Chief Information Officer, Johnson Controls International PLC
#ShePowersProgress: Celebrating Women in Tech with Diane Schwarz
Staying true to our ethos of #ShePowersProgress: celebrating inspirational women in tech and their accomplishments, we are thrilled to share our conversation with Diane Schwarz, Vice President and CIO of Johnson Controls, who shares her vision about the role of women in the future of tech, the importance of empathetic leadership, communication and how women can be motivated to pursue a career in technology. #HCLTech #SuperchargingProgress
About Diane Schwarz
Diane Schwarz, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Johnson Controls, discussed her views on women in technology and leadership during a March 2023 interview for HCLTech's #ShePowersProgress series. Schwarz noted that representation of female CIOs at Fortune 500 companies has increased from 17 to approximately 22 over the past five years, describing this as a "meaningful increase." She emphasized the importance of early support for STEM programs, citing studies that she said show girls can begin to self-remove from tech fields by second grade. Schwarz also advocated for empathetic leadership, stating that "humility, listening, and vulnerability" are qualities leaders need to "unlock culture and amplify other voices." Schwarz highlighted her involvement with T200, an organization for top women in technology roles, and its initiative called Lift, which she said aims to "pull, lift and advocate other women." She also mentioned her work with the nonprofit EnPower, which provides technology training and career pathways for underserved youth, women of color, and veterans. Regarding Johnson Controls, Schwarz credited CEO George Oliver with "visibly changing the diversity of his direct reports" and said he is "driving profitability while very intentionally increasing diversity."
Transcript (25 segments)
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Host0:13
Mission of supercharging progress with the best of technology and the best of people. This conversation series focuses on the importance of diversity and inclusion, a core value to HCL Tech and the one that truly lets our people shine as their unique best. And I'm honored to introduce you to this incredible, inspirational leader who's our guest of honor today. With more than 20 years in orchestrating impactful tech, digital, and cultural transformations, she has advised corporate boards, served many customer advisory boards, and multiple non-profits. Currently as the Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Johnson Controls, with us, Diane Schwarz.
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Diane Schwarz1:16
By drawing, welcome to HCL Tech. It's so nice to have you here.
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Host1:19
Happy to be here, absolutely. Diane, you've been in the tech industry for long, and you know, it's like more than 20 years of leading technology and cultural transformations. Overall, the world statistic is still not that great when it comes to women in tech. How has your journey been so far?
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Diane Schwarz1:42
I am really excited about the future in terms of our representation. If you just look at female CIOs at the leadership level, we are also making a meaningful increase on sitting up boards of companies. So we will get there. It's been a long journey, but we are changing the fabric and the face of technology one person at a time.
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Host2:32
As you build your career in tech, you know how women and girls are still dropping out of STEM and tech courses pretty early, like maybe sometimes even in high school, forget about colleges. So how do we go to them early on in their career and encourage and advise them to build a really strong future, not just a career but really a future?
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Diane Schwarz3:10
Industries or math and science, and by the time they get to middle school, they start to have some of those societal pressures to self-remove. So anything that we can do to go to the elementary schools to support the STEM programs, to find programs like Girls Who Code or any other boot camps, and for us to show it's cool to be a geek. I think the perception around the geek word is definitely changing.
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Host3:44
How has male allyship helped or will help further? Are you joining the feminine inspiration sessions or International Women's Month panel, or is it only for women to lead? Diane, maybe you could start.
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Diane Schwarz4:12
Be my mentor in the kitchen because I'm terrible there. You may be my mentorship on reverse mentoring. What are the newer technologies that I can learn from you? You may be my mentor on board readiness and executive presence. So it's not about gender or ethnicity, but what are the skills or talents that you can add to me, and likewise what are the skills and talents that I need to add to you? So we shouldn't ever look only at one gender for our mentors, but look at a whole spectrum of everyone in our lives and each other.
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Host5:10
Yeah, absolutely. And we have to create an ecosystem, like a whole network. It's not just one buddy or one mentor, but what you learn from different individuals that shapes your personality, your career. So that's a great insight. How important is change management to really inspire people, and as we say, human beings irrespective of their backgrounds, their ethnicity, their genders? Any example that you would like to share with the audience how you go about it? What are some proven strategies and how to make it effective on a day-to-day basis?
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Diane Schwarz5:45
The communications person who supports me at Johnson Controls counsels me that for any message, about that if I am talking to a group like this, what do I want you to know? Diversity is important and don't feel intimidated by it. How I want you to feel? Inspired that you can make a difference. What I want you to do? Go and sponsor somebody. Now, like whatever it is, I'm just using that as an example, but that know, feel, do is so powerful. So when you think about it in terms of an initiative that you are working on, if you're giving a presentation at a staff meeting, if you're advocating for a promotion with your boss, always think about what do I want them to know, feel, and do. Change management will much more be confident in negotiations.
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Host7:12
There are a lot of biases, which is now brought this unconscious thing in women themselves, forget about others having a perception of them. Have you seen that in your team members and how do you encourage them to just open up and remove these barriers? Is it easy? Is it changing?
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Diane Schwarz7:36
I'll talk on a couple of these. One, we aren't always great at marketing ourselves. But think about marketing your team. If you're uncomfortable talking about your personal success, write an article for on our portal. They may not know or care. Well, think about how can they benefit from it. Did you roll out new features? Could someone be excited to learn about how they might use what you're rolling out, or new tools or new technology that you're experiencing? Just use an example. But if you think of yourself as an advocate for your team, you are there. You are becoming the voice and the advocate for that which rolls back on you and your brand. So it can be a way to bring more of yourself to the spotlight in a way that you may be more comfortable because you're sharing it with your teams.
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Host8:54
Some people could be naturally introvert, and I'm not resource groups, these different personalities, backgrounds. Some people are conservative, some people are introverts, some are socially, you know, as we come back from the world of COVID, not everybody is comfortable working out of office every day nine to six. Some people have become more comfortable in the virtual environment just because of personality. So how do we embrace all these different attitudes and still make them stand out and still have that winning attitude and ability to collaborate?
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Diane Schwarz9:44
So I recognize that it can be more difficult for introverts to be in a crowd. So it allows you to put your voice out there and to connect with others and find like-minded folks, find your community, engage in that way. So I absolutely encourage involvement in finding your business resource groups, using chat, using the tools to express your voice.
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Host10:37
And how do you really unlock, if you lead large teams and even if you're not, like you could be in an individual contributor role, but how do you collaborate, make others feel comfortable, make room for others, but then really unlock the potential through true collaboration that is not possible?
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Diane Schwarz11:11
Each of us play a role when we're forming new teams, at new business, new department, new projects. There are new things that happen all the time. And even though we may not be the leader of that, we can still help with some of that to unlock the voices. When there is a discussion, somebody is dominating the conversation, raise your hand and your online form of choice say, I would really like to hear from those team members who haven't spoken. And you may not be the one who is facilitating the session, but that really like to hear from my colleague, what do you have to say about that? So just a couple of simple techniques that each of us can use to help unlock the voices in the team. And then the more that we demonstrate those techniques in practice, others figure it out, they'll copy you. That's a good thing, and you set that example. And then it's really how those teams go from stormy to performing. So I really challenge each of you to think about what can you do in your role, even if you are not a leader.
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Host13:10
Cultures change and you've led cultural transformations. But what other parts of culture do you think are important to encourage more diversity, inclusion, and any other example that you would give to people to truly unlock and probably lead that change management?
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Diane Schwarz13:28
I think listening is a key skill. Certainly all leaders should be listening rather than they are speaking, because you and I are the ones on stage. But to have those sessions with teams to really understand what is on their mind, what does that tell us about the organization? So whether it's in a small group or whether it's listening sessions, to really think about how the organization needs to change if it needs to, what we need to do differently. And humility I think is another aspect as well. All individuals need the ability, but certain leaders hate that too. And I learned from one of my great mentors that humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking more of others. And I think that goes to the diversity of thought and really honoring and respecting what others bring. If I have the humility to realize I'm not the smartest person in the room, but you bring something, you bring something to unlock that culture because it allows other voices to amplify so that it's not our voice that's drowning everyone else out.
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Host15:20
Yeah, that's a great insight. You know, I was reading an article that sometimes we think the person who participates most, and it's almost like a classroom participation, right? Even students are taught the more you ask your teacher, the more scores you get. But it's not true. You need to listen, observe, absorb, and then probably ask. There was a session I was leading and some leaders were a little bit apprehensive whether we will get questions today or not. And one person starts, the other follows. Was there a mentor who really listened and showed you it was most impactful? If I could ask in your career, it's hard to call out anyone, but there were a couple of impactful mentors.
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Diane Schwarz16:25
One was when I made the change from non-IT departments to IT departments. So he was my manager and my supervisor. He said, next time you change jobs, you should just move into IT. I was leading IT programs, but I was leading them again outside of IT to just go in and do it. Now that was a very humbling experience because well, that was a lot harder than I thought it was. So that was a lesson in humility. But another couple of mentors who were really impactful on me, they were women. And by demonstrating how they lived their lives authentically, taught me it was okay for me to do so. One was a partner at the consulting firm that I worked for. She was a mother, husband also worked, and when she had her youngest child, she brought it to a partner's meeting so that she could feed her child during breaks. Now it's maybe more common in didn't have children, didn't want to have children, and she loved to sing and perform. She was fabulous at her day job, but she was also a rock star on the weekend performing on stage and loved it, and didn't hide that as well. So by these women living their authentic lives unapologetically and being really successful professionals, helped inspire me that I could do the same.
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Host18:41
What a great insight. And I also see you saw the president of New Zealand, like there are so many women leaders even in other spheres outside technology, like political science. What do you see, Diane, as your biggest opportunity or advice for JCI, also HCL Tech employees, and women leaders, and almost everyone around in the room? What would your advice be? How do you shape, how do you mentor, how do you include more backgrounds in your teams and really be the steward of change management?
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Diane Schwarz19:36
Find a way to amplify your voice wherever your voice is. I'll just give you an example in my daily life. It may be more difficult for you to apply, but think about it. George Oliver, the CEO of Johnson Controls, has been very praise George and say, 'Attaboy, you are doing a great job.' For me to use that as an example when I meet with other leaders to say, look what he's doing. There's no excuses. He's driving profitability of our company and very intentionally doing it by increasing his diversity. So that's just an example where I can use my voice in a very intentional way in a setting to show this is how it should be done. You just have to find the examples that are relevant in your daily life to also amplify those.
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Host20:51
Oh, Diane, that's awesome. And that also speaks of your background. You also focus on DEI, which is your personal passion, but then you've also served non-profits. And there is something, how do I give back? That empowerment is so important to so many who are in underserved communities. Talk more about your association with technology-related non-profits, the work you're doing, and any advice for others to get involved.
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Diane Schwarz21:36
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak about that. And I do believe that to those who much is given, much is expected. And I give time, talent, and treasure because not only do I feel I'm obligated to, but because I believe veterans. I started when I was at Textron and we had a defense-based business unit, so thus the veterans and the technology. So it was good for work, it was good for the community. But we provide tech training to those underserved communities and help them find great jobs that turned into great careers. So we are now on a pathway to change the lives of 50,000 individuals through that organization. So that's been amazing to help them through the transformation. The other organization that I'm involved with, T200, this is the top women. We're the most powerful women in tech, and we can change the lives of others. So we now have an organization called Lift to lift others up. You started the conversation about how we really changed the numbers of women in technology, women in leadership. I probably should have led with t200.org because we are passionate that we are going to do everything we can to pull, lift, advocate other women and allow them to have great careers in the future. So as one of the founding members of that organization, and I'm now on the board for T200, we're going to change the world eventually in terms of the face of technology.
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Host24:11
She's the super finalist with Dallas CIO of the Year, and we look forward to having many, many more conversations with you, Diane. Lovely to host you today. Thank you so much.