Book. I do invite you whatever suits you, if its a cocktail, if youre on east coast, maybe not on the west coast, whatever you would like but we hope youll participate in the conversation. Im going to stoppages saying what everybody in the audience knows about cecilia munoz, which is she would much rather talk about other people than herself. She would much rather promote and help other people to put yourself forward. Given the facts what we know about you and given the fact thats why so many of us love about you why did you write a book about yourself . So thank you, everybody, for being here. Its amazing, and it didnt set out to write a book, sort another book about myself. When i left the white house i did write i think frankly a lot of, certainly when they do, which is i found wonderful work at new america and they kept my head down and focus on that work. A number of people, women in particular, challenged me, annemarie, you were one of them, to think about whether i something to say that might be about you. I thought what do i really have to say that would make a difference to anybody . I put it out of my mind but i have pushed come at the forced into really think about it. Like, what do i have to say . Then i realized i do a lot of public speaking, i speak of policy issues, speak to student groups, all groups of interns all the time and i tell stories from the course of my career all the time at a tell the same stories because they are the things that resonate. Invariably someone comes up to me when im done and 100 of the time the person is a woman, most of the time that woman is a woman of color and she says to me, the things that you set up so glad you said because i thought i was the only one. And so i kind of put myself in the presence of those women and their been a lot of over the years and realize id do something to say an and estatel the time. The minute i give myself permission to believe that i have something to contribute that might be of use, i knew what was going to be in the book and he spoke to seven women, women of color who had stories to tell, and some of the stuff i had struggled with over 30 30 s is the same stuff everybody else struggles with. We often dont talk about it. We often think it shows signs of weakness rather than strength, and ive learned it was just wrong. In fact, we are leaders already, women and certainly women of color, and the world need this right now. This book is an offering of stories from my own experience, stories from the experience of the women who are generous enough to share their story, the strategy we use when we doubt ourselves, when we are aware people around us without us, when were 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. Im going to invite for anyone who doesnt know, was listening to us as cecelia to the Vice President for public and issued to new america but she came to us after being ahead of the Domestic Policy Council in the Obama White House, which is the highest domestic policy position there is in the white house. Its not a cabinet position but you have your finger on the pulse of everything that is happening. Before that she had spent 20 years working on policy at la raza, and she would never let me to say this but she was one of what we always talk about as im embarrassing her because im certain there are people out there who think nobody with that kind of a glittering resume could ever have doubts, right . We all look at each other and say no, you are 100 secure. It is i who are worried. Im going to invite you the conversation and talk but what its like, cecilia interview you, your colleagues, friends but youre also women of color who have maybe talk about that. Cecilia would ask the questions. She talked about the things we do in conferencing for the underestimation or knowing people are doubting us and wondering if were only there for our ethnicity. I told the story of putting on makeup when its in my 20s and ive worked at Chicago Public schools. I know i look younger than actually am, and at the time i really was young. So i thought im going to wear makeup to make myself look mature. Cecelia die, she said what about heels . Yes, right. It was extremely i read the book and i love reading not only cecilias story but the other womens stories as well. She and i really connected on a deeper level than we already shared, women of color. And again the stories were so affirming as part of the process. There were some of the stories of the other women are outrages like my eyes literally got big at some of the obstacles and the doubts that they encountered. But again wasnt anything, yes, me too. So thats the story, cecilia, you might want to tell. Your marvelous about how to elbow your way in to your own mentors. Other people help you. You might want to tell that story. So this wasnt a figurative elbow. Theres a section of the book called sharp elbows and other tools, and the story is from when i first got washington i was all of 26 and got thrown into a circle of the people who are advocates on immigration policy, particularly who are pretty much all men. Most of them were tall men, and my immediate boss was a wonderful man, charles kawasaki. He stepped away from his role and kind of push me and, and there i was with the guys. I am 52, 26 actually would recounted to trips wearing a purpose which is not something i was raised to do to compensate for my size and by softspoken this, like i thought i can need to show these people i can be tough, so delivered, started swearing which is not a stretch i recommend necessarily but it is a tool. There was one point where we working on an immigration bill and may be in the congressional markup which is where a bill gets amended and changed, and it ended and the guys stood up and they formed a little huddle and it wasnt in the huddle. I was angry about adequate back and talk to charles and i was like i just never going to fit in with these guys picky said, look, your new, your short, youre a woman. Like you just have to elbow your weight in an literally future elbows and say come on, can you let me in the circle . Which i did but it only had a duet once. But thats sort of what it was like. Over and over again i find that im still frequently the only woman in the room, the only hispanic person in the room, feeling personal call in the room. I know, tyra, it is true of you and true of the other women i spoke to. Hopefully like an elbow isnt a strategy but we do need strategies and 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 in a possibility. Tyra, you would had a story abe spoke to said they feel blackness all the time. High School Student actually, in ferguson, missouri, we went there as part of the administration to talk to students about what was happening there. She said i feel like blackness all the time. And i just, that stuck with me. Its been several years ago and i thought its true, it is true both as but also the challenges of under as many you and have doubting your having preconceptions about you. So you carry that weight and that weight comes with responsibility, and we have to own that. That is something that is unique to our experience. Just i i want to ask you actually to talk more about being underestimated because part of this book is about how we underestimate ourselves, right . How we think we are constantly worried, everybody else does what theyre doing but we dont. But theres also that feeling of what you talk about the ways you know that others are underestimating you. You have to point out the intersectionality here because when you talk about, i feel my blackness all the time come most of the time im aware of woman, not all, not always, and as ive gotten higher up, as i i walk o a new american beauty i dont feel like oh, my gosh im a woman in a mans world but i bui felt that often but ive never had but also the majority. Ive never had that doubled, i am a woman, a woman of color, and people dont seem at all or theyre making all sorts of assumptions. Part of what you talk about his role of women and definitely part of it is the particular role of women of color. Tyra, you might want to talk about what you do when you feel like people are underestimating you. When you can feel that sort of i think its george w. Bush called it the bigotry of low expectations. [inaudible] i love it. If people cant see it is as an underrepresented, underestimated. I do. I think theres something in the i know youre potentially we cant do for everyone but, for example, even wearing the shirt, to all faculty meeting where we were talking about our diversity and they wanted to just make that point without saying it, and wearing it, and i could tell, i saw and remember women of color in the room and the faces looked up. I could tell when the read my shirt. It was my way of saying this is what i think people think about me and this is what i think people think about us. Whether its africanamericans or latinas are women of color or women not in america which is 70 of the workforce there, but in general to say this is this lived experience and i see and want to create space for you to show up in the workplace. I do that in part through my clothing, i mentioned i were African Clothing and printed fabrics of color that you just dont realize [inaudible] but it want to see a face, my early years, i dont have the luxury now but there are women, there were not women wearing printed fabric but of what people to show up the way that they want to express themselves, obviously professional and all that but theres plenty of room that we dont exercise part of it, but the other thing i do in terms of the underestimation is the preparedness. I know, i remember sharing this, you know that you are constant and you are skilled but you want to make sure that you take any margin of error of having a bad day so we can do over prepare, you know, like sort say i will show you. And i been invited to spaces and places and conversations knowing that it probably is because i constructed adversity for this person and i should say he may have invited me for this reason but im going to show you how much more i can contribute to the conversation as part of it. In some ways i seem to over perform just to prove that what i know is an underestimation. Cecilia, why do you call your book more than ready . Its a wonderful title and night help from and to picking it up. It refers to multiple things. I think the world is more than ready for what we brain, 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 same strategy which is that when were concerned about, like not quite sure that weve got what it takes, then what we do is we over prepare. When we sense that other people may doubt we have what it takes, what we do is we over prepare, but we do the work we show up knowing our stuff, and that is we leaned back and that gives us the strength to compensate for whatever doubts we have whatever doubts we think of the people have. One of the stories i tell in the book has to do with a time when one of the chiefs of staff i served under told a couple of folks were writing books that when i was promoted to domestic policy director that that come he described as the last i dont think he said in so many words but the impression that the two people who wrote books that he said that to, the impression they got was that maybe i was less qualified, maybe because i saw this looks, approximately two years ago [inaudible] not because i thought he could do the job, because a student the job. I was doing the job that the president of the United States asked me to do that job and a david tepper five years. If thats what the one person, a prominent person felt, how do i know thats that would anybody in the room is thinking when im sitting here and how do i know if im having a bad day or i boned up on this set of step of the thing that look that day was this the stuff that it wasnt quite ready for . You know, i dont want that, their impression of that to be well, we need to surround this person with other people who can carry the water because we are not sure she can. Places like the white house come when folks censure not quite on your game, they will tell you but you dont get feedback and lush as for and maybe not even then. There were organized meetings without you. Its constantly going like people come is a meeting happening im not in the what does it mean . You can really do a number on yourself. And i learned, and and i learnd from talking to the people, not just me that this happened to, that the way you compensate is you make sure you get a really good job. You make sure you do your homework. You make sure youre prepared and then when you invariably have to have a question that you know the answer to because sometimes that happens, your own it up and you go and find out. I think thats very much part of the strategy that we adopt. Kathy kochan, i think shes participating, one of the women i spoke to, she called it being ultra prepared. Once the when i spoke to what also see in the chat can same thing. She was somebody thought of, social secretary for the first lady which is an incredible high pressured job. She was viewed as an unconventional choice for the job because the people get picked for that jobs are a kind of have like the emily posts pedigree, and what she had with smarts and skilled great tv. Shes amazing. But the press was watching her because she somebody who didnt fit the image of who is supposedly in the chop, and that happens to people of color, happens to women all the time. And the way we deal with it is we show up with some extra. Its interesting, i think every woman probably has had that experience of worrying or feeling like they are being either invisible or underestimated are just not heard so often. And a fair number of us probably also felt like there were meant around us who think we were affirmative action hire. Because were of women, all of us know on a panel or on a commission board, a gender board more than our qualifications. But i do think again, when i look at women of color, this has become almost reflexive as somebody who hires people, i immediately assume they get something extra because how else would they have made it this far . That timmy is slipping the script to look at people and thinking, i know how the cards were stacked against you, so when you got to the point to even be considered worthy of this, thats because you had the grit and determination in the preparation and the sheer smarts to make it. I often wish i could get people different lenses to understand what it takes to battle not only own selfdoubt but the pressure on you that is coming at you from society all the time. She talks about how she knows she got to princeton through affirmative action, but she described that as so the copy to the start of lent of the race i didnt even know i was running. You get to the starting leviton you know what you have to run the race. You have to show up, you have to be prepared and do it well. Nobody is going to let you take shortcuts. Thats what we have to do. Often it is against the headwinds of peoples low expectations. To that point, i love that metaphor because in our conversation i described that my confidence was knocked for years. The excesses i had after that i thought were more about locke than it was about my repaired this or my competency skills i brought. Still great things but any moment now my luck is going to run out. I realized i had the wrong niche. Its not about like its about opportunity. It means you do need to have opportunity to get to the starting line but its as much about either because of my competency, because i prepared as part of that. But when you get those knocks in your career it can be testing, or the stouts and not wanting to prove anyone right about doubts, you can get the narrative wrong in your head that doesnt like you to show up as fully with as much power as you bring to the table. Do you feel like you are also carrying other expectations on your shoulders . In other words, that you are, you were the very high position in the white house as a latina empty feel like youre also carrying the kind of hope and expectations and reputation of other people on your shoulders, all the latinas who come after you, all of the people of color . Is that a burden you feel . Yeah. I mean, some of the people i spoke to describe as his weight that you carry. The way i expense is, on the first, in this job i better not screwed up because it is going to be that much harder for whoever comes after me. I was the seniormost person latina person in the white house. Thats also my expertise, i know the community really well. I was at the National Council of la raza now, i guess the thing i know a lot about. I was carrying team latino which an Amazing Group of people, a lot of us, but we had to carry the water and theres this tension that i feel all the time, which is, and i never understood what i got the balance right or not, where sometimes your job is to push that. There are folks who 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 and you have to push it and insert it. But sometimes your job is to actually hold back a little bit because your job isnt to be an advocate 100 of the type in your job is to make sure the whole team serves the whole country well, and if you are only understood as well, shes a latina and she will lift up her staff, i crept to let her have her five minutes of talk and then we will go on into our thing. You both have to represent your you have to calibrate it right so people can hear you. Your certificate which is the te times with a just, theres a thing they just dont know and is going to be uncomfortable to know it and had to sit, which of the times you are pushing to our. Its like a constant calibratio calibration, but there is a a sense if you screw it up its going to make it, its would be harder for the next person who comes after you. But the other thing we tried to be, tried i do and this is an e that was set by the present himself but also people like Valerie Jarrett was really amazing about this, is to try to create a safe space for people to ask for feedback, to up their game and to do that calibration. This is one of the synergies, one of the things i outlined in the book is to find, i had a conversation just this weekend with another latina who is looking for advice and this is the advice i gave her, was to find people who are safe enough that you can go in and close the door and say, how did that go . Or that didnt go well, help me see where i got off course. Mallory was one of those places for me, theres not a lot of safe place at a job like that but she provided one of them and you could go in office and close the door and say how do i nothing understood in this point im trying to make, or i cant tell how others are receding me. She was both committed to recall expect committed to making sure we do the job and you get feedback even the target here. Thats what the strategies i recommend is asking for feedback but find people you can trust to give it honestly and you wont hold it against you that youre asking. For some people see as a sign of weakness. I think its a sign of strength you are saying look, im trying to up my game, giving information i need to do it. But its not always safe to do so. Its important to figure out who your team is, and its important to me. So valerie was my boss the first three years, but it didnt just asked ask for feedback from the people that i reported to. I also asked feedback from the people who reported to me, and that was really important in making sure that i get a good job. Tyra, you were nodding. So tyra was the deputy chief of staff for the department of education. So arne duncan was the director of education and jim schulte was a deputy secretary and you just chief of staff but you were pretty high up there. Are the people you ask for feedback from . For sure. Chief of staff, [inaudible] and the three of us do that. For good and for bad. [inaudible] the ceiling and i would talk about how did that go . The three of us do that together. Thats the beauty of working at new americas opportunity to work with because it never ever stops and there is a saying, the higher you go the less you hear. The last year whats going on in the organization it is critical at all phases of ones career but even more critical within a Senior Leadership role. So yeah, jim was asking for feedback today. You have to look to those people because people will tell you what they think you want to hear but it doesnt make you better. In fact, im skeptical of the persons unable to come up with anything, like really . You cant come up with anything . Perfect, really . Its not possible. There was a point i was a feedback junkie goes always looking for feedback and had this wrestle with my own sense of self and how i was doing but to find that Close Network of people you know will be agents i can to help you calibrate, and knowing sometimes you have to push, you want to push and youll make people uncomfortable and it may be going too far maybe you didnt go far enough but you need not only your own calibration which hopefully you can have peace within yourself or that you did that but then others around you to that end. This topic more about feedback, and we worked together in different ways and you taught me more about asking for feedback. You not only report to me but i have learned far more about how to actually improves myself. You were going to jump in, then i have another question. I think the thing we forget or that we failed to take into account, at least i have failed to take into account, is for women of color in the room, why almost by definition theres more perspectives than the way decision after initially made, policy issues, certainly in orbit boardrooms, and many, many settings that determine the course of our lives in the United States, and decisions are made frequently by men and for equally by men who are not men of color. Just by virtue of being in the room where bringing something, and theres reams of evidence now that if you have a Diverse Group of people, the Diverse Group tends to make better decisions, they can to make decisions that are more effective. This is true in every sector. The thing i find people, especially early in the course, to just do know when you walk n the room, is that the people you are in the room with need you and you need what you bring. They may or may not know that they do, but they do and to support that you know that they do because thats on the places you would 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 may feel like youre on your own or you may feel people underestimating do. Theres reams of evidence to support it, but the key is to have that as you walk in. Absolutely. Theres a comment in the chat that tees up the next question is when asked and many of you are commenting and asking questions, i will turn you quite soon. One of the things i think is special about cecelia is she comes from a place of kindness and fruitfulness and generosity. She talks about the superpowers what i wanted ask you, theres a path in the book called kindness and many people would expect. Certainly, 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. Its something, and thank you for that lovely comment. Jeannie herself is an ally. She is an episcopal priest so i think she knows a thing or two about being a woman in an occupation that is usually held by men. Kindness is in the book because it is too frequently mistaken for weakness. I think thats a mistake. I talked about how to begin my career i took of swearing in order to show i can be tough. We understand leadership and top this through a very narrow lens, not that men cant be kind but its not, kindness is not necessarily a virtuous associate with leadership. It is a way try to show up in the world, and its a skill set and is a skill set we undervalue and its a skill set that is tremendously important. As domestic policy director part of my job was to drive, helped by 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 or whatever the issue was we were discussing, but the skill set i had is that i could leave the room, understand if you had, as you might imagine sometimes secretary of labor of the sect of commerce disagreed with each other. My job in that moment was to make sure that each of them got heard and that they felt that if there is a disagreement on issue and ultimately the president was one have to decide, they felt that the perspective got heard, got a fair area and he got the information he needed to in order to make a tough decision. Policy brilliance is not, it may be important but in that moment what the president needs of you is to make sure that the two people who are disagreeing has to live with ever decision because they understand that he had all the information and he just chose. Sometimes you win those decisions or your perspective prevails, and sometimes your perspective doesnt prevail but if you think youre been treated fairly and you think information was present, that he just chose a different direction, and you can say all right, now im going to School Support the decision to make sure we implement it well. Because this was a fair process. All of that is a skill set requires empathy and requires kindness, it requires the build to understand what somebody needs in the moment in order to get the decision made. If we dont, we think too frequently, especially in roughandtumble settings, that a person showing up with kindness is that showing up with strength, not joint with top this, maybe not even showing up with smarts. And i have been very inspired by the work of jennifer, my former colleague who wrote a wonderful book called dear madam president. Shes an advocate for like crying is also okay on the job. Because thats an expression of emotion. Swearing is an expression among the motion. People do that all the time. So is crying. Thats gotten us fairly far but there are limits. Its time to reshape what we think leadership looks like, 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 there given a very narrow range within which there are allowed to express their emotions. Swearing is okay. Crying is certainly not okay, even showing physical emotion and empathy is not okay. I agree but its particularly important in washington where very quickly you feel that unless your cynical and hardboiled and kind of think the worst of people, you are naive and i feel as if unit, just kind of not tough enough for the gain whereas in fact, if we are working on behalf of the American People and we are supposed to actually take these values seriously, doesnt mean we are we can be plenty tough, kindness, empathy, emotion, kind of connection to people to me is so important, and the part i always find difficult about washington, certainly part of the government, is that you really are read out if you are not presenting this hardboiled cynical kind of oldschool journalist. You know, they are just out for the own perspective. I found that part of your book to be extremely important. Thank you. So my former colleague is asking a question, whether men will benefit from reading this book . That was one of my questions, so chris, thank you. You know, i hope the answer is yes. The people in my head as i was writing it were women and particularly women of color, but i think we are important and i think its important for other people who are not women of color to understand some of what we wrestle with. And to also have an opportunity to rethink what leadership looks like. I hope its useful to men and i hope, i hope people enjoy the book but most of all what hope is that people find it useful. Thats why i wrote it. I will second that. Men can be kind, we talk about family, all those things are relevant to us as human beings. I think there are some things that are certainly unique, but i think there are some personal principles in there as well. Now, i often think of how many books i had written by mail leaders about leadership, and i have learned from them that they dont always apply in many ways, leaders come from many different stripes but i certainly read i can imagine why men would not equally learn that the experience of men and may be the women of color about the but also just for themselves, just inking about how to ask for feedback on how to show emotion, all that i think is very valuable. So i think we are about ready to turn to questions. I see one question that actuall actually, did any women interview have strategy for how to respond to white fragility . Sulfur anybody listening, sort of the idea that its often that win you are raising critiques from the position of the woman of color or person of color, often white people get very, very defensive and so you end up having to protect against that. That was a question. Theres lot of defensiveness im sure. We didnt address it as a specific topic and maybe we should have because of thing. But i didnt ask that question in so many terms. I will say that everybody that i spoke to feels like they are kind of juggling multiple things. It just came up in conversations with them about kindness, in my conversations with them about representing everybody when youre in the room, and that have kind of multiple identities. One of which includes the person was listening and trying to understand, and there is this sense that we are expected to sort of represent as was understand, like if are going to be effective, and this is an argument that i have with my two wonderful adult daughters, conversation that were having a lot is that they are kind of less willing to modulate how the present something so that they can be heard. And to them its much more about expression about being true and authentic. I modulate all the time. I think thats part of the tension, and at least for me and i can only speak from us on this, my goal in almost all of this conversation is to bring people along with me and thats what i modulate. What a understand and respect thats not always everybodys goal. I remember us having that conversation, thinking about impact and the need to modulate in order to have impact, and, versus like it is going to say, we have to deal with it. People choose to navigate within one end of the spectrum or another, very soon conversation to conversation as part of that but theres definitely a piece of, igt does say it say it and how they hear it, and deal with it editing it also depends on what were talking about and whos in the room, to what degree do you modulate arches putting the ball on the other side of the court and having them respond. Cecelia, theres a question from one of her wonderful Board Members who says i love this question, it says, everything you say speaks of tremendous of dignity on your part. Did you ever lose it for women to demonstrate anger, frustration and hurt . Sally led the School Foundation for a long time, certainly was on the front lines of plenty of and estimations, lets put it that way. Did you ever lose it . Oh, yeah. I mean, to answer the question, i dont think ever lost it in like now im going to yell at people this way. When i visit it tends to manifest itself in tears. I had one i think memorable occasion that, the summer of 2014 was the sum of of what i think of as the sum of unaccompanied kids, the crises of a large number of unaccompanied children coming through Central America alone. A lot of us, there was a team of us in particular making sure that we were properly caring for the skids which seems like a long time ago and so much has happened in that realm i can hardly talk about. But for a very concentrated time we were so focused on getting the skids into proper shelter care. Every day i was kind of examining my conscience to make sure we did everything we could and that were doing the best possible job under the circumstances, and at the same time that it was being hitting a lot of pressure from folks in the Advocacy Community which the immigration at the Sikh Community which is a world that i come from, on a bright the things including immigration enforcement, and does when meeting in the roosevelt room for both of those things came to head and a sitting next to him and people that i love who are like my family are pushing hard on him, and pushing hard on me, which is the job in which i totally respect but it was fairly heated. So i mostly kept it together but a tear managed to roll down my cheek, which everybody evidently noticed. I thought it was very 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. They would tell me its totally fine to do. I didnt know that at the time. But i think i probably come usual on the way home from work i cried every day at something. Cecelia, a question directly built on that, where he says, you came out of this, human rights community, 20 years of fighting all behalf of immigrants, human rights advocate, and you find yourself in the middle of really tough, tough tough decisions and you were criticized by people from your community. How did you crying on your way home is one way that we all let go in different ways, but how did you manage that on the one hand, you representing communities of color, on the other end you were representing administration will part of. How did you navigate that and learn to live with the criticism . I knew it was going to come thanks for the question. I knew when he took the job that i would get ripped to shreds in some corners of my own community and a new that was true because that would part of governing a part of governing includes immigration enforcement. I just did what it took a job i felt, i felt emotionally ready for it when it happened. It got very personal and dont think i was quite ready for foa personal god, but i understood it. Look, the job of an advocate is to push the people of governing. I know that as well as anybody because i did it for so long. The way i grappled with that, come when you walk in the building on the first day you hope and believe that youre going to be able to do the best you can every day, you understand the tools are not going to be perfect, you cannot do a perfect job and the law especially because of immigration, the law is badly broken. So the tools are kind of terrible. But youre going to use the tools in the most constructive possible weight and you will try to be governed by law and by values. I decided on that first day that i was going to try to look myself in the mirror everyday and believing i was doing the very best i could with the tools that i had. It helped a lot that it would for a president whose judgment i really believed in. I felt that he wasnt going to ask me to do anything i didnt believe it and i was right about that. I think theres lots of criticisms that are really very, i think theres a fair amount that feels unfair but that comes with the territory of trying to lead and of governing. I mostly, because i can win in understanding those could happen, i mostly, mostly didnt bother me much. But it did learn what i think is a difference between criticism and about helping you do a better job, or that lifting up something that you have to fix because its broken, and criticism thats about just being righteous. And i have more respect. When people ask me about being a leader, one of the things i would say is if you want to be like, this is not for you. Theres just no way to lead effectively, meaning you actually make decisions and move things forward and be like all the time. You can hope you can do in a way that minimizes the dislike or the anger or whatever, but the criticism will come. Cecelia, we have a question from a numeric board chair and it may be early for this question but it is what is the most unexpected response you got into your book and from whom, although not by name . The book is only just coming out today so i havent had much response yet. But i will say in the course of writing it, i asked my daughters for the input and and i mean ts wonderful decision, my daughters are 27 and 24, and one of the things i wrote about was balancing life in work. I got a chance to ask them, how did it go from your perspective . The response, most interesting response a got inviting the book is they did understand the question. I can as so much but how hard is what whether not as being the kind of mom i wanted to be, and they just, they experienced iteratively. When i asked them the question and of the root me back, i was quite startled like just to all the agonizing they were just, for then it was fine. So that surprised me, and and y to raise it a lot because, tyra and i have a lot of colleagues tried homeschool and try to work and its a lot. So i try to be assertive in saying you may be experiencing this doing everything as halfway. Your children are experiencing you as a dedicated parent so it feels different from your end to therein. You know, its more okay then you think. [inaudible] i have to just without saying, like you put the responses in the book and it is really dutiful. If for no other reason to see the responses to your question, just a delight. What of those daughters happened to have weighed in on the chat. So continuing through conversation with her about why your daughters are less willing to modulate, as you put it. She says, may be the issue is their generation, that they have had it with having to wait for the rest of the world to get it. Before i talk about teen is response, one of her daughters, i wanted to say diane wrote 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, my community. Shes asking, like how you create space for powerful hungry, passionate, strong and the powered women of color . How do you allow them to be themselves . And tina says, you know, thats a big part of this, that you dont want to wait for the rest of the world to get it. But tina also says i just feel so lucky to have a mom whos willing to talk about these kind of tactics and here where were coming from. So all of that is really lovely. So i think we are experiencing a really important generational shift and i definitely feel im on the aged size of this generational shift. Part of it is because younger women are less, kind of less willing to put up with stuff that the rest of us have put up with for a while. I love that honestly and honor and respect it. I continue to believe that it is important to find ways to bring people along with you, but also i say that as thats been the result of many years of bending myself like a like a pretzel te heard and understood. I have some respect for people who are kind of not willing to do all that bending. Hopefully, theres a place in between those things that allows us to be authentically who we are. Frankly, you are one of us now, you know . In the time i was working at npr, latinas become the largest minority in the country and i feel really fortunate that sort of trajectory of my own career we went from being complete invisible excel like in the southwest, and florida and new york and chicago, to being the largest minority in the country. We may be a lot of things but invisible isnt one of those things anymore. With that comes, the rest of e country having to deal with us. We are here, you know . Obviously the dynamics are very different in the africanamerican unity because of the history. But i do think we are arriving at a place for younger people are being insisted on being seen editor way, and thank god. Annemarie and i have this conversation where i was sharing, i was in a cohort, an older woman said her daughter said its because of the view that were in this position and i think shes talking about the need to [inaudible] the conversation was having annemarie was there, also something of setting the stage. You make this point in the book of movement, just taking a really long time that there were things that happened in the 1700s in the 1800s, and that then led to womens right to vote, that led to the civil rights act. It wasnt five years or ten years. I think we have to also acknowledge how that context is different. I personally find it refreshing that i can have pushed back and conversation about diversity that are not only of people of color or are not only with black people. It is refreshing that i can just think about it in a way that i didnt think i could 20 or 30 years ago as part of that. And it is because theres a movement of people eight feet behind you that this is part of the conversation and that intolerance and impatience is the right thing to have as part of this. For me its like this building. I love the metaphor talking about the ripples and other pupils themselves eventually lead to a become waves. Two dollars that part of his will. It is that juggling that weve been talking about, the pretzel, those things are absolutely exhausting. And even for myself and africanamerican woman i am exhausted. Navigating, and annemarie says this as well, that partnership in the way of responding to the diversity and trying to manage it all in the way that allows you to be effective. For me recognizing, you know, im in a in a position of powed yet i know the weight that i carry that come from it and the pushback, to be know what i decide to do, you carry that and most days, most days you are tired. Ill say as a listen to this i think, on one hand i hear as apparently want to teach your kid what the real world its like an at the same time help they change it. You dont want that to be the world they encounter which also know you encountered it. I often think when i wrote my article in 2012 about work and family how tough it was, meaning many women have written to me to say i read your article when i was in college and i thought you were full. Now nine years later or six years later whatever, i suddenly had my first child and, oh, my god, were you right. So youre telling me the world still has a change as as i want to change it. They thought it was going to be different but change is slow. And yet i can also look at that and say but the world you are in is light years better than the world i entered or particularly women in years ahead of me. So cecelia, a question on a slightly different front that i think is going to be interesting to lots of people from jessica davidson. She says on a young woman who started at the Obama White House at the very end of the and andn the two at the Sexual Violence advocacy. The tools to be a frontline humble advocate of a movement and the tools to fit in to the Old Washington style that we know about are often not complement three. I want to go back and forth between government, domestic policy roles and fears frontline advocacy in the future, and wondered about my ability to be taken seriously in the outcome. So what advice do you have for someone like me who wants to follow you where youve been an advocate and a policymaker, and now probably a bit of both . What a great question. I think they are i wasnt sure that skill set would transfer into a governing skill set when i walked into the white house on the first day. I i have doubts about it and it discovered actually they are compatible skill sets. In this case of serving the president and knew exactly who i was so we knew what i he knew what he was getting. I do some confidence from that, but the skill sets are related than i thought theyre going to be. It does require the thing we talked about, if youre moving from being an advocate to governing and back again, there are some people who will not, who will impose a righteousness test or will not accept whatever kind of, you know, however use the tools when youre in a Government Role that involve choices that you dont have to make when in an advocacy role. Cecilia informs my project as an advocate. It helps to know how the prophets and who the person you need to be helping to try to get them to do the things that you want them to do. Unfortunately, i love that conceit is disconnected from strategy about how to move the policy that will help affect peoples lives. In order to understand how that works in the inside is very valuable to the right kind of advocacy campaign. And from the governing perspective, you have to pick your boss well. Working in administration who wants people to know what you know is an advocate. And i would not have done it if it were true to that. And he was respected, organizing and advocacy. But i think of the challenge for someone early in their career. And people who have heard me speak to people, and i smiled i say this every single time. Its the continuum. Government is on this end of the continuum. And there lots of things for yb is to find out where you belong. The with good people on every point on that continuum. My father belonged on the continuum when i got my first job turned out to be wrong. And i learned i was better at something else. But your job is to figure out where your voices strongest pretty clear you feel like you are a fence. Where you are engaged and makes your heart to sing when wake up in the morning. That is the work that you will be effective in doing. Annemarie thats where in your book where you should fbn the front lines. Like any of us feel like we are doing enough and sitting in our houses and work writing emails and you write very powerfully about the lives of women. Its not where i can be contributing the most and that is very important for all of us we have to accept the gifts we have. And that we can contribute even though i might wish i think that others are contributing more. So from from some of us, and is asking, she says that i am curious if you have any words about crisis. Within the workplaces are likely to be referred to these existing or the network site thanks glynis where whether we find it to trust ourselves in a crisis. What advice you have for us. Speech of what a wonderful question. Were obviously in a crisis now and you can definitely feel that we are all kind of thinking through like when we know about anything remotely resembling situations like this. Who are the leaders. If youre looking back in history who are those leaders. And what were the systems like. Or the way some people made decisions that affects people. You revert to do those things because those in the paths that meant have been worn but does not necessarily mean that those systems or the right ones that are appropriate for our current times. And what we have learned about previous crises is what has come down to us from people who are focusing on a certain kind of leadership and other kinds of leaderships. If you dig into it, doing second world war, women were were as important as mentoring of course we were. When we think about who is making the decisions and how did this happen. There is a lot written in a lot that we have learned about the layer of leadership and much less about what was happening. And in the rules that women were engaged in reading im excited they were living in a time where we are kind of reworking those. And beginning to understand that leadership in different ways and beginning to recognize the people who made an enormous contribution. Some were not recognized. It teaches us a lot about what we need to know right now in this minutes. In this crisis and how to knit a community together. How to make sure that we are watching out for each of the printhead to make sure the people who are vulnerable get protected. And frankly to make sure that when we are in this crisis and when we are in 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 on the folks who used to make the decisions is definitely not going to be the way to make the world what we needed to be. I think it is a thing to understand but also to resist. Annemarie so theres a related russian from cathay which i find very interesting. The way we are all working today. And i this removes environment this many of us are working in the states. Any advice. I think it is interesting because in some ways, everybody can be seen equally because we are all people but even ways that even harder to assert yourself. Cecilia well i will say this is an interesting question and im still recovering covering it. I think the cat box is opened up and created her has created a large change. Whether we are having people chime in and participate in ways that have not happened before. It does not feel as risky as speaking up and everybodys attention. Annemarie and we are participating in the virtual way. Cecilia and in some ways, i think it is creating space. And by using some tools but like anything that i think it also has me an intention on the part of the person that is leading the conversation as well as being part of what your book affirmed is there. Because you are more powerful than you think. So theres a two way argument. It is a virtual elbow in some instances. But i think the Online Community has created it more that some of the benefits of the anonymity seeing everyone at once creates space for others to participate as well. Cecilia i think that is exactly right. In were just learning to live in this new world. Im quite fascinated, im not been able to read all of these chapters. But its happening on the chat. It is great. And youre right, the education in this kind of new world we are living in his shifting in ways that i thing a really interesting. And i may be at broader diversity which is here which is so interesting and kind of exciting. Tyra is a piece of me that im reflecting on the last few days is that people that i used to see, i dont get to see them anymore. I dont naturally interact with them otherwise. So i have been thinking about how do i make time to connect in a way that would be good but i really dont have any more. But that is something i have been thinking about. People than i used to connect with and learn from and learn about their experience on any given day. I think we need to think about how else for ten. Annemarie i think that is a really interesting point. Because you dont bump into people virtually. One of the great things about being in the office, if you make yourself available at the water cooler or the coffee machine, thats kind of an unexpected encounter. Her couple of more questions more specifically on your book and i will say the chat, where people in impacting are the class notes to everybody that was in fifth grade. But Pamela Richard says sincerely, have you address man who talk to you and a dismissive way. Do you adopt a friendly strategy or diplomat them in a similar way. A very specific question. Cecilia i can think of some examples of times when this is happened. I tend to get very calm and very focused. And i am thorough in my responses. Soiling right into it. Particularly small statute i am. The man also involves size. Semi defenses to frankly be smarter. And somebody is being tested. Sorry thats my landline. They are secretly not being smart. And so i tend to calm down, and get very focused and make sure that i am and that i have solid reasoning and i lean into the step of the know to expect it well. Rather than to try to kind of play on the same playing field. Annemarie do you have any things like my husband is 6foot 5 inches. Im really used to this. In my strategy is i ask questions. Please pushback. I use to push back and i would rate a surgeon is something that you are not going to win in that situation. I have found over time that often coming as a person and also another place. For what it is worth. That is a proven strategy anyway. So we have a question. The president of the federation this consistently, i think this is just a, sicilians reminded on boards which we both served that the imperative is to build a machinery exchange. The may require along time to build but that it is tasteful of activating and capable of activating when the time is right. She is fierce and intelligence patients and she does indeed change the world. Cecilia i want to say thank you. Annemarie and then there is another question for both of you. This is from robinson. Thank you sicilia and tyra, what is your best advice from a white woman to not only be an online to people of color but an accomplished in making a change. Thats an important question for many of us. Speech of that is a great question. I think it involves listening. In some boys the best situation, when people ask what you need. What can i do. How can i support you. At the very beginning you heard us say that like promoting about a written, as i find an appreciating experience. In front of the book. But it feels like too much self promotion to fbn my comfort zone. In one of her very wonderful colleagues, ms. Well. Nesting well enough to know that uncountable so she is basically martian to my office to say, i know its uncomfortable for you. Here things that i think i can do that you wont like to do but can actually move this forward. Its not necessarily related to race but it is a strategy. It helps remain to be able to ask. Which i actually not asked in this case. But it helps me just what i see that i think you might need. But let me check. Let me show up in a way that is kind of assertive to what you need to move something forward. Tyra, what you think. Tyra i do think that listening is the thing that you need to do in opening and hearing and seeing in think that is equitable. And in these conversations over the years years so i think we have mark cause enough over the years that i dont have to call that because have already. I think in the listening enough in the asking is part of it though. Which is when you are or if you are remote, when we were in circles that we are not. And then to not only speak out but you asserts this thing, you Say Something about this thing you do something about this thing. So that it doesnt take up the order for the change to happen. So that is the other piece i would add to the equation. Annemarie a great example is recently an invitation to a dinner of scholars of experts of books on poverty. This is a group of maybe 40 people. I detected, i was one of the two people who called in. And so one way to be an ally is to ask, in the situation where you talk about power and you know, communities of color except that it is a bunch of really wonderful experts who have dedicated their lives to this but theyre all white rated almost all white. We can be an ally is to be the person to stand up and not expect the other was to be the one to say, maybe this room is not diverse enough to butte really be talking about this subject. Tyra were having a conversation around diversity in our channel. Making for a richer conversation in a better outcome. And then was a person a man in particular the started to say comment about not wanting him to speak up. He just wanted to be his horse and pony show. And i was getting hot. I could not believe it. I was also getting hot. It was a beautiful moment because the women can relate into your earlier point, having some experiences with aspirated i dont need to jump into this. That of the people are allies. They can really share their experience with this. And maybe by their comments that was made was part of it. So just not speaking and saying that goes a long ways. You caught that comment. It was really inappropriate. It is great to relate but we also need to do something about it. So we got up put all of those pieces together. Annemarie i would say is someone who spent a lot of time, a woman makes his comment and a man is this the same comment. And i will very deliberately say yes, and sicilians said. To remind everybody, wait a minute, the person really made that comment first was a woman. When a man does that, its different. Many good in the struggle pointing out that actually to lift of a womans voice on make sure she is hard. So those things can make a huge difference. There is a related question sicilia, and actually to all of us. That is it interested in whether the women you talk to in your book, filled sometimes the burden of expectation. Specifically they would play a certain part in worklife because they are women of color. Maybe as the social, cheerleader, the nurturer, the successor, do you feel in particular women of color, you are supposed to play a certain role. Cecilia i might have to take time to think about this to print is a great question. I dont think its necessarily a certain role. And was it is your job to be the person of the color in the room. We did talk about that. Theres a section in the book which is when you feel like youre there for a little bit of color. I can estimate he said to me can you come to this meeting tomorrow because of having this meeting on this thing and we realize that we did it invite a woman of color and you both. And its not again, using the premises. And honestly, why they were inviting me but you know, it doesnt actually speak to whether or not they expected me to actually have wisdom in that meeting. So there is thats role. A little of his have been and and and happens all the time. But aside from that, im not sure theres a specific role that we need to play. It is more that you feel like that he gives a certain kind of spotlight on and it never goes off. And youre just aware of it all of the time. That is how i experience it. Tyra i think thats right. I dont feel the need to fill that role at all. Im liberated in that way. But it is the one think that you dont want to take away, you dont to take with this conversation in this book until think that happens. Like youre the only one africanamerican, youre the only one woman. Because we are is as diverse at whatever is the most thing that there is. And think about your own family. And you are different from the rest of them in your own family. And in different cultures kind of thats. He is so you have this wage we can feel the spotlight that somehow the spokesperson put on you. Like all latinos or African Americans or whatever is part of that. It is just not true. So even more kind of doing something and get perspective because another my experience is not another person, one of color who has experienced this. We should bring all of that into the conversation. I dont think theres enough reality that even though he said or four decades now the reality that we are spokespeople. Annemarie we are coming to the end. I want to ask one more specific question. And then maybe turn to another lie. But very related, what do you do when you are asked to be on a panel speak on diversity. Suddenly, im supposed be the expert. Im just curious. When i know about women in Foreign Policy rated and this is happened it to all of us. What you do. How do you handle it. You handle it gracefully to basically take i am sorry, im a different expert. Among many other things. What do you do there. Cecilia will the strategy is to ask what you think this is my area of ecstasy. As the question. Turn it back on the person was asking. This making it very obvious. In listening to panel and diversity. So they least figured out that they need diversity in the panel and they point to that. I think it is okay to reject the notion that because we are the one person of color on the panel that our expertise is actually diversity. They could be the same thing. Something it is okay to ask. I think i made a regular habit of asking, if asked me to be on panel, just asking, and might the only person of color on this panel. Who else is on this panel. And it causes, frequently causes discomfort. And that is fine with me. I think it is useful to turn the question back on the person who is asking why should the burden be on you to explain the fact that i have it in my name doesnt mean that im expert in diversity. Cecilia suffers all i have to say that i dont know if you saw it. Annemarie your cousin rhodian. And i will ask the question but to make a comment because telus about your inner sources of strength, i think that it really is a comment on your sources of strength and actually witness that im grateful to be part of this conversation i will ask you all to reflect some sort of Closing Remarks on the rights also new americans, i am curious about your thoughts on the nation of power douglas has said it seems nothing without demand this if we simplify the Current Situation to white men have the power and how much is needed on our part selectively as women of color how did you think about that. From frederick douglass, when we have a reference to our Current Situation and maybe an invitation, just to hear some final thoughts. Cecilia tara, would you want to go first. Tyra i would like to use some final thoughts and then i would comment. I think it is very true. If we look at history, the changes that we saw in history it would come from the power that was given to us. He came from our being demanded. Part of my fear in this moment we are living in being over the last few years its to allow to checker we have only spoken of this chamber. Real action to demand. And understand both focus thought about the questions but also that is happened in the air that what is happened and we have not demanded that power or that things are being changed. An absolutely agree and i think about this one of the changes that ive made as a leader is coming from some of it is been just things that i thought were the right things to do. Already i find that. I made light on the toys. Feedback. We need to do something differently as part of that. And you can argue, and demands. I have to respond to it as a leader. Annemarie i agree with all of that. You can expect people to give it up pretty have to take it. But then offer, you have to know what you wanted for. And you have to be prepared to use it. And to connect that to the question that i want to ask about the sources of strength. One of the pieces of advice i say in the is this notion of getting your love at home. That means if you kinda know who you are and where you belong, and you have people in your life that you get substance from then you can go out there and just be blessed. And demand power and act as an act for kids. And care much less about whether or not those people like you. Im not sure nancy pelosi worries much about whether Mitch Mcconnell likes her. Right. Shes an example of somebody who is getting the love at home. She has the stuff at her card that allows her to do uncomfortable things. And things that make people uncomfortable. Its advice to take to heart when things get hard. Things get hard for any person buried this is just true to people of color. But this notion that your job when you go out in the world is not be liked, its about making a difference. If you know that you getting your love from, it is secure. Its easier to go out and do it. And it is easy t people will y things about you thats uncountable you dont have to care because you can be your love at home. Annemarie thats beautiful not to end on. And i remember when i first started to my brother would say to me, it is not personal. And i do think maybe women in particular more inclined to say or take criticism harder. We are socialized to be hypersensitive. This point was people might say nasty things. It is not personal. Its more like a football game. Where youre in the scribes. Do not assume that is aimed at you. That was helpful to me. And i also, health also is hopeful that your a third. This securely as possible. But i do enclosed by suggesting to everybodyyin this book. Its a great book. It was my honor to read it. I cant only meant, he kept saying that. I am learning things, and is funny and it is tender. And it is about this wonderful read. I really do want to end by saying i think it is a book for our times. I think we are in a crisis that demands many types of leadership where crisis, demands care and kindness and connection and solidarity. Prices and requires we draw on the powers of everyone. It means all americans. People of color, women of color, and we are thankful and grateful for this book. And were thankful of you for being part of this conversation. Go get the book. Read about it. We look forward to seeing you again. So, author yuval live. In 2020. Whats your assessment of the United States. Guest thats a wonderfully broad question and challenging, a
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.