Inclusion and Diversity with Neenu Sharma

Welcome, Neenu. Thanks, Pat, I'm glad to be here.

Absolutely. So as the acting chief marketing officer, I think about it in three ways: one, you're the chief storyteller for the organization; you're a growth driver; and you're a capability builder. And it's been one of the honors and challenges of my career to really step into that role and help GE Digital as we've been defining who we are as the new GE Digital. And as VP of branding and corporate communications, that's really the responsibility of getting our brand awareness through a host of different channels and audiences: the press, the media, employees, future employees, analysts, customers. And what I think just sort of grounds all of it is a sense of a strong brand purpose, which was one of the most exciting things to be working on as we've brought the new GE Digital to life.

Yeah, absolutely. So for me, Pat, it was on three levels: it was very deeply personal, it was a professional reason, and also from a business case point of view. Let me just break down what I mean. Personally, I am someone who has grown up in a family that's really valued diversity, one where my grandfather's number one goal was to educate his five daughters and to make sure all his granddaughters had an amazing education. He came from a small village in India, he educated himself, he became part of the Indian National Congress and really moved towards independence for India, and just believed how education drives things forward. And then throughout my life, I just found myself attracted to things around inclusion and belonging. I went to an all-women's college, I went to Barnard College. At Columbia Business School, I led the Columbia Women in Business network. When I first joined GE, I was very active in PATH, which I know you have a prominent role in today. And all these things have really shaped and fostered for me a sense of engagement and belonging. We'll talk more about that. And then professionally, who doesn't want to work at a company where inclusion and diversity is at the core of it? It's what builds deep trust and commitment across teams. And then finally, I personally believe in the business case of inclusion and diversity, which is increased productivity, increased creativity, and that leads to the innovation that we can be proud of.

Yeah, so when you gave the charter and Larry sort of laid out his expectations of CDOs, a word that you both used was sustainable change around diversity. And so as I stepped into the role in those early months, working with the other CDOs across the company, there were kind of three things that really came to mind. One was, what was it that stopped GE, which used to always be sort of at the front of inclusion and diversity, from making the progress that we wanted to see? What was getting in our way? Two, where do we want to use as a north star to really guide us in our efforts? And three, how are we going to do that? How do we make it something that is sustainable? And so as I reflected on those thoughts, there are kind of two things that came to the forefront. One was this notion of belonging. So much of the research that I read when it comes to diverse populations within companies, you have to dig deeper into engagement and this idea of belonging. One way I describe it is diversity is having a seat at the table, inclusion is having a voice, and belonging is having your voice heard. So how do we really make sure our teams globally, no matter what their identity is, they really feel that strong sense of belonging? So using that as a north star, the next piece was the research really pointed to so much work in the past 20, 30 years has been around behavioral inclusion, so making people on a journey of self-discovery, understanding their biases that hamper their own decision making. But really what we have to tackle is structural inclusion. How equitable are our systems and processes? How do we prevent unconscious bias from even occurring in the first place? And so for me, I've really taken that to heart, and what I use as a framework to really guide the work at GE Digital is this new framework I'm calling TEAMS. TEAMS has talent advocacy at its core, engagement and belonging, awareness and transparency, market and ops integration, and standard work. And so anything that we really tackle, if it doesn't fall within those five areas or have an ability for structural inclusion, it's probably not where we want to spend our time today.

Yeah, so in the TEAMS framework, the E is engagement and belonging, and that's about fostering that sense of community and that sense of trust among our teams. And that's what I've been so excited and proud of the leaders of our different affinity networks, because as they've kind of taken their charge forward, I haven't had to go to them and say, 'Hey, we really need to be thinking about belonging.' They've done their own gemba to really understand what are the needs of the folks that are participating in those networks today. And in many of those networks, it's not just individuals who may identify with an affinity with Africa or an affinity with Hispanic or women; it's really about a larger movement towards how do I really just connect with other people and understand and learn from that. And so as they've been doing surveys, hosting roundtables, doing some of their early events, what that work is showing them is we're craving, especially in these COVID times, these moments to connect as a community. And as we're kind of establishing some programming around that to address that, we're really getting at the core of belonging. And so Pat, I'd love to ask you, I know you're involved with APAF, which they have rebranded as the Asia Pacific Allies and Friends group. What do you look forward to as an executive sponsor of that group with Linda both?

Great. I don't know if I want to surprise you or not, but my superpower is empathy. And that's really sharing and understanding the feelings of others. And I really believe strongly that you can cultivate empathy. I think it's what makes me a good communicator, a good marketer, and a good CDO. And just some ideas for the team as you think about that: one thing is I'm very curious about people. I think that everyone else is more interesting than myself, so it's just about asking more questions and really understanding what motivates you, where do you come from, how do you think about what's happening at work in the world around you. And I think if you just sort of put those questions with people first, that's one practice of really building empathy. The other thing is then using that to discover commonalities, how do we make more connections with each other, especially in COVID times we all are feeling very similar challenges in a way, even as our worlds are so different from each other. And then finally, it's just listening really hard, being present in a conversation, and making your own self vulnerable as you're listening and sharing back to really connect with people. So for me, it's empathy, and I think that's what my teams would tell you as well.

Thanks, Pat. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks everybody for joining. And as always, we're looking for feedback and look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks for spending time with us today.