadership. But it is a way i try to show up in the world. I learned that its a skill set and a skill set we undervalue and its a skill set that is tremendously important. As domestic policy director part of my job was to help drive the decisionmaking that arrived at the president s desk. I was never the smartest person in the room. I was rarely the person with the most expertise on whatever the issue was we were discussing but the skill set i had mid been good at that job is and i can read a room i could understand what if you had as you might imagine sometimes the secretary of labor and the secretary of commerce disagree with each other on a policy issue, shocking, my job in that moment was to make sure that each of them got heard and that they felt that if they were in disagreement on an issue ultimately the president was you have to decide, they felt that their perspective got heard he got a fair hearing and he got the information he needed to have an urge to make a tough decision. I policy brilliance is not may be important but in that moment what the president needs for me is to make sure that the two people who are disagreeing can live with whatever decision because they understand he had all the information and just shows. Sometimes you win those decisions or prospective prevails and sometimes your perspective doesnt prevail but if you think you been treated failure abtreated fairly and he chose a different direction you can say, now im going to go support the decision im going to go make sure we implement it well because this was a fair process. All of that is a skill set that requires empathy and kindness and it requires the ability to understand what somebody needs in the moment to get a decision made. We think too frequently especially in roughandtumble settings that person showing up with kindness is not showing up with strength not showing up with toughness maybe not even showing up with smarts. When we think we are wrong. I have been very inspired by the book of abwho wrote a wonderful book called dear madam president. She is an advocate for crying is also okay on the job because its an expression of emotion. Swearing in his expression of emotion people do it all the time. So is crying and enough already with assuming we have to behave the way men have behaved since the dawn of time in order to be leaders. Thats gotten us fairly far but there are limits. Its time to reshape what we think leadership looks like and that includes kindness. I couldnt agree with you more and of course we also know that men are socialized not to show their emotions so they are given a very narrow range within which they are allowed to express emotions swearing is okay crying is certainly not okay even showing visible empathy is often not okay. I agree there but i think its particularly important in washington were very quickly you feel that unless you are cynical and hard boiled and think the worst of people your nacve and idealistic and kind of not tough enough at the game where in fact if were working on the half of the American People we are supposed to actually take these values seriously doesnt mean we are a abut kindness, empathy, abortion connection to people to me is so important and a part of what i always find difficult about washington and certainly parts of the government is that you really are read out if youre not presenting this hardboiled cynical old school journalist just out for their own perspective. I found that part of your book to be extremely important. Thank you. My friend and former colleague chris lewis asking a question, hi chris. Whether i think men will benefit from reading this book. That was one of my questions, chris, thank you. I love this question. I hope the answer to that is yes. The people in my head when i was writing it were women in particular women of color but but equally important. I think its important for other people not women of cobbler to understand what we wrestle with. And to also have an opportunity to rethink what leadership looks like. I hope its useful to men. I hope people enjoy the book but most of all what i hope is that people find it useful. Thats why i wrote it. I will second is definitely posed to men, mine abmen can be kind can we talk about family, all those things are relevant to us as human beings. It definitely i think there are some things that are certainly unique but i think there are some universal schools in there as abtools in there as well. I often think how many books are written by male leaders about leadership and ive learned from them they dont always apply in many ways i think leaders come in many different stripes but i certainly learn from them so i can imagine why men would not equally learned both the experience of men may be women of color around them but also just for themselves thinking about how to ask for feedback how to show emotion all that is very valuable. I think we are about ready to turn to questions. I see one question that actually abit says, does any woman you interview have strategies for how to respond to white fragility for anybody listening, sort of the idea that its often that when you are rate critiques from the position of a woman of color or personal color often why people get very defensive so you end up having to protect against that. That was a question theres a lot of defensiveness and unsure how to navigate. We can address it as a specific topic and maybe we should have because it is a think. But i didnt ask that question its only times i will say that everybody that i spoke to feels like they are kind of juggling multiple things. This came up in conversations with them about kindness it came up in my conversations about feeling like he representing everybody when youre in the room and that you have kind of multiple identities. Including the person trying to listen and understand and there is this sense that we are expected to represent as well as to understand and forget to be effective and this is an argument i have with i have two wonderful adult daughters that conversation that we are having a lot is that they are less willing to modulate how they present something so that they can be heard and for them its much more about expression and being true and authentic and i modulate all the time. So i think thats part of the tension. At least for me and i can only speak for myself on this my goal in almost all of those conversations is to bring people along with me so that plan modulate but i understand and respect thats not always everybodys goal. I remember was having that conversation thinking about impact and the need to modulate in order to have impact versus like im just gonna say it and deal with it people can choose to navigate im sure it varies from conversation to conversation as part of that but theres definitely a piece i just need to say it you have to hear it and its on you to own that and deal with it. I think it also depends on what we are talking about and whos in the room to what degree do you modulate versus just putting the ball on the other side of the court and having them respond. Cecelia, theres a question from Sally Ellsberg one of our wonderful board members. I love this question it says everything you say speaks of tremendous dignity on your part. Did you ever lose it is it safe for women to demonstrate anger frustration and hurt and sally led the School Foundation for longterm certainly was on the front lines of plenty of underestimation. Did you ever lose it . Oh yes thanks for the question. I dont think i ever lost it in a now im going to yell at people kinda way. When i lose it it tends to manifest in tears. I had one memorable occasion that the summer of 2014 was the summer of crisis of large numbers of children coming from Central America alone. A lot of us there was a team of us in the thick of making sure we were properly caring for those kids which seems like a long time ago and so much as happened in that realm i can only hardly talk about but for very concentrated period we were so focused on getting those kids into proper shelter care and every day i was kind of examining my conscious to make sure we have done everything we could and doing the best possible job under the circumstances and at the same time i was getting a lot of pressure from folks in the Advocacy Community on a variety of things including Immigration Enforcement and there was one meeting where both of those things came to a head i was sitting next to him and these people i love her like my family are pushing hard on him and pushing hard on me which is their job in which i totally respect but is fairly heated so i mostly kept it together but a tear managed to roll down my cheek everybody evidently noticed that it was subtle it was not. So my losing it tended to manifest itself that way and i tried not to do it in front of other people. I think im probably usually on my way home from work i would cry every day at some athat summer. Ben asked a question that directly builds on that where he says, you came out of this Human Rights Community 20 years of fighting on behalf of immigrants as a human rights advocate and you found yourself in the middle of really tough decisions. When youre criticized by people from your community. Crying on your way home is definitely one way how did you navigate and learn to live with criticism. I knew it was going to come, thanks for the question is a wonderful advocate when i greatly admire. I knew when i took the job that i would get ripped to shreds in some quarters in my own community. I knew that was true because i would be a part of governing and part of governing includes Immigration Enforcement. I understood that when i took the job so i felt emotionally ready for it when it happened. It got fairly personal and i dont think i was ready for how quite how personal it got but i understood it and the job of an advocate is to push the people governing. I know that as well as anybody because i did it for so long. The way i grappled with that when you walk in the building on the first day you hope and believe youre good to be able to do the very best you can every day you understand that the tools are not going to be perfect, youre not to be able to do a perfect job and the law especially in the case of immigration the law is badly broken so the tools are terrible. But you can use the tools in the most constructive possible way i decided on the first day you i was gonna try to put myself in the mirror every day i think theres a lot of levels of criticism that are fair but that comes with the territory mostly because i went to and understanding how it was going to happen and mostly didnt involve me much. About criticism to help you do a better job or that lifting up something you got to fix because its broken and criticism thats about just being righteous. If you want to be there is no way to lead effectively at meeting you actually make decisions and move things forward. You hope you can do it in a way that to say we have a question from mip early from the question but whats the most unexpected response you have gotten to your book. The book is coming out today. I havent had much response yet. But i will say in the course of writing it i asked daughters for our input and im in this wonderful position, my daughters named abone of the things i wrote about balancing life and work and i got a chance to ask them, how did it go from your perspective you . The response the most interesting response i got in the course of writing the book came from them because they didnt understand the question. I agonized so much about how hard i was working and whether or not i was being the kind of mom i wanted to be. They experienced it very differently. When i asked them the questions and they will be back i was quite startled for them it was fine. I try to raise it a lot i have a lot of abi tried to be assertive in saying you might be experiencing this in doing this halfway it feels different from there than it does in your end. Its more okay than you think. [inaudible] one of those daughters happen to weigh in on the chat. Gina is continuing the conversation with her about why your daughters are less willing to modulate as you put it. She says maybe the issue is there generations that theyve had it with having to wait for the rest of the world to get it in before i talk about tinas response, one of your daughters, i wanted to say diane abwrote in saying i am so tired of asking for permission to be my bad ass self. I feel like i have to manage everyone elses feelings about what i want to say, how i say it and whether i get to have the authority to say it or do what i feel is right for our in my community. Shes asking like how you create space for powerful hungry passionate strong and talented women of color . You allow them to be themselves . Tina says thats a big part of it that you dont want to wait for the rest of the world to get it tina also said i feel so lucky to have a mom whos going to talk about these kind of tactics and here where we are coming from. All of that is really lovely. I think we are experiencing a really important generational shift. I really feel like im on the aging side of the generational shift. Part of it is because younger women are less willing to put up with stuff that the rest of us have put up with for a while. I love that. Honor and respect it. I continue to believe that its important to find ways to bring people along with you but also i see that as thats the results of many years of bending myself like a pretzel to be heard and understood. I have some respect for people who are not willing to do all the bending. Hopefully theres a place in between those things that allows us to be authentic for who we are and insist that people it leads part of the way. Quite frankly, abin the time i was working alatinos became a large minority in the country and i feel really fortunate that in the trajectory of my own career we went from being completely invisible except like in the southwest and florida and new york and chicago to being the largest minority in the country and we might be a lot of things but invisible is one of them anymore. With that comes the rest of the country having to deal with us. We are here. Obviously the dynamics are very different in the African American community because of the history i do think we are arriving at a place where younger people are insisting on being seen in a different way and thank god. And maria and i had this conversation back to where i was sharing her daughter said its because of you that we are in this position. Shes talking about the me too context. The conversation i was having with annemarie was also the result of something about setting the stage that then led to womens rights to vote. That led to the Civil Rights Act it wasnt a five year or 10 year thing was a multi generational thing. We have to acknowledge how that context is different. I personally find it refreshing that i can have a pushback in conversations about diversity that arent only with people of color. Arent only with white people. Its refreshing that i can just speak about it in a way i didnt think i could 20 or 30 years ago. It is because there is a movement of people getting behind you that this is part of the conversation and that inpatient is the right thing to have as part of this. For me its like this building i think i love the metaphor of talking about the ripples and how the ripples eventually lead to what become waves. We also have to acknowledge that part of it as well but it is that juggling we been talking about that someone in the chat mentioned, the pretzel, those things are absolutely exhausting. Even for myself being an African American woman in a majority white institution, im exhausted. Responding to the diversity and trying to manage it all in a way that allows me to be effective and recognizing i am in a position of power yet i know the weight that i carry that comes from it and the pushback depending on what i decide to do. You carry that and most days you are tired. As i listen to this, i think on the one hand i hear it as a parent where you want to teach your kids what the real world is like and you hope that they change it. You dont want that to be the world they encounter but you also know you encountered it. I often think when i wrote my article in 2012 about work and families and how tough it was, many women have written to me and said can i read your article when i was in college i thought you were full of it. Now nine years later six years later or whatever, i suddenly had my first child and you are right they are telling me the world still hasnt changed as much as i want to change it but they thought it was going to be different but change is slow. Yet i can also look at that and say, yes, but the world you are entering and is light years better than the world i entered or particularly with the tenure i made. The question on a different front status because it would be interesting for lots of people. From Jessica Davidson she said im a young woman who started at the Obama White House at the very end then moved to an antisexual violence advocacy. The tools to be a frontline public advocate of the movement and the tools to fit into the Old Washington style we know about are often not complementary. I want to go back and forth between government domestic policy roles and fears frontline advocacy in the future and wondered about one harming liability to be taken seriously in the other. What advice do you have for someone like me who wants to follow you where you been an advocate and policymaker now probably a bit of both. What a great question. I think i wasnt sure the skill set would transfer the advocacy skill set would transfer into governing skill set when i walked into the white house on the first day. I had doubts about it. I discovered that actually they are compatible skill sets. I was serving a president who he knew he was getting. I drew some confidence from that. The skill sets are more related than i thought they would be. It does require the thing we talked about before if you are moving from being a advocate to governing and back again, there are some people who will not have it, who will impose a righteousness test or will not accept whatever however and purposively use the tools when youre in a governing role that with all the choices you dont have to make when youre in it advocacy role. I think you have to be willing to endure that. It helps to know where the levers are and how the process works and helps to know who is the person you need to be poking to try to get them to do the thing you want them to do. And unfortunately a lot of advocacy is disconnected from strategy how to move the policy that is actually going to affect peoples lives and an advocate who understands that is very valuable to the right kind of Advocacy Campaign in an institution and from a governing perspective, you have to pick your boss well, youre work in an administration that wants people who know what you know as advocate and i had that and i wouldnt have done it for the fact this was a president and was an organizer and respected organizing anded a vegas, i think of advocacy. I think of the challenge for someone early in their career and people who have heard me speak will smile because i say this every single time. Its a continuum and if like government is on this end of the continuum and organizing on this end of the continuum and theres a lot of things in between, your job is so find where you belong. We need good people at every point on the continuum. And where i thought i plongd on the continuum when i got my first job turn out to be wrong and i learned i was better at something else. Your job is to find where your voice is strongest and engage in work that macks your heart sing when you wake up up. You describe your sense that you should be on the frontlines and we talked boat this today, the crisis many of us feel like were just not doing enough, were sitting in our houses and were on zoom calls and writing emails and you write very power any about realizing this is not me. This is not where i can contribute the most and thats very important for all of us. We have to accept the gifts we have and how we can contribute even though we might wish or think others are contributing more. So theres a question from our own who was of us, and is asking, she says im curious if you have any words about moments of crisis, whether workplace systems are likely to revert to the existing on Hidden Networks that exclude us whether we find it harder to trust ourselves in a crisis and what advice you have for us. Wow. A wonderful question. Were obviously living through a crisis now and you can definitely feel were all kind of thinking through like what do we know about anything remoltly resembling situations like this. Who were the leaders there. And what were the systems, what are the ways people made decisions that kept people safe . [loss of audio] that done necessarily mean that the doesnt necessarily machine the systems were the right ones and appropriate for our current time and what we have learned about previous crises is what has come down to us from people who were focusing on a certain kind of leadership and not other kinds of leadership. If you dig into it, during the second world war, women were as important to the war effort as men. Of course we werement we learned much less about that and so we dont when he welcome thought who was making the decisions and how did the big stuff happen, theres a lot written and a lot that we have learn but at that layer of leadership and much less about what was happening in the realm that women were engaged in. And so i feel excited we are living in a time where we are reworking those paradigms and beginning to understand leadership in a different way, beginning to recognize people who made an enormous contribution historically but who werent recognized because that teaches us a lot but what we need to know right now in this minute, in this, i how to knit a community together, make sure were watch ought for each other, make sure that people who are vulnerable get protected, and frankly how to make sure that we when we are in this crisis and on the other side of it that we become a society that we should be. This crisis is exposing a lot of ways in which we failed each other as a society. Going back to the old way of making decisions and the folks who used to make the decisions is definitely not going to be the way to make the world what we need it to be. So, i think its a thing to understand and also a thing to resist if that makes sense. The row rated question from cath related question from kathy bryan which is very interesting given the way were working today. Do you think the dynamic of the room or the table will change in the online remote environment that so many of us are working in these days . Any advice for elbowing your way in here . That is interesting because suddenly some ways everybody can be seen equally. We all little blocks then he screen but may be even harder to assert yourself, be interested not what both say tyra, do you have a view . Its an interesting question. What i have noticed at least in our complexes, when you i think the chat box has opened up has created more space. Like whether were having an all stop of directors, having people to try to participate in weighed that has not happened before. Doesnt feel as risky as speaking up and everybody turns their attention. So its a and ann marie and i were commenting, wasnt just [inaudible] were all in person. So, in some ways i think it is creating space by leveraging some of those tools, but like anything i think it also has to be intentional on the part of the person that is leading the conversation as well as i think part of what your book of affirms is in there. Youre more than read and more powerful than you think so theres a twoway part to it. Its a virtual elbow but i also think the Online Community has created more some of the benefit of the anonhim inity creates spice for everyone to participate. I think thats exactly right. And were just learning to live in this new world. But im quite fascinated. I havent been able to read all the chapters because im trying to concentrate on the conversation but theres a whole other conversation happening on the chat. Youre right, participation in this kind of new world we are living in is shifting in ways i think are really interesting and that lifting up maybe of broader diversity of voices than we typically hear, which is so interesting and kind of exciting. A piece missing in these reflecting on the last few days is people that i used to see in the kitchen i dont get to see anymore because i dont naturally interact with them otherwise and i have been thinking about how do i make time to connect in a way that you would at the water cooler, as we used to say. Dont really have those anymore but thats something ive been thinking about, people i get to connect with and learn from and learn about their experience on any given day. Were in the same part of it and we need to think how to build that in. I think thats a really interesting point. You dont bump into people virtually. No. Whereas indeed one of the great things about being in the office if you make yourself available, is exactly the water cooler, the coffee machine, thats kind of unexpected encounters. Thats an interesting point. There are a couple more questions. More specifically on your book and i will say yes, the chats if a people were in youre in fifth grade and they can pass notes to everybody as opposed to just their desk mate. Tamara richards says, how do you address men who talk to you in an angry or dismissive way . Do you adopt a friendly strategy or come at them in a similar way. So very specific question. I can think of some examples of times when this happened. I tend to get really calm and really focused, and really kind of thorough in my responses. So i lean right particularly again im small of stature, so a man getting testy often also involves, like, size, and so my defense is to frankly smarter and somebody who is being testing sorry thats any land line ring not being smart and i calm down, get very focused and make sure im like i have solid reasoning and then lean into the stuff i know and to express it well, rather than trying to do kind of play on the same playing field. Do you have any ill just say my husband is 66, son who is 65, another who is 63, im really used to this and my strategy is i ask questions. I used to push back and i would very quickly be overpowered. Assertion is not something youll win in that situation, but i just ask questions because i have found over time that often put place it puts is bang on the other western and the other person and often theyll deflate. We have a question from rick, the president of the says cecelia has this is just a comment but ill read it. Reminded a board on which we both serve that the imperative is to build a machinery of change, that may require a long time to build but that is capable of activating when at the time is right. She embodies the kind of fierce and intelligent patience that does indeed change the world. Wonderful thing to say. Thank you, rick. Offering that, and then theres another question for both of you from ad robinson that says, thank you cecelia and tyra. What is your best advice for a white woman to not only be an ally to people of color but an accomplice in making change are thats an important question for many of us. Thats a great question. I think it involves in listening. I think it involves some ways the best situations like that ive been in when people ask, what do you need . What can i do . How can i support you . Let me ill give an example as you heard an marie si very very beginning, im promoting a book ive written is find an excruciating experience. Feels too much lick selfpromotion to be in my comfort zone. One of our very wonderful colleagues knows us well enough to know thats uncomfortable so she basically marched into the office to say, i know this is uncomfortable for you and heres things that i think i can do that youre not going to like to do but can move this forward. Thats not necessarily related to race but its a strategy and it helps for me to be able to ask, which i have actually done and helps me anticipate, heres what i see that it think you might need, but let me check. And let me show up in a way that is kind of a service to what you need to move something forward. Tyra. I think listening is is part of it and the trust to be open to hearing what were experiencing or seeing or what we think is an equitable. Anne marie and i have had conversations over the years and worked together close enough, shell call it out before i have to call it out but theres another piece, listening and trust are not newscast and acting part of it. If you are more aware when you are in circles that we are not, of course that you speak out and Say Something that you not an observe this thing but you Say Something about this thing or you do something about this thing so that it doesnt take us being present in order for the change to happen. So, thats the other piece of i would add to the equation. A great example is recently an invitation to a dinner of scholars of experts, policy experts on poverty, and this is a group of maybe 40 people, and i detected i was one of maybe two people of color in the room. And so one way to be an ally is to not expect me to be the one to have like in that situation we talked but poverty, were talking about communities of color except its a been of really wonderful experts but theyre all white, almost all white. One way to be an ally is to be the person who will set up and not expect the one or two program of color to be the oned to say, maybe this room isnt die stressor enough to be authentically talking but this isnt were talking about. That remained reminds me, at new america we were talking about diversity on the panels, making for richer conversations that are outcomes you were speaking to earlier and there was a person, man in particular, who started making a comment about not really wanting he didnt want it to be a dog and pony show and i was getting hot. I couldnt believe what i was hearing first of all. Was also just getting hot. And it was a beautiful moment pause the women could relate to the point of having some experience with that, and they all jumped in and it was beautiful for me. Theyre like i dont need to jump interest this but other people are allies, and they could really it that their lived experience and they werent doing it on my behalf but it was nice i didnt have to be one of two people of color in the room that was maybe more open for the comment that was made. So that just not speaking and saying can you see but it get to goes a along way to share glands that you caught that comment, that was really inappropriate. But just dont sit union. Its great to relate but we need to Say Something but so we have to put all the pieces together. I will just say that as somebody who spends a lot of time, if a woman makes a comment and its ignored and then a man makes the same comment im often the person who will very deliberately say, yes, as cecelia said to remind everybody who say the person who really made the comment first was a woman. When ha man does that i could hug him. Goetz to trouble of pointing out to lift up a womans voice or make sure she is heard so those things can make a huge difference from many different situations. And theres a related question, cecelia and all of us but says, from sharon burk and is says im interested in whether the throw of you and the women you traumatic to, cecelia in your book, felt sometimes the burden of expectations, specifically that it they would play a certain part in work life because they are women of color. Maybe as the social blue, the cheerleader, the underrerrer, the confessor, do you feel and in particular as women of color that youre supposed to play a certain role . I dont its a great question. I dont think its a certain role unless you job is to be the person of color in the room. We talked about that with the theres a section of the book which is when you feel youre there for a little bit of color. Ive been had somebody say to me, can you come to this meeting tomorrow because were having this meeting on this thing and we realized he didnt invite any women or any people of color and youre both. Would you come . Which is not i guess an honest discussion of why the were inviting me, but it doesnt actually speak to the whether or not they expected me to actually have wisdom in the meeting. So theres that role that all of us have been and happens all the time. But im not sure that theres a i side from that theres a specific role we field like we need to play. Its more that you feel like youre that theirs a certain kind of spotlight always on and it never goes off, and youre just aware of it all the time. Thats how i experience it. I think thats right. I certainly i dont feel the need to live up to their role at all. Im liberated in that way. But it is this the one thing you dont want to take away from this conversation of the book and i dont think that happens, you only need one latina, you only need one africanamerican, you only need one woman. Right, because we are as diverse as whatever is the most diverse thing there is, and if you think about your own family and how within your own family you are different from the rest of them, such as the case within any given culture is part of that. So you have this weight or feel the spotlight you are the spokesperson for all africanamericans, and all latinas and whatever. As part of that and you know its just not true. And so even when were doing something i try to get those diverse perspectives because i know that my experience is not another persons woman of world odd richard experience and we should bring all of that in the conversation i dont think theres enough reality, even though we said it for decades now, the reality that were spokespeople. Were coming to the end. One more very specific question and then turn to maybe some closing thoughts. Very relatedly, jessica says, what do you do when youre asked to be on a panel to speak on diversity . Ive had this problem, too. Suddenly im supposed to be the expert on diversity. Im a independent security expert. What diknow about women in foreign policy, what this has happened to all of us. What do you do . How do you happen it gracefully, that says im sorry, im a Higher Education expert, cecelia is an immigration expert. What do you do there . One strategy is to ask why you think this is my area of expertise . Good back to your strategy anne marie of asking the question to urn turn it back own the person who is asking, who is making it very obvious that they have at least figured out they need a panel on diversity so point for that or figure out aindiana some diversity on the panel and point for that. If think it is okay to reject the notion that because we are the one person of color on the panel our expertise diversity is not i think its okay to ask and ive now made a regular habit if somebodies asking me to be on a panel, asking am i the only person of color on this panel . Who else is on the panel . And it causes some frequently causes discomfort which thats fine with me. Think itsiful to turn the question its useful to turn the question back on the person asking. Why should the burden be on you to explain the fact that i havent an in my name doesnt mean im an expert on diversity. So, first of all i just have to say, cecelia, i dont know if you saw but your cousin jorge wrote in, and im not going to ask it as question but ill make it a comment because he says, tell us about your inner sources of strength when faced with personal attacks and you have talked about that, but i take that really as a comment on your sources of strength, and witnesses that and im just grateful that he is part of this conversation. Im going to ask you all to reflect in sort of some Closing Remarks on Anna Mcdonald writes in and says, also a new american, im curious about your thoughts on the nature of power. Frederick douglass said that power concedes nothing without demand. If we simplify the Current Situation to white many have the power and how much tug is needed on our part collectively as women of color, how too you think about that . We have a quote from frederick douglass, a reference to our Current Situation, and maybe an invitation just to give us some final thoughts. Tie remarks tyra you want to go first. I wont go first on final thoughts but ill comment on the point. Its very true. If we look at history, the change we saw in history at any time come from power being given. It came from power being demanded. And part of my fear in this moment were living in, over the last few years, is the things we have allowed to go unchecked or only spoken about it in our echo chamber that we have not moved to real action to demand justice, and theres understandable thought around that focus on elect but a whole lot that happened in between here and there that we have let happen and we have not demanded that power shift or that things change as part of that. So, i absolutely agree, and when i think about even some of the changes i have made as a leader, its come from the demands, some is thing is saw and servedded and thought were the right things to do but sometimes it came in response and i rely on that voice, that feedback, that says we need to do something differently as part of that. You can argue thats giving but theres a demand i have to responsible to as a speaker. I think i agree with that and i love our current speaker of the house has been very clear that you cant expect people to give up power you have to take it. Then you know what you want it for, and you have to be prepared to use it, and one to connect that to the question that jorge asked about sources of strength, one of the piece Office Advice i cite in the become is a motion of getting your love at home, meaning if you kind of you know who you are and where you belong and have people in your life that you get sustenance from you can act as an advocate and care much less about whether or not those people like you. Im not sure nancy pelosi worries very much about whether Mitch Mcconnell likes her. Right . She is an example of somebody who is clear what she is getting love at home, she has stuff at her core that allows her to do uncomfortable thing and not care they make people uncomfortable and thats advice ive taken to heart when things get hard, and things get hard for any person in live. This isnt just true of women or people of color. But this notion that your job, when you go out into the world is not about being liked, its making a difference, and if you know that where your getting your love from is secure, its easier to do it and people can say things about you that being uncomfortable and you dont have to care because you get your love at home. Thats a beautiful note on which to end and i will say i remember early on when i first started to lead, my brother who was an investment banking, would say to me its not personal, and i do think many women, in particular, are more inclined to take criticism personally, where were socialized to be hypersensitive and his point was, yeah, people are going to say nasty things but its not personal. Its more like a Football Game or where you just in the scrum, dont assume its aim at you and that was helpful to me, and i also i think its obviously does help if your anchor is securely as possible. But i want to close by suggesting to everybody again, not suggesting go buy this book. It is my honor to read it in draft. Cecelia being cecelia kept saying, youre making time i cant believe it. Im like, no, this is a great read. Im learning thing, aid funny, it is tender, is is frees in fierce in places, book that is a wonderful read and i want to end by saying its a book for our time. I think were in a crisis that demands many different kinds of leadership, were in a crisis that demands care and kindness and connection and solidarity. Were in a crisis that requires we draw on the talent of everyone and that means all americans, it means people of color, that means women, that means women of color, and we are grateful for this book. So i thank all of you for being part of this cocktails and conversation, go get the book, tweet about it and we look forward to seeing you again. Juke couple of tonight on booktv random hughes asks several authors such as david brooks, and Martha Stewart to geoff virtual commencement addresses to the class of 2020. And brad thro is fee stewart ode series that focuses 0 wellknown authors in the booktv archives. We examine the greg business of collecting and selling consumer dat. Find more information on your program guide, or online at booktv. Org. Hello, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us tonight. Im benjamin quinn. On behalf hoff Harvard Book Store imexcited to welcome you to this event with noah feldm