By Carolyn Gray Anderson
How common is it anymore for an ambitious MBA to spend, say, 20 years at the first company he signs on with? Especially when rather institutionalized impediments to advancement still exist for people outside the traditional pool of applicants?
In its first installment of the UCLA Anderson Diversity Speakers series, the Anderson Student Association invited Janice Chaffin (’81), the former group president of consumer business unit (CBU) at Symantec Corporation and a member of Anderson’s Board of Visitors, to sit down with Dean Judy Olian for a frank discussion about the current climate for women and other underrepresented minorities in the business world.
ASA Vice President of Diversity & Inclusion Jessica Kimball introduced Chaffin and Olian, explaining that the series is just part of her agenda to implement more diversity programming at Anderson. “It’s our chance to partner with other groups on campus,” she said, thanking the Women’s Business Connection and the High-Tech Business Association for co-sponsoring. Kimball is the first person to helm the VP role and intends to cement a diversity and inclusion strategy at Anderson.
A Stevie Award winner, Chaffin started her career at Hewlett Packard, where she spent two loyal decades exploring cross-functional roles and contributing to the company’s unprecedented growth. Persuaded to join Symantec in 2007, Chaffin sized up her new opportunity based on the criteria she valued most at HP, among them the freedom to build a diverse team.
So, what’s the secret to retaining good talent?
The key, said Chaffin, is for corporations to provide a “culture of inclusion.”
Employees are loyal when they feel supported. For Chaffin, seeing women in positions of power at both HP and Symantec persuaded her that women were included and counted at those places. She said the single most common impediment to women is the opportunity for advancement. Women, Chaffin said, don’t leave jobs because they don’t like their work or because they want to exit the workforce altogether. They leave because they’re stuck.
And she dismissed the notion that the tech sector is any more or less hostile to women as an industry because, she said, there really is no one tech culture. In any industry or company, she argued, if you are not creating a climate of inclusion and support, you are unlikely to engender loyalty, especially from underrepresented minorities who may already feel limited by the larger culture.
It’s fair to say that then and now there are many fewer women in line manager positions than there are men. Human resources and marketing have seen slightly more equity, but Chaffin said she often found herself in the distinct minority in her departments. Her strategy at Symantec was to build a diverse and multi-functional staff. “I created an environment in the business of openness and collaboration.” She said she made it “family-friendly,” respecting people’s first priorities as parents and care-takers. As a result, she said, “I attracted a group of people who were much broader, who were interested in the environment I created.”
So, what should a person look for in his or her superiors? Chaffin urges people to find sponsors, professionals who will actively go to bat for you and keep supporting you in tangible ways, like possibly even protecting your job.
Meanwhile, CEOs and board chairman have to want diversity. Imposing it through laws or quotas might change numbers — marginally — but it doesn’t change culture. Olian cited the pernicious consequences of Norway’s requirement for boards of publicly held companies to impose a minimum 40% board representation among women. This backfired with many companies going private in order to avoid the requirement. Meanwhile, other companies overall remained unaffected by the requirement because they did not increase hires among women, for example.
Yet diversity of culture and background breeds diversity of ideas, said Chaffin. Diversity engenders meritocracy and a greater chance of covering all necessary skill sets. On joining a board herself, she asks: “What is each member going to want from me personally? What am I going to contribute that will complement everyone else?”
Most recently, Chaffin was appointed to the board of electronic design automation and semiconductor IP leader Synopsys, which she said is committed to keeping kids in STEM tracks.
Chaffin closed the conversation by answering Olian’s question of what Anderson MBAs need to do to create a culture of inclusion. “As leaders, you need to believe in diversity — no matter who you are. Support those behind you, sponsor people to provide opportunity. It’s our personal and professional responsibility.”
The club anticipates at least two speakers per term and, as Kimball remarked following the inaugural event, “Considering the success of this conversation between Dean Judy Olian and Janice Chaffin, this was the first of what I anticipate to be many events to come.”
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