Lean In

hand-raising system during rounds. Instead, he started calling on male and female students evenly. He quickly realized that the women knew the answers just as well—or evenbetter—than the men. In one day he increased female participation. By making one small change to his behavior, he changed a much larger dynamic.
    Major changes can result from these kinds of “nudge techniques,” small interventions that encourage people to behave in slightly different ways at critical moments. 4 The simple act of talking openly about behavioral patterns makes the subconscious conscious. For example, Google has an unusual system where engineers nominate themselves for promotions, and the company found that men nominated themselves more quickly than women. The Google management team shared this data openly with the female employees, and women’s self-nomination rates rose significantly, reaching roughly the same rates as men’s.
    All the feedback from TED convinced me that I should keep speaking up and encouraging others to do the same. It is essential to breaking the logjam. Talking can transform minds, which can transform behaviors, which can transform institutions.
    I know it isn’t easy. Anyone who brings up gender in the workplace is wading into deep and muddy waters. The subject itself presents a paradox, forcing us to acknowledge differences while trying to achieve the goal of being treated the same. Women, especially those at junior levels, worry that raising gender issues makes them appear unprofessional or as if they are blaming others. I have listened to women vent frustration over being undervalued and even demeaned on a daily basis at work. When I ask if they have aired any of these complaints to their superiors, they’ve responded, “Oh no! I couldn’t.” There is so much fear that speaking up will make the situation worse or even result in being penalized or fired. It seems safer to bear the injustice.
    For men, raising this subject can be even harder. A male friend who runs a large organization once confided in me, “It’s easier to talk about your sex life in public than to talkabout gender.” The fact that he wouldn’t go on record with this quote shows he meant it. Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone, told me that he showed my TEDTalk to his senior management team because he shares my belief that women sometimes hold themselves back. He also believed this message was easier to hear from a woman than a man. His point is valid. If a man had delivered the same message or even gently pointed out that women might be taking actions that limited their options, he would have been pilloried.
    Shutting down discussion is self-defeating and impedes progress. We need to talk and listen and debate and refute and instruct and learn and evolve. And since the majority of managers are men, we need them to feel comfortable addressing these issues directly with female employees. When a woman sits on the side of a room, a man needs to be able to wave her over to the table and explain why so she will know to sit at the table the next time.
    Ken Chenault, CEO of American Express, is a leader on this front. Ken openly acknowledges that in meetings, both men and women are more likely to interrupt a woman and give credit to a man for an idea first proposed by a woman. When he witnesses either of these behaviors, he stops the meeting to point it out. Coming from the top, this really makes employees think twice. A more junior woman (or man) can also intervene in the situation when a female colleague has been interrupted. She can gently but firmly tell the group, “Before we move on, I’d like to hear what [senior woman] had to say.” This action not only benefits the senior woman but can raise the stature of the junior woman as well, since speaking up for someone else displays both confidence and a communal spirit. The junior woman comes across as both competent and nice.
    At Facebook, I teach managers to encourage women to talk about their plans to have children and help them continue to reach for opportunities. I give men the option of quoting me if the words don’t feel right coming out of their mouths. Still,this approach is a bit of a crutch and it does not translate to other companies. It would be preferable if everyone had permission to talk about this subject both publicly and behind closed office doors.
    One stumbling block is that many people believe that the workplace is largely a meritocracy, which means we look