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Speaker 2: And when I have these conversations with my with my
Speaker 2: white counterparts about AI, they're like, oh, man, it's gonna
Speaker 2: change the world. We're gonna be doing all these crazy
Speaker 2: cool things.
Speaker 3: Hey.
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes I talk to my friends in the
Speaker 2: group chat, They're like, man, the devil is busy with
Speaker 2: that AI, right, Like, you know, you get different impressions about.
Speaker 1: I'm Will Lucas and this is black Tech Green Money.
Speaker 1: Andrew McCaskill is a communications executive with twenty years of
Speaker 1: experience delivering award winning communications and be our campaigns at
Speaker 1: Fortune five hundred companies and highly successful technology startups.
Speaker 2: He was SVP of Global.
Speaker 1: Communications and Multicultural Marketing at Nielsen, head of D and
Speaker 1: I Global Sales and Marketing at Facebook.
Speaker 3: Is an investor and advisor at.
Speaker 1: Culture Genesis and its career expert in Global communications at LinkedIn.
Speaker 2: He's also pr Week's Top forty under forty.
Speaker 1: Not everyone who listens to this podcast is going to
Speaker 1: start a company, many, if not most, will be career
Speaker 1: professionals in climb the ladder regardless. You want to make
Speaker 1: sure you build wealth. And it's often said, however, that
Speaker 1: you can't build wealth by selling your time. I asked
Speaker 1: Andrew to speak on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I think it's so important because you're right,
Speaker 2: everybody's not going to be an entrepreneur. Many of us
Speaker 2: are points, have most of our working lives and some
Speaker 2: version of a nine to five. And I think that
Speaker 2: the biggest thing that I feel like that people can
Speaker 2: do to build wealth is to start having wealth conversations, right,
Speaker 2: And what I mean by that is, you know, I
Speaker 2: grew up middle upper middle class, right, and my parents
Speaker 2: did not talk to me a lot about money. Money
Speaker 2: in my household was grown folks business, and you know,
Speaker 2: they basically gave me a couple of things is save
Speaker 2: some money and don't spend more than you make, right,
Speaker 2: good luck, and you know, call us if you need us.
Speaker 2: And what I think that that sometimes we do with
Speaker 2: that is that we don't information share enough. And so
Speaker 2: I feel like that one of the things that is
Speaker 2: the beginning of financial mobility, financial mobility starts with financial stability.
Speaker 2: And I think that amongst amongst particularly younger black folks,
Speaker 2: younger black professionals, we have to collaborate and not compete.
Speaker 2: And that means that many of us are not gonna
Speaker 2: get somebody from some ivory tower to come down and
Speaker 2: tell us all these things about money. So we have
Speaker 2: to peer to peer mentor each other in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways. Right, My group chat has saved me so
Speaker 2: many times from making mistakes about money at work. And
Speaker 2: so the first time I had a job in tech
Speaker 2: where I had to actually negotiate for equity, I had
Speaker 2: to go and look up on the internet what restricted
Speaker 2: stock units were. I had no idea what I was
Speaker 2: potentially leaving on the table because I didn't have that information.
Speaker 2: Luckily for me, I had not even necessarily a mentor,
Speaker 2: but a dude that I knew in tech that I
Speaker 2: had met at a conference, and I was like, yo,
Speaker 2: I noticed, dude is senior. I still have this number.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna roll the dice and call him, and
Speaker 2: he broke it down for me in a way that man,
Speaker 2: I could have left so much money on the table
Speaker 2: as a nine to five or if I hadn't really
Speaker 2: thought about it in the right way. So the number
Speaker 2: one to get from that mobility stability is having the
Speaker 2: most information, and sometimes that information is gonna come from
Speaker 2: people who look like us. Right. The other thing I
Speaker 2: think is is really just the behavioral shift and a
Speaker 2: mindset shift that you know, I think that we all
Speaker 2: have to have around that is that many of us
Speaker 2: who are in that nine to five world, a lot
Speaker 2: of us are grappling with something that our non Hispanic
Speaker 2: white counterparts don't have to grapple with. And that's the
Speaker 2: untold story is the fragility of the black middle class.
Speaker 2: Middle class status is very fragile for us in our
Speaker 2: communities because oftentimes, Man, you know, you might be the
Speaker 2: one in the family that's got that good job, but
Speaker 2: when big Mama's water heater breaks down, you getting that call, right.
Speaker 2: And so I feel like that one of those things
Speaker 2: that we have to do is that we're constantly sort
Speaker 2: of accounting for that. So if it comes down to
Speaker 2: Gucci versus Grandma, I'm gonna save that money for Grandma
Speaker 2: every time, right because I want to, Because I think
Speaker 2: that that's the call that many of us are gonna get.
Speaker 2: So I think that that mobility of getting to wealth
Speaker 2: starts with like reimagining how we think about that money
Speaker 2: in the beginning. That one we get more money when
Speaker 2: we talk about money and have money conversations with people
Speaker 2: that we trust that we can you know, we sort
Speaker 2: of grow together. You need to grow with your peer group.
Speaker 2: And so when you're sharing that information, like one thing
Speaker 2: about me, I'll send you my old offer letter from
Speaker 2: from Facebook, I'll send you my old offer letter from
Speaker 2: you know, previous companies that I had. So at least
Speaker 2: you should know that this is where you should level set. Right.
Speaker 2: The other thing is like, we know that we're gonna
Speaker 2: get hit in different ways, so we have to think
Speaker 2: about money and stability just totally different. And here's the
Speaker 2: thing that I think is more in line with what
Speaker 2: I think everybody really wants the answer to be from
Speaker 2: this question is like, can you build wealth while working
Speaker 2: for other people? Absolutely? You can. It happens every single dissa, Right.
Speaker 2: You have to just really plan for and account for
Speaker 2: your career in certain ways. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you got a couple of questions there that
Speaker 1: you speak my interest on. And so I've read some
Speaker 1: of your posts and you had talked about how the
Speaker 1: job market has tightened and there's one job for every
Speaker 1: two applicants, right, and how can black people, black professionals
Speaker 1: negotiate effectively to secure competitive conversation, not just accept what
Speaker 1: they give you, but to negotiate that compensation and ensure
Speaker 1: that you know financial reward is there in the market
Speaker 1: where employers have a whole bunch of options for who
Speaker 1: wants this job.
Speaker 2: Here's the things I think that you can't is that
Speaker 2: you can't go into it without the confidence that, hey,
Speaker 2: I know, I know what my skills are and I
Speaker 2: know that I can do in this role. And so
Speaker 2: I do think that part of it is being really
Speaker 2: confident about what you bring to the table and being
Speaker 2: able to articulate that really well. And that's not just
Speaker 2: about spitting workplace game, right. I think that that confidence
Speaker 2: really comes from, you know, being really secure about how
Speaker 2: you tell your story. And that is how you tell
Speaker 2: your professional story, how you talk about your superpowers, what
Speaker 2: you bring to the table, how you talk about your skills,
Speaker 2: how you match up the skills that you that you
Speaker 2: have with what the company is actually asking for and desiring.
Speaker 2: And a lot of that comes from really being able
Speaker 2: to practice and rehearse that. That's just table stakes practicing
Speaker 2: and rehearsing how you tell your story and how you
Speaker 2: talk about it. But the information piece of it. If
Speaker 2: you're really trying to negotiate for a great for better
Speaker 2: compensation at a job that you already really want, I
Speaker 2: think there are a couple of things that you have
Speaker 2: to do. One is make sure that you understand sort
Speaker 2: of the value in the marketplace in terms of most
Speaker 2: of the companies now will give you a somewhat of
Speaker 2: a range. We all want the top of that brain
Speaker 2: right when we see it. I think that what you
Speaker 2: have to then do is negotiate for why you want
Speaker 2: that at the at the top of the range. Also,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be it's really competitive, and I think that
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, we all want to get that next job.
Speaker 2: But the worst thing that you can one of the
Speaker 2: worst things that you can do, unless you just desperately
Speaker 2: need a job. If you desperately need a job, do
Speaker 2: what you got to do in I respect, right, But
Speaker 2: if you're in a position where you actually have some choice,
Speaker 2: and we have a lot more choice than we truly
Speaker 2: have been, you know, sort of conditioned to believe. If
Speaker 2: you've got the choice, I think you do have to
Speaker 2: go in and sort of negotiate for what you want.
Speaker 2: That negotiation begins with how much information do you have
Speaker 2: about the role? How much information do you have about
Speaker 2: the company. You're eight times more likely to get a
Speaker 2: job at a company if you know somebody who's at
Speaker 2: that company, and that doesn't have to be your work
Speaker 2: best friend. That could be somebody that you worked with
Speaker 2: ten years ago. That could be so that goes to
Speaker 2: your church, but you you don't really know them, but
Speaker 2: you know of them, right, because that just even that
Speaker 2: conversation gives you a better idea of what the culture
Speaker 2: is and how much and how much you can think
Speaker 2: about it. They don't have to tell you how much
Speaker 2: money they make or any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But the little clues that they can give you, or
Speaker 2: even just then mentioning your name, puts you in a
Speaker 2: better position. Your network really really matters. And I think
Speaker 2: that we have been sort of conditioned not to think
Speaker 2: of our network as the way I feel like our
Speaker 2: non Hispanic white counterparts think about it, right, is that
Speaker 2: we oftentimes get caught up in thinking that if I'm
Speaker 2: networking with you, it's got to be like a business
Speaker 2: cards exchange or at a party or something like that,
Speaker 2: or a cocktail hour or that, like it's got to
Speaker 2: be some kind of quid pro quo or I'm asking
Speaker 2: you for a favor or something like that. Our white
Speaker 2: counterparts don't even think about networking in that way. They
Speaker 2: don't think about, Okay, well, look, will gave me your number.
Speaker 2: So anything you anything you say to me is a
Speaker 2: reflection on will. That's just not how That's not how
Speaker 2: anybody else thinks about it, right, It really is will
Speaker 2: gave me this person's number. Maybe something comes from it,
Speaker 2: maybe something doesn't. My connection, my connections that I sort
Speaker 2: of share that network sharing man, your network is so powerful.
Speaker 2: So I think using your network to get a better
Speaker 2: idea of like what your opportunity is. But don't just
Speaker 2: take the first offer. I always say that you have
Speaker 2: to negotiate. Even for that recruiter to really or that
Speaker 2: hiring manager to truly respect you, you need to and
Speaker 2: at least negotiate something. And you negotiate like that.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people with jobs, careers, I
Speaker 1: should say, who are concerned about how AI is about
Speaker 1: to impact their roles. Like, you know, I think about
Speaker 1: like if if I can marry grammarly and chat GPT,
Speaker 1: I never have to hire a copywriter again. Like, so
Speaker 1: there's there are certain roles that are definitely under the gun,
Speaker 1: you know, to use that phrase. So how are you
Speaker 1: advising professionals to acquire in demand skills so that they
Speaker 1: can be you know, still marketable in the years to
Speaker 1: come in the professional workplace?
Speaker 2: Oh man, I love this question because let's even even
Speaker 2: if you take AI out of the game, that our
Speaker 2: research shows that even if you're not changing jobs, your
Speaker 2: job is changing on you. Most people's jobs change about
Speaker 2: fifteen to twenty percent every two years. Right, so you
Speaker 2: could be in the job that you've been in that
Speaker 2: job five years. Your job is so different from the
Speaker 2: day you started to today. And you know, when I
Speaker 2: have these conversations with my uh with my white counterparts
Speaker 2: about AI, they're like, oh, man, it's gonna change the world.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be doing all these crazy cool things. And
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes I talk to my friends in the
Speaker 2: group chat and they're like, man, the devil is busy
Speaker 2: with that AI, right, Like, you know, you're getting different
Speaker 2: impressions about it, right. But we actually, we actually talked
Speaker 2: to a large number of black professionals about how they
Speaker 2: were feeling about AI and sort of what's happening. And
Speaker 2: what we found, man, was that actually most black professionals
Speaker 2: were actually were actually really intrigued and excited about AI.
Speaker 2: But what they also said was that about forty seven
Speaker 2: percent said that they didn't know where to start getting
Speaker 2: AI skills and getting up to speed. And so's the
Speaker 2: that's the hook right there. What we did at LinkedIn
Speaker 2: when we saw that was we said, okay, well we're
Speaker 2: gonna make our top ten AI courses free for everybody.
Speaker 2: You don't have to have LinkedIn premium or anything like that.
Speaker 2: So we've made our top ten AI courses for free,
Speaker 2: and that's everything from understanding you know prompt engineering to
Speaker 2: understanding you know AI one on one. We've even got
Speaker 2: some more advanced courses. And if you if you follow
Speaker 2: my newsletter The Black Guy in Marketing on linked and
Speaker 2: then I've got all of the courses listed there, you
Speaker 2: can literally click on the courses and take the courses. Right.
Speaker 2: It's like tons of free courses. But I think that
Speaker 2: that's the key to it is that for black professionals
Speaker 2: in particular, I think that if you don't know what
Speaker 2: a large language model is, and you're listening to this
Speaker 2: conversation right now, I know there are a lot of
Speaker 2: tech people who probably do know exactly what that is.
Speaker 2: But if you don't, now is the time for you
Speaker 2: to start at least get the language and the lexicon
Speaker 2: of AI down because we need more black people using
Speaker 2: the tool. We need more black people getting the skills
Speaker 2: and getting the certifications because major revolutions in work have
Speaker 2: not always been kind to us. But now we're in
Speaker 2: a space where the information is literally at our fingertips.
Speaker 2: If you've got a computer, you've got a smartphone, you
Speaker 2: can get access to starting to learn how to use
Speaker 2: these tools and play with these tools. And I think
Speaker 2: that that's the key to it is to get in
Speaker 2: there and start playing with it now because AI is
Speaker 2: coming to work. It's at work already, and I don't
Speaker 2: want us to feel like that it's this scary thing
Speaker 2: because we've been I mean it, all it really is,
Speaker 2: as you know, is like really well educated guesses to
Speaker 2: what you to answering questions for what we all need.
Speaker 2: And if you've used you know, almost any technology tool
Speaker 2: that in the last you know, five or six years,
Speaker 2: there's been some bit of it that is making some
Speaker 2: educated guesses for you. Right then, completely on the Google
Speaker 2: search bar. Absolutely, I use that example all the time
Speaker 2: auto completely on Google. Right. But here's the other thing
Speaker 2: is that I don't want people to have this. I
Speaker 2: think that people have this fear, Oh AI is going
Speaker 2: to take my job. That's not what you should be
Speaker 2: afraid of. AI is not gonna take your job. But
Speaker 2: someone who understands AI, who has AI skills, may take
Speaker 2: your job. And so that's where that's that particularly. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: to that particular point you just made.
Speaker 1: LinkedIn has this Jobs on the Rise twenty twenty four list,
Speaker 1: which includes industries like AI, sustainability, and et cetera, which
Speaker 1: are often associated with earning potential, And you talked about
Speaker 1: these core courses and curriculums that are available. What should
Speaker 1: we be looking for specifically when we go because it's
Speaker 1: kind of like you know when they tell you five
Speaker 1: years ago, ten years ago, and they say you should
Speaker 1: learn the code, and they said, all right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go learn the code. Now, there's twenty thirty different languages,
Speaker 1: these Ruby on rails, there's Python, there's C plus plus,
Speaker 1: there's all these things. So I'm like, I don't I'm
Speaker 1: swimming in the sea of options of what to learn,
Speaker 1: and you don't know everybody's gonna tell you something different.
Speaker 1: And so when I say, okay, the earning high earning
Speaker 1: potential is in sectors like AI is sustainability, What should
Speaker 1: I be going to learn when I go to that
Speaker 1: list that you talked about what should.
Speaker 2: I be looking at? I think the first thing you
Speaker 2: got to do is get the basics. So there's literally
Speaker 2: AI one O one, like, how to talk about it,
Speaker 2: what the language is, explaining how AI works so that
Speaker 2: people can can really get a baseline understanding. Then I
Speaker 2: would graduate up to prompt engineering because I feel like
Speaker 2: that once you start to understand how the tools work
Speaker 2: and you start to build the language and the lexicon
Speaker 2: to understand it, then the next thing you need to
Speaker 2: do is learn how to harness the tools right. Because
Speaker 2: there's a bunch of tools that are to tell it
Speaker 2: what to do. You got to learn how to tell
Speaker 2: it what to do right. And that's the biggest part
Speaker 2: is that because garbage garbage prompts give you sort of
Speaker 2: once you learn how to right, once you learn how
Speaker 2: to really harness the technology, there's a lot of fun
Speaker 2: to be had with it right. And I think that
Speaker 2: that's the that that's where I think people should start
Speaker 2: to go and then think about what it is that
Speaker 2: you do every day or what it is that you
Speaker 2: eventually want to do. So if you're once you start
Speaker 2: to understand the technology, then you understand how to actually
Speaker 2: use it and how to make the technology do what
Speaker 2: you want to do. Then I think it goes into
Speaker 2: where then is the technology being applied in your field?
Speaker 2: And where do you feel like the inking one make
Speaker 2: your job easier, make you faster, make you smarter, make
Speaker 2: you be able to you know, maximize your workload. And
Speaker 2: that's where you start is then take your time and
Speaker 2: your attention to Okay, what are those tools. The other
Speaker 2: thing I would say is there's been there's no better
Speaker 2: time than now than to start talking to other people
Speaker 2: in whatever your industry or your profession is about how
Speaker 2: they're using AI. I would say too, for most people,
Speaker 2: once you get some some basic language around on how
Speaker 2: to talk about it, I would start talking to people
Speaker 2: at work like, hey, how are we thinking about using AI?
Speaker 2: Talk to your manager, how are we thinking about that?
Speaker 2: There's probably an almost everybody's company right now, there's an
Speaker 2: AI task force or AI or you know, an AI
Speaker 2: like working group. Start to figure out, now that you've
Speaker 2: got some information about it, how do you get on
Speaker 2: that AI working group? How do you start to have
Speaker 2: those conversations? And if you're a member of you know,
Speaker 2: any other groups or professional ORGANI start talking to the
Speaker 2: people in your profession by yo, what are y'all seeing?
Speaker 2: So that you can be ahead of it. Information sharing
Speaker 2: is again one of the major things that I feel
Speaker 2: like is one of our biggest gaps to career advancement.
Speaker 2: And now they're tools that can collapse geography. They're tools
Speaker 2: that can where you can go out and you can say,
Speaker 2: you know, okay, I'm gonna just jump on LinkedIn and
Speaker 2: connect with people that I used to work with in
Speaker 2: my old job or in my industry and say, or
Speaker 2: join one of the groups on there. If it's an
Speaker 2: engineering group, lem's join this engineering group. Is if it's
Speaker 2: PR group, let me join this PR group. You know,
Speaker 2: if it's nurses or people in the medical field, let
Speaker 2: me join this and see how are y'all using this right?
Speaker 2: And I think that that's the way that you figure
Speaker 2: out what's next, because what's next isn't gonna come to you.
Speaker 2: You gotta get to what's next, or you got to
Speaker 2: start to investigate what's next, because by the time it
Speaker 2: comes back to you, is somebody asking you to do
Speaker 2: something that you may or may not have the skills
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 1: And so I want to talk about resume building and skills.
Speaker 1: And so I'm number one, So I got to preface
Speaker 1: it's like I'm a university chair of the board.
Speaker 2: So I'm chair the board of a university. But I
Speaker 2: get also.
Speaker 1: That there's been and a lean towards skills and not
Speaker 1: necessarily degrees, and we're grappling with that, grappling with that also,
Speaker 1: and so you admonish people to highlight their skills versus
Speaker 1: necessarily their resumes their credentials in such a way. And
Speaker 1: I'm a small business owner also, and I think about
Speaker 1: my small business like, I can really care less what
Speaker 1: school you into. I want to know what you can do.
Speaker 1: And I think most small businesses might think that way
Speaker 1: because what we need is people who can hit the
Speaker 1: ground running faster. And your credentials don't necessarily say that
Speaker 1: you can hit the ground running faster. What you can
Speaker 1: show me shows me that you can hit the ground
Speaker 1: running faster. And I think I feel like what that
Speaker 1: as more small businesses hire more people. Number one, there
Speaker 1: are more people who are employed by small businesses than
Speaker 1: anything else in the country. Yeah, so as more of
Speaker 1: us think that way, then the degree the credentials mean
Speaker 1: less over time. And so can you talk about help
Speaker 1: me think about think that through yep.
Speaker 2: I listen everybody from LinkedIn the world's largest professional network,
Speaker 2: to the President of the United States and the s
Speaker 2: in the State of the Union is talking about skills,
Speaker 2: skills based hiring, and skills first hiring. I think it's
Speaker 2: the way of the future. I think it is the
Speaker 2: way I think is a It is a pathway to
Speaker 2: more and to a more equitable workforce. Having a four
Speaker 2: year degree requirement actually just puts tons of jobs that
Speaker 2: don't that should not be out of reach, out of
Speaker 2: reach for large swaths of people of color in particular.
Speaker 2: Let's just point blank period. I mean, that's just it
Speaker 2: is what it is. Yes, our educational attainment is going
Speaker 2: up every year, particularly by black women, but if we
Speaker 2: took away the four year degree requirement, it would open
Speaker 2: the aperture for many, many more people of color to
Speaker 2: get knowledge, knowledge based you know, air quotes white collar jobs.
Speaker 2: So I do think that that is where we're where
Speaker 2: we're going to go. I think that it's going to be.
Speaker 2: But we're not completely there yet, right like we I
Speaker 2: just be honest with you, We're not completely there yet.
Speaker 2: But it is where people are starting to go. Even
Speaker 2: our company, we've removed four year degree requirements from most
Speaker 2: of our jobs at LinkedIn, and we're a tech company, right.
Speaker 2: I will say, the thing that I want people to understand,
Speaker 2: and even people who are at universities and who are
Speaker 2: who are getting degrees and getting master's degrees and all
Speaker 2: those things, is that you still are going to have
Speaker 2: to talk about your skills. Regardless of how great your
Speaker 2: grades were, You're going to be able to talk have
Speaker 2: to talk to recruiters about what you know how to
Speaker 2: do and where you have done it previously. You've got
Speaker 2: to have a skills conversation. I want to see your portfolio.
Speaker 2: I really don't care ABOUTIO, right, And that's that's just
Speaker 2: what matters like listen. I mean, I love to tell
Speaker 2: people that I graduated from Morehouse College. I love to
Speaker 2: tell people that I have a business uh NBA from
Speaker 2: of course what a school of business at EMMRA University.
Speaker 2: But ain't nobody asking me? Not usually, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, Nobody's really, ain't nobody asked me yet? Ain't
Speaker 2: nobody asked me? And here's the deal? Is that? And
Speaker 2: what what I will say? And here's this goes back
Speaker 2: to the AI thing to a little bit. Is that
Speaker 2: we just released our most in demand skills. These are
Speaker 2: the skills that companies are asking for most for all
Speaker 2: of the out of all of the job postings on
Speaker 2: our entire website, right, and the number one skill across
Speaker 2: the board for the second year in a row. Most
Speaker 2: in demand is communication and so part of that is
Speaker 2: human skills, people centric skills. The future of work is
Speaker 2: going to be human, no matter how pervasive AI becomes.
Speaker 2: You the people skills are really in Those human skills
Speaker 2: are really what's most in demand. Yeah, and more technical jobs.
Speaker 2: There's gonna be other parts of it, but leadership, management,
Speaker 2: team work, analysis, communication, those things really matter. We see
Speaker 2: so many recruiters who say to us, we've got people
Speaker 2: who are in their early careers, who are graduating from
Speaker 2: college and they've got, you know, education, but they can't present,
Speaker 2: or they can't write, or they can't or they can't
Speaker 2: make a concise or data based argument. They're arguing with
Speaker 2: feelings and what they you know, and what they think
Speaker 2: as opposed to facts and data. And they're like, we,
Speaker 2: you know, we're trying to grapple with how do we
Speaker 2: train them to have these skills for these skills of
Speaker 2: analysis and things like that. We talk to recruiters and
Speaker 2: over forty eight percent of recruiters say that they are
Speaker 2: using skills to source for talent. And we've got to
Speaker 2: teach candidates how to now reimagine how they talk about
Speaker 2: their skills in job interviews, and employees how to make
Speaker 2: sure that they're always upskilling and keeping their skills fresh
Speaker 2: and tight, and looking at how they continuously talk about
Speaker 2: their skills and action.
Speaker 1: To you, great point, because it brings me to a
Speaker 1: quote that you gave, I think in an article on
Speaker 1: afrotech and so you taught. You said in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: we have agency. We want more than just jobs. It's
Speaker 1: a new era where it's not just about stability, it's
Speaker 1: about thriving and telling our personal story in a professional world.
Speaker 1: And so with that in one hand, you think about
Speaker 1: at least historically, longevity in the role meant trajectory. It
Speaker 1: meant that you were gonna make more, you were gonna
Speaker 1: get higher.
Speaker 2: Better, prestigious jobs.
Speaker 1: And what you're saying is that we're not just looking
Speaker 1: for you know, jobs for fine ten twenty years like
Speaker 1: our predecessors. Yeah, so then how do you reconcile being
Speaker 1: able to make more and more money when we might
Speaker 1: jump every three ish four ish years.
Speaker 2: Or more longer? Right? Listen, I think that there that
Speaker 2: longevity has a place as long as you're being compensated
Speaker 2: and appreciated, as long as you are still you're being
Speaker 2: whatever you the thing that you get from work that
Speaker 2: you're getting right. I'm very money motivated. So I've made
Speaker 2: a lot of my decisions early in my career based
Speaker 2: on how much bang for the buck am I getting,
Speaker 2: Like carried to one, what's my carry with one my institute,
Speaker 2: what's my check on the person? At fifteen? Now I'm
Speaker 2: a little bit older. Now I'm almost fifty, and I
Speaker 2: am thinking about how I spend my time very differently, right,
Speaker 2: And so money is still a great motivating factor in
Speaker 2: my career, but I'm also thinking about where do I
Speaker 2: take my skills and my talent? Right, So I think
Speaker 2: that that's part of it. What I would say to
Speaker 2: people in their careers of like, okay, yeah, you have
Speaker 2: the agency piece comes in. I have a plan for
Speaker 2: my career. I see the pathway forward. Most jobs are
Speaker 2: vehicles and not destinations. And I think that once you
Speaker 2: sort of get that as part of the mentality, how
Speaker 2: does this job as is this a vehicle that gets
Speaker 2: me to the next opportunity? For if visibility is important
Speaker 2: to me, if opportunity is important to me, if money
Speaker 2: is important to me, how does this job become a
Speaker 2: vehicle that gets me to that next destination? And that
Speaker 2: vehicle and that job becomes a vehicle to get me
Speaker 2: today next destination. Sometimes that that move may be within
Speaker 2: the company. I tell employers all the time that your
Speaker 2: next best employee might be your current employee. You just
Speaker 2: have to move them into a space to where they
Speaker 2: can thrive.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: And so that's the other thing that I say to
Speaker 2: to black folks, right, is that you have to have
Speaker 2: a plan for your career. The last thing that the
Speaker 2: REF says to a fighter in the ring every time
Speaker 2: is protect yourself at all times. And that is the
Speaker 2: way I think about us and our careers. Protect yourself
Speaker 2: at all times means that if I get that pink
Speaker 2: stuff tomorrow, I ain't got I ain't gotta get ready
Speaker 2: because I'm already ready. My resume is updated every six months. Right,
Speaker 2: if that comes at me, I also have I also
Speaker 2: have a network where I'm keeping people. I've got my
Speaker 2: personal border directors in place. They can help me walk
Speaker 2: through that. Right. I've been thinking about what my next
Speaker 2: opportunity should be or could be anyway, so I don't
Speaker 2: have the same emotional attachment to this particular job, even
Speaker 2: if I enjoyed the work, because I'm thinking about what
Speaker 2: my next move could be Now, I may be disappointed, absolutely,
Speaker 2: but I'm not gonna be disillusioning and not gonna be
Speaker 2: defeated because I'm thinking about how do I protect myself
Speaker 2: at all times and if I'm in a job where
Speaker 2: i feel like that I'm contorting and I'm you know,
Speaker 2: assimilation is exhausting, and if i feel like I'm balled
Speaker 2: up in a not all the time, I always tell
Speaker 2: people like, look, do not let these jobs rob you
Speaker 2: of your hairline, or your edges, or your relationship, or
Speaker 2: your happiness, or your joy or your time with your kids.
Speaker 2: Like there's so many places out here that will actually
Speaker 2: appreciate the goodness that you bring to a professional setting.
Speaker 2: And I talk about work in this way because we
Speaker 2: when we talked about code switching at and our latest
Speaker 2: survey with black professionals at LinkedIn, sixty black professionals felt
Speaker 2: like that they had to code switch at work, and
Speaker 2: forty two percent of them said that their parents and
Speaker 2: their families told them that they need to do it right.
Speaker 2: And so what I try to do is speak agency
Speaker 2: into the professional lives of my friends or people who
Speaker 2: see me on TV, or people who who I'm giving
Speaker 2: career advice to because I recognize that nobody was speaking
Speaker 2: agency over my career until I was almost thirty or
Speaker 2: forty years old. They were saying, don't do this, don't
Speaker 2: do that. Better be thankful for that right, And I'm like,
Speaker 2: you have agency if you put the right strategy in place,
Speaker 2: You're looking at your network in the right way, you
Speaker 2: get your skills to where they need to be. You
Speaker 2: understand what your superpower is and what you bring to
Speaker 2: the professional world that is special and you that helps
Speaker 2: people solve problems that are important. You gonna be okay.
Speaker 2: And you don't have to be in a space or
Speaker 2: a job or a role for long periods of time
Speaker 2: where you feel defeated or that you feel like that
Speaker 2: there's no opportunity for you to grow. You better than
Speaker 2: that you better at a.
Speaker 1: Job to that point, and this is the last one
Speaker 1: I got for y'all. Want to do respectful. Your time
Speaker 1: is DEI is under attack, right, and I have a view,
Speaker 1: and it's been shown that every obstacle presents an opportunity.
Speaker 1: And also that diversity is good for a business. It's
Speaker 1: not just morally good, it's good for the bottom line,
Speaker 1: and so that can't be lost.
Speaker 2: I'm hoping.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm saying it's completing like that can't be
Speaker 1: lost on smart companies, that diversity is good for a business.
Speaker 1: So if taking those two things, diversity is good for
Speaker 1: business and they're is an opportunity in every obstacle, how
Speaker 1: could this attack on the the E and I be
Speaker 1: looked at differently other than just you know, woe is us?
Speaker 1: You know they're trying to attack us again. How do
Speaker 1: we see the opportunity here potentially?
Speaker 2: Yo? So I look at it like this, right? Is
Speaker 2: that I feel like D and I and DEI has
Speaker 2: needed an overhaul for probably the last twenty years. I
Speaker 2: think that, you know, we've made great strides, but I
Speaker 2: think we low KI have been maybe doing it wrong
Speaker 2: and not had the courage to actually you know, pull
Speaker 2: the pull the lever stop and make them and make
Speaker 2: a market shift. I think what the what the the
Speaker 2: silver lining may be in this is that now DEI professionals,
Speaker 2: the people who are really committed to it, they're about
Speaker 2: to go back into the lab. They're going to go
Speaker 2: back into the lab now with attorneys. They're going to
Speaker 2: go back into the lab now with policy folks. And
Speaker 2: that they and if they do the real work of saying, Okay,
Speaker 2: how can we make this work unassailable? How can we
Speaker 2: still get to what we need to do and make
Speaker 2: this work unassailable. Let's go in and go under the
Speaker 2: hood and actually take this moment and fix all of
Speaker 2: these things. Let's fill in these gaps. And because Deus
Speaker 2: has had some gaps, even the companies that have put
Speaker 2: in major work, how do you now say, Okay, we're
Speaker 2: about to go back into lab and what comes out
Speaker 2: of this is gonna be unassailable. Right, It's gonna work.
Speaker 2: We're gonna take the best of what we've seen and
Speaker 2: we're gonna kick the old stuff out. Right. I hope
Speaker 2: that we see on the other side of this is
Speaker 2: that a whole new strategy emerges, a whole new way
Speaker 2: of talking about this. The legislation and the potential court
Speaker 2: cases is gonna make us use different language and different
Speaker 2: words to talk about this, right, And I think that
Speaker 2: we needed a language overhaul in DEI for a long
Speaker 2: time anyway, And so this may be the forcing factor
Speaker 2: that takes us from good to great. That's the way
Speaker 2: I see it. I think the people who are truly
Speaker 2: committed to it may be quiet in this next view,
Speaker 2: this next eighteen to twenty four months. Some of the
Speaker 2: people that have been really loud may have to get
Speaker 2: quiet for a little while. But when they come back,
Speaker 2: my gut says to me that a lot of people
Speaker 2: are gonna come back, and they're gonna come back with
Speaker 2: better ideas, better impact, better innovation, better ways of measurement,
Speaker 2: and better ways of thinking about what impact looks like.
Speaker 2: Because here's my think on it, will is that if
Speaker 2: I go to a company and they say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I want you to know that they're fourteen percent of
Speaker 2: the view of the of the US population is African
Speaker 2: American and we have you know, ten percent African Americans
Speaker 2: at this company, and you're like, oh wow, that's crazy,
Speaker 2: Like that's crazy good for most companies in terms of representation.
Speaker 2: But if all of those all of those black people
Speaker 2: went to Dartmouth, went to you know, they went to Dartmouth,
Speaker 2: they went to Harvard, they went to Yale, talk to
Speaker 2: me a little bit about representation again, right, Because you
Speaker 2: can go to some companies and all of the black
Speaker 2: folks came from the same three schools. I'm not saying
Speaker 2: that that's a bad thing. I'm saying it ain't necessarily
Speaker 2: representation thing, right, it's a thing. It's a thing. It's
Speaker 2: a thing that we don't talk about because you know,
Speaker 2: oftentimes we just happen to see some more black folks there,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. But I think that we're
Speaker 2: gonna come back smarter, We're gonna come back stronger. And listen,
Speaker 2: you're right about them. This is the last thing I'll
Speaker 2: say is you're absolutely right about the the These companies
Speaker 2: need representation. Ninety percent of the population growth that has
Speaker 2: happened in this country in the last fifteen years has
Speaker 2: come from communities of color. If you don't have black,
Speaker 2: Latino Asian folks and listen also LGBTQ plus folks in
Speaker 2: your companies helping you decode culture, you're not gonna sell
Speaker 2: You're not gonna sell products in the way that you
Speaker 2: need to sell products because you can't just engage. You
Speaker 2: can't engage us in the same ways that you did
Speaker 2: because the younger, younger people of color and younger women
Speaker 2: of color in particular, are just not down for to
Speaker 2: take the same things from companies that they do business
Speaker 2: with that you know, previous generations were down to do.
Speaker 2: And you've got to have that representation to really understand culture,
Speaker 2: and I think culture is going to be particularly in
Speaker 2: as the country becomes more and more diverse and becomes
Speaker 2: majority multicultural in just a short order of time. It's
Speaker 2: going to be even more incummon upon these companies to
Speaker 2: make sure that they not only have representation, but they
Speaker 2: have representation that they're listening to and that they are
Speaker 2: giving voice and optionality.
Speaker 3: To Black Tech.
Speaker 1: Green Money is a production of Blavity Afro Tech on
Speaker 1: the Black Effect Podcast Network and Ihurt Media. It's produced
Speaker 1: by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas, with additional production
Speaker 1: support by Sarah Ergin and Love Beach. Special thank you
Speaker 1: to Michael Davis and Kay McDonald. Learn more about my
Speaker 1: guests and other tech. This is an innovators at afrotech
Speaker 1: dot com. I'm joining Black Tech Green Money. Share us
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