Creating Inclusivity in Tech: A Mastermind Interview with Manpreet Dhillon
By Raman Kang
“You can hire all you want for diversity; unless you have an inclusive culture, it's not going to stay,” says Manpreet Dhillon, CEO and founder of Veza Global. Her company focuses on diversity, inclusion and the leadership journey of women with different cultural backgrounds. Veza also helps companies identify how well they’re doing on a diversity, inclusion, equity and maturity model through an assessment tool. After that, organizations can set up their how-to plan from there.“An inclusive culture is really about creating a sense of belonging, creating a sense of acceptance and creating a safe place for people to be in their strengths.”
Growing up in a South Asian home, Manpreet started to see inequity from a young age. When she was 13, she wrote down her pet peeves, including racism, sexism and war, and now that’s what she focuses on today. When people don’t understand each other or think someone is different from them, they’re going to oppress them, which can manifest as bullying or, on the other side of the spectrum, murder. If we can create a world where people see each other for who they are as individuals rather than the exterior, we can have a world where love will exist, says Manpreet. Creating that world is what Manpreet is passionate about. “When people feel like they can be themselves in the workplace, they will be more productive; when they feel like they don’t need to have a different personality, they can show up at work and feel like they’re supposed to be there and belong there.”
That’s why her company focuses on inclusive culture more than anything else. Veza has two divisions: coaching and leadership. These programs look into cultural understanding and cultural competency. The goal is to show what it looks like to accept people for who they are and how you can be an ally and advocate for other people. The coaching division is for women of culturally diverse backgrounds to get mentorship. “When you’re a woman of colour or have a culturally diverse background, you have additional stress that you don’t even realize you have,” she explains. The leadership programs are about connecting with yourself, your community and making a global impact. Veza is also working on including social justice and social impact on these programs.
I’ve seen many women burning out because so many of us play into these masculine systems of leadership. Still, with COVID-19, we see feminine leadership principles come through on collaboration, empathy, connection, and community, she says. “We found that we finally came to a place in the world where we realize how important those are.”
When discussing masculine and feminine leadership styles, Manpreet isn’t referring to gender or sex but attributes we’re all born with. Naturally, some people are drawn more to feminine energies, and others to more masculine ones. Here’s a brief list contrasting the masculine versus feminine traits:
“Feminine leadership principals are also conscious of a person’s holistic aspects and how they can flourish. Still, when you have an organization that’s just focused on the bottom line or meeting targets and goals, it doesn’t work with the energy levels,” says Manpreet. This is why it’s so important to have both leadership traits in an organization; yes, you need to have a strategy, but you also need to measure that strategy. It’s not just about the structures in place (masculine trait); it’s also about how one can operate within those structures (feminine trait). This way, you get an excellent chance to look at where and how people will be the most productive.
When we have diversity of thought in the workplace and listen to each other's ideas, we can create better products and services. By taking into consideration people's backgrounds and experiences, which are usually representative of our customers, we’re getting the voice of our customers within our decision-making room, and that impacts their bottom line. You can create something better and be more successful with what you’re creating through diversity of thought, really understanding your customer, really understanding different perspectives and looking at products and services differently.
We're in such a heated emotional space right now, so we’re not going to create all the changes right away, but Manpreet advises companies to think about what their plan is going to be moving forward. During the Black Lives Matter movement, we see companies and organizations make commitments to support inclusivity, specifically Black voices. However, non-performative allyship requires action behind the pledge. How do we tell the difference? When companies just do the webinar or the antiracism training but don’t change their existing system, we know they’re performative. If they’re looking at what their leadership systems are internally, their communications and their strategies from the moment a position is posted to retention, they’re creating actual change. The key is to look at your systems with a diversity lens. We can do that by asking ourselves whether people have an equal opportunity to get promotions. Understanding who people are and how they can contribute and then actually changing those systems to contribute in those ways, that’s what’s going to create systemic change. Think about where you are recruiting. When people come into the workplace, what is the culture you’re creating for people to make them feel included, and their voices matter? “If our leadership team doesn’t represent our community or it doesn’t represent the people that we’re serving internally or externally, are we capturing that diversity of thought on our leadership team?” says Manpreet.
Leadership can amplify your voice, but employees are just as critical in creating an inclusive culture. That’s why it can be better to have a collaborative approach, says Manpreet. That way, there are opportunities where everyone can get involved and support one another. Manpreet’s advice is, If you see something within your organization that you want to change, find people that will help you, that could be HR, a manager, or other colleagues, and come up with solutions to show what that change might look like. Another thing employees can do is, when a job gets posted, promote that posting within your network to make sure people from diverse backgrounds who might not see it otherwise get a chance to apply. “Board positions come to me all the time, so I always propose women of colour for those positions, and that’s how we're going to create change,” she proposes. It’s not about us versus leadership - it’s about taking the initiative so everyone can be involved.
If you are interested in accelerating your business or career, learn new skills, and collaborate in a supportive and welcoming group then reserve your spot in the next Women in Tech Mastermind Series today! Sign up at https://womenintechworld.com/masterminds