Hiring an agitator who challenges leadership can add huge team value
Y-Vonne Hutchinson · Meet The HIBT Fellows: Kaitlin McGreyes & Nicole Argüelles · May 20, 2021 · at 12:44
Y-Vonne Hutchinson was not on this episode. A recording of them was played into it, so these are their words but not an appearance on How I Built This. It still counts as said, and it is kept out of every score on their page.
Y-Vonne Hutchinson, diversity strategist and founder, explains her philosophy on team composition during an entrepreneurship workshop.
0:00 / 0:25exact quote · 25.1s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I also, and this is just something that I really like to do every now and then I'll hire an agitator on purpose. So like somebody whose orientation is a little bit like shake stuff up, not for the purposes of destabilizing, but somebody who I know is just like not necessarily going to agree with everything I say. They have a different point of view. And if we can work together, well, that doesn't always happen. But if we can, like that person can be really additive to your team.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Y-Vonne Hutchinson
American workplaces are built on historically segregated, inherently biased systems
“I think if you look at the history of work in this country, it's always been segregated, right? It's always been segmented, and so we're working within systems that weren't designed to be inclusive. So even if we have the best intentions, the organizations tha…”
Hutchinson: Black founders with elite networks and credentials still lack VC funding
“Like we have black entrepreneurs who go to the right schools, whatever that means. Who, you know, have access to some of these networks. They also don't get funded.”
Hutchinson: Silicon Valley pattern matching excludes Black founders from success archetype
“So I think in Silicon Valley, there's a culture of pattern matching, which it's very limiting in a lot of ways. But when, you know, these picture the next Mark Zuckerberg, they don't picture a black kid. You know, they don't picture a black woman.”
Black tech employees bear uncredited DEI labor and risk workplace retaliation
“I think a lot of us have kind of done this dance over the past few years where we're the first point of contact when something serious happens, and we make a bunch of suggestions. A lot of them are ignored. We don't get promoted. We don't get any credit for th…”
Tech allies should back existing organizers over launching new standalone initiatives
“I think quite often it can be tempting for someone to see, you know, these marches and say, we're going to start our own thing, and there are people who've been doing this for a really long time, and I think the best use of our energy is to support their work …”
Hutchinson: Tackling Systemic Racism Requires Structural Incentives, Not Just Training
“Training itself is not enough, and if you really want to tackle systemic racism, and you really want to engage in behavioral change, you have to have structures in place in your environment to incentivize the behavior you want. And that address the structural …”