Diversity in the Industry: How It’s Changing the Landscape Forever

Diversity in the industry is still taboo, but it doesn’t have to be with so many industries and not enough people. In this episode, we’ll share some of the most recent statistics about diversity in the industry and how it is changing the landscape forever. What are some ways you think we can work on diversifying our workforce?

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Diversity In The Industry: How It’s Changing The Landscape Forever

A lot of this is lip service. It’s ticking a box. It’s not radical. It’s doing what we can to get by so we don’t have to deal with the bad media attention or we have a good answer to an employee when they ask us, “How are you guys diverse and friendly?” “We have a black woman on our executive team.”

It’s creating diversity and inclusive departments so you don’t get sued versus having inclusive companies.

You don’t have to try to figure out how to make it happen. You are and it’s a way of operating that’s different.

Yes, but it always continuously changes and will always take hard conversations. It’s forever going to be uncomfortable to continue to hold these think tanks. How do we do better? How do we show up better?

Why and for who? Is it uncomfortable for the people of privilege or is it uncomfortable also for people that want to work and don’t want to get involved in all these discussions?

Inherently, it can be uncomfortable in general. There’s a statistic from the Neuro Institute that diverse groups. When they work together, statistically, they think they’re doing worse and the group dynamic is more uncomfortable, but they always end with better results. Whereas homogenous groups feel better and think they’re doing better and the best, but they don’t have the most innovative ideas.

I don’t mean uncomfortable in the term of unsafe. I mean, there’s tension in it. You and I view the world differently. We come from different backgrounds. Us being able to challenge each other in some ways but still highly respect each other, there will be times that there’s tension. To me, that tension breeds innovation and it breeds more inclusive spaces.

That’s fascinating because I resonated with that when I was a founder and CEO and I had an executive team. I remember asking an executive coach, “What do you think about the dynamics?” She was like, “It was terrible. You guys are always fighting and arguing.” I’m like, “We’re not fighting and arguing. We’re doing what we should be doing as an executive team.” Yes, it’s tiring.

Those offsides we have would be exhausting as an executive. It’s like, “We’re going around in circles. We keep challenging everything.” That’s our job. Our job is to put ideas on the table, rip them apart, and then when we make a move, we all understand the pros and cons and stand behind it. This is my stance, at least as a CEO.

The first step to diversity and inclusion is understanding that we are all biased. That doesn't make us bad. It's not binary.

I was not okay with questioning the decision that had been made. We’ve made a statement and we’re going after it. That’s politics, but I absolutely want to make sure we exhaust this before we agree because we owe it to our employees, customers, and shareholders. That did come from having diversity.

I always precursor those conversations with, “This is going to be hard and emotional. Take care of yourself. Take breaks when we need it.” We all need to come from a place of respect. There are certain things that may be off-limits or are triggering you, like safe words or something. Depending on what the topic is, especially if you’re talking about race, religion, or anything of that nature.

What’s the buzzword that everyone needs to pause and hold space for each other? I completely agree that we need to be able to break that thing up. The only time I get loud with my teams is when I’m like, “Stop agreeing with me.” If everybody agrees with me all the time, we’re never going to come up with the best idea. This is not the Ashleigh Show.

It’s interesting how a team can feel like they’re making progress, as you stated in that study. In reality, because you’re tearing something up and you’re debating, you feel you’re behind. You end up in a better place because you think it through that thing and bring in diverse opinions. That’s what it’s about. It has variety.

Especially in technology. Can we talk about the ethics that are involved with building AI with a homogenous group of people? That is problematic. That is super scary if we are building AI with one group of people for the entire globe. We’re talking about a population, but we have one type of people building AI. No, thanks.

It turns out AI can be quite racist itself, and that comes from how the data is fed. If you’re building AI on a system where bias already exists, what is AI going to do? To be honest, it’s not the AI’s fault because the way you’ve designed the AI is going to result in more Black people, women, or medical people getting pulled over for random searches.

I completely agree, and that goes back to the, “We must be painfully aware of our privilege.” The first step to diversity and inclusion to me is understanding that we are all biased and that doesn’t make us bad. It’s not binary. To say that you are not racist, prejudiced, or biased is you haven’t done enough work to know that we all only view the world through our own lens. We can work on those things, but it’s not about being not racist. It’s about being anti-racist. How do we build systems and groups of people that check us on our crap?

You’re saying that you can’t make change unless you admit that there are privileges and issues. If you put them under the table, you’re not transforming and not doing real change. I’ve been in plenty of male groups, but we’ve got a woman joining the team. We have to tone down our behavior. We have to watch out for these inside jokes. The problem is still there in its very foundation if that’s the attitude. Why can’t it be, “How do we make this more professional and better?”

In many industries, it’s like this, but in real estate, this is how it is. Without sounding biased and racist myself now, it’s an old White man controlling a lot of wealth, generational wealth that’s passed down, and it tends to be a male figure that tends to inherit and run it. Those male figures do well because they’re an industry with more males and can do male-focused activities, whatever that means.

It’s very hard for a woman to come in and break that, and then those biases exist. Real estate is one of the slowest moving industries when it comes to diversity. In certain sectors, it is. In the commercial space, I feel it is because companies are being held to account. Those companies are tenants of buildings. With tenants of a building, you’re going to hire people and firms who’ve matched the values of your company. That might mean more diversity there, but in other areas like the investment side, it’s not diverse at all.

It’s absolutely not, and that goes back to wealth. Real estate is tied to generational wealth.

It’s going to change, though. Women outlive men and control more purchasing power over time. Once those guys die, you’ve got more women controlling the wealth. Putting the jokes aside, this is the fact that I believe in. The power is shifting. More women will play a bigger role in consumer and business spending. What’s the timeline here? In your view, how long will it be before we have a world that you would be proud of that is diverse? I’m not talking about real estate specifically. We can even talk about the elevator industry. How long will it be before you think there will be a good culture in place?

I don’t even know how to answer that. That’s tough.

Will it happen in our lifetime?

My gut tells me no and my heart is like, “I hope so.” The most honest answer I can give you is what my body is telling me. It’s conflicting because in real estate, women may make better decisions and live longer but we talked about people dying and passing down wills. You still have people making decisions about where that power is being shifted to. In breaking that up, there’s more awareness, but will that be in our lifetime? I will continue to do my damnedest.

I was trying to drill you down. Lifetime? We agree. What about a decade? We agree, whichever. To hear you even start off and say that you don’t feel that way, at least how you feel in your gut. Do you think it’s because you may have experienced more as a woman? Men perhaps aren’t even aware. You don’t know what you don’t know. Whereas being a female, you perhaps experience it and it sticks with you. Could that be a reason?

I’m more in touch with the problem absolutely. I was down in Florida and was talking to some folks that I didn’t know about equity. Do we all have an equal shot? When we try hard, do we all have the ability to get rich to keep it simple? I’m like, “We all have an equal shot but we’re taking that shot from significantly different lengths.” You’re trying to make a shot and a basketball hoop. It’s theoretically possible that we can all make the shot but some people are a football field away from making that ball in the hoop. Often, men, especially White men are like, “Everyone can make it.”

They’re looking at the basketball hoop and saying, “Everyone can make it.” They’re looking up at it, have to raise their arm, and drop the ball in it. I’m like, “You’re right. The hoop is the same for everyone, but you’re not looking at it from the back of the football field. There are still folks standing there that go, ‘I’m not even going to try to make that shot because why even try?’”

Diverse groups always think they're doing worse, and the group dynamic is more uncomfortable. But they always end with a better result. Homogenous groups feel better, and they think they're doing better. They believe they are the best, but don't have the most innovative ideas.

That’s where equity and equality are prevalent, and it’s been coming up for me a lot. One of the most radical things I could do as a woman and as a queer person is to own real estate, not even a portfolio. I’m talking about me being able to own some land somewhere. In order to get real estate equality, we have to look at equality in lending and access to capital. There are so many factors that go into equity and equality in the real estate industry.

There are many studies that also show how investment portfolios are managed by men versus women. I don’t think we would have the crazy bidding wars in the level of inflation that we see now in real estate prices if we had more women in leadership at the helm of investment decisions. Everything is driven by emotions in real estate. As much as you’d like to look at cap rates, interest rates, and financial modeling, it’s ego. It’s people who like to win. These are things that I would say are toxic masculinity.

I agree with that.

It’s also a problem that I’ve encountered as a male leader. I ran a startup and a company. It was quite hard for me to make change happen because my peers would constantly say, “What’s up? Just chill. There isn’t a problem.” We have a couple of women on our account management team and some female engineers.

Ultimately, my board said to me at one point, “Zain, you need to hire the best person for the job. It’s not relevant whether it’s a female or a male, but the problem is that our recruitment pipeline has a problem.” The reason I haven’t seen many female candidates and I want to hold out a little bit longer before I make a decision is something is rotten and broken at the top of the funnel.

The question means, “We need to hire this role immediately.” I’m like, “We’ve got a biased pipeline.” You’re fighting a system here and you have to take accountability as a founder and CEO. I built that system. Next time around, I’m privileged enough that I have the money where I don’t have to take investors who come from a different worldview. When you take an investor, they’re part of your system now and have tremendous influence.

I felt a lot of pushback too. Another pushback I felt, and I’ve never said this to anyone. This is interesting to talk about. I had a bit of a debate with some of the female leaders in our company, and that was, “You shouldn’t be out there as a CEO proposing change. You should give it to females.” I said, “Wrong. Men should go out there so they’re role models that other men can relate to and try to implement change.”

It was a big debate and I did step away. I let some of our female leaders go out and speak about change, but I still believe to this day that men are in a position of privilege and should use that privilege and platform. It shouldn’t be just women leading the charge for proposing equality for queer people because then you can victimize those people easily. It should be people who are in a position of privilege.

If you’re in a position of privilege, executive, a founder, or you have plenty of founders and stuff, step up right now. Just because you’re not an ethnic minority or you don’t relate to a certain gender, and maybe you’re a male or whatever, you need to speak up for everyone because that’s your job in a position of power.

I could not agree more. In times that I’ve struggled with privilege, my therapist said to me, “It is your job to use your privilege, all of it, and continue to pass it along because if you shy away from your privilege and you don’t use it, it is lost. It’s gone.” The privilege that we do have, we should be leveraging it. Why do people need to be talking about racism? Straight people need to be talking about LGBT rights. The list goes on and on.

It is my job to continue to talk about things. It’s the same as people asking me why I have queer and she/her on my LinkedIn, my Twitter, and all of my things. It’s like, “It’s because I have pretty privileged and straight passing privilege.” I have the privilege of being a queer person and being safe, so I need to be out there taking up space as a queer person and founder. Not everyone has the ability to be out and be safe.

Ashleigh, we have a lot of people on this show who might be looking for a job. Some might be potential customers for you. If they’re lucky enough to invest in you in the future, how can people reach you? Is there anything you want to say regarding your ideal customer profile? I would love to see you be successful, not just because I’ve invested in you, but because we need more leaders like you. What does your ideal customer look like if a reader can help you and think of someone who might be a good customer for you? Could you explain what that customer looks like?

Our ideal customer is anyone with an elevator escalator, whether you are a property manager, facility manager, or owner. We’ll also give discounted coverage to nonprofits. If you have an elevator and you don’t think that you may be able to afford us, please reach out to me. You can find us on AuditMate.com, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Those are the main places.

Ashleigh, thank you so much for coming on. This was fun and inspiring. I can’t wait to track your progress and also be part of that journey with you.

Thank you so much for having me.

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About Zain Jaffer:

Zain Jaffer is an accomplished executive, investor, and entrepreneur. He started his first company at the age of 14 and later moved to the US as an immigrant to found Vungle, after securing $25M from tech giants including Google & AOL in 2011. Vungle recently sold for $780m.

His achievements have garnered international recognition and acclaim; he is the recipient of prestigious awards such as “Forbes 30 Under 30”, “Inc. Magazine’s 35 Under 35,” and the “SF Business Times Tech & Innovation Award.” He is regularly featured in major business & tech publications such as The Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch.