Retaining Women in Tech – Karen Holtzblatt und ihr neues Buch

Zusammenfassung des Interviews:

Auf die Frage, was die Motivation für ihr neues Buch war, erzählt Karen Holtzblatt, dass sie zu Beginn ihrer Karriere eine der wenigen Frauen auf diesem Gebiet gewesen war, beeinflusst von den Frauenbewegungen der 60er- und 70er-Jahre. Sie berichtet davon, dass ihr diese männliche Dominanz keine Angst bereitet habe weil sie selbst mit vier Brüdern in einem männlich dominierten Umfeld aufgewachsen sei und an Männer gewöhnt war. Doch 25 Jahre später kamen junge Frauen auf Karen Holtzblatt zu und baten sie um ihren Ratschlag, wie sie sich in einer immer noch männerdominierten Arbeitswelt durchsetzen könnten. Karen Holtzblatt war verwundert darüber, dass dies zu dieser Zeit immer noch ein Thema war, fand heraus, dass Frauen 50% häufiger die Branche verlassen als Männer und begann, diesen Umstand mit Hilfe von Freiwilligen zu beforschen. Karen Holtzblatt startete das Women in Tech Retention Project, welches sie gemeinsam mit Frau Professor Nicola Marsden leitet. Frau Marsden durften wir im Rahmen der Artikelserie “Die diverse Seite der Digitalisierung” auch schon interviewen. Auf die Frage, wer ihr Vorbild war, erzählt Karen Holtzblatt von ihrer Großmutter, die ebenfalls Kinder hatte, arbeitete und sich in einer Männerwelt bewegte. Mehr zu dieser Frage erzählt sie einer kurzen Präsentation auf der CHI Konferenz. Im Buch gehen die beiden Autorinnen vor allem auf die Bedeutung von lokalen Vorbildern (local role-models) ein. Es sei für Frauen wichtig, Vorbilder und Coaches zu haben, mit denen man sich identifizieren kann und die einen auf dem eigenen Karriereweg unterstüzen. In der ersten Hälfte ihres Buches beschreiben Karen Holtzblatt und Nicola Marsden das @Work Experience Framework, welches weitere Faktoren skizziert, die Frauen brauchen, um sich positiv entwickeln zu können, wie zB ein dynamisches und wertschätzendes Team und eine stimulierende Tätigkeit. Auf die Frage, welche konkreten Interventionen Karen Holtzblatt kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen empfehlen würde, die mehr Frauen in ihrem Unternehmen halten möchten, nennt sie die Team Onboarding checklist, welche sich auch damit beschäftigt, wie neue Mitarbeiterinnen in ein Team integriert werden können. Darüber hinaus empfiehlt Karen Holtzblatt, Team Besprechungen zu strukturieren, so dass z. B. garantiert ist, dass alle an der Besprechung partizipieren können. Auf diese Weise gelinge es, wertschätzendes Verhalten zu etablieren und auch das Potenzial zurückhaltender Mitarbeiterinnen zu nutzen.

Interview: Retaining Women in Tech – Introducing Karen Holtzblatt and her new book

Karen Holtzblatt : People who work in human-computer interaction and UX (user experience) know of Karen Holtzblatt. Karen is the visionary behind Contextual Inquiry and Contextual Design, a user-centered design product and service design method used by companies and universities worldwide. She co-founded InContext Design in 1992 to coach the industry in these techniques. And she received the first Lifetime Award for Practice presented in recognition of her impact on the field from ACM SIGCHI.

But Karen Holtzblatt is also known for her work focused on retaining women in the technology industry. In 2012 she started The Women in Tech Retention Project to explore why women leave the field 50% more often than men. She recently published the book Retaining Women in Tech–Shifting the Paradigm with Nicola Marsden whom we had the pleasure to interview already.

We are very thankful that Karen Holtzblatt gave us the chance to ask her some questions and get her recommendations for how companies can help women thrive in the tech industry.

Retaining Women in Tech–Shifting the Paradigm: In this book Karen Holtzblatt and Nicola Marsden share their research and the literature to better understand what women need to thrive—and what gets in their way. Part I describes the @Work Experience Framework and the six key factors that women need in the workplace. Part II describes tested interventions that redesign work practices to better support women, diverse teams, and all team members. Free resources are available on the WITops site.

Magdalena Laib (ML): Retaining Women in Tech–that’s the title of your new book. What was your motivation to write this book?

Karen Holtzblatt (KH): I’ve always cared about women’s issues. I was influenced by the women’s movement in the 60s and 70s. When I entered tech, I was one of a few women. All women at that time knew they were breaking down doors, breaking the barriers. But 25 years later young women in my field were coming to me upset and asking, “How do you walk into a room with all men?” “How do you get them to take your ideas seriously?” I was surprised—I thought we had dealt with these issues years ago. So, I started wondering what was going on. Then I found out that women were leaving the field 50% more often than men. Most companies were focused on building a pipeline to get women hired; few were looking at how many we lost by mid-career. So as usual I wanted to understand; I wanted to do deep dive field research on women’s experiences working in tech. And I was lucky enough to know folks and attract students to help me do the research.

ML: What is your answer to how to walk into a room of all men?

KH: Well, I’m the first of six kids, it’s me and four brothers and then my baby sister who was three when I got married. Basically, I grew up in an all-male environment; I was used to men. It never bothered me; I just think of them as another brother. I also grew up with the idea that I’m not powerless. That’s my generation; we knew we had to be tough if we wanted to open doors to professions women never worked in—and tech is known as a male profession. But also, I was guided by men; I was supported by men. I didn’t feel alone and on my own. They wanted to improve their products and believed in my ideas.

ML: You also wrote about the importance of role models in your book. You emphasize that they have to be local role models. Were these men role models? Who was your role model?

KH: My grandmother was my main role model—she worked, had a family, and was comfortable in a man’s world. In my career I don’t have a single role model or a mentor. I’m asked about this a lot. My best answer is in a short presentation I did at a CHI conference. In the book we emphasize the need for local role models, guides, or coaches for women. It’s not good enough to see women in power if you don’t know how to get there. Local partners, guides, coaches—those you work with or see every day—are essential to learning the field and the organization. So yes, these men could be considered my local role models. Women don’t need to be supported by women; they need to be encouraged and supported by people with more experience than them.  

Not everyone has that. What if nobody supported me? What if nobody guided me? What if nobody thought Contextual Design was good idea? What if nobody helped me work the organization? Then I would not have had the support I needed to succeed. My husband, my business partner, my co-workers, and my manager all believed in my work. You need self-confidence to walk into those rooms. You build it because the people around you support and champion your ideas.

ML: What else do women need to thrive?

KH: That is what the first half of the book is about. The @Work Experience Framework describes the six factors that women need in their daily work experience. One of the most important is a dynamic, valuing team—to have a sense of belonging and that your ideas matter. The dynamism is important too. When everyone is valued, the whole team pulls together to come up with great ideas. That means that women and other diverse people must be accepted. Women also need stimulating work—just like men. Too often women are treated like their skills are not good enough. This of course undercuts the feeling of being valued and it also leads to boredom. These are both good reasons to quit. The rest of the factors are just as important so please check out my videos and the book.

ML: Besides describing what women need, you also developed and share interventions that can help managers and companies. With our competence center for usability, we focus on small and medium-sized enterprises. What would you recommend to help them retain their women?

KH: I’d tell them to go to WITops, all the resources are free. And of course, read the book! If I had to give them one recommendation, I’d say download the team onboarding checklist and use it. Our research for this was with new hires of all genders, backgrounds, and job types. It has been iterated with managers. All new hires need much of the same thing and too often they don’t get it. They need more than onboarding at the corporate level or figuring out how to get their technology and healthcare. They need help becoming integrated into the team. They need those local role models and the dynamic team—and they need to know how to succeed in their job, their department, and the company. Remote working makes team onboarding worse. So, if you can only do one thing let our checklist guide your new hire onboarding.

ML: What would your second thing be?

KH: The second most important thing is to structure your group meetings. Our research shows that when team meetings have clear goals, a process, a way to see what you are talking about, and a document to capture decisions the team is more productive. This is especially critical for remote working. Also, if you want the best ideas from your team you need to have a way to ensure that everyone participates. A round robin technique to collect ideas from all is great. Let people write their ideas down first and then share. This way quiet people and those with less power will be pulled in. When everyone talks over each other, when people with more power get the most airtime, you communicate that the rest of the team is not valued. 

ML: What we really like about your book are the processes and structures you offer. It seems the intention is not to change people but to change conditions.

KH: Yes, as a management goal focusing on changing people, their personalities, doesn’t really work. But if we change how we work, how we interact we can interrupt bias. We can level the playing field for women and other underrepresented team members by changing our practices. Changing people is the job of each person. Shaming and blaming simply doesn’t work. Check out our interventions on how to help individuals become more valuing of each other. The best way to help teams improve how they interact and get the work done is to have clear structured practices that help people interact well.

ML: Thank you very much for your time and your insights. It was a pleasure to talk to you and to learn more about your book. We are really looking forward to applying these interventions.