Category: Voices

Matthew Giampoala | March 7, 2018

It happens too frequently.  I get thanked for being the only man in the room at an event or committee meeting geared toward promoting equity for women. This makes me immensely uncomfortable.  I don’t deserve thanks just for showing up, the same way I don’t deserve praise for contributing to raising my own children.

But why am I the only man there and why did it take me years and years to make time in my schedule to start showing up? I’m still not sure.  One reason that resonates with me is that I thought the only way I could help was to stay out of the way.  I now know that isn’t true.

It took me too long to realize that just being an ally on the sidelines isn’t enough.  I have a moral obligation to be involved even if I’m not a member of a particular underrepresented group.  We all have a stake in creating workplace equity.  It was too easy for me to believe that it wasn’t my place to get involved or that I didn’t have the power to make a difference anyway.  I’ve actually found the opposite is the case.  The more involved I’ve become with mentoring and volunteer work (inside my company and out), the more chances I have been given to really change things.

And taking the WE Survey is a simple way to contribute. As a former researcher, I’m all for gathering more data specific to the field of publishing.  As I took the survey, I thought about the ways that progress in workplace culture and quality truly benefit everyone.  We all benefit when the company focuses on work-life balance and we all benefit when our leadership and workforce come from a broad spectrum of people from all backgrounds.  It was also a good chance for some self-reflection on my place within my employer’s culture.

I know I still have personal progress to make and I’m certain our institutions and employers all have a lot of work to do to continue to make progress. Let’s engage in that work together.

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Originally published by the Workplace Equity Project.

Roger Schonfeld | March 15, 2018

Ginny Hendricks | March 12, 2018

There is so much to say on the subject of workplace equality.  Like everyone, I am a complex mix of history, heritage, experiences, environments—and of defaults.  I am a woman.  I was a child who grew up in the Middle East and Europe.  I have worked and lived in many countries across Asia and America.  I am a working mother with a mixed-race family.  I started on the bottom rung of scholarly publishing in my early twenties.  I am a global citizen with a global job in the global pursuit of better research communication.  So there is much to say.

For this piece, I’m focusing on that last bit, the global job, and hope to challenge our defaults around geographic inclusion in scholarly publishing.  I live in London now, so I’m going to use “we”, “our”, and “us” when I refer to the West and the North i.e. Europe and North America.  When we talk about inclusion, we assume we’re talking about bringing Asia, South America, and Africa into our club.  However, they have clubs that we’re not privy to too.

Here are some perspectives from where I sit, some skills to acquire and hone, and advice that may potentially help us all start to reset our thinking.

Africa and South America and Asia can teach us much: The quiet rise of the Public Knowledge Project’s OJS platform, probably used by around 8,000 journals worldwide, shows us that emerging publishers are taking open source tools and communicating research their own way.  Most Crossref members now reside in Asia.  That means most publishers are not from North America or Europe… gasp!  The growth in Asia and elsewhere isn’t a result of benevolence or a result of western efforts to be inclusive, it’s these countries demanding inclusion, governments leading to mandate and invest in better support for research communication—for example, watch what Poland and Indonesia do with their research institutions next.  When we look at “metadata maturity” among Crossref membership, we don’t see lots of American and Western European publishers, we see e.g. the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors, miles ahead in terms of global infrastructure adoption and machine-readable content.  We see emerging publishers that were born open, and born digital, unencumbered by legacy systems and policies.

Communicate differently – check your timezones, conference calls, meetings, tools, and terminology: Start using UTC as your default timezone. This is the universal coordinated time (and means everyone outside this timezone only needs to remember one conversion).  If anyone at Crossref accidentally uses EST or GMT in a public communication, that’s probably the one thing they’ll fear my reaction to!  Try a conference call at night, run a webinar at 3am UTC and watch how many people from Asia interact.  If you can’t do that, record everything.  Record everything anyway; English speakers have diverse accents and speak way too fast. ESL people run recordings through translation and subtitle services.  Add auto-subtitles when you upload to YouTube.  Also, know that people in China and some other countries can’t access YouTube so upload to Wistia and embed elsewhere.  Don’t assume Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn are the global barometers, use WeChat and Weibo and others in addition.  Stop using “global south”; South America isn’t the same as Africa or Australia.  There are only seven continents, you can probably list the ones you really mean instead of global south.  Do you really mean “Africa”?  Or a specific country?  Then say so.  Equally, don’t always lump a whole continent together; Indonesia is very different to India and Nigeria different to Namibia.  Even using the word “International” reveals that your default is “national” and all else is “other”.  In person, offer small breakout groups to encourage the quieter (often ESL) participants to share an opinion.  And please explain in advance “Roberts Rules” and other meeting habits to new non-westerners.

Recruit blind, and give typos a break: Have your HR department remove applicants’ names from CVs/resumes so your recruiting panel’s biases don’t unwittingly prohibit e.g. muslim or female candidates from progressing.  They could also remove universities to avoid class bias too. People speaking English as an additional language may have typos in their CVs but we need to start giving the typo-makers a serious break.  They probably speak and can write in several more languages than you do which would bring so much to our industry.  Even this pedant has learned to put expression and essence of message above accuracy.  Spelling can be learned.  Also, don’t make fun of phrases from ESL customers/members/users, they probably had to use google translate to get you to understand their very simple question so they’re not thinking they’re the dumb ones.

Take your meetings elsewhere: In 2017, I took the Crossref annual meeting to Asia for the first time.  This decision was discussed in great detail and with surprising fervour in a board meeting a year in advance, and then re-raised at a second board meeting, where some US publishers again complained that Singapore was “just too far”.  Far from where?  It’s only far if your default is America!  For the large majority of publishers, their starting point isn’t America or Europe.  Turns out we had the largest and most diverse crowd we’d ever had at an annual meeting.  Oh, and 2017 was also the year that our membership voted overwhelmingly in favour of being represented on our board by women and by non-westerners.  Just sayin’.

One of the things I love about scholarly publishing is that we serve one of the few purposes that is truly cross-border.  We share oceans, air, food, diseases, habits, a planet—so research cannot progress if it’s contained within borders.  And borders can change anyway.

So that’s my global view.  Now let’s change our defaults.

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Originally published by the Workplace Equity Project.

Nitasha Devasar | March 20, 2018

In the last five years that I have been MD, I have begun to learn about gender dynamics in the workplace and surrounding ecosystem.  Earlier, diversity and inclusion were lovely utopian concepts and one really didn’t hear them much, except perhaps in international forums and usually from female HR heads, in rooms full of suited men with slightly glazed expressions.  This has changed somewhat in the last few years as the expressions have turned defensive and awareness levels are creeping up.

I am often asked what as a woman leader I have brought to the business and how that has shaped the organization.  In other words, does my gender bring a certain ‘je ne sais quoi!’ to the process of running a business successfully.  I am not sure if gender has everything do with it, individuality certainly does.  Nevertheless, here are a few things I have focused on.

WHO YOU HIRE IS VITAL
As head of the business, recruitment was one of the first arenas of action: setting processes, moving the bar higher and involving a wider pool of interviewers to reduce unconscious biases.  A healthy gender ratio is a good starting point but by itself achieves little.  Getting a wider spectrum of experience, for example, simply by aiming to hire from companies bigger, older and with skill you need to develop, can push your existing teams to a whole different level.  Of course, this brings with it its own set of challenges.

FOCUS ON GOALS AND REMOVING OPERATIONAL BOTTLENECKS EQUALLY
Once you have a mix of talents and temperaments, clarity of vision and goals that set up teams and individuals for success are imperative. Targets need to be met but how these are achieved is vital too.  Streamlining the less than glamorous backend operations, I believe, determines the quality and sustainability of business growth.

THE OFFICE ENVIRONMENT MATTERS
Three years ago, we moved to new offices.  The ‘Move to Improve’ as I dubbed it, was much more than shifting offices.  The new workplace, which benefitted much from aesthetic sensibilities and work ethics, was to be a physical manifestation of who we were and what we wanted to be as a business and as an employer.  It is thus both aspirational and ambitious in a friendly and inclusive sort of way.  The physical spaces, colors, and branding reinforce the collaborative spirit and enabling culture that we are building.

BE HUMANE AND BUILD RECIPROCITY
Alongside, came the gradual recognition of the human condition in the implementation of our increasingly employee-friendly policies.  This meant developing an empathetic and reciprocal culture in administration and HR departments: for example, in the support extended to new mothers beyond that mandated by laws and paternity leave for new fathers; backing to people going through personal crisis – work from home, extended leave, leave waivers; etc.  Equally, employees are encouraged to give back to the organization and the wider community, with mixed results.  Understanding reciprocity in the workplace does not come easily to most of us.  So it needs persistence and nurturing.

LET VOICES BE HEARD
The biggest contribution comes from creating and implementing a work culture that provides opportunities to learn and grow, acknowledges work done, is collaborative and team-oriented.  Said one young female employee recently, of her all-male team, ‘My voice is heard and my ideas respected!’  That is the culture we want to sustain and scale.

My staff tells me that it is inspiring to have a female leader heading the organization in India and at the global level too.  At every townhall there is much more talk about both aspirations and challenges of leadership roles.  Says our HR manager, ‘Staff of both genders have asked questions related to the subject, to you, even to our CEO.  So, there is greater awareness about the challenges too.  It is inspiring to see.’

Talking about failures and seeing them as part of the process of individual (and organizational) growth is necessary, and naturally sharing my acceptance of varying experiences encourages other to open as well.  Said one young woman to me recently, ‘We have seen you stumble and we have seen you dance, and we are learning to do both.’

LET GENDER BE, FOCUS ON CHANGE
The biggest task is to involve and engage both genders and as a woman leader, I am very conscious of this.  All leaders are role models for their staff.  Working with both young men and women in the workplace to call out our patriarchal mindsets and rise above our social conditioning requires constant vigilance and an open culture.

Millennials today are very aware and do not fear speaking up or out if they perceive biases or behaviours that are not professional.  This is both a sign of the times we live in and the increasing awareness about inclusion and diversity in the workplace.  The modern workplace is changing rapidly.  Learning from it and converting these lessons into processes and direction for our company is a big part of my leadership journey.

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Originally published by the Workplace Equity Project.

Wendy Newsham | March 23, 2018

I feel very fortunate to work for a highly successful, woman-owned and operated company.  Since Mary Ann Liebert founded the company 34 years ago, it has grown into the leading independent bioscience journals publisher in the world.  We have women in leadership positions throughout our organization.  For the past ten years, Marianne Russell has run the company’s operations, building on her rich career in publishing leadership.  Our Chief Editorial Officer is Vicki Cohn, one of the most brilliant editorial minds I’ve ever met.  I have the privilege of serving as the Director of Global Sales and Business Development.  Being part of a women-owned and operated company validates the frequently quoted view that diversity is good for business.

I’ve spent the majority of my 30-year career in scholarly publishing and for the most part, have always considered this to be a field that is hospitable and supportive of women.  But maybe that’s because of the stark contrast with my early experience, which was spent in educational publishing.  In the early 90s (at least in the companies where I worked), educational publishing was very much a good old boy world (the stories I could tell….).  One of the best things about scholarly publishing is that there are so many smart, powerful, highly successful women who support and advise each other.  In that spirit, I’d like to share a few keys to success that I’ve learned along the way:

Get involved – the scholarly publishing community is rich with wonderful organizations.  Don’t just join, volunteer.  Being a committee member introduces you to many people from numerous companies.  It’s the best form of networking and a great way to learn, which brings me to my next point…

Keep learning – stay aware of what’s happening throughout our market – from end-to-end.  Listen to conversations, read blogs (have side conversations if you don’t want to comment on them – that’s what most of us do!), go to conferences, visit the exhibits, learn as much as you can at every possible opportunity.

Be a specialist – Know your segment of the business REALLY WELL.

Be confident – Knowledge breeds confidence (see above),

Keep evolving – The market is continuously changing, so if you don’t evolve, you run the risk of getting left behind.

Take chances – Often the best way to advance is to take a risk.

Accept failure – You will experience failure.  Shake it off, move on, and learn from it.

Find your voice – Define yourself and speak up!

Do what’s right for you – I’ll elaborate a little on this one.  I made the choice to stay home for seven years after my children were born. For many reasons, this was the right choice for me and I have never had a moment of regret for that decision.  When it was time to return to my career, I re-entered at a position significantly lower than when I had left, but seven years had passed, things had changed, the companies I had previously worked for didn’t exist.  It didn’t take long for my career to take off again.  I am proof that taking time off doesn’t have to kill your career.  And making the choice to not take time off can be detrimental.  Do what’s right for you…and your family.

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Originally published by the Workplace Equity Project.

Heather Ruland Staines | March 26, 2018

Vicky Williams | April 3, 2018

For a while, I think I was a reluctant feminist. I never really thought of myself as a feminist, but instead focussed on championing meritocracy and fairness in the workplace. That is still my ideal, and the thing that drives me – but I now look at this through multiple lenses.

I set up Emerald’s diversity programme, STRIDE, in 2016 when it became apparent that we had a gender imbalance at senior levels in the organisation. This didn’t tally with my own experience at Emerald, so I wanted to address any root causes, but also promote the power of a diverse leadership team. What happened as a result of the programme has had a profound impact on my own views and beliefs, as well as my own sense of responsibility. I’ve also found a true passion.

From the start, we wanted to promote equality of opportunity and the positive effects of diversity. We wanted our employees to hear real stories from real people, and set up a speaker series to support this. Some women did have stories about discrimination, but the one prevailing thread that has emerged is the ‘inner demon’ – the internal monologue that convinces you that you can’t do something. As a generalisation, women listen to this demon more than men do. It says:

• You can’t do this job because you have too many other commitments outside of work
• You can’t do this job because you only fulfil 80% of the job criteria
• You can’t do this job because you can only work part-time hours, or you want to work from home some of the time
• You can’t do this job because it’s such a big leap

It’s a tricky devil to tackle because it’s part of the fabric. We’ve focussed on creating the right environment and the right conditions – as I’ve mentioned, part of this is honest stories from real role models, but we’ve also developed STRIDE as a forum for employee opinions, we’ve created a trusting approach to flexible working, and we run training on things such as unconscious bias. This training is needed to reassure us that we’re all operating in a system of bias, but it’s what we do about it that counts. We had a talk from a neuroscientist recently who said that the brain is subject to 11 million pieces of information at any given moment, but it can only process 40 pieces of that information. The brain is trained to use the path of least resistance, so it needs to be constantly reconditioned to become familiar with difference.

STRIDE has now branched out to look at diversity opportunities beyond gender – this year tackling issues such as mental health, sexuality and race. I’d like us to start looking at returneeship (a term used in the UK to describe the reemployment of mature unemployed individuals) in the near future too. What started as a “women’s group” has gone way beyond anything I imagined. I’m now loud and proud to be a feminist, and see it as a responsibility to champion equality, diversity and inclusion. Sometimes significant, oftentimes small, the results are always powerful.

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Originally published by the Workplace Equity Project.

Sabrina Robleh | April 9, 2018

The numbers speak for themselves. A survey conducted in 2015 found that 87% of workers in the Scholarly Publishing Industry were and are white. The onus of increasing diversity within the industry falls on not only the hiring practices of publishers but also on the retention of interns and entry-level employees and empowerment of senior colleagues.

After a year and a half in my current role as editorial assistant at a university press, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a few people of color across departments, allowing me to pick their brains on why they do what they do. As I actively reflect on my first publishing job, I hold no illusions about the implicit and explicit bias that work in tandem to bar or dissuade people of color from holding positions within the industry. Yes, there are some mentorship programs and a diversity fellowship, but there isn’t a program that blends the two. This presents a unique opportunity to develop a national network of people of color who work in scholarly communications to hold space for one another. It can be an online and eventually physical space to discuss and implement a mentorship program.

I don’t intend to dismantle white supremacy with a LinkedIn group, nor do I believe greater representation within management replaces critical interrogations of power and privilege amongst our white peers. But diversity and inclusion go beyond mere talking points—safe spaces must exist for people of color within scholarly communications and industry organizations should take an active role in creating them.

NB: This column was written before the Scholarly Kitchen article was released but I wholeheartedly stand with the testimonies of my fellow publishing professionals. It is imperative to have our concerns heard and serious introspection combined with transformative actions.

Author Sabrina Robleh is an editorial assistant at the University of California Press. She received her bachelor’s degree in African American Studies from the University of California Berkeley.

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Originally published by the Workplace Equity Project.

Susan Dawson | May 6, 2018

I recently heard a Verna Myers quote, “Diversity is inviting someone to the dance, inclusion is asking them to dance.”
As a teenager in the ‘90s I spent a fair amount of time watching TV, so when I heard this quote, my immediate visualization was the scene in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where Carlton infamously breaks out ‘The Carlton’.

When I was younger, I thought he was a good dancer, but the moves themselves made me embarrassed. Looking back now, if I were to guess why watching that scene or any other awkward dance scene made me embarrassed, it was likely because the moves were different. They weren’t the dance moves I knew, that were familiar and I could pull off.

Here’s the thing: we are all in a constant dance in our workplaces.  The dance consists of meetings, project reports, performance conversations, you name it — it’s all a dance. Sometimes we are in a one-on-one dance, and sometimes it is a group dance.

We’ve spent a lot of time in organizations talking about recruiting for diversity, i.e. inviting people to the dance, but we haven’t done nearly as much about asking people to dance.

Reflecting on all this, I’ve realized just how many times we hire people because we want something different: we want innovation, breakthrough thinking, all of the amazing things that come with diversity in thought.

But when the moves look different than what we are used to, many times I think we get embarrassed, nervous, anxious, etc. We try to get those moves to fit in our construct of possible dance moves. In essence, we are killing the thought diversity that we want so badly.

As a leader, I’ve become mindful of recognizing my response to new moves and watching our organizational reactions. When I see new and different thinking or ways of being in meetings, projects, approach, or conversations, instead of responding as though the move is ‘weird’ I’ve made it something to get curious about.

I’ve started looking at our reactions and asking, “Ok, what can I/we learn from this move? How could I/we engage in the dance rather than stepping out to the side to watch? How could we dance together, incorporating the known moves and the new ones?

It’s become a way I challenge myself throughout the day with just about everyone I interact with. In doing this, I feel like my realm of ‘move’ possibilities has increased dramatically, and I have a real appreciation for learning new ones. I’ve also noticed that I’m being asked to ‘dance’ more and with different people and our dancing is FUN!

So my two questions to everyone reading this are, “How often you are asking people to dance,” and “What new and different moves have you learned lately?”

And as a challenge — just for fun — see if you can turn those awkward moves into an opportunity to learn new ones.

Susan Dawson is the Chief People Officer at Silverchair Information Systems. Susan is responsible for attracting, retaining, and developing top talent throughout the organization. She has a passion for helping people work effectively, and she is committed to inspiring, igniting, and empowering leaders.

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Originally published by the Workplace Equity Project.

Lattelle Solomon Reaves | July 3, 2018

The old cliché “a picture is worth a thousand words” holds special meaning to me. Photography has always been my passion and it was one of the ways I was able to navigate the publishing industry throughout my 20+ year career. As a bright-eyed college grad who wanted to be a writer, I started as an editorial assistant and quickly found that communications was where I belonged. I loved connecting with people and telling their story through words and images. My position provided me with the opportunity to travel across the country and take photos at street fairs, book expos, author talks, concerts, and sales conferences. This gave me purpose and fulfillment, but it also influenced the way I viewed diversity in the publishing industry.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time taking photos and meeting authors, editors, agents and the occasional celebrity. I’ll always remember the time I met Oprah Winfrey at the National Book Awards, AND when I was invited to a star-studded book launch party hosted by Susan L. Taylor. But as I reviewed the hundreds of images I would take, I would notice there were very few people of color in my executive assignments –particularly in scholarly publishing. As an African American woman, it gave me pause because it appeared as if we were virtually “invisible” in those circles.

Publishing is a predominately white, female industry with very little diversity – especially at the executive level. But research shows that diversity leads to better innovation and increased profits. To stay competitive and relevant, companies must cultivate an environment of inclusiveness. Not only do you have to hire more people of color in the workplace you have to keep them there. This is an ongoing process. Too often I’ve heard of talented women of color who leave their jobs because they don’t feel valued or feel like they belong.

Nowadays, in addition to my photography, I use my networks and influence to change the narrative with a 3-pronged approach: awareness, education, and networking. I bring awareness by providing colleagues with an open space to talk about issues such as microaggressions, gender equality, and equal pay. If you don’t know or understand what the problem is, you can’t address it. National heritage months provide a perfect opportunity to educate colleagues about different cultures. And it also feels great when the company you work for celebrates your heritage. Networking is also important. I launched a global Lean In program at my company where women and men form small peer circles and meet regularly to talk about professional development or other topics related to their careers.

With movements such as #metoo and #timesup so widespread, this is the perfect time start working towards gender and racial parity. Progress has been made, but there’s still more work to be done. Through awareness, education, and networking, we can shape workplace culture. Let’s keep the conversation going!

Lattelle Solomon Reaves is a communications professional with over 20 years of experience in Publishing. She holds a MS in Publishing from Pace University.

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Originally published by the Workplace Equity Project.