Video: Breaking the Tension: The Power of Enabling Your Employees to Show Up Authentically

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Breaking the Tension: The Power of Enabling Your Employees to Show Up Authentically

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Friday, June 10, 2022 • Design at Scale 2022

B. Pagels-Minor

Thought leader on product and culture development within technology companies

Summary

Last July Silicon Valley Business Journal named B. Pagels-Minor, Senior Data Project Manager at Netflix, to its 40 Under 40 Class of 2021. To quote the article, “B. Pagels-Minor is a thought leader on product and culture development within technology companies. They are passionate about creating a culture of accountability and sustainable processes that allow teams to do the work well.” Little did anyone know what was to come just a few months later. B. was thrust into the public eye for a stance they took on an issue that was important to them and others at their place of employment. A walk out ensued. So did termination. B. joins us as a member of the greater UX community, and speaks to us about a topic that fits squarely into our day 3 theme: Design People—Caring for Individuals and Teams. In this talk, B. Pagels-Minor will talk about their life, their experience at Netflix, and most importantly the things they’ve learned about the power of authenticity in both doing and enabling great work.

Key Insights

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Early life experiences with racism profoundly shaped Be's understanding of when and where they could be authentic.
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Be’s childhood eye injury and blindness fostered deep empathy for others with disabilities.
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Gifted programs offered validation but also added pressure to succeed academically and professionally.
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Experiencing microaggressions and bias in education reinforced limits on authentic self-expression.
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Coming out as lesbian and later trans involved navigating fears of acceptance, especially within family.
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Working as a Target store manager taught Be humility and the value of listening to experienced team members.
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At Cars.com, Be faced discrimination about pronoun use, showing challenges of trans inclusion in some workplaces.
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Joining Apple marked a turning point where Be experienced more authentic recognition of their identity.
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Corporate responses to culturally sensitive issues like the Chappelle special often miss the mark and harm employee wellbeing.
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Compartmentalizing identity to fit workplace expectations leads to mental strain and reduces productivity.

Notable Quotes

"I don’t want to make those decisions anymore. I can’t compartmentalize who I am to be successful at work."

"When I compartmentalize who I am at work, I am absolutely not successful because it creates too much brain drain."

"My mom is four-foot-eleven but she felt like a six foot six linebacker when she confronted the school principal."

"Maybe we’ve been betting since you were eight that you were lesbian, and I was like why didn’t you tell me? But she said that’s not her place."

"Being a Target store manager humbled me within 20 minutes of showing up to a store where people worked for 20 years."

"At Cars.com, a senior director told me I wouldn’t get anywhere asking people to use my pronouns."

"At Apple, I just changed my name in the directory, and engineers came up to ask if that was what I wanted to be called. That was one of the best moments of my life."

"The Netflix memo implies people don’t understand the jokes, but it felt like they haven’t done the work to understand their audience."

"Emails are terrible mediums when you’re trying to have human conversations about identity and culture."

"I spent a lot of time trying to figure out when can I be black? When can I be a lesbian? When can I be trans? And I’m done with that."

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