Transcript:

Andrea G. Tatum: Welcome to DEI Career Conversations. I'm your host, Andrea G. Tatum. I am excited for this episode. I had a chance to sit down with Aubrey Blanche, who's the CEO of Mathpath, which is math nerd plus empath. And she's also the Senior Director of Equitable Design Product and People at Culture Amp. Plus, she's a startup investor, advisor, and nonprofit board member. We had this really amazing conversation about taking a moment to just think twice. This conversation is based on her blog, and I'll be sure to link that down at the bottom. I'm so excited for you all to listen in—so enjoy.

Andrea G. Tatum: I am so excited to have my guest on today's episode of DEI Career Conversations. Aubrey Blanche, thank you so much for being here! I have to admit, before I even get into this, I have been a fan girl for a few years now. And I love to just give people their flowers when I can—and you deserve a showering of flowers.

Aubrey Blanche: Thank you! Well, I'm so excited to be here. I think because I'm super passionate about giving people the real story; about what it's like to do this work so that they can be more effective in it. And so I'll throw flowers back at you. I'm just really grateful for the work that you do to help people make sure that they're choosing careers that are truly generative and great for them because I think as we'll get into, a DEI career isn't for everyone, and that's very different than saying that DEI work isn't for everyone. And I think there's an important distinction there.

Andrea G. Tatum: So Aubrey, I want to just jump in by learning a little bit more. You have such an impressive bio. But tell us about your DEI career path. How have you landed where you are today?

Aubrey Blanche: Yeah. So I think I got into DEI the way a lot of people do, which is you go to your first job and you're the only woman of color on your team and you complain about—or I don't want to say complain—you raise concerns about the Whiteness, or maleness, or whatever majority groupness of the organization you're for. And the organization says, "Fair, you fix it." And so that's really it. I mean, I was very lucky in that I was very excited about taking on a DEI-focused role, and I had a lot of support from my manager and from the director of HR at the company that I was in. So I ended up getting into the career with a lot more support than I think a lot of people do, which probably fed my desire to do that.

Aubrey Blanche: And then I was in that role for, informally, a little bit of time, and about six months formally. And then from there, I was brought in to build and scale the diversity and belonging practice at Atlassian. So make lots of productivity tools, some folks may have used them. And there, I was there for about five years. And then, these days, the role is two years old at this point, but I work at Culture Amp, which is an employee experience platform. And so I work across now DEI both for the cultural transformation side of the business, as well as the product and go-to-market side. So really helping the business think about DEI in a holistic way. So that's a little bit of the path.

Andrea G. Tatum:  Yeah. I love that. Thank you for sharing all of that. I want to just dig in because I know you have so much great information to be able to share with those who are watching or listening. And I have to tell you, I came across one of your blog posts recently and in your article, just the very first piece of advice you have for someone who says, "I'm looking to get into DEI," is DON’T DO IT. Just don't do it. And I really appreciated that because sometimes I feel like I want to just say that that explicitly, but I'm always trying to truly be positive about this work. But I think you hit the nail on the head. And I'd love for you to just talk about why did you say, coming out of the gate in your blog, “if you're thinking about getting in DEI, don't?”

Aubrey Blanche: Yeah. Well, I think that the most important thing is that being passionate about DEI is 1% of the job. And so I see a lot of people who are like, "I care about DEI." And the fact is to be good at DEI as a career, you need to be what I heard a CDO call a couple weeks ago, a corporate athlete. You have to want to be better at everything about business strategy, operations, influence, change management. You literally have to be better and smarter than White supremacy. And you have to be able to do that within an organizational context. And I think a lot of the people who are really passionate about DEI just don't actually want to do what the job is, because they're looking to be like, “Oh, it'd be really great that I push forward this social justice initiative,” which is an absolutely fine thing to want to do. But those things are few and far between in this career.

It is mostly doing things like negotiating budget processes with the finance team, and giving coaching to white men who are trying, but at step zero. And you don't get to feel—well, you can feel however you want—but when you're getting paid to do this work, you don't get to complain about doing emotional labor because it's your job to do that emotional labor. And so I think the reason I tell most people not to go into DEI is because I think most people don't actually want to do the job because their skill sets are better deployed elsewhere. And in the blog post that I wrote, and this is something I feel very strongly about and we have talked about, is there's a difference between having a DEI career and doing DEI work. And I think the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of these incredible, brilliant, passionate people that we're talking to, are better suited to doing DEI work in the context of whatever job they're already doing.

So I never want to discourage people from taking an equity and justice lens to the work they do. But the fact is, if you are this brilliant director of sales and you love the content of the work that you're doing, but you're just really pissed off about racism, getting a DEI career is probably actually the least impactful thing you can do to solve that problem. And so I think, it's a slightly different frame. But I love the passion. I want to encourage it. It inspires me every day. But the fact is this career, a lot of it is painful, it's a slog. You have complicated ethic and integrity issues all the time. And so the reason I’m part of it is I just wanted to be a little provocative online. But for me, it's more about trying to tell people what the career really is, so those who choose it are doing it with eyes wide open and they're doing it in a way that they are personally going to thrive in the role because I think that's just as important as asking people about the change they're creating.

Andrea G. Tatum: Yeah. No. You said all the things and you summed it up so well. On my website—you talked about passion—I have this where I talk about passion alone can't really create or sustain this career because it really is all of those things that you talked about. It is so much more than a passion project. It's really understanding how to utilize your skills in order to make change within the organization. And sometimes those skills are budgeting. Sometimes those skills are negotiation. And so one of the things when I talk to aspiring DEI professionals is really finding that alignment. If this is something you truly, truly want to do, find that alignment between your skills, your previous experience, and your passion because it's going to take all of those things to really be successful if you're going to choose to do the career.

But I think it's so important to have these types of conversations where we're adding transparency around “what does it actually mean to do the work day in and day out”. And one of the things you said in your blog post is that DEI gives up almost all formal authority. Can you talk a little bit more about what does that mean to you when you say giving up all formal authority?

Aubrey Blanche: Yeah. So I would say I'm in an incredibly supported role. I've never been in a better place in my career in terms of leadership support and resourcing and things like that. And the only stuff I have formal decision rights over is how I allocate my budget. And as you can imagine, how I allocate my budget is about less than 1% of all of the decisions that impact equitable outcomes at Culture Amp. And so most of my job is convincing other people to do things that will move the company towards more equitable and inclusive culture processes, etc. And so there's a lot of different reasons, but the fact is that this is a very influence-based role. So you're not the CEO. You're not the CRO. You don't determine those things. And so you're often handed a set of conditions, and then your job is to convince people to do things differently in the face of them going, “Yeah, but things are working pretty well for me right now.”

And so I think that's really important to understand. And it goes back to the point I made earlier about if you're a brilliant director of sales, you're giving up power by taking a DEI job. You're also probably giving up your earning potential. Right? Because it’s DEI. There's many reasons—White supremacy—that DEI work is not valued. We can get into that. So you're giving up power to directly create change in an organization by choosing a DEI career—so you have to go from doing things to convincing other people to do things, or building the structures that cause other people to do things more fairly. And so if you really like taking credit for a win, this is not the career for you. There's nothing wrong with that. But very rarely can you tie, “This is the one thing I did and here's the one outcome it had.” This role doesn't have the type of feedback environment where that happens.

So again, if you're motivated by that really quick feedback cycle, that's really great, but this is not the time horizon of work that's going to give you that. But again, always go back to this, find a job that does fill those buckets for you and think about equity inclusion in the context of it so you don't have to give up that focus. But I love the word you use, “alignment.” I think it’s really powerful. And it's about aligning both your motivations: what motivates you and what you can do with the role you're doing because every single job that exists has a DEI lens to it. So you don't have to make a trade-off between that. And I think that's what a lot of people think is that they're like, “I'm either in sales or I'm in DEI.” I'm like everybody's in DEI. Some people just can't turn it off ever.

Andrea G. Tatum: That's it. That is my favorite thing. It is an entire session that I host called “Everybody's Job is DEI.” And I often get this, “No, that is not what my job is. My job is sales or marketing, or I'm an engineer.” And what I want people to really understand is the chief diversity officer, if you have one, cannot do this work alone. It truly requires every single person in the organization to be on the same path in order to meet these goals, to deliver on the strategy that a chief diversity officer creates. And I love that you mentioned the word “influence.” It's one word that I talk a lot with DEI practitioners about is that is a huge skill set. So if you're asking what skills should you be building up your ability to influence across different departments, across different levels within the organization. Can you influence the CEO and the individual contributor within your organization to get on board with this work that you want to do? So I love that you said that. And go ahead, what were you going to say?

Aubrey Blanche: Oh. Sorry. I was nodding along with you because I was agreeing with it so much. I think there's also one other piece of the puzzle. I was speaking with a client of mine and we were talking about doing professional development with their DEI team. And one of the things that I think people get wrong, or maybe just aren't aware of because they haven't been in the role, is that so often before you're in the DEI career, your job is to identify the problem. And once you go to a DEI career, your job is to build the plan and implement the solution. And so I often see folks who are what I would call ineffective in DEI roles are really exceptional at being like, “This is a problem. This should work this way.” But they don't necessarily haven't been given the development or the experience that would allow them to say, “We're at point B, which we all agree sucks. Point C is where we want to get to.” But they don't actually know how to navigate the organization to create the change.

And I think that's often because DEI folks are under-resourced, they're underdeveloped. There's a lot of reasons for it. But that's what I see that happens a lot in this industry is when you get people who that's not their core competency or their skill set yet, maybe you end up seeing ineffective DEI programs that then break down trust with leadership and it gets into this vicious cycle. And so that's the other reason why I'm super passionate about being really clear about what the skill sets are that makes someone successful in the role. Or the answer is you need to provide that development to your team. I believe that people can learn any type of skills. But that's something I don't see. It's the shift from taking that critical mindset to identify the problem to, in a DEI career, you're actually responsible and accountable for creating the solution, even though you have no formal power to get it done.

Andrea G. Tatum: Yeah. No, I love that. I just recently put out something about, “Do I need a DEI certification?” And you just talked about what are these skills that you need to level up on. Can you tell me about your thought process of leveling up on what I call DEI foundational things that you might get in a certification versus some of the really great expertise that you outlined in the blog? Can you just talk a little bit about how you see the difference between those two?

Aubrey Blanche: So I'll be honest—and this is an opinion—I've never seen a DEI certification that I think was worth the time or money. I've never seen it. And I think in some ways, the idea of formal certification for DEI is contrary the entire project. I see a university that treated me horribly as a female student is offering a DEI certificate. And I'm like, “Well, that's not going to work.” So I don't think that certifications are useful. Now, if you're someone who learns best in a really structured environment, that might be an argument for a certification. But I don't think that you should be approaching something like that out of a sense of legitimacy or because you think you'll be more effective at that versus building your own curriculum. So again, I would say for folks who need that structure, that might be an argument for it.

But outside of that, I would never hire someone because they had a credential. That would never happen. And most people that I know that are of running their own departments feel the same way because it's like, “Great, we're reinforcing this White supremacist notion of institutionalized knowledge.” It's the wrong vibe. But what I do think is really powerful is what I would say is find people whose philosophy and work on DEI align with and resonate with you. Follow them on the internet. I'm entirely self-taught. I have probably put myself through the equivalent of an MBA through checking out books at the library on influence, on strategy, on change management. I just follow people on Twitter and on LinkedIn, who I really respect in the space, who I look up to. And so that's one thing I would say is that because this field is so vast and the skills that you need just to be effective—because again, we're outsmarting systems of oppression—is so wide. I also just don't think that a certification necessarily will cover in-depth what you need.

And I also believe that a lot of the skills that you build in this career are experiential. So that would be my personal thing is: find people that you look up to, figure out what they're doing, learn more about their philosophies, figure out what skills. Again, you can check out my blog post if you want my personal recommendation. But I would say, go learn those skills, read books, or watch YouTube videos if you learn better via that format. But the fact is, you're going to need to apply those skills. So follow people that you admire. Self-teach as much as possible, if that's your way. Certifications, if that supports your learning style. But then, really think about how you can apply those things in the context of what you're already doing.

Just an example, let's say, you want to get into a program management role in DEI and you're currently a recruiter. Well, could you build a pilot sourcing program with your pipelines? Think of that as your audition for a DEI job. So rather than just saying, I want to move into DEI. Why don't you start doing it and practicing that in the context of your role? Because that project, you can think about stakeholder management, business plan development. You can think about program management. But what I often see—and right now, because there's so many folks who are trying to get into a DEI career, and even though there's been an explosion in roles, they're still relatively rare—is that people often don't have any work experience to speak of. And so, again, going back to this idea: apply what you're learning as you learn it, build your own portfolio of work. And you don't need a new job to get started at doing that.

Andrea G. Tatum: That's such a great point. It's definitely something I hear from a lot of people. They go, “I'm reading this job description,”- which job descriptions in DEI is a whole other topic of conversation- but, “I'm reading this job description and it says I need X, Y, and Z amount of experience.” And what I try to ask them is how can you talk about things that you've done—so it goes back to your point earlier about if DEI is everybody's job—if I ask you a question in an interview about how have you led your own team to being more diverse, more equitable, or more inclusive, and you can't answer that question, I would have a hard time putting you in a role where that's specifically what you're there to do.

I'm way more interested in hearing how in your own role, regardless of what it is, you can tell me how—so if you're a recruiter—how did you add that lens of DEI and what impact were you able to make, regardless of if it was your title or not? So when you're thinking about translating those skills into your resume or into your LinkedIn, tell me about impact because that's what I'm really looking to hear about. And everybody can have some type of impact. Raise your hand, do the stretch assignment, do your job with that DEI lens. And I think that's a good way to start building up. I love everything you said about the self-learning piece. And there's so many resources out there. I have recommendations on my own website, on deicareer.com, of things that you can just start with to start learning about those foundations of DEI. But get into the research. Learn about data. I love telling people to go and learn about data. It's one of my favorite things. And change management, etc.

So with that, I know one of the things that you recommended actually in terms of what expertise you need to do DEI is this personal insight and hardcore self-care routine. I could not agree with you more. I think mental health and physical health and all of those things that you need to tend to are so important in this work. Tell me a little bit about why you think this is important. And how do you care for your own mental health and how do you take care of yourself while doing this work?

Aubrey Blanche: Yeah, absolutely. So I think that's so required because the fact is this career comes with a lot of secondary traumatic stress. So there's a lot of people who are pouring out their trauma to you or you're thinking about oppression and trauma all day. And so you can actually develop something called “compassion fatigue,” where you literally, chemically run out of empathy. And so I think that not having a self-care routine is just not possible to be in this career. And so this goes back to something I pointed out in the blog post also, which is that there's a lot of people who are marginalized or underrepresented. They're burnt out in their career and they're like, “Well, I should go into DEI.” DEI will make it 400 times worse. And so if you are burned out, you cannot start this career. It is just too emotionally exhausting.

Andrea G. Tatum: 100%  I just have to say yes, 100% agree. 

Aubrey Blanche: I just don't wish harm to come to you, and so that's my honest advice. I think the personal insight piece, I think, actually relates to self-care. So this job is so much about identity and so much about power dynamics, and also knowing your place in creating change. And so for me, I'm a White, assumed mixed race, queer, disabled woman. So I've got all those labels. And you can say those don't matter or those do. But my particular experience as a mixed-race person is relevant to how I show up in different spaces. It's how I influence White people. It's how I try to act in predominantly spaces of color and how do I make sure I'm not White-womaning the whole thing. And so that's an example from my life. But it has taken a lot of therapy and coaching and reflection and rumination to get a big enough handle on my own identity, such that I can operate in those spaces effectively.

And I think it's really exhausting at the beginning of your career because you find that the level of insight and intentionality that you need around those topics is higher than it's ever been in your life. So I think that if you're not prepared to do that level of internal work, and then relating that to the fact that most companies don't actually want you to be successful as a DEI professional. Most companies that hire DEI people want them to fail. And so you need to also be morally and ethically okay knowing that you're doing that and that you're still pushing forward. And so I just wanted to highlight that because those things are emotionally and cognitively and spiritually tiring. And they are non-negotiable parts of doing this work in an integrous and ethically aligned way.

And so the other side, to get back to your actual question, is you have to know how to take care of yourself. And so one thing that I always recommend, especially for this insight feedback learning piece, is you need to have a community of support. So I think that should include other DEI professionals because quite frankly, you just need somebody to complain to on the hard days. But you also need people who understand your experience and are going to lift you up. This, in justice work, we talk about community care. And that is important for you as a DEI professional or a DEI advocate. So I think that's the first thing, is I just have friends who understand the work, and who can empathize, and who can bounce ideas off of and things like that. So community care is the first thing. For me, self-care looks like weekly therapy, seeing my psychiatrist, taking all my bipolar medication, daily meditation, yoga most days. I have a hardcore sleep hygiene routine. I try to make sure I'm hydrated.

Really, I take care of myself on a physical, emotional, spiritual level all of the time for the purpose of being able to stand the emotional toll of doing this job. And I know that sounds super extreme, but for me, I wouldn't be able to handle it. Maybe some other people are more resilient and don't need the level of infrastructure I do. But that's something that I would say is really important to know is, the amount of your life that you'll need to restructure to try to do this at a high level is something people should know and feel like they want to do. Because again, you don't have to have a DEI job to make a DEI impact. And so if that doesn't sound appealing to you or accessible to you, I would just say have a think. I won't say no or yes. That's your choice to make, but be very intentional about the choice that you're making.

Andrea G. Tatum: Intentionality—being intentional—it's my favorite recommendation. And being intentional about your self-care, thank you for sharing that because it is important and it's a journey that I have been on. I mean, the best decision I made once I got into this work was getting me a therapist who I was meeting with regularly because you made the point earlier. As a DEI professional, you are oftentimes serving as a therapist for other people. You are carrying so much weight. And it's why I often say that this is hard work because it is heart work. People are pouring their heart out to you constantly. And you're most likely getting into this work because you give a crap. You care about this and you want to see change.

And balancing sometimes that inability to make the impact at the rate you want to make it when you know that people and their own livelihoods are on the line as well. It takes an emotional toll on you. And so I love and recommend community—highly recommend community. Having those people that you can share these experiences with at a high level. And then just taking that beat and realizing you also have to remove yourself from the situation sometimes and realize, “Is it me? It's not me.” This is not. It's not necessarily a personal reflection on you if things aren't happening as fast as you want to see them happen because it's complicated and it is hard, hard, hard work day in and day out.

Aubrey Blanche: Oh my gosh. You put that so beautifully. And I wanted to emphasize something that you said, because it is a lesson that I didn't learn until I got a gnarly case of burnout, which is the lack of progress is not always on you. It's not always your responsibility. I think it's so easy because in this field we have people who are so incredibly passionate, which is just, again, luck to get to work with people like that. But also that we tend to put things on our shoulders. And so the way that I think about it or the frame that has helped me move into a healthier place, I will say, is systems produce the outcomes they were designed to. I am inside the system and so, I am not responsible for the output of the system.

And I think that's just something I want to remind folks, because especially from our junior folks in their career, the emotional toll that taking that responsibility on your shoulders takes. And this loops back to the idea of power versus influence. If you don't have power over the decision, you shouldn't take responsibility for the outcome of the decision or the process or something like that. So anyway, I just wanted to emphasize that point, because I think it was so important and you just tied it up so beautifully.

Andrea G. Tatum: Thank you. Thank you for that. This has been so phenomenal. I am so, so glad that we've had this conversation. I can literally talk to you for days and days and days about this work, because I so align with your approach. I love that you are data-driven. I love that you are coming at this from a place of compassionate. You bring all of your own identities into the work, as you said, right? But at the same time, realizing you can't always center the work on yourself because there's so many moving parts. So thank you for this. And I want to end the conversation on a light note. So for those of you all who don't know me, I have a background working in theater and I absolutely love all things musicals, and also a good biopic. I love this. And so Aubrey, I would love to know if there was a musical or a biopic about your life, what would it be called and who would you have play you?

Oh my gosh! That is such a fantastic question! I don't know. This sounds terrible. I would be like, “I'm more marginalized than I look.” Because most of my identities are invisible. Who would play me in a dream version of my life? And I'm not nearly cool enough for this ever to happen, but pre-Wicked, Idina Menzel, would be on my bucket list of humans. But like I said, I don't think I'm cool enough to actually justify that level of star power, but I'll put it on my manifestation list for the universe.

Andrea G. Tatum: Yes. Speak it into the world. We will have Idina Menzel. Yeah. I love that. And what did you say was the title of it?

Aubrey Blanche: Well, I said it as a joke, but it was like, “I'm more marginalized than I look.” [audible laugh]

Andrea G. Tatum: I think it hits the nail on the head. Yes. I love it! Aubrey, thank you for your insights. Thank you for sharing. There'll be links to the blog post that we referenced. You can find it down below. Don't forget to subscribe and follow. And there'll be more really great episodes coming soon. Thank you all so much! Thanks, Aubrey!

Aubrey Blanche: Thank you for having me. It's been an honor to have the conversation with you. So I'm super grateful.

Andrea G. Tatum: I hope you all enjoyed this episode of DEI Career Conversations. My goal is to help create more transparency about what it really means to work in diversity, equity, and inclusion while helping experienced professionals gain clarity about how their passion, skills, and experience can make a real impact. To learn more, visit deicareer.com. Don't forget, subscribe to this channel, like the video, and share it with your friends! We'll see you next time!

Resources mentioned in this episode:
Aubrey's Blog: https://aubreyblanche.com/blog/how-do-i-get-an-in-house-dei-job
Andrea's Blog: https://www.deicareer.com/blog/do-i-need-a-dei-certification