Hi there, Lisa here. Before we start the show, I have a few disclaimers that I would like for you to keep in mind, as you listen to each Episode. First, this show will cover a variety of topics related to connection, mental health, work, & life; & some of these topics may be sensitive for you or someone you know. I want to offer you permission to choose courage over comfort when it comes to consuming sensitive content; & also, permission to respect your own limits when it comes to consuming this content which may be sensitive for you. I also need to indicate that while I am a licensed therapist, I am not your therapist. This show is not intended to be direct professional advice & you should not use this as a substitute for individualized, professional help. Lastly, while I can assure you that any of the coachable or teachable content I share will have demonstrated effectiveness – & are practices I use myself – I can also assure you that I am imperfect & there are times when I do not act as skillfully, as I would have liked. My goal is to act skillfully, most of the time; & I very much want that for you, too! Now, with that said, let’s start the show.

Hello & welcome to Wired to Connect, the startup mental health podcast that keeps you going every week, with our easily digestible lessons, skills, & stories, that you can put into practice immediately. I’m your host, your coach, your teacher, Lisa Birnbaum; I’m also a social worker, a therapist, & the Co-Founder of Strengths Squared: a therapy, coaching, & consulting practice, for startup founders & their teams, that I started with my wife & Co-Founder in 2021. The learnings we are sharing here, come from a combination of the lived experiences of the startup founders & startup team members we’ve worked with over the years, from our own lived experiences, & from research-backed strategies, too. And we are so excited to be able to share these insights here, with all of you now. In today’s episode, we’ll be discussing

The “B” in DEIB & Cultivating a Mentally Healthy Startup Culture of Belonging. We’re going to focus today, on the intersection of belonging, leadership, & having a mentally healthy startup culture. We’ll explain why “Belonging” is such a critical component of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) work, & why anything less is just not enough. We’ll identify how to know whether we are ‘walking our talk’ to ensure Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging (DEIB) practices are implemented effectively. And, we’ll explain why it’s never too early – or too late – to start cultivating a diverse, equitable, inclusive, mentally healthy startup culture of belonging. There is a lot to say about startup culture & I will not be able to cover all things culture-related on today’s episode. I’m going to touch on culture today specifically, in the ways it connects to the topic of Belonging & please know, that there is much more to come on this topic. For right now though, we can think about a startup’s culture as being, the observed patterns of behavior, norms, & expectations, that our people engage in & reinforce. These behaviors, systems, & practices are guided by an overarching set of values; & the goal is for our culture to reflect these values. The truth is, every startup will have its own culture – whether it’s intentional & by design, or not – & since the very first person who shapes the culture of a startup is the founder, or co-founders, it’s so important to actually be intentional about the type of culture we’re creating, from the outset. I can assure you, it is much easier to intentionally create our culture early – & then, cultivate it ongoing – than it is to change our culture after realizing it had unintentionally been built without our endorsement. And so, if we are wanting to create a mentally healthy startup culture, prioritizing DEIB is a necessary part of this. At early-stage startups – & even at some growth-stage startups – knowing everyone’s names & seeing one another regularly, can create a bit of a false-sense of belonging. Visibly seeing our teams doesn’t mean that we know who the people are on our teams, how they are really doing, or that we are seeking out their input, though. Focusing on DEIB in the workplace isn’t new & has been a focus for large corporations for years. And today, leading-edge startups understand the importance of prioritizing DEIB from day one. Many companies struggle though – & startups are not immune to this – in acting as if having some degree of diversity on our teams is enough to cause equity, inclusion, & belonging to follow. While understanding the important role that diversity plays in this is – of course – necessary, it is certainly not sufficient; without thinking through what else is needed to ensure we are also creating an equitable, inclusive, mentally healthy startup culture that genuinely feels a sense of belonging. Engaging in DEIB work that demonstrates we are ‘walking our talk’ requires creating opportunities, questioning our assumptions, asking for help, distinguishing our privileged identities from our marginalized identities, learning from our mistakes, doing better each time, & embodying practices every single day, which are woven into every fiber of our startup’s culture. Anything less, is just not enough. I want to also highlight that – as with most nuanced aspects of our work & our lives – there are no silver bullets when it comes to DEIB work. We must invest in a strategy instead. By avoiding the common pitfall of searching for a single solution to complex culture dynamics, we can assign long-term, ongoing value to the work of creating diverse, equitable, inclusive, mentally healthy, startup cultures of belonging. Much of the progress we’re seeing in the startup ecosystem with regard to DEIB work is happening a bit further down the journey. For many growth-stage startups, where scaling valuations have tended to precede scaling recruiting operations and HR functions, building inclusive workforces is now every bit as essential as driving customer growth. Despite there being no silver bullets here, I assure you that the earlier we prioritize DEIB work & the corresponding mental health of our people; & the sooner we pay attention to our startup’s culture & the corresponding people processes – even at early-stage startups – the easier this will be. When it comes to taking DEIB seriously, early-stage startups are actually at an advantage compared to more seasoned peers. Early-stage startups have the opportunity to build this in, right, from the start. Unfortunately though, despite DEIB work being a core component of startup leadership & startup culture – &, despite younger generations expecting us to focus on & value DEIB work – most startups don’t build this in, right, from the start & DEIB often gets deprioritized. And, despite it being well-known that diverse teams are more creative, are more varied in skillsets, make wiser decisions, are more effective in their production & their performance, are generally more innovative, & are less likely to suffer from groupthink, prioritizing DEIB remains a struggle for startup founders. Startup founders & startup leaders often depend on existing, tight networks to grow teams; & there doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to breathe, let alone gauge whether the startup culture we’re creating is toxic, mentally healthy, or somewhere in between. With so many things competing for our attention every minute of every day, wholeheartedly embracing DEIB work can feel daunting. The long-term benefits though, of taking the time to build a mentally healthy startup culture from the get-go, far outweigh any logistical speed bumps. There will never be a better time for prioritizing DEIB than immediately. As I mentioned before, culture-building begins on day one, & I can assure you that uprooting toxic practices is far more challenging than building in DEIB effectively, now. If we lay this foundation first, it becomes embedded into everything we do. Implementing ongoing practices meant to strengthen DEIB from the outset will be well worth it in the long run & I can’t stress enough that it is never too early to start prioritizing this. If on the other hand, we are no longer at the outset of our startup, then, we simply can not afford to deprioritize this any longer. This absolutely will be a problem at some point – if it’s not a problem already – & rather than ignoring it, we can choose to own our mistakes & learn how to make things better. In this case, it is definitely not too early to start prioritizing this. And if this is the case for you, please do your best not to worry about it being too late to start prioritizing this. That worry – while understandable – will only get in your way, making it harder to take action. So, while you may in fact be late to start, not starting at all, will be far worse in the long-run.

So much of this is interconnected. I’m going to break all of this down for you in today’s episode. So, let’s get into it; let’s make some meaningful connections!

Support for today’s show comes from our very own, Strengths Squared. What if you really knew the type of startup founder you are, or the type of future-startup founder you are likely to become? Would it change your trajectory? Would you do anything differently? Well now you can better answer these questions for yourself, by taking the quiz we created, specifically for startup founders and future-startup founders. In 10, pinpoint questions, you’ll identify your leadership strengths, as well as your opportunities for growth. At the end, you’ll see which type of startup founder you are – or which type of future-startup founder you are likely to become – so that you can move forward with the clarity, courage, and confidence to ensure that your type is working for you, rather than against you. Just head to: strengthssquared.com/quiz to take the first step toward being the best startup founder you can be. That’s s-t-r-e-n-g-t-h-s-s-q-u-a-r-e-d-dot-com-forward-slash-quiz, and we can’t wait to hear which type of startup founder you are!

If prioritizing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging (DEIB) is necessary in order to create & cultivate a mentally healthy startup culture, how do we go about thinking through our DEIB practices, assessing our current state, setting measurable goals, & communicating progress? And how can we ensure that we aren’t just paying ‘lip service’ to this, are leading by example, & are actually ‘walking our talk’? I’m going to set the stage for you & give you some thoughts to reflect on & to then take action on, regardless of the stage your startup is at:

Number 1. In order to create a mentally healthy startup culture of belonging, we first have to really be intentional, thoughtful, & thorough about our Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) practices in the first place. These need to be end-to-end practices, not add-ons, after-thoughts, or checklists! If we have any hope of delivering inclusive products or services to our customers & clients, we first need to be inclusive in terms of our people, so that we can then bring an inclusive lens to every aspect of our work. In order to ensure our DEI practices are implemented in an intentional, thoughtful, & thorough way – before we even get to creating a culture of Belonging – we need to consider all aspects of DEI in terms of our people. And – if we’re not already doing so – we’ll need to be open with our teams about reporting on our DEI metrics. Our teams will absolutely be empowered to do their best work when they know they can trust us to hold ourselves accountable; & transparency around our DEI metrics, is integral to creating an environment of trust. Considering all aspects of DEI in terms of our people means we need to be thinking about our recruiting; our interviewing; our hiring; our onboarding & offboarding; our compensation & benefits; our culture that exists around giving & receiving feedback; our mission & values; our policies & practices; our culture that exists around in-office behaviors, remote or distributed behaviors, & hybrid behaviors; our expectations around synchronous & asynchronous communications; our culture around meetings, generally, & how each meeting is conducted, specifically; & our systems & tools that we use. We also need to be thinking of this in terms of where our funding is coming from; who our investors are; which other startups our investors are choosing to invest in; who our investors’ investors are; who our advisors are; & who sits on our Board of Directors. We also need to think through aspects of our startup that we might take for granted or assume exist. All of these aspects to think through are decision points for us; & each of these decision points will have different implications for each of our people. For founders, future founders, or any of us who consider ourselves leaders, it is our responsibility to think through each of these decision points – as well as their implications – for the desired people we’d like to have join us. Essentially, with any of these decision points, we want to be thinking through – & asking for help on – what the implications might be for people from marginalized identities. For example, if we are an indiginous, latinx, queer developer, what are the implications of having a straight, cisgender, white, male, CTO? Or, if we are a nonbinary product manager navigating a physical, cognitive, or mental health concern, what are the implications of not receiving a meeting agenda in advance of the meeting, or of needing to provide answers on-the-spot during the meeting, or of being excluded from decisions when working remotely & of not being given a quiet place to work from when working at the office, or of not having access to a unisex restroom when working at the office? Or if we are a larger-bodied designer, what are the implications of seeing only smaller bodies in our marketing materials? Or, if we are a director of operations in a same-sex marriage, what are the implications of having benefits that don’t extend to our spouse or to family planning? Or, if we are a black founder, what are the implications of our Board of Directors being almost exclusively white, or of our investors not providing sufficient support & not choosing to invest in any other black founders? These are just a few examples. Thinking through each of these decision points & their implications requires us to be informed about the many ways that our biases take shape. These includes things like ableism, ageism, classism, colonialism, colorism, genderism, heteronormativism, imperialism, languagism, racism, religious supremacy, sexism, sizeism, tokenism, xenophobism, & other, often intersectional, systemic forms of oppression based on prejudices about human differences, stemming from places of power & privilege.

Number 2. Once we’ve intentionally, thoughtfully, & thoroughly thought through each of these decision points – as well as their implications – we’ll then want to assess our current state by collecting & looking at our data to understand where our DEI gaps may be. For example, if we are finding gaps in our recruiting or gaps in our hiring, we may need to be extra vigilant about any wording we’re using on posts that may lead our desired applicants away from even applying; we may need to intentionally broaden these pipelines to be able to look for desired applicants in places we may not be used to looking in; we may need to redesign our interview process to be more accessible; & we may need to resist the urge to hire friends who look & think like us. If we are finding gaps in promoting, gaps in trusting with decision making, or gaps in elevating to Leadership or Exec. Team, we need to do a better job looking for opportunities to not only include those of us from marginalized identities; but also, to elevate, equip, genuinely appreciate, & sufficiently resource those of us from these marginalized identities, as well. We’ll also want to be looking at turnover numbers & to pay particular attention to, if – after hire – we seem to be losing people from a marginalized identity. Gaps in practices & turnover in hires can all be addressed through accurate problem identification, thoughtful intention, thorough action, & collective accountability.

Number 3. We must invest in a DEIB strategy – which includes setting clear, measurable, goals & benchmarks – so that we can assign long-term, ongoing value to the work of creating diverse, equitable, inclusive, mentally healthy, startup cultures of belonging. Inside startups, we often aren't accustomed to gathering demographic & psychographic data, reporting on DEIB metrics, & setting goals around DEIB initiatives – or around mental health initiatives broadly – in the way we do around areas like user growth, revenue, customer retention, or accounts renewed. With any effective strategy though, it's critical that goals are explicitly laid out – embedding them within our OKRs & tying them directly to our KPIs, for example – & that our people believe them to be both, meaningful & achievable. This will help prevent burnout & will also keep our people aligned around the “why” behind our work. It is absolutely okay to work with an external consultant who can help advise on a DEIB strategy. That said, when implementing this internally, rather than thinking of this only as a function of HR, or only as a function of an Employee Resource Group (ERG), DEIB initiatives – & mental health initiatives broadly – will be far more effective if they are embedded into every team’s OKRs, rather than if they are solely the responsibility of your People Team, or solely the responsibility of individuals from marginalized identities. Embedding DEIB initiatives into every team’s OKRs – as well as celebrating & rewarding every team’s DEIB practices – communicates to our people just how important this is, helps foster collective accountability, & ensures we are actually ‘walking our talk’.

Before I get to our last point, Number 4, I want to highlight the difference between a “fitting in culture” & a “belonging culture”. A “fitting in culture” asks us to change who we are in order to fit in. A “belonging culture” on the other hand, does not require us to change who we are. Instead, it requires us to be who we are. Feeling a sense of belonging at a startup means feeling valued through our positive connections with our teams & feeling able to bring our authentic self to-our-work. Belonging develops when we take our DEI work to the next level. It’s not just about including, supporting – or even elevating – people from marginalized groups. It’s about the ongoing conversations around this. Are our team members co-creators of our startup or are just a select few able to influence decisions? When we feel like we belong, we are safe to express our full selves & to contribute our full set of unique gifts to drive our startup forward. DEI addresses what we can do to create a diverse, equitable, inclusive startup culture. Belonging, however – which gets at the feeling – is whether what we are doing is working. Simply put, if our people in the room don’t feel they belong in that room, then all the DEI efforts in the world will miss the mark. So, how do we get at the feeling that lets our people know that they do in fact belong?

This brings me to our last point, Number 4. We must consistently, openly, & honestly, communicate where things are at – which includes our progress as well as our setbacks – with all of our people; not just with our Leadership or Exec. Team. We also must consistently, openly, & honestly, ask for our people to communicate their experience of where things are at, back to us – by encouraging them & rewarding them to speak openly about their experiences & their feedback – & by providing them with the psychological safety to do so. When we sufficiently enable all of our people to openly & honestly, communicate back what’s working, what’s not working, & to offer any suggestions – & when we are committed to really listening to what’s being said, & to rewarding this type of feedback – we can then iterate & iterate some more, so that we are constantly seeking to do better, in ways that feel values-aligned & don’t burn us out. We can then begin to reward “belonging culture” types of behaviors. This too, will ensure that we aren’t just paying ‘lip service’ to this, that we are leading by example, & that we are actually ‘walking our talk’.

And, after all of this, it is only after we engage with this level of intention – & with this type of thoughtfulness & thoroughness – that we can then bring an inclusive lens to areas like ideation & finding product-market fit; user research & design; user testing, marketing, & sales; user feedback & iteration; etc. As I hope you can appreciate, none of this is about offering training on implicit bias or on so-called microaggressions. And this also isn’t about performative allyship, where we – for example – change our startup’s logo to be on a rainbow background in June for Pride month, or post about freedom on social media on June 19th for Juneteenth. This is about building diversity, equity, & inclusion into every aspect of our startup so that we are truly cultivating a mentally healthy startup culture of belonging. And, as I also hope you’ve come to appreciate, so much of this is interconnected. I’ll be back to recap all of these connections, right after this …

Support for today’s show comes from our very own Strengths Squared, a therapy, coaching, and consulting practice, partnering with startup founders & startup teams. At Strengths Squared, our goal is not to have to treat burnout after the fact; and instead, to prevent burnout from happening in the first place. We do this by equipping startup founders and their teams with the necessary skills to build sustainable, mentally healthy work cultures of collective care, collective accountability, & intentional work-life integration. If you are a startup founder, a startup team member, or are someone who might be a future-startup founder, and are navigating a challenging topic that you would like addressed on our show, or you have a question you would like answered on our show, please send an email to: podcast@strengthssquared.com for a chance to have your topic addressed or to have your question answered, on a future episode. Again, that’s p-o-d-c-a-s-t-@-s-t-r-e-n-g-t-h-s-s-q-u-a-r-e-d-dot-com, and we’ll keep our eyes out for your topics & your questions.

Let’s go ahead and pull all these connections together. To recap, our 4 recommendations for creating & cultivating a diverse, equitable, inclusive, mentally healthy, startup culture of belonging are:

Number 1: Really be intentional, thoughtful, & thorough about creating end-to-end practices that consider all aspects, decision points, & implications of DEIB in terms of your people.

Number 2: Assess your current state by collecting & looking at your data to understand where your gaps are & know that gaps in practices & turnover in hires can all be addressed through accurate problem identification, thoughtful intention, thorough action, & collective accountability.

Number 3: Invest in a DEIB strategy – which includes setting clear, measurable, goals & benchmarks – in order to assign long-term, ongoing value to this work.

And, Number 4: Consistently, openly, & honestly, communicate to your people where things are at; encourage & reward feedback given back to you; iterate on this feedback; & reward “belonging culture” types of behaviors.

Thank you so much for listening to Wired to Connect & I hope this was helpful. If you would like a chance to win our Free Startup Coaching Session, which retails for $500, keep your ears out in the very next section for-the-instructions.

That wraps up today’s episode. I hope you loved it! Don’t forget to hit “Subscribe” or “Follow” on your favorite podcast app, so you don’t miss an episode. And, we are currently giving away our Free Startup Coaching Session! If you want to win a free coaching session, just leave us a rating & write a review on Apple Podcasts or the podcast app of your choice; and you’ll be entered in our weekly, random, draw. This type of startup coaching session retails for $500, & can be yours for free; by rating and writing a review of our podcast. Then, listen in next week to see if you won. It’s that simple! Thanks so much in advance, for supporting us on Apple Podcasts or on the podcast app of your choice!

Before I go, I want to leave you with this: A Startup’s ability to have a diverse, equitable, inclusive, mentally healthy culture of belonging is not necessarily inherent & does not happen by accident. While I certainly would love if that were the case – at least at the time of this recording, in 2022 – creating & cultivating this type of startup culture takes active, thoughtful, intention. And active, thoughtful, intention takes some time. It requires us to resist the urge to do things the quick, easy, & comfortable way; at the expense of intention, thoughtfulness, & thoroughness. When we dismiss or delay strategic & measurable DEIB initiatives because of our belief that we inherently have a quote, ‘great’ startup culture, this ought to cause us to pause, to challenge our assumptions, to collect actual data, to reflect on what this data is telling us, & to take action, accordingly. How do we know we have a ‘great’ startup culture? Who says we have a ‘great’ startup culture? Just because we want to build something great, doesn’t mean we have a great culture. Without having meaningful evidence to support this – qualitative data in the form of feedback obtained directly from our people, for example – we can’t actually know whether our feeling or belief about our startup’s culture is accurate. It may be useful to go back & listen – or relisten – to Episode 4 of Wired to Connect on “How to Skillfully Receive Feedback”. Some of what I discuss in that episode may be particularly helpful here, within this context. As startup founders & leaders, we must first establish – at a minimum – enough psychological safety among our teams, so that our people feel safe enough to even provide us with this feedback. Once we have established psychological safety, those of us who still have not actively solicited this type of feedback directly from our people may not be doing so, out of fear of getting undesirable feedback, or feedback we don’t feel equipped to handle. I promise you though, not taking action because of fear will absolutely show up in other, detrimental ways, in addition to it showing up in our DEIB work. It makes sense to feel some fear around this. That’s okay. If it is in fact, fear that’s inhibiting our action on this though, it’s best that we name it – by acknowledging it, by validating that it makes sense, by feeling it – & to then, choose to do it anyway. If we allow ourselves to operate from a mindset of “I’m here to get it right, not to be right” – & we then communicate openly & honestly with our people about still having work to do – it can free us up to actually take action, get feedback, iterate, learn, & do better with each-next-time. I hope you will all allow yourselves to at least take one step forward on this, now. Figure out what that step is going to be, and take that first step today. That’s it for me today. I know this topic of Belonging was a long time coming & thanks for your patience on this Episode. Be sure to tune-in to our next Episode, Episode 8, where we will not be talking – at least, not directly – about this topic of Belonging.

Thank you to my incredibly talented cousin, Andrew Fisher, for writing & playing the original music for this show. And, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to my amazing wife, partner, & Co-Founder, Marisa, for your belief in me, & in this show; for everything you do for our family & for Strengths Squared, for everything you are doing behind the scenes for Wired to Connect, & without whom, none of this would be possible! Lastly, & perhaps most importantly, thank you so much, to all of you who are listening, for supporting us by choosing to spend your time with us, for connecting with us, & for keeping an open mind & an open heart. I’ll look forward to connecting with you in next week’s episode. And until then, take good care, & remember, we are all Wired to Connect!